Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Tommy Davidson Talks 'The Varnell Hill Show,' 90s Comedy Comeback, Ms. Pat, Martin + More

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INTERVIEW: Tommy Davidson Talks 'The Varnell Hill Show,' 90s Comedy Comeback, Ms. Pat, Martin + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hold up.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: Every day I wake up.
• 0:03
  Speaker 3: Wake your ass up.
• 0:03
  Speaker 4: The Breakfast Club.
• 0:05
  Speaker 3: Y'all finished or y'all done?
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: When those saints come marching in. That's the wrong song, right?
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: It's Did You Miss Me. Yes, that's what I was
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: waiting for.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: How are you, sir? The Barnell Hill Show has premiered
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: on Paramount.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Plus, man. Seven years.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Took seven years. Hi, I'm Tommy.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Hi, Tommy Cat.
• 0:42
  Speaker 4: Actually, it took longer than seven.
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: If you're counting Martin.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Altogether, 35.
• 0:48
  Speaker 5: Me, Dave Chappelle, and Martin met At the same time,
• 0:51
  Speaker 5: at the same club.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: And we all went to Hollywood about 35 years ago. Wow.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: And I got my show. He got his show. I
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: got my movie. He got his movie.
• 1:04
  Speaker 5: And that's all we were in for play.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 1:08
  Speaker 5: He moved departments that I lived in. My kids call
• 1:10
  Speaker 5: him Uncle Martin. I know his family. So we got
• 1:13
  Speaker 5: really close over those years, like brothers, you know?
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: And finally....
• 1:18
  Speaker 5: We did a project together, executive producing together.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: Wow. I was watching BET this weekend, and they replayed
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: the original Varnell Hill episode from Martin.
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: Was there ever any.
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: Talks after that episode of making that a spinoff?
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: No, no, no. The idea came from Kid, from Kid
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: at Kid and Play.
• 1:37
  Speaker 5: All y'all know Kid, everybody knows him. And he called
• 1:41
  Speaker 5: me upset about late night TV. He was like, hey, man,
• 1:46
  Speaker 5: we don't got no talent coming on TV at all,
• 1:50
  Speaker 5: you know, with the two Jimmys. He said, why don't
• 1:53
  Speaker 5: you call Martin and ask him to do that Varnell
• 1:57
  Speaker 5: Hill show as a TV show, but it's really a
• 2:02
  Speaker 5: late night talk show.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Wow. And so we got it.
• 2:06
  Speaker 5: It's a sitcom about a television show that is a
• 2:13
  Speaker 5: television show.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: So at the end, just like in Living Color, we
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: get our performances.
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: You know, October London, Kirk Franklin, killing it.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I see Doug E. Fresh is in it as well.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Doug E. 's my MC.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's dope.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: That's really, really dope.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. So we put it together. It's not hitting
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: me yet. It's not hitting me yet. No, no, it's
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: not hitting me yet.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: What you mean?
• 2:36
  Speaker 5: You don't feel like it's... It's almost like I'm ready
• 2:41
  Speaker 5: to get the work. I'm ready to get the work,
• 2:44
  Speaker 5: but we'll be able to watch it. for a whole
• 2:46
  Speaker 5: season before they say, hey, we're gonna keep this thing going.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? But I guess it's hitting me.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: What were some of the challenges making it? Actually bringing
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: it to life.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Actually bringing it to life. I actually had to do
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: two episodes a week.
• 3:01
  Speaker 5: Which was really hard because I had to remember two
• 3:04
  Speaker 5: scripts out of sync, which I learned how to do
• 3:09
  Speaker 5: over the years. So usually when I did a movie,
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: to not.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: Forget my lines, I remembered everybody's lines.
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: I knew everybody's lines, so I wouldn't, you know what
• 3:21
  Speaker 5: I mean? So I'm kind of used to it. But
• 3:23
  Speaker 5: it was a challenge. I drove from where I lived
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: every day at 4 a.m. and left the studio about
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: 1 and then did it again. And I did that
• 3:33
  Speaker 5: for two weeks, but we got through it. I mean,
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: there was a job at the end of this.
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: That's a lot at your age, I'm sure.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: I mean, I'm at the age, I don't know if
• 3:42
  Speaker 5: I got, you know, do number one or two, I
• 3:44
  Speaker 5: just go to the bathroom.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: Nature call, you don't know what's going to happen when
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: you pick up that. God.
• 3:52
  Speaker 5: You know, you wish you was in a monster truck
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: if you were in traffic, you know what I mean?
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: That's the only way you're going to get.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: To the bathroom.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: He's a monster truck, man.
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: Oh my God.
• 4:07
  Speaker 6: How does it feel to go, it made, watching the episodes,
• 4:09
  Speaker 6: it made me feel like back in the 90s.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:13
  Speaker 6: Was that on purpose? Because it feels like the Martins,
• 4:17
  Speaker 6: the this, the that, the laugh traps, the way it is,
• 4:20
  Speaker 6: just the way you watch it makes it feel like that.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: It turned into that because everybody showed up.
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: The In Living Color set was like the set. Bruce Willis, Denzel,
• 4:31
  Speaker 5: everybody on a Friday, right? Everybody was coming to the show. Light,
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: Jaleel White. Everybody was just coming just to hang. Raphael Sadiq.
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: Everybody was coming to just be around that energy. And
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: everybody who came knows that they're a part of the
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: show too.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: This is a.
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: Combination of Arsenio Hall meets In Living Color meets Martin.
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: So me and Martin come and do characters and Damon's
• 5:01
  Speaker 5: doing sketches within the show. So everybody's coming in and
• 5:06
  Speaker 5: doing their thing, man. It's really, really unique in that way.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: I love that. I love seeing Damon in it. I
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: thought that was really dope.
• 5:12
  Speaker 7: You also got Mike Epps, Dion Cole, Miss Pat. There's
• 5:16
  Speaker 7: some killers in there.
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 5:17
  Speaker 5: Everybody wants to be a part of it because they
• 5:19
  Speaker 5: know what it is. They know we're going to go hard.
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: You know what I mean?
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: And Wendy Raquel.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: And Wendy, yeah. She's doing her thing. And Kim.
• 5:28
  Speaker 8: Kim.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Kimberly.
• 5:30
  Speaker 7: Oh, my God.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: And then there's some new actors that are unbelievable.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: You got to see Emanuel Hudson.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Emanuel Hudson. That's my man.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Timothy DeLaGhetto. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, they my peoples.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: Go ahead with the names, girl. Go ahead.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know my peers and shit.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: How did Timothy get on the show?
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: I don't know, but he's on there. How did Timothy
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: get on the show? But I know he's on there.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: My question is, how did I get on the show?
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: You know, it's like, it happened. Yeah. It happened seven years, man.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: Seven years from the day the kid called me. to now.
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: Did the kid get a production credit for that?
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: No.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: Damn. What did you put into the Barnell character?
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: He got a new heart.
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: He's stupid.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: He's easy on the gifts.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: What did you put into the Barnell character that made
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: people remember it for three decades?
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: His spontaneity, man.
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: Because when me and him lined up, I went into
• 6:26
  Speaker 5: that daggone show, man. And I was like, so he
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: was like, come on, you know you're on my show, right?
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: You know you're on my show. I was like, yeah,
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: I know I'm on your show, man. But you know,
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: I got a show. He said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: So bring it, bring it, bring it. So I brought
• 6:39
  Speaker 5: what I brought. And what I brought was, hey, watch out.
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: It's going to be some corners to go around. But
• 6:46
  Speaker 5: the same thing's happening on this show. The same thing's
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: happening on this show, man. We did a scene and
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: he was crying. Like, like, He had these boys, right?
• 6:58
  Speaker 5: And I started going down the line, calling them different
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: names and blah, blah, this, that, and everything. And he
• 7:02
  Speaker 5: was supposed to be playing this gangster. And he was
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: trying to keep a straight face. And he was like,
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: literal tears were rolling all down his cheek. It was
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: like a mix of joy. And it was hard to describe.
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: You know what I mean? Just us being there. Because
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: we went through all the ups and downs, man. There
• 7:24
  Speaker 5: was a comedy club called the Comedy Act Theater. And
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: that's where everybody went. That was Robin Harris' joint, right?
• 7:31
  Speaker 5: So everybody was there. It was the hottest in L.A.
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: It was so far back that the Raiders were winning
• 7:38
  Speaker 5: Super Bowls.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: So that's just a reference. And we were out in the.
• 7:44
  Speaker 5: Parking lot crying because the owner wouldn't put us on
• 7:49
  Speaker 5: stage the night that Spike Lee came to cast Do
• 7:54
  Speaker 5: the Right Thing.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: And that was our shot. You know what I mean?
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: And he got the movie. Yeah.
• 8:01
  Speaker 5: He definitely got that movie, and that was his start.
• 8:04
  Speaker 5: And then I got my movie, Strictly Business.
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Which, speaking of Puff, you know, I'll just put that
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: out there. But, yeah, for the algorithm.
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: What Puff had to do with Strictly Business?
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: Puff was my assistant.
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: Was he really? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: In the movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 8:23
  Speaker 5: He was Andre's assistant. A protege, right? So he was
• 8:29
  Speaker 5: to take me around all the clubs and show me
• 8:32
  Speaker 5: all the acts. And I was like, this dude is
• 8:35
  Speaker 5: smart as hell.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: Like he went around and he showed me black sheep.
• 8:39
  Speaker 5: He's like, they're going to blow up. He went and said,
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: this is the leaders of the new school. People are
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: thinking it's going to be C.
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: Brown.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: Okay, okay. People are thinking it's going to be C.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Brown.
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: I think it's going to be Busta. Like he would
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: give me this whole analysis. But what he told me
• 8:52
  Speaker 5: one day was, he said, you're going to have to
• 8:54
  Speaker 5: cut your peak.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 8:56
  Speaker 5: And I was like, I ain't cutting my peak, man.
• 8:59
  Speaker 5: This is my signature. He said, if you don't cut that,
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: it's going to look big on the screen. I was like,
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: get out of here. And then I was at the
• 9:07
  Speaker 5: premiere like.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: He was right. My head is like a shark fan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah,
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: he was right.
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: Hello, Cooja.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: You know, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he was right.
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: Brilliant.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Me, him, and a guy named Craig Boogie and Heavy.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Why'd he get fired?
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: Who?
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Then did he get fired from that job?
• 9:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah, because he... He punched one of the, damn, one
• 9:27
  Speaker 5: of the Teamsters.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: It wasn't really even a punch. It was just kind
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: of like a nick.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, I thought you was going to say it because
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: it was your peak.
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: No, the guy, you know, New York, some Teamster was like,
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: you can't put your car there. And he said, hey, man,
• 9:42
  Speaker 5: I'm just dropping this guy off. Look, I'm his assistant.
• 9:45
  Speaker 5: I'm putting his bags in the trailer.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: Get it out of here. Get it out of here.
• 9:49
  Speaker 5: And he leaned in a little bit too close and
• 9:52
  Speaker 5: probably said, bam. And, you know, what happened to the
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: tough guy?
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: What I mean? He got taken away in a whole
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: nine yards. He got locked up for that, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: Got taken away. I went and got him. You had
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: to bail him out?
• 10:07
  Speaker 5: Four in the morning, down at 21st, in the precinct
• 10:10
  Speaker 5: right down there. And he called me, man. Russ wouldn't
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: get him. Andre wouldn't come down there. Nobody would get him?
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: Nobody was coming down to get him.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: But you would always say, probably regular behavior to them.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what I mean?
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Did it again.
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so I said, I'll come down there, not knowing
• 10:30
  Speaker 5: if I was even going to be able to get
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: him out of there.
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: And it was harder to get in touch with people
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: back then.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure, man. Yeah, but when
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: I went down there, they were cool. In Living Color
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: was at its hottest.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, okay.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: Gotcha.
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: Did they have that one back then? It was a
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: big one.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a big, that was a big Saving
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Private Ryan one. Yeah. Yeah. Four, five, six coordinates. Five, one, one, one, one, one, one, one.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: You know, yeah. You know, I had one. Everybody had
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: a brick. Did you have a brick?
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: I had no brick.
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: Mm-mm.
• 11:01
  Speaker 8: No?
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: Anybody here have a brick?
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: No.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: Y'all from here.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: I was the beeper era.
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: I was born and raised here.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, South Carolina had the beeper, and then I had
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: the two-way pager.
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: I never had the brick.
• 11:14
  Speaker 8: I remember my pop-pop having a phone in his car,
• 11:17
  Speaker 8: and it was connected to the car.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: I had an antenna to my car. that I put
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: the antenna to.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Make people think I am.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: So we were born in 92.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, 91. My oldest phone was like a Nokia.
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: I don't even remember my first cell phone. I'm trying
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: to think about it. I don't remember when I.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: My first one was Nokia.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I had a Nokia. It came with a little pouch.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Wasn't a Motorola Flip? You know what I mean? A Motorola...
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: I really don't remember. Motorola Flips was after that.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: That same. And then we had the Sidekicks that came out. Oh,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: I had the Sidekicks. iPhones really got high.
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: I had a BlackBerry, too.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Remember I was talking about the BlackBerry? Oh, a BlackBerry
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: was just... It was too small.
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: Them kids listen to like, what the hell are they
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: talking about?
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: Right, right, right. Oh, are they?
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: They're not even paying attention to us.
• 11:54
  Speaker 7: And you gotta turn it off for a little minute
• 11:57
  Speaker 7: so it don't blow up.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: There was a.
• 11:59
  Speaker 8: I was gonna say, there was an Instagram live. Remember
• 12:02
  Speaker 8: Fat Joe was on all the lives during the pandemic?
• 12:05
  Speaker 8: And he had somebody on his show from Juice, and
• 12:08
  Speaker 8: they were talking about how Diddy was trying to be
• 12:10
  Speaker 8: Bishop in Juice, but he didn't get it. They wouldn't
• 12:13
  Speaker 8: let him come on the set to try it because
• 12:14
  Speaker 8: of the incident that happened on that set. They didn't
• 12:17
  Speaker 8: want the set to be crazy.
• 12:19
  Speaker 5: Maybe so, maybe so. I mean, he was jumping in.
• 12:22
  Speaker 5: When I was going around to the clubs, Red Parrot, Octagon,
• 12:27
  Speaker 5: The Building, those were the spots.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: And I was in New York at that time.
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: When everything was So when he came, when Puff came
• 12:35
  Speaker 5: out with, by the time Bad Boy Remix came out,
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: and I saw that video, I was like.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: He's going to blow.
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: Which remix was that?
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: You said Bad Boy? Yeah, yeah. Flavin' Yeah? Flavin' Yeah Remix.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: When I saw that video, I was like, he gone. Oh, yeah.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: I was like, he gone. You know, niggas matter. Mo'
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: boots and ass trays. Like a fair one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: Ransom notes. Damn, I'm handsome. Damn, a nigga. Bow, bow.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: The roses, roses.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: Shakin' in my boots.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: He loves that little line.
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Take them rides back to the factory.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: I see.
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: Okay, all right.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: We know.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: We know. We know. We know. We know. We know.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: We know.
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: We know. We know.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: We know.
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: I don't know where Envy get that from.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: I ain't never seen that.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Is this me over here greasy?
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: I don't know what the hell Envy talking about. Jesus Christ.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: And you know, LL would really put hands on him.
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: No, LL, I'm going to see you. I didn't say
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: no shit like that.
• 13:56
  Speaker 6: But I wanted to ask, you know, in the show,
• 13:58
  Speaker 6: you have somebody, a younger comedian or a younger person
• 14:01
  Speaker 6: telling you all the new lingo.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: And slang and all that. You have to ask somebody
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: in real life too, like, you know what, help me
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: out with... That's what Varnell's about. You know, Varnel don't
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: know nothing about TikTok. Varnel's me. I don't know nothing
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: about no TikTok.
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: I ain't on IG. You know, I can't keep up
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: with Facebook. I'm just, I'm just me.
• 14:19
  Speaker 7: And you're not trying to get bought up to the top.
• 14:21
  Speaker 7: It's like a fight to go back and forth with
• 14:23
  Speaker 7: you to try to.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: Get you upbeat. I'm in between.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: I'm in between. My GPS works. My GPS works. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: But sometimes it don't. And if it ain't, then I'm done,
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: you know, but.
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: It's really about what's changing so fast, what's changing so fast,
• 14:40
  Speaker 5: and not only just.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: Technical, you know what I mean, but for entertainment.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:51
  Speaker 5: So the ability to have a show where you have,
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: you know, a sketch show. You actually have a sketch
• 14:57
  Speaker 5: show now, and people ain't getting upset about the subject matter.
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: and you have live performances of people coming out there
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: and doing it, you ain't got to wait until the
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: BET Awards.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Yeah.
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: All you got to do is wait for the end
• 15:11
  Speaker 5: of In Living Color and you're going to see a
• 15:13
  Speaker 5: new group. Crisscross and every time. So this is that
• 15:16
  Speaker 5: opportunity that we have for that. And then we go
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: on buck wild. The director just said, well, just like Keenan,
• 15:24
  Speaker 5: he just said, well, this one's yours.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: So just go ahead and take it.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: It's interesting though, because Barnell is an old entertainer. trying
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: to stay relevant, right, in a world that's changing around him.
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: How much of, I guess, Varnell's insecurity is actually yours
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: as well?
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: All of it. All of it, really.
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: I'm like, you know, what the hell are we doing
• 15:42
  Speaker 5: in here? You know, you guys, you know, I got
• 15:46
  Speaker 5: an idea. I'm like, hey, what you got an idea about?
• 15:49
  Speaker 5: Everybody can roast me.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: Don't nobody know you. What do you mean nobody knows me?
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: They all know me, man.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: I've got 30 million followers.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what are you talking about? I know Suave.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: Hey.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: I know a big bub from the group today. You know,
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: it's like I'm way out. Yeah. You know what I mean?
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: And then they're bringing me right back in.
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: But there's also a corporate element, too, to what we
• 16:14
  Speaker 5: do with this. You know, with the network saying and
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: all the notes that we're getting and all of this thing.
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 16:20
  Speaker 5: And staying out of the politics, but still staying in it.
• 16:23
  Speaker 5: And all those things are there. So you get to
• 16:26
  Speaker 5: see the operation of the show. from the time that
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: we start in the morning until we go to camera
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: and we follow him home.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You know?
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: That's real dope. I wanted to ask you about the
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Martin episode, the Varno Hill episode, right?
• 16:39
  Speaker 7: So when you come up to the radio station and
• 16:41
  Speaker 7: you had WZUP with Martin and you was like, we
• 16:45
  Speaker 7: got a lake out back, you know, catfish are delicious.
• 16:48
  Speaker 7: Was that, that was improv. That had to be, it
• 16:50
  Speaker 7: just lets you just go.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: All of it.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Because how do you write for a genius comedy.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: He knew what he was getting. Yeah. He knew what
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: he was getting, man.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: You made him bring character a few times.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, but his scripts are real, though, when he
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: was going for his.
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: So he's going for his, you know, yeah, yeah, all right,
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: you got a pool, man. You got a pool.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: A lake.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: I got a lake. It's called Lake Varnell. Catfish, delicious.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: Everything became iconic, man.
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: Everything became iconic. So we got the singing contest with
• 17:22
  Speaker 5: the Varnell thing. But the most important part of Arnell
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: to me is that it stayed in everyone's living room
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: for like 30 years.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:31
  Speaker 5: Like people grew with this dude, man. You know, it's
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: somebody they come to know.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: You know, now when Miss Pat and Mike Epps and
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: Lavelle and them came to.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: Roast me, they roasted me.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: And I was Lavelle Crawford?
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah he's on there as well I know him and.
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: Miss Pat wasn't dead at the same time ain't enough
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: room in the world.
• 17:54
  Speaker 7: Jesus they actually sat next to each other in that episode.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: No way they sat next to each.
• 18:01
  Speaker 6: Other yes they did leave my Miss Pat alone.
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: Y'all know that?
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: We was on the show dummy do the hump do
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: the hump do the hump do the hump you.
• 18:10
  Speaker 7: Know Lavelle lost a lot of weight Lavelle ain't big
• 18:13
  Speaker 7: Miss Pat ain't that damn big either not.
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: No more yeah you're right Oh my God.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: She coming down. She coming down.
• 18:22
  Speaker 6: You know, when you see the resurgence of some of
• 18:24
  Speaker 6: these older 90s shows.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: Leave Ms.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: Pat alone. I'm getting in trouble on your show.
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: I'm getting in trouble on your show.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: But he kept saying it to himself. Is she coming down?
• 18:36
  Speaker 7: He had the picture in his mind.
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: I think she's coming down.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: I love Ms.
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: Pat Ann LaBelle. She's the most giving person, man. You
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: got to get to know her, boy. You got to
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: get to know her. So she brought me in over
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: and over again with nigga poppins. You know, just, you know,
• 18:55
  Speaker 5: nigga pops in and nigga pops out.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? So I get a chance
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: to go over there and they let me go. They
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: let me go. No, don't, don't, don't, don't make them
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: read nothing. You know, just tell me, just, you know,
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: tell me, just go ahead and just let me go.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: And then even, what's her name? Oh my gosh. Marshae
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: in the show. She old, dusty niggas.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: Man, y'all do go.
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: We go hard. We go hard, man. It's fights break out.
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: All kind of stuff.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: And I love that, because you're from DMV.
• 19:24
  Speaker 7: The reason why I love that is because it's a
• 19:27
  Speaker 7: lot of us that shows up there.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: We're not afraid to, like, you.
• 19:30
  Speaker 7: Weren't afraid to go to the max with the jokes.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Like, that's how we talking in DMV.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Nigga this, nigga that.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: That's right. Let's go.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: I like that.
• 19:39
  Speaker 7: How hard was that to get all those niggas cleared?
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: It wasn't hard at all, really. I mean, they making money,
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? I'll leave it at that.
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: Oh, you're talking about Carolina. They let it go. FCC,
• 19:57
  Speaker 5: you know, we can have a little leverage here.
• 20:01
  Speaker 6: I was going to ask, how do you put somebody
• 20:03
  Speaker 6: on to 90s comedy, right? Because, of course, we know Varnell, right?
• 20:07
  Speaker 6: But as a 22-year-old, how do you introduce him to
• 20:10
  Speaker 6: that character to make it a fresh start where it's
• 20:12
  Speaker 6: not like I'm already seeing it from 30 years ago?
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Just putting what we put into what we did back then.
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: You know, if, you know, Kenan says, you know, hey, man,
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: you just got possessed by a dog. You know, so
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: when you come through that door, be a dog.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: Hey.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Jesus.
• 20:35
  Speaker 5: You know, so I'm a dog.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: You know, you know the Spanish. Yeah, you know the Spanish.
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: You know what I mean?
• 20:51
  Speaker 7: So, you know, they're the only Spanish dogs on earth.
• 20:54
  Speaker 8: Right, right, right.
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: That's Dominican.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: That's a different class.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: But you know what's so interesting? See, that type of
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: talent that you possess is timeless. And that's always valuable.
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: And I feel like there's a difference between being relevant
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: and being valuable. So have you ever felt like this
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: business stopped recognizing your value simply because you weren't the
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: newest thing anymore?
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. but that was just mental, you know?
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: And because if you have a whole business, you know, going, okay,
• 21:43
  Speaker 5: that's enough.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Shoop! All the way on someone else. You know what
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: I mean? That's mental.
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: You know, you, you, you just have to remember that,
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: you know, what comes from you comes from you. This
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: is a gift, you know, and it doesn't wear off.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? It's, it's there, it's there
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: for you.
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: I remember we, we was in, um, We was little kids,
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: and you remember the good humor used to come with
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: the back door that came open?
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: Y'all remember that?
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: No. Right. Ice cream truck, right?
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: With the big chrome handle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You got
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: the handle that you can pull open. Yep, yep.
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: We ain't had no money. So when it come by,
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: we just look and watch it go. You know, one
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: day it was going up the hill, and the door
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: came open. So we was like, man, we got a
• 22:27
  Speaker 5: shot at it, right? So we all run over there.
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: and we go to put our hand in it, and
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: there's an old black woman at the bus stop.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: So we stopped. And she said, go on, get y'all something.
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: But just get enough for you. So it's that kind
• 22:42
  Speaker 5: of thing where you start to... I remember we went
• 22:44
  Speaker 5: to a party way up in Mount Vernon. The girls
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: had houses, and they had KFC on the table. And
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: it was February cold. We had our ski jackets and
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: gloves on. So we started wrapping in napkins. Hey, man,
• 22:57
  Speaker 5: that's KFC. And the father came over, and he was like, hey,
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: Y'all come over here. So we thought we was going
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: to get thrown out. That's natural. And he said something
• 23:06
  Speaker 5: that I'll never forget. He told me, hey, man, we
• 23:09
  Speaker 5: put that chicken there so you guys can have it.
• 23:12
  Speaker 5: You guys don't have to take it because we put.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: It there for you. This is there for you.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: He put it there for us.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: So when I watch, it's natural to want to do
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: what you do at the highest level, but you just
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: can't do it all the time.
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 23:28
  Speaker 5: A lot of people in this business man and a
• 23:31
  Speaker 5: lot of people and now the social media is here
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: too you know it's just all on like popcorn but
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: you know as long as you're working you know and
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: as long as you're being true to yourself you know
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: then it'll come it'll come but man patience without faith
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: man that's a long wait you gotta have a little
• 23:52
  Speaker 5: you gotta have some faith in that you know what
• 23:54
  Speaker 5: I'm saying were.
• 23:55
  Speaker 7: You always that way though like like able to, like,
• 23:58
  Speaker 7: you just embodied a fucking dog, right?
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: Like, literally, two different things.
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: Two dogs.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: No, three, the Dominican, the Chihuahua, and, you know, I
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: think the person with the pit bull, right? So, you
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: and Jim.
• 24:09
  Speaker 7: Carrey, y'all are, like, I watched y'all growing up, and
• 24:13
  Speaker 7: y'all could, like, turn into anything y'all wanted to fucking be.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: The drop of a dime, right? Were you always that way?
• 24:19
  Speaker 7: How did you end up being so animated and not
• 24:22
  Speaker 7: afraid to do that?
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: I didn't know I was. I just was.
• 24:27
  Speaker 5: Now that I look at my daughter, I'm like, that's
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: how I was. My youngest daughter is.
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: Like, what?
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: She's all out. She's all out. She's like, you know,
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: this is a buffalo, and the buffalo has roller skates.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: Watch this. That state of mind is there. You know
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: what I mean?
• 24:47
  Speaker 5: We all got our skills, but when we have an
• 24:50
  Speaker 5: opportunity to use them to make a living, man, that
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: is the miracle. Yeah.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: That's the miracle right there. And sometimes you just gotta wait.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: You gotta wait, man. You gotta wait your turn. Yeah.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: Man, Tommy, that's so interesting you say that, because I
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: swear I was just sitting there thinking, like, you've had
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: so much success, but then there was, like, your contemporaries,
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: a lot of them have become even bigger household names, right? Mm-hmm.
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: But have you ever had to wrestle with wondering why
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: somebody else's career went one direction and yours went another,
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: but right now you got your own show in 2026?
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: I did when it was happening.
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: Cause I didn't understand what I know now.
• 25:28
  Speaker 5: You know, I, something happened to me along the line
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: where I realized, Hey man, won't you stop complaining? Won't
• 25:38
  Speaker 5: you stop complaining about who got this and who got
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: that and who got that? Won't you find out what
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: they did? Won't you find out what they did to
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: do that? Won't you, won't you start to look at
• 25:47
  Speaker 5: what choices they're making?
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: Won't you start trying to, to, to, to work harder
• 25:56
  Speaker 5: on what you're doing. But at the same time, do
• 26:00
  Speaker 5: the math. Do the math about what you see.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: If it's a certain agency, if it's a certain this
• 26:06
  Speaker 5: or that, or they did this with an article or whatever,
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: then there's nothing wrong with watching the path and following it.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: But for me, I want my path to be my path.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: I don't want to have to You know, I can
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: do this. I can do this. You know what I mean?
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: But you can learn. You can learn from the people
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: closest to you.
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: You can do all those things and still not pop
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: off easy, though.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. But you know what? You know, what's today?
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: The 31st.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: This is the end of the line. It's the 1st.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: Today's the 1st.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: Oh, the 1st.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: This is going to air tomorrow.
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: It's really the 31st, but we put air tomorrow.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, okay, okay.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: So today's the 1st. Today's the 1st. So let's act. Yeah,
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: let's act.
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: So today's the 1st.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: So today's the 1st, right?
• 26:53
  Speaker 5: Well, it's the last 1st that we're going to have
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: until the next 1st of this type of month, right?
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: So why not go all out?
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: But at 60 plus, getting your own TV show built
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: around a character you created in your 20s, 30s, that
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: has to hit differently. Does it feel like a comeback
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: or confirmation that you never went nowhere?
• 27:18
  Speaker 5: It's confirmation and it's a comeback too because I get
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: to be in front of the thing that people.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: Know me for.
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: If I play quarterback and then I have to sit
• 27:31
  Speaker 5: down for another person for a couple of seasons or whatever,
• 27:34
  Speaker 5: then hey, I'm always a quarterback, right?
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: But I've seen quarterbacks.
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: Go through going in, first round draft choice, being the
• 27:44
  Speaker 5: hot guy, got all the money, this, that, and the
• 27:46
  Speaker 5: other thing, and then slow down.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: Slow down.
• 27:49
  Speaker 5: And the years went by and they didn't get those things.
• 27:52
  Speaker 5: And then finally, the opportunity came. But the opportunity didn't
• 27:56
  Speaker 5: come like in one day. The opportunity came by them saying,
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: you know what, I'm going to hang in there.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: I don't have to start. But, you know, I'm working.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: I got my kids. You know, he's good to me.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: I've seen greater miracles, but I'll take this one. I
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: will take this one. What got you back on your square? Because,
• 28:19
  Speaker 5: you know, you talk about your trials and tribulations. What
• 28:21
  Speaker 5: got you back to staying focused and saying, I can
• 28:24
  Speaker 5: do this? Because most people would have focused, right, with
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: some of the stuff that you've been with. So what
• 28:27
  Speaker 5: got you in that mind frame to be like, I
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: can do it? I always thought that I could. you know,
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: but while things started happening without me, I started doubting it.
• 28:41
  Speaker 5: Not doubting what I could do, but doubting if it
• 28:44
  Speaker 5: would happen. You know, that's one of the things that
• 28:48
  Speaker 5: has changed about my thinking is that who cares when
• 28:53
  Speaker 5: it's going to happen? Just keep working on it. Just
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: keep working on it, man, and it'll meet you halfway.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. You know, if you ain't prepared when it happen,
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: it's not going to happen anyway. That's right.
• 29:06
  Speaker 6: Did you ever do anything that would hurt you from
• 29:09
  Speaker 6: coming back? Like, you talk about Diddy, and she just
• 29:11
  Speaker 6: mentioned that, you know, Diddy might have or might have
• 29:14
  Speaker 6: not punched the guy in the face, which hurt him
• 29:15
  Speaker 6: for trying out for Bishop. Have you ever went so
• 29:18
  Speaker 6: far where you couldn't come back or had to repair
• 29:20
  Speaker 6: those relationships?
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: Plenty. With myself.
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: You know, going through my downward spiral with substance and
• 29:28
  Speaker 5: going through my downward spiral just as a man.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Trying to be a man... In this thing... You
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: know what I mean?
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: And.
• 29:35
  Speaker 5: and, and, and, you know, not able to be the
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: best that I could be in relationships too, you know,
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: and now that my children are older, you know, and,
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: and now that I see you can, you can lose it,
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: you know, you can lose it. You might not think so,
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: but it also can come back. But there's, there's one ingredient,
• 30:00
  Speaker 5: that I never really paid much attention to, is the
• 30:04
  Speaker 5: thing that brings the sun up every day. And I
• 30:08
  Speaker 5: took more, I started taking more, I had more respect
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: for that. Not because I have respect for it, because
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: trial by ass whipping, I learned it.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: Trial by my own ass whipping.
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: You weren't a spiritual person prior to that?
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: Not like I am now. Not like, I don't have
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: to think about believing.
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: All praise is due to God. Say his name.
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: Don't say that thing before that puts the sun up. God.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there you go. There's no doubt. There's no doubt
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: in my mind.
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: And it was from things being put right in front
• 30:43
  Speaker 5: of me. Like when my mother passed away. My mother
• 30:47
  Speaker 5: wouldn't let me come see her. She knew I was
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: the most sensitive ever. So she didn't let me come
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: see her. And my sister was like, She's serious. She
• 30:54
  Speaker 5: don't want you to come and see her like this.
• 30:57
  Speaker 5: And I was like, man, I had to stay at
• 30:58
  Speaker 5: home and.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: All that, right?
• 30:59
  Speaker 5: Well, she started out as an atheist, right? She never
• 31:04
  Speaker 5: taught God in my house, none of that.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: None of that, right? Didn't want to, but she was
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: carrying on that way.
• 31:09
  Speaker 5: Like she'd give, you know, kids food and if somebody,
• 31:13
  Speaker 5: you always know somebody got killed in my neighborhood because
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: they crying in our living room at four in the morning.
• 31:17
  Speaker 5: She's always helping people. So I couldn't understand that. I
• 31:21
  Speaker 5: couldn't understand it. But then on her, She used to
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: like me to sing to her. So I called her,
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: and my sister said, if you want to talk to
• 31:27
  Speaker 5: her again, you better call her.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: I said, cool. She said, sing for me. And I sang.
• 31:35
  Speaker 5: And then she said, I'm not afraid anymore because there
• 31:37
  Speaker 5: is a God. Now, what's the chances of her finding
• 31:40
  Speaker 5: me in the trash, carrying me that whole time, a
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: black child with a white family in D.C., and then
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: finding God in the process?
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: So when I see people.
• 31:53
  Speaker 5: Having a debate about it, you know, I don't debate
• 31:57
  Speaker 5: anymore because I know where I've been on more than
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: one occasion with a gun in my face or whatever
• 32:03
  Speaker 5: it was where it could have been gone.
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: Look at God. That's right. What song did she like
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: for you to sing to her?
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: I sing. Definitely not some boing boing.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Not to his mother.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: What is my word to him? I think he's doing
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: Sammy Davis, your boy. What is my word to him?
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Emotion on his face and then here you come.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: He still gets ching ching when he does it.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: You see what I'm saying?
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: It works for him. I ain't doubting him. I'm never
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: doubting him.
• 32:35
  Speaker 5: When I heard that, I was like, he's three less
• 32:38
  Speaker 5: than Mahomes.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? But when you stay true
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: to yourself, though.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Period.
• 32:43
  Speaker 5: You know, when you stay true to yourself and what
• 32:45
  Speaker 5: your ideas are and you don't move from it, people
• 32:48
  Speaker 5: can really start to adhere to a new idea. You know,
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: the fact that, you know, I could do like, yeah, well,
• 32:56
  Speaker 5: don't call it a comeback. I've been here for years.
• 32:59
  Speaker 5: But I know what he was saying. You know, but
• 33:02
  Speaker 5: if you're not seen, then who knows?
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: That's the hardest.
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: But you've always been seen. Like, there's something beautiful about it.
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: about this idea sitting dormant for all this time, and
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: then suddenly this is your next chapter. What has this
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: taught you about timing? This experience in particular.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: That when God feels you're ready, then it's going to happen.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: It's going to happen.
• 33:33
  Speaker 5: You can have all the doubt in the world and
• 33:36
  Speaker 5: have just the storm brewing. And just know that there's
• 33:43
  Speaker 5: always a light at the end of that tunnel. I
• 33:47
  Speaker 5: remember watching Three Things, I remember, because I listened to
• 33:52
  Speaker 5: hear him in people after things happened. So when the linebacker, Lewis,
• 34:04
  Speaker 5: from the Ravens, Ray Lewis, the stabbing situation, he was
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: going to go to jail and blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: He ended up getting the MVP in the Super Bowl
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: and winning the Super Bowl.
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: And I listened to his interview, and he said, I
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: knew God wouldn't put me through that kind of trial
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: unless there was a triumph after that. Then Plexico. Plexico
• 34:27
  Speaker 5: actually got the last touchdown in the Super Bowl. So
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: they asked him, hey, man, you shot yourself in the leg.
• 34:33
  Speaker 5: You got thrown out of the league. You had to
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: go to jail. You end up coming back two seasons.
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: And then you end up catching a winning touchdown in
• 34:41
  Speaker 5: the Super Bowl. What do you attest that to? And
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: he said, well, when I got up this morning, I said, God,
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: if you get me to the field, I'll be happy
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: with just that.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: So playing Vernell for you this time.
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: Hold on, you got one more.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: You got one more.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: I don't remember it. Dang. Yeah, I don't remember it.
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: It's okay.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: It went away.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: That's age. It'll come back.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: When it come back, just go over there. We'll know
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: exactly where you're going.
• 35:04
  Speaker 8: But playing Ronell for you this time, because of all
• 35:07
  Speaker 8: the ups, the downs, the times that you had to
• 35:08
  Speaker 8: sit and the thought process, just all that is different
• 35:11
  Speaker 8: than when you were playing Ronell on Martin. There's more
• 35:14
  Speaker 8: of a spiritual alignment for you right now?
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you learn. You live and you learn, right?
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: And one of the things that is the most difficult
• 35:25
  Speaker 5: about entertainment is that there's a thing called business attached
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: to it. So this is show business and that's why
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: the song says that you know there's no business like
• 35:37
  Speaker 5: show business that it's like no business i know now
• 35:42
  Speaker 5: ain't nothing like that going something like that is going
• 35:45
  Speaker 5: to make the person across from you in the movie
• 35:47
  Speaker 5: not not give you your lines off off off off
• 35:50
  Speaker 5: camera just because they felt like not doing it that
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: day or just because they felt like hey man i
• 35:55
  Speaker 5: ain't helping you you know what i mean or or
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: or or um at a job, you, there's just one
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: person that they just ain't going to be your friend.
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 36:06
  Speaker 5: It just ain't going to be your friend. You tried everything,
• 36:08
  Speaker 5: you know, try to be nice to him, Christmas, Hey,
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: Merry Christmas, whatever. And then you finally had to stop
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: speaking to him because it was hurting you. I'm never
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: going to be able to get through to that person.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 36:19
  Speaker 5: So, so it's that conclusion that the business is never
• 36:22
  Speaker 5: going to be done. The business got to do itself,
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: but the show must go on.
• 36:28
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 36:28
  Speaker 5: The show must go on. I remember, you know, I
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: paid dues. I remember Thanksgiving, I was in a hotel somewhere,
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: and it wasn't VIP, and I was putting one of
• 36:40
  Speaker 5: them little microwave cheeseburgers in the microwave to kind of
• 36:46
  Speaker 5: be a delinquent store. Before they had the microwave, it
• 36:49
  Speaker 5: was like a toaster oven. You know what I mean?
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: So all of those experiences culminated. Oh, I know what
• 36:58
  Speaker 5: it was. It was Tom Brady. Tom Brady said something
• 37:03
  Speaker 5: that I was like, oh, my God. And then I say,
• 37:06
  Speaker 5: that's why he's so successful.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: And I'll explain it.
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: Mike, when Seattle threw the interception to them, right, well,
• 37:16
  Speaker 5: here go Mike Irvin. He had Tom Brady on the sideline, right?
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: Tom, now you tell me, and I want you to
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: tell me the truth, too. Don't lie. Okay, Tom? Listen,
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: if they gave that ball to beast mode, Would y'all
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: have won that game? Right?
• 37:35
  Speaker 5: He said, I'm just glad they didn't. Plain knowledge, because
• 37:41
  Speaker 5: as a quarterback, he did his job. It's up to
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: the defense. So he was content about that.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: He was content.
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: He said, hey, I got us in a time period
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: where we had enough of a score to win the game,
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: and all my defense got to do is stop them.
• 37:58
  Speaker 5: That was like wisdom. And he laughed a little bit.
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: He said, hey, I'm just glad they didn't. Because he knew.
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: There's a knowledge inside of knowledge. You know what I mean?
• 38:09
  Speaker 5: Like your grandmother got. Remember, she used to come in
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: the room. We'd be talking about girls. She'd tell me,
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: I'm tired of y'all talking about girls that don't like y'all.
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: Why don't you start talking to girls that like you
• 38:25
  Speaker 5: because they got something for you. I didn't know what
• 38:27
  Speaker 5: you were talking about. But later on, I did.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 38:30
  Speaker 5: And then my grandfather would say, I mean, if everybody
• 38:34
  Speaker 5: was the same, everybody would be.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: Chasing after your grandma. Like, there's a knowledge inside of
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: a knowledge. You know what I mean?
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: What's harder mentally? Becoming successful the first time, right? Or
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: proving you still belong now after the industry has changed
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: so much?
• 38:50
  Speaker 5: I think they're the same, but they're on different parallels.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 38:54
  Speaker 5: You know, with this stage of my life, you know,
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: I feel there's a feeling of deserving.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: There's a feeling of deserving. Like, I deserve. Baby, I deserve.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: What's that song? Yeah, by Tank. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: I deserve.
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: I deserve.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying?
• 39:11
  Speaker 5: He ain't deserve that from Tank when he went at
• 39:13
  Speaker 5: the turtleneck, but I'm just saying.
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: Oh, I'm sorry.
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: You know, yeah, he was hitting him with darts, but...
• 39:20
  Speaker 5: But it's like, I deserve this or whatever.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? That kind of thing. The
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: other one is just sheer effort. You know, like one.
• 39:30
  Speaker 5: bedroom apartment after having a job with two cars and
• 39:33
  Speaker 5: a little apartment of your own and then going out
• 39:36
  Speaker 5: to L.A., staying in one room and taking the bus,
• 39:39
  Speaker 5: you know, for three years and this, that, and that.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: That's another kind. You know what I mean?
• 39:44
  Speaker 5: But that's a different, that's a determination. I got left,
• 39:48
  Speaker 5: I used to get left at the bus stop. In February,
• 39:51
  Speaker 5: I used to have to be to my job at
• 39:53
  Speaker 5: a hospital, right? And it was cold at the bus stop.
• 39:57
  Speaker 5: And I'm like, man, and this one bus driver, white boy,
• 40:02
  Speaker 5: used to look right at me and drive right by.
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: Drive right by me. And I had to walk to work.
• 40:07
  Speaker 5: I was late every time. And as I was walking,
• 40:12
  Speaker 5: I said to myself, I know what I got to do.
• 40:14
  Speaker 5: I got to get myself in a position where no
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: one can control me.
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: Where I go. You know what I mean? And that's determination.
• 40:25
  Speaker 5: So one is deserving. The one is determination, right? And
• 40:29
  Speaker 5: then what you going to do with it when you
• 40:31
  Speaker 5: get it? You know, I didn't know that one. Black
• 40:33
  Speaker 5: ladies used to say that, you know, you better watch
• 40:35
  Speaker 5: out for what you pay for because you just might
• 40:37
  Speaker 5: get it. You know, and I was like, shoot, I
• 40:39
  Speaker 5: don't know what your problem is. It might be difficult
• 40:43
  Speaker 5: for you.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: Then what? If you got everything that you want, then
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: how you going to act? How you going to carry on?
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: Now you got the wisdom. Now you got the experience.
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: You got the feeling of worthiness.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now where you going to get it from?
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: You know, and I found out that you get that
• 40:58
  Speaker 5: from giving.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 41:00
  Speaker 6: You get that from giving. So that's what you think
• 41:02
  Speaker 6: it is. You think people are seeing that now is
• 41:03
  Speaker 6: your time. Like I see where's Papa. I see all
• 41:06
  Speaker 6: these other things that you're working now. It just seems
• 41:08
  Speaker 6: like things are starting to fall in your lap the
• 41:10
  Speaker 6: right way and people are starting to notice more.
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
• 41:12
  Speaker 5: Well, I had some work to do. I had some
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: work to do. I just, you know... Like the Saving
• 41:18
  Speaker 5: Private Ryan.
• 41:18
  Speaker 7: Mm-hmm.
• 41:19
  Speaker 5: At the end, you know, the white boy had already
• 41:22
  Speaker 5: told Private Ryan, hey, man, stupid, some people got killed
• 41:26
  Speaker 5: to get you home.
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 41:29
  Speaker 5: And so Tom is in the middle of the, middle
• 41:32
  Speaker 5: of the daggone bridge shooting at the tank with all
• 41:35
  Speaker 5: he got left.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: And then here comes a plane, blows the tank up,
• 41:40
  Speaker 5: and he's just there with him. And he says, and
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: he says, I earned this. And then he morphs into
• 41:46
  Speaker 5: an old man.
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: And he's at a graveyard of that person who told
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: him that. And he looked at his wife and he said,
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: you got me ready to cry here. And he said,
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: have I been a good man?
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: And she said, yeah. Yeah. You know, she said, yeah.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: Like my supervisor, Joe, at the hospital, used to cuss
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: me out every day. Every day. You ain't shit. You're
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: never going to be nothing.
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: You're going to have kids. You're going to have all
• 42:12
  Speaker 5: these kids. You ain't going to ever be. And he
• 42:15
  Speaker 5: would show up every day. At 4.30, because I had
• 42:18
  Speaker 5: to be there in the freezer, you know, work with
• 42:21
  Speaker 5: him in the freezer. And he cussed me out so bad,
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: I'm waiting there for him to come. You know, because
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: I'm trying to hold myself up to his. I'm going
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: to have this and that.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: And I didn't realize that all that time he was
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: preparing me. He was preparing me.
• 42:37
  Speaker 5: So when I got my show in Living Color, I
• 42:40
  Speaker 5: went to the hospital. And, you know, came in and
• 42:44
  Speaker 5: everybody was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And he looked at me, and he.
• 42:50
  Speaker 5: Went in his little drawer, and he had those paper cameras,
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: and he took a picture of me.
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: Click.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: He said, that ain't for me, that's for my son.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: And I put it in the drawer.
• 43:01
  Speaker 5: And I realized years later, man, that man, if it
• 43:05
  Speaker 5: wasn't for that dude, because.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: I was out in D.C.
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: Our favorite was Smoking Dust and Jack Daniels as entertainment.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: You know, and going out and doing all the works.
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: And that one guy.
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: Cared about me enough to cuss me out and then
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: let me know that's for my son.
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 43:28
  Speaker 5: You know, that's for my son. And when he hit me,
• 43:30
  Speaker 5: I called him. You know, just tell him thank you.
• 43:34
  Speaker 5: And his girlfriend Judy answered the phone. And I said,
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: where Joe at? She said, stop playing, Tommy. I said,
• 43:41
  Speaker 5: where Joe?
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: She said, stop playing, Tommy. Mm-hmm.
• 43:45
  Speaker 5: And I said, where's Joe? She said, Joe died this morning.
• 43:49
  Speaker 5: And I didn't have a chance to do that. My
• 43:52
  Speaker 5: buddy from Philly, I never had a friend like him.
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: He was like 26.
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: I was like 18.
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: But, you know, with me and my friends, we kick
• 44:02
  Speaker 5: your ass. Or we, you know, hey, that's my friends.
• 44:04
  Speaker 5: We do all kind of edgy.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: We out there, right? We, hey, I got your back.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: What is it? What's that one? Die for me now. So,
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: you know, that's what the thing was.
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: With him, it was like, hey, man, you know you
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: can get a used car with your check.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: I was like, I can't afford a used car. He
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: take me and did the math.
• 44:44
  Speaker 5: If you get, you're getting like $ 234, you know.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: Damn near every week. You know, look at this. That, that, that, that,
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: I got it. You know what I'm saying? He said,
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: let's go to the grocery store. Let's do this. Let's
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: do that.
• 44:57
  Speaker 5: When I told him I was going to Hollywood, he's
• 44:59
  Speaker 5: from Philadelphia. I told him I was going to Hollywood, right?
• 45:03
  Speaker 5: And he didn't even look at me. He didn't even
• 45:06
  Speaker 5: look at me. I said, I think I'm going to
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: go to Hollywood, man. And And I'm going to try
• 45:10
  Speaker 5: to was in the car. He was dropping me off
• 45:11
  Speaker 5: at my house, right? And he used to just look
• 45:14
  Speaker 5: straight ahead, you know, real wise. And he told me,
• 45:19
  Speaker 5: he told me, Nick, if I was.
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: You, I'd have been gone. Ain't even look at me.
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: Been gone.
• 45:24
  Speaker 5: All the talent you got out of being gone. And
• 45:27
  Speaker 5: I just got out the car and said, all right.
• 45:29
  Speaker 5: He said, that's right. So he had got a.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: New BMW.
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: And I was already out there in L.A. And I
• 45:40
  Speaker 5: called him just to check.
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: In and the same thing happened. The same thing happened. Yeah.
• 45:47
  Speaker 5: When I called him, somebody answered the phone. I can't
• 45:49
  Speaker 5: remember who it was. And she said, stop playing.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: Stop playing. And she said, Jeff got killed this morning
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: in a car accident.
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: Nigga, stop calling me.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: Don't call me no more. Don't call me no more
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: because I'm going to die next. You know what I mean?
• 46:08
  Speaker 5: But all those things, being isolated, being isolated out in
• 46:11
  Speaker 5: LA by myself and having to grow on my own.
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: A loss can be a thing. You know what I mean?
• 46:21
  Speaker 5: But we can't be here and be nothing. We can't
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: be here and be something and come from nothing.
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: I wanted to ask you, because you said something earlier
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: that I thought was powerful. You said that you realize
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: it's about giving.
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: Expand on that.
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: It's a circle.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: You know? Learn how to give. Learn how to give
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: of your time. Learn how to give of your love.
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: Learn how to give of.
• 46:47
  Speaker 5: Your encouragement. Or think about somebody. You know, if I'm
• 46:51
  Speaker 5: always thinking about me, then it's going to be about me,
• 46:53
  Speaker 5: but that's so limited. I ain't got but two eyes
• 46:55
  Speaker 5: and we can't put them in the back of our head.
• 46:57
  Speaker 5: And God said, man, I ain't put it in the
• 46:58
  Speaker 5: back of your head because you can't handle all the
• 47:01
  Speaker 5: stuff happening.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: Behind your back. You know what I'm saying? You know?
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: You can't. You can't. So, you know, because thoughts can
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: start to accumulate. Yeah.
• 47:17
  Speaker 5: An idea that, look, this isn't working. And I don't
• 47:20
  Speaker 5: think it's going to work. And I remember one time
• 47:22
  Speaker 5: that this and this and that. So this is really
• 47:24
  Speaker 5: an example of that. And that thing starts going. And
• 47:28
  Speaker 5: that thing starts going. And then, you know, now my
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: awareness is like, wait a minute, Junior lost his daughter.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: That's real.
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: And call him.
• 47:43
  Speaker 5: Just because I knew that at the point where my
• 47:48
  Speaker 5: mind starts doing that, you know, I said, hey, man,
• 47:52
  Speaker 5: call June. Or call Judy, the one who answered the phone.
• 47:56
  Speaker 5: She's still around. Call her and say, how you doing?
• 48:00
  Speaker 5: Because she's the one that worked with me at the
• 48:02
  Speaker 5: hospital and pulled me out of the sink when I
• 48:04
  Speaker 5: would fall asleep or whatever.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 48:07
  Speaker 5: And so giving is that part that I never really
• 48:11
  Speaker 5: knew had that much power.
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: But if it wasn't for.
• 48:17
  Speaker 5: Our great, great, great, great, great grandmother and grandfather, we
• 48:22
  Speaker 5: wouldn't have we wouldn't have the 100% faith we have
• 48:26
  Speaker 5: inside of us. Because they knew they wasn't going to
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: get here. But they knew for sure we were.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: We were, yeah.
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: They knew for sure we were.
• 48:36
  Speaker 5: We're probably one of the few populations of people that
• 48:40
  Speaker 5: call themselves Americans that are here on 100% faith. I mean,
• 48:47
  Speaker 5: I'm in the cotton field with my wife. And my kids,
• 48:53
  Speaker 5: because we used to work as a family. My aunts
• 48:55
  Speaker 5: would come and say, you come with me.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: To my wife. Take her in the cabin.
• 49:02
  Speaker 5: Come back an hour or two later, she straightened up
• 49:04
  Speaker 5: her clothes. And all the girls pulled her to the
• 49:06
  Speaker 5: side and said, you all right, honey? And then all
• 49:09
  Speaker 5: the guys come to me and say, don't do nothing crazy.
• 49:14
  Speaker 5: And they didn't do that for just one year. That
• 49:18
  Speaker 5: was a whole lot of faith to have. to have
• 49:21
  Speaker 5: that happening to you constantly and your kids eat out
• 49:25
  Speaker 5: of a trough a pig trough you know so our
• 49:30
  Speaker 5: existence here is based on a faith that has.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: Been proven To last.
• 49:40
  Speaker 5: Because you'll never hear us talking about, well, we're going
• 49:42
  Speaker 5: to go and start shooting stuff up.
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: Not as a group. Not as a group.
• 49:47
  Speaker 5: Because what happened on Sundays or whatever happened with us,
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: there's a black.
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: Woman somewhere that said, you ain't got to do all that.
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, God going to take care of it.
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You just go ahead and forgive them.
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: You know, go ahead and forgive them. You know?
• 50:04
  Speaker 5: I had, when I was in my darkest time, man,
• 50:06
  Speaker 5: a friend of mine's sister called me. And she said,
• 50:10
  Speaker 5: in the middle of the night, scared the hell out
• 50:14
  Speaker 5: of me. And she said, and their whole family had
• 50:17
  Speaker 5: sent me a prayer clock.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: You know? And I was just up. And the phone rang.
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: She said, Tommy, sometimes we got to just hang there
• 50:25
  Speaker 5: in pain like he did. Sometimes we got to just
• 50:29
  Speaker 5: hang in the pain.
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: You know? Because if he didn't do that, we wouldn't
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: be talking right now. You know what I mean?
• 50:39
  Speaker 5: So it's those kind of things that just gave me
• 50:41
  Speaker 5: more clarity. It don't make me no saint, no nothing.
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: Because I ain't. You know what I mean? But I
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: understand me a little bit better. I understand me. Because
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: me is the problem. You know what I mean?
• 50:57
  Speaker 8: The show is like the then versus the now, right?
• 51:01
  Speaker 8: And I'm listening to you with all this wisdom and
• 51:03
  Speaker 8: this clarity. And I'm thinking about how the shows in
• 51:06
  Speaker 8: the 90s, and like you mentioned Arsenio Hall and those
• 51:08
  Speaker 8: talk shows, they carried a different type of responsibility than
• 51:11
  Speaker 8: you see with a lot of creators and just people
• 51:13
  Speaker 8: online in writers' rooms today, right? What do you think
• 51:18
  Speaker 8: is missing from that time period that we don't have
• 51:20
  Speaker 8: today and is there a way to bridge it? Because
• 51:22
  Speaker 8: that's kind of what Ronell Hill's show would do if
• 51:25
  Speaker 8: it were a real show and could.
• 51:27
  Speaker 5: Probably these databases and stuff and.
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: Social media.
• 51:34
  Speaker 5: Now you can have your whole world in the palm
• 51:36
  Speaker 5: of your hand. You ain't got to reference nobody, really.
• 51:39
  Speaker 5: You ain't got to talk to nobody, really. There's a
• 51:41
  Speaker 5: lot of stuff that you can do in there that's
• 51:44
  Speaker 5: to do.
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: A big part of our generations, they live in there.
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying? They live in there.
• 51:52
  Speaker 5: But there's a world out here, too. I credit it
• 51:57
  Speaker 5: to that, but it ain't going nowhere. You got to
• 52:00
  Speaker 5: live with changes.
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: I'm sure when.
• 52:06
  Speaker 5: Couple guys were on a horse and they saw the car.
• 52:07
  Speaker 5: They said, man, what is that, man? It can't even
• 52:09
  Speaker 5: go up a hill. You know, now the cars are
• 52:12
  Speaker 5: named after horsepower. So we know that it's there. You
• 52:16
  Speaker 5: know what I'm saying? But so are horses. You see
• 52:20
  Speaker 5: what I'm saying?
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: So, yeah. Yeah. You know, they don't need no grocery store.
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: They don't need us.
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: But I know them damn horses was happy as hell. Like,
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: thank you. I don't know what else to ride on
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: because look.
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: Comedy, comedy, comedy.
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: Stand up comedy.
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: That's comedy.
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: Now them horses getting hunted for meat.
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: Right, right. See, that's it. Yeah.
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: They getting what?
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: Hunted for meat.
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: Oh, they're being hunted. They're being hunted. You ain't never
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: tasted horse? I don't think so.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: No, you have?
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: Is it good?
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if everybody knew how a horse tastes, they'd be gone.
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: Delicious.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: Damn.
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: Delicious. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 53:01
  Speaker 5: I did it in Sicily, man. The dude was like,
• 53:03
  Speaker 5: it's horse. I was like, no, we ain't gonna eat
• 53:04
  Speaker 5: no horse meat. He took that thing and put it
• 53:06
  Speaker 5: in a broiler, put some butter on that, man, brought
• 53:08
  Speaker 5: that out to me.
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: I was like, oh my God. I was like, horses
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: would be gone. You know what I mean?
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: I've got a couple more questions.
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: You know what I think is smart about the Varnel
• 53:18
  Speaker 4: Hill show?
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: I've heard Martin say he don't want to reboot Martin,
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: but this is like the smart way to To expand
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: that universe and to get back into that universe without
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: rebooting Martin.
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because that boy is smart, man. He is smart.
• 53:34
  Speaker 5: It's so good being attached to him at this time, too,
• 53:37
  Speaker 5: because of the choices he's made.
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: And I'm also a part of.
• 53:42
  Speaker 5: My career is credited to black men.
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: The first time I was on TV, it was Robert Townsend. Mm-hmm.
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: Second time I was on TV, it was Arsenio Hall.
• 53:56
  Speaker 4: Oh my God.
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: Third time, it was.
• 53:58
  Speaker 5: Eddie Murphy where I played his little brother in a
• 54:01
  Speaker 5: CBS series called Coming to America.
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: It didn't go, but he did that. And then Kenan
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: was the next one.
• 54:09
  Speaker 5: And I had swore off everything because I had the
• 54:12
  Speaker 5: best agents and everything and I was going to be
• 54:13
  Speaker 5: the big dude and it didn't happen. And so I
• 54:17
  Speaker 5: got a call from my agent, from Kenan Ivory Wayans,
• 54:19
  Speaker 5: who was the man that said he wanted me to
• 54:22
  Speaker 5: do a TV show. And I said, I don't want
• 54:26
  Speaker 5: to do it. Because me and my manager at the time,
• 54:28
  Speaker 5: Sinclair Jones, wherever you are, man, call me, boy. He said, nah,
• 54:35
  Speaker 5: let's go back to the clubs and rebuild what we're building.
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: Because all this was a strategic plan.
• 54:42
  Speaker 8: Mm-hmm.
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: I just hit the plan earlier than that.
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: It was, our plan was dominate and stand up.
• 54:52
  Speaker 8: Mm-hmm.
• 54:55
  Speaker 5: Do a stand-up special. Or as many as you can.
• 55:00
  Speaker 5: Then get into TV. Then get into film. Then get
• 55:04
  Speaker 5: into producing and authoring and all the other stuff you
• 55:08
  Speaker 5: want to do. You know, we had like a 20-year plan,
• 55:11
  Speaker 5: but it's been 35 years now. So I hit it
• 55:14
  Speaker 5: 15 early.
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? So, you know, I'm just grateful, man.
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: I got the call from you. I'm like, oh, man.
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do that again. Yeah, man. Yeah, you kidding me?
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: Let's do that again.
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: If the Vaughn Hill Show becomes a hit, which I
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: don't see why it wouldn't, what do you want this
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: next chapter of Tommy Davidson to be?
• 55:39
  Speaker 5: I want it to be what I've seen. Antoine Fuqua.
• 55:45
  Speaker 5: That little boy that does Michael B.
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: Jordan stuff. I want it to be what I can be.
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: Or what I am. I'm a great producer, great writer.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: I'm a great coordinator, production coordinator.
• 55:59
  Speaker 5: I can do all that stuff really, really, really good.
• 56:03
  Speaker 5: And I'm still learning, but it's going to take some time.
• 56:05
  Speaker 5: But I look forward to doing those kind of things too.
• 56:07
  Speaker 5: This was the first step. The first step was to
• 56:10
  Speaker 5: produce a television show.
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: And I did it. I didn't do it by myself,
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: but it happened.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: You did it.
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: But it happened, yeah.
• 56:19
  Speaker 5: And I never fronted on people. You know, the director
• 56:21
  Speaker 5: of that, when they called, I said, I do that movie.
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: I got to get calls from directors and stuff. And
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: they'd be like, yeah, man. And then on the set,
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: they'd be like, why you do this? I said, because
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: I'm an actor.
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: You talked about Ryan Coogler, too, when you said. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: Ryan Coogler is the guy.
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, call him a little boy. That's how I
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: say his name. It's a habit. You know, they're younger
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: than me. Yeah, I was going to say a little boy, too.
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, man.
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: I ain't never met him.
• 56:43
  Speaker 7: But on the set of The Realty, yeah, people were
• 56:45
  Speaker 7: even talking about, on the side like oh my god
• 56:48
  Speaker 7: we got Tommy Davidson why would he do this movie
• 56:50
  Speaker 7: why is he doing and you are you never showed
• 56:52
  Speaker 7: any type of ego like no I am better than
• 56:54
  Speaker 7: you guys you guys you guys everybody that came up
• 56:57
  Speaker 7: to you and asked you questions you dropped gems you
• 57:00
  Speaker 7: gave nothing but knowledge on acting and certain ways to
• 57:03
  Speaker 7: do tips I mean certain tips on how to like
• 57:06
  Speaker 7: change the pitch of your voice to make you know,
• 57:09
  Speaker 7: certain lines believable. You are just amazing. So that was
• 57:14
  Speaker 7: always great.
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: I was gay. I was, I was given what I
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: was given. Yeah.
• 57:18
  Speaker 5: Um, I don't know if y'all, y'all don't know who
• 57:20
  Speaker 5: it is. Um, um, Stoney Jackson. Y'all don't know who
• 57:23
  Speaker 5: Stoney Jackson is.
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: Stoney was a big star back in the seventies. Right.
• 57:28
  Speaker 5: And I was going up to Robert Townsend's house, you know,
• 57:31
  Speaker 5: to ask him about a commercial audition that I had.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 57:34
  Speaker 5: And, um, Stoney was up there living weights. And, um,
• 57:37
  Speaker 5: I said, what you doing, young boy? I said, I
• 57:39
  Speaker 5: came up here to see Robert. He's going to work
• 57:42
  Speaker 5: with me on this audition. I said, you did an
• 57:45
  Speaker 5: audition before?
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: Not too many. He said, all right, let me show
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: you how to audition, boy.
• 57:48
  Speaker 5: He took me in the little garage and said, I
• 57:51
  Speaker 5: usually fold the page like this and blah, blah, blah,
• 57:53
  Speaker 5: and taught me that.
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Patti LaBelle.
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: Patti LaBelle going on tour with her, I learned.
• 58:00
  Speaker 5: Every night she would go do three extra songs, four
• 58:03
  Speaker 5: extra songs, kick off her shoes, be sweating.
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: I said, I'm going to do that.
• 58:06
  Speaker 8: Mm-hmm.
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: You see what I'm saying?
• 58:09
  Speaker 5: George Lucas asked me to lunch one day. We were
• 58:12
  Speaker 5: at the Aspen Comedy Fest. And Troy Bear, an actress,
• 58:21
  Speaker 5: came to my door and said, George, I want to
• 58:23
  Speaker 5: meet you. And George sat down with me, man, and
• 58:26
  Speaker 5: just was like, this is how I did it.
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 58:29
  Speaker 5: Like this, that, that, and that. Dick Clark used to
• 58:33
  Speaker 5: call me over his office, you know, Come over here,
• 58:37
  Speaker 5: have lunch with me. He tell me all about Sam
• 58:39
  Speaker 5: Cooke and Aretha, about all the stuff.
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: Don Cornelius. When he first saw me, he said, boy,
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: you're going to be the biggest thing. I'm telling you.
• 58:47
  Speaker 5: And he revised me over the house and talked to me,
• 58:50
  Speaker 5: George Duke, same, Luther, same.
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: So it's like, what am I going to do, man? Yeah,
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: what am I going to do? What is that going
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: to do for me if I don't? Is that missing
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: from the industry now?
• 59:01
  Speaker 6: Do you do that to people? Bring them to the
• 59:03
  Speaker 6: house and have a conversation? I don't feel like we
• 59:05
  Speaker 6: hear that enough now.
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: Well, I live too far, but... I do, though.
• 59:11
  Speaker 5: I do, and that's a big part of the show.
• 59:14
  Speaker 5: A big part of the show is I get.
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: To hang out.
• 59:17
  Speaker 5: I get to hang out in the writer's room with them.
• 59:20
  Speaker 5: I get to hang out in our writers, the actors
• 59:22
  Speaker 5: who are in the writer's room. I get to hang
• 59:25
  Speaker 5: out with makeup and and electric and all of them.
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: Because I love this. I love every part of this.
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: But you always share information. Tommy, he'll text me all
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: types of stuff all the time.
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: You share information.
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: He's a consumer.
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he'd be like.
• 59:44
  Speaker 4: Don't say it like that.
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: Gobble it up. Gobble it right up.
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: No, no, no.
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: I sent him a book. I sent him a book
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: or something.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's right.
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: And next thing he called me, that was good. That's right.
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: YouTube-y.
• 59:57
  Speaker 8: I always ask him, like, how do you get through
• 59:59
  Speaker 8: all these? He be like, well, I'm reading this. And
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 8: they be like, well, I'm reading.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: Now, he's quit the God Bowl and say something's good. Like,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: that's what he does.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: Like, that was good.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: I do have a question, right?
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 6: So, when I heard you were coming, of course, I
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 6: Googled the show before they sent the trailers and the
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 6: episodes beforehand.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: I seen Jess Hilarious on there. I thought Jess Hilarious
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: was in it, but I seen the first four episodes
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: and she wasn't.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: Is she on it?
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: I watched the whole season.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: No, I'm not in it. What happened, Tommy?
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: Damn. Damn.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: Were you there? Yeah, I did.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 7: Remember when I came out to L.A. and I shot
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 7: something with you? It was like two or three scenes.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: Remember, Bentley had hit me, and I know now Evans.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: I don't remember that.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know why you don't remember that. You ain't
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: that damn old.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: It wasn't on a set?
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: It was.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: It was a set.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: We came out.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: What was the scene?
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: You had on a yellow suit. You had on the
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: same suit you were in. What was the scene? I was.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 7: Oh my gosh, I was like, one where I was
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 7: flirting with you, and then it was like three different
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 7: scenes that we shot.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: I forgot what the hell my name was, but yeah,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: I came out there. They flew me out to LA.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 7: I remember Bentley Evans, you, it was a few other people.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 7: Martin was supposed to come to the set that day.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 7: He didn't show up. And then the writer's strike happened,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 7: then they said that it was done.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: Like, all right, they brought everything to a halt. And
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: then I'm sitting.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 7: Here like weeks ago, and I hear Sharla like, yo,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 7: Bono Hill show coming back.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: I was like, shit, it is?
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 7: Ain't nobody hit me. Leo Jackson, that was the other
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 7: guy I talked to also. I think he works closely
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 7: with you or whatever. You and Martin, he works closely with.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 7: And I was like, damn, it is. And then he said, yeah.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: And so when they sent it to me, I watched
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: the whole season. I'm like, damn, this shit is funny.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: I ain't in it.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know what, though? You're resilient, though.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 5: You're resilient. When I be in Jacksonville, you know, I look, look,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 5: There go her name. Right up on the thing. Or
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 5: I go somewhere else. In Connecticut somewhere, there go her name.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 5: Hey, how many times has that happened to me? Man,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 5: Lord have mercy. I auditioned for A Different World, right?
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: And that was the hottest audition. It was right behind Cosby.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: Cosby Show, yep.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: And it was a black college. And I'm like, man, oh,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: my God. I want this.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 5: You know, I want this thing. And so it was me.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 5: It came down to me, Kadeem Hardison, and Alphonse Ribeiro.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: To play Dwayne Wayne.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: To play Dwayne Wayne, right?
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 8: Wow.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: But I tell you how it all.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 5: Really turned out. And those things are good, you know?
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 5: He was hungry, you know? So I go in and
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 5: come back out. Then Kadeem go in and come back out.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 5: And then Alphonse go in, come back out, but he left.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 5: And I'm like, oh, man.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: So he goes in. He comes back. I go in.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: He comes back. He goes in. This time they're clapping.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That's how I found out I didn't have it.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: They were hugging this motherfucker. Oh, wow. Yeah.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 5: You know what I mean? So I guess I ain't
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 5: got this. And the lady at the desk was like,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 5: I've got your parking valet.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: They want you out too.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 5: Not only are you finished with that opportunity, you finished
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 5: with the building.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: Damn. Yeah. Yeah. Here's your validation. Yeah. For your parking.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? How many times? Booty call.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: Booty call. I didn't get booty call at first.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 5: I went in, auditioned my butt off.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: And they're like, yep, thanks. You know, and I was like, okay.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: And Bill was supposed to do it. Bill Bellamy. Oh, wow, okay. Right? Yeah.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: But the deal didn't work out. So they called me back.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: And I told them, I ain't auditioning, though. And they
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: was like, well, come on. It's you and Jamie.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: That's what's up.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 7: That's how I ended up getting my first sitcom as well.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 7: I did Rel, a Fox sitcom. I was a series lead.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 7: I didn't... It wasn't originally me that got it. It
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 7: was somebody else. And then they called me back like,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 7: you know, come on. And I was like, I'll audition again.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: Fuck that, Tommy. I was like, yeah, I'll do it.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: And then, yeah, I got the part.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, of course, of course.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: And whatever's next for you. Yeah. Whatever's next for you, man,
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: is next for you. Radio's hard. Hold on. You on it.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: See something hard?
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 4: Try this.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, I know. Lord have mercy.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: This.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: No, you made it.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: You made it through to, you know. You should try it.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you made it.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 5: You know, but I didn't know what to do in college,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 5: but I knew I wanted to go to Hollywood and
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 5: be something, right?
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 5: And so I tried radio, and I interned at the
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 5: school's radio station, putting trash, giving people food, and blah, blah, blah.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 5: And at the end of the semester, they told me,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 5: You know, well, they were going to let me DJ. Well,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 5: we gave it to our frat brother. I was like, damn, man.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 5: And I had a counselor who would talk to me often.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 5: And I went to her office and she said, you
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 5: know what? You got two jobs. You got your own apartment.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 5: You know, maybe this isn't for you.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 5: I've been talking to you this whole semester. You got
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 5: something going on that I don't know about, but it's something.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: And....
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: Shortly after that, I got into comedy and went out
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: to L.A. and did all that.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 5: I was walking through the lobby probably about 25 years
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 5: later in Coconut Grove.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: And she walked through the lobby. And I saw her.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: And she walked up to me and started crying. And
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: her husband was with her.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 5: And she said, I was so scared when I told
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 5: you not to go to school because I've never, as
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 5: a counselor, I've never told a student not to go
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 5: to school, and then I saw you on TV.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: Another one. My teacher, Ms.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 5: Sandberg, y'all got me talking about everything. My teacher, Ms. Sanders,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 5: I used to be really good at pottery, naturally. Like,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 5: I could just make pottery, and it was just my thing.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 5: And I would hang all my stuff, they would hang
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 5: all my stuff in the school, but I didn't tell nobody. Yeah.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: Because every time I told my boys, they was like,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: that ain't yours, man. You know what I mean?
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 5: So I just stopped telling them, right? Well, they tried
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 5: to get me into our school. And it didn't work out.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 5: 25 years later, 30 years later, however long it was,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 5: Miss Sandberg's here at the club.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: And it was Jacksonville.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 5: And I came in the back and her kids were
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 5: grown now. And she told me, you saved my life.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 5: I said, what do you mean I saved your life?
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 5: She said, I had six brain tumors. And in the removal,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 5: I went into a coma. And I was in a
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 5: coma for like six, eight months or something. And I
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 5: heard your voice. And I woke up, and you were.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: On the TV. Oh, wow.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: One of my favorite.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah, and I said, nah, that was you. You
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: don't believe that?
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 4: No, that one, I don't believe it.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: No, true, true.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: Swear to God. I swear.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 5: My counselor followed us through junior high all the way
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 5: through high school because he knew we was nuts. Him
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 5: and her tried to get me into Parsons, which was
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 5: the top... Pottery School, and SMU, which was the top
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 5: pottery school.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 4: What show was on the TV?
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: What's that now?
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 4: What show was it?
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: It was mine. What do you mean? When she... In
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: Lemon Color?
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: Okay, okay.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so she was in a coma, and she said
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: she heard my voice, and she looked on TV. Now, okay.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: I swear, I swear, I swear.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: Hold on, hold on. Hold on, I know, I know
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 3: what's happening.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: Hold on, hold on.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: You're on your way, girl.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: But one more, one more, one more, one more. This
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: will balance the story out.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: So I told my daughter.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 5: You know, she was in college and wanting to do
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 5: this and wanting to do that. I think I'm the
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 5: dad telling her something. And I told her that story.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 5: And I told her, you know, I actually went back to...
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 5: I'm turning to Varnel. I actually went back to SMU.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 5: And I also went back to Parsons. You know, when
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 5: I went to.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: SMU, they took.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 5: There was a black girl who was part of the
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 5: black student union or whatever that took me down to
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 5: the pottery, to actually the pottery department, right?
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: And I was like, so.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 5: If you put your dreams in front of you, eventually
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 5: they will happen. And my daughter said, okay.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: That was it. That's it.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: She think you was BSing or what?
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: That's how they are, man.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 5: I could be doing something in front of the refrigerator. Yeah, man,
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 5: I could be doing something in front of the refrigerator.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 5: I think I'm doing something. They'd be like, excuse me.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 5: And get a popsicle.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: That's it. We know daddy talks.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: That's who it is.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 3: Well, I love you.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 7: I'm absolutely happy to see that.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, man. I'll tell you something else, too. I know
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: you do that Sammy Davis impression, but the talent level
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: is there.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 4: That's the same skill set.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 3: What Sammy had, you got.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: I'm not watching y'all comments, though.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: Good.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: I ain't going to look at y'all comments. My comments
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: are nice.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: The shoe.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 4: They're nice.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: I ain't looking at y'all comments.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: Don't.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 4: The comments for what? The show?
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: I never look at comments.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: On social.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 4: Do y'all look at comments?
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: Sometimes. Not like, no.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 4: Not really, but sometimes.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: Every now and then I do, yeah.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: People are mean.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: But I love what you did.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 7: Because basically everything you're saying, you're trying to tell me
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 7: and everything like that is build and they will come.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: These niggas did you lying. No.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: He said you lying.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 3: I don't believe you.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 4: What Tommy said. Everything you want will come to.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: You in 30 years.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 4: Listen, Jess, everything you want will come to you in
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 4: 30 years.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: That's the black man for you right there. You lying.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: But you got to build and they will come.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, man.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: Y'all made me famous too.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: Oh, with them niggas. Man, that thing went. Man, that
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: thing went. Everybody says that more than damn near right now.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: Who is these niggas? Who are these niggas? You know
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: what I'm saying?
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: We were talking about the draft.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: The draft, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 4: Who are these niggas?
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: And I was serious. Dead serious. Tommy, we appreciate you
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: for joining us. Tommy Davidson, The Barnell Hill Show.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 6: You can check it out today. Paramount +. If you
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 6: haven't seen it, I've seen the first three episodes.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: Hilarious.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 6: It gives you that 90s feeling back.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: Love it so much. We appreciate you, brother. Hey, man,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: you too, man. Thank you so much.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 4: It's Tommy Davidson.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: It's The Breakfast Club.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 3: Good morning.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: Hold up. Every day I wake up.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 3: Wake your ass up.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 4: The Breakfast Club.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: Y'all finished or y'all done?