It's always fun to have you.
I'm pumped.
Maury, I met Maury 10 years ago. I went to his show.
And you met him.
Well, yeah, I have a picture with him,
I was trying to look for it on my Instagram
but I can't find it.
Oh yeah. He's a nice guy.
I say Maury Povich, what's the right way to say-
Povich.
Povich, okay. Sometimes I say Paw-vich.
I think you said Pavich in the hall.
Pavich. Which is the right way?
We'll ask him. I feel like he's a guy you can ask,
"How do you say your name that we should all this?"
And I feel like you could just go with, Maury,
and everybody knows who it is. There's no other Maury.
"Tuesdays With-"
Right, "Tuesdays with Maury."
Yeah, I read that book and got something from it.
Same, samesies.
I was like, "Oh, I'm going to start forgiving everyone."
Yeah. When I was in physical therapy school,
we had to learn about ALS
and I couldn't study and focus on it.
So I just was like, "I'll read Tuesdays with Morrie."
'Cause he had ALS.
Oh yeah.
And I failed. You had to know-
You had to know-
I mean it's a graduate program.
I was like, "I'm just going to read this novel."
Maury Povich is in the studio, everyone,
I told you he was gonna drop by.
It was gonna happen quick. We're ready.
Nice to see you.
What's up, brother, how you doing?
That's Chris, this is Andrew. I'm Nikki.
Hi, how are you, Maury.
Nice to meet you.
Good to see you.
So many people-
No. Seven people.
Everybody.
Everyone's so excited about you when I talk about you.
People glow, they have a story,
they have a relationship with you.
I learned last night from doing some research,
that you were the "A Current Affair" guy.
Of course, yeah.
Of course, but I was a child
when that show was on so I didn't-
You actually watched it?
Yes, my mom watched it and I loved it.
It gave me an appreciation for really, good journalism.
Do you remember the sound?
Yes. Ka-chung.
Yes, ka-chung, I remember all of it.
But I forgot that that was you and then you became
Maury Povich. It's just ...
No.
Making the connection, I loved that show.
That show.
First of all the ka-chung, the sound, came from ...
We always said when we started the show,
we wanted to have something like the "60 Minutes" clock,
so that if you heard it, "Oh, it's on."
And you would watch. They put the old time
elementary school construction paper cutters,
the sound of a construction paper cutter.
Put with the swish of a golf club.
Put through a synthesizer
and that was named after my wife, the "ka-chung."
It's so good.
Yeah, it used to scare me.
Those are all such satisfying
sounds layered on top of each other.
I know.
It makes sense why it worked.
This is like '86, so it was the first days of synthesizing.
That's what they used.
Oh and it worked. I remember it, it still ...
Yeah, that was always something my mom had on.
But now, Maury-
Your mom still has my show on now.
Exactly, oh my gosh, everyone has your show on.
I mean, in this room,
Noa, both my producer and Chris Destefano,
have you been to a live taping, Andrew?
I have not but I'm going tomorrow.
Where have you all been? I've been, I've been.
They have been to live tapings-
Yeah, I was there 10 years ago.
It was awesome. I got a picture with you too.
It's wild, it's crazy. It's really-
This is the tourist thing to do when you come to New York City.
I'm telling you, the live taping of my show
is as good entertainment as you would ever want.
My live audience makes the show.
I mean, it's the heartbeat of the show.
'Cause they go crazy.
And they all think they know who the father is.
In my episode, when we found out it was the father,
we went out of our minds.
It was like the touchdown. Because before, we like,
"There's no way he's the father, there's no way ..."
And then when he was, we were like, "Wooo."
Chris you were saying in line there was shit talking.
In line there were people, in the episode that I was at,
the family of one of the guys on the show and they were like,
"I know he's the father, I know he's the father!"
And then people were like, you know nobody knows anything,
I was with my friends who were like,
"No, he's not. No he's not." We have no frame of reference.
Then when he was, we were just like, "Whoa!"
And they were like, "I told you." It was great.
Vivid memories, these people are conjuring
just from being at your show 10 years ago.
It truly sounds like such a great life experience to have.
I heard a story of a NFL quarterback,
this is many years ago,
said that, the players would be in the locker room
and they would not go out to practice
until they found out who the father was.
Losing games.
Shaquille O'Neal watches my show every single day and Shaq,
and what he does is he calls up all his friends
and they bet on who the father is.
Oh my god.
Great, great, I love it.
So fun. And Noa, I wanted to give you a second to tell Maury
what he means to you.
What?
'Cause you went to a taping.
Yeah. Took a T.V. production class in high school,
this is 15 years ago.
And I went to a live taping of your show
and that's when I knew that I had to work in production.
I was watching your stage manager
and I was just mesmerized, like,
"What is that job? I want to do something like that."
Really? Yeah.
And that's when you got the itch.
Yeah and from then on I knew I had to work behind the scenes.
So you've been in production ever since?
Yeah. Isn't that cool?
Do you produce this show?
-Yes. -Yeah.
How's it going?
Amazing, it's the best time of my life.
It's so fun. How do ...
I'm guessing people are having fun working on your show.
How have you-
Well, the most amazing part about that is that my producers,
my associate producers, my cameramen,
have been there for 15, 20 years.
People like the atmosphere, the way we work,
the work environment.
The first talk show I did was for Paramount
and that was 28 years ago.
And I still have five people throughout my staff
who've been with me 28 years.
Wow. That is impressive.
As they say, you sent my kids through school,
now they've got kids.
I mean, now those kids are ready to go to school.
I mean, but it starts at the top.
I mean, people who ...
It starts with you and that just is a credit to you.
And the people that you attract.
Look, this business is ...
I mean, I've seen so much in the television,
radio business in my life that, it's easy to pick out the fools.
The a-holes show themselves very early
and so therefore, you know exactly what to guard against.
Yeah.
So that's how I do it.
And as far as the suits, the executives,
there's nothing better to keep distance
between you and suits than a good rating.
If you get a good rating, they don't care about you.
You'll never hear from them.
You're never gonna know, they're your best friend.
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
The second the ratings dip.
The moment there's a dip,
"Well, we think that you oughta do this."
Really? Where the hell have you been?
Yes, oh yeah, who am I speaking to even?
I wanted to ask you about the daily grind of doing a show.
I mean, how many episodes are we talking, 4,000?
How many have you done?
-Oh gosh. -Of the show?
Between 3 and 4,000, I think.
Yeah, insane. It's amazing.
So how many do you tape a week?
We tape five a week. I tape usually ...
We tape in Stamford,
Connecticut and we tape three on Thursdays and two on Fridays.
We work about, I don't know, 27 weeks a year.
Do 100 and I don't know, 30 or 40 shows.
Do you ever reach a point where you're like,
Okay, I get ... How do you muster the,
'cause you never seem bored of it.
How do you muster the-
Because I believe ...
Even though for instance, between the lie detector themes
and the DNA themes, those are our two signature themes.
But since I came out of news, for many, many years,
I've always believed in storytelling
and I just want to find even with those two themes
all the time, unique qualities of every single story.
And so I believe each person,
each personality has a unique quality about them,
either good or bad, that I can bring out.
And if I continue to do that, I won't get bored.
So that's my mantra.
That's really cool. And you can tell that,
that's why we love the show, you bring out characters.
And the other thing is,
and I've always said this about talk shows,
and I learned this a long time ago when I first started.
It's like being in a campaign, to be elected.
You have to knock on somebody's door,
they have to open the door, they have to welcome you in.
They have to feel so comfortable with you
that they'll sit you at the table
or sit you on the couch.
And you have to become a member of that family.
And if you can do that,
then you got a chance at being successful.
That's the way I've looked at it all my life
and I've looked on it as being an advocate for the audience.
For instance, I don't know,
I've never known the result of any DNA test
or lie detector test before I open up the envelope.
'Cause you're an advocate for the audience.
You're representing their experience.
Right and I don't want to know anything more than they do.
'Cause if I did, then I'd skew the questions in a certain way.
That's fascinating because I've hosted two shows,
two talk shows that didn't last past two seasons.
And I did feel that the audience just didn't get to know me
or didn't trust me.
There was some element of that or wasn't given a chance to ...
whatever it was.
But you're really tapping into something as a host,
trying to approach the job like you're their advocate.
No question.
It's a really cool approach and it makes sense why it's worked.
And yet you can bring out your own vulnerabilities.
Yes.
You bring out you're own experiences.
I mean, for instance, I mean, I can't tell you how many times
I've told various fathers for instance,
who are raising a child that is not theirs.
And whether they will continue to raise that child,
I keep saying,
"Look, my wife and I have a child in our family.
I'm not the birth father of that child.
And he is as close to me as my birth children.
There's no difference."
So you have to be able to unload yourself.
Yes.
To the guests and the viewers.
That is extremely compassionate and it makes them ...
That's great that you share that experience.
And another thing is that ...
Look, there is nothing in my life that comes close
to the experiences that my guests go through.
I never lived those experiences. But there's some connective-
There's a bridge. ... Human instinct.
That they feel safe in my company or on my show.
I feel safe right now. They don't feel judged.
-Yeah, I do too. -You do?
I feel completely safe right now.
You give that air of a like a therapist.
I don't feel-
But I'm not a therapist. I mean...
No but you're therapeutic.
Just that voice, I don't know what it is.
Very soothing voice, yeah.
I just feel so good right now.
Do you know how much whiskey and cigarettes?
That's what I like.
You're drunk for sure. But man, I just feel good,
my blood pressure's low right now.
I know.
Really? How can you tell?
I'm not sweating, my heart's not palpate,
I don't feel like I'm gonna pass out.
I just feel calm. I'm gonna get somebody pregnant tonight.
I'm just gonna do it, I'm coming on your show.
Cool. That's the only way ...
Yeah, all right, great. See you in about six months.