B&T Extra: Comedian John Heffron

Summary

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The BOB & TOM Show Extra: Comedian John Heffron

Podcast: The BOB & TOM Show Free Podcast
Episode: B&T Extra: Comedian John Heffron
Date: June 8, 2026
Guest: John Heffron

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Overview

This episode features accomplished stand-up comedian John Heffron joining The BOB & TOM Show crew for a lively, laugh-filled conversation. The discussion weaves through hilarious takes on aging, technology mishaps, contemporary domestic life, stories from the road, and Heffron’s surprising foray into science fiction writing. Listeners are treated to Heffron’s sharp observational humor and candid thoughts on everything from eye care to modern appliances, as well as personal anecdotes about his life and creative pursuits.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Catching Up with John Heffron

(05:44–06:27)

• John Heffron shares that he recently moved after living on a farm and has been married for around five years.
• The group jokes about aging: Heffron notes new habits like wearing glasses and the hassle of contacts.

The Struggles of Contacts and Aging Vision

(06:02–08:52)

• Heffron humorously details the ordeal of putting in contacts, complicated by his different prescriptions in each eye.
• Observational riff on how tiny the fonts are on contact packaging, joking:

  "I don't know who designed... what size font should we use right here? A three, probably." (06:34, John Heffron)

• Relates a story about experiencing a “placebo” effect, thinking he put the contacts in when he hadn’t.

Health Mishaps & Comedy on Stage

(08:54–15:08)

• Heffron explains "positional vertigo" and how it once struck him during a show, resulting in him grabbing the mic to stay upright and sweating so much that a lady heckled:

  "'Please go to the hospital!'" (09:43, Heffron relaying a heckler’s plea)

• Describes the generational disconnect between seasoned comics and younger club managers.
• Revels in self-deprecating humor about being a “vanilla” comedian who avoids edgy topics:

  “I'm the Matchbox 20 of comedy... you guys will enjoy me, but you're indifferent.” (09:18, Heffron)

Modern Appliances and Domestic Life

(11:17–15:08)

• Heffron riffs on being asked by his wife to research washer-dryer combos at Costco and muses on his lack of purchasing authority:

  “I don't have the power of attorney to purchase a washer and dryer.” (12:11, Heffron)

• Contrasts today’s “emotionally sensitive” appliances (“Montessori dryers”) with the tough, unforgiving machines of his childhood:

  “Washer and dryers now are coddled... back then you'd rush down, touch it, steam would come out, you'd reach your finger in and have Oshkosh branded onto your thumb.” (13:54, Heffron)

Writing ‘The Maskers’ and Living with ADD

(15:26–18:59)

• Heffron discusses being diagnosed with ADD in his fifties and taking an Adderall test at a clinic alongside a teenager.
• Shares how the ADD experience (and frustration with Adderall) inspired him to write his book, “The Maskers”:

  “By the time nighttime came, I was so mad that I took Adderall, I wrote an 80,000 word essay about how Adderall does not affect men in their 50s.” (17:27, Heffron)

• “The Maskers” is a sci-fi novel about a gig-economy future where people put on a mask to be client avatars and receive brief endorphin boosts for pleasing customers.

Audiobook and Grandpa Reading Woes

(19:06–20:57)

• Heffron admits he didn’t narrate his own audiobook, citing embarrassment over his reading aloud skills and recounts childhood anxieties about reading in class.
• Humorous story about meeting his step-granddaughter and flubbing a dinosaur book reading, only for her and her siblings to “fire” him as grandpa:

  “This one bores me.” (20:48, Heffron as his granddaughter)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On contact lenses packaging:
  “I don't know who wrote the number... get a guy who can paint battleships on rice, do you want him to write the numbers? Yes, get that guy.” (06:38, John Heffron)
• On being a safe, self-deprecating comic:
  “I’m vanilla, I throw softballs...” (09:12, Heffron)
• On generational differences in appliances:
  “Our washer dryers back then... you could put snowmobile boots in there. A little brother. And now it goes blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” (14:08, Heffron)
• On ADD testing at age 55:
  “Do I get a sticker or dog now, what happens?” (16:00, Heffron)
• On family hierarchy and step-grandpa status:
  “I'm coming into this reading tournament, fifth seed grandparading. You're an underdog.” (20:21, Heffron)
• On being unable to narrate his own audiobook:
  “I'm such a bad out loud reader. Like, remember when you're in school and the teacher goes, everyone’s going to take a paragraph. Yeah. And then you get nervous...” (19:11, Heffron)

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Timestamps Guide for Key Segments

• 05:44 — Show brings on John Heffron, casual catching up
• 06:02 — Glasses, contacts, and aging eyesight annoyances
• 08:54 — Positional vertigo story, comedy club incidents
• 11:17 — Modern household appliances and “purchase authority” jokes
• 15:26 — ADD diagnosis, Adderall story, writing “The Maskers”
• 18:59 — Book plug; discussing the audiobook and reading aloud
• 20:21 — Story about awkward grandpa book reading

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Tone & Personality

The episode is lighthearted and rapid-paced, mixing punchy jokes, playful banter, and John Heffron’s signature self-effacing comedy. The hosts keep the energy high, riffing off Heffron’s stories with camaraderie and encouragement.

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For Further Listening

Heffron’s book, The Maskers, is available on Amazon in print and audiobook. Listeners interested in more of his blend of observational and self-deprecating humor can follow his ongoing work through comedy specials, live events, and the show’s future episodes.

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This summary omits advertisements, sponsor reads, and non-content segments for a concise overview focused on the heart of the conversation.

Transcript

[Bob Kevoian]

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[Christopher (Tom Griswold)]

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[Show Host]

Welcome back. It's another Bob and Tom Extra. This is Christopher. Not only is the Bob and Tom show live every weekday morning, but every afternoon we'll give you a little extra in case you missed anything. Coming up on the show today, comedian John Heffron. He's coming up in just a minute.

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[Bob Kevoian]

What are you doing out here?

[Christopher (Tom Griswold)]

Same thing you're doing. You got a light?

[Bob Kevoian]

Oh. We are smoking in front of the building. We are standing, we are talking, but mostly we are smoking. We are smoking in front of the building. Oh. We are smoking in front of the building. We are puffing, we are gagging. We are happy because we're smoking. We are smoking in front of the building. Hacking, wheezing, Choking, croaking. We love smoking. I met a girl from another office. She's a smoker just like me. Now we're dating and we're smoking. We're smoking in front of the building. We are smoking in front of the building. And we smell like we've been camping. It could be raining, it could be snowing, but we're smoking in front of a building. Hatting, wheezing, barely breathing, soaking, croaking. We love smoking. I never was a smoker until I looked outside. They were smoking while I was working. So now I'm smoking in front of the building. We are smoking in front of the building. And the ashtrays are overflowing. We are smoking instead of working. We are smoking in front of a building. We are smoking in front of a building. We are standing, we are talking, but mostly we are smoking. We are smoking in front of the building. Smoking in front of the building. Smoking.

[Christopher (Tom Griswold)]

In front of the building.

[Bob Kevoian]

Now some more Bob and Tom. This is Bob and Tom. Extra.

[John Heffron]

John Heffron, a distinguished comedian for many years. And we've established a few things. You just moved. You were living on a farm there for a while. You've been married for. You said you think, five years.

[Christopher (Tom Griswold)]

Yeah.

[John Heffron]

Since I last saw you. I don't recall you wearing glasses. But before. This is just part of the aging process.

[Christopher (Tom Griswold)]

This. Yeah, yeah. It's definitely because I'm 50. I said 56. I'm only 55. I don't know. I. I don't do good numbers. Yeah, I have a numbers guy, but. So I'm supposed to wear contacts on stage because I have positional vertigo. But here's what I. You guys will wear contacts. Average amount of time it takes. Put contacts in about an hour and 25 minutes.

[Bob Kevoian]

Okay.

[Christopher (Tom Griswold)]

Okay. And here's what I realized about contacts. You need glasses on to put contacts is a thing that I can't. So what happens is. So I have one eye. This eye is 350. Right. And this eye is 125. So it's weird. So everyone on this side of the room, I see your soul. Everybody on this side of the room, I see there's a hair right here that I miss. So kind of like there's a moth on my ring cam. Just kind of annoying. But so even before here, I'm like, I'm gonna wear my contacts. So I look at the. You know, it says left or right? You gotta look at the. I don't know who designed. Because if you don't want contacts to come in this, like, McNugget dipping sauce thing, and then you have to look at the number and go, oh, that's the left or right side. But I don't know who wrote the number. Yeah. Because they're like, hey, we gotta. What size font should we use right here? A three, probably. Yeah. But the people can't see it. I don't care about the people. Get a thing. And then guy at the meeting raised his hand. He goes, listen, I know a guy who can paint battleships on rice. Do you want to get him to write the numbers? Yes, get that guy. Now. Now we have room for random serial numbers and a website.

[John Heffron]

Yeah. And they also that. Remember that fad on stereos when people had stereos to do? Pretty much dark gray ink on black. Yeah. You can't read anything. You can't see it.

[Christopher (Tom Griswold)]

Yeah, I don't. I. I thought I put contacts in and walked around the house, and I was like, oh, I. I see Claire. You know, I saw p. Posters or not pictures on the wall that I could never read. Like, we have a rules of the house. My wife has, like, this house is laughter and joy and. And supper. And it's like. And if you keep reading. And we have the right to sell your information to third parties, Right. You can't. You just keep reading. And. And I saw that. And then the whole day I thought I saw better. Then I went to brush my teeth, looked down into the sink. It saw two contacts. So what did that mean? They never made it into my face. But the whole day I saw better. I had placebo contact and it worked.

[Bob Kevoian]

Wow.

[Christopher (Tom Griswold)]

Yeah.

[John Heffron]

What does positional vertigo mean?

[Christopher (Tom Griswold)]

It's. I had it on stage. It's weird. It's. If I move my head too quick or up and down, I'm done. Right. So I was on stage a couple months ago, and the whole room started spitting like Superman. So I grab a hold of the mic because I think I'm going to fall. And then I start to flop sweat, right? And then this lady heckles me. And if you don't know me as comic, I don't get heckled a lot. Because for 36 years, I only make fun of myself. I don't do jokes about race, religion, or I'm. I'm vanilla, I throw softballs. I'm. I'm the matchbox 20 of comedy. You know, like, you guys will enjoy me, but you're indifferent. Like, people will come to my show and go, that guy was hilarious. And if there was a police sketch artist and go, can you tell us what he looked like? They'll go, no, he didn't know nothing about him. Stuck. Stuck. I just know I enjoyed myself for that. So I'm sweating like crazy and the lady in the front row just goes, please go to the hospital. So then I get off stage and I find this little room at the comedy club and I fall and I. And I throw up. And you know, the comedy club managers, I love them, but at this point in my life, they all were fired from Dave and Buster's and now they're over managing comedy clubs in their 20 and they wanted to make sure, you know, you know, can you keep your time tight? We have two shows Saturday. Yeah, I knew that in 87 when I started. Thank you. Thank you for explaining that to me. Yeah, I'm not an Instagram star. We have to explain how. So I'm on the ground throwing up and man, I threw up a piece of hubba bubba from 1982. And the manager kid is above me going, do you want to. Should you go to the hospital? And here he's a young kid, so he doesn't know a couple things. I'm a 55 year old married guy. I don't have. Do I go to the hospital? Decision making capabilities. That's not my department. That's not. I don't have that type of. You have to ask the wife. Does he go to the hospital? I don't have that type of. Because my wife did that recently. I went to Costco for my glasses just because I like hot dogs. I don't have time to get into it. So she texted me again and she goes, hey, while you're at Costco, can you look at washer and dryers? Which I thought was a funny text because again, I don't have the power of attorney to purchase a washer and dryer. And so we had to get two new ones and the ones we had the brand not a fan of. I don't know who your sponsors are. So will this thing. I'll just say it plays a five minute song when it thinks it's done. So our washer and dryers are very Gen Z, like very xennial. Here's why. You could throw a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans into the washer. It'll get to the spin cycle and go. And then stop and just go, I'm unbalanced right now. I just don't feel unbalanced. I don't think you're giving me the safe space I need to. And then you just yell at it, you know, open the lid, right? And then our dryer is the same, you know, same thing in my. Our dryer is like we, we sense when clothes are dry. We just sense it. We're, we're a Montessori dryer. We believe in clothes first. And we don't like to label all the clothes as dry because some clothes don't dry at the same speed. So we don't want those clothes to feel less than. So we let them just dry at their own speed. So then that real quick. Then it made me think of growing up. So I was born, right? We were up and then I went to my parents house and there was a washer, a dryer and a refrigerator already there before I got there. In my entire life, I don't remember a new one coming in my entire life. They did replace. And I think back to the washer and dryers of the 70s and 80s. Follow me on this one. Washer and dryers now are coddled. You listening? You probably have your washer and dryer. There's probably shiplap behind it with subway tile. And then there's a sign that says laundry and suds. 5 cents, right? So our washer dryers back then you'd have to go downstairs, pull the click the light. Hope you don't get murdered, right? And they were that lime green yellow and there was no unbalanced. I just pictured them being very Detroit Teamstery. Those wash was like, look, you get your job done, you're unbalanced, you take it home. What are you? Curling iron. That's right. And you could put snowmobile boots in there. A little brother. And now it goes blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you come downstairs and it was 10ft off the wall, right? And your mom's sitting on it, which is weird. And then, right? And then our dryer on ours has like seven this, like this one click. Just be nice to this shirt. Like just don't like, don't tumble it hard. This one tumble for like a minute, then take a 30 second rest and then a minute and do five of those. Our dryer back then was I don't even remember. Like a timer. There's a button. Yeah. And you hit it. And that attitude was, look, okay, you're not down here in 22 minutes. It all burns. It all burns. I'm not a baby, right. You rush down there, you touch it, steam would come out, you'd reach your finger and you'd have Oshkosh branded onto your thumb. And then you pull out your favorite sweatshirt. Oh man, it looks, you got like you got it from Wish or something.

[Bob Kevoian]

Oh God. All true.

[John Heffron]

John Heffron. Hey, Absolute facts about contemporary life. Also an author of a, a non comedy book is safe to say called the Maskers. Kind of a sci fi meets.

[Christopher (Tom Griswold)]

Yeah, I did. If we have time, I'll give you a quick origin story. So I was driving to Costco. Remember that story from a little bit ago? So I'm driving there and my wife said, hey, you have to get tested today. I'm going to make this very quick. So I had to go to a clinic and at 55, get tested for ADD.

[Show Host]

Okay.

[Christopher (Tom Griswold)]

So I walk into this room, it's me and some 14 year old kid getting ready to take this thing. And the test taker person goes, okay, everybody going to take this test. It's going to be about three hours long. And I go, I have add. Was that the test? Was that the real test? Like the paper test doesn't mean anything, just how we respond. So I have add. Do I get a sticker or dog now what, what happen? Right? So then I have not been in a desk to take a test since, gosh, probably Bon Jovi Never say goodbye was number one. So I'm sitting there, the 14 year old kid is just in it and I'm bored. So I did what I, what I did back in there. I took out my little knife, I carved the Van Halen symbol into the desk. I took out a marker, wrote this class sucks.

[Bob Kevoian]

Right?

[Christopher (Tom Griswold)]

You're a TIE fighter. Then I got up for no reason, walked in front and mimicked sharpening a pencil just because my body was like used to do this. Yeah. And then I took the thing off and got rid of the shavings. Just be a brown noser to the teacher. Yeah. And then when I walked by a girl who was taking it, I had one of those paper things and I go pick a color. And I did that little. And so I took the test and if you could score 20, I got like a 17, right? So then they go, hey, we're gonna put you on Adderall. That'll make you Feel better now? I'm. I'm anti Big Farm. I'm like, I'm not taking a pill. Just you take a pill. So they go, just try it for one week. I go, I don't really want to do this. So I took it that morning and that afternoon I told my wife. I'm like, this isn't gonna do anything. This isn't doing anything. I'm mad that I actually took it. And by the time nighttime came, I was so mad that I took an Adderall. I wrote an 80,000 word essay about how Adderall does not affect men in their 50s. And then when I was moving the garage from the left side of the house to the right, I'm like, the world needs to know that Adderall does nothing. So the musical comes out, I believe, in February. And then that got us to this book where I'm like, I have this idea for a book. Boy, Adderall. Since Adderall is not working, I'm gonna knock out this book. So I wrote the. I'm pretty proud of it. It's a science fiction book. Basically, it happens in the not too near future where there's no jobs, there's only a gig economy. And so people put on a mask and they become the avatar that the customer wants them to be. Because everyone loves their avatars, right? And every time the masker does what the customer wants, they get a 8 second, like boost of energy, like, like endorphin rush. But then it goes away after eight seconds. And if you don't do what the customer wants, you don't get one. So everybody's a drug addict with the maskers. I went from that. I wrote a soundtrack for it. The Bad Company. I made a fake LinkedIn page for it all. All because Adderall does nothing for us.

[John Heffron]

That book is called the Maskers and it is available on Amazon. There's even an audiobook. But not your voice.

[Christopher (Tom Griswold)]

Not my voice? Nope.

[John Heffron]

How did that conversation go? The publisher goes, well, you've got a nice book here.

[Christopher (Tom Griswold)]

I listen. I'm such a bad out loud reader. Like, remember when you're in school and the teacher go, everyone's going to take a paragraph. Yeah. And then you get nervous and you start counting the desks leading up to you. You're like, 1, 2, 3. And then you practice it. The Duck Bill. Platypus is the only mammal. No, come on, man. Come on. Be more natural. Hey, guys, you know the duck Bill. Then the girl in front of you would be like, the Duck Bill Play like I miscounted. Now I gotta read it long, and it, like, it bothers me reading. So I married into being a grandpa, right? So when I met my granddaughter Jane for the first time, I'm nervous. You know, you're meeting them, and now kids have a lot of grandparents. Like, when I was growing up, it felt like you only had a couple, but now grandma's married three times, so you have the original grandpa. Number two still says hi every once in a while, and then you have the most current, so there's six just on the mom side, right? So Jane wanted me to read. So I'm coming into this reading tournament. Fifth seed grandparading. You're an underdog. And so they hand me this dinosaur book, and I can't. I'm like. And then the allotment tritops, and they're like little kids. They just took the book out of my hand and just chucked it, right? They did not like my read. And then now they have, you know, choices. So they all looked at their mom and went, mother, bring us a new grandpapa. This one bores me. Yeah.

[Show Host]

That's it for another Bob and Tom show. Extra. Catch us on itunes, Google play and stitcher for Bob and Tom. Extra. This is Christopher. Take care, everybody.

[Christopher (Tom Griswold)]

Full send golf. You guys know how much I really, really love Golf. Full send Golf 2v2. Me and VOD versus Big John and Kyle.

[Bob Kevoian]

Oh, it feels good to be back

[Christopher (Tom Griswold)]

on the links with the boys. Join the party on the golf course.

[Bob Kevoian]

Back to golf.

[Christopher (Tom Griswold)]

Golf in a big way. Now what? Practice.

[John Heffron]

Let's go.

[Christopher (Tom Griswold)]

Let's hit the range. I was like, let's go to the range. We are headed to the golf cart, y'.

[Quince Brand Announcer]

All.

[Christopher (Tom Griswold)]

You want to golf with us?

[Bob Kevoian]

No.

You don't play golf?

[Christopher (Tom Griswold)]

No. Try. We gotta break par. I'm very, very excited. You excited? Yes. Full send golf. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.