How Jo Koy Turned His Stepdad’s Oxygen Tank Into a Punchline | Anatomy of a Joke (SPOTLIGHT) — Transcript

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1. 0:00I always remembered him holding a big
2. 0:01tank and it was just constantly just
3. 0:04blowing out of his nose. So, I remember
4. 0:06that sound and him talking. So, I was
5. 0:08trying to get that at the same time.
6. 0:12>> I waited my whole life to watch this
7. 0:14game.
8. 0:16And I'm not going to leave.
9. 0:23>> He was a huge Dodgers fan. The one thing
10. 0:26that he he never got to do was get to go
11. 0:28to a Dodgers game. And I never had We
12. 0:30didn't have the money. And finally
13. 0:33I had the money.
14. 0:34>> People would always say, "Well, you
15. 0:35you're a comedian." When I was a kid and
16. 0:37I didn't know what a comedian was. And
17. 0:38then my friend brought over Richard
18. 0:40Pryor tape. He took it from his dad and
19. 0:42I was listening to it. I couldn't stop
20. 0:43listening to it. I was like, "Oh, this
21. 0:44is what a comedian is." And then Eddie
22. 0:46Murphy Delirious came out and I couldn't
23. 0:48stop watching. I'm like, "Oh,
24. 0:50oh, this is what I got to be. I got to
25. 0:51be Eddie Murphy. I got to get a red
26. 0:53leather outfit." Right out of high
27. 0:54school, that's the first thing I did was
28. 0:57get on stage, joined a competition at
29. 0:59Tropicana. It's like 500 people. And uh
30. 1:03yeah, and I bombed hard.
31. 1:05>> [laughter]
32. 1:11>> For some reason when I when I get on
33. 1:13stage, I just it just comes out
34. 1:15naturally. Like a premise is there, the
35. 1:17setup is there, the the punchline's
36. 1:19there. There's a tag, there's a
37. 1:21callback. I don't They just come. So, I
38. 1:24learned uh you know, through the years
39. 1:26just like
40. 1:27just get on stage and freestyle and and
41. 1:29see where it takes you. I find when you
42. 1:31write it down, it it kind of gets it
43. 1:34starts to sound structured. When you
44. 1:35just do it on stage, it it becomes more
45. 1:38conversational.
46. 1:38>> I got the best fucking tickets, four
47. 1:40rows from the dugout. And I called him.
48. 1:43I was like, "Fred, we're going. I'm
49. 1:45taking you. It's going to be your first
50. 1:46time."
51. 1:47>> I remember I was in West Virginia,
52. 1:50which is where he's from, and
53. 1:52that's where like all the Fred stories
54. 1:54were coming out. Like I was just on
55. 1:56stage for like 30 minutes it's talking
56. 1:58about Fred.
57. 1:59>> And this is a while ago, but he was
58. 2:00already a little sick. You know what I
59. 2:02mean? Whatever it was that was in
60. 2:05the age of origin, whatever, it fucked
61. 2:06his lungs up.
62. 2:07>> I don't know what it is. It's just like
63. 2:08the more I do it, the more I just start
64. 2:10trusting my gut more, you know what I
65. 2:12mean? The more I get more comfortable.
66. 2:14And then you just start thinking about
67. 2:15the little details, you know what I
68. 2:16mean? Like, you know, his whole oxygen
69. 2:20He was like,
70. 2:21"You know, bubba,
71. 2:24I have to
72. 2:27If you would have ever met Fred, he was
73. 2:30such a military soldier from West
74. 2:34Virginia, just
75. 2:36tough as nails. And that's the Fred I
76. 2:39met, you know, when he got older and he
77. 2:40was just he was frail, you know what I
78. 2:43mean? He had the oxygen, but he was
79. 2:44still funny. So, you know, when I when I
80. 2:47grab that that cord and put that on his
81. 2:49nose, like it was literally just me like
82. 2:51reliving that memory of
83. 2:53how he used to talk to me. Yeah, that's
84. 2:55how that whole process happened with
85. 2:57Fred, man. Like, I always wanted him to
86. 2:59see it. I never got it into a special
87. 3:01and
88. 3:02this is the one where I finally had that
89. 3:04opportunity to get it in, but
90. 3:06by that time he already passed. He
91. 3:07passed a couple years ago, so it sucks,
92. 3:10you know what I mean? But it'll forever
93. 3:12live on.
94. 3:14>> I can't go to the game with you, bubba.
95. 3:16You go ahead and enjoy that game without
96. 3:18me, but I'll watch it on TV.
97. 3:22I'll watch it on TV.
98. 3:28And I took him to the game. Remember, we
99. 3:30had the best seats. He had the ramp
100. 3:31right here.
101. 3:32>> [applause]
102. 3:35>> We're just sitting there, four rows.
103. 3:37>> It's not even a joke. It's literally
104. 3:39verbatim what happened that day. So, it
105. 3:41started off with me just telling
106. 3:43everybody what happened that day and
107. 3:44then then inserting just little tiny
108. 3:46jokes, I guess you could say.
109. 3:53I've always been a fan of the act out,
110. 3:56you know what I mean? I love I love it
111. 3:58when a comic takes it to that character.
112. 4:01Now I can see the whole world. Seeing
113. 4:04those descriptions on stage, I fell in
114. 4:06love with it.
115. 4:07So, like when I get on stage, like
116. 4:09that's that's always been my style.
117. 4:11Like, I'm not going to just talk about
118. 4:13my mom. I'm going to I'm going to bring
119. 4:14my mom to life on stage. I'm not going
120. 4:16to just talk about Fred. I'm going to
121. 4:18bring Fred to life, and you're going to
122. 4:20see exactly what I saw when I was a kid,
123. 4:22and
124. 4:23and yeah, you're going to come into my
125. 4:24world.
126. 4:28>> It's exactly what I thought it would
127. 4:29look like.
128. 4:32I don't know if like like the bottom of
129. 4:34a hat.
130. 4:37This is beautiful, Bubba.
131. 4:38>> I don't know how I did it, honestly. I
132. 4:40never practiced it. You know, I have
133. 4:42severe sleep apnea, right? So, like I do
134. 4:44this whole thing about my sleep apnea,
135. 4:46so it's kind of like the same
136. 4:48same sound, so I was literally doing
137. 4:51that sound with the cord and talking.
138. 4:54So, I think that's all it was, but
139. 4:57>> [laughter]
140. 4:58>> but I always remembered him with that
141. 4:59that
142. 5:00I always remembered him holding the the
143. 5:03you know, that he had the big tank
144. 5:04before I bought him the small tank, and
145. 5:06it was just constantly just blowing out
146. 5:08of his nose while he was talking. Just
147. 5:12So, I remembered that sound and him
148. 5:13talking, so I was trying to get that at
149. 5:16the same time, and then it turned into
150. 5:17whatever it is I did on stage.
151. 5:19>> He served TWO TOURS IN VIETNAM, AND HE'S
152. 5:21GOING TO DIE AT A FUCKING DODGER GAME.
153. 5:24>> I JUST stumbled on that. I said it when
154. 5:27I was talking about when it went into
155. 5:28extra innings, and I was just trying to
156. 5:30find,
157. 5:31you know, things to say while every
158. 5:34inning passed. And it was so funny cuz
159. 5:36my mom kept texting us. That's the the
160. 5:39real joke is her texting me going, "Hey,
161. 5:42come home. Hey, it's too late." Like,
162. 5:44she kept saying things, and Fred was
163. 5:45like, "Ignore. Don't don't listen to
164. 5:47your mama. Don't don't We staying. We
165. 5:48staying." Like, so that's where that
166. 5:50was. So, I was instead of doing that, I
167. 5:52was just kind of like keeping it between
168. 5:54him and I. So, I was just like
169. 5:57it was like my inner voice. Like, you
170. 5:59Can someone hit the fucking ball? Let's
171. 6:01go. This man's dying. Let's go. So,
172. 6:04that's that's where that all came from,
173. 6:06but like the whole dispenser, two two
174. 6:09tours of Vietnam, and he's going to die
175. 6:11in a fucking Dodgers game was just that
176. 6:14was so funny, man. I was so I was proud
177. 6:16of myself when I said that. Yeah.
178. 6:23>> [clears throat]
179. 6:28>> I stopped doing that bit, too. That's
180. 6:30the crazy thing. Like I literally
181. 6:31stopped it cuz I knew I had it. When I
182. 6:33was going to shoot it, I wanted it to be
183. 6:35like
184. 6:36not memorized. I was like, "No, when I
185. 6:38do the special, it's going to be like
186. 6:41right here at that moment. So, whatever
187. 6:42I say at this moment is going to be just
188. 6:46the natural version of
189. 6:47what I'm trying to say.
190. 6:54>> Stockton.
191. 6:55>> [cheering]
192. 6:59>> Well, Stockton is just very historic,
193. 7:01especially when it comes to Filipinos.
194. 7:03It's the first place we landed, and
195. 7:04there was a lot of racial tension and a
196. 7:06lot of
197. 7:07bad things that happened in Stockton 100
198. 7:09years ago, and I didn't want to start
199. 7:11the special off doing that. But, the
200. 7:14fact that I'm on stage, and I got the
201. 7:16Filipino sun behind me,
202. 7:19and here we are as a community,
203. 7:22we had white people in there, we had
204. 7:23black people in there, Latinos,
205. 7:25Filipinos, Asians, we had everybody in
206. 7:27there. Like right there alone was enough
207. 7:30to say like, "Yo, we've we've come far
208. 7:32already." You know? I wanted to go to
209. 7:34Stockton for that moment and for that
210. 7:36reason, and I'm glad I did choose it.
211. 7:44When I was a kid, I used to love going
212. 7:46to like the record store, and instead of
213. 7:49buying the Jackson 5, it would be the
214. 7:52Jackson 5 live. Like I loved the live
215. 7:55album of anything, you know what I mean?
216. 7:57Like Richard Pryor live, Eddie Murphy
217. 7:59live. I just always thought that was
218. 8:01cool. It's like, "Oh, this is
219. 8:02different." That was always my thing.
220. 8:04So, every time I had a special, I I I
221. 8:05loved to call it
222. 8:07live, live from Stockton, live from LA,
223. 8:09live from Brooklyn. But this one was
224. 8:12just
225. 8:13kind of special cuz well, one, Netflix
226. 8:15wanted me to name it something.
227. 8:17And then two, I really never landed on
228. 8:20that joke until we had to turn it in.
229. 8:23When we turned in the special, I was
230. 8:25like
231. 8:26blue in the face. Like it has so many
232. 8:27like meanings. Laugh till you're blue in
233. 8:29the face, but like if you watch it all
234. 8:31the way to the end, you see what I'm
235. 8:32getting at. It's something that actually
236. 8:34happened to Fred during the game.
237. 8:36>> [laughter]
238. 8:37>> So, that's what that was all about.
239. 8:38>> Now, his hat was up here. Face is just
240. 8:41blue and he was conserving every breath.
241. 8:43Just like
242. 8:48>> My director Shannon Michelle chose blue,
243. 8:51which was like crazy cuz teal and
244. 8:53turquoise is just not on my pie chart.
245. 8:55Like I like dark colors, dark blue, even
246. 8:58dark purple, black, like the the harder
247. 9:00tones, but like the teal when when she
248. 9:02showed me the teal, I was like
249. 9:04oh, no. That's a bit much. And then when
250. 9:06she showed me what it looked like on
251. 9:07camera, I'm like
252. 9:09oh, that's beautiful. You know, I was
253. 9:11like that's that's gorgeous. It wasn't
254. 9:13something I've seen before, so
255. 9:16it took a lot of convincing, but once I
256. 9:17finally saw it on camera, I'm like,
257. 9:19yeah.
258. 9:20Let's go with the blue.
259. 9:21>> We plug his machine in and he was like,
260. 9:24I knew they going in. I swear to god.
261. 9:27I swear to god, if he would have took me
262. 9:28out that game, I would have killed all
263. 9:30three of you motherfuckers. I swear to
264. 9:32god.
265. 9:33>> You just know when it's when it's
266. 9:34special. That's the whole key to the
267. 9:36word special. It's like, what I'm saying
268. 9:38is special and different and not like
269. 9:41the other. You know, what what's
270. 9:42separating me from from the other
271. 9:46specials. And that that's that's what it
272. 9:48is. So, when you can find that one story
273. 9:50or that one joke where you're like
274. 9:52okay, yeah. This is this is a special.
275. 9:55This is a special story here. I got to I
276. 9:57got to save this for the special.
277. 10:03>> Without skipping a beat, he just looked
278. 10:04at us and went
279. 10:05>> [snorts]
280. 10:06>> I was Dodger blue in the face.
281. 10:11>> [cheering]
282. 10:12>> I love you, Stockton. Thank you so much,
283. 10:14man. I knew once Stockton and I was
284. 10:16going to end with Fred. I always had
285. 10:18that in my back pocket. But, getting to
286. 10:19Fred, like I started building on that.
287. 10:22And there was another story that
288. 10:23connected Fred that I took out of the
289. 10:25special because I didn't
290. 10:27I was like, "No, it doesn't need that."
291. 10:28Like, when I talk about, you know,
292. 10:30keep your circle tight or whatever it
293. 10:32is, like get a dog, you know, find the
294. 10:34right people in your life that that
295. 10:36support you. And that's that's the whole
296. 10:38through line. And I wanted to get to
297. 10:40Fred because I I really when I needed
298. 10:42him most, he was there for me. That was
299. 10:45the whole point of that. Like, how do I
300. 10:46get to Fred?
301. 10:53>> [music]