Punkie Johnson–I Was On SNL

Summary

Podcast Title: Toure Show
Host: DCP Entertainment
Episode: Punkie Johnson–I Was On SNL
Release Date: March 26, 2025
Website: dcpofficial.com/toureshow

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Introduction

In this captivating episode of Toure Show, host Toure engages in an in-depth conversation with Punkie Johnson, a celebrated comedian renowned for her four-year stint on Saturday Night Live (SNL). Hailing from New Orleans, Punkie shares her journey through the competitive world of comedy, her experiences on one of television’s most iconic stages, and the personal challenges she navigated along the way.

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Early Life and Comedy Beginnings

Punkie Johnson’s comedic roots trace back to her vibrant upbringing in New Orleans. Growing up in a family that found humor in everyday situations, Punkie developed her unique comedic style influenced by her relatives’ inadvertent humor. She reflects:

"You know how you'll just be looking at somebody and they'll just be having a random conversation with somebody and you could just look at their mannerisms and see how they talking to people and you just bust out laughing?" (07:40)

Punkie began her comedy career at the age of 25, motivated by a desire to break out of her immediate environment and pursue her passion for acting and stand-up.

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The Road to SNL

Moving to Los Angeles marked a pivotal moment in Punkie’s career. Despite facing skepticism from peers who doubted her potential for mainstream success, she remained steadfast in her ambitions. Her determination was tested as she navigated auditions and the challenges of stand-up comedy:

"I was trying to pitch him [Elon Musk]. I was like, oh, yes. This how you pitched him an idea? And he said, 'That's not funny.'" (00:22)

Despite initial setbacks and waking up contemplating alternative careers during the COVID-19 pandemic, Punkie’s perseverance paid off when she landed a spot on SNL.

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Experiences on SNL

Punkie’s time on SNL was a mix of high-energy performances and emotional challenges. She discusses the rigorous environment, the creative pressures, and the constant quest for recognition:

"SNL taught me how to produce. SNL taught me how to direct. SNL taught me basically, when it comes down to producing your own project, you have to have your own vision." (33:53)

She highlights the camaraderie with fellow cast members like Ego and the unique dynamics within the show’s team. However, the relentless cycle of auditions, sketch creations, and frequent rejections took a toll on her mental health:

"It was time to go back for another year. So then the next year came... the writer jobs wasn't happening. I was running out of money." (55:13)

Punkie candidly shares how the constant rejection and imposter syndrome led her to a breaking point, ultimately deciding to leave SNL to preserve her mental well-being.

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Personal Struggles and Identity

Beyond the spotlight, Punkie delves into her personal life, discussing her journey with her sexuality and the complexities of her identity as a black, gay woman in the entertainment industry:

"We mirrored a heterosexual relationship. That's what we do... but queer, man, fuck that, so it's just. But it's just a way of like calling for respect for this group of people." (12:24)

She recounts her early realization of her sexuality during ninth grade and the societal pressures that influenced her perception of herself. Punkie also touches on the challenges of navigating relationships within the gay community and the nuances of identity politics in Hollywood.

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Reflections on Being Black and LGBTQ+

Punkie proudly embraces her black heritage and LGBTQ+ identity, emphasizing the strength and resilience that comes with it. She articulates:

"I love being black. I would die and come back black every time. I feel like being black is swagalicious. I feel like being black is a statement. I feel like being black is fearless." (83:18)

Her discussions highlight the intersectionality of her experiences, balancing her cultural identity with her sexual orientation, and the imperative of representation in comedy and media.

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Lessons Learned and Future Endeavors

Leaving SNL was a turning point for Punkie, prompting her to reconnect with her authentic self and re-evaluate her comedic direction. She reflects on the importance of staying true to her vision and the lessons she garnered from her time on the show:

"I went back to watching my old self before SNL. I went back to see who that person was before I got there. Because I needed to become familiar with why I started this in the first place." (63:23)

Punkie is now focused on building her own comedic bubble, aspiring to create content that resonates universally while maintaining her unique voice. She shares her plans to present a new special to Netflix, illustrating her commitment to evolving as an artist:

"I'm about to pop that bitch off. Hopefully get a viral clip." (63:21)

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Memorable Moments on SNL

Punkie reminisces about her favorite characters and sketches from her SNL tenure, highlighting the creative highs that defined her experience:

• Pineapple: Her inaugural character, created during the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, received a warm reception from the audience.

  "I wrote it at 4:30 in the morning. And it got picked. And that's my first character." (44:09)

• Latina Jefferson: A character that showcased her ability to blend cultural nuances with humor, earning her significant acclaim.

  "She was just a hustling woman just trying to make it. Whenever it's not going well over here, she goes on the Latina side and see if she can slide." (49:29)

• Dope Ass Update: A viral song that Punkie penned, which she humorously claims as one of SNL’s top tracks.

  "I think it's, they got this chick, and they need a Latina. We're in this world, and they're like, we need a Latina." (46:34)

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Relationship Dynamics and Personal Insights

Punkie opens up about her personal relationships, the dynamics of dating within the LGBTQ+ community, and the challenges of maintaining authentic connections:

"You have to tell me what's going on so that I can know what's going on. You can't tell me to leave and then I leave, and you mad cause I leave." (77:40)

Her candidness provides listeners with an unfiltered glimpse into the complexities of her personal life, underscoring the importance of communication and understanding in relationships.

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Conclusion and Future Outlook

As the episode winds down, Punkie reflects on her journey, the lessons learned from SNL, and her unwavering commitment to her craft. She expresses gratitude towards her support system, including Lena Waithe, and looks forward to new opportunities that align with her authentic self:

"I had to remember my dog. You a stand up. You never gave a fuck about none of this Hollywood shit. You never cared about these parties." (63:04)

Punkie’s story is one of resilience, self-discovery, and the relentless pursuit of one’s true voice in a challenging industry. Her journey serves as an inspiration for aspiring comedians and actors striving to carve out their niche in the world of entertainment.

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Notable Quotes:

• Pitching to Elon Musk:
  Punky Johnson (00:22): "Elon can get anything he wants. He can get the mailman to shit himself. He can get the dogs to lick his head. He can have any woman he wants. Brenda doesn't like it, except Brenda."

• On Rejection at SNL:
  Punky Johnson (35:40): "SNL made me soft because it was a thing of, like. And I mean, it's a thing of please, please, please pick me, Daddy."

• Embracing Black Identity:
  Punky Johnson (83:18): "I love being black. I would die and come back black every time. I feel like being black is swagalicious. I feel like being black is a statement. I feel like being black is fearless."

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Final Thoughts

Punkie Johnson’s episode on Toure Show is a compelling narrative of triumphs, tribulations, and the enduring pursuit of authenticity in the face of adversity. Her insights offer valuable lessons on resilience, identity, and the power of humor as a tool for connection and self-expression.

For more inspiring conversations, tune into Toure Show every Wednesday for new episodes and catch throwback episodes on Sundays.

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Follow & Connect:

• TikTok: @ToureShow
• Instagram: @ToureShow
• Produced by: Ashley Hobbs
• Editor: Ryan Woodhall
• Booker: Ray Holiday
• Distributed by: DCP Entertainment

Transcript

[Torre]

Who's your favorite host?

[Punky Johnson]

Who? Elon. I'm just playing.

[Torre]

Was he your least favorite host?

[Punky Johnson]

No. He. He. He threw me off a little bit to start because he was.

[Torre]

His monologue was ridiculous.

[Punky Johnson]

He threw me off because when we met, I was trying to pitch him. I was like, oh, yes.

[Torre]

This how you pitched him an idea? And he said, that's not funny.

[Punky Johnson]

He was looking at me like, what? Okay. I'm like, elon Musk, the richest man in the world, goes into the Waffle House, falls in love with the waitress, Brenda. Elon can get anything he wants. He can get the mailman to shit himself. He can get the dogs to lick his head. He can have any woman he wants. Brenda doesn't like it, except Brenda. And he was like.

[Torre]

And of course she's you.

[Punky Johnson]

He was like, why wouldn't Brenda want me? I was like, you know what? Never mind. Never mind. Motherfucker.

[Torre]

Wow.

[Punky Johnson]

He's like, I don't understand why Brenda wouldn't want me.

[Torre]

Wow.

[Punky Johnson]

And then his friend was like, I could get it if he had, like, a dog paw for a hand. I'm like, you know what? Never mind, y'all. The tour ratio, okay, though? Detour ratio, okay, though?

[Torre]

That might be the best question I've ever been asked.

[Punky Johnson]

User for phenomenal person. I mean, legendary. I am a fan of you. My brother.

[Torre]

Punky Johnson is the funniest person to ever exist in the entire world. She was on SNL for four years. She grew up in New Orleans. We had an amazing conversation about where she came from as a comedian and what it was like to be on snl. The highs and the lows. Let's get into it. And it's Punky Johnson on tour. Asia. Punky.

[Punky Johnson]

Yes.

[Torre]

How you doing?

[Punky Johnson]

I'm good. I'm good. How you doing? I'm good.

[Torre]

How are you?

[Punky Johnson]

Look, I done had a rough couple weeks. I'm tired. I'm tired with bleach. But you know what? I'm juicing this weekend to clean it out. I'm cleaning up.

[Torre]

Cause you were at Mardi Gras.

[Punky Johnson]

I was at Mardi Gras.

[Torre]

And it's drama because you're from New Orleans. I'm from New Orleans, so it's extra for you.

[Punky Johnson]

Look, we out there, we eating all the time. We drinking all the time. Then you're drinking again, and you eating again, and you're outside all day. You outside all night. You've been walking the routes with the people, and you're making friends, and, you know, you finding these little kids to Put on your shoulder, I hope you.

[Torre]

Didn'T separate them from their parents.

[Punky Johnson]

It's so crazy how everybody just does the same dance. Well, correct term is Mardi Gras, but we from New Orleans, we say Mardi Gras. So it's crazy how everybody do the same dance at Mardi Gras. You know, you kind of be like. It's kind of like these strangers get together and you become family. At least on the streets where I be, I don't like to be deep down on Canal street, close to Bourbon. That's where all the drama at. I like to be on St. Charles, where it's families and his friends and his tourists and his visitors, and everybody's smiling. They want to have a good time.

[Torre]

It's a beautiful town.

[Punky Johnson]

Yes.

[Torre]

It's love, it's culture. It's amazing food. It's friendliness.

[Punky Johnson]

And the food is the reason why I'm going under Daggone Cleanse.

[Torre]

And there's. It's a real hood. It's a real hood.

[Punky Johnson]

Oh, Lord, the hood. See, you know, a lot of people be like, punky, I'm going to New Orleans. What should I eat? I'm like, you can't ask me what to eat. Why? Because I'm not sending you to the quarters. I'm not sending you to all these little cute little places that you might.

[Torre]

See on TikTok and Instagram or see and prepared for.

[Punky Johnson]

I'm sending you to the hood, where they turn their head when they seasoning stuff. What you doing, huh? What you doing, girl? I'm fixing. Oh, shit. Damn it. And that's how they season food. Where I'm sending you.

[Torre]

Wait, what's the number one place you would send me?

[Punky Johnson]

Well, it depends on what you want. So for crawfish, it's just so many good places for crawfish. My number one, who I love, honestly, is Mid City on St. Bernardin Broad.

[Torre]

I don't even know what you just said.

[Punky Johnson]

Mid City on St. Bernardin Broad. Now, that's the hood. It's right behind the Walgreens.

[Torre]

You know what I love? It's Dookie Chase.

[Punky Johnson]

Okay? Look at Chase.

[Torre]

And I went. And I met Mama Chase.

[Punky Johnson]

Oh, yeah.

[Torre]

I went there while she was there, and she told us about how Dr. King was planning meetings upstairs and shit.

[Punky Johnson]

You gonna get the dirt.

[Torre]

She was dope.

[Punky Johnson]

I like Dookie Chase. Dookie Chase is a place for me. I don't. I only go to Dookie Chase when it's a big celebration, like a graduation is going on or a birthday Party now when I want to sit down and really dig in and give me, like, some really good gumbo, I'm going to Lil Dizzies.

[Torre]

Where's the gumbo?

[Punky Johnson]

Little Dizzies.

[Torre]

Little Dizzies.

[Punky Johnson]

Little Dizzy's got the fried catfish, the gumbo, the yams, the fried chicken. Oh, my God, the fried shrimp, man, last time I went there, they had, like, some type of crab cake pontchartrain. I'm like, what is this? And give me more like, what is this jute. This gravy stuff. Cause, you know, New Orleans do gravy. Gravy on everything.

[Torre]

Of course. Of course.

[Punky Johnson]

It was. It was. They had this food guy who did, like, who went to Lil Dizzy's and did a review, and he complimented everything, and he did great. And he was like, now the gumbo was really. Was on the. On the juicier side. It was on the thinner side, but it was good. I'm like, I almost. I wanted to pump. I wanted to run through the phone, where's you going? They got thick ass gumbo. Where's you going? Don't play with Dizzy. Don't play with Dizzy.

[Torre]

You know, I love how the accent changes as you talk about New Orleans. You get deeper into the New Orleans accent and the Frenchness of it, and.

[Punky Johnson]

That'S, you know, I'm trying to fix that.

[Torre]

Don't.

[Punky Johnson]

Well, I have to. You know why? Because whenever I do, like, an audition, they like, girl, you sound way too New Orleans. You know, Next. And then I did Lena Waithe hit me up, and we connected. And I did the Chi for a couple episodes on season seven. And all the directors was like, we need to do that take again. We in Chicago. You from Chicago? And then I did.

[Torre]

I'd be sharper with the way you talk.

[Punky Johnson]

Well, I just have to, you know, I just have to really articulate. Articulate my words. Because, you know, we don't say Tuesday. We say Tuesday.

[Torre]

Yes.

[Punky Johnson]

And we don't say car. We say call.

[Torre]

Yes.

[Punky Johnson]

And we don't say store. We say store.

[Torre]

So you have to be more.

[Punky Johnson]

I just have to be more aware.

[Torre]

To say the whole word.

[Punky Johnson]

I have to speak the entire word. And I have to say it a little faster. Cause it's Tuesday. It's not Tuesday.

[Torre]

Talk very slow in New Orleans. Correct.

[Punky Johnson]

Yeah, it's just like a little.

[Torre]

Certain people do.

[Punky Johnson]

It's like a chill.

[Torre]

Certain people talk very fast.

[Punky Johnson]

Right, right. So sometimes when I'm on the phone with my mom, I'll try to speak fast. She's like, girl, I don't understand a word that's coming out your damn mouth. Now what's going. You've been out there with them damn people too long. What people? Them Hollywood folks. I don't talk like that.

[Torre]

Why did you start in comedy?

[Punky Johnson]

Cause my family. Goofy. My family liked the Wayans. We just. None of us was smart enough to start a whole damn.

[Torre]

Are you the funniest one?

[Punky Johnson]

Oh, no, no, no. My. My family is funny by mistake.

[Torre]

What's that mean?

[Punky Johnson]

You know how you'll just be looking at somebody and they'll just be having a random conversation with somebody and you could just look at their mannerisms and see how they talking to people and you just bust out laughing? That's the. Cause my mom would be talking to somebody and she be like, oh. Cause. Oh, that's what I thought. Boo. And she don't. That's just how she don't mean. Her whole intention of that is not to be funny. She's just being who she is. But if you watching her do it, you're gonna be like, what is wrong? What happened? Like, she's like, oh, nothing. And it's like, why were you being so dramatic and doing all. And just. She's like, that's just how I talk. I'm like, ma, that's hilarious, bruh. Something wrong with you. But I think my Auntie Candy, the funniest Candy, my Auntie Candace, is probably the funniest because you just never know what she gonna say, you know?

[Torre]

So you learned how to be funny being around the family.

[Punky Johnson]

You know, we just never took anything serious. That's the problem in my relationships right now. I just can't. Anything happened. It's just funny. My family, we laugh at funerals. I've never been. I might have been to one serious funeral in our family, and that was my cousin Mo, because he went way too fast, and what happened to him was tragic. But everybody else who died when they was older and it was time for them to go, nobody took nothing that serious.

[Torre]

Was there any thought of anything else? When did you start in comedy?

[Punky Johnson]

I started comedy, I would say, I think 2,000. I think it's 10.

[Torre]

So you're.

[Punky Johnson]

As the years go by, God is just getting away from me. I am 25, 15 years now. It's been 15 years.

[Torre]

She just realized that 15 years ago.

[Punky Johnson]

Wait, no, I lied. I'm lying. I think 20, 21 is when I moved to Los Angeles. Yeah.

[Torre]

Okay. You're about 25 when you started comedy.

[Punky Johnson]

Yeah, I was about. Yeah, I was about 26. 26. I think I moved when I was late. Yeah, that's very late. That's very late.

[Torre]

But also a lot of folks are teenagers getting after it. Late teenagers. Early 20s, starting.

[Punky Johnson]

I was dip. You know what happened with me? Let's. Nobody. My family didn't go to college. My immediate family. I think people on my biological father side did go to college. Don't know too much about that side, but my immediate family went to college. So it was my goal to make sure I finished school before I did anything.

[Torre]

Finish college, Yes.

[Punky Johnson]

I think I finished college. When I was about 23 years old, graduated from Nicholls State University, Degree in general studies. Wanted to get a teaching degree. But when they said I was gonna have to take a standardized test, I said, nope, I can't take no standardized test. I'll take that. I'll be in school forever. I can't. I don't know. Because what you give me to study and what's on that test, that's two different things. I studied this. I don't know what the fuck this is. So fuck y'all. Change the goddamn. Change this shit to back general studies right now. So I get the hell up out this school. So got a degree. Cause I wasn't gonna do nothing with a degree anyway. I knew what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to go to.

[Torre]

California to be in entertainment.

[Punky Johnson]

Correct.

[Torre]

To be in comedy or be in anything in entertainment.

[Punky Johnson]

Well, I wanted to be an actress. That was the goal. Stand up comedy. Yes. But it was a fear that is very. Because you go up there, you by yourself. You ain't got no band, you ain't got no coach. Like you boxing by yourself, but you got a coach every three minutes, you go talk to them.

[Torre]

And you know what? Laughing is involuntary. So they're gonna laugh if you make them laugh. If you don't make them laugh, it's silence.

[Punky Johnson]

Yeah.

[Torre]

And they're not gonna fake it and give you a nice applause. And you like. They're just like. You could tell they're not laughing. I'm dying. And dying is hard.

[Punky Johnson]

Dying was hard. Now I'll sit up there and take a bullet like it's nothing.

[Torre]

Now you're a pro now. Just so dying doesn't matter to you.

[Punky Johnson]

Go out there and try something. Yeah, don't laugh. All right.

[Torre]

It's okay.

[Punky Johnson]

Especially because. And also, I'm traveling a lot. So if it work over here, like, a lot of my jokes might not work on the. You know what? A lot of my jokes don't work in blue states. That is crazy.

[Torre]

Why?

[Punky Johnson]

Well, cause I don't think that people understand what I'm trying to say when I'm trying to say it right? So it's just like the majority of my comedy for right now is dedicated to queer people and asking them why the hell we call ourselves queers.

[Torre]

Okay?

[Punky Johnson]

Because it's a terrible name as a unit. This is what we going for as a unit, the queers.

[Torre]

Cause it suggests weird why we couldn't.

[Punky Johnson]

Be a bear, a wolf, something stronger. Yes.

[Torre]

You want to put the bears, something.

[Punky Johnson]

With some weight on it.

[Torre]

The wolves, bitch.

[Punky Johnson]

I'll take a cat. I'll be a cat. I don't want to be a fucking queer. Like, what the fuck? No one takes us serious. Who takes a queer serious, brother? So when I say stuff like that, I think that it can brush off the wrong way with some of my gay people. But I don't think they understand that. I don't mean it like that. I mean it as a way of. We need something where people going to fucking respect us right now. The white people, they cackling all day. Fucking queers, they loving it. The black people, like, yeah, that's right. Cause that shit, I don't respect none of you motherfuckers. Now if y'all were the wolves, maybe, you know what I'm saying? But queer, man, fuck that, that. So it's just. But it's just a way of like calling for respect for this group of people. And also, I don't look like no damn queer. I look like a butch ass bitch from New Orleans. And ain't nobody going to ever call me no queer.

[Torre]

When did you come out to yourself?

[Punky Johnson]

Come out to yourself as gay to you? To me?

[Torre]

Yeah. When did you say I'm gay?

[Punky Johnson]

Nobody ever asked me that question. Okay, I put it to you like that, right? I remember. I was in ninth grade. I'm not. I've had these feelings before, right? I've never even in PE classes. I've never really looked at my friends that that way. I never, you know, my mother raised me old school. You know, we didn't have the Internet, you know, we used daggone yellow pages to call Pizza Hut, you know what I'm saying? So she, you know, and my mother was raised in the hardcore streets of New Orleans. And for the first beginning of my life, I was raised in the hardcore streets. But because my mother lived like that, she tried very, very hard to cover me. She didn't want me to live.

[Torre]

Were you on the projects?

[Punky Johnson]

We didn't live in the projects per se, but we lived in the houses next door.

[Torre]

Okay.

[Punky Johnson]

In the neighborhood.

[Torre]

Yeah.

[Punky Johnson]

Yeah, Right. So my mother really, really didn't want me to see that type of stuff. She sheltered me and. Which I. Which I.

[Torre]

Was she in the streets?

[Punky Johnson]

Oh, yeah, Yeah. I mean, she. My mother. Did she hustling? No, not like that. No, she wasn't hustling. She had. She. My mother always worked for the state. But, you know, we black people, we from the ghetto. It was very hard for us to come up out of that. Eventually, by the time I was like seven, eight, she had it all together. We moved in a very suburban neighborhood where we still live to this day. Now, with that being said, I didn't know that they had like gay straight people in the world. I didn't know that that was a thing. Okay, right. I knew that you were supposed to like men. Right, Great. I didn't know nothing about this gay stuff. But I do remember I'm in the ninth grade and I was in the bathroom and this chick, I don't even wanna say her name. Let's call her Stephanie. Cause I don't. You know, you never know how people feel about their names being out. Let's call her Stephanie. And she was sitting on the sink in the bathroom and she was sweating. Cause she had just played a basketball game. Black girl. Black, black. No offense. And she had beautiful, like these really beautiful hazel eyes, these beautiful straight white teeth, this big pretty smile.

[Torre]

Hair.

[Punky Johnson]

She had a nice little slick back ponytail. She was the point guard. She was three years or four years older than me. And I don't know, something just clicked in me. And I looked at her, I was like, dang, I like this girl. Wow. And then I shook that shit off. I was like, bitch, what the fuck you talking about? Can't. Like no, bitch.

[Torre]

You knew that was wrong.

[Punky Johnson]

It was wrong.

[Torre]

But you knew. You felt that.

[Punky Johnson]

I knew. I felt that.

[Torre]

And you couldn't lie to yourself.

[Punky Johnson]

Couldn't. And also I've never felt that for a guy. I've never even liked guy. I never. I never ever looked at a guy who was like, ooh, I want some of that. Never ever in my life. So I just looked at her. It was just something about her sweat. It was something about her. And then I think one day I just walked up to her and kissed her. I had to have some of that.

[Torre]

And what happened?

[Punky Johnson]

She was just like, the fuck? And I just was like, you know, I'm young. I don't know what I'm Doing. And she just kissed me back and we just. And it just became a thing.

[Torre]

You started dating her?

[Punky Johnson]

We started dating.

[Torre]

How long did you date her?

[Punky Johnson]

Until we got in trouble for dating.

[Torre]

Wait, how long was that?

[Punky Johnson]

We probably got busted like three, four months in.

[Torre]

Oh, wow. Yeah, a good run.

[Punky Johnson]

We had a good run. We. Oh, God, I'll never forget that day, man. I got in so much trouble. But I didn't get in trouble cause I was gay. I got in trouble because the world is a fucked up place. So my mom is like, she was worried for me and my safety, you know, just being out there in New Orleans. Like the dudes, they see you with a girl, they hated that shit. It's a little better now, but back in the day, 20 years, 25 years ago, they hated it. Seeing two women together. Oh, they'll just come start fighting you, and you're like, man, come on, girl.

[Torre]

Well, if it was two lipstick or femme women, men would be like, that's awesome. But two more butch or mass presenting women, they're like, mm, I don't like that. So they're making a judgment, not on. It's. What would you call that, like lookism? Right. Or something? You know what I mean?

[Punky Johnson]

It was you. So it was, it was, it was bad.

[Torre]

So. But you had, was it a great relationship before you got caught?

[Punky Johnson]

Yeah, from what I could remember, you know, remember I was 13. You know that time is. That time is traveling now. That time is moving fast. Yeah, from what I was like 13, 14, I think. Yeah, it was great. She was so sweet. And I remember I got her some flowers one time for Valentine's Day. And you know, and then that's when you start learning about identity. Right. Cause you know who you are in the straight world because you're a girl and that's a boy. But now you're in a gay world, so now you gotta learn this gay shit. So once you enter that, once you open the door to that, that's a whole nother world.

[Torre]

That's not. And I did see somebody going, well, are you a top or a bottom or a boy or a mascara? But it's more nuanced and complicated. It's not just binary, but also it's still complicated.

[Punky Johnson]

I've been in this shit for a long time and I still don't understand the logistics of none of it.

[Torre]

What do you understand about the logistics?

[Punky Johnson]

From what I was raised in, we mirrored a heterosexual relationship. That's what we do. Okay, now how do you decide who plays which role? Depends on how you act, right?

[Torre]

Does it change from moment to moment or this person's always.

[Punky Johnson]

If you. It doesn't change if you play like. I think it was categorized. If you play like basketball or if you're in a band and play like the tuba or the bass drum, you. You the dude, right? And then if you don't, like, if you like your nails done and getting your hair done and all the wigs and all that, you the girl and it has to stay that way. Now if the girl, if the butch change, that's gay. Like if, if you. If a butch. So we mirror in a heterosexual relationship, right? So me as a butch, if I go date a butch, that's gay. That's. That strikes. You can lose dyke stripes like that.

[Torre]

A butch should not date a butch.

[Punky Johnson]

Never. Even though it's girl on girl, we supposed to be mirroring this heterosexual relationship, this heterosexual shit.

[Torre]

So you should be with a.

[Punky Johnson]

Right, because butch on butch. If you think butch on butch equivocally is two boys. So if two butchers date, there's two boys dating. That's gay.

[Torre]

I love how you said gay as a negative. I don't understand. I know, that throws me off.

[Punky Johnson]

Do you understand how I'm trying to tell you? I don't even understand the logistics.

[Torre]

Because when you first said that's gay, I'm like, I thought, well, that's good. But you bet. No, that's not good.

[Punky Johnson]

No, that's gay, man. We don't play that gay shit over here. Just like y'all don't play that gay shit.

[Torre]

You're super playing that gay shit.

[Punky Johnson]

But that's what I'm saying. It's just.

[Torre]

Wait, but if you're not supposed to date butchers, who are you supposed to date?

[Punky Johnson]

The films?

[Torre]

Is there not more than just two groups?

[Punky Johnson]

Well, the crazy thing is, like I said, we mirrored a heterosexual relationship. So if two. Two lipstick lesbians are together, two girl girls, that's not gay. That's normal.

[Torre]

Because they're doing what society is supposed to do. Feminine wise, two girls is just sexy.

[Punky Johnson]

We approve. All of us approve. It's fine.

[Torre]

Oh, so this is just an anti butcher.

[Punky Johnson]

This is also. In the heterosexual world, it's fine for two cute girls to be together. In the. In the gay world, it's fine for two butch girl, two girly girls to be together. I told you it's confusing. I'm still confused. But that's. That was the. But now it's evolving. Okay, how it's evolving to like now it doesn't I don't think it matters anymore. Like in my hood, it matters, but I think if you spread out to these different gay regions. I'm making that up. I don't even know what that means. But if you spread out to other parts of the world, it doesn't matter. Butchers could be together without judgment.

[Torre]

But you would not date a white woman.

[Punky Johnson]

She would have to really touch my soul.

[Torre]

Okay, okay.

[Punky Johnson]

Now I would date outside of my race.

[Torre]

You would date an Asian woman?

[Punky Johnson]

Oh, absolutely.

[Torre]

You would date a Latina?

[Punky Johnson]

Absolutely.

[Torre]

But a white. Obviously black. But a white woman be harder.

[Punky Johnson]

To me, it's harder because I can't trust. It is about trust. But I feel like it. I don't wanna. I mean, it is about race, but it's not. But I feel like we would always continuously bump heads and I don't feel like bumping heads.

[Torre]

Well, you don't wanna educate somebody at home.

[Punky Johnson]

Correct. And we'll be beefing in the kitchen. We will beef in the kitchen. I love the kitchen.

[Torre]

More salt, please. The fuck?

[Punky Johnson]

What the fuck is this seasoning goofy shit you got bringing? Don't, don' don't bring this over here.

[Torre]

All right, so. So since we're granular. Are you colorist? Would you date a dark skinned.

[Punky Johnson]

Well, I love me some dark women.

[Torre]

Do you like light skinned women?

[Punky Johnson]

I love dog light. I like, I like a woman.

[Torre]

All black women.

[Punky Johnson]

All black.

[Torre]

Do you have a type?

[Punky Johnson]

You know what? I do, but I don't because you know what? I'm so corny. If we talking and like we connect, you could be big, fat, small, and sometimes even, like I said, white. If you captivate my soul, we go together.

[Torre]

Does anybody make you laugh or is it always like I make her laugh and that's kind of the engine.

[Punky Johnson]

You know what? I was seeing one woman who was magnificent, had her shit together, had her own house, have great career, make six figures. I mean, I was like this jackpot. The times that I don't have a job, I'll be safe. You know how this job, you know how this career is. But I was bored.

[Torre]

Cause she wasn't funny.

[Punky Johnson]

She was just like, like I would crack all the jokes and she enjoyed it, but she just didn't. We didn't have our fun, didn't mush. We didn't, you know, our fun didn't mix in together.

[Torre]

So. Okay, how'd you get to snl?

[Punky Johnson]

First of all, I wasn't supposed, I don't think I was supposed to be on snl.

[Torre]

I think you as Far as the universe, you mean, do you.

[Punky Johnson]

Do you. So, okay, I am big. I call myself a dyke that scares people. I'm brash, and I'm very, very opinionated and controversial. Right. And not to start no shit, but just to have a po. It's just my pov And I'm not afraid to say it. So as I was coming up in the comedy world, I have gotten notes of. You are never going to be on network television because of the way you speak, because of the way you are, because of the way I'm hard. I'm too hard. You're never going to be a household name too. Mask 2 mask. Too much of this, right? So when I got the call to do the audition for snl, I was.

[Torre]

Like, pah, this is never gonna happen.

[Punky Johnson]

It's never gonna happen. Just.

[Torre]

Were you part of. Kenan complained, and then they hired three people. Were you part of that group?

[Punky Johnson]

I was not.

[Torre]

So you came after that group. That was. Right.

[Punky Johnson]

Che, Shashir and I think Leslie.

[Torre]

Okay.

[Punky Johnson]

Or was it Leslie?

[Torre]

Okay, it was Leslie.

[Punky Johnson]

It was Shashir and Leslie Jones, I think.

[Torre]

And then you came the year after Ego went.

[Punky Johnson]

And then. And then I came the year after Eggo. Correct.

[Torre]

And when you were there, there's like three or four other black people.

[Punky Johnson]

Correct.

[Torre]

It was like we could do a whole sketch, just black people. This is insane. We've never been able to do this at snl.

[Punky Johnson]

And that actually happened with John Mulaney.

[Torre]

Oh, I know.

[Punky Johnson]

We just strolled into the polls. We did all the black folks stand up.

[Torre]

But wait. You wait. So you. So are you saying you auditioned with a freedom? Cause, like, this ain't gonna happen. So I'll just.

[Punky Johnson]

Matter of fact, I'm a post audition next week. It was the ghetto. I rewatched it and I was like, this is ghetto. I cannot believe these people hired me. But to my understanding, they were looking for a queer cast member, which makes me happy because out of all of the queers that they saw, they picked me. You know, so. But. And I don't. I don't really know how many gay people they have, like, comically out here in this world, but if it's 100 and 100 people auditioned and they pick me, I'm cool with that.

[Torre]

No, that's beautiful.

[Punky Johnson]

I get to sit with. I get to go to my grave with that.

[Torre]

So when you. So how do they tell you? Is it a phone call?

[Punky Johnson]

So I did my first audition. I did six characters. And, you know, usually when they give you examples of the Auditions, the people are in front of, like, a black screen, gray, whatever. And they just stand back and they do their characters. I was all in the camera. I was. My camera right here. My face. My face was right here. I wasn't way back there. I was walking in the camera doing all kind of crazy shit. I had music in the background. I mean, I was just. My wig was all fucked up. I ain't had no makeup on. You could see my hair in the back of the. Like, you can obviously tell something was wrong with me. So I was 100% like, they not gonna pick this shit. I look crazy, man. I got the phone call. They was like, hey, you got a call back fast. And I said, a call back? They say, yeah, you can either turn in the same tape or you could change it up, add some more. I said, man, I'm gonna turn in a different tape. Nah, it's serious. Cause I didn't expect that. Now we about to fucking get real. So I did six characters the first time, added six characters, and then I added my standup at the end of it. Sent that bitch in. I read somewhere that blue is captivating. When people want to sell more, they use blue. So all of my captions at the bottom of my videos with every character was written in blue. I was like, I'm doing everything I can to get their attention.

[Torre]

Subliminals.

[Punky Johnson]

Yes.

[Torre]

Okay.

[Punky Johnson]

So I use blue for everything. And then after that, give it, turn it in, forget about it. Cause this SNL is never gonna happen, right? Got the call. Like, I knew. I knew something was going on because my phone rung and everybody was on the line. Whole team Fucking Dave Becky was. You know. You know how hard it is to get Dave Becky, Dave Becky. On the motherfuckers. Team Dave Becky is the head of three aughts. He's like, the man. He's the manager, man. If you want a manager, that's the one you want. That's the man. And I got his right hand, man. I got Ethan Stern. That's my guys. They take care of all my shit. So they all call this Puggy. They screaming and look at me. Ah. Every time they come, I'm driving. I'm in New Orleans driving. I'm probably got a PO boy in my mind. I'm like, what the fuck? You know? I'm about to go work at Amazon. Cause it's. This is during COVID I'm about to be filling out an application to get a job in the warehouse. Cause I ain't had a job in Eight months, the comedy still not opening back up. I don't.

[Torre]

You know, was it really about to go to Amazon?

[Punky Johnson]

I didn't. The writer jobs wasn't happening. You couldn't do comedy. There was nothing in the business. I was running out of money. Fuck. Fuck it. We gotta get a job. So I'm just in New Orleans, driving, eating a fucking PO Boy on the phone. What's up, everybody? What's up? Niggas just acting stupid with my team. They like, bitch, you gotta sign this contract. You know you can't take. But you know you up there to be with snl. I'm like, what me? Next thing you know. Didn't you do, like, an interview with, like, the talent? I think it was like, Lindsey, Somebody else. Somebody else do, like, an interview now. While I'm doing the interview on Zoom. My mama. Black mamas, bruh. God bless them. Ma, I'm about to do an interview with us now. I need everybody quiet. Okay, sweetheart, I think I know where the story's going. She in the kitchen busting pants. This all you hear? But bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Pow, pow. Kevin, Kevin, you want some gravy on these potato? I was like, I. You. I'm like, ma. She like, what? I'm like, listen. And she's like, I don't care about the people. I'm like, oh, my fucking. I'm like. I'm like, you gotta be fucking kidding me. And they was just in the background. I think they was laughing. I don't really remember what they was doing. But you know, black mamas, here she come. Hey, y'all. How y'all doing? I'm just in here cooking a little something. All right? She goes out, I'm like, bruh, this is. This is. I'm dying. Oh, this is my favorite show, by the way. I've been watching this since I was such and such. Back in the thing. Bam. Pap, pap, come put this trash out. I'm just like, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

[Torre]

It's a sketch right there.

[Punky Johnson]

Didn't even think you write about it.

[Torre]

You tried to get on snl, and.

[Punky Johnson]

Mom is just running, just ruining stuff, vacuuming, sweeping. The damn dog barking. Can you get the dog? This her house. You know what? Let me. Shut up. Ain't nobody tell you to come up in here. You right, Ma. You're right. I gotta be quiet and shit. Yes, ma'am, you're right.

[Torre]

Your dad's mad light, is he not? Cause your mom is. Your mom is brown. Now, I Remember when you were on with your mom on Mother's Day?

[Punky Johnson]

Correct.

[Torre]

She's brown.

[Punky Johnson]

Yes.

[Torre]

And you're light like my dad.

[Punky Johnson]

Yes. My biological father is very bright skinned. We the same color.

[Torre]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. You just remind me of my dad's color.

[Punky Johnson]

Uh huh. Uh huh. It was crazy. You know, the colorist thing. You know, I get upset sometimes because I hear a lot of stories about my mother and she talks to me about the way she was raised and the way people treated her because of the color of her skin and how she'll tell me sometimes how blessed she feel and how lucky she feels that I came out the color of my father. And that makes me hurt for her so bad.

[Torre]

Yeah, yeah. My mom is said stuff like that. When I was younger, when we were younger, like, it's good that they're the color you are.

[Punky Johnson]

I was like, it sucks, okay?

[Torre]

But I don't want to think about it.

[Punky Johnson]

And I love and black chocolate skin is so beautiful. You know, I was seeing a woman who was darker and I insulted her by mistake. I didn't mean to do it. And I was like, you are the first chocolate woman I ever dated. I was like, I like this.

[Torre]

Oh, it is.

[Punky Johnson]

But she took it as I was being colorist. And when she expressed that to me, I just, I almost cried. I was just like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I swear, like, I had to figure out a way for her to understand that I wasn't trying to say what she thought I was trying to say because I would never. My mother went through that. I would never. You know, I was like, you just a fert. And she was like, ya da da. And some kind of way I fix that, but I'm like, I have to figure, I have to compliment differently. Just say you beautiful.

[Torre]

So tell me about being on snl. What was it like for you? Oh, Lord, Wow. All of that.

[Punky Johnson]

SNL taught me a lot.

[Torre]

Like what.

[Punky Johnson]

SNL taught me how to produce. SNL taught me how to direct. SNL taught me basically, when it comes down to producing your own project, you have to have your own vision. You have to know what the set's gonna look like. You have to know what the people's gonna look like. You have to know what they're gonna wear, you have to know the faces they're gonna make, you have to know how they're gonna move. You have to know what their hair is gonna be, what the shoes they are, what bra, what underwear. What are we gonna. What are we looking at? What are we seeing? Cause it's more about writing a sketch. What is all. What is this world? That's what they taught me. Because, see, me writing, I can see the world. But then I'm thinking, I'm gonna hand something off and they're gonna create it. That was up to me. They also taught me how to follow directions. Right. So when you. When you. What makes you directable is how well you follow directions. And so it's just like learning stage, stage up, stage, downstage, upstage, stage right, stage left. You have to learn those from. From that, and you have to learn it from directing it, and you have to learn it from being directed. So if I wanted to go to theater, I can, because I learned a whole bunch from SNL just understanding the points of the stage. I appreciate SNL for everything that they did. I was somewhere I wasn't supposed to, where I thought I wasn't supposed to be, and I was somewhere a lot of people said I would never be. Correct. But the problem with SNL was I just was thinking about this the other day. SNL made me soft because it was a thing of, like. And I mean, it's. With all due respect, but in that building, it's almost like a thing of please, please, please pick me, Daddy. Please pick me, Daddy.

[Torre]

Being Lauren.

[Punky Johnson]

Yes. Oh, my God.

[Torre]

You know, it's a thing of please pick my sketch. Please put me in the sketch.

[Punky Johnson]

And then if you don't get picked, then you have. Then you have this feeling inside of you of rejection. And that was an experience that I didn't like. Now, I could take rejection on stage.

[Torre]

But every week you're being rejected because you're coming up with ideas.

[Punky Johnson]

Correct.

[Torre]

Because you didn't get a lot of sketch time.

[Punky Johnson]

No, no.

[Torre]

So that meant almost every week you're feeling rejected.

[Punky Johnson]

No, no, no. Let me take responsibility and hold myself accountable. I wasn't the greatest in the sketch world. I didn't go to school.

[Torre]

Cause you come from stand up.

[Punky Johnson]

I come from stand up.

[Torre]

From Groundlings or whatever.

[Punky Johnson]

Correct. I wasn't the greatest. So I'm not about to sit up here and shit on snl. I wasn't the best.

[Torre]

So you think we saw you on update so much? Because I'm a standup. I can do a monologue. This I can do a sketch is a little outside of my normal purview around all these people who are sketch experienced.

[Punky Johnson]

Now, don't get it twisted. I done had some sketches that go up at table. I'm talking stand ovation, killer ad taping.

[Torre]

But didn't get on.

[Punky Johnson]

And that was my problem.

[Torre]

How can you kill when you. Cause you go in to the writer's room.

[Punky Johnson]

Correct.

[Torre]

Read the sketch, present it.

[Punky Johnson]

Correct.

[Torre]

They're all laughing, standing ovation. But then it goes upstairs and Lauren says no. How does that happen?

[Punky Johnson]

And I can't even say that Lauren says no. I think it's a lot that goes into who says no. I think maybe he has the final say. Maybe. But I can't really tell you what happens in that room. I never been in there. But there have been some times where I'm knocking shit out the park and.

[Torre]

It doesn't get on.

[Punky Johnson]

But stuff that's not funny, they will take it and fix it for whoever that person is and make it funny. That was the problem that I had.

[Torre]

That they're investing the time to rescue or punch up somebody else's thing. And you're not getting that correct.

[Punky Johnson]

You know, it was just. For me, it was a thing of balance. And that's when I would talk to my mother. My mom would be like, look, bitch, that's not your house. She always had to put things in perspective for me. That ain't your house. You don't run your house when you come over here. You almost 40. What time you gotta be in this house? Two. There you go. This my house. I don't care how old you are. I don't care how unfair it is when you up in here. Everything run how I want it to run. Cause this is my shit. That's Lauren's shit. So I don't want to hear no, it's not fair. I don't want to hear none of that shit. That ain't your house. Get better. Build your own damn house. Make your own damn rules. So my mama wasn't with that shit. But regardless of how much she'll punch that into me, that still didn't stop the emotional, the hurting and the pain. And sometimes you'll go into depression. Like, I had to think about it. This is March last year. I remember I started going into going down the drain, like in March. I remember. And the other day I woke up and I'm like, that's the problem. SNL made me weak. Cause I was. I was raised comically at the World Famous Comedy Store. You don't go weak over there in la. That place got black walls.

[Torre]

Legendary, Mitzi.

[Punky Johnson]

Yep, it's black walls.

[Torre]

Mitzi Shore.

[Punky Johnson]

You get tough over there, you fight tooth and nail over there.

[Torre]

That was Richard Pryor, George Carlin, right?

[Punky Johnson]

You be yourself. You brash. They Want you authentically who you are. Over there, there was no please, please, please, Daddy over. It was just like all of this. And I was like, I've never been the type of person to be begging a motherfucker for something, right? I ain't never been that person. So now every Wednesday, I'm sitting up there like, oh, my God, I hope Daddy. Fuck that. I just got lost in that world of, oh, I hope it's me. No, I've never been like that in my entire life.

[Torre]

And your comedic aesthetic did not quite fit.

[Punky Johnson]

I don't think it did. I don't think there would be times I'd be sitting at that damn read table and everybody be like. And I don't know what the fuck going on for four years.

[Torre]

Well, the last half hour is always, you know, listen, the first hour might be strong, might not. May or may not be strong. The last half hour, you know, is gonna be like, whatever.

[Punky Johnson]

Look, man, I love. I do not. There's nothing about me and Mrs. SNL. I miss the people. I miss fucking with Lauren in the hallway. Cause I was my baby. I love Mr. I miss Mr. Michaels. I call him Mr. Michaels. I'm probably the only person that called him that. I loved cooking in my dressing room. I loved the money.

[Torre]

How much did you make a week?

[Punky Johnson]

I got up to making, I think, like 35,000amonth.

[Torre]

35,000Amonth?

[Punky Johnson]

Yeah.

[Torre]

That's your first year, pet. That's your first year?

[Punky Johnson]

No, first year. 10 grand a month. 15,000amonth. Nah, it was terrible first year.

[Torre]

But even 15,000amonth because Pete was on some podcast and he said something like 2,000 a week. And I'm like, that's not true.

[Punky Johnson]

When Pete started, it could have been the year he started. It definitely could have been like two, because the year I started, it was like five.

[Torre]

I was. I was very close for a brief time to a cast member in the 90s. And she told me what they were getting, and I'm like, if she was getting that in the 90s, there's no way that Pete was getting less than that 20 years later.

[Punky Johnson]

Well, was it her first year?

[Torre]

Yeah.

[Punky Johnson]

Oh, then, yeah.

[Torre]

Yeah. I'm like, I don't understand that number. That number I understand. 1535. That makes sense to me. Who was the. Who was your closest friend out of the cast?

[Punky Johnson]

Eggo. Me and ego talk probably. I don't know, two times, three times a week, we go in each other rooms, we'll talk mad to each other. But it's like, all of Honestly, I might not talk on the phone with all of those people, but when we jam, we jam. You know, like, I'm going, I got a crib in Providence. Andrew Desmukes is gonna be in Providence next week. I hit him up. Oh, I'm coming to the show. Come on, Punky, get on stage. Andrew Desmukes, one of the whitest people, and I'm one of the blackest people. When we get together, we cool.

[Torre]

Who is the funniest person on the show?

[Punky Johnson]

I think Andrew is the funniest.

[Torre]

Really?

[Punky Johnson]

I think he's the best writer. I think he's the best writer in the whole program. His left turns is. Something is wrong with Andrew.

[Torre]

You know, I noticed Sometimes I'm like, so the sketches will have a great premise. It might have a great rhythm. As far as they're starting, we don't quite know, but there's something. Then there's a turn, and we're like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. And then I'm like, nine times out of ten, they didn't know how to end it.

[Punky Johnson]

No. So it just. It just.

[Torre]

It just sort of stops. Yeah. Like, the madness, like, we've got to chaos. There's no third act to this. Like, we just gotta. Okay, then the chaos stops, then somebody says something funny, and then they end.

[Punky Johnson]

But also, it's like a thing of, like. You know, how it works is, like, throughout the show, you have to make cuts. So it could possibly have an ending Friday, and then maybe it'll have an ending on Saturday. But if it make it to the show, Lauren's gonna be like, listen, you gotta get this motherfucker down by 45 seconds. Oh, shit. What about the ending? Cut it. Ending, chaos, you know, that's why you can't study the script because it is constantly changing throughout the entire weekend, all the way down to the last second.

[Torre]

Not stressful as the whole. This is a very stressful job.

[Punky Johnson]

It's stressful. It's stressful.

[Torre]

Not that much.

[Punky Johnson]

Not for me, though. I wasn't really that busy. I would just go and collect my bag. You don't want to use me. I'm gonna put this air fryer in this dressing room. I'm gonna create content on you. I done been on American Test Kitchen. Be Bobby Flay. Top shelf. Is it cake on them bitches?

[Torre]

Was. What was your favorite moment on camera?

[Punky Johnson]

I have three. Okay, can I say them all?

[Torre]

Of course.

[Punky Johnson]

My first favorite moment was when I did Pineapple. That was my first character ever on snl. It was my first Season I had no idea what I was doing. It was 2020 Covid. So you couldn't make friends because the COVID police was there. So I didn't have any friends that year. I worked that entire year by myself. Heidi and Mikey, they were senior cast. So every now and then Heidi's like, I'm gonna write you a sketch. And she did. And Mikey's like, I'm gonna write you a sketch. And he did. So you get help sometimes, but they also have to focus on their own shit. And I remember I was writing a song and Chris Redd hit me up at like three in the morning. And he was like, they gonna bump your song? Cause I'm writing a song. And I was like, what? He was like, I know you've been working it all night, but they're gonna bump it Cause I'm writing one.

[Torre]

This is Saturday, Early Saturday.

[Punky Johnson]

This was. No, no, no. Cause we do read on Wednesday. So this was maybe.

[Torre]

Oh, earlier in the week.

[Punky Johnson]

3:30, 4:00 in the morning going into Wednesday.

[Torre]

Okay, okay. Early in the week. Yeah.

[Punky Johnson]

And I was like, oh man, I need to turn in the sketch. And that was when Paul Pierce had got fired because he was messing with the strippers.

[Torre]

Yeah.

[Punky Johnson]

So I was like, I'm a write from Paul Pierce angle. And my little shorty was like, nah, you need to write from the stripper angle. See, this is why I love bitches. They had they brain. She was like, nah, be the stripper. So I was like, all right. And I just called her Pineapple. I don't even know where that came from. Pineapple. Penelope Peters. And I wrote it at 4:30 in the morning. And it got picked. And that's my first character. I'll never forget it. And I had a ball and the crowd loved it. And I dressed like one of the girls from the players club. I forgot her name. I had the big blonde wig with the leopard. Man. I was killing it up there. Put my leg on the desk, started dancing all kind of shit. Favorite character. So then I made a song, right? My whole. I love the hat trick. And to me, the hat trick for me in my mind was get a dope ass update. Make a dope ass song in video, have a dope ass sketch. I've accomplished those things. I'm. I'm satisfied with my run there dope ass update character. I wrote a song that went viral. It went crazy with Sza and Kiki called Big Boys. Probably rated number two SNL songs of all time. I'm claiming it.

[Torre]

Yeah.

[Punky Johnson]

Besides dick in the box.

[Torre]

Yeah. Oh, wait. Lazy Sunday, though.

[Punky Johnson]

Who? What?

[Torre]

Lazy Sunday. Samberg.

[Punky Johnson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm still claiming number two.

[Torre]

That was crazy.

[Punky Johnson]

I don't give a. I'm still claiming number two.

[Torre]

I thought you put that number one. I didn't think.

[Punky Johnson]

Oh, dick in a box.

[Torre]

Oh, it's gigantic. But the Lazy Sunday was.

[Punky Johnson]

Okay, well, Lazy Sunday, one, Dick in the box, three. I'm still. You're two.

[Torre]

We're still in this bitch.

[Punky Johnson]

We outside. Then that's my video. And then the third one, which was so significant and so great to me, was because I kept pitching this character, and nobody was feeling. Nobody understood me. I'm like, imagine this, right? They got this chick, and they need a Latina. We're in this world, and they're like, we need a Latina. We need a Latina. And I come in, and I just start being ghetto. And they like, we thought you was Latina. And I'm like, I am Latina, Jefferson. But everybody was like, what? What the fuck? What?

[Torre]

I can see where it's a room full of white people, right? Like, they're not gonna.

[Punky Johnson]

I even said it at Radio City, and the crowd was like, what? And then that very next week, I got my boy Ben. I got Kara and Jimmy, and they was like, we're gonna put this shit together, Punky. You don't you worry. And it was. It was Bad Bunny hosting and singing. Of course, we got Marcelo. And we put that shit together. I lit that motherfucking table up. I lit that bitch up. That was the one sketch I wrote where I was like, they picking that shit. I laid back. I wasn't even tripping that Wednesday. I was like, I know they picking that shit. They picked it. Then you know when Lauren like a sketch. Cause he'll put one of his friends in it. He put Mick Jagger in it. We had to rewrite the ending to put in Mick.

[Torre]

Oh, I remember that.

[Punky Johnson]

I kept coming up, throwing on the card at the Thomas, and Mick came.

[Torre]

On at the end. Yeah, Latina Jefferson, what are you doing? But you talk about creating a world. I definitely get the sense of, like, she been acting. She's been around. She has a world. Like, I'm like, she has. Like, we're not talking about her world and her child and her struggles in acting, but I know that it's there.

[Punky Johnson]

Yeah. Yeah. Is there we out here in these.

[Torre]

Streets, T. But you create a whole character around this person. Even though we only see this bit of her.

[Punky Johnson]

Yes. She's just a hustling woman just trying to make it. Whenever it's not going well over here, she go on the Latina side and see if she can slide. That's it. She see if she could get her name. Latina. Gonna get her through the door.

[Torre]

So when Mick comes into the sketch. Now we have to change the sketch. Cause Lauren said, add Mick Jagger.

[Punky Johnson]

It was pretty much the same. But it was. I mean, listen, I was overwhelmed with joy. Cause when Lauren. When Lauren does that to your sketch, I mean, he really likes it. However, it took my moment, right.

[Torre]

It became about me. But you were the star of that sketch. He comes on at the end.

[Punky Johnson]

He does.

[Torre]

And you were the star of that sketch until. For 90% of it.

[Punky Johnson]

Correct. But, you know, people probably think about Mick before they think about my ass.

[Torre]

Yeah, I mean. I mean, of course. But, you know, for sure, you stood out the whole time you were around.

[Punky Johnson]

Yeah, that. Oh, I'm always gonna. I'm always gonna stand out like a sore thumb.

[Torre]

Yeah. I'm surprised you did. That's your three. Mick was your third.

[Punky Johnson]

Yes. The biggest is gonna always. It's almost like part one of a movie series.

[Torre]

I'm surprised you didn't talk about Family Holiday Rules. Cause that's one of your moments that people are like, which one? Was that when you were on Update talking about, this is the way we do things.

[Punky Johnson]

Yes. You know, what happened with that? But it was me, and it was my typical everyday life. I was proud of the characters I was able to create, because I'm not the best character creator.

[Torre]

So Family Holiday was you being you.

[Punky Johnson]

It was me being me.

[Torre]

And you're proud when you can, like, act.

[Punky Johnson]

Yeah. I was proud to be able to become a different person. And for Lauryn to like it, that made me happy. You know, before I wrote Latina Jefferson, my years started off very sour because I had just left out my third year. We went into a strike.

[Torre]

The writer's strike.

[Punky Johnson]

Yes. And then fourth year started, and I was like, I hope we don't pick up where we left off with me just being, you know, like a sidekick. First episode, I get in one sketch, I get two words out. I'm pissed. Right. That night at the after party, I go to Lauren. I tell him good night, like I always do. Tell him I love him like I always do. And I said. I said, I got something for you. I said, I'm coming. He said, I've been waiting for you, man. That motherfucker told me that. I said, I'm about to. I was like, these motherfuckers I was like, I'm about to bring Latina. And after that, I got like three or four. Three, I think, three sketches on in a row, which I don't remember what they are, but I was hot the first half of the season. And then when Ben Silva left my writer, it just went shit. Because everybody in their pods. You can't break somebody out. They pod. So when my guy left because he spoke my language. So if there was anything that I wanted to say, he knew how to put it in SNL format, SNL structure and translate it for me. And once he left, I just went down the drain.

[Torre]

And that means I'm not. Not able to get anything on.

[Punky Johnson]

He was just.

[Torre]

I'm not right. Were you writing?

[Punky Johnson]

I was writing, but he was. I had a whole bunch of other writers that, like, Alice. Alice, Alex English wrote. Me and him wrote. Me and Asha wrote. Asha Ward, me and Vanessa wrote. But he just had a status. Like, over there, it's just about status. So he had a status that we didn't have where he was able to go and get things done.

[Torre]

So what's happening that last half of the year, that fourth year that's making you say I gotta walk away from this fantastic job?

[Punky Johnson]

Well, it started off great. Like, I had a big titty moment where my titties go viral. And then I got an update on with my homegirl, Vanessa and Asha. And I, like, I think February was fantastic, but March happened, and I tried to do Fannie Willis, which I bombed on Update. And then I had a sketch called Dr. Wyatt, and it didn't go so well with that. I gotta take. You know, I gotta hold my. Hold my hat on that. Because sometimes I'll just. I don't get so much camera time that I'll be so nervous that I'll just crack under the pressure and just. And I can't. And I'm dyslexic, so sometimes them cards be so far away, I'd be like, oh, Colin. What's that word? I can't even see the colors. But. And I just. You know. So I had two, like, failed sketches. But then after that, I had other sketches that August wrote for me that went crazy. Me and August and Will, we all wrote, and they'll go crazy, but then they don't pick the sketch. And then the last episode, I got a sketch on that I think Jake and Mike wrote for me. And they picked it, but they cut it Friday night. And I'm just like, ah, what made.

[Torre]

You say, I gotta go? Cause it was you who said, enough.

[Punky Johnson]

I think it was mutual. So I don't think they knew that I was ready to go. So the year before I hit my team, and I'm like. When they hit us up and was like, okay, you're going back. Congratulations. I called them and I was like, I just don't know if I want to do a season. And it was like, we're not gonna force you to do nothing that you don't wanna do, but we want you to think about it, you know, get you one more year in, get you a bag, and while you in there, we'll create a plan. I said, you know what? I'm gonna do that. I'll go back for another year. So then the next year came. Came down to the end of the season. Shit wasn't shaking right with me. I just started talking reckless and being crazy. Cause I don't give a fuck no more.

[Torre]

Like what?

[Punky Johnson]

Just like, whatever, bitch. Cool. The fuck? Just, you know, if I ain't feel like talking to you, I wasn't talking to you.

[Torre]

Or just. Just being. Whatever. Just around the holes, just being.

[Punky Johnson]

Whatever.

[Torre]

Cause I'm. I'm disgruntled.

[Punky Johnson]

I was. I was. I didn't appreciate a lot of things that was happening, but it's. It's. It's. Honestly, it's life, it's business, it's showbiz. Don't nobody owe you a motherfucking thing. But also, I ain't got to walk through this motherfucking kiss your ass either. So it's a fine line. So I think with that, they saw that and was like, nah, you know.

[Torre]

So they were going to say, no, thanks.

[Punky Johnson]

I ain't know what they was gonna say.

[Torre]

But you were like, I'm done.

[Punky Johnson]

It was like a thing. I think my manager hit me up, and he was like, hey, did SNL hit you up? I was like, oh, fuck. I was like. I was shopping, having a good time, and he gonna call me, asking me about them niggas. I was like, I don't know. I was like, I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't with them people. And then, like, the next day, they call, and I could hear it in their voice. Well. And I could have said, nah, fuck that. I could have said, fuck y'all. I could have said, I'm good. But I was like, go first. Because, you know, sometimes they have the ability to kind of speak around the subject. No, say it with your chest.

[Torre]

You were gonna say, I don't wanna do this anymore. But they said, first, we're good.

[Punky Johnson]

And I follow by great. I follow by saying, fantastic.

[Torre]

Cause I'm good, too.

[Punky Johnson]

Cause I was good.

[Torre]

Cause I was good. You were gonna quit.

[Punky Johnson]

It was a thing of like, will I make it through this year? And the answer was, hell, no.

[Torre]

Right? I can't. I have no more.

[Punky Johnson]

I wouldn't have made it. Let's say I did go back, right? I wouldn't have made it past October, November. I wouldn't have made it. I would have made the call. Get me the fuck out of here. Aboard. Aboard. I would have made it. Just mentally, I just wasn't ra. I wasn't. I can't. The. You know, like, I said, no. Shade. Love, love, love. SNL and all that shit, but it's just, like, the politics of it and the way it makes you feel on the inside of your body. I didn't want to deal with that. And not the people. It wasn't the people. It wasn't like people was doing all this, blah, blah, blah, blah. It was just the constant rejection. The imposter syndrome. My mental. I'm fucking going crazy. I got my mom, you know, putting things in perspective for me. Yes. But mentally, I was just. I was just done. Just mentally, I'm like, I can't. You can't beat up on me mentally. Nah. I can't keep going down the drain like this.

[Torre]

Are you talking to ego about this, Leslie?

[Punky Johnson]

Oh, yeah. Me and ego talk all the time. I hit ego, I'd be like, smile, bitch. Make sure you smile.

[Torre]

And she knows that you're depressed.

[Punky Johnson]

Well, I'm not no more. Cause it's a decision. You gotta make a decision if you want to be depressed. Cause I was. I ain't gonna lie. For a whole year. I just was like, what the fuck is going on? And literally two weeks ago, I was like, nah, fuck that. Because I made a conscious decision not.

[Torre]

To do that, not to be depressed.

[Punky Johnson]

I don't want to. Depression is stupid. The sun's coming out. It's about to be spring. It's about to. It's about to have ass everywhere. What the fuck? How you gonna be depressed looking at ass? Nah, can't be depressed. I gotta come out of that shit. So, you know. And another thing about snl, I think they know when you don't wanna be there no more. I think they know. I think they know when it's time for you to go. So hats off to them. I think they was like, fuck it. I want to be in this bitch.

[Torre]

Well, I mean, you know, if you're at that place for three, four years and you're in three, four sketches, or even if it's eight, it's like, it's not fitting. And you know what I mean? Like, it might take two years for someone to find their voice, but if it's four years, she's a professional comedian. It's not fitting. She's dope. But we do this.

[Punky Johnson]

They did. They did help, like, they got Joan to come down and, like, help us with acting and all of that stuff.

[Torre]

Joan.

[Punky Johnson]

Joan was, like, the acting coach for, like, the new people and stuff.

[Torre]

Okay.

[Punky Johnson]

But I just. That was not. Our worlds didn't mix when they collided.

[Torre]

Right.

[Punky Johnson]

And I think that's okay to say. I think a lot of people don't want to just be honest and be like, yo, I wasn't for them, they wasn't for me. And that don't mean there's nothing bad about it.

[Torre]

Right.

[Punky Johnson]

It's just business.

[Torre]

Was there a comfort in having a bunch of black people there with you as far as talent?

[Punky Johnson]

Oh, yeah.

[Torre]

Because if you'd been in any other era, you'd either be alone or there'd be maybe one other person.

[Punky Johnson]

Right.

[Torre]

And this era, there was a period when there. I think there's still a bunch of people now. There's at least three or four now. Four now.

[Punky Johnson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Torre]

1.

[Punky Johnson]

One African American woman. One black woman. Black men.

[Torre]

Right, right.

[Punky Johnson]

Keenan and Daw Devon.

[Torre]

Right?

[Punky Johnson]

Yeah. They need another black woman. Hire a ninth black woman.

[Torre]

Were you a fan before you were on the show?

[Punky Johnson]

I would watch it with my mom. My mom is the biggest fan of.

[Torre]

Snl, so that must have been amazing for her to see her daughter get on a show that she had been a fan of.

[Punky Johnson]

You know what's crazy? We were watching SNL during COVID on the TV when they had. When they. When SNL was doing episodes on Zoom Through Live, and they did the Mother's Day episode, and I think Boyz II Men sung Mama or whatever. And she was like, when you gonna get me on this damn show? Got the show in August. Listen. God. Working mysterious ways. I'm telling you, that's crazy the way God move. That's why, like, right now I have. You ever have a calmness in you that's so scary? And you like, why am I so calm? I'm not supposed to be calm right now. I'm supposed to be scrambling. I'm supposed to be panicking. I don't have no job, but I took care of my money and I was very smart and I know that there's money out there and I know what I could do. And I'm doing it. I'm in process of doing. I'm laying down the groundwork right now. But also I don't have a job. And I am oddly calm. I'm not panicking. I'm not stressed. I'm happy. And that scares me. Cause I'm supposed to be on the phone. God damn it. Where are the auditions? Damn it. Why am I not here? What's going on? I know there's room in this world. Where is Hollywood? What's going. I should be scrambling right now, but I'm not. It's coming. All of it's coming.

[Torre]

You're not scrambling because you're confident that very it'll come when it's supposed to.

[Punky Johnson]

Look, I'm getting my life together. I got an acting coach now. I just bombed the audition the other day. I bombed the shit out of it. But it was an in person audition and it was my first one in six years. I went up in there with confidence. I'm like, I'm about to nail this shit. Something clicked in my brain when they said, action. And the whole script went out of my brain. You can't do nothing but laugh at that. I was crying, laughing. I was like, you crazy, bitch. And the ladies, they were so. The cast, the casting people, they was just so kind. And I was like, I know y'all gonna talk shit about me when I leave up out of here, but I don't care because I'm gonna talk shit about myself.

[Torre]

I'm gonna talk shit about myself. I'm gonna tell myself, what the fuck.

[Punky Johnson]

Is wrong with you?

[Torre]

That's crazy. But it's amazing that you are liberated from caring.

[Punky Johnson]

I went back to watching my old self before snl. I went back to see who that person was before I got there. Because I needed to become familiar with why I started this in the first place. And once I started doing that, everything started coming to light, you know, and.

[Torre]

Remembering who you are.

[Punky Johnson]

Yes. I had to remember my dog. You a stand up. You never gave a fuck about none of this Hollywood shit. You never cared about these parties. You never cared about court size seats. You never cared about being in that world. You cared about stand up. You cared about getting in the rooms, meeting the execs, selling a movie. You cared about. These are the things you cared about. You didn't care about that limelight spotlight shit, being in the parties, getting fucked up. You ain't care about none of that shit you cared about. Stand up. And I was watching all of that shit and I was like, it's time to go back to the basics. It's back to the basics. And I'm excited. Cause I'm about to pop off this new hot tent I got at don't tell. I'm about to fucking. It's a cold ass 10, too. I'm about to pop that bitch off. Hopefully get a viral clip.

[Torre]

When you said 10. Oh, just 10 minutes.

[Punky Johnson]

10 minutes, man. I'm about to go crazy on this. 10 minutes. I'm about to sell my special.

[Torre]

Who do you want to. Where do you want to place your special? Where do you want to be?

[Punky Johnson]

I did it for HBO not too long ago. They passed. We can talk about that off camera about why they passed. You're going to die laughing. It's hilarious.

[Torre]

Oh, no.

[Punky Johnson]

Um. I'm doing it for Netflix April 9 at the Improv Great. 7:30pm In LA. In LA?

[Torre]

Don't usually shoot specials in big cities.

[Punky Johnson]

We're not shooting a special. Running it for Netflix. For them to shoot it. For them to want to shoot. Presenting it to them.

[Torre]

Oh, so this is what you could get.

[Punky Johnson]

Correct.

[Torre]

It's a presentation I'm presenting, and if they love it, then they'll put it on.

[Punky Johnson]

Yeah, but even if they don't, I'm gonna take about 20, 30 grand and make that motherfucker myself.

[Torre]

Right, you put it online yourself?

[Punky Johnson]

Absolutely. I mean, I don't want to, but I don't. I also don't mind investing in myself.

[Torre]

I mean, you might make more money that way.

[Punky Johnson]

That's possible.

[Torre]

Could. Possible because you'd collect all of it.

[Punky Johnson]

That's what Dave Chappelle told me. He was like, God damn it. Punky fire everybody.

[Torre]

I mean, I don't know if he.

[Punky Johnson]

Rid of them all.

[Torre]

I mean, if we can say it. I mean, that's what Louis CK does.

[Punky Johnson]

Yeah, but I'm like. I told. I told Dave. I'm like, dave, I'm not you. You know, not yet. Like, I need. I need my team.

[Torre]

Right. I mean, you still watch the show as now?

[Punky Johnson]

Absolutely. I watch it to support my friends. Mm. I just. I just text Mikey the other day. Cause he had an update and it was Chef's kiss.

[Torre]

Which one?

[Punky Johnson]

Like Mikey, this. It was so funny because he went up as Lord Gaga. Cause Lady Gaga was on the show.

[Torre]

That was hysterical.

[Punky Johnson]

And towards the end, imagine. Can you imagine the shame? Oh, my God.

[Torre]

Of his wife makes more than him.

[Punky Johnson]

Oh, imagine sitting behind a desk.

[Torre]

NASA this desk right here.

[Punky Johnson]

Right here. Oh, man, that was really well written.

[Torre]

To construct, to get into that space of him going, can you imagine the shame?

[Punky Johnson]

Because.

[Torre]

And it ended well.

[Punky Johnson]

Yes.

[Torre]

How about your wife? Like, yes.

[Punky Johnson]

Oh, my God. Just. I had to text Mikey about that.

[Torre]

People love to sit at that desk and mention Colin's wife. Everybody. Sarah does that.

[Punky Johnson]

Everybody just likes to put Colin ashamed, you know? And I'm just like, it's funny.

[Torre]

Do you think that started?

[Punky Johnson]

Mm. Mm. I'm think I. In my mind, I think it started because of his book he wrote.

[Torre]

But I'm like, where was the moment when he said, hey, look at me as a potential date? Scarlett Johansson?

[Punky Johnson]

Oh, yeah.

[Torre]

You know what I mean? Like, there's a moment, like, you could be like, friendly and friends and professional, and then there's a moment you'd be like, could you see me in another light? And you know, nine times out of ten, people are like, no. But sometimes they're like, actually, I could. Let's try and like, Scarlett Johansson was.

[Punky Johnson]

Like, I don't think nobody saw that coming, right? Nobody. My mom been watching that show for a long time. She ain't even see it coming.

[Torre]

You know what? I was listening to Amber Rose on Shay Shay, and she was like. She was trying to be delicate, but basically she's saying at her level of beauty and fame, you will go months with nobody asking you because most men are afraid to ask you out. So. And I imagine someone like Scarlett Johansson, like, months and months would go by without somebody trying to. Because most people would be like, well.

[Punky Johnson]

I can't date her, right?

[Torre]

Hey, I love you know what?

[Punky Johnson]

I need to call Colin and be.

[Torre]

Like, hey, bro, well, if you call him, can you call me back? How did this happen?

[Punky Johnson]

I want to talk to him. He was at the Cellar last night. I almost text him. I was like, yeah, your bitch ass outside tonight, huh? I should have text his ass last night. But I need to. I would love to know if he went after her or if she went after him.

[Torre]

Oh, you think she went after him?

[Punky Johnson]

I don't know. I'm gonna come spill. I'm asking him if I could spill the tea.

[Torre]

Oh, my God.

[Punky Johnson]

When he tell me.

[Torre]

Oh, my God.

[Punky Johnson]

That'd be good to know, right? Cause I can't see Colin. I can't see Colin.

[Torre]

But he had to.

[Punky Johnson]

He had to. You can't.

[Torre]

You think Scarlett Johansson is going around like, hey, you wanna date?

[Punky Johnson]

You know what? I think people be sleeping on Johan. He probably got way more swag than people think he probably present as this little corny frat, frat boy, kind of nerdy frat boy. But I think he got way more guts than people think.

[Torre]

I think white women also like nerds. And he's like nerd chic.

[Punky Johnson]

And wasn't she with like two other people before him? So she was probably like, change of pace.

[Torre]

I don't know.

[Punky Johnson]

She was probably like, change of pace. But yeah, you know, but yeah, SNL was not my world.

[Torre]

Was there someone who was hard to work with?

[Punky Johnson]

It wasn't the fact that somebody was hard to work with over there. It was the fact that do they want to work with your ass? And the answer was sometimes. You know, but the thing is, the crazy thing is you can't take nothing personal over there because it's not about you.

[Torre]

But you're saying there's the big names who are working all the time and they could have pulled you in. Let's pull Punky in the sketch. And they're not doing that. But it's not anti punky. They have their own shit going on.

[Punky Johnson]

It was never anti Punky. Yeah, it was. It was. It's like you sit up there and you think people thinking about you. They not. Ain't nobody thinking about you.

[Torre]

No. But themselves.

[Punky Johnson]

Because that's what you have to do. You have to think about yourself. It's not like a. You're not a team. You know what I'm saying? You have your teams, but specifically you have to get on. So it's just like this. If you and your friend sketch make it to the show, somebody's sketch ain't gon make it to the live. So you praying for your sketch to go. It's ultimately you praying for your friends to fail.

[Torre]

There's only so many spots.

[Punky Johnson]

But also it's. It's not. None of it's on purpose. Nobody mean to be a piece of shit on purpose.

[Torre]

Who's your favorite host?

[Punky Johnson]

Who? Elon. I'm just playing.

[Torre]

Was he your least favorite host?

[Punky Johnson]

No, he.

[Torre]

He.

[Punky Johnson]

He was a little. He threw me off a little bit to start because he was.

[Torre]

His monologue was ridiculous.

[Punky Johnson]

He threw me off because when we met, I was trying to pitch him. I was like, oh, yes, this how.

[Torre]

I pitched him an idea. And he said, that's not funny.

[Punky Johnson]

He was looking at me like, okay. I'm like, elon Musk, the richest man in the world, goes into the Waffle House, falls in love with the waitress Brenda. Elon can get anything he wants. He can get the mailman to shit himself. He can get the dogs to lick his head. He can have any woman he wants. Brenda doesn't like it except Brenda.

[Torre]

And he was like, and of course she's. She's you.

[Punky Johnson]

He was like, why wouldn't Brenda want me? I was like, you know what? Never mind. Never mind. Motherfucker.

[Torre]

Wow.

[Punky Johnson]

He's like, I don't understand why Brenda wouldn't want me.

[Torre]

Wow.

[Punky Johnson]

And then his friend was like, I could get it if he had, like a dog paw for a hand. I'm like, you know what? Never mind, y'all. That's a dog paw for a hand.

[Torre]

The joke.

[Punky Johnson]

I was like, all right.

[Torre]

So then you're like, forget it.

[Punky Johnson]

I just said, forget it because you.

[Torre]

Have no sense of humor.

[Punky Johnson]

He couldn't understand why Brenda did. First of all, Brenda is not real. Brenda's not a real.

[Torre]

I mean, the level of self aggrandizement to think there's a woman in the world who wouldn't want me.

[Punky Johnson]

The. The caucasity. Okay?

[Torre]

The caucasity. I love that word.

[Punky Johnson]

I couldn't. I was just like, all right, Eli. I don't know. There was so many wonderful hosts. You got Quinta, who was fantastic.

[Torre]

Quinta Brunson.

[Punky Johnson]

Ayo.

[Torre]

You got Ayo, Adebri, Kiki, Meg, Paul Stallion.

[Punky Johnson]

You know, John Mulaney's always a blast. You got Kim Kardashian was probably one of my favorites, because as a billionaire, you would think she would come in and act like a billionaire. And she came in and she treated the janitor the same way she would treat the CEO. Everything was with much.

[Torre]

She sent y'all gifts after.

[Punky Johnson]

For the most part. Everybody send you gifts.

[Torre]

Every host, for the most part.

[Punky Johnson]

Did we? I don't even remember if I don't think we got nothing from Elon's cheap ass. Like, bitch, send me a Tesla and stop around. Everybody. Everybody do nice things, like, they'll send you some chocolates, or they'll send you some food afterward, or they'll send you, like, some of their gear. Like, Kim gave us all skims. And I think Kim. Yeah, Kim. But you know, Kiki, I don't know, man. It's so many. So many are just tens. You know, Michael B. Jordan with his little sexy self. I had a nice little moment with his fine ass. Oh, just. I mean, you really can't. Everybody, for the most part, are very kind and, you know, want to learn the system, and they submit to it so that they can have a great show.

[Torre]

When I. There are several women, Meg being one of them. J Lo for me. Trina, remember Trina?

[Punky Johnson]

Oh, I love jlo.

[Torre]

Trina, remember Trina, the rapper from Miami was down with Trick Daddy.

[Punky Johnson]

I don't remember that.

[Torre]

I'm talking about interviews in Beyonce that I've done where I'm talking to the woman and I'm forgetting the next question. Cause I keep looking at her like.

[Punky Johnson]

Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

[Torre]

J. London, Beyonce. Trina who?

[Punky Johnson]

I said, J. Lo is a tiny little thing. I didn't know she was so tiny. She's tiny. She's shorter than me. I thought she was a tall, taller woman.

[Torre]

Kim. I remember. So who. Who makes you. Like, I can't even think straight around her. Like, God damn.

[Punky Johnson]

You know what? I'm from New Orleans, so I never really. We was never, like, Starstrucky.

[Torre]

And I worked not for Starstruck, but, like, not for Star Beauty. Yeah.

[Punky Johnson]

It was. It probably was Jennifer Lopez.

[Torre]

Yeah, she's fucking amazing.

[Punky Johnson]

It probably was Jennifer because. And then I love a nice, short woman, and I love a Latina. If you speak some Spanish to me, I'm going down. I'm going fucking down. And I've always looked up to. I've always listened to all of her music, and I've always watched all of her movies.

[Torre]

You know, it would be like, look at her face. God, she smiled. She's so fucking beautiful. I forgot my next question. Look down like, oh, my God, the feet, the pedicure, the manicure, the this, the that, the Gucci dress.

[Punky Johnson]

Usually I tell a woman when she's like, I'm done. I'm sick of the guys. I'm going to the straight world. I mean, I'm going to the gay world. Usually I tell a woman, don't do that. We ain't shit either. Don't do that. Don't do that. Yeah, ain't nothing gonna be better over here, I promise you. But if JLO ever be like, I'm thinking about motherfucker, I will call her manager. Hey, somebody better put me I will be the best that I can be she will never, ever have a problem out of me. She's just so beautiful. I will do everything so beautiful I will lick the ground she walk on I don't give a shit I'll do what they say in the old school I will drink her bath water Tub.

[Torre]

Of your bath water I'll drink a tub of your bath water she's just.

[Punky Johnson]

And just like, you know, not even in a creepy way. I'm opening and closing doors yeah, the driver better not touch your dough don't touch my bitch, though. I got this. I'll fucking kill you. She's a very. And she's very, very kind. And she's very polite and, like, she has this halo around her.

[Torre]

But people have told me that it's not any easier to date in the lesbian world. Cause I know women. Men aren't complaining. Women are like, men don't know how to. But you ain't gonna find it. It's not easy over here.

[Punky Johnson]

I got in an argument with my shorty the other day. Cause she was like, I don't get it. You're a girl. So how don't you understand? And I'm like, what makes me, being a girl, so qualified to understand or read your fucking mind, bitch? Regardless, you need to tell me or you need to tell me what's in your head you don't have. Your skull is not clear. And I cannot read what's on your mind. Okay? You have to tell me what's going on so that I can know what's going on. You can't tell me to leave and then I leave, and you mad cause I leave. Cause you wanted me to stay. I don't. Bitch, I don't get it.

[Torre]

I have had the same conversation. Are we in the same relationship? Why don't you just tell me what you want me to do?

[Punky Johnson]

Tell me what you want. Do not have no expectations with me.

[Torre]

But you know what? I love when women are like, fine, do what you want to do. And I'm like, well, do you want me to do what I want to do? Or do you want me to know that I'm not supposed to do what I want to do because you said do what you want to do.

[Punky Johnson]

It doesn't. I'm just like, do not tell me because I don't play those types of games. If I tell you to leave, I hope you don't go into your girl brain and be like, well, if I said it, I would stay. I would want her to stay. If I tell you to leave, you better get the fuck out of here. Get the fuck out of here before I say some crazy mean shit that I'm a regret. Go. I'm trying to spare your ass right now, so I don't play those types of mental testy games. If I tell you we need space. I'm serious. I don't need you to fight for me. Don't. You ain't got to fight. That's not going to prove anything to me. Fighting for me gonna piss me off. It's gonna make Me mad bitch. I said leave me alone. I gotta prove you not fighting for me. Show me that you didn't want me. You asked for space. I think space is great for you to process, understand what happened. And then when you ready to come back, you will come back. I left the ball in your court. I told you I loved you and I wanted you to be here, bitch. Now take the space. See, I'm crazy.

[Torre]

You funny. You funny. Why do you need to make people laugh?

[Punky Johnson]

You know what? You know what's another thing that happened in this past couple months? I went to south by Southwest and somebody came up to me and it was like, punky, I had a terrible week. And you, you just, you just made my day. She said, you talk about stuff you won't expect people to talk about. And she's like, I like the fact that you brash. And it be those special moments. Even if it's one person, it'd be those special moments to me that lets me know that it's not about me. None of this is about me. Because now it's about other people who are inspired by you and who get the. Who gets to turn their frown upside down by watching you. So, yes, in a sense, it's about me because I'm the one that's out there and I'm putting it out there. But when people come talk to me about that type of stuff, I don't think they understand how much that affects me and how much it makes me get up off the ground and stand up and be like, I'm not fucking quitting. It'll make me emotional. I'll cry in your arms, you know? Cause it's hard. You know, it's hard being a stand up. You're out there on the road, people don't really know what it's like. And they gonna come a time or two, you gonna piss some people off. And people ain't gonna like what you say. And that could turn into a whole nother fuck, whole nother thing. And, you know, it's tough because it's really like, it's really survival. So you have to really love this shit.

[Torre]

Yeah.

[Punky Johnson]

So, you know, I love to do it. I love to be on stage. I don't necessarily like pissing people off, but I can't change my pov. It is what it is. My real, my true fans will find me and I'm gonna be gracious, but I think that's why, because I like to make people happy.

[Torre]

A lot of comics are sad.

[Punky Johnson]

We are very sad.

[Torre]

People are you sad?

[Punky Johnson]

Sometimes I think it's balance, right? The crazy thing about it is it's like when my career is here, my personal life is here. When my personal life is here, my career is here. I'm here right now.

[Torre]

Your personal life is good, but your career is low.

[Punky Johnson]

It's here. Now my career is like this. Just because I'm still in the vehicle, I'm still on the road, but I got a nail in my tire. There gonna be a time where I'm gonna be able to bring that motherfucker right here.

[Torre]

Balance.

[Punky Johnson]

As soon as I get it here, that's when you make it. When I'm at ease and I'm calm and I'm peaceful on both sides.

[Torre]

But for a comic, the messed up life fuels. Helps you be great on stage.

[Punky Johnson]

Yes, that is very, very, very true. But if I'm here, then I could talk about somebody else's messed up life. I know I'll draw from that shit.

[Torre]

I know one major household name comedian talked about he wanted his life to be fucked up so that the comedy would be good.

[Punky Johnson]

That's like Mary J. Blige. It's like, girl, will you go get your heart broken again and give us an album? And stop around all this happy bullshit ain't doing nothing for us.

[Torre]

Mary, Mary, trying to grow.

[Punky Johnson]

What you talking? Let's get it funk up on it.

[Torre]

We won't hear that, Dancery.

[Punky Johnson]

We won't hear it's been too strong for too long and I can't sleep. That is the shit we want to hear. I was your lover and your sacra. That's what we want to hear.

[Torre]

Right?

[Punky Johnson]

Right, Dancery? Right, girl? Go be with a toxic man and stop playing with us.

[Torre]

Oh, my God. I ask people, most of the people come on the show, what does being black mean to you?

[Punky Johnson]

You know, I love being black. I would. I. Even though with the troubles that we experience, I would die and come back black every time. I don't care about what we go through. I care about it in the sense of. I think, you know, but I don't care because I feel like we the coolest. I feel like being black is swagalicious. I feel like being black is a statement. I feel like being black is fearless. And it's a sense of awareness as well. You know, I think we have the best awareness in the world, probably because we were slaves and we always had to watch what the fuck we said and what the fuck we did on Massa was coming. So awareness is instilled in us. But Also, it helps us in survival. You know what I'm saying? So I wouldn't come back as any other race. Spanish people, they cool, but nah. Italian people, they cool, but nah. Asian people, they smart as hell, but nah. Black people, we it. And I think in a sense of like. And of course, I could be making this up in my head, but I think we. We. We're it. You are he and I am her. And I think we are so he and her that that's why they try to keep us so oppressed. Because we are it. Period. Period. And if you want to be honest with you, I think we. We the smartest. And we the. We the best in sports, we're the best without, with the way we speak. With the best. We the best with the way we dress.

[Torre]

I mean, I would. If I knew what this was and came back something else. I would miss being part of black culture and all those things from Beyonce to Obama to whatever that we're part of. And I miss being part of that party, right? Like that be like, damn. Cause that's. That the community.

[Punky Johnson]

Correct. Yeah.

[Torre]

Is so fun.

[Punky Johnson]

You know what I love about being black? We can mix with anybody. We can mix. We could go to a Mexican party and be in that bitch and mix. We go to a white party and be up in there and do the little house music. We could go to Asia. People love us wherever we go, except here. Soul out of body, except the country we're in. They love us, we vibrate.

[Torre]

They love us when we're on stage just to stop trying to get all rights and power.

[Punky Johnson]

Y.

[Torre]

And like, we don't.

[Punky Johnson]

You know, comedy is a fine line, right? You know, I'm black. I'm happy to be black. I'm a woman happy to be woman. Gay. Happy to be gay. But you know, sometimes my own people, they be like, ah, ah. Cause you know, it's still like that little stereotype about black men not liking gay women. So when I go do black clubs and I find out I'm doing a black club, I be like, oh, fuck. So I would have to. To. To get the black people to listen to me. I have to shift my entire energy. So when I go out to the white people, I come out to like Cupid Shuffle and something cute, right? I could start my set. White people be sitting there with they popcorn. They ready? Let's go. Yeah, having fun. I could take my time. Black people, however, I gotta. I tell dj, look play before I let go so I could get these niggas amped up. A little bit, please. Yes, I play before I let go. You know, the black people, as soon as they hear that, whatever they doing, that's how you get their attention. Yes, you gotta play that.

[Torre]

Which one?

[Punky Johnson]

Not. No. Beyonce. Old school.

[Torre]

Thank you. Thank you. Yes, yes. Keep it real. Keep it real.

[Punky Johnson]

Play that. You play that.

[Torre]

She did a good job with it.

[Punky Johnson]

She did fantastic.

[Torre]

But, I mean, it's Frankie, Beverly and Mitch.

[Punky Johnson]

Come on now.

[Torre]

Can't.

[Punky Johnson]

Don't play with that. Yeah, but soon as you play that, that's when you got the black people attention.

[Torre]

God, ain't that the only thing that Beyonce ever kind of didn't get all.

[Punky Johnson]

The way there with the remake of that?

[Torre]

To remake one of the most important songs in black America?

[Punky Johnson]

You know what? Beyonce is Beyonce. And she can touch anything. I don't think she should. I don't think anybody should have touched that song.

[Torre]

All right.

[Punky Johnson]

I mean, that song to certain people.

[Torre]

I mean, if I told you one person gotta remake it and do it better. All right, I'll give Beyonce a chance. Absolutely nobody else touched that shit. But she's earned the right. She got the skills. You try, right? And I bet she might. No, she didn't. You can't. You can't.

[Punky Johnson]

If you put it in. If you put it in the angle of that of, like, if somebody do do it, it's definitely going to be Beyonce then. Okay? But certain things you shouldn't. Like. Like set it off. Don't. Nobody better not touch. Set it off. Do not touch that movie. But if you do, call me.

[Torre]

Oh, call. I know, right? Cause you be good, though.

[Punky Johnson]

If you do, you better call me good. You motherfuckers better call me, bitch if you fucking do.

[Torre]

Say, FIFA, we gonna shoot somebody. Watch before the end of the movie. Watch.

[Punky Johnson]

If you do.

[Torre]

Who are the. Who are the comedians? Who are your parents who helped create.

[Punky Johnson]

Who you are, like, in the game?

[Torre]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Punky Johnson]

Who I looked up to.

[Torre]

Who you. Yeah. Who you watched to form your. You as a comedian.

[Punky Johnson]

I think the biggest of them all was probably Eddie Murphy. And specifically, let me tell you why.

[Torre]

Young Eddie or older Eddie?

[Punky Johnson]

Young.

[Torre]

So raw.

[Punky Johnson]

Yes.

[Torre]

Delirious.

[Punky Johnson]

Yes. Raw is special. Let me tell. I'm gonna tell you why.

[Torre]

First of all, Richard Pebbles, my cousin Fruity Pebbles.

[Punky Johnson]

Yeah. Richard Pryor. Off top for sure. Because Richard is Richard. Right? Raw. Hilarious. He knew how to talk to a white crowd like it was and insult people in front of their faces like it was like it was nothing to make it like butter. Like butter, baby. Eddie Murphy. Specifically because I Remember, he said on stage he got a call from Bill Cosby telling him to cut out all the cursing. Maybe he'll be better. Maybe people like him more if he changed the one thing that he loved about himself. Well, one of the things that he loved about himself. And Eddie Murphy said, fuck that. And I think that was the moment I said, I'm not gonna shy away from these motherfuckers. So you gonna get with the. You ain't gotta come to the show. Don't come. Walk out.

[Torre]

Eddie has some homophobic jokes from that early run, I think. Delirious.

[Punky Johnson]

I love homophobic jokes.

[Torre]

You do?

[Punky Johnson]

I love it because, number one, if they crafted right and they hilarious. And it's not you being a person who hate gay people. Cause I don't think Eddie Murphy hate gay people. I think he just make funny, hilarious homophobic jokes. Now, you might have to remind me of what the homophobic jokes are.

[Torre]

Oh, God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. You're.

[Punky Johnson]

You know what I'm saying?

[Torre]

Delirious was a long time ago.

[Punky Johnson]

I'm making the full statement. I might have to go watch Delirious again.

[Torre]

I. I mean, you know. Yeah. I mean, if it don't stick in your memory, it is what it is. I mean, nothing.

[Punky Johnson]

It'd be simple stuff like when I be looking on the Internet and if you give me a nice, strong gay joke and I'm. And I think it's hilarious. Like, one dude was like, man, these dykes out here trying to tell me to call her Pistol P. Man, Pearl, if you go sit your ass down. Like, I love that shit. Because I'm not calling you Pistol P if your real name is Pearl.

[Torre]

Okay?

[Punky Johnson]

You get it?

[Torre]

Kind of. Because the Pearl handle. I'm thinking too much.

[Punky Johnson]

Because her name is Pearl.

[Torre]

Okay?

[Punky Johnson]

But he want. But she wants you to call her Pistol P. Okay? She wants you to call her something gangster when she got a ass name.

[Torre]

Oh, okay. So that took me a lot to get. Yeah, it's just like, I was looking for other things.

[Punky Johnson]

No, it's like, you know, the Internet beats simple. They simple when they think they doing something big. But it's just like, I could. Like, one dude was. One dude told me one time, he was like, man, I don't understand why y'all be using them straps. What, y'all trying to make plastic babies? I loved it. I loved it. It was like one of my favorite jokes. I was like, dude, that's funny. I mean, of course he was pissed. Cause he meant that as an insult.

[Torre]

Right?

[Punky Johnson]

Right.

[Torre]

Right, right, right, right, right.

[Punky Johnson]

But I thought it was hilarious. I was like, that's a good point.

[Torre]

You said Eddie. You said Richard. Of course, Eddie. Who else?

[Punky Johnson]

In my younger date. So you remember Comic View?

[Torre]

Of course.

[Punky Johnson]

So I had a lot of fun. I had like.

[Torre]

Of course you were. You weren't on comic.

[Punky Johnson]

No, no. It was way. I was 13 when I used to be watching that. But I remember that's when I met Cedric the Entertainer. I never met him. Met him, but that's when I met him through the television.

[Torre]

Okay. You seem more of a Def Jam sort of person than a Comic View sort of person.

[Punky Johnson]

Comic, I think, if to my knowledge, I think Def Jam was on hbo. Yeah, we didn't have hbo. We didn't have all those channels. And if we did, it was upstairs in my mom's room.

[Torre]

Because Def Jam was much more aggressive and overtly, unapologetically black.

[Punky Johnson]

Right.

[Torre]

In the room in the whole present, Comic View would constantly be like, white people are like this, black people are like that. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[Punky Johnson]

Right?

[Torre]

Comic. Fucking. Def Jam would be like, Def Jam was crazy. You don't understand. I ain't scared of you.

[Punky Johnson]

Everybody used to be up in there, Flav. Oh, my God, everybody. I met Cedric the Entertainer through Comic view. Steve Harvey, D.C. curry.

[Torre]

They formed some of your. Your comedy.

[Punky Johnson]

Well, what, What, What? To me, when you go on a show like Comic View, which is not only since it's so censored, I felt with Comic View, you had to find a way to make more people laugh. Right. So, yeah, it is on bet, but it's comedy, and everybody want to watch comedy, so it's not just black people watching this show. I felt like more people across the board was watching Comic View, hbo. I felt like it was only black people. So I felt that, in a sense, it could put you in a box because you're gonna be telling jokes that only black people can understand. Comic View, I felt, while also telling the black jokes, I felt like they, I guess, strategically and tediously broke things down a little bit more so that the crowd, like people on a bigger. On a larger scale, can understand them. So. And I like that.

[Torre]

That's who you wanted to be.

[Punky Johnson]

Yes, I want to be able to speak to everybody because in a sense, I like the fact that I went to the Comedy Store, that this guy Tommy running a talent who gets to get on stage and who don't get to get on stage. And he was a tough, tough, tough man. But the one thing that I appreciated from him was he Said, you wanna be a black comic or you wanna be a comic? And a lot of people are like, I can't believe he told you that. But that sits with me all the time. Because now I want to. I want to make an entire joke. And I do realize that a lot of black people, when I do watch a lot of black comedy, they're not gonna make the whole joke. They're gonna put it to where the black people gonna get it. And the white people gonna be like, huh. So it's just like. And it's great. We have enough black people for you to be successful as a black comic. Not saying nothing bad about that. However, I would like to go. I would like to be a little larger across the scale. So that.

[Torre]

That is something that a lot of. I think all black artists have to think about and confront. Do I want to be a writer, an actor, a singer, whatever, or a black writer, singer ever? Do I want to focus on black audiences or go for everybody? Which, you know, then is that selling out? Can you be black if you're for everybody? Or then you're Drake or some shit?

[Punky Johnson]

Yeah.

[Torre]

Like, we all are sort of American fiction. The Jeffrey Wright movie was all about that. Like, we're all sort of weighing.

[Punky Johnson]

Right? I'm. If you're gonna be honest with you, I'm still, like, in this identity thing in Hollywood. Cause they got spaces where I'm too gay, and they got spaces where I'm not gay enough. Like, I'd probably be too gay for some of the white stuff that's going on, but I probably wouldn't be gay enough for a 50 cent movie, you know? So it's like one of those things of, like, I just need to just. My. I'm having a Hollywood identity crisis right now, where when I settle my mind, it's like, punky. All you have to do is be yourself. You know, who you are. Just go out there and be it. So you don't really have to. I don't really have to struggle with that. But Hollywood is so. Hollywood is just a weird place. And I realized that I don't have a crew. You know how everybody have a crew? Like, Issa got her crew, 50 got his crew. You know, everybody have their bubbles. And Quinta now is building her bubble, you know? So I'm either going to have to build my own bubble, which everybody should essentially do anyway, which I am going to do, but I also wanna be a part of another bubble. You know, I wanna go see what's up with 50, you know, what I'm saying I might wanna dib and dab and see what Tyler Perry over there doing.

[Torre]

You're obsessed with 50.

[Punky Johnson]

I love 50. I'm trying to, man. I think I dmed him. I was drunk one time and I think I was like, give me an audition. But of course he ain't gonna see that, you know, But I'm just trying to. I just wanna get into these certain. I just want to be a part of something strong. I want to be a part of something real. I want to be a part of something successful. I want to be a part of something where everybody in the room is smarter than me until I get smarter than them. I want. I want to continuously learn. I want to learn every single thing that I can learn in this business. And I just need to get in those rooms. I just need to get in those rooms. And I want to be. And I want to be with the people that's not fake. In Hollywood, you know, they got a lot of people that say stuff just in the mix of it and they don't mean what they say.

[Torre]

Mm, mm, mm.

[Punky Johnson]

You know, just. Cause we having a conversation. Yeah, yeah, you know. Cause we gonna. And of course I'm a high ledge and you know, you know Lena Waithe, she a real one. Like she said something to me and she meant every word that she said. And we check up on each other. We holl at each other. I'm about to send her a text right now. Cause I just saw today that she gonna be on Grey's Anatomy.

[Torre]

What did she say to you?

[Punky Johnson]

She was just like, when you roll up out of snl, I got you, period. Soon as I got sooner. I'm telling you, it wasn't. I don't think it was. Three days after the news came out. Contract, let's go. Where you at? Come out to Chicago for a little while. Okay, Easy. And plenty of people told me after snl. I got you. She the only one that made the call. Now that. Now that was unexpected. You know what I'm saying? Whether I go back to the shy season eight, I don't know. But she stood on business and carried my finances over to the next year too. So thank you, bitch. But you know, she building her bubble. You know, she sitting down, talking to shoot. I don't know why I'm having a bubble, man. Phylicia Rashad's sister. She one of my favorites.

[Torre]

Debbie Allen.

[Punky Johnson]

Oh, Debbie, man, you know what I would do to get my finger just to brush my shoulder up against Debbie Allen. And she doing that, you know, I want. I wanna. Man. Man, she doing it big, bruh. But that's why I appreciate her. What's up, punk? Just check. Hey, I'm in New York. Where you at? I was supposed to go see her in Los Angeles, but. Oh, man, I had. Oh, boy, I got so sick. I ain't want to spread that. But anyway. But she was a real one.

[Torre]

Anything else you want to talk about? Anything I haven't asked you.

[Punky Johnson]

You know. No, not really. I just think that, like, it's tough in this business. And I think sometimes I think God is like, listen, you crazy. And sometimes I have to hold you back a little bit because you be popping off on people. And in this business, not everybody's gonna like you. And in this business, not everybody's gonna say, nope, I'm not gonna comment on her page and tell her something negative today. Because they got people that's gonna do that. Cause people, they be fucking with me sometimes. Before I was at snl, I couldn't respond. They'll tell me shit, I can't respond. But I'm not at SNL no more. So when people come while I'm having a good day, it could be on a post I posted 116 weeks ago. Tell me something mean and filthy. I text, I boy, I be having time. I be typing all kind of shit. I be like, listen, motherfucker, I done did it so many times. People done deleted they comment. I'm like, I ain't had SNL no more, bitch.

[Torre]

It's nice, though. Cause you be in some house, you gotta be chill online. Don't want to give fired for some shit you tweeted or tagged or commented. You get out the house, you'd be like, we outside now.

[Punky Johnson]

What's up? What's up?

[Torre]

You had all that mouth when I was hired. Now I'm not hired. What's up now? Fuck you.

[Punky Johnson]

And now they like, oh, shit. Oh, I didn't think you was gonna respond. I didn't think you were gonna. Thought I could be a fucking jackass. No, bitch, but I'm starting to. Just delete the comment. I'm starting to turn into a little cupcake. I am just deleted. Cause I gotta be ready for when God give me what I've been asking him.

[Torre]

Sounds positive.

[Punky Johnson]

And I don't wanna fuck it up by cursing a motherfucker out that don't even deserve it.

[Torre]

Right.

[Punky Johnson]

You know, deserve the cursing out.

[Torre]

Right.

[Punky Johnson]

But don't deserve my time.

[Torre]

Right, Right, right, right. So that's beautiful. Thank you. Puggy. That was beautiful.

[Punky Johnson]

I appreciate being here. Thank you for your time. I hope I ain't talk your head off.

[Torre]

This is beautiful. This is awesome.

[Punky Johnson]

I will talk.

[Torre]

I love this. Thank you so much.

[Punky Johnson]

I will talk all day.

[Torre]

You're the best. Thanks so much to Punky for a great show and thanks to you for watching. Torre's show gives you fuel to power your dreams. Because you can use your dreams like a rocket ship to blast you into a life you never imagined. You can make your dreams a reality. Maybe somehow this show can help. You can find me on TikTok at Torre show and on Instagram at Torreyshow. Torrey show is written by me. It's produced by Ashley Hobbs. Our editor is Ryan Woodhall. Our booker is Ray Holiday and we're distributed by DCP Entertainment. And we will be back next Wednesday with more amazing guests because the man can't shut us down. Sa.