Transcribed via microcassette and notes.

CONAN
Hey, everybody, we're back!

[AUDIENCE cheers.]

CONAN
Man. We're sweating like pigs.

ANDY
I know.

CONAN
[sing-song] An' now, it's time for the celebrity interview.

ANDY
All right, you talk to her, I'll sit on the couch.

CONAN
Ha ha! You just catch a--you catch a snooze.

ANDY
[blasé] Yeah that's right.

CONAN
No, uh we're very excited about our first guest tonight. Ah, she has appeared in the films Reality Bites and The Truth about Cats and Dogs. Ah, this New Years', she is hosting "Comics Come Home {Free}" on Comedy Central, an' that's a good cause, please welcome: Janeane Garofalo.

[AUDIENCE cheers as JANEANE comes out. (Band is playing a jazzy, "I Could Have Danced All Night" (I think). (She was wearing all black, had a big watch on, three rings, thin bracelet or two, but no red lipstick today.)]

CONAN
How you doin'?

JANEANE
I'm good, thank you.

CONAN
Yeah?

JANEANE
That was very funny. That, that--

CONAN
--Uh, we are, we are gonna start sweating, like pigs--

JANEANE
--comedy piece? I {enjoyed it.}--

ANDY
--Thank you.--

JANEANE
I like uh, "We killed them!" But they were clearly not dead. They act really, "Oh! {What, you mean, we're supposed} to lay on the ground, {I assume}?"

CONAN
[amused] Yes, yes.

JANEANE
They dropped and rolled quickly, {I thought.}

ANDY
That was my, that was my Buddy Ebson Wizard of Oz {homage.} "You killed him.."

JANEANE
[laughs] Oh, it wasn't part of it?

ANDY
No.

CONAN
No, not really.

JANEANE
Oh, I see, that's why they weren't dead, okay.

CONAN
No, it's kind o' a--just a High School production here all the time.

JANEANE
Mmm-mm, it was very funny, the {painted of glass} was funny, the, the scientist who blinded himself was very good.

CONAN
And shrieked.

JANEANE
Yeah. [amused]

CONAN
Shrieked. You know, we were just out there. At--at the tree, as you know, and it. We don't go out there that much, while we're here workin' on the show because, it's too intense. It's insane out there, people stand around there, like a hundred thousand people out there, pushing each other, insanely, to get to the tree, an' all across New York, it's reached a fevered pitch.

JANEANE
{That's--it's true.}

CONAN
Do you enjoy this? Is this something you like?

JANEANE
Uh, well actually, what I wanted to, uh.. {the thing} with your, Deadbeat Dad Santa, I loved--what?

CONAN
Huh?

ANDY
Oops.

JANEANE
Did somebody say, "A little louder?" Like I need some water.

ANDY
Oh, it's, somethin' upstairs.

JANEANE
Oh, never mind, {we'll fix this in post. No matter.} Yeah. Ha ha!

CONAN
[excited show biz] Let's start all over again, so they can edit it!

JANEANE
Okay.

CONAN
Let's start it like you just said something funny!

[The three of them immediately do extended show biz laughter. AUDIENCE claps.]

JANEANE
Oh! You know, I think that out of context, {fanta-sightings,} like the deadbeat dads--

CONAN
--Uh-huh?--

JANEANE
Uh, on Sunday, I was, walking on Broadway, an' there was a Santa, uh--a Salvation Army Santa or what-have-you, arguing with his girlfriend on a cell phone--it was so funny. Can I stand up?

CONAN
Yeah. Sure.--

JANEANE
--{If I, do you mind, can I?}-- Okay, the Saanta, uh holding a cell phone, an' know like, with the ear going [adamantly] "No, that's not what we--we agreed that, Seven O'Clock I would be at your mother's. Seven O'Clock!" It was just yelling, an' then, if you moved on around the store, there was a bunch of store elves, smokin' a butt, like this. {It kind o' weirded me out,} they were coppin' a smoke, right? I always am, always amused by that type of a, {thing.}

CONAN
For children to see it, that's the important thing.

JANEANE
Yeah, I think children should see the hi-tech Santa, on the cell phone.

CONAN
[amused] Do you go to a lot of parties? Do you, do you {visit a theme?}

JANEANE
I, well I, well eh--what?
Do you know on the holiday season there's, it, like a holiday Christmas party life for a week, before Christmas an' then there's the New Year's. So all last week, I went to a, Christmas party of some kind, and that, the Blackout phenomenon, which I'm gonna discuss now. Um, so I go to Christmas parties and I go to these open bars, which is very dangerous for me because it's like, "Woo-hooooo!" Open bar, you know? An'like, by the third glass of cabernet, I, all bets are off. I don't even know what's goin' on, and I have the platform shoes on, so it's crazy. 'Cause I'm now--I'm really into the Spice, Girls.

CONAN
[about her platform sneakers] Good lord! Look at that!
You could, you could kill someone with those.

JANEANE
Ah! Well, see the trick is, is--

ANDY
[private eye] Those things are loaded with contraband. Look at 'em.

JANEANE
[laughs] Well I'm thinking, if I'm, if I'm taller, I can drink more.

CONAN
Mm-mm?

JANEANE
So these make me-- [CONAN and ANDY are laughing] {Exactly.} So um.

CONAN
Gooood Thinkin'.

JANEANE
So, I go, to one of. I go to the uh Comedy Central Christmas party. And I had like three glasses of cabernet an' then I remembered--"Oh my god, I have to walk the dog, it's midnight."
So, in these shoes, I gooo, to walk my dog. Let me just tell you, during the holiday season, never walk, a hundred pound dog in platform shoes after three glasses of wine. And I'll tell you why.
So I'm walking the dog and a skate-boarder goes by an' my dog's just {set} for skate-boarders. He took off, like you would not believe an' I had the leash wrapped around a couple o' times, literally lifted me off my feet and dragged me, a little {way.} An' I had a bubble jacket on? Both elbows {bloodied} through a bubble jacket. And. My knees. And there were so many like, N.Y.U. kids around I had to pretend I thought it was really funny. But it wasn't funny at all, I would have--I would have, cried so hard if I could have, an' I had a goose egg on my forehead an', it was so embarrassing, an' then I realized, you know what, I don't wanna go all the way back home, I wanna go back to the party, so I brought him to the Comedy Central party. And as soon as you got into the party, Isaac Hayes sat down, that singer Isaac Hayes with his, plate of dinner, and Dew jumped, over the table, pulled the plate off, ate everything on the plate in about two seconds, and Isaac Hayes says somethin' like, [calm, irritated] "that's cold."

[Everyone is laughing.]

JANEANE
That's cold..

CONAN
[laughing] You don't mess with Isaac Hayes.

JANEANE
{Anyway, anymore what I do,} is "cold.." And um, it was straight-up cold. And--

CONAN
You know, I--I thought, it funny, 'cause--this is completely unrelated, but we knew you were gonna be coming on the show tonight an', two nights ago, I run into you, an', kindly you say, hey, you wanna see my dog, so, go over to your apartment, and--

JANEANE
Ha ha! "Wanna see my dog?" Wooo!

CONAN
[over laughter, innocent] An' I said, "There are no," I said, "There are no dogs here!" Oo--boom.
Later I woke up. [like he's been gagged] Mm! Mm! Mm!

JANEANE
[laughing] No wallet.

CONAN
"What happened?!"

JANEANE
But you get--{what--don't you--}

CONAN
I woke up in the Port Authority, yeah.

JANEANE
[amused] You'd been rolled.

CONAN
[amused] Yeah!

JANEANE
You uh, so you, you walked Dew, you walked--

CONAN
--Yeah, an' you--

JANEANE
--him an' you took off! When, I thought runnning--you see Conan, big, like {jollish see his Conan's} jacket flapping in the breeze, as Dew's runnin' around the park.

CONAN
Well, that's what I do, I don't like to walk a dog, an'--especially if it's a big dog--I like to run a dog.

JANEANE
Yeah.

CONAN
An' it was very nice of you, but I don't, I--I think it weirded you out a bit because you said, "Yeah, you can take off with him." And so I started running, as fast as I could, with this dog, an' we like just took off, an' we went on like Washington Square Park an'--

JANEANE
--Uh-huh.--

CONAN
--looking like, I look like John, Tesh, {whoo had gone mad.} This big, hulking, goon with a dog.

JANEANE
[amused] But I was going to say so, after the, getting, th--the Christmas Party thing about the blackout phenomenon, an' I don't know if this 'as happened to any, of you when you've had too much to drink, then all of a sudden it's like, cut to the next morning? Do you know what I mean--an' I was like, okay, so after that night, the, the Isaac Hayes thing. Then, I remembered that. And then, the next, Thing, was it was Dawn. I was in my living room, fully clothed, all the lights on, T.V.'s on. I've got, the remote, in one hand, and the dog leash with no dog in the other hand. I just woke up, and there was a bag of uh--I mean, a box of fat free, Pop Tarts, at my feet. So even in my drunken stupor, I go to the deli an' get Fat Free, food. And uh, so that's the thing, I'm like, what, what happens in those Autopilot Hours, when you just wake up again, 'cause, obviously, Some Things Occur. Like, 'cause my contacts were out, an' my face was washed, an' I was moisturized. But I [(CONAN's laughing)] But eh, eh, everything else was, but an' I had my coat on still an' everything an' I was just sitting. [laughs] {What's going on, I don't know--}

CONAN
--But wait--where's the dog, you saaid the dog was--

JANEANE
The dog was in my bed. The dog was in my bed--

CONAN
Watching T.V. with the {changer.} Yeah. [(JANEANE's laughing)]

ANDY
Yeah, an' Isaac Hayes next to him.

[AUDIENCE "Woo's" and applauds.]

CONAN
Yeah, high old times!
Watching Pay-Per-View. I gotta ask you about this, becau--we're running tight on time, but, I--I find out recently that you, you joined the Friar's Club, which didn't seem like you, somehow.

JANEANE
I did. I know, I did, and also Louis Black, is a Friar, an' we just had um--

CONAN
Explain what a Friar--I don't think people even know--

JANEANE
--A Friar?--

CONAN
--in the rest of the country.

JANEANE
I actually don't really know myself. I know that the Fri, Friar Tuck? Right? {Je alway had the brown wrakles an' the}--

CONAN
--Oh, you did, you did the research, yeah--<

JANEANE
--and the, the balding pate, but a, ring of hair?

CONAN
Yeah.

JANEANE
And um, so, a Friar is like Milton Berle was a Friar, you know? It's like--

CONAN
{Schecky} Green.

JANEANE
{Schecky} Green.

CONAN
The old time comics have this club.

JANEANE
Old School. Right, so I go to lunch at the Friar's Club an' Louis, also who was gonna be out here was there. An' only at the Friar's Club do you hear things like, "Tell Soupy that story. Tell Soupy." Because Soupy Sales was in the room. And he wants to hear that story. An' the--or some guy will walk by an' the, and uh one of the Friars will lean over to you an' say, "He was once engaged to Elizabeth Taylor." That'll be somebody's claim to fame. And then I was at the coat check, and behind me were two gentlemen were, uh, going to check their coats, and one, gentlemen says, "That's a great hat." And he says, "My going to shool hat."

So there's a lot of people that go to "shool," at the Friar's Club. And uh.

CONAN
What exactly is going to shool?

JANEANE
It's uh, it's a Jewish tradition of some kind.

ANDY
[serious] No, uh, it, it, it's school, it's, he's taking the--

JANEANE
--In shool! No-- [laughs]

ANDY
It's a joke, 'cause it was--

JANEANE
No, it's not. {It's not a joke.} It's shool. It's like {at the Hadassahhhh an', Yeshiva.}

CONAN
Andy!

JANEANE
What is shool?

CONAN
Max?!

JANEANE
Max Weinberg, what is shool?

CONAN
Shool? What is shool?

MAX
Shool?

JANEANE
Yeah.

MAX
Shool is school.

JANEANE
[amused] But it, but it.

MAX
Shool is, shool is school.

CONAN
Wait a minute! You don't know what the hell it is, do you, Max?

MAX
Well, how do I know?

TWO AUDIENCE MEMBERS?
Temple.
Temple.

JANEANE and CONAN
It's temple! It's temple! Right.

CONAN
It's going to temple. Max!

MAX
I knew that. What are you talking about? Get off o' me, now.

CONAN and JANEANE?
What the hell?

JANEANE
Stay in shool. {Way to go.}

ANDY
I, I don't think he's really Jewish.

CONAN?
He's not.

ANDY
I think this just is his {thing} for a show-biz thing.

CONAN
Yeah. Yeah. "There hasn't been, like a big Jewish rock drummer. I'll make it Weinberg!"

[AUDIENCE applauds loudly.]

MAX
I can't--

CONAN
Skip O'Callan, is his name.

I gotta mention this, 'cause it's a very nice thing you're doing: "Comics Come Home Free." It's New Years' Eve, at midnight.

JANEANE
Right. It's a benefit for the Cam Neilly Foundation, which is a foundation that works with families who have children with cancer, and uh, on New Years' Eve there'll be a live, uh.
It couldn't be a live broadcast, I already did it. What the hell am I talking about.

CONAN
[like yes man] No, you must be mistaken, it's live, ha-ha-ha ha-ha!

JANEANE
I don't know why I just said that! "Live Broadcast," but I. It's, in the can, so it's not live.

ANDY
Yeah. You mean live-ly.

JANEANE
It's lively, It's a lively broadcast--

ANDY
Yeah: Lively and Fun.

JANEANE
An' they're gonna have a number you can call to donate to the Cam Neilly Foundation.

CONAN
A very nice thing to do. Janeane, thanks so much for coming here, it's a, very nice time of year to see ya.

JANEANE
Thank you..

CONAN
Yes. Happy Christmas..

JANEANE
Happy Christmas to you--

CONAN
--An', happy holidays an' the whole thing. JJaneane Garofalo, everybody. Louis Black, is coming out, we'll see you in a second.

[AUDIENCE cheers and BAND plays a fast-paced "The Little Drummer Boy" to commercial.]