[J.P.] By the way, before we get started,
I, your, style, your impeccable tastes
in the way that you dress.
(laughing loudly)
Especially on stage.
I mean, I will say backstage you were a little,
you know, a little bit more relaxed
but this is great.
My trick is new shoes.
Like new shoes will make you feel amazing.
Those shoes are called creepers
which are like British shoes.
And I think I bought them like the night before.
And so, you know, new shoes, you feel good.
That's, that's what that is.
I picked them for two reasons.
Number one, there's a rubber sole
and number two,
it's like an inch and a half
so I just get that in height.
(both laughing)
which I need, so that's what that is.
The height thing was going really well.
I had a good set.
It ended well.
And then Conan came and stood next to me and we looked
like something out of Lord of the Rings.
Half the comments from Indian people are like,
is he short?
Or is Conan tall?
Which one is it?
And I'm like, yeah, it's, it's, it's both.
Actually, it's both.
(upbeat music)
[J.P.] A lot of work goes into a short,
late night stand up set.
Join me, J.P. Buck,
as I spotlight the comedians who came up with some
of my favorite Conan sets.
This is The Setup.
Please welcome, the very funny Vir Das.
We didn't meet before you were booked to the show.
That's the thing,
usually like I do meet somebody before
but the first time that I saw you,
you came to my attention, a good friend of mine,
Orica Ebolu, actually mentioned you in a couple
of times and said like, you have to see him.
You've got to see Vir.
And I happened to be over in Edinburgh.
It was 2016 and you were performing.
And I had like a nine o'clock show
and yours was 11:45 at night.
And I remember it, I went back
to my hotel room to get like maybe 20 minutes of sleep.
You were at the Gilded Balloon.
Yes, and in the basement.
It felt like I was walking into, you know,
when you, you, like a band that's about to break
and you're getting to see them
in the cool venue before they go and play the big arena.
And you're like, I was there.
[Vir] The nice thing about Edinburgh is
there's not a lot of Indians in Scotland and that's strange
but there just aren't.
And so like you get Bollywood fans in Edinburgh
and then just guys who don't know who I am, right.
Just random British people who don't know who I am
which is just the two extremes of people you can have
in the audience.
So it's just like, man, I love this movie
and I have no idea.
And those two people interact with each other
and that's a nice sort of palpable energy when that happens.
And, and these were, these were preview shows
because it was just, I think it was like 45 people.
The entire room was 45 or 50 people, in the basement,
late at night.
And it was my first time there with that show.
So it was fun.
It was a good time.
And we didn't meet even then
like, even then we didn't say hi or anything.
[J.P.] I wanted to talk to you, but even then
you were kind of,
you were kind of gigs warped.
and the show was so, I didn't, I was like,
I could of waited around, but I didn't want to bother you.
And I was like, okay, well, at some point,
I'm sure our paths will cross, flash-forward.
We didn't get to actually meet
in person until I booked you for the show.
And you actually came to the studio.
[Vir] You and me met quickly,
like at the Ice House in Pasadena, I think.
[J.P.] So yeah, Ice House, yes we did.
[Vir] So I got booked and
I knew that this was happening and my manager, Reg, was like
all right, you need to get a set together.
You need to get a set together.
And I'm like
I don't know what that is because you know, we're Indian.
And so for us, like, you know, six minutes means 15 minutes
you know, that's, that's how we work.
What's cool about you is you didn't even mention
that you were watching me at the Ice House.
You just kind of showed up after the thing.
And you were like, I like that.
And that was fun.
And, and maybe go here with it
but had I known you were in the audience before?
I would have been a little more nervous, you know?
So it was cool of you to kind of wait until I,
until I got done with that 10 minute spot to
give me notes on it, which was really nice.
[J.P.] It just so happened,
and these bookings happen independently and it depends
on the schedule of the guests.
It depends on the schedule of like, sometimes
people will change their dates last second.
So things get moved around and you can think
that we purposely booked two guests on the same show.
This did not happen.
And I don't think I even realized it
until like the day of, or day before.
It was destiny, man.
That was insane.
[J.P.] You have a joke in your set
about the person who is the lead guest on the show.
I, yeah, I couldn't have predicted it in,
in a million years.
So yeah, I had the Apu from the Simpsons joke
which was super important to me to do
because that's the one, like I used to have
like the only two Indians that Americans have really seen
are like Gandhi and Apu from the Simpsons, right?
Those are the two guys
which is why you don't consider us sexy, by the way,
like if there were more,
so I did the Apu from the Simpsons joke,
which I think was, this is,
there's no Apu from the Simpsons joke coming up.
This is not that.
And then I glance over and
like Hank Azaria is sitting right over there
which is insane because he does the voice for Apu.
And I think that's 90%
of your comments section is just people going, oh, snap.
Like that's the entire comment section
on the thing, which is insane.
My name is Vir Das.
I'm from Bombay in India.
Has anybody ever been to India?
If you haven't been, you must go because your jobs have.
I had seven other opening lines and, and this felt
like what I would do if this was a club.
And so I ended up going with that.
I remember like talking with my team about it and a couple
of friends and I'm like, you know, it's possible
that I lose them at line one.
You know, 'cause it's, it's not, hey, good to be here.
I'm so happy, I'm from here, et cetera, et cetera.
It's just in straight.
So it either sets context for what
the rest of this is going to be.
Or I lose this crowd
and never get on American television again.
Before I start telling jokes,
I should clarify something guys,
I have an Indian accent.
This is how I talk.
I'm not doing a bit.
There's no Apu from the Simpsons joke coming up.
But give me a little bit of time.
My accent will grow on you, right?
Just give me like four or five generations,
we'll be fine.
And it's okay to not understand each other.
There are things about me that you may not understand
like my accent, there are things about you,
America, that I don't understand, like your women.
[J.P.] Now, here's the thing about this joke.
What I love about this.
Like it makes you think
that you're going to say something almost
like very judgemental about their women.
Yes, it's presented that way, but it's such a,
it's such a fun idea to turn
on the way that most comics would deliver a joke like this.
What I was nervous about at this point is, you know,
what's coming up is, you know, you usually go,
have you tried Indian yet?
Which is the line coming up.
Right, and what you want is ladies going, woo yeah.
You know, or whatever
or giving you a bit of a cat call, you know, a little bit
of an enthusiastic thing, which most places I played
in America, Americans are very enthusiastic.
You guys are a woo crowd.
I get the woo, right?
But the nightmare is, is just you going,
have you tried Indian yet?
And ladies going, no, and just silence.
That's the nightmare scenario.
But they were kind of, they were kind of nice about this.
I don't understand American women.
I don't understand how you can resist this.
(audience laughing)
Have you tried Indian lately?
There you go, have you tried Indian?
Oh, you must.
Once you go brown, the other colors let you down.
There are two Mexicans in back,
like write this shit down, man.
This shit applies to us, too, essa.
I apologize, I don't mean to insult Mexicans.
I'm just a comedian.
I'm not your president.
Once you go brown,
the other colors we'll let you down,
is now a Tinder profile.
It's now on t-shirts.
If you go through, like people dubbing my stuff
on Tik Tok, right?
From my movies and all of that stuff.
This is the number one line that they dub.
This is the most memorable line from that special as well.
And I never thought it would happen.
You know, this was just one
of those, it's an easy joke, if I'm being completely honest.
But I feel like from this point on, in the set,
we all start to have a little fun because you know, now we,
now we know each other.
Everybody's complaining too much.
You have to work this out guys.
Everybody's like, man, we didn't choose this guy.
Now we got to live with him.
We didn't vote for this guy.
Now we got to live with him.
To you Americans, that's a president.
To most Indians, that's a marriage.
(audience laughing)
That's what Donald Trump is.
He's your arranged marriage, ladies and gentlemen,
because in the most literal sense
your parents picked this guy out for you.
You know, arranged marriage works.
You know, that's really where I'm coming
from on this job, is you got to work it out.
It's an arranged marriage and this might actually work out.
Let's be clear.
It didn't, but it might actually work out.
But if you came out
and you're like, this guy, you know, is blah, blah, blah.
And I don't like him or, you know,
he's a fool, et cetera, et cetera.
I think even somebody who didn't support him politically,
I'd lose them with this joke.
You know, as, as you might,
as we might respond to like an American coming
over and saying your prime minister is, you know,
something or the other.
So it is a line that you kind of have to walk
because Trump is an easy joke.
Like our prime minister is an easy joke,
but there's still that sentiment of, yeah, it's bullshit.
But it's our bullshit.
And I think you have to be cognizant
and kind of respectful of that.
So, you know, if you notice the joke,
and I can only say this in retrospect,
because I wish it was all so pre-planned.
I think what works for the joke in retrospect
and it was unplanned, is that there's something,
there's an offering
of an idea that is Indian towards the situation
that is marriage, you know, but if
if it was just me going, I don't get it.
What are you doing?
I think there'd be a different response.
And there's religious phobia because I believe
that the world is changing and religion can't keep up.
I feel like we need to update every major religion
in the world.
Just take every religion and give it to the company Apple.
Every six months, applicant update,
and relaunch the religion to the world.
How nice would that be?
That's what we need.
We need Islam Six S, ladies and gentlemen,
we need Jesus pro.
You would slow terrorism down.
Can you imagine how much you would slow terrorism down if
every time, some nut job wanted commit a jihad,
you first have to sign a new online agreement with Apple.
So first you got to get a jihad ID.
Then you have to sync all your bombs
and your devices to the same jihad ID
except that one bomb didn't work with the old version
of iTunes and I have to download the new version of iTunes.
(audience laughing)
And you're all set to go up to heaven and get 72 virgins.
But your iCloud only holds six virgins.
So now you have to upgrade.
I think it's my defense mechanism as well.
With the minute I do something that is slightly
statementy and that's the only word I have for it,
oh, he made a statement because I don't like that.
You know, I don't like sitting in that for too long.
I like to go someplace silly, like really fast,
and then come back.
So I think this is me doing that from a dynamics point
of view, just let's get silly for a bit.
My favorite part of that joke is just
Android users going, what the hell is he talking about?
[J.P.] Publishing on the Androids.
[Vir] Look, look how happy and confident I look.
Just watch that.
Just look at that, that swag pose,
and then just watch it go away in like three seconds.
[Conan] Hey, fantastic, that was fantastic.
[Vir] Nice to see you, Conan.
Vir Das, ladies and gentlemen.
You're not alone.
I mean, I even feel I have to,
my neck cranes all the time when I'm talking to him.
[J.P.] I think your camera guy kind of went, oh shit,
look at that difference, and then kind of went up.
It's Gandalf and Frodo.
That's what it is, it's great.
(upbeat music)
I don't think we've ever spoken about this
but one cool thing that this did
for me was bring back a little bit
of goodwill and I'll tell you how.
I think a year before this appearance happened,
I just been in like a terrible movie,
like just a God awful movie that was banned by everybody.
And it was kind of a box office disaster in Bollywood.
And it was one of those movies where the script was terrible
and all of us knew and we took the money and it was
and just kind of got called out
by the media, they were like, you took the money, man,
and now we're going to destroy you, you know?
And, and now go sit
in exile for like five or six months.
And so I just, I didn't have a movie
until a year later cause I just finished shooting it.
So it wouldn't come out until, you know,
six months after this appearance.
And so the people's last memory of me
wasn't a great memory is the best way I can put it.
And then this came out and you know
the media got behind it and people got behind it.
And even people who were just critics who hated me,
you know, were just kind of doing articles, going fine.
His Conan appearance was good.
Okay, fine, there I said, so, and so that happened.
So you guys got back a little bit
of a goodwill for me in India as well.