Episode 1660 - Leanne Morgan

Summary

WTF with Marc Maron – Episode 1660: Leanne Morgan

Release Date: July 14, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 1660 of the WTF with Marc Maron podcast, host Marc Maron sits down with the versatile comedian, actress, and author, Leanne Morgan. Known for her relatable humor and heartfelt storytelling, Leanne shares her journey into comedy, the challenges she faced, and her recent success with a Netflix-produced sitcom.

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Early Life and Career Beginnings

Leanne Morgan opens up about her upbringing in a farming family in Middle Tennessee, delving into the legacy of tobacco farming that shaped her early years.

Leanne Morgan [19:02]: "For generations on both sides, back were farming people in that area that is known for dark fire tobacco."

Growing up immersed in the tobacco industry, Leanne recounts how her family's meat processing plant provided financial stability, allowing her and her sister to pursue higher education.

Leanne Morgan [21:34]: "My family worked in that, and we did everybody's hogs, beef and grass-fed all that like you have now."

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Transition to Comedy

Despite a background steeped in agriculture and business, Leanne always harbored dreams of entering the entertainment industry. Her initial foray into comedy came later in life, pivoting from corporate endeavors to stand-up.

Leanne Morgan [35:08]: "From the time I was like, nine or ten, I thought, I'm going to Hollywood. I mean, I'm going to be in show business."

Her early attempts involved performing at the Comedy Store and open mics, but balancing motherhood and career posed significant challenges.

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Challenges in the Comedy Industry

Leanne discusses the hurdles she faced as a mother trying to break into the predominantly male and youth-oriented comedy scene. Development deals with major networks fell through, leaving her feeling marginalized.

Leanne Morgan [45:57]: "They had a success with that. But he's like, let's give it a whirl. So we, yeah, they ordered 16 episodes. No pilot, nothing. I mean, like, we went straight to."

Despite these setbacks, Leanne remained resilient, continuing to perform in smaller venues and honing her craft through unique platforms like jewelry parties, which inadvertently served as impromptu comedy clubs.

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Breakthrough and Viral Success

Leanne's breakthrough came unexpectedly through online platforms. In 2017, she released a special via Dry Bar, which initially garnered limited attention. However, a viral clip in 2019 shifted her career trajectory dramatically.

Leanne Morgan [57:05]: "They put it out, it gets like 50 million views on YouTube."

The viral success resonated with a broader audience, particularly middle-aged women who found her humor relatable and refreshing. This newfound popularity led to sold-out tours and a significant increase in her fanbase.

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Netflix Sitcom and Current Projects

Leanne's continued success culminated in the creation of her own sitcom, produced by Chuck Lorre and available on Netflix. The show, titled "Leanne Prince," debuted on July 31st, 2025, and received positive feedback for its heartfelt storytelling and solid comedic writing.

Leanne Morgan [66:16]: "I have got something going. And I did a movie with Reese Witherspoon."

The sitcom features a blend of traditional multi-camera setups with modern storytelling, aiming to capture the essence of classic sitcoms while appealing to contemporary audiences.

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Personal Life and Family Support

Throughout her career journey, Leanne emphasizes the pivotal role her family, particularly her husband Chuck Morgan, played in supporting her ambitions. Balancing family life with professional aspirations has been a cornerstone of her success.

Leanne Morgan [64:22]: "He's a very practical. I would have been out here doing God knows what, but keeping me there in the middle of the United States helped me develop this."

Leanne also touches on the dynamics of her relationships within the industry, highlighting interactions with notable figures like David Lee Roth and Reese Witherspoon, who have supported her endeavors.

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Insights and Reflections

Leanne reflects on the evolving landscape of comedy and the importance of finding one's unique voice. She discusses how social media and online platforms have democratized exposure, allowing comedians outside the traditional circuits to find their audience.

Leanne Morgan [58:59]: "I found these young guys, and that was crazy. These young guys that worked out of Dallas, Texas, and they understood my voice."

Her experiences underscore the value of authenticity and persistence, encouraging aspiring comedians to stay true to their narratives despite industry obstacles.

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Conclusion

In a candid and engaging conversation, Leanne Morgan shares her inspirational journey from a rural upbringing to becoming a celebrated comedian and Netflix star. Her story is a testament to resilience, the power of authentic storytelling, and the evolving avenues for comedians to connect with their audience.

Marc Maron [72:57]: "It's amazing that you had, like, you were ready. Who knows how it's going to happen. I mean, I didn't think I was gonna do. It wasn't looking good, you know."

Leanne's success serves as a beacon for many, illustrating that it's never too late to pursue one's passion and make a meaningful impact.

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Notable Quotes:

• Marc Maron [46:26]: "But what about, like, were you part of the regional circuit? You know, like in."

• Leanne Morgan [35:25]: "He thought was very morbid and didn't enjoy it. But I love to see where Bugsy Siegel was shot."

• Leanne Morgan [57:05]: "They put it out, it gets like 50 million views on YouTube."

• Marc Maron [72:21]: "So you lived there for a while?"

• Leanne Morgan [35:08]: "From the time I was like, nine or ten, I thought, I'm going to Hollywood."

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Leanne Morgan's episode on WTF with Marc Maron offers a profound look into the life of a comedian who defied expectations and carved out her niche through perseverance and authenticity. Her story is an inspiring narrative for anyone striving to realize their dreams against the odds.

Transcript

[Marc Maron]

So it's happening, people. The Bad guys, and I'm one of them. Get ready for the Bad Guys 2 from DreamWorks Animation. I love being Mr. Snake. It's one of the more fun jobs I've had in show business. I like working with Craig Robinson, Sam Rockwell, Awkwafina, Anthony Ramos, Natasha Leone on this one, everybody. It's just. It's a blast. Especially when we can all get into the same room and kind of work it out together. Natasha plays my love interest in this one. I tell you, it is kind of an exciting thing to have parents who know me from me say that their kid loves Mr. Snake. I'm crossing generations with my Snake voice. Yeah. Get tickets now for The Bad Guys 2. In theaters August 1st. Lock the gates. All right, let's do this. How are you? What the. What the buddies? What the ears? What's happening? I'm Marc Maron. This is my podcast. Welcome to it. How's it going? I don't even know what day it is. Do you? Is everything all right? Today I talked to Leanne Morgan. You know, I didn't know her, and she came to comedy pretty late in life and had a huge success with her first comedy special, I'm Every Woman. Since then, she's released a book called what in the World? And now she has a sitcom produced by Chuck Lorre coming out on Netflix later this month. And it was kind of amazing to talk to her because she's been at it, and she's the real deal. And I just. I didn't know her off of my radar until she wasn't. Then I'm like, holy shit. This is. She's. She's. She's the real deal. And it was great to talk to her. I'm back at Largo for a comedy and music show. I'm on Wednesday, July 23rd. Tickets are at largo-la.com or you can get them at wtfpod.com Got a new band. The old band was great, but I just wanted to try playing out with some different folks. Pretty excited about the songs we're singing, and we're getting a lot of time in. Actually did some vocal work with Paige Stark, who is going to be drumming, and she was like, you gotta fucking do some vocal work so we can get the vocal and harmonies right. I'm like, what? There's a job to this? So we hammered that out. But look, man, there's a 80% chance I'll choke anyways. Just the way I am with music. I'm like, the Choke King. Speaking of music, this was a while back, I guess it was a couple weeks ago now, not quite. But I gotta be honest with you, that farewell Black Sabbath performance, that farewell Ozzy performance, because he's ill and, you know, he's. He's going out on his own terms. I've only seen some clips of it, but it looked like the greatest fucking goodbye I've ever seen in my life. If only more of these boomers who aren't sick would, you know, bow out respectfully. It'd be nice. And I, you know, I get shit for this. It's fine. But I'll tell you, man, Ozzy is one of the best. One of the best frontmen. Black Sabbath, one of the best rock bands ever. And the humility of him and the humanity of him sitting in what. What. What was a throne and deserves to be a throne. Going through the catalog, having great, you know, contemporary acts and just fans of his come up and do it. Guns N Roses, I think, was there and I don't know, man, it just was so. It was. It was heartbreaking and elevating and it was just beautiful. It just seemed like a beautiful event for everybody involved. And, you know, some people get on my shit about this, you know, it's hard for me to watch rock stars that I grew up with, I grew up loving when I was a younger man. Sometimes it's hard for me to watch them as they get very old, not older, very old. And some people think I'm being ageist. And you, fuck you, I'm not. I just. Look, I'm not begrudging them. If they want to go out and play, fine. I just can't. It's hard for me to watch because the sadness overwhelms the idea of, isn't it great these guys are still playing? I mean, the Stones barely make the cut. I mean, I. They may. That makes me a little sad. Even though they're churning pretty hard and they're doing a great job. It's just hard for me to watch because they represent a vitality to me that drove me as a younger man. And that old stuff still drives me now. And look again. Knock yourself out, fellas. Go out and get that money. Go out and make the fans happy. But it's really hard for me to watch because there was something vital about the music. And the fact that they can still do it does not. It doesn't. Doesn't make me happy. I mean, I'm glad they're having a good time, but I don't Watch it and think like, yeah, fucking rock and roll. Yeah. I'm just watching it like, oh man, oh man, we're all going to die, God damn it. But again, not ageist. Just from where I'm sitting, it's hard to watch. Again, I think some people should turn it in, but you know, what are you going to do? But sometimes it's nice to stop on your own terms. And I don't think Ozzie and the fellas are going to do another farewell. He's not well and it's heartbreaking, but it was beautiful. Closure. There's a lot to be said for beautiful closure on one's own terms. This is an ad by BetterHelp People. A summer vacation can be a great way to relax and recharge your batteries, but it isn't a long time solution to stress. Don't forget that therapy can help you navigate whatever challenges the workday or any day might bring. 61% of the global workforce experiences higher than normal levels of stress, but there's always something you can do about high stress levels. I see a therapist when I need to get grounded, and you should too. BetterHelp can be a great way to get started. With more than 35,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's worst largest online therapy platform, having served more than 5 million people globally. 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Now I've got till August 1st to continue to do the material live and I'm waiting for new stuff to come. It's not coming and it's only been a couple months, but it's not coming. And look, I'm not freaking out about it. Used to be I'd be like, is it going to come? Is that it? But now, like, I don't care. I don't care, man. I'm going to be 62 in September. I know a lot of you are like, hey, man, just keep working. Just keep working. I'm gonna. But I'm not. I'm not feeling any anxiety about it or desperation about it. I assume it'll come, but there's part of me that's, you know, just, I'm going to the Comedy Store. I'm doing the good shows. I'm a little more detached than I used to be, but I think it's a professional detachment. I think that somehow or another I have finally managed to figure out how to do comedy that doesn't. Is not on the edge of life or death for me in terms of connection. And I can kind of give the audience their experience and I can have mine with a little bit of boundaries there. It's fine, it's good. I'm doing the work, I can do it. But I don't know where the new stuff is going to come from, but I never do. But just not a lot of stress happening, right? It doesn't matter if you're away for a vacation or if you're just out for the day going to work. Whenever you're not home, your place should be secured. That's why we recommend Simplisafe, which is setting the new standard in home security. With traditional alarm systems, police get called only after someone has already broken in. What is that? Simplisafe's monitoring agents help prevent break ins before they happen. The AI powered cameras are backed by live professional monitoring agents to detect suspicious activity on your property around the clock. Agents can talk to people on your property. Hey, buddy, you got business over there? Activate spotlights, contact police, all in real time. That not only prevents threats, it deters them too. More than 4 million Americans use and trust Simplisafe, which is one of the reasons it's been named the best home security system of 2025 by CNET. Right now you can get 50% off your new SimpliSafe system with professional monitoring. And you also get your first month free. Just go to simplisafe.com WTF that's simplisafe.com WTF? For 50% off and your first month free. Simplisafe.com WTF? There's no safe like simply safe. So look, I got a problem. I don't know what's going on. I got a problem. So I got this little. I got a hedge in front of my house, a big one. Then I got a little one. I think they're called box plants. It's just like maybe a foot and a half, two feet maybe out in front of the big hedge, there's a little space in between. So it's got, you know, like a. Yeah. Little hedge there. And lately, lately I've been finding little bags of dog in the same place behind my front hedge, in between the two hedges the other day I found three bags of dog and a couple of paper towels. And that means this is somebody's thing. They're. That's their thing. They're walking their doggy. They're carrying around a bag of. And they're like, this is where I put the dog. And look, I. I can appreciate a habit, but, you know, initially I was like, is this somebody. Is this a sign? Is this somebody, you know, registering a protest against me? Are they trying to dogshit me out of the neighborhood? What is happening? How do I read this? Is this somebody saying, go fuck yourself? And then the other day had a plumber come over to deal with a pipe, and right in front of my gate, he stepped into a wad of gum, almost brought it into my house. I'm like, I said to him, I said, did it look like it was put there on purpose? A giant wad of gum? Is this part of the push? Is this attached to the dog shit situation? Is this a dog shit wad of gum, full press, trying to. To terrorize me out of the neighborhood? Now that's the way my brain works. And at some point you got to reel it in. Reel it in. I would say, looking at it rationally, that the wadd gum and the dog shit were not connected events. And, and the dog itself is probably not some sort of, you know, act of. Of trying to frighten me. Right. You think that they go a little heavier with the dog? Right. It's just something someone's doing. Some people are saying, get a camera out there to catch the dog shit villain. Do I need a camera on my head so I can go like, I got you, you bag dropper. You fucking shit dropper. You fucking shit terrorist. So I'm not going to do that. Maybe I don't know what I'm going to do. I tend to like, you know, what am I going to do if I catch him? It'd be a nice moment. That's a nice human moment when you catch Someone doing something not terrible, but annoying and deliberate, and you're just like, hey, what's going on with the bags of dog shit in my yard? Can we not do that? Does it mean anything? Is it just something you enjoy doing? And they're like, oh, yeah, just. And then you're like, can we not do that? And that's a nice moment. You know, you have to get all. You have to lose your shit. And I imagine that the other person not going to be like, go fuck yourself. This is what I'm doing. This is where I'm putting my shit. But that's the current attitude culturally. Just double down. Could you not put the dog shit in my hedges? Could you maybe, you know, go a few extra feet, find a garbage can. Go fuck yourself. What are you gonna do about it? This is where I'm putting my dog shit. Well, do I have to get the law involved? Do we have to have a discussion with the police about, you know, like, this guy's. You know, and that would make a good reel for Instagram, a nice kind of minor problem police activity reel, solving the dog shit bag, you know, issue. I wonder if they double down on the shit bags. Lot of doubling down going on. It's annoying. It's annoying. Oh, my God. It's all coming to a close, huh? Good times. So look, Leanne Morgan is here, and she's a great comedian, and she has a new sitcom coming out produced by Chuck Lorre called Leanne. It premieres on Netflix on July 31st. She's also out on tour right now. Go to leannmorgan.com to see where she'll be and. And get tickets. And this is a lovely conversation with Leanne Morgan. So I don't. I don't think we've ever met.

[Leanne Morgan]

We have, but it was very briefly.

[Marc Maron]

Where was that?

[Leanne Morgan]

Comedy Store.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Leanne Morgan]

I did the Belly Room. That's the only thing I've ever done at the Comedy Store.

[Marc Maron]

That's crazy. Yeah.

[Leanne Morgan]

And you were.

[Marc Maron]

How long ago that was.

[Leanne Morgan]

Oh, gosh, two or three years ago.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Leanne Morgan]

And they told me to get out of the hallway.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, really? Sorry.

[Leanne Morgan]

They said, get out of the hallway. And then you. I stopped you because I've known who you were, you know, all my life, and you were precious to me.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, good.

[Leanne Morgan]

You really were. And you were looking at me like, who is this country woman? Because I probably hugged you and tried to grab you.

[Marc Maron]

You know, I'm available for that. I'm usually open for that. I'm not gonna be scared. Oh, I'm Glad I was nice.

[Leanne Morgan]

You were very sweet to me, and you went, who are you?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Leanne Morgan]

But I had done the Belly Room and was scared to death because I've done the improv and all that. But, you know, I was in Knoxville raising a bunch of kids, doing comedy for over. You just met my daughter. She's 27. I started when she was 18 months old. So I had never been. I've never done the Comedy Store and all those kind of things. So they said, you can do the Belly Room, and some darling man was talking about something really nasty, and then I went up after him and talked about somebody bringing me a meatloaf after I got my IUD replaced at my children's Christian school. And so I didn't know how it was going to go. And how did it go? Really well. And then, yeah, I had a good set, and I think. And all these young people came up to me and said, can I hug you? So I think I'm like a warm blanket. I'm like a grandmother, you know, I am a grandmother. A warm blanket. And then I found you, and I wanted to meet you so badly that I came up to you, and you were precious. But they said, get out of the hallway. So then I went out on the patio thing.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Leanne Morgan]

And kept my mouth shut.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Well, I mean, it's odd because I watched a special, and I know you've been doing it a long time. I kind of knew, but I never, you know, you weren't on my radar, but a lot of people aren't. But the special was great. Thank you. Because I'm getting old, and I don't see it as much as people that have families. You know, when you're just this solitary guy aging without kids. You know, every day, you know, I look in the mirror, I'm like, I'm still good. And then I see pictures of me, and I'm like, not really, but. But something else happened when I was watching it, just in terms of, you know, what you were talking about gave me some insight into, you know, there's this assumption that people that, you know, live cosmopolitan or urban life are, you know, are condescending or elitist or whatever. And I realized watching you, and also, like, my friend Nate, you know, Bargetz.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

That there's just. We don't know about the life that, you know, comics, it's rare that they really talk about their life, first of all. And I always gravitate to that. But second of all, that, you know, the voice of, you know what it's like to live in where you grew up. It's just. It's not part of the. The broader comedy conversation. Like, I thought, like, there's a couple bits you did, but that bit that Nate did on his last special about the different types of Christianity was hilarious. But it's like, I'd never heard anybody say it like that. You know, you hear people talk about religion in a basic way, but he's talking about, you know, people who came back to the church were fanatical, and then as more kids came, became less, you know, like the last kid, it was like, fuck it, you know? But it was such a framing that, like, just. And also from your point of view as a woman at the age you're at, and talking about just regular stuff of your life gave me insight into something I have no idea about, and it's great.

[Leanne Morgan]

Oh, thank you.

[Marc Maron]

Because I'm not condescending. I just don't know. But, you know, you assume. But because of the response of the audience and the way you were talking about a woman's role in the type of families that you were brought up in, and that it was so sort of, like, received, I'm like, holy shit. This is like. This is regular stuff for so many people. And to me, it's like, wow, I've never heard that before, you know.

[Leanne Morgan]

Well, thank you, my darling.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. But, like, there's a couple questions. Some of them are just practical. I've always been sort of half fascinated with tobacco farms.

[Leanne Morgan]

Oh, really?

[Marc Maron]

Yes. And I. Oh. Because I never really understood the business, and I was a smoker forever, and I was obsessed with tobacco, and I always thought, like, can I grow my own tobacco? Would that be feasible? Is it legal to do that? Is there a way to dry it and cure it? But you grew up on a tobacco.

[Leanne Morgan]

It would take a lot. You don't want to get into that.

[Marc Maron]

So that's the business you grew up in?

[Leanne Morgan]

Yes, well, yes. For generations on both sides back were farming people in that area that is known for dark fire tobacco.

[Marc Maron]

What's that mean?

[Leanne Morgan]

Dark fire that makes dip, sco and coconut. You know, we made for Skoal in Copenhagen.

[Marc Maron]

You were growing for them. That was your. You were a contracted farm for those companies?

[Leanne Morgan]

Well, yeah, we would sell our crops to US tobacco that would then make it into, you know, sell it to them. Yeah, because there's also burley. There's other types of tobacco that makes cigarettes that are good for cigarettes and all that, which I smoked, too, in the 80s, and I loved it.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah.

[Leanne Morgan]

And I And I dream of one day getting to smoke again, maybe in assisted living, you know, and take like salsa lessons and smoke. That's what I want to do.

[Marc Maron]

You can take the salsa lessons. They're not going to hurt you.

[Leanne Morgan]

But I am glad I've got that monkey off my back because it was gross.

[Marc Maron]

I have a Zen in right now. I've never been able to get off the nicotine fully, my darling. Yeah, I have for a couple. I think I have here and there, but I don't know.

[Leanne Morgan]

It's hard. Well, yeah, I wore a patch.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. I got patches in there to get off of these. I've been through this so many, I can't.

[Leanne Morgan]

Well, I got pregnant with my first baby and I had to stop. I mean, that, you know, that motivates you. But anyway, yeah, once you get off.

[Marc Maron]

Them for a few days, you're good, you know.

[Leanne Morgan]

Oh, it took me months and.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, and you can adjust to it and you don't need them anymore. But then, well, you had a baby because if you get off the nicotine and you got nothing else going on, eventually you're gonna be like, well, why am I alive if I don't have that reward of being able to wake up and just smoke with a cup of coffee. I know, but isn't that co. Like, you go. You go to bed at night just thinking, like, I'm going tomorrow, I'm going to have a couple cigarettes.

[Leanne Morgan]

And my husband hated it. Like, when he first started dating me, he bought my cigarettes because he was trying to get me.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. And then expender.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah. Well, he would pump my gas and, you know, you need a pack of smokes or whatever. And I was like, yeah. And then he turned on me and said, you stink. And it's like, I don't know if I can deal with this. It went through a whole thing, but thank God he got me off of them. Okay. But yes, my little mom and daddy's. All their. My generations back grandparents and everybody are farming people. But my little daddy, we still have our family farm. We lease it out. And people, big farmers grow, but the government pays them. I don't even know what's happening now, but they used to pay them not.

[Marc Maron]

To grow it because of competition or because they were. I don't fully understand.

[Leanne Morgan]

I know. To keep farmers alive and going and doing, but to grow other things. But tobacco was, I guess, so much more lucrative.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Leanne Morgan]

So now they grow alfalfa, soybeans, all that corn, all that for fructose corn syrup, all that rigmarole but so my little daddy, we had a grocery store in our little town of 500 people. We owned the grocery store. And then he started cutting everybody's meat in the back. And you couldn't make money on a little grocery store because we were so rural. People would drive into bigger town and go to the grocery store. So this was when I was a baby. They were still like, you could still charge your groceries like on Gunsmoke. You could charge to my mom and dad and then when their crop came in, they could pay it. All right. So anyway, everybody started getting my dad to cut their beef. So then he realized, I need to open up a meat processing plant. I can make more money. So my family, we worked in that and all my family worked in it. And we did everybody's hogs, beef and grass fed all that like you have now. But back then. And deer, when people hunted.

[Marc Maron]

So they just bring a deer in and you butcher it.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah. And then somebody else killed it off property. But we always had our farm and had a sharecropper farming for us. And then we've been able to hold onto that land in middle Tennessee, right outside of Nashville. But my dad put me through, my sister and I through college with the meat processing plant.

[Marc Maron]

That's like, that's a great story. I mean, it's so sort of fundamentally American and family driven and like self supporting somehow.

[Leanne Morgan]

I know. And then. And they would ask me and my sister to work in it and we were not good help. I mean, and we were in the 80s with big hair, blonde, cared about our, you know, beauty. And then we had to deal with this meat. I mean, a deer meat is sticky. I tell you, when I opened it when I was in sixth grade, I did not eat meat. I guess I was what the California people call vegan.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Leanne Morgan]

Vegetarian. Until I went to the University of Tennessee. And then I was able to eat a hamburger again when I got away from it because I was in it.

[Marc Maron]

And you couldn't do it.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah, I could smell it and I could see it.

[Marc Maron]

And I mean, did you feel bad for the animals?

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah, I mean, not for food because I know people have gotta eat, but I'm, you know, I don't care if people hunt or all that, but I can't. Yeah, I can't be doing all that, but like tobacco.

[Marc Maron]

So do you remember the tobacco farm?

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah. Oh yeah. And I have worked in tobacco. I dropped sticks when I was 10 years old. I wanted a job. You. Once the. It's harvested, once they cut it. So the plant, they cut it. Then they lay those plants down in the rows. On the same day you lay sticks in, some little child goes in or somebody lays sticks down and then they put those plants on those sticks. Then they hang it on whatever that's called. What is that called? A vehicle, A trailer kind of thing that's got the like scaffolding or whatever that you can hang the plants on those sticks. Then they take it to a barn, hang it in the barn, then smoke it.

[Marc Maron]

Smoke it with like what?

[Leanne Morgan]

They have a slow going fire underneath and smoke it for. You know, I should know this, but days, weeks, I don't know. But when I would come home from college in September.

[Marc Maron]

So it cures it.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah. It's curing that tobacco and you can smell it and it's all over everything. But it's a good smell. It's a good smell.

[Marc Maron]

I'm getting excited just thinking about it.

[Leanne Morgan]

And it made me feel like I'm home when I would smell that smell and I could, you know, I know it anywhere.

[Marc Maron]

Wow.

[Leanne Morgan]

And they still do that? Yeah, they still do that in my town.

[Marc Maron]

The tobacco business.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

It can't be as big as it used to be because no one's smoking anymore.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah. You know, sedentary is the new smoke and they say so. Yeah, I do think it's gone down, but dip.

[Marc Maron]

But you guys are making dip.

[Leanne Morgan]

It was dip. And my high school boyfriend was the Skoal representative at the University of Tennessee. So I have put a skoal thing in my mouth one time just to see and. Oh, the room was spinning. I think I threw up.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Leanne Morgan]

But. And then he went on to work for U.S. tobacco and traveled all over the world and bought tobacco. Sold and bought tobacco, like in France and all over.

[Marc Maron]

That's crazy.

[Leanne Morgan]

So his family was big in it. But everybody was. Everybody went to high school with.

[Marc Maron]

But like, do people.

[Leanne Morgan]

They were all farming people.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I guess, like, do, do you, like, do, do you keep some of the tobacco for yourself and kind of make your own cigarettes or make your own.

[Leanne Morgan]

Maybe my granddaddy Dan. But my people, my little mom and daddy didn. No, but, yeah, my granddaddy chewed big old, like tobacco chew. Yeah. And was darling and sweet. And my grandmother was this short little round woman, short as she was round. And she would make three meals a day, heavy big meals. And the field hands would come in and eat and she didn't waste anything. I mean, when I. They lived off of nothing but were able to have a, you know, a good life.

[Marc Maron]

Did they have livestock, too?

[Leanne Morgan]

Cows. I've been raised around cows. Chickens. I've seen her ring a chicken, pluck it front, right in front of my face. And I was a child.

[Marc Maron]

I saw that once, and it really fucked me up. Like, I saw a guy get a chicken and cut its head off, watched it run around and then cut the legs off and then put it in the hot water to take it was devastating. And. But I don't know why, because, you know, we talk about tobacco, and obviously there's bad implications to big tobacco, but there's still something about the. The organic nature of it that I just find fascinating. And I'm just like. I always wondered about how all that tobacco is processed and then. And like, what. Because in my mind, I'm like, why wouldn't you just make your own cigarettes? Because, you know, you can make your.

[Leanne Morgan]

Own dope because people are rolling all that dough, Mark.

[Marc Maron]

Well, now there's big farms of that, of course. It's a. That's the new business, kind of.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Are they farming that down in Tennessee?

[Leanne Morgan]

They do a little hemp, but it's hard.

[Marc Maron]

But hemp's old school. I mean, that's been around for a long time. But, like, smokable.

[Leanne Morgan]

Oh, yeah. Marijuana. Not in Tennessee. None of it. We can't do any of that. I think people are on the streets doing it, but, no, it's not legal.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Well, you talk a little bit about that in your special.

[Leanne Morgan]

I'm just shocked that everybody's doing dope. You know, you grow up and they go, don't do dope. And then everybody's on dope.

[Marc Maron]

I know. Well, I think the image of it has shifted that in the big picture, dope doesn't turn out to be that terrible.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

You know what I mean?

[Leanne Morgan]

But you know where they're smoking a lot of dope? In lax, in the baggage claim. It burns my eyes every time I. I'm thinking, who is in here?

[Marc Maron]

Once it was legalized, it was everywhere. I mean, like, I. And I used to smoke, but I've been sober a long time, but. And I don't mind it, but, like, it's kind of amazing because I know it gets you fucked up. So you just know everyone around you is stoned. It's not passive. It's not like cigarettes. People are literally like, nah. You know, but you do smell it everywhere. That was a funny. That was a funny joke you made.

[Leanne Morgan]

Thank you. Everywhere I go, in and out of hotels, elevators, everybody's on dope.

[Marc Maron]

But the fact that that joke landed so hard that your point of reference was like, who's boiling cabbage everywhere?

[Leanne Morgan]

It does smell like cabbage.

[Marc Maron]

Me, But I. I don't know if I.

[Leanne Morgan]

Did you grow up eating cabbage?

[Marc Maron]

Not really.

[Leanne Morgan]

Okay, well, see, my people. Irish, German, English. Yeah, a lot of cabbage.

[Marc Maron]

Boiling that cabbage.

[Leanne Morgan]

They were boiling a lot of cabbage.

[Marc Maron]

I love cabbage. I eat it now, but I don't. I like the. I like a. A cabbage salad.

[Leanne Morgan]

Oh, I do, too.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. You know, I cut up like a slo of some kind.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah, I do, too.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. So. So you're growing. So did you make a. It doesn't sound like you. You had to be like, you know, I'm out. With your farming family. You just kind of went and did your own thing.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah, well, my. My little mom and daddy said to me, because I went. I graduated, 42 people, and in my.

[Marc Maron]

Precious high school, you just know everybody.

[Leanne Morgan]

I knew everybody. I went to church. We all grew up together. Everybody.

[Marc Maron]

So you know them all now.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yes. And stay in touch and. But a lot of kids got out and worked in farms and owned farms and owned land and do great. There used to be factories. You know, people would go out and work in a factory. But my dad just said, you're going to college or the military. Which one is it? And I was like, oh, Lord. Because I was raised near 101st Airborne. The boys that flew in the Navy SEALs that went in there to get Uday and Cousee.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, those.

[Leanne Morgan]

That's right. On the Kentucky, Tennessee border near me. Like, 30 minutes from me. And I was like, oh, I can't. I mean, I'm too sissy and cute to be in the military. So. All my life, though, Mark, I mean, from the time I was like, nine or ten, I thought, I'm going to Hollywood. I mean, I'm going to be in show business. And so when they would say to me, you need to go to college, and my sister wanted to go. It's not that I wanted to go to college, but at the same time, I thought, I'm going to Hollywood.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. But anyway, what were you going to do in Hollywood?

[Leanne Morgan]

I just grew up watching Saturday Night Live sitcoms. Comedy. Stand up. Yeah, stand up. And I just thought, that's what I'm supposed to be doing. But I was this little bitty farm girl that it never dawned on me at 18 to get in a car and go to Chicago to Second City, or I didn't even know what it was, or I didn't have the guts to say, I'm going to LA. And I'm taking everything I've got on for $35 like people do. So I thought, I'll go to college and just see what happens. And then flailed around in college, graduated through the skin of my teeth. And then, so, yeah, the farming, like, they never said, do you want a farm? Do you want to take this farm over? It never dawned. I mean, I get out there and every once in a while bail hay, work in tobacco fields set on the back of a setter. You put the plant in and it. Plants it. Yeah, you know, pick plants. And when it's hot July beating down on you, I didn't want, you know, they didn't want me to do it, and I didn't want to do it. And so anyway, I went to college and then married my husband, who moved me to the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains and bought a used mobile home business after he got out of MBA school and I started selling jewelry. I had my first baby, Charlie. Oh, and I want to tell you real quick about Charlie, because I think that you would love him. He's my first child, old soul. He researched and found out what tobacco plant they would have grown in the early 1800s in Adams, Tennessee, and grew one on the back of his porch just to see what it looked like. So I think he would get along with him because he was fascinated. He's been fascinated by our people and what they did.

[Marc Maron]

And that crop, how was it? Was it different?

[Leanne Morgan]

No, I mean, he just grew a big tobacco plant in a pot on the back of his porch just to see what that plant would have. Because in the 1800s, Adams was known for it was going to be the capital of Tennessee instead of Nashville and the Bell family, that man ran for president. So that was known as the best place to raise dark fire tobacco, I guess, in the United States. So Charlie just said, I'd like to know what that tobacco plant looks like. And does it look different from the.

[Marc Maron]

Ones now that have been genetically modified?

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah. And so he just. I just think he would enjoy him. But anyway, I had him.

[Marc Maron]

So you get out of college and then you just. You get married right away?

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah, I got. Well, okay, Mark. I got married at 21. You're going to think you did you squat in a field and have a baby in the Appalachian Mountains? No, Close, but close. Okay. So when I was at UT flailing around, I married at 21 to my first husband.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Leanne Morgan]

And got a divorce by the time I was 23.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, that happens, huh?

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah. And it was bad. But Fine. And so I got divorced, went back to Utah.

[Marc Maron]

So you didn't have a kid with him. So that worked out.

[Leanne Morgan]

Praise God. And let me tell you, Mark, I was fertile.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Leanne Morgan]

I was gonna say to you, if you wanna have a baby now, maybe I could carry one for you. I'm gonna be 16 in October. I hate to even say that, but I think I could still probably carry one.

[Marc Maron]

I've avoided it this long. I think I can continue on.

[Leanne Morgan]

Well, but let you me tell girls that are raised farming, we've got thick ankles. We can work in the fields. We're very fertile. But anyway, so I went back to University of Tennessee.

[Marc Maron]

Finished after you got married and ruined your life for a few years.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yes. And then married Chuck Morgan. And then that's when he moved me to honest to goodness, the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.

[Marc Maron]

Where in Tennessee?

[Leanne Morgan]

In Tennessee. Up in Granger County. And it was a little town called Bean Station. Beautiful lakes, all that. But like, you know, 30 minutes from there, people didn't know who the president was.

[Marc Maron]

Sure.

[Leanne Morgan]

Sweet. But I'm talking Appalachia. So then. And he had gotten an MBA and bought this business and is very entrepreneurial and very smart. I've got a very smart husband and very ambitious and a workaholic. So then I had my first baby. All the time thinking, I'm going to be a stand up.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, really.

[Leanne Morgan]

He owned. While we were dating, my sister lived in Huntington Beach. We came out here to see her and he took me to the Comedy Store. He said, what do you want to do out here? And I go, I want to ride around in that limousine in that Hearst and see where people have been murdered in Hollywood. I want to see that.

[Marc Maron]

The Death tour.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yes. Had a ball.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Leanne Morgan]

Then. And he thought was very morbid and didn't enjoy it. But I love to see where Bugsy Siegel was shot.

[Marc Maron]

You know, it's funny if you're fascinated with the myth of Hollywood and all that stuff. It's like, you know, people who aren't, they're like, I don't get it. And you're like, but there's something you can't even explain. If you're into like movie stars and weird gangster history and stuff, you gotta see.

[Leanne Morgan]

I love all that. Yeah, I love all that. And then I said, I wanna go to the Comedy Store. And I got to see Dom Herrera. I'm serious. This would have been. Charlie was born in 93. So like 91.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah. I was a door guy there in 86 and 87. So like you know, I can imagine the lineup. So you saw Dom and who else?

[Leanne Morgan]

I saw Dom and. Oh, my gosh.

[Marc Maron]

And.

[Leanne Morgan]

Who wrote for Richard Pryor?

[Marc Maron]

Paul Mooney.

[Leanne Morgan]

Paul Mooney, yeah. And he went for. He probably did two hours.

[Marc Maron]

You were at the end. It was late at the end.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah. And he told us all that Elizabeth Taylor had died and she hadn't. He goes, I'm just kidding, y'. All. He was wonderful. But I love Dom Herrera, and I've gotten to be with him, you know, through my career. I went up to him, like I did at you at the Comedy Store, and talked to him, and I'm sure he was like, who is this country girl talking to me? But I told him how much I loved him. But anyway, so I went into the Comedy Store and my heart beat out of my body. I had a physical reaction, and I thought, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. I just know it.

[Marc Maron]

And you just have one kid.

[Leanne Morgan]

At this point, I hadn't had any babies yet. It was for Chuck, and I married. So then, anyway, we go and marry. I have this first baby, and I want to stay at home and breastfed, feed him. So. But I had a degree, but I didn't. I wanted. I thought Hollywood crisis intervention counseling. And I thought, if I don't make it in Hollywood, I'm going to be a child and family therapist.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Leanne Morgan]

And I love all that.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Leanne Morgan]

But anyway, I had. Charlie, one of my friends said, I'm selling this jewelry, like Mary Kay and Tupperware.

[Marc Maron]

Well, that's what. Yeah, I just talked to a woman who talked about the evolution of Amway. She does a podcast about it, and the type of people that saw that as a business, and it becomes almost like this weird cult like thing.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah, I was not in a weird cult like thing. I don't think I was. I was too busy breastfeeding. Yeah, okay. But I was selling jewelry, really, to just hone my act. All right, so. But I didn't. I mean, I realized it.

[Marc Maron]

What was the jewelry?

[Leanne Morgan]

Okay, it was this little jewelry company. Not little. It was a big jewelry company out of just costume jewelry, not fine jewelry out of Dallas, Texas. And you would go to these women's houses and put all this jewelry out, schlepped this big case around, and then they would have a dip and brownies or something. Yeah, they'd have their friends over. And then I'm supposed to do a jewelry presentation. And I would at first, but then it morphed into some of my very first material, and I was Pregnant with my second baby while I was slipping that jewelry. So I had all this material about, you know, hemorrhoids, breastfeeding, pregnant, all that. I was killing Mark because. And here I was in people's living rooms. It was my demo, and I felt like it was my own little comedy club because I was so isolated up in the middle of nowhere. And it gave me, you know, social, and I could be with people and I could make a little money, and I could breastfeed my baby and stay at home with him. But I was honing.

[Marc Maron]

You're getting some time. My first 45 minutes getting the sets in.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah. And then the company, I started booking so far in advance. Like, women would book me, like, a year in advance.

[Marc Maron]

And I remember saying, because you got known as.

[Leanne Morgan]

Well, they said, she's fun, and these jewelry parties are fun.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Leanne Morgan]

And so, yeah, it was funny. And then the company started asking me to speak at their big things, and that's when I thought, okay, I could do this for a living. And then Chuck sold that business and went to work for a large mobile home company. Berkshire Hathaway Company moved us to San Antonio, and I started working. Cap City Comedy Club.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Leanne Morgan]

I had three babies by then, and I would drive back and forth to San Antonio. I worked at River Center.

[Marc Maron]

What you mean Cap City? In Austin?

[Leanne Morgan]

In Austin.

[Marc Maron]

The old one.

[Leanne Morgan]

The old one. The big one with Margie and Rich Miller and all them.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, with the big room in front and then the little bar room. Big room in back. In the little bar room. And. Yeah. And then there was. Yeah, River Center.

[Leanne Morgan]

It was a nightmare.

[Marc Maron]

Dude. I can't even.

[Leanne Morgan]

In the mall.

[Marc Maron]

I. I had some very traumatic times there. I feel like I did. Well, they had that. Remember at the river center when they first opened it, they had that really nice condo, and then it just turned to garbage. And then, like, by the time I. I played that place, the last time I played at the condo was just, like, one of the worst examples of a comedy condo. It's just, like, nasty, funny, nasty. But when they bought. When I was out there when they first got it, and I always wondered.

[Leanne Morgan]

What are they laundering through here? Because.

[Marc Maron]

No, his family was La Quinta Hotel.

[Leanne Morgan]

Oh, he did. And then they opened lol, which is.

[Marc Maron]

Open now, but that's an old Alamo Drafthouse.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yes, you doll.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, so I worked that one, too. I played that at the beginning. But the River Center, I didn't realize it was huge. They were both too big. Big for me. You know what I mean? Like, that to to play for 30 people at the river center was a nightmare. It's just like in a hanger sized room and it's just, oh, my God. Then you got to walk out into that mall and walk along that fake river. But I, but I, you know, you get to see the Alamo and I had a couple friends there.

[Leanne Morgan]

San Antonio is beautiful and I love it.

[Marc Maron]

I was just there. I was just there. I played. I did all right.

[Leanne Morgan]

What did you play lately?

[Marc Maron]

What was the lol? No, no, I did a little theater.

[Leanne Morgan]

Majestic.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Leanne Morgan]

Oh, beautiful, right?

[Marc Maron]

That was good.

[Leanne Morgan]

Oh, yeah, that's beautiful.

[Marc Maron]

That's right down there by the river. Riverwalk. Yeah. And I did all right. You know, but I figured it out, though. And someone had told me years ago that one of the reasons it's a hard place to do it is locals don't want to park down there. Like, you know, the river center is a pain in the ass. So I wonder. Because that club doesn't exist anymore, right?

[Leanne Morgan]

No, but lol, just lol at the Alamo Drafthouse.

[Marc Maron]

But that might be better because it's.

[Leanne Morgan]

There's parking.

[Marc Maron]

That's right. Yeah. So you lived there for a while?

[Leanne Morgan]

About three years.

[Marc Maron]

So you just started. So after the jewelry business, that was your husband's business or. No, you just signed up.

[Leanne Morgan]

He had a mobile. Used mobile home refurbishing business. And then he went to work for a huge manufacturer housing company.

[Marc Maron]

That's a Berkshire Hathaway company that manufactured housing. But that's like just prefab houses.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah, modulars and mobile homes.

[Marc Maron]

But they're doing some cool stuff with that.

[Leanne Morgan]

Oh, yeah. Oh, you wouldn't believe it.

[Marc Maron]

Does he do those ones that are kind of modeled on freight containers? Have you seen those? Like the giant freight containers?

[Leanne Morgan]

I have. They don't do that. Cool. But they do. But it's nice. And they have tiny homes that would blow your mind and all that kind of stuff.

[Marc Maron]

You just set them up. If you got water and power, you can just. Piece of land.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Wow.

[Leanne Morgan]

And you know, they're out here.

[Marc Maron]

I know people get it and people.

[Leanne Morgan]

Get them, and they're in Malibu. I mean, it's crazy.

[Marc Maron]

That's crazy to do it because, like, you know, Malibu, if you're into that beach life, there's a. There's a very famous. I don't know if it got leveled by the fires. It's a famous trailer park down there.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yes. Chuck Morgan, when he's been out here, said, I want to go look at it.

[Marc Maron]

Did he go?

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah, he did and. But I do. I wonder if it got burned.

[Marc Maron]

I don't know. I tried to find out because I know a guy. Paradise or something like that. Paradise Cove.

[Leanne Morgan]

Paradise Cove.

[Marc Maron]

I don't know if it got leveled, so. But when do you just start doing open mics?

[Leanne Morgan]

I went to open mic at the River Center. They moved me up in Me, I don't think. I think I did it one time. They moved me up to opener, but I was a mom. I was different from everybody. I mean, I just look back up. But I had been. I think I skipped all the open mic stuff because I'd been doing that in women's living rooms, selling that jewelry, and I was kind of not seasoned, but I was kind of ahead of the game just because of all that.

[Marc Maron]

Right. Well, you could tell a story.

[Leanne Morgan]

I could tell a story, and I was just different. There wasn't a lot of mamas in a Kitten Hill with a, you know, a Capri pant with a bird on it and a Bob doing comedy. And let me say, Mark, during Comedy Central, all that booming and all y' all going and doing, they didn't want me. Like, I was not. The comedy world didn't want me, but I did okay with audiences.

[Marc Maron]

What's interesting, though, is that from doing the jewelry thing, you knew exactly who your audience was, and it was a real audience and a huge audience. It was just not an audience that was marketed to.

[Leanne Morgan]

Right. But I didn't know how to get to them. Once the jewelry shows were over, then I was in comedy clubs, and I didn't know until social media in my early 50s, did I really find my audience.

[Marc Maron]

Isn't that amazing? Cause there were women. Like, I knew Bret Butler real well before she went off the grid, and she started in kind of country entertainment. I think she used to write for Dolly Parton and stuff. And then she got. She built her brain and then became kind of a bit of more intense performer. And then Roseanne, you know, but. And that was similar, but still a little more aggressive and darker than what you do. But there. But I think what's interesting about you is that it's always. It's all pretty honest. You're not. There's no device, you know, you're not trying to have a hook or anything. You're just talking about your life as it is, and it's crazy that you. That the business didn't gravitate towards it, because I guess they were looking for something else. Cause there's. I mean, there's more women in the world. Than there are men, you know, numbers wise. And you gotta figure at least 75, 80% of them are going through exactly what you're talking about. But I think they had an aversion to women talking.

[Leanne Morgan]

I don't know what it was, but I would have. Hollywood would come after me every once in a while, and I'd get a deal. A development deal.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, I had those.

[Leanne Morgan]

And then they wouldn't make it.

[Marc Maron]

What, back in the 90s?

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah. Well, probably early 2000s was my first one. My babies were still elementary school and middle school.

[Marc Maron]

So it was like a point of view deal. They give you development money. They hook you up with a writer.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And then you write.

[Leanne Morgan]

Tom Warner. Tom Warner. Now, we sold it to abc. Writer strike hit that didn't make it. Then I had a second one with Matt Williams that created Roseanne and Home Improvement. Went to Nick at night. He took it back from them. Then it went to TV land. So I was kind of. I was in the mix, but not really. Like, I only worked so many comedy clubs a year that would book me. Nobody, they didn't. Most of them didn't know they were gonna book me.

[Marc Maron]

But the issue was there was no way for you to build a following without exposure that would get you one.

[Leanne Morgan]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

But what about, like, were you part of the regional circuit? You know, like in.

[Leanne Morgan]

Not really. I mean, the Stardome would work me. Zany's in Nashville. Brian Dorfman.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Great.

[Leanne Morgan]

Who was precious to me from the word Go Chattanooga. That little comedy club. Austin would always have me back. But I was. I did get on a. You know, after Blue Collar blew up.

[Marc Maron]

That's what I'm thinking.

[Leanne Morgan]

An agent guy put us three women together, and we. It was called the Southern Fried Chicks. And that. Lord, that was the early 2000s.

[Marc Maron]

Who was on that?

[Leanne Morgan]

Etta Mae. You remember Etta?

[Marc Maron]

May I do. What happened to her?

[Leanne Morgan]

She's still out there, honey. And working theaters.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Leanne Morgan]

And then Karen Mills, who's a dear friend of mine, who she still. She'll open with for me on tour. And we did okay. We didn't do, like, the blue collar guys, but it kept me on stage working for about three years, pretty consistently. And Chuck would take care of the babies during the week. I mean, during the weekend. And I could take them to school and pick them up and, you know, do everything.

[Marc Maron]

You could stay at home.

[Leanne Morgan]

I could stay at home because Brian Dorfman said to me. I went. When Tess was 18, are you back.

[Marc Maron]

In Nashville now, or where are you?

[Leanne Morgan]

Back in Nashville I'm in Knoxville, back in Knoxville. And I drove to Zany's. I asked him if I called on the phone and said, can I come and open? And he goes, okay, I open for Billy gardell. She was 18 months old. She's now 27. And Brian Dorfman. Afterwards, he said, let me talk to you. And he sat me down and he said, I think you've got something. But he said, but as a mom of three children, there's no way you can do this route comedy club. And I remember being so mad and thinking, I'll show you. But I look back on it, and he was right. I really think you just don't see a lot of mamas out here really doing what y' all did, because I couldn't have raised my own children. And their daddy was an executive, so he was working and traveling all over the United States. Somebody had raised these babies, and I wanted to raise my children. So I just had to find a different path than what y'.

[Marc Maron]

All.

[Leanne Morgan]

What I. All the people that I admired and the cool kids and who I loved and admired and watched all these years, I could not do what y' all were doing. I had to take a different path.

[Marc Maron]

But the interesting thing is, is that now that it's worked out, but, you know, the priority was the family. And it seems like, you know, you weren't bitter about that.

[Leanne Morgan]

No, no.

[Marc Maron]

And you weren't quite bitter about, you know, not being able to pursue comedy full time. You just accepted the circumstance.

[Leanne Morgan]

I did, and I just had to do. I did a lot of private corporate stuff. I did a lot. I was your breast cancer girl for, you know, fundraisers. I just took anything I could get to be on stage. And then I would work those few little clubs. After the Southern Fried Chicks went touring, there would be lulls where, I mean, I couldn't get arrested. Nobody cared. And then I'd get a Hollywood deal, and it just was enough to keep me.

[Marc Maron]

I know that one. Yeah. Like, you know, you don't got money coming in, and then all of a sudden, you get this deal, and, like, whether it goes or not, you feel like you're in the game and you've got money.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yes.

[Marc Maron]

And then you just watch it, you know, get away from you. Somehow, that doesn't even make sense. It's like, no, we're taking it to this place, and, you know, we. They didn't like it, but they might want. And then all of a sudden, it's like, what's going on with that? And they're like, oh, yeah, it's not, it's not happening.

[Leanne Morgan]

It's over. And I didn't know how all that Hollywood stuff worked.

[Marc Maron]

I still don't usually. I just know that someone's lying to me and eventually it'll just go away. I mean, it's a little different now, but the business is different. You know, the fact that you got like, it makes total sense. Like, I remember those deals. You and I are kind of the same age. You know, I was out there, you know, for years without a following or without anything, you know, until this podcast. And, you know, and I had, had, you know, I'd been on Conan like, you know, 50 times, but I couldn't sell a ticket. I couldn't sell tickets. I didn't sell tickets until after I started this podcast after a few years after that. So I was out there, what, 20 some odd years?

[Leanne Morgan]

I was, see, And I didn't know that. I was thinking Mark May. I just always thought, oh my gosh, he's.

[Marc Maron]

No, I mean, I was visible and I think I was respected on some level and I would show up on late night shows, but that it wasn't like the old days that didn't go guarantee you, you know, a following. And I'm weird. You know, I'm not, I'm not for everybody. But like, I. There's an interview me where, where I said I did 50 Conan's but America did not care. Yeah. By the time I started this podcast, I was, you know, in the middle of a divorce and I didn't have any money and it was not looking good. And that was 2009, so it didn't, it didn't turn around for me till I was, you know, whatever, 40 something. 50, 45.

[Leanne Morgan]

Well, and I remember going to Montreal and they said, marc Maron's doing his podcast. And we all ran and it was full. I don't know if you remember it. And you were, I mean, I just remember sitting there thinking, would he ever interview me?

[Marc Maron]

Come on.

[Leanne Morgan]

I did because I thought that would have been 2011, I think.

[Marc Maron]

So we're a couple years in. It's still a new thing. People aren't sure what it is, but it's making like all of a sudden people are aware of podcasts. Like, I don't even. We're still doing, you know, just talk, no video. But was it one of those shows where there was like four people, four comics?

[Leanne Morgan]

I just remember Caroline Ray, you talking to her?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, we go way back. Yeah.

[Leanne Morgan]

Oh, I loved her. And I was on her Gala or whatever. It was a mom thing. And they let me. Nick at Knight or somebody let me on that. And I think I went over because I couldn't find the clock and the light, but. And I was so embarrassed. It was me and Tammy Pascatelli and Caroline Rae. But I went, you know, you could go to different things. And I went to see you.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Leanne Morgan]

And Nate Bargetzi is a good friend of mine, and we've talked about. I would say, but you were one of the cool kids. He goes, I've never felt like one of the cool kids. I go, what are you talking about? You were in New York, and I was just a little mama in Knoxville, Tennessee. But I always kept my thumb on the pulse of what was going on. I always knew who was coming up, who was doing. I was fascinated by it.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, I love Nate. And I just. I was down there, saw him in Nashville, and, yeah, he. He opened for me. He used to open for me a bit, you know, and it was so funny because I remember seeing him and before he was. Before he broke, it was it, like the Michigan Comedy Festival. I'd met him in New York, but I didn't know him in New York. I mean, he was in New York, but he wasn't doing, like, the comedy seller, you know, he was like. He was doing this room with Dustin, you know, that guy who opens for him. They had this, like, little room. And, like, I met him, but he was still drinking and sweaty and chubby and not really confident. I don't remember meeting him, but I remember seeing him in Michigan at the Traverse. We're one of the Grand Rapids Comedy Festival on just a showcase. And it was like, who the fuck is this guy? And I was, like, following him around. I'm like, where the hell do you come from? You know? He opened for me at Carnegie hall, and I told him this story recently when I did it for the New York Comedy Festival. He did great. And I floundered around for two hours at Carnegie Hall. But after. I just remember, as I just told it to him, after the show, I was out front, and I was about to just go walk with my buddy, and I'm like, do you got any of those skull packets? You got any skull pouches? And he had, like, six and a 10 left, and he goes, just take it. And I'm like, this is the best part of the night. Back to tobacco.

[Leanne Morgan]

Back to tobacco.

[Marc Maron]

But, yeah, like, it's. It's just. I'm having, like, I. I'm having. Kathy Ladman is going to open for me.

[Leanne Morgan]

Oh, wow.

[Marc Maron]

And, and there's just something about the, the, the strangeness that, you know, women in general, but certainly women who have had a life don't have more voice or aren't more popular. I just, it's, it's bizarre to me because it's a whole world that I realize watching you and also watching Kathy, that's sort of like, I don't know anything about this. I'm not married and I'm not a woman and I don't have kids. But. And I imagine it's like, gotta be like 90% of the people have the experiences you're having, but you don't. It's underrepresented.

[Leanne Morgan]

I know. And I think I'm the only one in my lane. Well, you think about Netflix giving me a special and I thought it would never happen. I thought there's no way they're going to have a middle aged grandmama from Eastern Sea on there. But they did, they took a shot on me and it has been wonderful.

[Marc Maron]

Now, had you done a special before that?

[Leanne Morgan]

I had. Okay. I was just about to quit. I was not, it was not going well. Okay. This was in 2000, maybe 17, something like that. And I had my manager at the time said this thing called Dry Bar online. He goes, I don't even understand it, but they want you to shoot a special. They're going to pay you a couple of thousand dollars. You don't have anything else going on. That's what he said to me. Why don't you go and do it in Salt Lake City? We'll get clips from it and you can get more. That week I was going to work the Dubuque Chamber of Commerce. That's how bad my career was going. Not that I don't love Dubuque, but I was working the luncheon at the Chamber of Commerce and I was probably in my late 40s, early 50s, and I thought, this is not how things should be going. But I thought, okay, I'll shoot this special. I thought, nobody will ever see it. He said, nobody will ever see it. It'll never see the light of day, but it'll give you.

[Marc Maron]

But this is early YouTube.

[Leanne Morgan]

This was 2017. So no, not really. It's. But okay, so Dry Bar was this clean comedy thing.

[Marc Maron]

I remember it kind of.

[Leanne Morgan]

Okay, so I go and shoot that thing. They put it out, it gets like 50 million views on YouTube. On YouTube and their platform.

[Marc Maron]

Now, Dry Bar, was that the one that they had cameras at certain clubs?

[Leanne Morgan]

No, that was rooftop.

[Marc Maron]

Rooftop Right.

[Leanne Morgan]

Which I loved because I could get a little bit filmed and use that. I loved that. But, no, not them. And it was. It was this clean comedy thing, and they've done a million of them. But I thought, nothing's gonna come from that. And it really didn't. It wasn't. I wasn't selling tickets. I got millions of views. I think people were starting to go something like 50 million views on this.

[Marc Maron]

Thing for the whole special.

[Leanne Morgan]

And my hair looked terrible. I can't even watch it. And I was rusty. I was barely working. I felt like it sucked. But what it did. I did get one work from it, but it wasn't good work. It was just like little piddly things. But it gave me enough money to. Then I thought at the last ditch effort, I cried to my husband. I said, it's not going. Like, I wasn't getting development debt. Like, nothing's happening. I may have to give this up. And I knew Charlie had gotten married right out of college, but had waited five years, was about to have my first grandbaby, and I thought, who is now about to turn 5 in December. And I thought, I'll just. Country people, Grandmama. Stay home and cook pinto beans and tend to these grandbabies. I said, that's what I'll do, and I'll just forget it. And maybe I can open up a hardware store. And Chunk was like, you've lost your mind. So anyway, it gave me a little. I didn't even have a good website. Like, my friend had done my website. I never invested in myself. If I made money, I would buy my kids uniforms, I get their haircut, that kind of thing.

[Marc Maron]

Which was.

[Leanne Morgan]

I should have been smarter than that. But anyway, so I take.

[Marc Maron]

They appreciate it.

[Leanne Morgan]

I know. And I've got precious babies, Mark. You love every one of them. And my grandbabies, two grandsons. But. So I took the money I was making off the Drive Bar thing, and I thought, I'm gonna get social media people. And I said to my manager at the time, because I love Jim Gaffigan, I was watching Nate blow up. I go, they've got social media people. I need social media people. He goes, no, you don't. You can't afford them. And I just did it anyway. And I found these young guys, and that was crazy. These young guys that worked out of Dallas, Texas, and they understood my voice. And I thought, I'm gonna give them. I can do this three months. Cause it was expensive. I thought, I'm giving it three months. If nothing happens, I'M out and I'll just tend to these grandbabies. So. Which I was fine with.

[Marc Maron]

And this is what, 2018.

[Leanne Morgan]

This was in 2019, something like that. 2018, yeah. Somewhere in there.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Leanne Morgan]

And I. And my baby that you met, I was moving her into her apartment in Brooklyn. She was going to school in New York. And those boys put out a clip of me talking about taking Chuck to go see Def Leppard and Journey and how everybody looked sick and old and had plantar fasciitis. And I had never even done that bit. I had just been to the concert. Somebody got it on film, they decided they thought it was funny. They put it out. It went viral. The day we were moving her in, I could thousands. It was thousands tiktoking on Facebook back then. And like I'm talking. It felt like in a week, clubs were calling all over the United States because I think people, love people could relate to that. Men could, too. Because everybody goes and go. You know, you go and see the Eagles or, you know, whoever, and you realize, you know, everybody looks bad and feel bad and everybody's got a hernia and all that. And then people started looking, well, what else does she have? So then clubs started calling that would not have booked me and had booked me a little bit before that and said, we love her. She didn't sell tickets, she didn't get drunk, fight in the parking lot, but we're not having her back then started begging, and I started selling out all over the United States. It was the craziest thing. It was like somebody turned on a light switch overnight, could not get arrested till all of a sudden I was in demand and I found my audience is what I'm trying. Long story short, I found these women and men, but women out in the middle of the United States that's raised children that are just normal, everyday people. And I connected with them. And then Netflix gave me a special.

[Marc Maron]

Well, that was. But it's so funny because that's who you were connecting with in the living room.

[Leanne Morgan]

In the living room.

[Marc Maron]

It was always.

[Leanne Morgan]

I just didn't know how to find them for 20 years.

[Marc Maron]

Right. And now you had these platforms that you. It just clicked.

[Leanne Morgan]

It just clicked. Because for years, I would say, because I always had management and stuff out here, but I would say, how can I get to these? I just didn't know how to get to them because I wasn't out working clubs all the time. I was, you know, doing little corporate things. You know, these agents that'll book you to do These, I mean, they pay more for the shrimp than they did me. I wasn't making a lot of money, but I was able to, you know, keep going.

[Marc Maron]

Well, that's so it's like, thank God for that stuff.

[Leanne Morgan]

I know.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. I don't know that like without the podcast and now, I mean, I have a social media guy, but I don't know how much that brings in, you know, I do, you know, I have an audience and it's fine, it's good, you know, but again, I'm pretty specific. But oddly, a lot of middle aged women are coming to see me too.

[Leanne Morgan]

I bet. Because you're cute in that shirt and your pants.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, I gotta wear this shirt and this pants.

[Leanne Morgan]

Those are cute jeans on you. And you've kept your weight off. Honey, you look good.

[Marc Maron]

Well, you know, it's, it's part of my job, I think. You know, it's weird when you don't have kids and other pressures, you know, you can just you know, compulsively focus on yourself.

[Leanne Morgan]

Well, now that I've seen my butt on screen. Yeah, I'm more conscious of. Cause I look at my Netflix special and think, whose breasts are those? They're not mine. They're huge mamaw breasts. But anyway, and now with the television show, it's really, I thought, I don't have a chin. What happened to my neck? I mean, I don't know. This show business stuff is crazy.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. With these high def tv like you can't hide.

[Leanne Morgan]

No wonder everybody's beautiful out here.

[Marc Maron]

They compete. So Netflix, you just start selling out clubs and theaters.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah. Then I get up my first tour with Outback concerts. Brian Dorfman, that angel from heaven.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Leanne Morgan]

They give me a 50 city tour and I sell out almost immediately. Then they give me another 50 and then Covid hits and I didn't get to do any of them until 2020 or the end of 20 or 21. But. But in the meantime, I just sat on my porch and talk about taking care of my elderly parents on Instagram during COVID Uh huh. And I would just. My social media guys said, yeah, do whatever you want to, Liam. We don't know what to do. You know, everybody shut down. We didn't know.

[Marc Maron]

I did the same thing. I just did like a talk show on my porch. Just me talking about my life, wandering around my house. So were you doing a film?

[Leanne Morgan]

I was doing that. Not live, but I would just do a video about what I was cooking or what I would cook for my little mom and daddy because you think about how people taking care of elderly parents and launching children. So I. And really, it wasn't contrived. I just was doing what everybody else was doing, and. But just saying, well, I cook this or, you know, don't watch the news. Everything's gonna be all right.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. You just want to stay engaged.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And that and that.

[Leanne Morgan]

And that built me even more. That built me even more because people could relate to what I was saying because of elderly parents and babies and kids and all that, and husbands. And then I was able to tour. That went really well. Big Panty Tour. I called it the Big Panty Tour because I talked about my panties a lot more. Then got the second tour, Just Getting Started, which I'm still doing that one, and I named it Just Getting Started because I feel like I'm just getting started in my 50s.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Leanne Morgan]

I mean, it's been really nifty.

[Marc Maron]

And throughout all of this, was your husband always, like, supportive?

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah. I mean, he's a very engineered mind. Math practical. And I remember saying to him when my babies were little, Chuck, let's sell everything. I can make it. I know I've got something. I can make it. I'll cook off a hot plate. We can live in an rv. And he was like, are you crazy? We need health insurance. Thank God for him that he's practical, because I'm a dreamer, and I would have been out here doing God knows what, but keeping me there in the middle of the United States helped me develop this, you know, I mean, I was able to have real experiences I could talk about on stage. And I did a movie with Reese Witherspoon, and Will Ferrell called. You'd're cordially invited. That's on Amazon. And Reese Witherspoon stood by me every day and said, leanne, you got to raise your own children. You got to raise your own. And I would be like, well, yeah, but I know now what they mean, because people come out here and they have to work like mules, and you're gone and you're doing and all that. But I really did. I got to raise my children and then have this second act.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Is that Reese Southern?

[Leanne Morgan]

Yes. She's from Nashville. Her little mama was raised. Born and raised up in East Tennessee, where I raised my children.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah.

[Leanne Morgan]

Darling wants to see me win. Tiny. I could hold her on my heel. Precious. Smart thinking all the time, honey. Smart as a whip.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Leanne Morgan]

But she's the one that got me that part. And I had a ball. A ball. I played Gwyneth, her big sister. That was the first thing I'd ever done. Scared me to death. And then the second tour was going, and then Netflix, because my special did well. And I think my special did well. Cause there's just nobody in my lane on Netflix or out there. Yeah. And so then they gave me a television show. Show.

[Marc Maron]

I know. I watched a couple.

[Leanne Morgan]

You did?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Leanne Morgan]

Mark, what do you think?

[Marc Maron]

It's. Well, it's great. It's like, it's. It's the type of sitcom that you like. You know, I don't. Every time I see a straight ahead, old school, three camera sitcom, multicam.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I'm sort of like, what are we in a time machine? But that's what Chuck Lorre does.

[Leanne Morgan]

And.

[Marc Maron]

And it's good. It's well written. You know, I don't know that I. I can't remember the last three camera sitcoms I've watched, but it's a familiar format. You're great. The story's good, the jokes are solid. What's her name? Kristen.

[Leanne Morgan]

Kristen Johnston. Unbelievable.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Leanne Morgan]

Did you see any with Tim Daly in it? Remember Tim Daly from Wings and Madame Synchrotini?

[Marc Maron]

Sure. Of course I saw the one. I saw Ryan Styles.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yes. Who plays my soon to be ex husband.

[Marc Maron]

No, I didn't get to the Tim one.

[Leanne Morgan]

Okay, well, he's my love interest.

[Marc Maron]

Really?

[Leanne Morgan]

Yes. And he's a pro. And what they've done is they put, you know, like Ray Romano, they put pros around you because you don't know what you're doing. I didn't know what I was doing. And when we went into Netflix, I really wanted to do a one camera, single camera because that, to me, that was my sense of humor. I love Parks and Recreation, Office, all that. And I haven't watched a sitcom in. But they were like, we want to bring that back. And will you do this? We think you're perfect for this. And then Chuck Lorre, that's what he does. Even though he did Kalinsky Method and Kaminsky Method.

[Marc Maron]

Kaminsky Method. Yeah.

[Leanne Morgan]

But they had a success with that. Yeah. But he's like, let's give it a whirl. So we. Yeah, they ordered 16 episodes. No pilot, nothing. I mean, like, we went straight to. Which is unheard of now. And I felt like I had won the lottery.

[Marc Maron]

This is the dream.

[Leanne Morgan]

I know, honey. And I. Okay, but let me tell you, it's harder than I thought it was gonna be. But yes, that was the dream because I'm 59 years old, so I grew up Watching all these sitcoms.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. And wanting to do.

[Leanne Morgan]

And wanting to do Cheers.

[Marc Maron]

That was the structure of the system, though. It was like your comic will build a show around you and you got deals at that time. Probably the tail end of when those were really happening.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yes.

[Marc Maron]

In the early 2000s.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yes. When the last one that didn't make it, like, was gonna go to TV Land and Fresh off the Boat was coming out. Modern Family was huge. And they just looked at me, I'm sure, and thought, you're too traditional and you're married and got kids. Who cares? And it didn't make it. And I understand that it was more of, like, Modern Family and that kind of. But, yeah, I grew up watching those. I love Cheers. I love Frasier. I loved all that Wings. I loved all that. And so when they wanted me to do one, to me, it felt, is this too old timey? I'm just not used to watching them anymore. Like, every once in a while I'll pull up Cheers on a plane. But then now that I'm in it, I mean, I do think it's comforting. And people love that format and miss that.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I think what happens. It's not unlike how you were able to make a break is that because of the nature of the platform. Like, everyone's got Netflix, not. It's not network beholden. So there's no, like, you know, you got to go to this place to watch this show to get this amount of numbers. So if it's on Netflix and everyone has Netflix, is that. It's not about the network. It's a matter of whether the people that, like, you will find your show on this thing that everybody has. Right. So you can have weird shit on there, and you can have your stuff on there. Because they did all right with the Kominsky Method.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And there's a generation of people that still. Everyone has Netflix. It's easier to be on Netflix than it is to be on, like, Hulu or Amazon, because then people are like, where is that dude? I don't have that hooked up or that. But Netflix is so everywhere that, you know, if the people know that it's there, they'll come see it. Did it start yet?

[Leanne Morgan]

No, it drops in this summer. But like, Young Sheldon, all these things that Chuck Lorre's there, they're like number one on Netflix right now. The young children that was on network.

[Marc Maron]

So the people that didn't watch on network can watch it all at once. Yeah, that's the other thing.

[Leanne Morgan]

All that's coming over you know, to.

[Marc Maron]

Sure. Wow.

[Leanne Morgan]

I know.

[Marc Maron]

So there's.

[Leanne Morgan]

And Big Bang Theory. Good Lord. I mean, everybody sits and watch Big Bang Theory all the time.

[Marc Maron]

And friends keep.

[Leanne Morgan]

And friends.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, it's crazy.

[Leanne Morgan]

So there are people who love that and comforted by that. And I do think ours is funny, and I think it's also sweet and it's heartfelt. And you've got these wonderful people. Celia Weston plays my mother.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Oh, she's great.

[Leanne Morgan]

Wonderful.

[Marc Maron]

So funny. And Blake. Ol. Blake Clark. Blake Clark.

[Leanne Morgan]

Oh, Blake Clark.

[Marc Maron]

Blake Clark's been around forever.

[Leanne Morgan]

I know. And he's precious.

[Marc Maron]

I used to see him do comedy when I was a door guy.

[Leanne Morgan]

Oh. He said, oh, Leanne, I did stand up for 30 years. And then somewhere in Florida at the Yuck Yuk. I don't even know, somewhere. Coconut something. He said everybody was redneck throwing stuff at me, and I quit. And I said, I can't do it anymore. But anyway, you know. Yeah, he's been in all those Adam Sandler movies and all that. But I've got wonderful writers. Nick Bakai, Susan McCartney. Nick Bakai.

[Marc Maron]

I haven't talked to him in years.

[Leanne Morgan]

Good, good. We have a ball. We talk too much and talk about smoking in the 80s and then don't learn our lines. Cause he's a talker like I am. And we want to talk about dancing to Prince and when doves cry and all that, but. Yeah, and Susan McMartin is a showrunner, and they've all written and done stuff with Two and a Half Men. You know, all that, Mom.

[Marc Maron]

They know how to do it. Yeah, no, the jokes are solid. It's. It moves along. The characters are defined. I mean, the real trick to those things is that you real. Like, on paper, it's a joke to joke thing. So the characters have to be dug in and believable enough that you don't notice that that's really what's happening. You know what I mean? And it worked good. I mean, I thought it was funny. And I'm happy that your marriage didn't actually break up.

[Leanne Morgan]

Oh, I know. And let me tell you that my sweet fans were so worried and torn up and thought that I was really. That Chuck Morgan had an affair on me after 34 years. And everybody, they were like, he didn't deserve you. Anyway, Leanne on Facebook. And I'm like, I'm still with Chuck Morgan.

[Marc Maron]

This is fiction.

[Leanne Morgan]

This is not reality. You know, like a reality show.

[Marc Maron]

People have a hard time distinguishing between reality and not reality. It's kind of crazy. But, well, I'm so happy for your success and I'm glad.

[Leanne Morgan]

Thank you, my darling.

[Marc Maron]

I'm glad it all came around.

[Leanne Morgan]

Thank you. Is it crazy or what?

[Marc Maron]

No, it's. Yeah, it's amazing that, you know, you had, like, you were ready. Do you know what I mean? Sometimes these things, like, with me, like, for whatever reason, you know, if you stay in it enough and you are, and you do have. If you're ready and you have the talent, you know, who knows how it's going to happen. I mean, I didn't think I was gonna do. Wasn't looking good, you know, I was almost out. But it's weird when you wanna get out. You don't really know what else you're gonna do even if you were gonna go be a grandma. Are you?

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah. I mean, there's always been. I've always had something where I gotta have a side hustle or I've gotta have something going. I just. And even though I was stay at home, mom, and I got to do all that, I always had this going. Yeah, I just. Even if this didn't work out for me, I was telling Chuck Morgan, I go, I'm going to open up a hardware store or something. I'm going to be slicing bacon. I got to do something. Big cheese wheel. Sell canning goods.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Leanne Morgan]

Something I just have. But my family had that meat processing plant. My mama ran it, and I just feel like I gotta have something going.

[Marc Maron]

They still have it?

[Leanne Morgan]

No, they retired from that. But we still have our farm. People begged them to open it back up, but they're in their 80s now. And then people said, would y' all do it? No. Now there's those grass fed, you know, there's more of that around. But back then, I mean, everybody came from Nashville. We did all the country music stars, beef, all that kind of stuff.

[Marc Maron]

So people would bring their livestock to be butchered?

[Leanne Morgan]

No. We had a little man, Mr. Gower, who was missing and some fingers, who was a doll, but he would go to somebody's farm, kill. We were not a slaughterhouse. And they would bring then already dressed and everything, whatever you call it. And then my dad and my grandfather's and my aunts worked in it. All these people and the people in the town then they processed it, wrapped it, and my mama would take the orders while she smoked Winston Light and would say, you know how many pounds of hamburger meat depending on how many was in their family? And she could remember it in her mind for all these families for years, for 20 something years. How thick do you want your rib eyes? You know, all that. How many. How many chuck roast do you want?

[Marc Maron]

So they would get cattle in dressed already, and then they take.

[Leanne Morgan]

Let them hang for, like 14 days. And then they knew how to cut them up. And then deer season was a nightmare. We didn't have Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving for. Because deer season opened up and it would be cold enough back then. They would hang them in the trees until we had freezer space for them because we were so busy. That was a thriving business for years. And we. And then we did people's hogs. So my mama had a sausage recipe that people still say, is there any way y' all can make that sausage? And we're just like, nobody wants to get in there and grind all that sauce. But I have thought about it. I thought if I don't make it in comedy, I could, you know, make sausage. Yeah. And smoke it. Then you smoke it in a smokehouse.

[Marc Maron]

Do you still have the recipe?

[Leanne Morgan]

There's people doing it illegal in Tennessee.

[Marc Maron]

Sure, of course. You still have the recipe.

[Leanne Morgan]

I do. I do have the recipe.

[Marc Maron]

All right, well, at least you have that.

[Leanne Morgan]

I have that. My daughter. I do have that. But I also can be just a grandmama and put on a house dress and start cooking pinto beans.

[Marc Maron]

All right, well, it doesn't look like you need to do that unless you. You're gonna do it anyway.

[Leanne Morgan]

I'm gonna do it anyway. When I go home to Knoxville and I'm about to wrap this and then go move back home. I've been out here seven months, renting and doing during fire during, you know, a lot y' all got going on. Heavy, heavy, and then heavy stuff. And then I'll go back to Knoxville, but I go back on tour. I'll tour all year, the rest of this year till the end of the year. Then I gotta come up with a whole new hour, and you may have to write it.

[Marc Maron]

Me? Are you kidding? It takes me a year and a half to come up with an hour. Well, is that about right?

[Leanne Morgan]

As well it should. Yes, yes.

[Marc Maron]

For to get it right to.

[Leanne Morgan]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Hone it down.

[Leanne Morgan]

Oh, my darling, how exciting. I can't wait. And you're going to look so cute on film in your pants.

[Marc Maron]

Well, thank you. Nice talking to you.

[Leanne Morgan]

Nice talking to you.

[Marc Maron]

There you go. Leanne Morgan. Her Netflix sitcom Leanne Prince premieres on July 31st. Check out her tour dates at Leanne morgan.com and hang out for a minute, folks, will ya, would ya? Hey, people. Six years ago on wtf? We had an episode that people still talk to us about all the time. It was episode 1034 with David Lee Roth.

[David Lee Roth]

My first singing teacher had two numbers on his forearm. One was his camp number and the other was his orchestra number. And as a punk kid, I once asked him in front of the class, I said, so what happens if he doesn't sing good? And he was very explicit. He said, if you didn't sing good, you went up the chimneys. I think of that every single time I sing. Every single time I get ready to sing, every time my inner child goes, fuck it, you don't need to. Don't worry about it. You'll sing fine. I remember that. And I remember, I think it was Ricky Weiss or whatever she's were 13, 12 years old, saying to him. No, I remember him saying to me more than once, Mr. Roth, if you can't find it within yourself to sing on behalf of those who went up the chimneys with a song in their hearts, sing so you don't go up the chimneys.

[Marc Maron]

Really?

[David Lee Roth]

Oh, yeah. And that's where that fire for. Run with the devil. How long are we going to dance? We're going to dance the night away. Hey, how about these words? Let's jump. Okay, they're all verbs. Think about that.

[Marc Maron]

Right?

[David Lee Roth]

We're running with the devil. Are we talking about love? Nah, we ain't talking about love. And by the way, do you jog? No, I run. Who do you run with?

[Marc Maron]

The devil. That's episode 1034 with David Lee Roth. You can listen to that for free in whatever podcast app you're using to get every episode of WTF ad free, sign up for WTF plus, go to the link in the episode description or go to wtfpod.com and click on WTF. Before we go, a reminder. This podcast is hosted by acast. And here's a little groove I locked into.

[Leanne Morgan]

Sam.

[Marc Maron]

Sa Ram. Sam Boomer Lives Monkey and Lafonda Cat Angels everywhere.