In New York City they have one great rule about Central Park:
seven to nine in the morning, off the leash for a dog,
so my dog runs every morning.
We're out there around quarter seven,
we run for about half hour 45. I don't run.
It's fun to watch you're dog run though.
You look like you're in great ...
You are.
I'm all right.
I walk on the golf course, I don't use carts if I ...
That's good.
Unless I'm in a mountain.
But that it's fun watching your dog run in the dewy grass
in the morning. Just like let loose.
And they all kind of roll over.
Oh, my God. It's so fun to watch.
And I figured out how not to have him attack other dogs.
Since he's a golden retriever.
I put a ball in his mouth and he won't let go of the ball.
So, he can't bite anybody.
That's genius. That's really smart.
So, he runs throughout the park with a ball in his mouth.
But he's not going to let go of that thing.
Let go of the ball.
Snap at another dog.
He may bark, you know, a muffled bark but that's it.
So, why didn't your shows last?
You know, so many different reasons,
just like internal things. And then also you get ...
Who did you work for?
Like you said about ...
Comedy Central who I now work for on the radio and then MTV.
So, they didn't play it enough. I want to do a show,
if I ever do a talk show again, it cannot be one time a week.
Oh, it's only once a week.
If they don't replay it,
the audience doesn't get to know you, and trust you.
You can't gather an audience once a week-
But you don't have the time to and they don't time.
... unless you're some variety show.
You see, it's very interesting, for instance, in daytime,
they've tried so many actors, comedians,
people who were never, ever broadcasters as talk show hosts:
it didn't work.
I'm very interested, for instance,
next year Kelly Clarkson is going to do a talk show,
and so, it's going to be interesting
as to whether that works. Ellen works.
Ellen worked.
Rosie O'Donnell worked.
For a while.
For a while. I loved the-
But then she got dark, you know what I mean?
Yes. Yeah. I got a little weird at the end.
But in the heyday, that was a fun one.
But these things come and go.
I mean, you must see them come and go all the time.
Can you tell when something's going to work?
For instance, I mean, there are a lot of ...
I knew Jane Pauley wouldn't work,
I knew Meredith Vieira wouldn't work.
Well first of all, you have to understand
these were people who made their mark
and made their reputations in shows that were an ensemble:
the today show is an ensemble. Hey, Matt Lauer, right?
Biggest name in the world, not there, still Today Show
works, you know, bring on the next person, plug them in.
It's an ensemble.
It can exist without someone and it ...
Yes. Okay.
You go alone, you've got to be a different person
than you were when you were that ensemble.
And so, it just doesn't work that way.
Didn't work that way.
They didn't develop that skill as a solo host
or the audience isn't going to want to see them in that role?
I guess. I mean, you never know how far you can get that way
unless you do something solo.
Yeah, you gotta try.
You gotta do something solo
before you know you're going to work.
I mean, and it took me a long time ...
First of all, I mean, look, I'm a news guy,
I never got along with my co-anchors ever.
Really?
I mean, look, years and years ago,
I was the second banana to a woman named Connie Chung
at the biggest station in LA, and guess what?
They fired me, it didn't work.
You guys met at a station? Oh yeah.
Working together?
Oh Sure.
Oh my God. Was that so fun?
In the early days of like no one knew?
First of all, I started before her,
I'm much older than she is, not much significantly older,
and so, I was a pretty big name in Washington, D.C.
my hometown.
She was hired as the assistant to the news director,
the secretary, okay?
The first job that opens up in a newsroom
is a weekend writing job. She wants the job.
The news director says, "You can't have the job,
you're my assistant, you're my secretary, you can't ... "
"Yes, I want the job."
"Well, you can't get the job unless you replace yourself."
She walks out of the newsroom, across the street, into a bank,
looks at the first woman teller and says,
"You want to be in TV? Come with me."
Replaced herself and became a big star.
And nobody really knew who she was,
and then all of a sudden we're going,
"Wow, that took a lot of guts.
I mean, that's really aggressive."
And so, she becomes a star.
She goes to LA, she becomes a big anchor,
and then I'm hired as her second banana, her co-anchor.
That didn't work.
And six months later the new General Manager fired me,
and then she took such pity on me, we started to date.
Wait. You dated after?
-Yeah. -Nothing happened before?
No, I mean, no I just knew her.
Was there any flirtation?
Oh, maybe. I don't know.
Yeah. I mean, there had to be a little something, something.
Well, Connie, she had become a pretty big star at CBS
in the Washington bureau during Watergate.
I mean, she was a big star during Watergate.
And so, she went to LA and became a huge hit,
she was the only person I knew
in that whole West Coast newsroom.
And so, when I got fired, she took pity on me.
Well, how did that feel?
Getting fired was the worst thing in my life,
and the best thing in my life
because the greatest fear of anyone in this business
is getting fired. That's the worst fear because:
A, you don't know what it's going to feel like,
and B, will you ever work again?
And so, when you end up having the feeling
at least you know what it's like, it's shit.
It's shit. It's shit.
That's so true. You got to go through it.
I believe that that's all part of my personality
that I bring out.
Hey, I've had my lows. You know, I've been fired,
I've laid down on a couch and wondered to myself,
"Should I be in this business? I mean, what the hell."
Yeah. Oh, that's great to hear that you've had that thought.
Oh, yeah. No, I mean, and then what you do,
you end up watching TV.
You know, and I'm watching all the newscast.
I'm saying, "Shit. I'm as good as that guy.
You know, I can do that story. What the heck?"
And so, I got a job in San Francisco
about three or four months later,
and then we started dating and had a commuting relationship
between LA and San Francisco.
We dated for eight years before we got married.
That's smart.
But not exclusively. She says, I dated people
I couldn't even remember their first names.
And she dated nothing but stars in Hollywood.
Oh, really? I love this. That sounds fun.
So, before you got married and settle down,
you were together, and you would see each other when you could,
but you were just like,
"Hey, we're in different cities, things are gonna happen."
Exactly. I love that.
I love it.
In fact, she would say to me sometimes,
"Well, maybe we should get married."
And I'd say, no I want to." And then I would say to her,
"Well, maybe we should get married."
And she say, "No, I don't want to."
And then finally, she called me up and she said,
"We can get married now." I said, "Why?"
She says, "Because I found a dress."
So, she called it in the end.
Six weeks later we got married.
Oh, my Gosh.
And that was 34 years ago.
And then where did you move after that when you got married?
Well, then I was back in Washington,
and she was in New York,
and we commuted for the first two years.
And then this wild Australia
named Rupert Murdoch called up and said,
"We're doing start this show called a Current Affair,
and we're going to move you to New York.
And you're going to find out
whether you can live with your wife."
Now, you have to understand, I was a local anchorman.
So, I would come to New York every week
or two to see each other on the weekends we were married,
and I would go to the apartment building
and I would say, "Connie Chung please."
Who is this? I said, "I'm her husband."
And he would call up and say, "Miss Chung.
Mr. Chung is down stairs."
And that's when I knew, that I had a long way to go.
That's so fun. I love your wife.
She's is indefatigable. She's the best.
I gotta look that word up later.
Good I think.
It's got to be good.
Nothing can penetrate her.
Except you.
Yeah, that's true. That's true. Once in a while. Thanks Chris.
No problem man. That's why I'm here, just sniping.
Nikki does the ... I just snip in somehow.
Some hit, some don't hit. It's what it is.
Nikki's approval.
Oh boy.
She just went after what she wanted,
and told you when it was, "No-"
She was back to going across the street
and taking a girl from the bank and saying,
"Do you want to be in TV because I want this job."
What happened to that girl at the bank?
She said she ended up being a talk show producer
for me at that station.
That's what happens.
No way. So she did. She wanted to be on TV.
See that? See that?
All you bank tellers out there.
First of all, do they have bank tellers anymore?
I don't know. I do everything on my app.
Yeah, that's true.
I mean, if it's not ATM is there anybody
ever go into the bank anymore?
I don't know. I don't either.
I recently wrote a joke where I was like,
"And I went to the bank."
And I'm like, "No one's believing this right now.
When is anyone in here been to a bank?
And I go, "I didn't go to the bank.
Let me put it somewhere else as CVS."
Yes. CVS. Yeah.
You do everything on the app, right?
You meet with girls, you put you're check in.
Are you on Instagram, are you on Twitter?
Yeah, all that stuff.
How do you feel about it? Do you like it?
Well, the show is on it, first of all.
We've got like, 3 million Facebook people
and another million YouTube people.
But I have a hard time.
I see a lot of people who I know who are in the business,
they're on Twitter, and I wake up in the morning,
I usually wake up like six 6/6:30 to walk the dog,
and all of a sudden all these people are on Twitter.
I'm like,"
What the hell are you doing this early in the morning?"
Just responding to stuff. It's almost like being a shrink.
I think Twitter's become a shrink.
What do you mean?
Oh, just people pouring out their emotions that they should
maybe go on a walk with their dog and work out?
"Well, let me tell you what happened to me."
Really? Do I really want to know?
Yeah, I know. It's sad sometimes.
You see like if one of your friends
is having like a manic moment and you're like,
"You might want to pull this back a little bit."
And then, of course, you better not do anything wrong
because somebody's got a phone and it's on video.
-Oh yeah. -Oh yeah.
I mean, how is it like for you out there?
Are people coming up to you-
Boring as shit.
You're getting recognized all the time and have been-
Well, first of all, if it's a guy right?
"Can you say, "Stan, you are not the father.
Maury Povich write it down here."
That kind of stuff. And there are a lot of selfies.
I don't mind it. Over the years,
I've known personalities who just don't do that:
don't sign autographs, don't take pictures,
and I'm saying, "Hey man. I mean, you spend a lot of time
trying to get people to look at you, get into your life
and then you just shove them away
and don't have anything to do it."
Look I'm on television five days a week,
an hour or two hours a day, if they know you,
that's the best of the alternative.
What happens if they don't know you?
That means that you're screwing up
and you ain't making it work?
Yeah, yeah. The fact that you're being recognized.
Yeah. You're doing a good job.
You just taking a few seconds of your life
to sign a ... they're a fan for life.
It doesn't matter what you do, it's always gonna be like,
"I'm team Maury."
Oh, I love selfies. They're quick
phone to someone else, so you don't have to look at it again.
You're done. Yeah,
You've been famous for decades,
isn't that kind of fun selfies have changed,
maybe the getting recognized expedited that?
There used to be the Polaroid.
I think it's fun.
Yeah, I mean, it is. I mean, it's the new Polaroid.
Yes. It totally is.
Stay right here Maury. We'll see how it looks. Yeah.