Now, I want to pay you this compliment,
which is I've,
big TV buff,
and I got to the point where I thought
it's impossible to reinvent the TV detective.
Like, it's all been done,
and then "Monk" comes along,
and this character you're playing,
obsessive compulsive detective,
and it's fantastic.
It's great. Thank you.
And I thought it was impossible.
I thought it was an impossibility.
(audience applauding)
I kind of hesitated, too.
You know, when I first heard about the script and all.
Right, right.
'Cause I thought, "Geez,
there's a lot of detective stories, a lot of cop shows now."
Right.
But this one, when I read it,
it just, you know, it has so much,
there's so much to it. Sure.
It has comedy, it has a pathos.
Right.
The mysteries are really kind of quirky and odd.
Right.
And I just couldn't resist it.
Now, you play this obsessive compulsive character so well,
you got to wonder, have you picked up any of those fears
of germs or dirt or anything like that?
Just playing the part.
I really have, you know. (audience laughing)
I never used to think about,
it's just invaded my psyche now, you know?
I never used to think about shaking hands, for example.
Right. And on "Monk,"
we do a whole running thing
where he has trouble shaking people's hands,
and he always has to have a wipe.
And it's happened to me, you know.
I don't know if it's happened to anybody out there but-
Were you right now,
and be honest, when you shook my hand
when you came out here, were you afraid?
Were you afraid?
It's not like a fear,
but it's that ugly little thought
that kind of travels through your head.
You know?
'Cause I haven't washed- Not you, not you.
I haven't washed my hands in years, by the way.
(audience laughing)
I'm a dirty, dirty man. Yeah.
But, you know, you're out in the world,
and then you notice
when you're being introduced to someone,
you'll notice little things like people going,
"Hey, how are you?"
You know?
Oh yeah. You just go, "Whoa!"
I think it's fun to do that on the show.
I'm like, "Hey, how are you?"
Do you find,
I mean, that's another thing,
is like, for example, Donald Trump is famous,
he doesn't shake people's hands.
He just refuses. 'Cause he's afraid to do it.
Yeah, and he actually carries, like,
wet wipes with him, you know?
Really? Yeah.
Well, my character does that.
Right, right. But I don't do that.
I mean, I still, I try to be civil,
you know, to people. Right.
But that ugly little thought,
always going through my head.
Do you get fans on the street
who think it's funny to like, you know?
Oh, they'll put their hand out,
and then they'll pull it back,
or they'll give me a wet wipe.
I've gotten a lot of wet wipes.
(audience laughing)
Right. And you always have to act
like it's the funniest thing you've ever seen,
and after about the 2,000th time,
it gets a little old.
Right, right.
I know what that's like. Yeah? (laughs)
I went through years and years,
actually, it still continues sometimes.
People are like, "Hey, Conan, are you a barbarian?"
(Conan imitating chortling) (audience laughing)
It's so funny. Yeah, yeah.
Actually, I laugh very hard every time.
Yeah.
'Cause I'm an idiot. (laughs)
Oh me, too.
But don't people say to you,
"Oh my God, you're so much taller than-"
That's all I hear.
When I go out in the world, people expect me,
because of my TV persona, to be about three feet high.
(Tony laughing)
I think I come across on TV as like a little leprechaun.
(audience laughing)
A little, devilish little man.
And then in real life, I'm over nine feet high.
I get that. (audience laughing)
I'm like a Mardi Gras puppet
when I walk down the street. (audience chuckling)
That was too far. (audience laughing)
I get the same thing,
except for me, it's this other thing.
You know, people come up to me and say,
I'll tell you, this happens a lot, it worries me.
They say, "Oh my God,
you're so much better looking in person."
You know, they don't say, "Oh, you look different."
"Oh, you're tall," or "You're fat,"
or whatever. Right, right.
It's, "You're so much better looking."
I'm thinking, "How bad do I look on TV?"
Right. 'Cause this will be a day,
like, I'm traveling,
I got a two-day growth beard, Right, right. Right.
I'm wearing sweatpants and, you know, mustard on my shirt.
Right. And I'm thinking,
maybe we should change the film stock that we're using.
Maybe stop using that ugly stock or something.
No, I relate to that because when I'm out and around,
and my producer will back me up on this,
we hang out together a lot,
a little too much. (audience laughing)
But people are always saying to me,
"You are better looking in person."
And the thing is, they think they're complimenting you,
but I immediately go to, "Am I just a horse's ass on TV?"
Yeah. (audience laughing)
How bad is it?
Are there stink lines coming off of me?
Yeah, there's no compliment in there.
No, no.
I don't know what they're trying to do to us.
They're trying to hurt us. Yeah.
That's why we should never go outside again.
I'll think about it. Now, you, of course,
people love this show "Monk,"
and you've been up for a lot of awards.
You go to a lot of awards shows,
and you do a nice thing.
You bring your daughters to to the award shows,
Yeah, sometimes. which is nice.
I have two daughters, and I like to bring one or both,
depending on, you know, who's available.
Right.
But my younger daughter had a really hard time,
and I brought her to the SAG Awards,
which I've been to twice now. Right.
And, you know, she got a little freaked out.
She didn't really,
she said to me before she hoped I didn't win
because as the SAG Award,
as people may know, is that big, big-
This is the Screen Actor's Guild, yeah.
Yeah. It's a big naked guy, you know.
It's a green statue with the butt
and the legs and everything.
And she was, you know,
she was 10 years old, Right.
and she was a little freaked out by that.
She didn't want you actually winning
'cause she didn't want that thing coming into the house?
Well, she thought it was the big one.
She thought it was the big one (Conan laughing)
they have outside the door.
She thought it was the prop that's outside?
Yeah. (audience laughing)
They have this big statue,
it's 10 feet high, Right, right.
just a little shorter than you, actually.
(audience laughing)
Thank you very much.
But even the small one,
when she saw, you know, the small
ones being presented, Right.
she was not comfortable with it.
Right. And I've actually won two,
now I have one on each side of her bed.
(Conan laughing)
I'm gonna cure her.
Yeah. If it's the last thing I do.
Yeah. She hasn't slept in two years.
No.
Now, I understand you're going
to a family reunion next week, is that right?
That's right, every summer in July.
I'm from Wisconsin, I'm from Green Bay.
Thank you.
How many from Green Bay? (audience clapping)
Not very many.
I've never heard a more chilling reaction.
(audience laughing)
I've heard every state named in this studio,
and everything gets a rousing cheer.
Wisconsin, the life went out of this room.
(audience laughing) I don't know what happened.
I'm gonna just leave right now.
Yeah.
But I do, I go back in the summer.
I'm from a big family of 10 children,
and we have a big reunion there by the lake.
Right. It's great.
And what do you do?
Like, what do you guys do for fun?
You're all together.
Well, we love the water.
The water's great.
We like to, you know,
we're into food, of course. Right.
And so we have this whole kind of thing set up.
We've gotten it down to a system here.
We all take turns cooking. Oh, that's nice.
And cleaning up, yeah. Right.
And of course, we have, like,
we'll have girly-man night,
which is where all the men get together and cook,
(Conan and audience chuckling)
Girly man night could be all the guys getting together
and doing a lot of things.
(audience laughing)
I was relieved to hear you say cook.
"We all grease ourselves up and wrestle."
(audience laughing)
"And then tickle ourselves with feathers."
Just to drive the women crazy,
we like to, you know, cook shirtless with aprons on.
Right.
So of course, they now insist that we wear hairnets,
and they would like us to wear body nets, you know?
Are the Shalhoubs a hairy, the Shalhoub males,
(audience laughing)
let's just get into it.
Let's just find out.
I don't wanna see anything right now.
(audience cheering)
No, no, no, no, no.
This show is in high def now,
people at home could be killed.
Yeah. (audience laughing)
You don't want to see.
We are single-handedly supporting the waxing industry.
Very nice. (laughing) Let me just put it way.
It's good to know. Everybody have dinner yet?
No one? Okay.
No, no, it's very late at night now.
(audience laughing) Oh right.
Well, they won't sleep then, will they?
They won't sleep now,
they'll be thinking about you,
waxing your body.
We give out a prize for anyone who
(chuckles) finds a hair in their food.
That's awful. Okay.
Okay, you know what I mean? (audience laughing)
I bring you on because you're an esteemed actor.
Yeah. I thought you'd bring
some class to this show. I'm sorry.
I've never been more disappointed. (laughs)