-My first guest is a talented comedian
and the host of "The Daily Show."
Tickets to see him live on the "Back to Abnormal" tour
are available at trevornoah.com.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Trevor Noah!
[ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪
-♪ Trevor Noah ♪
♪ Back another time ♪
♪ Cannot arrest him ♪
♪ Even though he was born a crime ♪
♪ Now he got to know ♪
♪ He sees it ♪
♪ On "The Daily Show," yeah ♪
-Trevor Noah!
-Oh, yeah! -Oh, look at that.
How does that feel? -Wow!
-That's got to feel good, huh? -Wow!
-Come out to a standing "O"? Come on. They love you, man.
-It's a little -- It's a little overwhelming.
[ Cheers and applause ] It's wonderful. Thank you.
But it's a little -- It's a little overwhelming.
-It is, right?
-I've been small for very long. -I know. You really have.
-You know what I feel like is happening
right now with the pandemic?
I almost feel like, you know, the dinosaurs
probably thought about, like, the world like this,
like, when the asteroid hits.
And they were like, "Boom," and then they were like, "Whoa!"
And then they were like, "Oh, we survived."
And they were like, "Let's carry on with our lives."
Let's go to 'The Tonight Show.'" -Yeah.
-And then the cloud came, and they were like, "Oh, man.
We got confident too quickly."
-I know. -I don't know. I don't know.
-I feel like we're on the baby steps --
-And I hope so.
I hope -- Baby steps in the right direction.
Either way, we're having fun along the way.
-We're having fun. -Yeah.
-We're getting back to wearing masks.
We're doing the right thing. -You know what my thing is, man?
I go like, "This is what the vaccine is supposed to be."
I was like, "I got the vaccine"
and I was like, "I'm now going to have fun."
So I was like, "I'm going to test the vaccine."
First place I went to, I went to Miami.
That was the first thing I did.
I was like, "I've got the vaccine."
I was like, "I'm going to go Miami,
because I want to see if the vaccine works."
And I went to Miami, and -- -You tested it out.
-That was great. Didn't get COVID.
Got other diseases, but didn't get COVID.
[ Cheers and applause ] -That's Miami, yeah.
-Yeah. -That's right.
-But it's good to be back, man.
-I am happy and thankful that you're back here,
because, you know, I saw that you did
stand-up over the summer for the first time, 'cause --
-Yeah, it was crazy, man.
-Because I've been watching your show.
It's been great, but it's been you in a corner of your house.
-Yes. It sounds very depressing, doesn't it?
-But it's very funny. It's very funny.
And I watch it and then I go,
"Oh, you went out and did stand-up."
And I go -- When did you decide,
"Oh, I'm doing -- I have to go out and do --"
-I didn't decide.
So, what happened was, no comedian really decided.
So, Dave Chappelle decided, right?
He was like, "I'm doing comedy."
And then he started phoning people and he's like,
"You're doing comedy."
And I was like, "No, I'm staying at home."
And he's like, "No, you're not."
And then he, like, started doing comedy in, like,
a cornfield in Ohio.
-That's correct.
-Which I thought was, like, a joke.
Like, even when he said it, I was like, "Ha!
That's a nice concept."
And he's like, "No, I'm being serious."
And then I got there, and it was an actual --
I thought it was like --
You know when people say things -- "It's in a field" --
you think it, like, it just means in an open --
No, it was a field. -You were in a field.
-Just driving in Ohio.
It was like farm, farm, cow, cow, cow,
farm, farm, corn, corn, corn, Dave Chappelle.
-Wow.
-And then it was just like we're doing comedy in a field.
And then, every time, he would pop up, and he'd just be like,
"You're doing comedy again."
And then I would just do the comedy.
So I didn't really decide -- And I'm grateful to him,
because, like, I think a lot of comedians needed one comedian
to be like, "Poke, poke.
You're going. You're gonna do the show."
-And did you have a little bit of an act in your head
or you just go, like -- No.
-I mean, it's been crazy, like,
because you don't see the people.
Do you know what I mean?
And then, when you see the people --
Like, because the masks are on, and you don't know
what's happening behind anybody's faces.
-That's true.
-And, like, our whole lives, we've been told that masks
are, like, the bad guy.
Bad guys wear masks. You know what I mean?
Now it's like -- Now good guys wear masks.
You know what I mean?
-It's the opposite of anything --
-Yeah, it's like the complete opposite of everything now.
And now you don't know if people are smiling.
So, like, everyone has to do, like, extra work.
[ Laughter ]
-There's a lot of eye work. -"I'm very happy to see you!"
-Yeah, a lot of eye work.
I got a picture of you out that night,
and here's you, Chris Rock, and Dave Chappelle.
-That was wild, man. -I mean --
-That was -- But you see, this is -- So, this is where --
[ Cheers and applause ]
This is where I actually got tricked.
So, Dave said he was doing a show
that I should come and watch.
And, so, I rode a sissy bike there.
That's how confident I was that I wasn't performing, right?
Because you don't ride a bicycle
when you're going to, like, perform at a show.
That's, like -- As a comedian -- Because the thing is,
if you go to a show, you don't know if it's going to go
well or if it's going to go badly, right?
And so if it goes badly,
you don't want to be riding a bicycle home.
-No, it's very sad.
That's the most depressing thing in the world.
-You just want to be in, like, the back of a car
being like, "That was terrible."
You don't want to ride a bicycle home.
-No. -So I rode a bicycle there.
And then he was like, "Oh, you're performing."
And then I was like, "But I rode a bicycle here, Dave."
Like, "I can't bomb and then ride my bike home."
-But, yeah, again, it was amazing.
I mean, it's Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock,
and the three of us are onstage
and we're working material and we're trying,
and the audience was so happy to be out again.
It was just, yeah, it was -- Those are dream moments in life.
-Everyone must ask, but do you get advice from
Dave Chappelle or Chris Rock?
-Oh, yeah, definitely.
If you just listen to them, it's advice.
You know, like Chris Rock -- I used to work
seven days a week, and I was, like, proud of it.
I was like, "I work seven days a week.
I work seven days a week, every day."
And then Chris Rock was like, "You're going to be
the most unfunny comedian of all time."
And I was like, "What?"
And he's like, "You work all the time."
He's like, "Comedy comes from life, you know?"
And he was like, "If you work every day,
what is your comedy gonna --
Your comedy is going to start being about comedy."
And I was like, "Oh, man. I never thought about that."
-That's wild. -Yeah.
And, like, he's told me so many things.
Chappelle has given me advice.
Chappelle will give me advice, though.
He'll go, "Here's all the advice,"
and then, at the end of it, he goes,
"But don't take my advice, 'cause, I mean..."
-That's interesting, right?
And then, "Don't take my advice."
-Yeah, his advice is always like, "Don't listen to me."
-But you did have some time off. -I did, man.
I tried to use it as much -- I tell everybody,
man, we don't know what life
is going to be like or not be like,
so use the little opportunities that you get
to just live a little bit more,
you know, even if it means walk--
I've walked in more parks in New York than I ever did
in like the six years since I moved here.
Now I'm like, "There's a park." I walk in it.
-Yeah. -You know what I mean?
Before, I was like, "Ew, a park.
Why am I taking the park?"
Now I -- Like, I do touristy things.
You know how many people live in the city,
and they've never seen any of the sights?
-No. -We take it for granted.
-We really do, yeah.
People go like, "Do you go see the Statue of Liberty?"
I'm like, "No. I don't see that every day.
I know it exists. It's here." -You see?
And that's what I'm talking about.
So I've tried to just, like, live a bit more.
And that's what I'm been doing during this period,
just, like, trying to live a little it more,
to appreciate what we didn't have.
-You're doing your "Back to Abnormal" Tour,
which is -- You're gonna be in London.
You're going all over. -Yes.
I'm going to London tonight, and then start the show.
So, it's going to be at the O2 Arena.
Really excited. It's sold out. -Wow!
-And, yeah, I mean, like, the U.K. is just open.
That's how -- That's, like -- I love how every country
is just going with their own thing.
Do you know what I mean?
No, because, like, Americans are like,
"Alright, look, guys, we're sort of open,
but we're not open fully."
And then, in the U.K., they were like,
"We're closed, we're closed,
we're closed, we're closed. we're closed."
Then they're like, "Alright, it's open.
We don't care anymore. We're open.
It's all open. It's all open.
This is how it's gonna be now. We're all open.
This is what we're doing.
-And "Daily Show" comes back -- -Yeah.
-When are you back? -Next week, Monday, we're back.
-Next Monday, you're back. -Yeah. We're back next Monday.
-I think the show that you were doing was amazing, by the way.
You did great work when we needed you.
We needed people to come out and entertain,
and you were right there.
And you were like, "Yep, I got to do it from my house.
I'm going to do it," and you just did it.
I thought that was awesome. -Thank you, man.
-Props to you for doing that. -I had a lot of fun. Yeah.
-You got creative and really good.
But now, are you gonna go back to the suits?
-Well, we can't go back anywhere right now
because we're in the middle of --
So it's like, "Are we going to try find a space --"
I think my neighbors are happy, you know?
Because, like, my neighbors were like,
"So, this is, like, where you make the show now?"
I'm like, "Yeah. This is me making the show."
I'm just, like, the guy screaming next door to you,
"Welcome back!"
-Crazy -- Yeah.
-The neighbors were just like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, you can go."
So, yeah, I'm figuring out the pieces now.
It's going to be exciting.
Like, I'm trying new things. I'm playing -- You know what?
I think what COVID has done to me is,
it's made me a little bit less afraid to fail in life,
because when COVID happened, it took everything away from us.
Do you know what I mean?
It took away our friends. It took away our opportunities.
It took away so many people's jobs.
It took away dreams. It took away aspirations.
And so now I feel ungrateful not trying to live life
a little bit more because there is life to be lived.
Does that make sense? -Yeah, absolutely.
-Yeah, so now I'm just like -- -I love that.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Have fun. -I love that.
-Try it. -We're going to have fun.
When we come back, more with Trevor Noah.
Come on back.