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This is me, Craig Ferguson. I'm inviting you to come and see my brand new comedy hour. Well, it's actually, it's about an hour and a half and I don't have an opener because these guys cost money. But what I'm saying is I'll be on stage for a while. Anyway, come and see me live on the Pants on Fire tour in your region. Tickets are on sale now and we'll be adding more as the Tour continues throughout 2025 and beyond. For a full list of dates, go to thecraigfergusonshow.com See you on the road, my dears.
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Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Joy Podcast. My name is Craig Ferguson. I am your host with the Joy Podcast today. Now, if you are listening to me talking and you are not looking at a screen, then you may hear the occasional that's the sound of Santa is on his way. If you are actually watching with a video assist that is on the face, tubes or whatever, then you'll know that I'm wearing my Christmas sweater. My Christmas sweater with the little jangly bells on it. It makes me look like a giant elf or something creepy. But the. It's Christmas time. And if I'm wearing my sweater, it means that I'm home for the last few months. As you know my friends who are regular on the Joid podcast. If you're regular listeners slash watchers slash whatever, jodhpurse, I call you Joy Purse. Then you'll know I've been away so much. I've been in all sorts of different places. I was in California and I was in the South. I was working. I was very busy on a job which, as is the way often in show business, I'm not allowed to tell you about until that job is announced. But I was on the road and I was in hotels and motels and occasionally in my truck, sleeping in my truck. Well, I wasn't sleeping in my truck, but. Well, actually, I did sleep in my truck a couple of times. It was in Miami one time at lunch. I had a rather nice lunch and I slept in my truck. And look, that's not the point of today's talk or podcast. What I'm doing today is I'm letting you know I'm home for Christmas. I'm home for Christmas because I got my. I got my snake mug and I got my Christmas sweater. That was me swooshing because I've had already far too much of Christmas fare already. And I'm, you know, we're hardly into now. I celebrate Christmas because it's my family's tradition and my wife makes me and I have children, but my children are grown now. I do remember in Christmas's past, it all began back in the day. Back in the day. Back in the day. Well, not way back in the day. Not when baby Jesus was born in Manger on Christmas Day in Bethlehem and there were angels and stuff. Oh, no, I'm talking about back in the day when I was a kid, when we had Christmas as a kid. I loved Christmas when I was a kid. It was the most exciting time of the year and the business of. But it was also. It was a bit weird because my father works in the post office. Anyone who works in delivery, if you're an Amazon driver or if you work for FedEx or if you even work in what we still call the post office, my dad worked in the post office then. That time of year, from the beginning of December all the way up until Christmas Eve, really, they used to call it the pressure. Pressure. And my father used to work the pressure. It was like a 12 hour back to back shifts. He would, like, get a lot of overtime. And we weren't a wealthy family, so getting that overtime is very important. And he was working all the time. And when he wasn't working, he would be in the house sleeping. And we had to be very careful as we were little kids walking around to not make noise because my father would be sleeping because of the pressure, or he would be in the house, then we could make a load of noise. But then my mother would be frazzled because of the pressure. The pressure of Christmas was a lot for my family and I think a lot for the families of mail carriers across these great United States. I salute you because you're dealing with the pressure. And it's hard. It's hard dealing with the. But anyway, look, here's the thing. I think that I still think about that even now. Like I am now. I know this is hard to believe, but I am 63 years old. I know you're thinking, craig, what? You clearly moisturize all the time and drink your own kid's blood or whatever that biohacking guy does. No, I don't. I don't do that. Have you seen that biohacking guy? I'm like, I don't know, man. I mean, the fair play, you should try something new. Actually, I don't know much about it. I just see him every now and again. I'm like, oh, what are you doing now, biohacking guy? Then I think, you know, the World is ironic. You know, I'd be careful crossing the road if I was the biohacking guy. You know what I'm saying? Anyway, hopefully that won't happen. Hopefully that won't happen. So what I'm saying is, I think that in the run up to Christmas, even at this advanced age, which I am, I still feel a little nervous. And I get a little nervous because it's the pressure stuff I learned as a kid. I've heard it described as a baby elephant belief. Beliefs that you get when you're little, that they just stay with you forever, even though you can break free of it. I mean, look, I'm not. I don't have to worry about waking up my dad. If I woke up my dad be a miracle. He's been dead since 2006. But the idea of being nervous around something that you don't really need to be nervous about anymore, I think it gets an area called baby elephant beliefs. Because apparently when baby elephants are being trained, they tie the baby elephant's leg to a little stump or something. Look, I'm not condoning this. Also, I don't even know if this is true. It's just an analogy. Don't get mad at me about the elephant stuff. I believe in the elephants should be treated humanely and with kindness and saved and they're beautiful animals. I'm not trying to make this about elephants. When I say humanely, by the way, probably that's not what I mean. What I mean is elephantly, because humanely would be pertaining to humans. And we shouldn't treat elephants like humans. We should treat elephants like elephants. Like give them a big area where they can elephant around and do all the stuff. Anyway, the baby elephant, the idea, I believe the analogy is when training a baby elephant, it's little, you tie its leg to a stump and when it tries feels the pressure on its leg, it knows it can't get away. And even when the elephant grows up and turns into a mighty elephant, it could easily pull away. If you pull a little leg, little wire leg, string or rope on its back leg, the one that used to be tied to trunk, it'll feel that tug and think, oh, I can't move. And then it's stuck where it is. That's a baby elephant belief. Now, look, I'm not clearly an elephant trainer or a psychiatrist or a philosopher even, although I've been on television quite a lot because I do have news for you. Just because you've been on television a lot doesn't make you a psychiatrist. Or a doctor or a philosopher. I know I used to think it did, but it doesn't. It just makes you someone who's been on television a lot. That's a job. I'm not against that. I like television anyway. What was I saying? Oh, yeah. So it's a baby elephant belief for me that I, that I get nervous in the run up to Christmas. So I'm trying to. I'm trying to beat that by cheering myself up and cheering myself up by wearing my excellent Christmas sweater, which has. If you're, if you can't see this, it has beautiful tassels and it's like I'm like a stripper elf or something. You know, I go like that and stripey bits and red things and it's very festive. And I'm calling. Actually, I think I should just come clean and say I'm not wearing a sweater at all. This is all AI. I am. I'm just AI in my seventh. I'm not even here. I just said, hey, hey, Siri, can you put out an episode of my podcast, the Joy podcast, where I'm Christmassy? And that's what this is now. That's not what this is. But I think that can't be far away. I was talking to a computery guy as part of the job that I can tell you about, but I was talking to a computer guy about a month ago and he asked me, he said, how many episodes that old late night you showed you? And I said, 2050, my good man. Which I think that's what it was. Certainly over 2,000. So about 2,000 hours of television, broadcast television. And I would say a good 100 of those 2,000 hours were pretty good. Anyway, what he said was, he said, there will come a point in AI and maybe it's soon where you'll be able to just say to the AI, give me a new episode of the Late Late show with Craig Ferguson. And it will use the imagery of me and the way I talked and all that. And I'll just do a new episode that was like, oh, bollocks, that can't be true. But as I think about it, that's kind of what I did. You go out and see what happens. It's kind of what we're doing right now. I was gonna do a tweets and emails episode of the podcast. Cause I don't have a guest. Don't want to bring in one of my, my family here. You don't want them coming in for Christmas. Well, of course you do. It's wonderful. Help me. But the, the, my family are here for Christmas and I don't have any guests, so I'm talking to myself. And I thought, well, I'll do a tweets and emails segment of the, or episode of the show and then why, why even bother? I'll just talk about Christmas. I'll just, just do that. We'll see where it goes. I thought, I wonder if AI could do that. Do you think AI is going to be able to do that? And if it can, what if it says something horrible? Am I responsible or is the AI responsible? Because if the AI is responsible, then I can send it back. And whenever I said anything, or whenever anybody said anything, you mark my words, this is what's going to happen. When people get called out for shit in the future, they'll just say, who's there? I don't know if anyone else is going to do it, but I'm going to, I'll just go, nah, that. My feeling is that I, I can't be held responsible for what I say there. That's it, really. That's all I have to say about that. But the. Sorry, I'm swooshing, swishing up. This probably sounds very unpleasant or maybe it sounds pleasant. I don't know if you like that kind of sound. By the way, is there a name? I'm sure that you, I mean, look, you're the Internet, you are the, you're the facetube people. You know everything. So let me ask you this, I'm asking you a question. Is there a name? And I'm sure there is, because I think I've heard of it before. They hear the sound of a plastic bottle when it crackles or the sound of a. You know when you get a case for your, your ipods and it makes that little noise. I hate those sounds. I hate them. And see, when I'm on an airplane and I'm sitting next to someone and the airplane's changing pressure, maybe it's coming into land and they've got their water bottle and it starts cracking. It drives me mad. I mean, I don't see anything. I'm Scottish. I just pass it regressively, sigh a little bit and look out the window. But there's a name for that, isn't it? That kind of noise that drives you mad. I can't remember what it is. Anyway, your mission, facetubers, is to, is to send me the name of that, because I'm going to take. This is my big announcement. I'm going to take the week off next week. I'm going to not even do a podcast next week. Even as I say that, you know what? I probably will because I think being in the house, I've been away for a long time. Not away, but I've been on the road and I've been working and I haven't been domestic really for a while. So my guess is that in about a week's time, I'm going to really want to talk to you again because it'll just be you and me talking, like right now. And that is, that's quite nice because then I can just chat and they're about. All right, here's my big announcement. If I do a podcast next week, it's 50 50. I mean, I'll do that. I'll go back and do the podcast again. It's not like I'm gonna stop right now, but I will do the podcast. But it's 5050 whether I do it next week. But I will definitely not be wearing this sweater next week. If you can see, this sweater is a beautiful sweater. It has a mock elf belt on it. Not. You can tell that. The. If you can see. If you can't see it, you just, you now know it as a mock elf belt. Anyway, Christmas, I, I don't know. I mean, it's a time of year for joy. And you know why I like it now? I like it. I used to not like it when I was in my early 20s, I think, what change is it as you get older? I didn't like it in my 20s and 30s. Coincidentally, I didn't like it when I was drinking. That's probably something to do with it. And then when I got sober, I was just kind of like, you know what? Actually it was right about Christmas. I had my worst drinking story or my scariest drinking story, which I've told a lot of times. I'm not going to tell it now, but I mean, you can find it online. Craig Fernison, Drunk Christmas story or something, I suppose. But the, I'm sure it's there because all of that late night stuff is up there, by the way. I don't put that up. I don't, I don't have any access to any of that stuff. But somebody does. And you know, okay, the, you know, good. In fact, I, I, well, I don't know if I can legally say good. I don't own it. So, look, it's nothing to do with me. If it goes up, it goes up, it goes down, it goes down. I. Nothing to do with me, I'm nothing. I'm not involved. I wasn't there. It was AI. Actually, I never did that show. That was all AI. In your mind. In your mind. In your mind. Or maybe it's in my mind. Anyway, what I'm saying is, I didn't like Christmas for a long time. And then when my first kid was born, when Milo was born, I started to like it again because, you know, it's great when you have. Well, I was lucky because, you know, the kids were healthy and we had enough cash to get them presents and stuff because I always think, must be tough. I know it's tough because, you know, when my parents, we. There was four of us. My father worked at the post office and my mother was a teacher, an elementary school teacher. So we weren't rolling in cash. And there were four kids and they had to buy presents. And I was probably the worst. I was a fat, greedy wee boy. And I always wanted the toy du jour. That used to be a thing, didn't it? There was a big toy come out every Christmas and you had to get it. I think that's the plot line of Jingle all the Way With Sinbad and Arnold Schwarzenegger, one of the great forgotten Christmas movies, which I might make my children watch this Christmas period. So it's time for us to watch Jingle all the Way with Sinbad and Arnold Schwarzenegger. I almost had a problem saying Arnold Schwarzenegger. But anyway, he's a problem saying it too, so it's okay. You know, when I started in late night, I remember Arnold Schwarzenegger was the governor of California. And I remember at the time, people would say to me, journalists. And there's always. Journalists would say, do you think people will be able to understand your accent? Or can you have an accent in late night? Can you be on television? They probably wouldn't even be allowed to ask that question now. But back then, God, it was horrendous. They were like, oh, you'll never go. Was a guy remembering. I was 42 when I started doing Late Night. And there was a guy, some executive from NBC at the time. I can't remember the guy's name, but he said, you'll never. He's too old. He's too old to start at late night. I was like a 42. All you do is stand up and talk and sit down and talk. And anyway. Oh, yeah. So they said, will you be able to. To connect with the audience because you have an accent. You can't. You have it. And I said, look, the governor of California can't even pronounce the name of the state, which he's the governor of. And everybody's fine with that. And swarms like. It was actually a bit of a lighthouse for me in many ways. Because after a while, Arnie's accent isn't really an accent. It's just the way he talks, isn't it? It's like you and. But that's just the way he talks, so it just becomes his voice. And I think that's probably happened to me in America as well. I mean, I still get people saying, oh, Shrek, farty Donkey to me, but it's usually my family, because that's a Scottish people talk. It's not how we talk a little bit. It's a little bit how we talk. Anyway, Christmas is coming and then New Year's, and that's the big holiday in Scotland. Not so much Christmas, although Christmas is a big deal with children and stuff like that. But the big holiday in Scotland this time of year, it's called. It's New Year's. Obviously it's, you know, January, December 31st into the 1st of January, but it's not called New Year's. It's called Holiday Hogmanay. Hogmanay. And there are many, I suspect, pagan traditions around Hogmanay. For example, there's something called first footing, where the first person to knock on your doorbell after the chimes of midnight at the start of the new year, that's your first foot, right? That's the. So you go out first footing, and you go around the neighborhood. You knock on a doorbell after midnight. Sometimes people have been drinking because it's late at night and it's Scotland and it's Hogmanay, which is a big drinky thing. So you go out at night and you wait until after midnight. You have to go outside and wait. Then you knock on someone's door and they open the door and you bring them a gift of probably black bun, which is a type of bunny. Or shortbread, is very popular. Delicious shortbread or whiskey. Whiskey is popular in all areas of that. Izh Kiba, the water of life. So that happens. And your first foot at your house, it's good luck. If they are tall, dark and handsome, they don't specify gender, they don't specify ethnicity. Only tall, dark and handsome, that's what you want. So tall, dark and handsome, that's preferable for a first footer at your house. That's good luck. There's also things like my mother used to clean the house before the new year. She'd, like, clean it all down and wash the windows and go nuts once a year. Actually, this is a Christmas thing. I've just remembered this. I thought it was New Year's, but it was Christmas once a year. My mother used to make Hungarian goulash. Now, full disclosure, there's no Hungarians in my family that I know of. We're not connected to Hungary in any way. And certainly there's no reason why my mother should know how to make Hungarian goulash. But apparently she did. And every. Every year, every festive period, she would make Hungarian goulash. And it was a. You know, it's Hungarian goulash with rice. And for us, or certainly for me, it was an extremely, extremely exotic dish that I would kind of look forward to and then fast forward till about 2009. That was the first time I ever went to Hungary. Went to the great city of Budapest, which is combined, of course, the city of Buddha and the city of Pest. Budapest. And I went to Budapest, which is in Hungary, and I thought, you know what? I'd go down a treat right now, Some Hungarian goulash, just like Mama used to make. Just like your Scottish mother used to make. So I went out to an authentic Hungarian restaurant, of which there are many in Budapest, which I'm sure that will come as no surprise to you. We went to Hungarian, and I owned the Hungarian goulash. And I have to say it was nothing like my mother's. And I realized now that my mother's Hungarian goulash was mince. It was minced beef with, I think, some kind of sweet barbecue sauce in it or something. And the rice was rice. So I think to my mother, it was Hungary in goulash. But it wasn't really, I think, to any Hungarians who may have come to visit, they would have been like, the hell is this? But that's kind of the way of it. You know, when you live in Scotland in the 1960s and 70s, as I did as a child, there wasn't a lot. I didn't have a lot of information about other places, you know, so it could be Hungarian goulash. My father, when I was very little, used to make something that he called Chinese egg. It was that it was his signature dish that he would make. If, you know, if for some reason my mother was incapacitated in any way, or it was one of the very rare occasions when my father had to look after us because my mother wasn't doing it for whatever reason that may have come up. My Father would cook Chinese egg. Now, my father, full disclosure. And my family have, to my knowledge, I think the first person in my family to visit China was Maiwo, my son. So he wasn't around then, obviously. And my father didn't have any connection to China. I'd never been there, didn't know anything about it. We make Chinese egg. And I look at the ingredients of Chinese egg, and I think. I think my father may have just said that to sell it to us as children. So we'd go, chinese egg. Oh, this is amazing. Because really, the ingredients of Chinese egg are a boiled egg in a cup, not unlike this, but not a snake cup, obviously. More of a. Just like a tea mug or a coffee mug. A boiled egg in there. And then here's the ingredient that made it Chinese egg. He would cut a slice of toast with a pair of scissors into squares, like tiny little squares, and then mash up the egg and the little bit of toast in there. Now I'm talking. We're very young. I'm not talking about. I'm talking about, like, when I was five or something. I don't know, whatever age I was. But that was Chinese egg. And I realized now that in China, they probably don't do that so much. Maybe they do the. I just got a text. Sorry. Happy Chinese egg Day. It's. So anyway, there's no. Nothing to do with it. Now fast forward again. Years later, I was looking after Liam, my youngest boy, when he was very little. He was about five, I guess, five or six. And his mother was off doing something, and I thought, let me Chinese egg. And I thought, I feel, like, uncomfortable somehow with that whole concept. So I made him ham pancakes. Ham pancakes, just so as, you know, are pancake batter in a pan. You make a pancake and then ham. You get the ham and you put it on the pancake. It's not a big deal. But little kids will fall for anything, I realize. And if you give it a name, then it becomes exciting. Like when I was trying to get the kids to eat apples or fruit or just shit that kids fight you on for some reason. Anything that is good for them, I would say. I would cut it up. I would cut an apple into the shape of fries, and then I would say, it's kid fries, and they eat it. They eat it. They eat it up. So. Don't know where I'm going with that, actually. Oh, yeah, I guess it's. Anyway, it's the Christmas episode. I thought I would just like to wish you all merry Christmas. Don't let your baby elephant beliefs get you down, you know, it'll be all right. And the other thing is, if you have children, remember, they're gullible. I think that's the takeaway from this. So the whole, you know, Hungarian goulash of it all, you know, may be the way to do it. I will be here for Christmas at home, and then I'll be, I think, at home for Hogmanay, which you now know is Scottish New Year. You probably knew that. Anyway, it's not like it's a secret or anything. And. I think that's it. I wish you all the goodwill of the season and try and have a good time. It's sometimes a little tricky for people this time of year and even. Although things are cool around here. But I know what you mean, because something rises up, you know what I mean? So fight against it. Put on your best Christmas sweater, you know, put on a happy face, walk the fuck through it, and it'll be the 26th of December before you know it. Which is my way of saying, merry Christmas, my darlings. Have a lovely time and I'll see you soon. Sa.