(audience cheering and clapping)
- I don't think you know how hard it is,
'cause I like I know not all dogs are for all people,
and I have a lot of energy,
but like I really want to snuggle with your dog.
What's your dog's name?
- My dog's name is Bubbles. - Bubbles?
- Yeah, and she's very protective of Dada.
- Oh my dog Henry is like that.
- Yeah, she'll jump at you,
if you come near Dada.
- Okay, mine doesn't do that.
- Okay. - Yeah.
- Mine just kind of growls.
- We'll keep a little distance.
- Yeah. - For right now.
- [Kelly] Yeah, keep a little distance.
- Just a little bit. - Warm her up.
Get to know my voice,
the rhythm of Kelly.
Well, let's get her comfortable with the rhythm of Kelly.
Wait, which one does she like more?
You or Sophia?
- Me! - I love that.
- Yeah, no question.
- You got a big giant dude with a little dog.
It's so great.
- She wanted the dog, but the dog wanted me.
She was a rescue.
- [Kelly] Oh, I love that.
- So, you know, Sophia saw a picture of her,
and was like, oh my gosh, she's the cutest dog ever.
So the shelter brought her over, and as soon as she saw me,
she came running over, and that was it.
And then she started growling at Sophia to go away,
and growling at the shelter people.
I've never had a pet before.
- And you were like, we'll take her.
- I said, well, I never had a pet, I said-
- You never had a pet?
- How do we do this?
Yeah. - Not as a kid?
- No, and then I always traveled, and worked so much,
that it was just, it was ridiculous.
I couldn't have a dog.
So the shelter brought her over,
and you know she actually, it turns out was sick.
She was peeing blood. Oh no.
- And it turned out that she had a cyst,
that they were worried might be cancer.
So, you know, Sophia was like,
why would they bring a sick dog over without telling us?
And I just said, look, you know, if they didn't-
- [Kelly] Kind of a blessing.
- if they told us,
then nobody would ever have the dog over.
And she'd never get adopted.
So I just turned to the shelter people,
and said, look, I'll take her, whatever happens.
- Look at that part of you!
That's so cool.
Cause you have the means.
- I would encourage people, yeah,
and that's the thing is like, luckily she landed
with somebody who could, you know, I could pay
the medical bills and whatever happened,
I was just gonna take care of this little thing,
and try to help.
And you know, I try to encourage other people because
during Covid a lot of people went to shelters, and got pets.
And then as soon as the clouds broke,
and we started going back to normalcy,
those people brought the pets back.
So there's a huge number of pets that have been
brought back.
- What kind of special place in hell-
- Seriously, seriously.
- The nerve to walk back in, you walk back in, and you-
- Imagine taking this little thing back,
I couldn't imagine.
- I mean, I guess I'm glad they brought it back in
into the shelt-, and didn't just let it go, I guess.
But dang.
- [Joe] Yeah, so people out there-
- I love animals more than humans, so.
- If you have the chance, like adopt,
adopt a pet if you can.
They're out there.
They need homes like more than ever now.
- Yeah, so you, it was Sophia's birthday recently.
You bought a very thoughtful gift for her, right?
- Yeah, I did.
So I, you know, I wanted to, you know,
you buy your wife flowers, the flowers die.
I wanted to get her flowers that would last forever.
So I enlisted the help of this-
- Harry Potter.
- of this famous glass sculptor named Martin Blank.
So a lot of people know the name Dale Chihuly,
as far as glass sculpting goes.
Towards the end of Dale's career,
Martin was making a lot of Dale's sculptures for him.
- Oh his apprentice, basically.
- Yeah, and he's this brilliant glass sculptor,
that's in Seattle.
And he said, Hey, I'm gonna be finishing up the sculpture.
Do you want to come to Seattle?
And I'll let you be a part of it, and I'll teach you.
- [Kelly] Oh, that's you.
- So I was taught that that furnace, that blast furnace
is 2,250 degrees.
So you have to be very careful with everything.
And there's a dance, there's a movement,
there's a choreography.
I mean, he was basically like, here are the steps.
1, 2, 3, 4.
You got it.
And it's like, okay.
You know, like, don't let anyone die.
- [Kelly] Don't die.
- Okay, got it.
And you don't die.
- So you did the whole thing?
- I did, yeah.
I, and then I made her a surprise,
which I was making there,
which I won't show what the finished product is-
- [Kelly] Okay, I like that.
- That's a surprise.
- That's so nice though.
That's so beautiful.
It's thoughtful.
- Yeah. And I wanted be a part of it so that like
I could always be a part of that sculpture.
She could always look at it, you know,
that I made part of it.
- It's nice too,
because you can both buy whatever you wanna buy,
you know what I'm saying?
But to make something for someone, it's beautiful.
- Sure, yeah.
- [Kelly] I think that's more meaningful, just saying.
So Halloween was yesterday.
Here is a photo of you, and your brother,
and I wanna show this,
because what was wrong with you as a child?
- [Joe] Well, listen, my mom was in on it too.
- [Kelly] Okay, he's not the cowboy.
That's his other, that's his brother.
I'm like that scared the hell outta me.
So you're into Gore?
- Well, when I was a little kid, yeah,
I mean, that's the point of Halloween.
- No, no, when you're a little kid,
that's when you're scared.
- I did one with an eyeball hanging out.
I could detach the eyeball and you know, put it back in.
- You have the greatest mother ever.
- She's the best.
- Because she was like, sure son.
And then you went out like scaring everyone and God.
Like that was, yeah.
- [Joe] Well, also those masks at that time,
like, it's just sweat.
Like it's a sweat waterfall on the inside.
And it's Pittsburgh,
so there's probably snow on the ground there.
- I'm just saying like, the effect
of the picture next to the poor cowboy.
That's about to get eaten.
- Look at my brother Nick.
How cute is he?
I mean, come on.
- Howdy Doody, it's nice.
So wait, what's with this photo as well?
Wait, explain, this one.
What's happening?
What's happening there?
- Well, I got hit in the face with a baseball bat.
When I was a kid, When I was a, when I was a kid
right around the age of that Halloween picture, I got hit.
- How do you accidentally get hit in the face
with a baseball bat?
Just asking for a mother of a six year old son.
- You have to be a really stupid kid
who's waving a bat around, that shouldn't be.
- Wow, you're my son.
Okay, okay.
You're that's my, Yeah
- [Joe] I didn't mean to include him in that.
- That's actually pretty, that tracks.
- 35 years later, you're still dealing with it.
So it's one of those-
- Wait, so they were like your adult teeth
had already come in.
- Oh yeah.
- So that's real.
So you have to wear like a little thing in.
- Oh yeah, this is like a bridge right now.
Cause I'm waiting.
They're, they have to drill, they're gonna screw up
into my gums to put the, yeah.
- You go from like sexiest man alive,
to like Bubba real quick.
It's like awesome.
It's amazing.
I saw that picture and I was like,
how is that the same dude?
It's amazing what teeth do
- They really do, yeah.
- It is amazing.
But if I was living at any other time in history,
it would not be going so well.
Especially the glasses, I would, I'd be blind.
I'd have no teeth. - I have glasses.
Yeah. I mean, I don't, I don't see well as well.
So you're playing yourself on this season of "Mythic Quest".
So why'd you wanna do that?
- Well,-
- Other than the fact that you're a huge gamer.
Do you like games?
- Well, no, but I love Rob.
I love, you know, "Sunny in Philadelphia",
and I thought Rob was hilarious.
I got to do a movie with Glen Howard in,
and actually three years ago Rob called me
to do "Mythic Quest",
and we shot an episode that couldn't air because of Covid.
So it was supposed to be like at a convention,
and we needed all these extras, and we couldn't do it.
So that actually got scrapped.
And then they called me back a couple years later,
and said come back,
and they actually wrote me something even better.
And David Hornsby, who was on the show,
I went to drama school at Carnegie Mellon with him,
so, and he writes for it, and wrote me some great stuff.
- That's cool.
Small world, right?
- Well, Carnegie Mellons actually kind of
like the entertainment industry is full of a bunch
of the kids that I went to drama school with during my year.
So it was like me, Matt Bomer,
from "Magic Mike" at Carnegie Mellon,
Pablo Schreiber from "Halo",
Cote de Pablo from "NCIS".
Then you have like Patrick Wilson, Gabriel Mott,-
- This is the school to go to for drama.
- It is.
Well, at the time it was, at the time I went there,
it was ranked higher than Julliard.
- [Kelly] Oh wow!
- What's up Julliard?
- Oh, what's up! That's what I said.
I said it, I said it.
I said what I said.
- Go Tartans, yeah.
- So you're also working on another childhood passion.
I love this about you.
So you have a "Dungeons and Dragons: documentary, right?
Cause I know you have that thing you built at your house.
- So yes, I'm gonna direct the official
"Dungeons and Dragons 50th Anniversary Documentary".
Like it's a the complete history from starting in 1974.
- I feel like I need to get into this,
'cause I love any kind of,
I love this just feels like me.
Like I saw the whole thing,
and I saw a bunch of dudes, whatever.
But like, women are cool too.
- Women didn't play when I was a kid.
There were none.
And believe me, it wasn't because we didn't want it.
- No, I know.
I'm just, 'cause you wanted girls around.
- We wanted them to, and us talk about this nerdy stuff.
- I love nerdy.
I think it's so fun.
I love escapism.
So like, what got you into it as a child?
Like what did you, what did you catch?
- I love storytelling.
I think that's probably what I am more than anything else.
I love storytelling.
I loved writing.
I loved, you know, character building,
for a kid without, you know, a Hollywood budget.
It was making your own TV show,
making your own film series.
So for me that was like, are you, you know, you kidding me?
And then I could, the kids would play characters in my show,
that I ran every day, or every week.
- I think that's so cool.
I love it.
So wait, so have you ever gotten in a physical fight?
It can be a subjective event, right?
So have you ever gotten in a physical fight at "D and D"?
- No, at "D and D"?
I mean, when I was a kid, people-
- Wait, or maybe not in "D and D", what's happening?
- Well, clearly, yeah.
I mean, I've thrown some-
- Bubba comes out.
- I was a bouncer and a bodyguard in college, so-
- You were?
- Yeah, yeah. - Oh wow.
- That's a whole other story for another time.
- For a nighttime show.
- Maybe. Yeah, probably.
Yes, exactly.
But no, when I was a kid, you know,
there was a stigma against it.
You know, the churches were burning books.
They thought that Satan was possessing their children
through the game.
That's the reputation that it had.
- I did not know that.
- And so the churches were burning books,
and then the sales quadrupled,
because the kids whose books were being burned,
went and bought more, and then hid them better.
- And once you make it a red button,
you just wanna press it.
- Soon as your parents were upset,-
- What's in there?
- I need that.
And so as a kid there was a lot of stigma against it.
So there were kids that would say things,
and you'd get into almost fights with kids over it.
Or I'd defend other nerdy kids,
I was friends with.
I was a captain of the football team, so I was-
- Playing "Dungeons and Dragons", I love it.
- So not necessarily that,
but sometimes there's arguments that happen when
you're playing at the table.
People want, they want to tell you how the rules work.
And I'm like, I know the guy who wrote that rule.
I was just on the phone with him, the other day
talking about some project we're doing together.
So the rule is the way it is, you need to listen to me.
And that's it.
- I love, you're a rule baller.
I am too.
Wait, did you ever, come to the football team?
Did you ever think about actually doing like,
professional sports? - No.
- 'Cause you're like a big dude.
- Well, there was a lot of talk,
and actually when my the high school theater teacher
came to me and said would you please try out?
'Cause I made my own movies.
And that kind of led to the people saying you should
be an actor, you should try this.
And so the, the high school theater teacher said,
would you please try out for "Oklahoma"?
And I said, what do I have to sing and dance?
She said, just sing Happy Birthday.
So, you know, to Cindy Shriner, my teacher,
and she's kind of responsible, you know,
in large part for pushing me into it.
So I went to the tryout, I sang Happy Birthday
I did some kind of dance, and then that was it.
I forgot about it.
A few months later, kids in the hallway were saying,
Congrats Joe.
And I'm like, for what?
And they're like, oh, you got a huge part in the musical.
And I went, Oh no.
You know, I went and looked at that.
- And you have to memorize everything.
- Well, that was easy. - It was?
Memorizing was never easy for me.
I was in musical theater.
It was the hardest thing for me.
- Oh, I can read it like once or twice.
- I'm not like, I don't retain anything really.
- Yeah. It's a hard life with that.
Yeah. I don't retain.
- You landed on your feet, however.
- With a teleprompter, yeah.
- You've done all right.
But so I, but the real problem was
that I was the captain of the volleyball team.
And I had, I was a four year starter.
I was a junior Olympian, I mean the Junior Olympic team.
And then I, the musicals in the spring.
So-
- You're like Wolverine, like Hugh Jackman.
You're like Wolverine and "Music Man".
This is like awesome.
It's like-
- So all the coaches were really mad.
They thought, they told,
they made a point to tell me how stupid they thought I was,
and what a huge mistake I was making.
And that I was throwing away.
- Neener coaches, neener, neener.
It worked out.
It is a hard choice though.
I love sports too.
It's a hard choice, sometimes.
- Yeah. I was an art, but I mean I was,
I was more of an artist than anything else.
So for me to not choose to do that would've been
the biggest crime for me,
I had to do something I was gonna love.
- [Kelly] I love that.