-You know our next guest from her work
in "The Big Bang Theory," "True Blood," and "The Bronze."
She stars in "Night Court," which premiers January 17th
right here on NBC. Let's take a look.
-I almost didn't recognize you with a beard.
In pictures, you always look so put together.
Not that the beard isn't a good look.
It's a great way to cover up a weird neck.
Not that your neck is weird.
It's -- Wow! Look at that view.
-That is what sold Sarah on the place.
-Sarah your wife?
-She was.
So, what brings you to town?
-I moved here for a job.
I am the new night-court judge.
[ Scream ]
-Please welcome to the show, Melissa Rauch, everybody!
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Welcome to the show, Melissa!
Oh, my God, thank you for wearing sweatpants.
-Well, thank you, for not kicking me out of here.
Look, here's the deal. -Yeah.
-It's January 5th. -Yeah.
-I've been in sweatpants for three weeks.
To be honest, I've been in sweatpants for three years.
And I tried. I got into hair and makeup.
I tried to take the next step, and I couldn't do it.
-All right. -So I apologi--
I need maximum waistband flexibility at all times.
-We're so happy! -That's what's going on.
-I'm so happy about your honesty.
I will say, I am very -- you know, obviously,
post-pandemic, I have kept it a little more casual,
and I'm very happy with it. But sometimes I feel --
When I feel the worst about it is when somebody comes up
very dressed up. -Oh, well I'm so glad
I can make you feel -- You know what? Here's the deal.
I -- The people that love me the most
and the people that I love the most
know that I will look like a garbage person in front of you
if I love you. -Ahh.
-So, I'm a big fan, and this is actually a sign of love
that I look like trash. -Oh, my God.
I accept this sign of love. -Thank you, thank you.
-We -- Speaking of things we love, we both got young kids.
You've got a 5 and a 2. -I do.
How is that going? -It's awesome.
It's awesome. They're the best.
They're very -- they're into this stage now
where they're just climbing on everything.
So I'm constantly trying to see
what they're gonna jump off of.
And I'm always telling them, "We can't climb on things."
But I haven't reached 5'0" yet. -Yeah.
-I'm holding out hope. [ Laughter ]
So I climb on things -- -You're a climber.
-I'm a climber. I have to get dishes down.
-So who took this photo?
-Yeah, my kid took that photo of me.
-So this is, like, very --
So your kid basically caught you.
[ Laughter ] -Yeah.
Yeah, that -- -So that's hard for you to say,
like, "No climbing."
-I'm so not practicing what I'm preaching.
I also want to point out, this is my normal attire.
[ Laughter ] So this is actually dressed up.
-Yeah. -Like, this is an ensemble
compared to what I'm wearing there.
-Now we've established that this is fancy.
-Exactly, yeah. -This is very cool.
As we saw from the clip, that's John Larroquette,
who is one of the stars of the original "Night Court."
How has it been so far to work with someone like this,
a television legend? -Oh, my gosh, he is --
He's the greatest. He's the best of the best.
I grew up such a fan of his, and so to work with him
is just such a dream come true.
We had this fun moment where it was like halfway --
No, it was towards the end of the season,
and we had this scene where we're yelling at each other,
and, of course, we've established I'm,
you know, not the tallest.
And he's about 6'4." And it's like,
"Well, how can we make this just a little more evened out?
So we are so lucky to have the iconic
original "Night Court" couch. And I was like, "Well, I'll just
jump up on this so that maybe we're a little bit more,
you know, eye to eye, and I jump up, and I go flying.
Like, just up in the air so high.
People said I was like perpendicular to the ground.
And it was one of those moments where I was like,
"I should have hit the ground already."
Like, "I have been up here. I'm not that tall.
Like, I should have -- My legs should have come down,"
and I just felt like I kept on going and going.
And I look up and I see John, who's, like, trying to help me.
And, you know, he's got a very distinguished, handsome look.
He sort of looks now like one of those
Renaissance depictions of God. [ Laughter ]
And I'm looking at him, like, "Is this it?
Is this lights out for me?" And John Larroquette, as God,
was welcoming me in, and that's how I go?
I was kind of okay with it. It was good.
-I'm glad you survived.
I'm glad you lived to tell a tale about it.
-Yeah.
-You got your start as a comedian.
You did stand-up here in the city.
You're an East Coaster.
How were your early stand-up days here in the city?
-They were great. It was sort of tough stuff.
You sort of had to earn your stripes.
And I was one of those people who would hand out fliers
in Times Square, like, "Come see comedy, come see comedy."
And then people would just chuck a flier at your head.
And one of the moments that sort of was a bit of a push
to move to L.A. was, I was standing outside
a Broadway show, and I was trying to get people
to come to the late show, and it was the middle of February.
And I was like, "Come see comedy, come see comedy."
And this little girl just looked at me, and looked at her mother
and was like, "Mommy, that is so sad."
[ Laughter ] I was like, "Yeah."
Right.
-You had a very novel approach to dating.
I guess must have been when you were here.
Explain what garbage-pile jumping was.
-Okay. So, this --
I look back on my early days in New York, on my 20s,
and I was a much more carefree person.
Like, now I am like hand sanitizer is --
I basically bathe in it every night.
But back in the day, you know,
New York, the streets are lined with trash.
-Yep. -A lot of the times.
-Not just back in the day.
[ Laughter ] -True.
-We're having a real throwback era right now.
[ Laughter ] -Okay, it's good to know --
-We're very retro with our garbage, yeah.
-It's good to know that I could still do it.
So, I would walk down the street with whoever I was dating
at the time, and I would use this
as a barometer to see if they were worthy of a second date.
I would just be -- we would be mid-conversation,
and I would just hurl myself into a pile of trash.
And if they laughed, I'd be like, "Yeah, all right.
I can roll with you." It's insane.
There could have been dead bodies,
hypodermic needles in there, rats.
-No, we don't have the best of the trash.
-No! That is not high-class trash.
But I was like, "Okay, if --"
Not, "Oh, come and meet my parents,
Do you want to have children?"
No, if I -- if you laugh when I try and kill myself
in some sewage, then you can be my husband."
-Well, now, it seems like this maybe did bear out
to be the case because you are writing partners
with your husband, so he's obviously
a very funny person, as well. And as collab--
When you write together, how does that work?
How is the spousal dynamic when you sit down to try to be funny?
-Well, here's the deal. -Okay.
-Like, I -- We're on a set together.
And, you know, we're both --
-He writes for "Night Court" now.
-He's a producer on it. -Okay, great.
-And when you work together and you live together,
you can't -- there's no water-cooler chat, right?
Like, I can't be like, "What'd you do last night?"
I know we argued over who's gonna do the dishes,
and then we like watched 10 minutes of a Hallmark movie
and fell asleep. -Right.
-I know. Or if he was late,
he couldn't say that he was stuck in traffic,
because I saw him sitting at the kitchen table
playing fantasy football. -Right, yeah.
-Like, it's not gonna happen.
And then, also, when you're married to someone
for a long time, you -- you build up resentments at home.
And then, what's great about working together is then you can
build up all the resentments professionally, too.
[ Laughter ]
It sounds like we're on the rocks.
We're not. -You're better than that.
-We love each other. We just want
all the opportunities to resent each other.
-That's lovely. You grew up in New Jersey.
You do not have, I would say, a New Jersey accent.
Was that always been the case?
-I'm so glad it hasn't come out.
Yeah, it was a really, really thick accent
when I first went to acting school.
They were mortified. I just came in,
I'm like, [New Jersey accent] "Hi! How's everyone doin'?
What are you talkin' -- Romeo, Romeo,
wherefore art thou Romeo?" [ Laughter ]
[ Normal voice ] Yeah. The teachers were like,
"Go to a voice and speech class immediately."
And they did. It took a while to lose it.
It comes out. -And I know you got to see
some family obviously on this trip, which is great.
You did the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade,
which was a cool way to promote "Night Court."
Was your family excited to see you doing something like that?
-You would think they would be. -Yeah.
-I -- I honestly -- I thought it was like
the crown jewel of my professional career,
getting to -- it was just, like, a recorded segment,
saying -- they asked me a few questions about like,
"What's your Thanksgiving family traditions?"
And I was like, "My family, who I've watched this with
every year since I'm a kid, they're gonna lose their minds."
And so the clip that got on, I said something like,
"One of my favorite Thanksgiving traditions is arguing
with my family, and we're from Jersey, and we do it well."
And my mom, like, didn't mention anything
at Thanksgiving about it.
And I was like, "Did you guys see the parade?"
Mom's like "Mm-hmm." [ Laughter ]
"Yeah. We saw it, yeah.
A lot of my friends called, and they saw it, too,
and said they saw you." I was like, "Did you like it?"
She goes, "Yeah, you were great, you were great.
You said we argued. We don't argue so much.
I mean, we argue." [ Laughter ]
"We totally argue! What are you talking about?
All we do is argue!" "We don't argue!"
[ Laughter ]
-Well, that is a perfect --
I would say that's a new Thanksgiving tradition...
-Exactly. -...for you to start an argument
during the parade that can carry over.
-Exactly, agree.
-Hey, thank you so much for being here.
Congratulations on the show. [ Cheers and applause ]
Melissa Rauch, everybody!
"Night Court" premieres January 17th here on NBC.
We'll be right back with more "Late Night."