Your style is not that easily packed into a short set,
'cause you tend to be more a story teller, long form.
You take your time.
And these are all compliments.
You're not just calling me lazy.
(both laughing)
Yeah, take your time.
Tell these stories.
He's always got an excuse.
You're more of a marathoner and I'm going hey,
I've got this 50-yard dash I want you to run.
Yeah, and also you're the first person
to ever call me a racer of any kind.
(lively music)
[JP] A lot of work goes into a short
late-night stand up set.
Join me, JP Buck, as I spotlight the comedians
who came up with some of my favorite Conan sets.
This is The Set Up.
[Conan] Please welcome back to our show,
very funny guy Shane Torres.
Let's talk about this Guy Fieri set.
How does this thought come to you?
I always wanted to tell jokes
that nobody else could tell, right?
Like, meaning they were mine.
That's him, it sounds like him right away.
One of the things I would always see people doing
as far as subject matter goes was just be like,
the easiest way to say something is shitty
is it's like Guy Fieri blah, blah, blah.
It was something I saw people doing forever.
And really I thought it was
kind of a dumb way to pack a parachute.
It just was unimaginative to me
and not really well researched
and just very much in my mind a bit lazy
when I would see it a bunch.
Not even to say it doesn't work,
but it wasn't something I found terribly exciting.
It was like top 40 radio to me.
So I kinda thought, well what's different?
Just think about it for a second,
'cause it's also the opinion everybody held about him.
At the time was just unanimous that he sucked, you know?
And I was like, maybe he doesn't.
Well, let's find out.
It started with the very opening line of the joke,
that's the one thing that didn't
really change ever that much.
Can someone please explain to me
what the hell Guy Fieri ever did to anyone?
The first time I did it
I did it at Whiplash on the West Side of Manhattan
and it got a huge pop.
I remember it being, oh this is a good joke
because I had to follow Judd Apatow.
(both laughing) So I was like, well if I'm keeping up
with the kind of Hollywood, I'm doing all right.
(lively music)
It would be hard to do a bit like this,
say back in like the '80s before social media,
before this sort of uniformity of thought
of where people are sort of just the hive mind
of like, oh that guy hates it?
Yeah, I'm on board with that.
Yeah, it just kinda became negativity
was just an opinion on him, but it wasn't informed.
And it's kind of a way people are in general,
just like, ah that person sucks, this sucks, that sucks.
And there was never okay, sure.
I understand how to react to something
when you don't like it,
but I also think you should still explain it.
Also, how often do you need
to hate someone like Guy Fieri?
Really, is he ever in your house,
is he in your place of work,
are you interacting with him?
Why carry around that?
And then there was a guy I met,
and I thought this was actually very interesting.
You don't even know you do it,
but a guy in Austin, I think his name is Brendan K O'Grady,
and he goes, hey that bit's great,
and just so you know, I make fun of him,
but the very first thing I do whenever I'm on the road
is see if Guy Fieri's been to a restaurant there.
(both laughing)
What I love also
is you come right out of the box
delivering that first line.
You're not worrying about an opener.
You're not trying to do how's everybody.
I don't know if you remember this, we talked about it.
You called me and were like hey,
I love the bit and I think it's gonna do great,
but it is all one bit.
So just so you know, if they don't like it, you can't-
it's not The Cellar at 1:30.
You can't pivot out of it.
(JP laughing) You can't be like where was he going
with that Guy Fieri thing and then two minutes later
it's all everything bagels or whatever.
So I did think maybe I should just give them
one very soft thing, just to get them, hey real quick.
But then I was kinda like, ah (beep) it.
It's a little more fun to just be excited
and see how it goes.
(lively music)
Can someone please explain to me
what the hell Guy Fieri ever did to anyone?
(audience laughing)
Y'all know who I'm talking about, the celebrity chef?
People shit on that dude all the time
and as far as I can tell
all he ever did was follow his dreams.
(audience laughing)
You understand, people are horrible
to a television personality
and he didn't do anything wrong.
Here's what he did do, America.
The audiences sometimes at late night sets
in studios can be a little tight.
Yeah.
And that line, I've seen every time gets a huge pop,
and deservedly so. Every once in a while we get audience,
they're not as great as other audiences.
That happens everywhere.
Yeah, they're kinda leaning in going,
okay where are you going with this?
You know, when you're doing these big sets,
I'm sure everyone's told you this,
but you're like, oh my first little thing
didn't get the thing, didn't get what I expect of it.
And you're like ah (beep).
God, I feel like I've been up here an hour already.
(both laughing)
And you're like 20 seconds in.
I'm such a (beep) tin man armor kinda guy,
'cause I remember thinking it would just get this loud pop
and then I was just gonna rev in
and hit them for four and a half minutes
or whatever it is, you know?
And I then I remember it feeling,
good, like it worked,
but it wasn't what I was expecting.
And then I remember I kinda felt like
I was moving a little faster.
You've got them already,
but I can definitely tell you've got
a little bit of a task ahead of you,
of going okay, this group of people
needs a little softening up.
He started a company where he hires everybody,
he pays more than minimum wage,
he gives health benefits before he has to,
he has a non-profit where he gives pretzel making machines
to schools so they can fundraise.
I know that one sounds like I made it up,
but I swear to Christ it's true.
(audience laughing)
You also have phrases that work really well,
that are purely yours.
I swear to Christ.
In other words, I don't write jokes well,
so I have to figure out a way to say things that are funny.
I would not agree with that.
I don't write them like punch liney,
like someone who is great,
but I'm not like him at all, Sam Morril.
His act is very punchy and very dense.
I think I have to just be like here I am,
this dumb country rube with all these weird sayings
or whatever.
(both laughing)
I like writing that way.
It's a fun way to be creative
and not take an easy way out and just say,
it's the craziest thing ever.
You know, that's kinda lazy writing.
So it's funner to embody a good turn of phrase, if you will.
He works with Special Olympics athletes
and if you need a little more sugar with this medicine,
he also officiated a gay wedding.
Yeah, but because he has flames on his shirt
(audience laughing)
everybody shits all over this dude
like he's a member of Nickelback.
(audience laughing)
And by the way, what the hell did Nickelback ever do?
(audience clapping)
They made 40 million bros happy?
Yeah, you don't want them walking around pissed off.
That's how we ended up in this mess.
The Nickelback thing, did that start out
as just a line and suddenly you were like,
oh wait, I can actually mine this a little more for a joke?
It started out as an is like joke,
which is not a thing I'm a huge fan of,
but I think you can take them further.
It's just the first step up the stairs.
But I said it, and I was like that's good, it'll work.
It's another thing people dog for no reason.
I didn't research.
They're not researched in the bit the way Guy Fieri is.
(JP laughing)
So they may actually be horrible people.
Yeah, they might be, but I saw somebody write,
I think, about that guy from Nickelback,
like he's a genius because he knows
exactly what people want and that's what he gives them.
And I was like, hey man that's a (beep) very good point.
I think I read it on Consequence of Sound
or something like that.
I was like, I wish I could credit whoever wrote it,
but it's like yeah, that's true.
It's just right there.
That's what they want.
They want to rock just enough.
(JP laughing) And he gives it to them every time.
Nobody gives anybody a seven out of 10
like Chad Kroeger from Nickelback.
(both laughing)
And look, I get it.
I don't want to hang out with Guy Fieri either, okay?
I know he looks like a Hot Topic manager
moonlighting at a Friday's.
But he didn't do anything wrong.
Well, what else has he done, Shane?
I'm so glad you asked.
He goes around the country to small businesses
and gives them free advertising
on a national platform on a weekly basis,
advertising those small businesses
could never afford themselves with his own television show.
But because his hair looks like he was electrocuted
while drinking Mountain Dew
(audience laughing)
people act like we need to saw his head off
and put it on the internet.
It does feel like you're involving the audience.
And even there in that set,
you do play the audience.
What else did he do, Shane?
You ask the question on their behalf,
even if they're not asking it,
but you keep it going.
(Shane laughing)
Special kind of ass hole it takes
to do something like that.
It's a way to check in with them
without halting all the information
and making it directly conversational,
as opposed to being like, are you enjoying this,
'cause there's also no room for that in a late night set.
You can't just do crowd work.
Meanwhile, y'all can't get enough of Anthony Bourdain.
Now, I'll stop you here for a second,
'cause I feel we do need to address this.
There's a part in this bit
where I do a kind of side-by-side comparative of the two
food personalities and Anthony Bourdain was such a darling
and I take the, what do you want to say,
an inverted position on it of why he might suck
and kinda use the surface logic
that people would use against Guy Fieri
that he just sucks because his hair's like this
or he acts like this.
And I do the same thing to Anthony Bourdain in the bit,
pre his death.
Am I saying this right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I didn't write this into a eulogy or anything.
I'm not a (beep) animal.
You're not aiming anything personally at Anthony Bourdain.
This is just purely the sensationalization
of Anthony Bourdain by the media and fans.
Yeah, and I will say before we go into this part
I was performing at Bonnaroo when Bourdain died
and I was having a good time.
And Maryann who booked comedy there
was just like, I need somebody on stage right now.
And I just kinda went into autopilot
and I hadn't done this bit maybe since this show
and I did this bit and he had died the day before.
And I get to the Bourdain part
and everybody was just like, whoa!
And I had to be like, ah wrote this before yesterday.
And then just kinda plowed ahead.
And it went over fine, but it was one of those moments
where I was just like ah (beep).
Did I just get canceled while The Killers were playing
in the background or whatever.
And he seems like the kind of dude
that would be mean to dogs.
(audience laughing)
I don't understand what is happening!
What does he do?
I put on Rolling Stones T shirts
and I tell food courts they suck.
C'mon man.
Like, if you had to choose
between being stuck in a fox hole with Anthony Bourdain
or Guy Fieri, you gonna pick Fieri every time.
I am still doing this bit.
I love that line.
(Shane laughing)
It's kind of a lot, the bit, you know?
When did you feel you needed to include
letting people know yes, I'm aware that this is going on,
but we're gonna keep going?
I remember it was growing
and the bit was coming into fruition
and it kind of,
I was really into doing the bit for a little bit,
like a lot of comics are.
And I would do it at a cool show or whatever,
and the people in the crowds
I want to be killing in front of would be like,
Jesus, it's killing and it was such a surprise, you know?
I'd done some TV stuff, but I wasn't a famous person yet
in LA or New York, and I'm not famous now,
but what I'm saying is I got to show
that I can have the best game of the night or whatever
out of all the people on the show
and that bit was something that was doing it,
if that makes sense.
And I would see it build and build and build,
and it would be going well.
And then I kind of was like,
well, what would be the funniest thing I could possibly do,
or what is a funny thing I could do in this bit.
I could just acknowledge that
this is taking a while, even if it's going well.
So, to me it's just funny to harp on something
for way longer than people want to hear it.
What's Bourdain gonna do?
I'll tell you.
He'll be like that dude in every World War II movie
who sucks the whole time.
(audience laughing)
Then when the Nazis show up, doesn't do his job,
gets a bunch of good soldiers killed.
Meanwhile, Guy Fieri's over here
earning new nicknames like El Fuego.
(audience laughing)
Picking up live grenades, throwing them back,
saying dope shit like welcome to flavor town.
(audience laughing)
And he knows he's dying on that beach
in France that morning, but he's there fighting.
And what do y'all do?
You shit all over him just 'cause he had
his sunglasses on the back of his neck.
I think it's awesome that he has a racing stripe
painted on his fridge.
You'd love it if Banksy had painted it.
And look guys, I know I look like the kinda dude
that would defend Guy Fieri.
(audience laughing)
But if that's what you're taking away from this,
you're missing the point.
Thank you guys very much.
I'm Shane Torres, really appreciate it.
(lively music)
Jake Gordy says, "First time I saw this,
"I was 100% on board with the Fieri hate-train.
"By the end, this dude had completely persuaded me
"how and why I was wrong."
That's the one I like the most.
I've gotten some variations of that,
and that is the nicest thing, I think.
I think it's cool.
I really think it's cool
that it's a dumb joke about something
that is not important in the grand,
but it's nice to see people can change their minds,
who were just solidified in a thought.
That's what's cool about that.
Brian C says, "He positions himself at a strange angle",
you know where I'm going with this
Yeah.
"for a lot of this segment.
"So strange that it was only that the 10 second mark
"that I knew he had two hands".
(Shane laughing)
I had not heard that.
I do it for whatever reason,
and it just kinda ended up being this weird thing I do
when I perform.
I've had a few people call it tea potting
(both laughing)
which is kinda the thing I like about it,
because I'm shaped like one, too.
People bring it up.
It's just whatever.
I don't know, man, I just do it.
(lively music)
You know, I know the bit did well and everything,
and did well on the show and then on YouTube.
It did well on the internet.
But anytime he does something now at all in the news,
I get tagged in it.
(JP laughing)
Somebody said, he I own a restaurant, he came to it.
Anytime we re-air, like our episode re-airs,
I know we'll have to have extra waiters on that weekend.
So, I just think that's very cool.
It's very cool.
But then there's the other part,
which is the curse of Fieri
that you're getting notified about this all the time.
It's a small cross to bear for a man
who's done so much for America.