Tim Allen | Club Random with Bill Maher

Summary

Club Random with Bill Maher

Guest: Tim Allen

Episode: January 5, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this remarkably candid and wide-ranging Club Random episode, Bill Maher sits down with comedic actor Tim Allen. Best known for his iconic sitcom roles, stand-up comedy, and blockbuster family movies, Allen shares stories and insights about show business, road life, personal transformation, comedy, cultural changes, and everything in between. The conversation steers clear of politics as usual, instead digging into shared histories, the realities of showbiz evolution, family, philosophy, and offbeat existential debates, with plenty of self-deprecating wit and sharp banter.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Showbiz Then and Now

• Allen opens by reflecting on how Hollywood has changed since his arrival, lamenting the loss of passion and creativity in favor of corporate mandates and DEI requirements.
  • “The business out here is not the business I signed up for a long time ago.” (01:02 – Tim Allen)
• Both reminisce about the old days of comedy clubs, Vegas rooms, and the days before Home Improvement made Allen a household name.
• Maher discusses the grind of the road and when he decided to step away from touring:
  • "I quit last year. I'd done it for 42 years." (02:38 – Bill Maher)

2. The Realities of the Road

• Hilarious, detailed discussion about the unglamorous realities of RV and tour bus life, particularly the logistics of waste disposal.
  • "Who dumps this thing? You know, when they all use the facilities?" (04:26 – Tim Allen)
  • "But one reason I quit ... is because like that's what the problem was." (06:40 – Bill Maher)
• The impracticality of airlines and the necessity—and guilt—of private planes for comics with tight schedules.

3. Tim Allen’s Path to Stardom

• Allen shares how Home Improvement unexpectedly arrived before his big Tonight Show break—a reversal of the typical showbiz trajectory.
  • "So wait, you got Home Improvement before you did the Tonight Show? Because that is the opposite of what usually the template is." (09:44 – Bill Maher)
  • Great behind-the-scenes stories about Johnny Carson, bombing his first Tonight Show appearance, and finding redemption later.
  • "I bombed. I frickin bombed." (12:13 – Allen)
  • “Johnny sits down after I bombed ... he goes, I hope you're funnier than that." (12:44 – Allen recounting Carson)

4. Sobriety, Addiction, and Self-Control

• Allen talks candidly about his history with drinking: starting at 11, never feeling the effects, and eventually discovering he had a problem.
  • "I’ve been sober now 30 years… I was just a long range drinker." (13:32 – Allen)
  • Details his realization after failing a self-evaluation test for alcoholism:
    "If you're taking a test to wonder if you have a problem with drinking, you've already answered your question." (16:14 – Allen)
• Both Maher and Allen swap late-life drinking stories, and reflect on how age changes the party calculus.

5. Generational Shifts: Comedy, Food, and Excess

• Allen and Maher muse on why some people develop issues with food, drugs, or alcohol, and others don’t.
  • "Food isn't my thing... with drinking and drugs is not my [issue], there was never enough." (18:52 – Allen)

6. Diversity, Creativity, and the Modern Sitcom

• Allen laments how mandated diversity and “checking boxes” can get in the way of pure comedy:
  • "If you're going to do a sitcom, it's just got to be funny. You got to have some drama." (21:55 – Allen)
  • Maher agrees:
    "Diversity is a great virtue. It's not the only virtue. And not everything in America has to look like Angelina Jolie's Christmas card." (22:04 – Maher)
• Both agree forced quotas undermine creativity, even as they recognize the value of inclusion.

7. Race, Identity, and Family Life

• Allen recounts discussions with his diverse extended family about the meaning of “whiteness” and the limitations of racial categories.
  • “It's really the content of a guy's heart. It's a Martin Luther King thing.” (23:55 – Allen)
  • The conversation progresses into a funny, philosophical debate about race, nations, and even the medical "Fitzpatrick Scale" for skin color. (26:33)
• Both commiserate about how something as trivial as skin melanin has dominated human history.

8. CIA, Secrets, and Aliens

• Allen shares experiences singing for CIA benefits, encountering top security brass, and getting cryptic answers about UFOs:
  • "Off the coast of California, 2F Hornets saw some bulbs that went left, right, up, down. He goes, they're aliens. And what do you want to know?" (32:35 – Allen)
  • Maher adds: "If they wanted us dead, we'd be dead. So they're watching." (36:44 – Maher)
• The two riff on the logic—and comedy—behind UFO sightings, probes, and classic sci-fi, including Galaxy Quest and the influences of real life on creative works.

9. Comedy Craft and Legacy

• Allen and Maher break down the art and discipline of stand-up comedy, including the difference between actors and comics doing comedy.
  • "Comedy's hard. Death is easy. Comedy's hard." (44:09 – Maher)
  • Allen expresses gratitude for being part of Galaxy Quest, and tells stories about working with Robert Downey Jr., Martin Short, and Robin Williams.
  • "He [Downey] could switch to drama and you're buying it, you know, Iron Man..." (47:21 – Allen)

10. The Family Man: RV Trips and Fatherhood

• Allen shares family travel stories—Orient Express adventures, touring Egypt, and the oddities of blending luxury with ordinary experiences.
  • His daughter’s cameo in Santa Clause, their in-jokes (“Didn’t land, Dad”), parenting philosophies, and how his youngest critiques his comedy at home.

11. Religion, History & Travels

• Fascinating back-and-forth about Jerusalem, the pyramids, ancient history, and religion's origin stories.
  • “Historical preference. And it's a terrible term to me now, it depends on when you want to start.” (70:19 – Allen)
• Allen and Maher offer a playful and critical take on how history, myth, and modern attitudes are intertwined and misremembered.

12. Comedy Shop Talk: Jokes, Acts, and Legends

• Amusing shop talk about bits, joke theft, and comic influences:
  • “What do you mean comics? That was my bit. You want me to cut the tip of my what off? Correct." (77:44 – Maher)
  • On comics absorbing each other's styles and the unwritten etiquette of standup.

13. Media, TV, and the New Audience

• Discussion about the fragmenting world of TV viewers, kids' unfamiliarity with networks, and the pressures of adapting content for streaming.
  • "These days people go literally go, what's abc? Oh yeah." (93:18 – Allen)
  • The unique challenges for sitcoms and content creation in a Hulu-centric era.

14. Climate, Planes, and Environmental Hypocrisy

• A funny, forthright segment on the ethics of private planes, virtue-signaling environmentalism, and the limits of individual action.
  • "You know, using a cloth bag is not going to fix it..." (103:35 – Maher)
  • Schwarzenegger’s take:
    "Nobody gives a shit about climate change. Pollution, we understand." (103:05 – Allen quoting Schwarzenegger)
• They debate nuclear waste, recycling realities, and practical versus performative changes.

15. Philosophy, Meaning & Comedy

• Allen talks about his philosophical journey, the limits of language, and how comedy defies postmodern skepticism:
  • "Bullshit. I make a living making people laugh because I know exactly. They know exactly what I fucking do." (83:34 – Allen)
• Both agree that laughter is the ultimate proof of shared understanding and human connection.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the realities of RV travel:
  “You gotta undo the valve, put it in a big hole in the ground and pump open a valve.” (05:23 – Tim Allen)

• On why he doesn’t do current events in his standup:
  “I just re-shuffle it and then I’ll do...what’s going on now. But generally I don’t do current events. I just, I’ve never. I stay away from current events.” (57:34 – Tim Allen)

• On Johnny Carson’s comedic ruthlessness:
  “Johnny sits down after I bombed...he looks at me...goes, I hope you’re funnier than that.” (12:44 – Tim Allen)

• Maher’s rule about comedy honesty:
  "No matter how big a star you are, you can’t fake laughter...After that, you are on your own." (84:05 – Bill Maher)

• On comedians unintentionally absorbing each other’s rhythms:
  “I stole his timing. I never stole his jokes.” (78:24 – Allen, on Kapada)

• On the futility of shaming for climate change:
  "We have tried for 50 years to try the method of shaming people into doing what’s right. Plainly that doesn’t work on Americans." (102:25 – Bill Maher)

• On aging and the reality of the business:
  "You've aged as well as you can. That's the only realistic compliment I can give you." (108:44 – Maher to Allen)

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Important Timestamps

• 01:02 — Allen on Hollywood’s changes
• 04:26 — The unglamorous realities of RV life
• 09:44 — Maher questions Allen’s odd career order: sitcom before Carson
• 13:32 — Allen on his drinking history
• 16:14 — Allen’s “do I have a problem?” test revelation
• 21:55 — Allen on TV’s DEI mandates
• 32:35 — Allen’s CIA story, aliens, and secrecy
• 36:44 — Maher on the logic of UFO visitation
• 44:09 — The difficulty and craft of comedy acting vs. dramatic acting
• 54:21 — Maher on comedy club nostalgia
• 70:19 — “Historical preference,” myth vs. history in Jerusalem
• 77:44 — Comedy joke theft and lineage
• 93:18 — The disconnection between young audiences and TV networks
• 102:25 — The private plane and climate change hypocrisy moment
• 108:44 — Bill’s realistic compliment on aging

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Tone and Vibe

This episode is a free-flowing, often raucous, always honest conversation between two comic legends, heavy with industry anecdotes, philosophical digressions, and revealing asides about family, aging, history, and the evolving media landscape. Despite some deep themes, humor and irreverence remain constant.

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For Listeners: Why This Episode Matters

If you’re a fan of comedy, pop culture, or just curious about how big stars view the world behind the scenes, this episode offers a rare, unfiltered look at the real personalities behind the personas. Tim Allen and Bill Maher’s rapport gives a masterclass in comic timing, self-reflection, and the ever-changing demands of entertainment in America.

Transcript

[Bill Maher]

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[Tim Allen]

The business out here is not the business I signed up for a long time ago.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, but I bet the money is.

[Tim Allen]

It's not like it used to be.

[Bill Maher]

Toy Story.

[Tim Allen]

Oh, that Club Random. I'm having a fun time going. I'm gonna say a lot of stuff tonight that might offend you. Get your phones out now and let's go through this Club Random.

[Bill Maher]

Let us not keep Mr. Allen waiting.

[Tim Allen]

No, I know he has. I'm already bored.

[Bill Maher]

Franchises to attend to.

[Tim Allen]

Am, how are you?

[Bill Maher]

How are you? How are you, man? You look surprisingly similar.

[Tim Allen]

I know.

[Bill Maher]

To the last time I saw you, which was, I think the early 50s. Or maybe it was our early 50s.

[Tim Allen]

No. Oh, God. Why do you still. No, I was just thinking about that it was at a Grammy thing or it was one of awards and you were hiding behind a plant somewhere. And I said, oh, he's kind of shy. Cause I'd done the Politically Incorrect several times.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, yes, I remember. We were very excited because you were like the biggest name. We got Seinfeld on the first show and Roseanne. But then, you know, we went to Washington. Was that where you were on? I don't know.

[Tim Allen]

No, I did.

[Bill Maher]

At 23rd street in New York.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

No, no. It was a big thing for us. I always.

[Tim Allen]

But when your studio was here at one point, wasn't it?

[Bill Maher]

Yeah. Then we moved to out here. We moved to abc and we've been at cbs. I've been in the same of the same, like parking space, phone number since 1996.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Through two different networks.

[Tim Allen]

We're old now. Why do you gotta go there?

[Bill Maher]

I know, but you still do the road. I see. I quit last year. I'd done it for 42 years, and I got off this year, this 25. I did not do any dates.

[Tim Allen]

Didn't we pass each other?

[Bill Maher]

I took your plane a thousand times.

[Tim Allen]

Right. And then. But one of those. I saw you in the casino and you walked by and I ignored me, so I said, maybe I didn't. You just walked by.

[Bill Maher]

Well, I did. If I didn't, it wasn't.

[Tim Allen]

You weren't doing the MGM or. What was I doing?

[Bill Maher]

I was doing the Mirage for years.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah. The comedy. Whatever they called it.

[Bill Maher]

No, no, no. Not the kind. No, I played the. No, I wasn't doing, like, the Comedy Cavalcade.

[Tim Allen]

No, no. What was it called? The Legend. Legends of Comedy.

[Bill Maher]

Yes, you're right.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah. Yeah. We all did that for a lot. And that was a great room. And then.

[Bill Maher]

It's a great room.

[Tim Allen]

I like that room.

[Bill Maher]

I mean. Yeah. There was, like. Remember the car they had us, like, on?

[Tim Allen]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mine was, like, from the 30s. I look like a car salesman. It was. My deal was. It was. I started at.

[Bill Maher]

Tim, you are a car salesman.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah. Good night, everybody. The woman with the guy across the street with the Canal. Venetian.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, yeah.

[Tim Allen]

And next to the Venetian is the. I don't know. Anyway, I played there for a while and then.

[Bill Maher]

Owned by Sheldon Adels.

[Tim Allen]

Yes. Yes. Yeah. Still alive.

[Bill Maher]

No.

[Tim Allen]

Or he may be resurrected. I mean, they've got some sort of a drug. They do.

[Bill Maher]

They've got a lot of Hebrew, but.

[Tim Allen]

That was a nice room.

[Bill Maher]

If a man that wealthy dies, you know, they don't have a cure for it. Okay.

[Tim Allen]

Or they killed him because his kids want the money. It could be that.

[Bill Maher]

Well. Or because they're just very big supporters of Israel, The Adelsteins. Yeah. And that's a controversial thing. I don't think it should be, but they are. But we won't get into that.

[Tim Allen]

We could get into that. Cause I took my. Out of nowhere, my family took my family on one of the trips I've taken. I might tell. Every year, we do something really peculiar, RV trip, which, I don't know, my wife was saying. She goes, I really always wanted to take an rv. I says, yeah, I don't know about that. You know, we got halfway into it. I go, who dumps this thing? You know, when they all use the facilities?

[Bill Maher]

Right.

[Tim Allen]

That's when women act really dumb. They go, oh, you're so strong. You do it. No, honey, it's not that Ted's take no strength to just empty the valve that all the poop comes out of.

[Bill Maher]

You know, I've never thought about that. No. Really. So, like, I'd love to know what, what, what do you have to do? Like, I know when you're on a boat some. I remember being on a boat, somebody's boat at Cannes. And a truck does pull up.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And yeah.

[Tim Allen]

Early on, the boats dump the poop in the water. If they go out far enough, they can do it. They don't do that anymore. At least they say they do.

[Bill Maher]

I hope so.

[Tim Allen]

But in an rv, there's a holding tank and there's gray water, which is after washing dishes and black water, they call it. And my wife and I said it's just simple. It's a valve. You gotta undo the valve, put it in a big hole in the ground and pump open a valve.

[Bill Maher]

Where is this hole in the ground?

[Tim Allen]

At the RV parks, they have a big hole in the ground.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, they do. So you gotta to get rid of the shit, you have to park at the park?

[Tim Allen]

Yes. And there's not in my rich friends that want to do it. They go, well, I'll just get somebody to do it. I go, oddly enough, there is nobody at an RV park that will dump your shit for you. They just, they just want, it's just.

[Bill Maher]

And you don't want to. And you don't have to bring them on the trip with you. You don't want to do that. Right.

[Tim Allen]

Bring the guy on. Or as I say, just don't take a shit. Tell my wife, just hold it. We'll hold it for two weeks.

[Bill Maher]

But that's another thing. I've certainly talked to enough rock stars who talk about the tour bus. The rules on the tour bus are old.

[Tim Allen]

Don't use it.

[Bill Maher]

Which I find.

[Tim Allen]

So the holding tank is this size. It's just, it's there for looks only take a crap at at the, at the rest stops.

[Bill Maher]

I, I, I, I know that's what they say, and I'm sure they do. I find that highly impractical.

[Tim Allen]

It is impractical. They just don't think about it. They can only put so much in there. It's kind of, you know, once you're parked, then you can dump the stuff.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, one reason I quit.

[Tim Allen]

What we're talking about.

[Bill Maher]

One reason I.

[Tim Allen]

What the are we talking?

[Bill Maher]

And I'm not done talking about it here. One reason I quit, it just started.

[Tim Allen]

I mean is excrement is the end of everything.

[Bill Maher]

I Put. I put a good deal of excrement in your plane because one and one reason I really don't want to go on the road anymore.

[Tim Allen]

Oh God.

[Bill Maher]

Is because like that's what the problem was. Well, I mean look, you and I are spoiled when we. For most of this century at least I. And I'm sure you. Because it's your plane. I couldn't have even gotten to these gigs if it wasn't a private plane because I had to leave. I do the show, my show Friday night. Okay. I couldn't. I have to go to do a Saturday night show. Saturday you can't get to Boise, which I know you're going to. Boise.

[Tim Allen]

Boise.

[Bill Maher]

Boise, not Boise.

[Tim Allen]

Don't say it like that.

[Bill Maher]

Don't ever fucking say it like that.

[Tim Allen]

The other one is Waukegan, Illinois. I do some. It's a best club, best state, great town. There's no place to get there. You have to fly of course not to Chicago and then take it to.

[Bill Maher]

And the airlines are completely unreliable. We'd miss half our gigs. So that's our justification why we.

[Tim Allen]

I can't even get into it cuz for a long time I thought it was. I don't even like to say it because it. I was one day when I worked home improvement. You could do. I could do pretty much anything but didn't know it because I just as a comedian that got a lucky break got that show really to get on Carson. That's the only reason I wanted to do anything was to get on Carson. I wanted to be a comic on Carson. Which is a short horribly non funny joke. Incarcerated for many years. And when I was in there I said I wanted to get on the Tonight show.

[Bill Maher]

Not many years.

[Tim Allen]

3.

[Bill Maher]

Well it's not really many.

[Tim Allen]

Okay. It's a bus stop.

[Bill Maher]

Okay. I'm not saying I could do it.

[Tim Allen]

No, you. I'm telling you you couldn't. They, they. I wanted to get on the Tonight show. So I did. I kept coming out here. But I'm a road comic, you know, that's what I did. I. You started making money. An old buddy of mine that I now know Seager once told me once you start putting butts in the seats, you own it.

[Bill Maher]

Bob Seager?

[Tim Allen]

Yeah. So he and Detroit native and he used to see me in Detroit and he said you start going back do morning radio and for very tough on me because I'm a late night guy. And I said once you start going with the punchline. The whole series of punchlines were in south. The South I started filling it up.

[Bill Maher]

I comedy clubs. You're talking about.

[Tim Allen]

And I come out here to see Jim McCauley to audition for the Tonight Show. And I've got a guy that does an hour and he goes, I need to see five clean minutes. I said, I got it. So I'd do At the Ice House or improv, and he'd go do clean minutes. And then I think he's there and he's not. Then I do my regular act and I talk about my nuts or whatever I'm talking about. And then he, he'd see me later, go, I, you can't do Johnny. You can't do scrotum jokes. I go, you. Where you. The first five was for you. And it never worked. He finally just told me, this isn't going to work. Can't do it. I can't. I said, Gez McCauley. I, I, I'm, Everybody knew I was, was hopping.

[Bill Maher]

So wait, you got Home Improvement before you did the Tonight Show? Because that is the opposite of what usually the template is. They see you on the Tonight Show.

[Tim Allen]

Exactly.

[Bill Maher]

Then you get it right, because they saw Roseanne and they said, oh, my God, her standup is a show they saw.

[Tim Allen]

It was all fricking backwards.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, that's true.

[Tim Allen]

I got the stupid at the time because I used to focus once I got incarcerated. I said, I don't want to ever do this again. So I want to focus on what I want, not what I don't want. Aim for what you want and just avoid what you don't want. That's a racing trick.

[Bill Maher]

What's worse, prison or a sitcom? No, I'm kidding.

[Tim Allen]

Prison or living in California under Gavin Nuisance. I think prison, because at least, you know what you get on Saturdays, you know, a pretty good meal. But anyway, the guy. So I do the. I did this whole thing and I did a Showtime special, Men or Pigs? And it got. That was when no time is like Netflix. It was huge for them. Came out here. I did the five o' Clock funnies. Remember that? Gino Michelini very much.

[Bill Maher]

I remember it.

[Tim Allen]

And I got, instead of 50 calls, I got like 8,000 calls. Who was that guy? Grunting, talking about lawnmowers. Because it wasn't, it was really weird. So I started hooking up here. Then Disney wanted to have me do Turner and Hooch. I said, well, they already do it. Hanks is doing that, right? We'll have a dead Poet society. It's Robin Williams. They wanted me to do a sitcom based on that. So Greatest day in my life. I walked away from Jeffrey Katzenberg, who I adore. Great guy. And I said. He walked out of the room, says, well, thanks. And he goes, the whole room was just stunned. We're offering you a deal at Disney. I mean, a holding deal or whatever that thing it was. They had no idea what kind of money I was making on the road, so they were offering me like a week. You know, they didn't know that. So he calls me back in Detroit and he goes, did. Did you just fly back there? I go, yeah, I've got to go through the south again. He goes, do you know we offered you. And I go, yeah, yeah, it was really a good idea, but I don't and I'm not into it. He says, nobody says no to me. I've never had anybody say no.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah.

[Tim Allen]

He said, what would you want to do? I said, look, I like this old house. I think that's a funny show. If I could do a show where it's instead of, I want to break things instead of fix things, blah, blah, blah, they do the show, get the thing. I'm a big star. Carson, people call me Macaulay, goes, he'd like to have you on the show. I said, well, I don't want to do the damn show as a TV guy. He goes, what do you mean, I want to do a standup? So I'm standing there in the back, and he goes, well, go out and do some standup, okay? You know where to stand and everything. I had no idea what to do. Walked out, curtain hit me in the back of the head because I didn't walk far enough out to the star. And I bombed. I frickin bombed.

[Bill Maher]

But that's also backwards because most people, me, it was one of them was doing stand up. And I couldn't wait for the day when they said, you're big enough just to sit down, right? Which is what I used to do with Leno, But I was older and had my own show by then. But I would have died if they would said, you don't have to do standard where you wanted to do that.

[Tim Allen]

Because I saw all the guys I so funny, all Buddy Hackett, all that air I loved. Johnny sits down after I bombed. And he gets. He looks at me in between breaks. He goes, I hope you're funnier than that.

[Bill Maher]

Whoa.

[Tim Allen]

And I told him what the story.

[Bill Maher]

Really?

[Tim Allen]

I told him the story. And he goes, you know what? Come back next week. Do your stand up fresh. I came back the week after that, killed on. But I was you know, already sitting down.

[Bill Maher]

He was good to comics like that.

[Tim Allen]

He really was.

[Bill Maher]

I'm not sure ex wives would say no. Good. What's the word?

[Tim Allen]

Not real connective after the show.

[Bill Maher]

No, no, I mean Johnny, as Ed said, Johnny packs a tight suitcase.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

And also for many years was a drinker and a mean one.

[Tim Allen]

Well, who is it?

[Bill Maher]

Me. Oh, I don't. Do you get mean when you drink?

[Tim Allen]

I've been sober now 30 years and I know I ever wasn't a mean drinker. I was just a long range drinker.

[Bill Maher]

What does that mean?

[Tim Allen]

You don't ever lay it up, you know, three in the morning, everybody's going, we should hit the sack. You know, I think I got a couple more hours in it.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, but that's when you're young, you can put your thoughts.

[Tim Allen]

Well, that was many, you know. Well, 30 years ago.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, 30 years ago.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I mean you were.

[Tim Allen]

It was tough for me to manage. I didn't. As I said, as most guys like me, if a little is good, a lot's gotta be better.

[Bill Maher]

Some is good, more is better, too much is just right.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

That's the American motto.

[Tim Allen]

That's the model. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

But I mean, I think kids, if any kids are watching this and they're in their 20s, they have this idea that when you're in your 40s, you're already over the hill because they see mom and dad and it's like. And no, if you want to be a party animal in your 40s, I promise you it's easy.

[Tim Allen]

It's easy.

[Bill Maher]

In fact, it's fun because you're a full grown ass man or woman, I guess could do it too, but for me. And now you know what life is. You're an adult, you have some money, you know, you can be Frank Sinatra in 1960. It's awesome. But when you're doing it, when you're 22 or 25, you don't have any game, you're dumb, you don't have any money, you just don't know what you're doing and you can't pull it off.

[Tim Allen]

It never. I drank when I was 11 years old. When I was kids, I watched cowboy movies. I used to love when they still don't understand that the cowboys get on the horse and. Yeah, yeah. And they're sweating. They go into the saloon, they'd pour that brown liquor and they get back on the horse. And as a kid I'm going, that shit must be very refreshing. So I took a big jigger of Jim Beam. And it's like I drank gasoline. I was choking. I thought I was going to die. Any normal people would have said, I'm never going to drink again because that's horrible. I just said, I can get used to that with a little sugar in it. You know, I kept getting. And then I would drink and it never affected me. All my buddies are vomiting or passing out, you know, getting in trouble with their parents. It never affected me. I get used to it. It never was enough. Never was not enough. It just didn't. I never said no to a drink. And I used to say early on when I wanted to see if, do I have a problem with alcohol? So I took a test, which was very funny. You take a test from John Hopkins. I think it was to see if you were a problem drinker. And do you ever lie about the number of drinks you had? It depends on what you see by lion. So you are lying. Have you ever not gone to a party because they didn't have any? And I went, I went, oh, yeah, there's been a lot of weddings I've gone to. And they said, it's beer and wine. I went, I don't like either one, so I'm not going to the wedding.

[Bill Maher]

Right.

[Tim Allen]

So I decided on that in the very end. You had these, you know, 50 questions, let's say, you know, and I. I kind of cheated on some. I gave him some, you know, I thought, you know, 10 out of 50, I admitted. And the bottom says, if you're, if you're taking a test to wonder if you have a problem with drinking, you've already answered your question. And I went, fuck. Fuck. I got tricked by that.

[Bill Maher]

That's funny.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

I remember fairly vividly the last time I over drank and I was in my 50s, so it wasn't like a long, long time ago. I mean, it was. And that's. It was just too old. I was at a party, like it was. I think it was some. I think it was awards week when the. There's, you know, people think we're always partying out here. We're not. As my friend Jimmy says, every star I know is blown and in bed by 9:30.

[Tim Allen]

That's right.

[Bill Maher]

But this couple of weeks around award shows, when there were good parties.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah, you were at.

[Bill Maher]

And I was there. And Danny McBride, I love him, but his wife kept bringing over these shots and, you know, the more you have, the more you forget how much you've had. And I mean, I was not. I was probably 55 or something. And I mean, I came home that night. My poor girlfriend at the time was supposed to meet me at the party. I seem to remember insulting the people she was with, just being drunk and thinking it was funny and it wasn't, and got home, and they had to carry me from the driveway. I spilled out of the car, and she and my security brother in arms picked me up. I mean, that's way too late in life to do that. And it was the last time I ever did something like that. But it just. And kids, again, the message here, keep partying. Don't think you're done. When you're 35, get an Uber.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah, I said, that was.

[Bill Maher]

Well, I wasn't driving for.

[Tim Allen]

All the attention I had when I was really struggling with is, how do people manage it? Why are there people like me? And then I have a. I've known a bunch of comedians and a bunch of friends that struggle with weight. You know, they don't. They do not know how to stop eating. I don't have that affliction.

[Bill Maher]

I don't either.

[Tim Allen]

If I take a. Like, I have a buddy says, how do you eat ice cream like that Sometimes? Because I can. After I eat dinner, if no one's around. I don't do this in front of people. I take a little thing of Haagen Dazs and I'll take a couple spoonfuls out of the thing. I don't put it in a bowl.

[Bill Maher]

You look like you're wearing the same clothes you did when you were on Politically Incorrect, Right?

[Tim Allen]

Well, as I said, that food isn't my thing.

[Bill Maher]

Right?

[Tim Allen]

He said if I started eating ice cream, I'd finish the tub. And I go, yeah, I take a couple taste buds, I'm fine with it. Then I put it away. I never knew anything. And it was never that way with drinking and drugs is not my. I never knew. There was never enough.

[Bill Maher]

Me neither. But, see, I save my sugar for alcohol. And I don't even have more than a couple of drinks a week. Like, only when I'm here, really, do I have a couple.

[Tim Allen]

I wondered what that would be like. All my life, I said, two directors I did movies with that we just. We did one in Venezuela. And he'd go, oh, boy, I'm getting dizzy. And I go, that's the point, you know, he'd have a drink and a half and he'd leave it there. And I go, what? We're just going. We're just starting. He goes, whoa, no, I'm real dizzy. And I go, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, I Remember when I used to have a couple of shots before I left the house? Ah, you know, just to warm up for when you got out. And I remember an era where, and again I wasn't that young, I wasn't in my 50s. But you would, first of all, you would know every night. Of course I was never married so the different, you know, you'd know every night where the club was because it was different every night. You know, Tuesdays it was at shitties and Wednesdays it was dingleberries and whatever the enema was. Had a, had a great, you know, three floors going on Thursdays. So you would just go to these club, you know, whatever the night was. And it was one of many stops and each stop, each bar you'd go to probably because you felt there wasn't, you know, enough hot girls in this place. So you'd go to some other place and you'd have two drinks at each of them. So it wasn't hard to rack up 8, 10 drinks in a night. And you know, that is so unthinkable now, Al.

[Tim Allen]

I said, you made me laugh because I said most people don't know. There's no town I've ever lived in. I lived here a long time. I've lived in New York and in Detroit and on the road. This place is dead at 9:30.

[Bill Maher]

Totally.

[Tim Allen]

Nope. It's the strangest plane about California. Everybody goes to sleep like at 9:30.

[Bill Maher]

Because it's a working town. And movies and TV shows start at 6am Right. They've got to use the light if you're making a western or whatever the fuck movies, you know, anything that's shot on film. Sitcoms are gentlemen's hours. I did those in the 80s. That's a pleasure.

[Tim Allen]

It is a pleasure.

[Bill Maher]

And you're one of the few people who's made it stick, boy.

[Tim Allen]

Well, as I said, one of my staff members said, you're like in my wife. She says, why do you keep saying that? And I said somebody told me I was like the Tom Brady of sitcoms when they asked me to do a third one. I said I thought you, I thought they were kidding. I said I, I don't know whether my generation, because all the people that I know that I would make it with are either dead or not the right gender. You know, they're all, you know, light skinned European older men. And that doesn't fit the DEI thing that everybody wanted. They wanted, you know, a potpourri of.

[Bill Maher]

Well, you can have DEI in the cast.

[Tim Allen]

Well yeah, but then they Said get into. I didn't want to get into that. I didn't want to patronize people. If you're going to do a sitcom, it's just got to be funny. You got to have some drama.

[Bill Maher]

I couldn't agree more. Not everything. Diversity is a great virtue. It's not the only virtue. And not everything in America has to look like Angelina Jolie's Christmas card, you know, sometimes. And it's always okay in reverse. You know, it's like if there's something where it's just an all black cast and good, I'm all for it. I'm not complaining about it. I'm just saying, you know, CBS put in a law from the union. I guess it came down a few years ago that like every writing staff had to be 50% people of color. And I thought, what if, what if this show they're writing is about a polka band in a ski town still.

[Tim Allen]

There'S probably an example of people of color.

[Bill Maher]

No, no, it's just. And I love people of color and I'm so glad that things are better than they used to be for people of color. But you know, it shouldn't intrude on the creative process to the degree it has in this film. No, I, it has intruded on the creative process. And by the way, lots of people of color agree with that because they want the creative process to be pure too.

[Tim Allen]

I've getting into this, I've been doing this on my stand up for years because I have a very mixed family between marriage, son in law, friends. I've been around people of color and in my family. So we have these family outings sometimes and then you get into a couple cocktails and you have old light skinned grandma, who doesn't, she calls darker skinned brother in law and family members different names. And I said, and then one night we got into it, which I've never. It's all. Lenny Bruce started me on this whole thing back in that was it. Purple Onion changed my life.

[Bill Maher]

Explain to the kids you don't mean personally he did.

[Tim Allen]

No, no, no, no. We're old.

[Bill Maher]

Not that old.

[Tim Allen]

I knew him as a child that he started this whole thing where words don't mean anything. It's really the content of a guy's heart. It's a Martin Luther King thing. And then I started going with my brother in law. He says, it's always you, you white do this. And I go, eventually I got sick. What do you mean white? What do you mean? Define that for me because I got in the middle of it. It's such a. I don't like the term. You know, he goes. Says, you know. And I go, no, I do not know. Are Japanese white people?

[Bill Maher]

You.

[Tim Allen]

No, they're not. They're Japanese. I go, well, that makes no sense. Where are the ruling class in Mexico City, if you've seen them and I have. Cause I know a lot of them. They look. If you put them in a white shirt and they didn't speak, they look just like people from France, Portugal. So he says, where is Whiteville or White Land? Where is. And where is that? And I said, are Russians white? No, motherfucker, they're Russians. I go, okay, where's the broad line?

[Bill Maher]

They're as white as it gets.

[Tim Allen]

Well, I don't know what that means.

[Bill Maher]

I do. The Russians are. It's like, the reason why Republicans these days and for, like, the last 10 years have a thing for Russia. Partly. Partly is it's not the food. It's not the food. It's like the last country in the world that's like, we're white. We're not changing that. We kind of love it. I mean, Putin is like, you know.

[Tim Allen]

Kind of love it, but I don't think they view themselves as that. I said, I have a Polish. My wife's family are Polish. And in a room, I got into this, her father, great man, just recently passed. God bless him. And he goes, they were going. Making this Polish club in Pennsylvania. We go for family vacations that way. And I said, he go. And I go, ah, Russians. And the whole place stopped. We're not goddamn Russians.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah.

[Tim Allen]

I go, well, you look like Russians. You sound like Russians.

[Bill Maher]

But Russia invaded Poland, right?

[Tim Allen]

And pulled that whole border time, like.

[Bill Maher]

Killed a lot of them.

[Tim Allen]

Killed a lot.

[Bill Maher]

I could see why they don't like.

[Tim Allen]

Them pissed off close to the border, like. And then I wondered. Finland is always curious to me. Finland doesn't like Russians at all.

[Bill Maher]

No, Finland, the people of Finland also exist in a country called Estonia, right? Estonia was one of the republics of the ussr, the old ussr. The Baltics, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Lithuania and Latvia are, like, Slavic, like the Russians. Estonia are, like the Finns. So they were always treated worse.

[Tim Allen]

And the Finns beat him in a war way back when. The Finns and the Russians had some big war. I. I don't know. The.

[Bill Maher]

They're right across the bay from each.

[Tim Allen]

Other, but they don't like each other. There's a part of that. And so my point was kind of circled around because I did a. My My dermatologist, one day he goes, he hurt. He couldn't believe this, that I brought it up to him. He had a chart on the wall. It's called the Fitzpatrick scale. And dermatologists don't look at race. They look at the amount of. I think I get melatonin in the skin. It goes from one to seven. And I said, that's it, right? It's the melatonin. There's a one which is Japanese and then Nigerian or Pakistani that sometimes there's really dark. Pakistani or India, northern part of India. It's very, very dark. He said, that's it. And then he looks at me and says, I wish I'd never shown you this chart, because now I've been doing it. I said, you mean FP3 people?

[Bill Maher]

It was all just to sell you some retin a. Yeah.

[Tim Allen]

Well done for this.

[Bill Maher]

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[Tim Allen]

It was all about. But now I go, you mean an FP3 person? And you know, now we got to go through this whole explanation.

[Bill Maher]

Looking at it from 30,000ft. Big picture, isn't it amazing that the amount of melatonin in whoever's skin has been such a giant factor in how humans have treated each other? The wars.

[Tim Allen]

I don't. You don't even start it with me.

[Bill Maher]

It's such a trivial thing for it to be such a major factor in human history. Right.

[Tim Allen]

Okay.

[Bill Maher]

When you look at it from 30,000, 30,000ft up.

[Tim Allen]

Now go 30,000ft up, a little west of that, and look at a different way of looking at it. I look at it, simply put, because I said I am a empathetic person. I do it in comedy. I do it in my business. I've always been this way, a philosophy major. I look at people and I listen. I learn to listen to people. And you learn more by what people say and what the questions they ask than the actual answers, what they question. It's like, CIA did a big CIA benefit. And that's what they. That's their whole deal. They don't actually. They don't talk much.

[Bill Maher]

CIA does benefit.

[Tim Allen]

We did a. They gave me an award, which I didn't know how to say no to it. I even asked my people, I said, can you say no to us? CIA benefit. It was here at the Beverly, but they gave one to Ellison. He was there for the Oracle. He was. I didn't know. He was right. Oracle is the. That's how the CIA started. And Larry Ellison.

[Bill Maher]

Is that right?

[Tim Allen]

He had a lot to do with the original computer system for that and the computer system. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

He didn't start the ca.

[Tim Allen]

No, no, no. He had a lot to do with it. But again, you look at him. I don't know what to say. But this. I was there because I've done a lot for the veterans, and this was about the. The people that have died in the CIA.

[Bill Maher]

I've always been supportive of the spy Agencies. It's not like something that the woke appreciate. It's cooler to say, oh, you do your spying and this and that and yes. Have they made mistakes? Yes. But as George Orwell said famously once, most people sleep comfortably in their bed at night knowing that rough men are willing to do violence. The world is full of bad people.

[Tim Allen]

Bad people.

[Bill Maher]

Really bad people. I don't mean just like, you know, woke bad here. Just like. And we do need people like in the CIA, and they are dedicated people who do it without any. You don't get a plaque. You get the fucking star on the wall without your name.

[Tim Allen]

And this was a sad night. I was there because of what I've done for the military. And it was humbled to be asked. And I got to ask CIA top brass, they go, what is it you want? And I said, give me. Can I. Can I. Can I ask you some weird stuff? He goes, what is it, Mr. Allen? What would you like to know? Like, they go, from being big. We love Home Improvement or Buzz Lightyear, whatever you do. And I said, can I ask you a question? They go, what do you want? They get real serious. The most dem. The. The leader of it.

[Bill Maher]

Well, they can't tell you much, or they shouldn't.

[Tim Allen]

He said, what do you want to know? I said, well, off the coast of California, 2F Hornets saw some bulbs that went left, right, up, down. He goes, they're aliens. And what do you want to know?

[Bill Maher]

Totally. Well, you.

[Tim Allen]

If. If they were going left, right at a certain speed and then stopped and went the other direction, it can't be an aircraft. He goes, and your question? Well, if it's not an aircraft, it would be a drone of some sort or a helicopter. And he said, and the question is, did the Hornet pilots know what they were? He goes, what did they say? He goes, well, they said they did. This went on and on for 20 minutes. And I realized at the end of it, he goes, so what do you think? I said, I think they possibly were something that we didn't know or that they're covering. But why would they show a picture of it if they're covering? He goes, it's a good question. And I go, what are you saying? He goes, you've learned more by your questions than any answer. I have. And I went, you sons of bitches. So you don't. And that night got very tragically sad because we were celebrating at one point, five children that had lost their parents. And you met these kids and it was about to money that CIA will take care of them. And these people those kids are. It was so emotional for my family that these kids will never know what happened to their parents. Never know. All they're told is they will never come home. You don't know where they were, and that's all you're going to hear.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, it makes me think of that bad day in coast Afghanistan.

[Tim Allen]

Yes.

[Bill Maher]

When they were after bin Laden. Yeah, it's in the great movie they made about getting bin Laden. And they thought they had a lead to him, which was his doctor, and so they brought him onto the base. And this is the CIA running this operation. And of course, the guy gets out of the car, he's got a wooden leg, and what's in the wooden leg is a bomb.

[Tim Allen]

Bomb.

[Bill Maher]

Right. And he blew up like six people, like all CIA people. Right. And you know, they don't get the name, they get the star.

[Tim Allen]

As far as I got it, you'd look at all these people. None of these people are armed. They go into areas that are dangerous prior to soldiers. Oh, yes. And act like insurance agents or medical.

[Bill Maher]

They come up and they save a lot of lives ultimately because they handle something. Now, look, have they made mistakes? Of course, yes. But they handle things in a clandestine way. That is way better than a hot war.

[Tim Allen]

Yes. You know, they also do stuff that you don't want to know about, you.

[Bill Maher]

Do not want to know about. You don't.

[Tim Allen]

We're.

[Bill Maher]

And those are aliens, Tim. No, no, no, I'm not you.

[Tim Allen]

I.

[Bill Maher]

Listen, I had the guy on the show recently. There's a movie out now. I wish I could remember his name.

[Tim Allen]

Oh, wait a minute. No, it's. It's a.

[Bill Maher]

It's a movie. It has. It has dozens and dozens of credible people from the highest levels of our security apparatus.

[Tim Allen]

And they even have. What's his name? From Trump's administration, the sector, isn't it a lot.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, very credible people. And they're basically telling us, look, they don't want to. They're in a precarious position. They don't want to scare people. On the other hand, things have changed so much. And my reading of this is, yeah, like 40, 50 years ago, we used to hear about the aliens. They landed in the middle of nowhere, they stuck something up your ass. It was always up your ass, but several times, but that is.

[Tim Allen]

But they found nothing. They went up my ass. They found absolutely nothing but two polyps.

[Bill Maher]

Well, they should come with you on their RV trip. They could just see it.

[Tim Allen]

Don't have to go up there. It's in this little tank.

[Bill Maher]

Bring them in the rv. They'll do it for you. They work cheap aliens. But, like, I feel like that was really happening. They were really finding out about humans. It seems to have started right after we exploded nuclear weapons in 1945, which could have alarmed them. I don't know how much they were monitoring us before. It seems like now they kind of want to let us know we're here. As I said to this guy when he was on Real Time about this, I said, it reminds me of the movie where the detective, or whoever, the bad guy says, if I wanted you dead, you'd be dead already.

[Tim Allen]

Right?

[Bill Maher]

If they wanted us dead, we'd be dead. So they're watching. That's what I feel is the most logical. This is not crazy stuff. This is not Jewish space lasers. This is. Why wouldn't it be? There's nothing unscientific about it here.

[Tim Allen]

I am CIA, so we're basically primitive compared to these people that can do this, monitor us without seeing. Plainly, we already have sent you especially. Of course. We've already sent a probe to Mars. We've had probes here. We got a probe that we sent to an asteroid. So I had one up my ass and a justification for me. I said, if there were them, anything that we're seeing is a probe. It's a. Just a. It's a robot. It's not aliens they've sent out. If there is something, there's no reason to come here when we consider they have corpses. Well, send a drone.

[Bill Maher]

They say they have corpses.

[Tim Allen]

The corpse could be a drone. It's just our version of a drone. It's not. They're not anything like this.

[Bill Maher]

No. This is from, like, the late 40s.

[Tim Allen]

What if that's their version of a drone? They manufactured a drone. There's a great movie called the Day the Earth Stood Still.

[Bill Maher]

You know I've seen it, right?

[Tim Allen]

I have the robot in my office. I got Gort. And in the original story, it was very twisty. It didn't come up in the movies that Michael Rennie, who played the. He came out and said, talk to us. In the original story, it turned out that Michael Rennie was the drone. The whole civilization was Gort. And they had to make a human to talk to us. So they manufactured a human to speak to us because the Gort had nothing to say.

[Bill Maher]

I don't think these are drones. I think these are little green men. They are. They're different from us, but not completely different. Everybody in that book, Communion all these people have the same experience and kind of gave the same testimony without knowing what the others were saying. They all talked about somebody who was.

[Tim Allen]

Like, what's the name of the book?

[Bill Maher]

Communion. Whitley Striber. He wrote this?

[Tim Allen]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

It was like a long time, like 30 years ago.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah, but there's another. There's a French guy that wrote a book about.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, you're not talking about the Raelians.

[Tim Allen]

No, no, no. This is a guy who called. It was. He called him Occurrences and Jacques Bali, that's his name. And I can't remember the name of the book, but there's a little picture on the front of a kid walking into a light. And I'm on a train in Vancouver doing a gig. Took my family with me from Vancouver all the way across Canada, which is just a gorgeous plane trip until you get to Calgary and then it's like you're middle of Nebraska. It's just. Nothing wrong with Nebraska, but it's just nothing. There's no mountains. And this. The porter came by, saw that book. I was reading it, and it's all about a scientist that looked. Instead of looking at these crazy people, these farms that got taken by aliens, he just invested. He just asked questions. He didn't judge. And he found so many similarities with no matter who had that there were certain similarities. So the porter, the book was gone. And I asked him, there's a book sitting on this desk here. He said, I don't know. He comes back two hours later. He goes, I'm sorry, I took the book. I go, well, can I have it back? He goes, what is this book about? And I said, it's about. I told him it's about Occurrences, they called it. And he goes, why is that picture on the COVID And I go, what is the. The question about? And he goes, when I was a boy, there was a crackling noise outside, which is always smell of ozone. Crackling noise and things in threes. That's the things that always happen in the book. I went out, my little brother walked into a path of light. Came out buck naked, standing there, smoldering. I tried to help him on the ground, and then we made some noise. My dad opened up the window, sees my brother out there, nude, me, you know, wrestling with him to get him out. Told us he thought we were screwing. Not, you know, sexually, but he thought we were. Don't you ever do this. And don't you ever tell anybody what just happened. And my brother never been the same. This exact thing happened.

[Bill Maher]

This is not the first story from a person who I trust, who is not a crazy person or a drunk or a weirdo who has said something weird happened. I just think it's more unlikely that all these things are just a coincidence or a hallucination. And again, there's nothing unscientific about the idea that we are not alone in the universe.

[Tim Allen]

There is a physics problem with it. The thing that I've always wondered about is that in my head I've been. A million Alien movies in my head that I like. The one that I wrote to myself is that the alien, when he finally talked to me, I didn't come from anywhere. I came from here. He said, everything vibrates at a different frequency. I traveled through a vibration and I showed up here. What saves your civilization is Jupiter and Saturn. They send off a road signal. So where I come from, we don't think there's any life here. So we didn't hear. If my people knew that I was here looking at you, you would never live through the day because you're a virus. This doesn't work. And this is in my story, in my head is that this alien shows up and it's a screw up in his ship and he crashes and he keeps changing his shape. In a weird way he says, does this work for you people? All these different. Back to this. All these different races. Do you all get along? I don't think you do. Because in my planet, 55,000 years ago, we killed every other race. There's only one race on my planet. I don't say it's the right thing to do, but.

[Bill Maher]

And I remember their motto, from the river to the sea.

[Tim Allen]

Oh boy.

[Bill Maher]

I have to tell you, David Mamet has been here twice. He lists like four. His four greatest. Do you know this about him?

[Tim Allen]

I did a movie with him. He's one of the most fun guys I've ever met.

[Bill Maher]

I love him.

[Tim Allen]

Oh, geez.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, we don't agree on everything.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah, who cares?

[Bill Maher]

Who cares? Exactly. That's always my theme. But he lists like in one of his books he lists like the four greatest movies. And I can't remember what the other three are, but they're like ones you, you know, Citizen Kane and you know, Lawrence of Arabia. You know what the fourth one is?

[Tim Allen]

2001 Galaxy Quest. Oh, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Cool, isn't it? And it is a great movie.

[Tim Allen]

It is.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, it is a really fantastic structure. The script, the acting.

[Tim Allen]

How weird that you bring it up today. I just posted it in my office. I have a picture of me fighting Saris, which was the. The creature in that thing. And I remember in the movie, the guy. The guy. He's passed away. The guy that inside the suit. It was so clever on so many different levels because so many different mistakes were made to get it where it was. It was really. Oh, it was a. Originally Spaceballs, a Mel Brooks movie. It was just really stupid.

[Bill Maher]

I love Mel Brooks, but it's better than space.

[Tim Allen]

Well, it was really a simple comedy. It turned into this movie because Dean Pariso is a documentary director. He took over the movie after a long. They didn't want it, this Spaceballs thing. And then he didn't want a comic in it. He wanted an action hero that could be funny. Not a funny guy that could maybe do action. So they parted ways when you got into that stupid. Oh, God.

[Bill Maher]

The way they did it is the right way.

[Tim Allen]

Yes.

[Bill Maher]

It's a lot easier to do it the way they did it with you than the other way around.

[Tim Allen]

The other way around.

[Bill Maher]

Believe me, comedy's hard. Death is. Death is easy. Comedy's hard.

[Tim Allen]

I'm so thankful to be part of that movie. But I did this one scene with this guy Sarris was the big reptilian thing with his head. Beautiful. And he's yelling at me. And I'm supposed to. One scene, I'm supposed to fight him. And I'm, you know, I'm a comic. And I go, so what exactly would I do with the seven foot reptile? What? And I'm a loser from earth. And so I, Me and the actor, I said, where are his balls? Could I kick him in the nuts? Would that be funny? And he goes, you think you're. And so our joke was, you're looking for these. Like, they're under his shoulder. It was a.

[Bill Maher]

Well, what would Bob Hope do?

[Tim Allen]

Isn't that wild?

[Bill Maher]

No, but, you know, Bob Hope was one of the great comics, you know, stand up, vaudeville. They put him in movies because, like, you know, he did became a parody of himself. But, well, like, those movies with Bing Crosby are funny.

[Tim Allen]

They are funny.

[Bill Maher]

And you know, when he was still that wisecracking, playing the coward.

[Tim Allen]

Right.

[Bill Maher]

You know, this reminds me of what you're talking about. Like a comic knows how to play that, the coward and make it funny. And an actor is. I mean, actors, I love them, but thinking ain't their big thing.

[Tim Allen]

I did, I have did Shaggy Dog. For whatever reason, it missed the mark to me. But Robert Downey Jr. Had just gotten clean and was in it. And that guy is so frickin brilliant. He looked at comedy as just another form of drama, which it is. So he would do the comedy parts as though he's doing a dramatic piece. He'd get into it and he'd get into the dramatic piece. Then he goes, and I gotta be funny as though it's that simple.

[Bill Maher]

He is great.

[Tim Allen]

He is so freaking great.

[Bill Maher]

I mean the Sherlock Holmes movies are great.

[Tim Allen]

He is great. He, he, he.

[Bill Maher]

Do you remember the one he did with Ben Stiller, Tropic Thunder?

[Tim Allen]

Oh yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Which is just there. You probably couldn't get it greenlit today.

[Tim Allen]

Cuz it's so politically, so politically incorrupt.

[Bill Maher]

You know, he play, he does it in blackface.

[Tim Allen]

I know, I believe me.

[Bill Maher]

And they showed, they did a documentary on it and they showed outtakes and they showed like him and Ben Stiller. Ben's just doing the directing and it's a closeup on him and he's just doing take after take of variations of this speech he's doing. And Ben's like, oh, that was so great, let's do another, do another one. You know, that is what, that's a director's dream to get an actor like that.

[Tim Allen]

Well, that in his case brings that to the table. I've never seen anybody where like he was so good. I told the director I was kidding. He says, I want all this cut. I don't want any of this in the movie. He's making me feel like I'm so insignificant because I can't do anything that I can do the funny stuff like this, but he could switch to drama and you're buying it, you know, Iron man with the first Iron man who I consider one of the best superhero movies ever made. He was able to be very serious, right? And then he's in what kind of metal suit? He's in trash cans in that one of the scenes. You bought every single piece of business that he did in that thing so he can do that funny. I did a movie with Mamet though, and Red Belt and it.

[Bill Maher]

Oh yeah, I saw it. I've seen all those movies.

[Tim Allen]

I was never. There's no funny parts in it. And it reminds me of when comics are in movies. I've done some with Marty Short. And Marty, if he's not being funny in the movie, he feels like, well, he did another one, Richard Poor, that wasn't it. Jungle, jungle. And he do stuff and you go, Marty, you're just answering the phone. Oh, and he always has to do something with his legs. It's. Oh no, Marty. You're just sitting down. Okay, but I'm gonna get up. Oh, no.

[Bill Maher]

Oh. He can't walk out. He can't without getting him. I mean, whenever he was on real time, he'd walk out and he does whatever.

[Tim Allen]

Whatever he does.

[Bill Maher]

He is just a laugh machine. Like, there's.

[Tim Allen]

It makes me sick to myself.

[Bill Maher]

The only other one like that is Dana Carvey.

[Tim Allen]

Yes.

[Bill Maher]

The two of them, like, they just can't stop. And they know and they. And their batting average is like.980.

[Tim Allen]

Yes.

[Bill Maher]

You know, everything they go for is funn. Is funny.

[Tim Allen]

I literally have to leave him at a Christmas party. I had to leave. I was getting sick. Cuz I can't. I. I'm funny with him for a while. Like if. If you around Robin Williams, the late Robin Williams. It was similar. Yeah, it's. It's very similar. He won't. He won't shut up.

[Bill Maher]

Right.

[Tim Allen]

He just keeps going. And my wife and I, he came out of a gym someday and we started talking about what was going on and we knew something and he's just doing bits. And my wife goes, what just happened there? He just kept talking. They go. And I had to translate. He's working on his relationship right now. He's got a movie coming out. He didn't really like this. He didn't say any of that shit. I go, well, he's doing a bit about this. He's doing a bit about this.

[Bill Maher]

But I gotta say, both Robin Williams and Martin Short are really smart guys because they both did the panel of Real time, which is a hard thing to do. It's mostly for the pundits. It's not for. That was the old show where we mixed the show people in. This is almost never that. And they found a way to still be Robin Williams and Martin Short without, like, taking over the show and making it into a carnival and also having serious moments and being thoughtful and to pull those both off. You could do it and you should do it, but you never respond when we try to get you to do it.

[Tim Allen]

Well, my email is packed. I have a lot of issues.

[Bill Maher]

You're cleaning out your shitter in the rv. So wait, you go on RV trips? You go on train trips? Is that what you said?

[Tim Allen]

Train trips and then this.

[Bill Maher]

But now, why does a man of your vast wealth who has a private plane. What is it about, like an RV or a train that you find? Is it relaxing?

[Tim Allen]

I did it for my wife. She always wanted to do an RV trip. So we did all these. My youngest daughter went. She Always wanted to do it, so we did it. And the train trip we did was. In order to get to the Orient Express, I wanted to be on that train. I love trains. So I did the. That train from Paris to. Not Paris, Rome, or someplace in Italy. And you're on a fricking train that's like a. It's like an opera house. Everything's $2 million. Everything you touch, but you're on a fricking train. So. All night long.

[Bill Maher]

What do you mean? You're saying it's ornate.

[Tim Allen]

Every. You can't get more gold in wood. And everybody's got to ask Trump. No, this is even past that, because everybody. You got to wear a tuxedo to dinner. You got to wear a necktie. There's a piano player, and it's an amazing experience.

[Bill Maher]

I don't want to get into politics, but, you know, this is. And I don't.

[Tim Allen]

The gold.

[Bill Maher]

I don't care.

[Tim Allen]

I don't. I didn't.

[Bill Maher]

But it does look like Saddam's palace, and I don't care.

[Tim Allen]

You can't stop.

[Bill Maher]

That's his taste.

[Tim Allen]

That's his taste.

[Bill Maher]

It doesn't. It doesn't matter.

[Tim Allen]

I met the dude at a dinner with his wife, who was genuinely a wonderful person. And he was more. This is, I think, the second to last year, the last year of the Apprentice, and he was thinking of moving to Los Angeles and being a movie producer. And he was talking about movies. He said, really. He said, I really like the film business more than that. The guy's addicted to comedy. He was so. I was, you know, killing at the table, you know, and he's going. He just. What a gift. What a gift to do that. He's laughing about this and that, and he was a genuine one of the guys. I don't know if he was like. He sits and talks. Like, when he listens, he.

[Bill Maher]

He. He's a good listener. He's a good listener.

[Tim Allen]

I don't.

[Bill Maher]

This is what. The left hated me, that I went to the White House and talked and then did not lie and say he was a monster in the white. I just said, it's the truth.

[Tim Allen]

He's a. He's not a.

[Bill Maher]

You gotta meet him, Per. You gotta deal with him on a personal level.

[Tim Allen]

And then you go, who is it? It reminds me, and I don't. And I love Howard Stern. It's like, Howard in person is a genuinely kind, wonderful guy, but he gets on the air, and I don't know what happens. I always said if I was the adult in the room. I would take Donald's phone away from him and get him involved in infrastructure here. He would. I don't even know when people hear this. He was talking about how to do the roads. I'm a road freak about potholes around my neighborhood. In la, we don't take care of our roads. It's just one of these things. And he was, you know how to fix the roads in dc, you gotta get the underlayment first, get the sidewalks done. And he went off. And he was one of those news things where he's. He's talking about how quickly he could get the road done quickly. In Washington D.C. we don't need the underlayment. But then asphalt on top of this, I'm gone. That's brilliant. It's not 800 million. I could do this stuff for $6 million tomorrow. And we will get it done.

[Bill Maher]

There's almost nothing he surveys that he doesn't want to fix, whether it's the Kennedy center. And look, believe me, I am not on the page with a lot of his fixes.

[Tim Allen]

I get it.

[Bill Maher]

But, like, he looks at Venezuela, we gotta fix that. Fix it. No, Ballroom, we gotta fix that asphalt. We gotta, like. There's just nothing that he doesn't want to personally. He has. He does have enormous energy. You gotta give him that.

[Tim Allen]

And I said, if, look, just keep him directed on our infrastructure. Keep him directed on the power system, the power grid. But I said, one of the times there's. I. I want to out a couple comics. We were sitting there watching one of his speeches, and there's a couple of them vintage comics and Sue Young guys. And they said, vintage. Well, I'm saying that did. And Dreeson. I love Tom Dreeson.

[Bill Maher]

I just love the term.

[Tim Allen]

Well, he's been, you know, Dreeson open, you know, was opening act for Sinatra.

[Bill Maher]

Trust me, I'm getting ready for the day they call me a vintage comic.

[Tim Allen]

So, come on, you know, we're. We're like a couple hours away from that. This is. Jesus Christ. Do you even know the young comedians that, like. People call me all the.

[Bill Maher]

No, but I love to go to the Comedy Store every once in a while and just sit in the back. First of all, it brings me back to those days. It makes me, like, very happy about my life, which is so much cushier now than it was when I had to endure that. Because not every night is a singing, smiling success, as we know from those days. And it's just fucking entertaining. If they're bad, it's like watching the Indy 500 when there's a car wreck. It's not boring. If they're good, it's awesome because you're laughing and it's just, it's just a. I just love doing it.

[Tim Allen]

I'm everything I hated now. I used to hate it when I did have you get there, eight minutes at the improv or whatever that you get that short time. And then all of a sudden, Shanley would show up and everybody has to back off. And he does for 40 fucking minutes. And you go, big Shan. Like he needs it. And now when I, before I go on the road, I go to Laugh Factory and I'll do an hour. And so there's all these guys lined up and I just.

[Bill Maher]

So you can elbow your way past them.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah. So I just, I come in, the whole room changes, and I do it good. For now, we do it. So, yeah, I've worked it out. So the guy's good.

[Bill Maher]

It's good to be the guy who needs no introduction. Let's just say it that way. Yeah, yeah. It just is.

[Tim Allen]

I just love what I do. I love being able to do standup still. I'm not, you know, I still have the guy.

[Bill Maher]

My hat's off to you. I got off. I, I, I knew there was a, the moment came and it was like, boy, this hurts. This is like cutting off my leg. Stand up. Are you kidding? I did 13 HBO specials. You know, I mean, I have been there and always kept it up, you know, like, never phoned it in. I kept that act up because, you know, it takes. People said to me, well, just do it. Just do a few dates here and there.

[Tim Allen]

You can't, you can't.

[Bill Maher]

You have to be in shape.

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[Bill Maher]

You know, I was on your plane a lot.

[Tim Allen]

Don't get me started on this.

[Bill Maher]

No, I was.

[Tim Allen]

Well, I know that I've been doing this show and a movie. So this next tour, I haven't been on the. I haven't been out for almost nine months and my people are going, well, that'll be. Just get back into it. It ain't quite that simple.

[Bill Maher]

Not that simple.

[Tim Allen]

It's not that simple. When I. I was off for.

[Bill Maher]

No, no, no.

[Tim Allen]

The last five. The first two years of Last Man Standing, it was too much going on. So I was off for two years and I just. It was really difficult to get back. And then I realized I feel like I'm Rod Stewart all of a sudden. I do Maggie Mae. I'm doing my. I'm doing. I'm an egg, a comedy egg. I'm really about timing and pace. And so I do some old material. I just reshuffle it and then I'll do. The opening is like 20 minutes of what's going on now. But generally I don't do current events. I just, I've never. I stay away from current events.

[Bill Maher]

Why should you?

[Tim Allen]

Well, I said it just because these.

[Bill Maher]

Days, where it fits, it fits.

[Tim Allen]

It fits.

[Bill Maher]

Sometimes it fits.

[Tim Allen]

I have a good fun. I'm having a fun time going. I'm gonna say a lot of stuff tonight that might offend you. Get your phones out now. And let's go through this. When I say these words, this is what I mean.

[Bill Maher]

You know what, you're iconic. It doesn't matter. You can offend them. And the people who are offended are the type who will get offended at everything and just looking for something and it will not affect your life or your career.

[Tim Allen]

I get it.

[Bill Maher]

Which has been.

[Tim Allen]

I'm having fun with the words. I said, this is what the word means to. And I just.

[Bill Maher]

Wait, who did you say you were? Like Tom Brady of sitcoms. That's not really a good analogy. It's more like there are a few people. When I was a kid. Michael Landon.

[Tim Allen]

Yes.

[Bill Maher]

Ted Danson. Wow. There are a few. William Shatner. There's a few people who the audience continually wants to see in a show. And so they keep doing show after show and they're always hit. And you're in that very small pantheon of people like that. You keep doing these shows.

[Tim Allen]

Don't know why. What I said, I keep looking at when they. The girls at Fox, the bosses At Fox that got me doing it. And then ABC bought Fox, so now it's back on abc. And I said, you guys are kidding, right? You think I should do another sitcom? And they said, yeah, we think, even in today's climate. And at the same time, I was doing Santa Claus, the streaming series. And I said, you know, I'm doing a streaming series for you right now. I can't possibly do a sitcom at the same time. And I said, well, if you did it, what would it be? And I said, well, number one. And I listed the stuff I want to talk about, which is grief. And so I wanted to have a guy that just lost his wife. I want to own a car shop, which I do in North Hollywood next to a dance studio, which I do. And the art forms. The people that know I have a passion for people that know how to do stuff. Like, I love tools, which.

[Bill Maher]

Real stuff.

[Tim Allen]

Real stuff. People that know how to plumb.

[Bill Maher]

Yes.

[Tim Allen]

And I just.

[Bill Maher]

So many people who study, go to college and study but don't know how to do anything. It's just like, okay, you have a major in, you know, the queer poetry of the Asian Diaspora.

[Tim Allen]

But there is a lot of demand for that.

[Bill Maher]

Where does that fit in?

[Tim Allen]

Don't throw that out.

[Bill Maher]

I hear Shifting Gears comes back on January 7th.

[Tim Allen]

You just heard that?

[Bill Maher]

No, I've been reading about it constantly.

[Tim Allen]

Oh, my God. It's in every freaking publication.

[Bill Maher]

It's funny because Trump was talking about.

[Tim Allen]

It just the other day.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, you know, I was. Again, I. Obviously, it's pretty plain don't plan anything during this show. But if I was planning, I would have said of the three, like, put upon white guys that you have played. Cause I do feel like that is the through line.

[Tim Allen]

Right?

[Bill Maher]

You're the pimp. People like to see you as the put upon guy. And it does work. And why not work with what works? You know, have three characters that have something in common, but also show a different side of you as you phased into these different eras of your life. Is that a correct assessment?

[Tim Allen]

Very correct assessment. That's why I did it. I said, the first guy loves construction equipment and the contracting business, and he had his Sage Wilson behind the fence. Second guy was outdoor equipment, where they used to sell outdoor equipment, guns and all that stuff. And that guy had Hector Alizandro, who I just saw today, who was kind of the father figure, this one. I am the father figure. Lost my wife and my daughter, Kat Dennings, who's terrific, wonderful, wonderful. And she comes in, we have a bad Relationship.

[Bill Maher]

She's a great sitcom actor.

[Tim Allen]

She's a great.

[Bill Maher]

She's great on your show. And she was great on the Two Broke.

[Tim Allen]

Two Broke Girls. Girls. She's a tremendous.

[Bill Maher]

She has that. I did sitcoms. I know a great one when I see one.

[Tim Allen]

She's great at that. And Darrell Chill Williams, who was on Galaxy Quest, I remember he used to.

[Bill Maher]

Be on Politically Incorrect in his wheelchair.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah. And he's terrific. The cast is fricking terrific on this. And I said, rhett, what's. You know, I keep forgetting our rehearsal yesterday. We come back on the show in January. We're on a break now, and it is so much fucking fun. And then the cast has not done live 5 or 4 camera with live audience. We still have a live audience and they're addicted to what I'm saying. It's a combination of stand up and movies. You know, we still have cameras doing that. Cut, move. And then you have an audience in there. And I don't know if it's a dying art. I don't know because as I've told many people, that's what this started with, vaudeville.

[Bill Maher]

How much do you put into it? Like, I talk about the writing quite a bit.

[Tim Allen]

I mean, in my way. Because I, I don't get up in the writer's room. I'm down there in the sets that. This doesn't make any sense.

[Bill Maher]

I may have told this story before on this show, but I don't give a. I did one in my fallow period after I. You know, a lot of careers, they like have a start and before you, you think, you think you're on your way. And Joker just says you're not.

[Tim Allen]

No, you're not. Your way.

[Bill Maher]

Like yours was going to prison.

[Tim Allen]

Right. Okay.

[Bill Maher]

It's like you're not quite on your way.

[Tim Allen]

Look at the time, you're actually in prison.

[Bill Maher]

Mine was just in show business. Jam. Right, okay, okay. So like I had done a sitcom. It looked like I was on my way. I got cancelled. So then I was like the. The champ who like, does guest stars on other people's sitcoms. And I did the Bob Newart. Ah, the second one, remember the one? Daryl Darrell and.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

So I remember that week. They were very nice to me. I was the guest star. Don't remember what I was playing, but I remember Bob Newhart. It was his show in the title. And he only made one suggestion the whole week, like during a read through. I don't remember what it was like. You know, why don't you put A hat on the moose or something. And when we shot the show, it was the biggest laugh.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah. That's what I remember about Bob Newhart. I, I, that, that blew my mind that he made one suggestion. He did not. He didn't want, you know, he was at that phase of his career. Like, Like, I know it's not my job. I don't want to be, like, the guy. You be the guy. I'm 65. You're 40. You do it. But when I do say something, it's.

[Tim Allen]

It's got like that with me. And I don't, I don't want to be this crotchety old fucker. And I did, you know, I said, too late. But I don't, But I don't need. I don't need a person under 30 telling me how to be funny.

[Bill Maher]

No.

[Tim Allen]

And sometimes you definitely don't need. Oh, I just don't. I don't know how to say it. And what I. What always comes down to is, I said, listen, I. I can't tell you. I appreciate crew riders, everybody. You do all the work. I literally do very little. But what happens is somebody's gonna have to get on the horse and ride it. Somebody makes the shoes. Somebody feeds this horse everything. But eventually, I have to ride the horse, and none of you are going to be on that horse. So at one point, I will ride that horse the way I ride a horse.

[Bill Maher]

But you say you wanted it about grief and losing your wife. Now, this wasn't just like wish fulfillment.

[Tim Allen]

No, no. Oh, God. Honey, he's kidding.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, like she's watching this.

[Tim Allen]

Yes. Well. And she will be forced to get the whole family. You will watch what we do. This is what pays the. Do I.

[Bill Maher]

My guess is that this is the dad they see, because this is you as you. This is why I love doing this show, because it's not like my TV show. You know, there's no preparation. It's just me as I am, and you as you are. But I'm guessing your family on the train or on the RV after you get the shit out, this is how they see you. Right? Dad's like a cool guy. You're a very cool guy.

[Tim Allen]

My youngest, I did it to her one time because she's very funny. And she played my daughter in Santa Claus and by accident.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, really? That's your daughter?

[Tim Allen]

Yeah. Sandra Claus.

[Bill Maher]

Wow.

[Tim Allen]

And so one night at dinner, she's giving me bits, you know, because she. She reads scripts with me, you know, I do a lot of my bits. I tried, you Know, I looked at her one time and I just said, I'm eating. She goes. And I go, didn't land. And I just said under my breath, she goes. And my wife goes, oh, that was hurtful. And I go, no, I just. That's why I'm not laughing. You can't turns. You can't make me laugh. So now anytime I do a bit that just kind of. I'm working it, you know, you work a bit. A little bit. It doesn't work until you get the time right. And my kid just now didn't land. Dad didn't land. And now it's become kind of annoying.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, that's funny.

[Tim Allen]

Oh, she's. It's not funny. That is funny because now I don't know if it's working or not, because she's really.

[Bill Maher]

No, but it's good to have a little inside joke in the family.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah. No, I was going to say this out of nowhere because I keep these subjects so bright is this is why I said, I took my family to Jerusalem. I've never been there. We went to Cairo, which is different. Yes. Different is come in at night. There's a Four Seasons Hotel. I think that's where we stayed at night. You go, wow, this is gorgeous. Nile and the city. You wake up in the morning, you're going to, when are we leaving? When can we get out of this? This is horrific. The traffic. When Mubarak was taken out, zoning went away, so people just built buildings in the middle of the street. The nicest staff at the hotel, I had security detail that took us around, wanted to see the pyramids, which we viewed from a Pizza Hut, which is right across the street from the pyramids. And there's a Sheraton Hotel. You don't see that in any pictures.

[Bill Maher]

No.

[Tim Allen]

And then there's a Pizza Hut across the street. A Pizza Hut and. And one of the best Pizza Huts I've ever been to in Cairo, which was startling.

[Bill Maher]

This is at Giza.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah. The pyramids are right there. You're talking about aliens.

[Bill Maher]

How close can you get to the pyramid?

[Tim Allen]

We went, took a tour, took the camel ride.

[Bill Maher]

You go right into pyramids.

[Tim Allen]

If you go in, if you want them. The big. The Giza.

[Bill Maher]

Do you go in?

[Tim Allen]

You can.

[Bill Maher]

There's an entrance.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah. I'm a claustrophobic guy. So there's a little tunnel that's like this. Then I went, you know what?

[Bill Maher]

I'd do the same.

[Tim Allen]

I don't want to do that.

[Bill Maher]

Right. But people do.

[Tim Allen]

They shimmy into the shimmy into the thing.

[Bill Maher]

Did anybody give it stuck?

[Tim Allen]

No. The alien thing that you say came with me. I said, please, anybody. These don't belong here. There's nothing anywhere near. I say this to everybody that's been near him. There's nothing like this on the Earth. Why'd they stop making pyramids like this? They make pyramids. The Aztecs, now those are step pyramids. These were covered in white onyx with a gold top, and they're in an l shape. From 30,000ft, it looks particularly like some sort of a marker of something. But there's nothing like the pyramids cut to. We went to a fence and those.

[Bill Maher]

Are big blocks that it's nothing.

[Tim Allen]

Makes sense.

[Bill Maher]

How did they get the blocks there?

[Tim Allen]

There's some guys that say the Nile used to be much closer to them and you could just slide them up on the mud. There is a way.

[Bill Maher]

I had this argument with somebody and they did make a very compelling argument once with one word. I said, how did they get all those giant, very heavy blocks in that age? And they said, schleppers. It's kind of true.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

They had slaves.

[Tim Allen]

Well. And then this fucking block over their. They were paid very well for the time.

[Bill Maher]

00 was not. Well, well.

[Tim Allen]

But here's. I get to Jerusalem, and number one, it's not anywhere near what you can visualize.

[Bill Maher]

I was there.

[Tim Allen]

Palestine is right there.

[Bill Maher]

Right there.

[Tim Allen]

And it's just a fence. There's no guards everywhere. And he says, you don't see this on CNN or anything else. It's right there. He says, there's really no problem. And you go to the border. We wanted to see Bethlehem. There's just a gate and there's a Jewish guard on one side, a Palestinian. He goes. They both waved at each other. Open the thing. Then you have to get into a Palestinian driver's car and he drives you to Bethlehem. You go, there's a little shopping mall by there. And it was not what you think, and it's not what I thought it was not. I don't know. The problem was, as I studied it, I don't know. It depends. It called historical priority. It was Donna Hearn, who this wonderful woman was one of Reagan's historians who passed away. She's just brilliant woman that said. She goes, historical preference. And it's a terrible term to me now, it depends on when you want to start.

[Bill Maher]

Historical preference?

[Tim Allen]

Yeah, because people say, well, if you start here, then the Palestinians have a point. Yeah. But if you go back two days prior to that, they don't have a point and where you want to go in history.

[Bill Maher]

See, apropos of my point about the kids don't know about the history and don't care. I had this argument with someone recently and they were. Well, one I had right here with someone on the show. And I think we're still friends, but I mean, it got very heated about. I said, you know, if you had to live in the Middle east, where would you live? Don't you think it would be Tel Aviv? And, you know, it's Cairo versus Tel Aviv. I mean, I'm sure there are lovely people in Cairo, but as a woman and she was wearing a sleeveless dress, I don't think you'd be comfortable there. And I had this other discussion with this other person and they were like going on about colonialism. And I said, just when was Muhammad born? No clue. No clue. And they're like, what does that matter? Well, it matters a lot because there was no Islam before Muhammad.

[Tim Allen]

Right.

[Bill Maher]

So does it matter? He was born in 570 A.D. right. Okay. You have no clue. I couldn't get it. Say, BC AD the fact that King David had a kingdom 1500 years before Muhammad was even born. It is relevant.

[Tim Allen]

It is relevant.

[Bill Maher]

It is very relevant. It's not to say that the Palestinians don't have a right to that land also, which again, the state of Israel has acknowledged from the beginning. Can we just share it?

[Tim Allen]

Do they get.

[Bill Maher]

They're a little tired of asking the question.

[Tim Allen]

Well, and not only that, mistakes have been made. And I said, so now my studies went back to Greek origin of both parties. Hebrew, which is an Aramaic term that means migrant.

[Bill Maher]

Really.

[Tim Allen]

So they might have. Both might.

[Bill Maher]

Wait, say that again. Hebrew is an Arab Aramaic term.

[Tim Allen]

Aramaic term means migrant. So they all migrated and they could possibly. And someone's going to say, where'd you read this? And I can't even remember is Palestinians or Philistines.

[Bill Maher]

Yes, Philistines.

[Tim Allen]

Philistines and the Hebrews were actually related. And they both came.

[Bill Maher]

Philistines were the Hebrews. They were just a class of different class.

[Tim Allen]

And so I'm in this story and it's a lot of this stuff. All of a sudden you wake up and it said it was two tribes come from Greece, lie on that arrow, Gaza. And they wanted to land deal, whatever the. Whatever the problem was. They said, well, we'll settle this like a wrestling match. We're not going to fight it out. It'll be you, your strongest soldier versus our strongest soldier.

[Bill Maher]

Okay?

[Tim Allen]

And the Hebrews had nothing.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, they did that in those days.

[Tim Allen]

The Philistines had one called Goliath.

[Bill Maher]

Goliath.

[Tim Allen]

And it wasn't a giant, it was just a big guy like the Rock. And the best the other guys could have was, you know, Tom Selleck. He just did. It didn't work out.

[Bill Maher]

But the Jews had David Shine, but he didn't.

[Tim Allen]

But so I, I make him not ignorant.

[Bill Maher]

It was his last name. People don't know that.

[Tim Allen]

They don't know that. So David, he goes, I can take him. And he's, he's got the little loincloth on. Whoever. It happens, I think he just went like whacked, knocked Goliath out. And the Jews said, well, they go, we did say it. We're not happy about it. You can do what you want to do. And I said, so that's just a story. Cut to. I'm in Jerusalem. David was the king. It did happen. Some version of that.

[Bill Maher]

Well, there definitely was a kingdom a thousand years before the birth of Christ.

[Tim Allen]

There was the king of.

[Bill Maher]

Absolutely. There was two kingdoms, Judea and Samaria. Yes, there were two kingdoms. There was definitely a kingdom. The Wailing Wall is still there.

[Tim Allen]

Still there.

[Bill Maher]

I mean it is a. Jerusalem is still there.

[Tim Allen]

It was still there.

[Bill Maher]

Of the temple that the romans destroyed in 70 A.D. all these creatures in.

[Tim Allen]

Our, whatever you call us, Homo sapiens or whatever the fuck you call them, the savages, they. You're in Jerusalem. And then the guy, he was a Zionist guy and his sister was a Hasidic Jew. And or the, the very religious Jews are not Hasidic. And he, we got to go to the end of the old city and be. Be with her for a minute. But he was Zionist. He was really not. His Jewish in heritage only, but he was not a practicing Jew. And then he, out of nowhere he goes, and that's where Jesus walked through here. And then you're going, it never occurred to me that the dude actually existed.

[Bill Maher]

Right? Well, he may not have.

[Tim Allen]

Not according to this guy. Because he said that's where he did. That's Bethlehem. This is where he walked. This is the Zionist guy said at one point, he goes, probably the strongest, most powerful Jew ever. And then my kid, who's in a Catholic school, she goes, sir, I go to a Catholic school in North Hollywood and he was a Christian.

[Bill Maher]

Oh my God.

[Tim Allen]

And then I'm looking at the guy and I'm going, hey, sir, let's not have an argument. Let's not have a 50 year old.

[Bill Maher]

This is the kind of thing I say to them. It's okay that you said that to me, but just don't say that to anybody else because they'll think you're really stupid. Really. And that's like a major one that they don't get the whole Jesus was a Jew Jew to that Christianity came out of Judaism that you know, for the first hundred years after Christ died, it was sort of a debate.

[Tim Allen]

They were still known and not even a debate now. This is this last trip I want to take my family to see the Aegean islands. And a long story short, we went to walk these islands because I wanted to see stay out of Athens. I love Greece. I love Greek food and I love of the being there. I had no idea who saint I got to get him St. Paul. Saul.

[Bill Maher]

Actually his Jewish name, Saul of Tarsus.

[Tim Allen]

Saul of Tarsus became St. Paul all over Greece. You're going, right? I've read about him. I went, I went to. I was an acolyte.

[Bill Maher]

He was Greek.

[Tim Allen]

He was Greek. No, Luke, Roman. No, the Luke was Greek. Saul was this. And I'm paraphrasing because I'm reading this now. I read this guy Saul was from.

[Bill Maher]

Tarsus, that's not Greece, it's present day Turkey.

[Tim Allen]

But he was a Jew and he was a prosecutor.

[Bill Maher]

Everybody was a Jew.

[Tim Allen]

He prosecuted, but he's a zealot Jew prosecuted Christian prosecuted.

[Bill Maher]

And then undoubtedly gay. No, really, he seems to be. He's very hostile to women, right?

[Tim Allen]

In his prosecutorial thing, he changed his name to Paul. And he said, this is a story. I'm telling you the story. And four other people with me on the road to Damascus, a light so bright blinded me. Jesus shows up. You know, my comic says, what's your fricking problem with me? And he goes, oh God, we screwed up. Because you're damn right you screwed up. And he told his acolytes, he said he went back to Jerusalem, said, guys, we screwed up. I think we did kill the actual living entity, whatever you call it.

[Bill Maher]

Well, they had to to fulfill the destiny of mankind, whatever it was.

[Tim Allen]

He said, so I think we've got to include these pagans into Judaism. They went, oh no, that, no, that. You don't have to be. You don't have to eat no pork. You don't have to be circumcised. Which goes like every comic's done that joke with the first guy that was circumcised. He's going, hold on, you want me to cut?

[Bill Maher]

That was my joke. That was my bit. What do you mean comics? That was what that Was my first.

[Tim Allen]

Oh, you're right. You own that joke.

[Bill Maher]

I did.

[Tim Allen]

You want me to cut. You want me to cut the tip of my what off?

[Bill Maher]

Correct.

[Tim Allen]

That's your joke.

[Bill Maher]

Totally. Yes. I promise you. I could show you the films.

[Tim Allen]

I want to see it.

[Bill Maher]

This is 1982, but this is what happens to good humor sometimes. It gets, like, through the mists of time, like, it just becomes, like, you know, generic or. No, somebody actually always came up with the first joke. Somebody once said, you know, I spent a week in Cleveland one day, and now everybody. But somebody actually wrote it. And I wrote that one. One.

[Tim Allen]

This is the weirdest thing about comics, I promise. I listen. I toured with Kipada when I first started out. And this guy on stage, his timing was so freaking unbelievable. How he paused between. I. I was amazed. So I stole his timing. I never stole his jokes. And then I go, robin, God bless him. If. If you were doing bits in front of him, there's a chance you'd see your bit on stage in a version of that.

[Bill Maher]

Tim Tom punched him out.

[Tim Allen]

Right.

[Bill Maher]

Just for doing that.

[Tim Allen]

Doing that.

[Bill Maher]

Punched him in the face.

[Tim Allen]

George Carlin, who I saw him in early on in my career, same with Pryor. I said I wanted John Carlin to come see me because I, I, I. I'm really getting hot. And I said, I don't see other comedians because there's a good chance I will absorb some of your material.

[Bill Maher]

It's the same thing to me.

[Tim Allen]

Oh, my God.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah.

[Tim Allen]

And then who is. Oh, God. The guy's just so funny. He's white.

[Bill Maher]

White. That narrows it down.

[Tim Allen]

And that skin tone. The name. Oh, the name.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, his name is White.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Bob White.

[Tim Allen]

No, no. But anyway, my wife I loved. He'd scream a little bit. He was really active. Gosh.

[Bill Maher]

Sam Kinison.

[Tim Allen]

No, that type of. My wife saw me doing a big show in Detroit, and she goes, you know, you're starting to do that guy. And I go, I am, aren't I? I'm doing my routine like that, really. And I did this once with Rich Jenny, who passed away. I said, we toured together for quite a while. And at one point in Atlanta, we flipped acts. He did my act, and I did his act.

[Bill Maher]

Come on.

[Tim Allen]

It was fucking brilliant. And I said, why couldn't a comic do that? They have cover music. When I go up there, hey, everybody, I'm gonna do a little bit of Bill Maher, go into a little Jerry Seinfeld, and I end up with some Richard Pryor. Hope you enjoy it and just do Your bits? Why?

[Bill Maher]

If you mentioned that you were your bits as them.

[Tim Allen]

Yes, Jenny did. My bits. So stupid that they were funny.

[Bill Maher]

And now you got your own plane that I had to rent. I always enjoyed it.

[Tim Allen]

Oh, God. This story only is because I'm embarrassed because I thought they were environmental. I thought because they blow clean air and I'm a car guy. I had no idea that planes. I can't talk about environment or anything because of that. Yeah. But Titanic, it's a horrifying thing.

[Bill Maher]

It's a pleasure to find out that you're, like, so interested in so many different things and at such a deep level. Not that I thought you were just the tool and car guy, but I think, you know, I mean, look, you like to play that part. I mean, it works great for you. But, you know, you're kind of like Leno, like, a lot deeper than you let the public see.

[Tim Allen]

Well, thanks for that. Cause I said. I said Leno is like that.

[Bill Maher]

He is totally like that. I always think if Jay would. The things that twice he's done, this one. Like, if the public could only see how incredibly funny you really are, and they already think you're very funny and you are very funny, but you're not even close to, like, how great you are when you just, like, let the guard down. Oh, well.

[Tim Allen]

I said, what a good experience this is. I just. I wanted to get. Oh, this was what it. I'm. The St. Paul thing. Going to go back to that. Because what he said, I loved about. He said, listen, I'm going to change what's happened in my life. I was a philosophy major, and Paul, he's. Now, he's a stoic. So he's a Greek philosopher now he's a. He wants to include the pagans into the Jewish religion because they think we shouldn't have murdered this guy Jesus. I think he was telling the truth. So as I'm not going to be a prosecutor anymore, I'm a Jew all the way. I'm a Jew. And they go, we're going to kill you.

[Bill Maher]

He goes, let me finish.

[Tim Allen]

Let me finish. But he did this. He goes. And several times he goes, the problem you're going to have with that is I'm also a Roman citizen. So they couldn't. Every time he says, take me to court, but you got to take me to Rome. And they're going to put me in front of a magistrate. And he's going, he's committed no crime against Rome. And he said something very intuitive that I'm still studying because he says law was basically invented to develop sin. Without law, you don't know what sinful is. So law was basically just to give you guardrails of what the world is and what you're going to get. What you're going to find is the cycle of ignorance. With philosophy, and that's where I've been in the last 20 years. Philosophy gets right into these circles. It can't explain anything really. And this guy that changed my life, Wittgenstein, this philosopher, said, I really don't know that. The words I'm saying to you are, if I was in your brain, I'd go, what the fuck are you thinking? And I was getting very depressed about this because I don't really know if anybody knows what anybody's. We're lucky that we're even getting through stoplights. Then I'm on stage one night and a brilliant light hit me. I go, bullshit. Bullshit. I make a living making people laugh because I know exactly. They know exactly what I fucking do.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, I feel the same way.

[Tim Allen]

I'm doing standup in this big auditorium where I was in Denver, when I can. When I get into these 5,300 seaters, I feel like a megastar with the balconies. And I get you link. That's funny. We get the bit.

[Bill Maher]

You are a megastar. Well, but you have two franchise movies. That's a but.

[Tim Allen]

I said that wasn't the purpose. The purpose, no, but the stand up is what I love.

[Bill Maher]

That accounts for that. People coming out.

[Tim Allen]

But they listen. The reason they laugh at my stand up is because they know exactly what I mean.

[Bill Maher]

Well, that's the one great thing about standup. Or if you could look at it the other way, a terrible thing is that you can't buy even one minute of their love if you're not really doing it right. Like, no matter how big a star you are, you can't fake laughter. You can't fake you can do it for a minute. A crowd will be like so excited to see a star walk out that they'll give you a minute of just nervous laughter. After that, you are on your own.

[Tim Allen]

You're on your own.

[Bill Maher]

You are just. The day you started doing comedy, no difference. It's no different. And there is something about that honesty that appeals to us in a way that nothing else in the business can.

[Tim Allen]

Nothing out like it. When I get. There's a couple bits that I. Or vintage bits, that's more about timing.

[Bill Maher]

It's earned.

[Tim Allen]

And they love. They're starting to laugh and I says, you wait till you see what's coming. And it did. Pryor did it to me. Saw him. I thought I was going to throw up. I laughed so freaking hard at that guy. And everything. Everything changed in my life.

[Bill Maher]

Happens to you a lot. Oh, man, you're gonna throw up.

[Tim Allen]

You're gonna throw up funny.

[Bill Maher]

You have to leave. If I don't make you vomit or in your pants tonight, I'm gonna feel like a total failure.

[Tim Allen]

Put it in the holding tag. Because it's the Black Water and the Gray Water, and there's a little vent.

[Bill Maher]

Gray Water, I feel like, is a good name for a tribute band.

[Tim Allen]

That Gray Water, that's good, you know, like.

[Bill Maher]

But I don't know.

[Tim Allen]

Doobie Brothers did have Black Water.

[Bill Maher]

There you go. Doobie Brothers. I never thought of Black Water.

[Tim Allen]

Black Water, this tribute band that gets rid of your. Oh, God. I shouldn't have brought that up, because I love the Doobie Brothers.

[Bill Maher]

I do, too.

[Tim Allen]

Incur in concert back then. Great band. Great band. Same with Springsteen.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, that's where we get the term Doobie, is it not?

[Tim Allen]

Yeah. Is it?

[Bill Maher]

I think so, yes. I think they were known as tokers of medical marijuana.

[Tim Allen]

What did they do? I didn't know Jay Giles Band. I saw it. I was. I was the booking guy for my.

[Bill Maher]

Now you've lost a lot of the audience, not me, but you've lost a lot of them. Jay Giles.

[Tim Allen]

Jay Giles Band. It's called Full House. Gold or yellow album cover. The cards are all across. I was the booking agent for my college. I went to see bands to book for our thing. Some guys, you got to go with me. Down the Cinderella Ballroom in Detroit. Captain Hook and the Medicine show opened up. Halfway through their act, the crowd's going, boo. Get off the stage. They want to see Jake Isles Band. I go, this is rude. That band came in my life was. I couldn't. It didn't throw up. But the over hour and a half. I've never seen a concert that hot where you're. It's over and you're sweating because you were dancing the whole time. That band was. So what Rockabilly end up booking them. Got him.

[Bill Maher]

Tim. Come back in 10 years when I'm 80 and say Jay Giles. And I guarantee you I'm gonna say, is that my law firm?

[Tim Allen]

Is that those two Hispanic guys that stand on the buses? Yeah, the two brothers.

[Bill Maher]

So are you a fan of, like, a lot of obscure? I feel like Jay Giles Band is fairly obscure.

[Tim Allen]

Well, it was a platinum album, so.

[Bill Maher]

I Don't know if really.

[Tim Allen]

Oh, yeah, it was huge.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah. Maybe there was one. There's like. Remember Bozkaggs?

[Tim Allen]

Oh, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

That one album he had.

[Tim Allen]

Oh, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

That, like, every song was a hit. Every song was.

[Tim Allen]

But there's the All Alone.

[Bill Maher]

Remember that song?

[Tim Allen]

I love it.

[Bill Maher]

Is that not the greatest ballad ever?

[Tim Allen]

A little embarrassing. I'm working in Vancouver, a big venue, outdoors, sold out. Boss Skaggs came by, his manager goes, boss Gags is a big fan of yours, Tim Allen. I go, well, great. And it's this huge venue. And. And I see he's here. He's here. Yeah, he's playing tonight. I go, well, is there another venue? Goes. He goes, no. He goes, where are you playing? Are you in the amphitheater? I go, yeah. Where's he. He's in the bar. And I went, oh, that would.

[Bill Maher]

Come on.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah, yeah, our bar. You know, 50 people drinking. He's in the. The lounge. In the bar. Bus gags.

[Bill Maher]

I went, oh, it's a paying gig.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah, it's a gig.

[Bill Maher]

Gig.

[Tim Allen]

I've done. I've. I've. I've been on the road where I go to gigs that I see major freaking guys.

[Bill Maher]

I once was in Vegas and Gary Puckett and the Union Cap. Well, what do you mean, well?

[Tim Allen]

Well, it's.

[Bill Maher]

They had four giant hits in 1960. Do you remember 1968? I know you do.

[Tim Allen]

What was the. It's cars. Chevy. They made a great Camaro. Yeah.

[Bill Maher]

What?

[Tim Allen]

Chevy made a great Camaro in 68.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, my God. You and you. What do you do with comics and cars? You and Leno and Seinfeld. Like, what. What. What is this? I have no connection to Cars. What. What is this comic car thing?

[Tim Allen]

I have no idea. I have no idea. But you got. Did you see Newhart and Rickles do their bit on this?

[Bill Maher]

No. Maybe I forgot.

[Tim Allen]

Christ. It's funny about what? Rickles was dogging Newhart the whole time because they're best of friends. That I knew what a loser he is. What a loser.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tim Allen]

Newhart goes, yeah, it's tough, you know, but the lounge worked. Good for you. While I was in the major.

[Bill Maher]

Rickles worked the lounges.

[Tim Allen]

He worked the lounge, and Newhart was in the showroom.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, okay. Yeah, that makes sense.

[Tim Allen]

But he constantly mentioned it. And he goes, yeah, that's right, Don. But, you know, my wife and I would always see you out there in the lounge. We catch it after the big show, and we'd all have dinner, and then, Rick, I love those two together. I Love those. That was a. I love them.

[Bill Maher]

Together or separately?

[Tim Allen]

Separately.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, you know, like when I was a kid, when Rickles was on the Tonight Show.

[Tim Allen]

Loved it.

[Bill Maher]

That was, like, occasion. Especially if it was the summer when we could stay up. I feel like it was often that Jonathan Winter. Oh. Cause Johnny would come out to the west coast in the summer, remember?

[Tim Allen]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

Like, there was a big thing. The Tonight show on the west coast, and Rickles would come on and. And it was like an occasion for the family to gather around the hearth. That was the television. The Magnavox or whatever.

[Tim Allen]

We were watching the hearth and Jonathan Winters. Brilliant pieces on the Tonight Show. Charles Grodin was.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, Charles Grodin was a great talk show guest because he was the only one who would, like, make Johnny uncomfortable.

[Tim Allen]

I know it looks like he didn't want to be there. Boy, how much longer.

[Bill Maher]

And would get into. See, the. The paradox of Johnny Carson was he was the biggest star to. No matter who he was talking to, he was a bigger star, which is an odd sort of thing because the bigger star is asking the lesser star questions. Like. But that's why Johnny was gracious on the show.

[Tim Allen]

On the show, you know, he was.

[Bill Maher]

Like, oh, let's hear about you. I'm interested.

[Tim Allen]

He was wonderful at that. It made you feel it was all about you.

[Bill Maher]

Right.

[Tim Allen]

He was really good at. At that.

[Bill Maher]

He was also a giant thief. He stole the Answerman and Lifesavers from Lock, Stock and Tomahawk from Steve Allen.

[Tim Allen]

Right.

[Bill Maher]

He stole Aunt Blabby Lock, Stock and Tomahawk and made it into. Oh, no, his Aunt Blabby was Jonathan Winters somebody. Some other character that Jonathan Winters do. When Johnny used to get into the dress and the wig and do Aunt Blabby, he was just doing. He was just completely ripping off. He did it shamelessly. Johnny was a hard man.

[Tim Allen]

What would it take to get back on the. Doing concerts? Just too much prep for you.

[Bill Maher]

A combination of things. One, I'm 70. I don't sleep well on the road. And if you don't sleep well, you don't shit. If you don't shit. There we go.

[Tim Allen]

Go.

[Bill Maher]

There we go. I wasn't even gonna go there. Here we go. I wasn't even gonna go.

[Tim Allen]

I just bought a new walker, so. Got that.

[Bill Maher]

No, but like.

[Tim Allen]

But it's chrome.

[Bill Maher]

It's.

[Tim Allen]

It's beautiful. It's a Hermes walker.

[Bill Maher]

Also, like the people who run hotels. I don't know what happened with that generation, but they're either stoned or they're Disaffected or whatever, but they can't do simple things. And the hotels themselves, I'm talking about five star hotels. This was annoying, using a private plane and five star hotels. There was still so much aggravation with going on the road. I mean, I stayed at the Plaza Hotel, which they were so nice, they would black out the windows. They volunteered to do it. We heard Bill Sleep's label do like the Elvis thing with the, with the silver foil. I mean, it could not have been nicer. And then one time I stayed there and the TV didn't work and couldn't work and they sent up an engineer and they couldn't get it to work. I was like, okay, I guessed tv, that could happen once. I'm not gonna throw them under the bus. I was stated the second time, TV didn't work again. I was like, you fucking people can't make a TV work in a five star hotel.

[Tim Allen]

No, it's difficult to explain. Make it seem like it's your fault. That's how to get to, you know, television isn't as popular as it used.

[Bill Maher]

To be and yet you have managed to have all these sitcoms like in a, in an era when they don't do it anymore.

[Tim Allen]

These days people go literally go, what's abc? Oh yeah. Do you literally have kids?

[Bill Maher]

Oh, absolutely.

[Tim Allen]

My younger daughters.

[Bill Maher]

What's television?

[Tim Allen]

What's television?

[Bill Maher]

Kind of.

[Tim Allen]

They're like this, like, oh no, is TV on here? Can you get it here? I take her to a movie because we love our movie night and she's watching the movie like this. The movie's on and I go, hey. She goes, I got it. Like she's, she's so used to this, this seven second intervals on Instagram or Snatch Chat or whatever the hell she was.

[Bill Maher]

And she goes, click dick, Tim.

[Tim Allen]

Click.

[Bill Maher]

It's called click dick.

[Tim Allen]

I get it. I just don't, I don't know where it goes. Yeah, and then the little one, my older one is, is back to TV again a little bit. But I said this, the, the situation now is curious cuz I work at ABC and it's all about what ABC can do for Hulu.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, sure.

[Tim Allen]

I said, so what? So why are we doing eight episodes? Used to be 22. Right. And I get one what sounds like this. But I'm sure they meant. They go, it's all, it's a comic analog and it's serious. People will sit down and go, just. Could you slow that down one more time? I think I heard the, I heard the first part Tim, it's simple.

[Bill Maher]

We have.

[Tim Allen]

There's a. There's a matrix that we have Santa go that. I feel so stupid at the. I've got this. And then I got a major player at one of my studio people. It's ship assailed. It's a simpler system, people like this. And I snapped. It was when I was happening SAG in the afl, the unions, all of us were talking about this strike and I was involved in this. I said, just outline. We're not trying to get more money. We're just trying to get what's coming to us. But you've taken away residuals and all this. It's simple. The ship is simple.

[Bill Maher]

Nothing better than getting a good comic mad about something. This really is like the best thing.

[Tim Allen]

You can do is get him angry.

[Bill Maher]

Get a good comic mad about something.

[Tim Allen]

Well, I still say.

[Bill Maher]

And it just. Something takes over.

[Tim Allen]

You've been to Vegas many times. You say gambling is only good for the casinos. Is one guy, because I don't gamble. And the guy just like self help.

[Bill Maher]

Books are only good for the self help guy.

[Tim Allen]

Author, right?

[Bill Maher]

They do fantastic.

[Tim Allen]

The guy in Vegas. I was up like three in the morning with John Fox and we were running around downstairs. I go, people screaming at craps. And I told one of the guys, teach me craps. And he goes, that's like showing somebody how to do heroin. He goes, if you haven't. If you don't have any interest in it, you're better off just giving the doorman $100. Help him out. But you're never gonna win. This hotel is huge because of losers.

[Bill Maher]

It is. Exactly.

[Tim Allen]

It's losers. This whole thing is losing.

[Bill Maher]

It's the greatest industry in the world. People give you money for nothing.

[Tim Allen]

For nothing.

[Bill Maher]

And Trump couldn't make it work.

[Tim Allen]

No, he couldn't make work.

[Bill Maher]

An industry where people give you money for nothing.

[Tim Allen]

Was he gaming? Was he.

[Bill Maher]

He was Atlantic City.

[Tim Allen]

Oh, that's right.

[Bill Maher]

When you said he wanted to be a producer, I had never heard that. You know what that's the plot of? You know the Elmore Leonard movie with John Travolta. Oh, good one. What? You know what I'm talking about. Chili Palmer.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bill Maher]

What is that movie? What is that near me in Michigan? There's like two of them. They're great. Yeah, great in them. But he's the guy, he's the gangster who wants to be a movie producer.

[Tim Allen]

Well, that's right. What is that?

[Bill Maher]

What is that? It's a famous movie where I'm stoned You're not. You should be able to come up with it. And there's a sequel. They're both fantastic.

[Tim Allen]

Trump looked at me and he goes, well, what we're talking about, it was the Academy Award winner was not Game of Thrones, the other one, the Hobbit. Not the Hobbit. It was the four movies trilogy.

[Bill Maher]

Rings, Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Rings.

[Tim Allen]

And he goes, that was a funny bit that he stole. He used it. He says, what do you think's gonna win? I go, lord of the Rings. It's up there for three movies. He goes, is it good? I go, actually, for that sort of movie, I've read the book and yeah, it's very well done. He goes, I should. And I go, don, it's three two hour movies. It's six hours. I mean, I don't know your plane flight. And he goes, well, I could watch it. And Don, you're rich enough. You could get somebody to watch it for you. He cackled. He laughs so fucking hard at that. And then he does it. I hear it now.

[Bill Maher]

They hated me when I reported that he listens to you and that he laughs and that he never once, like, objected when I contradicted him or went up against him. He's a completely different guy.

[Tim Allen]

Different guy in person.

[Bill Maher]

Right. My friend says he has undiagnosed Tourette syndrome. When he gets out in front of.

[Tim Allen]

The camera, in front of the camera.

[Bill Maher]

At the phone, and that he does. I think that's what it's Tourette's is he. When you're behind the scene, when you're just privately with him, you know these people, you're going to humanize him. Well, I hate to tell you, he's a human.

[Tim Allen]

He's a great.

[Bill Maher]

He's a human who like is the president. So you're going to have to talk to him no matter what you think.

[Tim Allen]

Right, right.

[Bill Maher]

It's just so stupid.

[Tim Allen]

But he's what grit got him. He goes, so the, the. What was the movie he was talking about? And he says, if we got a studio together, let's say the movie cost, you know, a million six or a better than a million 20. And then I said, you got to double that, at least for the promotion. So you, you got 210 into a movie, 200 million. He goes, what if the ticket sales are slow? You lose. And he goes, yeah, but you got to make up the loss somehow. How do you make up the loss? I said, well, there'll be some tax benefit, but you lose the money. That's how come the studios struggle. They looking for winners. You amortize your loss with losers over winners. He goes, oh. And I go. He went. He like completely decided at that moment, I'm not going to get in this business. He says if I buy a bad building.

[Bill Maher]

Right.

[Tim Allen]

And it won't sell, I still have the building.

[Bill Maher]

Right.

[Tim Allen]

If you have a shitty movie.

[Bill Maher]

No.

[Tim Allen]

And he says, no, this is not an easy business.

[Bill Maher]

Every movie is like a startup company.

[Tim Allen]

Yes.

[Bill Maher]

I mean a startup. If you spend. If a. If an angel in Silicon Valley gives you $200 million for a startup business, which they do, that's a big business. But that's what a high end movie costs. That's a startup. And maybe it's going to be a success and maybe it's going to be a big loser.

[Tim Allen]

And they said the fact that these guys did it and I got it. Things have changed and I don't know where we are right now. Where people go, the people that have visions. That Alan at Disney, Alan Bergman, he has this passion that used to be like the latest animated movie from Disney. And it slips in my mind. I saw a look in his face and it's gonna beat the Tom Cruise movie. That was the new one for.

[Bill Maher]

Maverick.

[Tim Allen]

No, the new one where he was in the.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, Mission Impossible.

[Tim Allen]

And it did. It beat at the box office. One of these things. And they had that passion again. Where used to be on the Radford lot, there was cottages all along the side where writers would come out. How about this? How about this? And we've lost that. There isn't. There aren't. There isn't.

[Bill Maher]

You were really smart to get into cartoons. No, really. Well, I mean that's where the business was.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah, but what I'm saying is that there's been a couple big starts. The business out here is not the business that I signed up for a long time ago. The passion was to entertain people.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah, but I bet the money is.

[Tim Allen]

It's not like it used to be.

[Bill Maher]

Come on.

[Tim Allen]

No.

[Bill Maher]

Toy Story.

[Tim Allen]

Oh, that.

[Bill Maher]

But what do you think we're talking about?

[Tim Allen]

Well, I'm talking about my. This the way this or Santa Claus.

[Bill Maher]

I mean they're both the movies, but.

[Tim Allen]

When you do streaming, they can't do.

[Bill Maher]

Either one of them without you.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah, but when you have that kind of leverage.

[Bill Maher]

Come on.

[Tim Allen]

However.

[Bill Maher]

It's almost like you could buy your own plane. Gotta go there again that I flew.

[Tim Allen]

It, but it's a Mishra smoke.

[Bill Maher]

It was red on the inside as I remember.

[Tim Allen]

Yes.

[Bill Maher]

What's with the red.

[Tim Allen]

No, no, that's not mine. No, that was the old one. I have another one.

[Bill Maher]

Oh, you have another one.

[Tim Allen]

I have a fleet.

[Bill Maher]

I guess I got the old one. Yeah, Now I find out about you too, when I get the shitty old plate, no doubt. No, no, I was always happy to have it.

[Tim Allen]

But it said, in my defense, I.

[Bill Maher]

Never wanted to own.

[Tim Allen]

I love. I love airplanes. Because if you don't love them, oh.

[Bill Maher]

Well, certainly we love private planes.

[Tim Allen]

Well, no, but I love. That's what I'm saying. I flew on one one time for Disney and they took me to two cities for home improvement. And they said, we're going to get you to Florida. And I said, we're fly into Atlanta. And for instance, they said that the person at Disney said, just, why don't you just use the plane? I go, I'm not going to ask the studio to use the plane. She goes, we fly people to Cabo for a fishing trip and you're going to go to five cities to sell a billion dollars worth of product. I think you deserve to take the plane. But don't pause when you ask for it. Just say, send me the plane. Don't say please. You know, if it's okay, if you have enough gas.

[Bill Maher]

I did a thing about two years ago, I should send it to you if you haven't seen it about like people who take private planes. And I was just like saying, I mean, it was a whole thing about the environmental, which I would like to think. I'm still an environmentalist. I certainly think there is an environmental crisis. But I was saying we have tried for 50 years to try the method of shaming people into doing what's right. Plainly that doesn't work on Americans.

[Tim Allen]

Well, you know who did it best? You know who said it best was the terminator, Schwarzenegger. And he said it by one of those things that you want to get annoyed by him, but nobody gives a shit about climate change. He said that, remember? He said it. He goes, nobody cares about climate change.

[Bill Maher]

Pause.

[Tim Allen]

Pollution. We understand the word climate change is so broad. You go, oh, we can't be pollution. You can handle pollution.

[Bill Maher]

Things of that nature.

[Tim Allen]

And I so agree with them. Climate change is real. I get it. What can I do about it? Use less plastic. I put solar on my house. Anything I can do to lower my carbon footprint.

[Bill Maher]

Well, all that bullshit that you did, Tim, didn't add up to one millionth of the trips you've taken on that. And I took huge on here. No, but it's true.

[Tim Allen]

But, you know, you can't private plane.

[Bill Maher]

Shame me, but I don't. That was the point of the bit I did. I was saying, like, we have tried this. I'm an environmentalist. I believe it's a problem. But, you know, using a cloth bag is not going to fix it. And the plastic, by the way, that everyone separates, like 95% of it winds up where it was going to anyway, which is the ocean. So just don't with me. And then I showed a picture of every celebrity who claims to be a giant.

[Tim Allen]

Don't get me started on a bribe. Don't say it.

[Bill Maher]

So, like, as long as there's 6,000 flights a day, me doing one more. I'm sorry, I'm not going to be on Greta's sailboat. Okay. Because I hear getting the off that thing is a mess.

[Tim Allen]

But I said, that Arnold comment. I said I really like his frame of mind on many things, but that one, he's so right. Give me a problem I can deal with, with the wording climate change. It makes everybody feel helpless.

[Bill Maher]

And you're right.

[Tim Allen]

There's nothing like it's too big. It's nothing like feeling helpless to get people to do nothing.

[Bill Maher]

They had a strike in Paris a few years ago, the yellow jacket strike. And it was about Macron, who I think is a very smart guy and wants to get in on the climate issue. And it's all valid. But the guy said he's thinking about the end of the world. I'm thinking about the end of the month.

[Tim Allen]

Yes.

[Bill Maher]

And that says a lot. It really epitomizes what a lot of people think. And you have to find a way to square that circle if you're gonna make it work. Because if you're not gonna do something that practically works, then we're just fucking jerking each other off. Putting the plastic in a separate bag. Fuck you. If you made me do that all these years and it just went to the same place. You're just jerking me off.

[Tim Allen]

Went to DWP for the History Channel and watched what they do. Number one, I used to. I was always mad at the DWP for a variety of reasons. Till I went down there and saw the people that do that, the freaking work for us in Los Angeles.

[Bill Maher]

Department of Water and Power.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah, they do. They build the power wires and the grids, and they do so much. And there were so many freaking hardworking people down there. I was ashamed at what I felt because they don't do in my neighborhood. Streets are corrupt. They. They do these big Cisterns and clean out that black and brown water. I'm talking about when you're dump.

[Bill Maher]

Dumping got to be done.

[Tim Allen]

They got to be done. And they did recycle. And you look at how difficult it.

[Bill Maher]

Is.

[Tim Allen]

And in a way there's just nothing to do with it. You know, they recycle metal with this big machine that the magnet takes, reusable metal, that's okay. And think of the energy that it takes to take the metal away from the other metal and then store it and put it back and heat it up to turn it into metal.

[Bill Maher]

I mean, and also there's the problem of nobody wants it in their backyard, right? I mean, nuclear waste, they tried to put it in Yucca Mountain. Everyone was like, who gives a shit about Yucca Mountain? Oh, wait, they're going to put nuclear waste there. Right, right, right. That's 100 miles away. You can't do that.

[Tim Allen]

Well, as I said, you look at the whole overview. There was a Texas company that I had read that had. They're getting much cleaner coal, 60% cleaner. So look where you can use coal, where you can small, smaller nuclear reactors, not these big ones that are very difficult to screw up. You don't want the ones that can screw up. Definitely don't want that. And then one guy said, all the nuclear waste, this probably six years ago would be a six foot high square that would fill up a football field. That's all the nuclear waste on the planet. He said, when you look at it that way, that's not very much.

[Bill Maher]

It's workable.

[Tim Allen]

It's workable. You know, you don't want to put it. Now where they're thinking is putting in one of your homes here because you've got so many homes on this property that you're not using.

[Bill Maher]

That's not the truth.

[Tim Allen]

Well, no, I've been told by your staff that if you have.

[Bill Maher]

That's not true. Well, don't make it.

[Tim Allen]

I mean, I've talked to them.

[Bill Maher]

Very modest.

[Tim Allen]

I talked to the staff of the staff. Because you have a lot. There's people that work for the people that.

[Bill Maher]

Well, I have people who talk to the staff.

[Tim Allen]

To the staff.

[Bill Maher]

You don't expect me to talk directly to the staff.

[Tim Allen]

You don't know eye contact. That's how I get along. You do not want looking at these people. I don't know what they eat. I don't care what they eat. Just don't eat it here.

[Bill Maher]

They eat what they get on the land.

[Tim Allen]

Okay.

[Bill Maher]

Whatever left of the table is what the Peasants get.

[Tim Allen]

I totally go by that. Christ, I just eat a lot and I scoot some of it off the table.

[Bill Maher]

But it sounds like you. You could be setting yourself up for a political run. You would actually be very successful. You're iconic, you're middle of the road, you're middle of the country. If you ran as an old school blue dog Democrat, why the word old? Well, you're old with a new chrome walker. We can't elide that we are who we are at the age we are. We're not Biden era old. We're not there. We are totally you. Look, I'm telling you, you have aged as well as you can. That's the only realistic compliment I can give you.

[Tim Allen]

I'm slapping but crying inside.

[Bill Maher]

No, you are not.

[Tim Allen]

You've aged as well as you can.

[Bill Maher]

You absolutely have. You have hair. You're not fat. Right? Your skin looks good.

[Tim Allen]

No, but still, the way I hurt it. You've aged as well.

[Bill Maher]

Your skin looks good. You mentioned your dermatologist, which was a little weird for a man. And you know you're wearing jeans, right?

[Tim Allen]

You know you're a dermatologist. You know you're missed skin cancer five times. The lady at the Today show noticed it. She's going, I'm not a dermatologist. But you have. That's something on your nose. This is two years I did Judy Fallon, and then I did it next the Today show. And she goes, I see you haven't done anything. And I'm going, I have a very prominent dermatologist in Beverly Hills. And so the bit was, he goes like this. I said, finally, I said, hey, doc, would you take a look at this thing on my nose? First time I've ever seen him go, hold on a minute. He put glasses on for the first time in 30 years ago. How long have you worn glasses? He goes, I don't like how I look in him. And then he sees my nose, he looks at my nose and he goes, oh, shit, Shit. Janice, get Paul in here. And my lawyer. And they all come in and he goes, yeah, I screwed up. That's a melanoma flavor. Carsoni because. And he works for Netflix now. And he had. He had. He. But they cut half my nose off, which is a whole nother story. Send me to a breast cancer guy that could take it off. But he's.

[Bill Maher]

I don't see anything.

[Tim Allen]

Well, now, he did a good job. He goes, he said, I'm gonna have to cut most of your nose off. And he said it like that. And I go, let me explain what I do for a loving. Unless I'm gonna do Blazing Saddles with the guy with the silver nose, I. You have to leave some of my nose on so I can do comedy without doing 20 minutes on having no nose. No, but it all worked out. The guy was good, the surgeon was good. I said, I don't know why.

[Bill Maher]

Amazingly good.

[Tim Allen]

Yeah, well, that's. That. Dermatologically. That's.

[Bill Maher]

All right. Well, thank you.

[Tim Allen]

Thank you, man.

[Bill Maher]

This is such a pleasure.

[Tim Allen]

Oh, God.

[Bill Maher]

I'm telling you. Really? You had a good time.

[Tim Allen]

Is there any place to. Are we ever gonna get out of here? Yes.

[Bill Maher]

Yeah.

[Tim Allen]

You're locked.

[Bill Maher]

I'm getting you off.

[Tim Allen]

We're locked in here.

[Bill Maher]

No, no, no. There's a bathroom right there.

[Tim Allen]

Or it's too late.

[Bill Maher]

Or Club Random. Whatever you want to do.

[Tim Allen]

We'll just.

[Bill Maher]

All you have to do is take a picture.

[Tim Allen]

This is fun.

[Bill Maher]

This was so much fun.

[Tim Allen]

Damn.

[Bill Maher]

Club Random.