A Tribute to Joan Rivers

Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. Welcome to StarTalk Radio, I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. I'm an astrophysicist and director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. This show features the comedian Joan Rivers, who sadly passed away recently. Joan was a guest on StarTalk during our first season in 2009, and we've excavated that old show to pay tribute to her today. Back in 2009, my co-host was the comedian Lynne Koplitz, and Joan Rivers was Lynne's good friend and comedic mentor. So in this first interview clip, Lynne, Joan and I hang out in Joan Rivers' New York apartment and talk about some highlights from the 1960s, her appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show and the Apollo 11 moon landing. StarTalk Radio is here in Joan Rivers' library, and I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson with Lynne Koplitz and Joan Rivers. It's my library, I should be in here. Okay, so Joan, StarTalk, as you know, we talk to anybody who's got something to say about the universe, and we know you've got stuff to say about everything, including the universe. So you realize that in space, particularly in orbit around Earth, there's like no gravity, there's like zero G, and on the moon, it's like one sixth G. And so with less gravity, things float. Do you have any thoughts about that? Do you ever thought of living in space because things float? No, what I've thought about is I know that if you go around the Earth, if you go backwards, you get younger. That was in the movie Superman. Yeah, but that's not real though, that was just Superman. Well, apparently Suzanne Somers now lives in a rocket ship. So no, I don't like any of that stuff. I don't like the outfits. So I wouldn't live in outer space. So it's all about the clothes. Yes, I'm sorry. You got the wrong person here. I agree, but I like the idea of zero gravity, Joan, because gravity is what pulls everything down. So it does give us that more uplift. That's the only reason I would even consider going in space is the idea of I don't have that drag down. So Joan, you don't need any more uplift apparently, is that the point? No, no, no, no, the point is, yeah, so you would have things up, but you still have to wear those stupid space suits. Oh, good point. They look like gay exterminators. I don't like the space suits. Good point. So even if you're floating, no one knows because you're wearing a space suit. Yes, you're wearing a stupid space suit. You can't get your toes down those big boots, the gravity boots. It is so not for me. So you want open-toed gravity boots. I will wait to go on the moon until I figure out a way you can look nice. I could totally see you doing for QVC's. It's something designer in the whole aerospace line. What do you do first? The moon pin. And it makes you look thinner. Neil was actually taken, you're going to die when I tell you this, to a diamond mine where they blindfolded him because they didn't want him to have an app on. It was a diamond factory where they're making them in a lab. Making gem quality diamonds in a lab. But they blindfolded him because they knew that he could have an application on his phone that could like track where they were going. The secret, because they're worried about De Beers, you know, coming at them because they're just making it in the lab. Oh, and coming after them and killing them. Absolutely, this is a big business. Don't screw around, where is it? He goes, it's top secret, where is it? But do you think you can make a moon rock cell instead of a diamond on QBC? You had like asteroids and moon rocks and stuff? I think people would love, but people claim they brought moon stones back, you know? I think people would love to wear that. And would you have to give it a mystical quality? This will bring you good luck or this will heal, you know? Get someone that's interested in that nonsense. You know, Joan, you had a lot of gigs in your life. In fact, one I remember, last time I saw you live was in the 1960s on the Ed Sullivan Show and following the Fifth Dimension and I came out and you signed my autograph book at the time. Do you remember that? No. But I remember the Fifth Dimension because they were adorable and I have a picture of all of us. Ed Sullivan was live and if you were on the second half, you got cut because people went longer on the first half than they were supposed to. I have a picture of the Fifth Dimension and me all looking up, watching a clock, which is hilarious because we knew if somebody was going longer now, you were going to get bumped. So I love the Fifth Dimension. I love their outfits. Yeah, that was of the day and of the moment. Yeah. So Joan, back in the 60s, that was the Apollo era and we landed on the moon then. So what was it, 1969? 1969, July 29. So do you remember? What were you doing? I was at Fire Island and I remember that we had a wonderful little house, my husband and I, and we had friends over and I remember sitting and watching, as we all did, on television watching them land on the moon. And then all those insane rumors started that they didn't land on the moon, they did it in New Jersey in a hangar. Remember all that stupidity? And it was very exciting. And I remember that China, do you remember this, came out and said, we have our own space plan and we will have, I remember this clearly, a restaurant up on the moon in 2001. China made a big announcement and Israel already made reservations. But I remember China say that, you think you're so smart, we will have a restaurant up on the moon in 25 years. And I thought, oh, just say how smart we are. Well, I have to say, but it would have no atmosphere. I got one. I said one. In this next clip, my frequent co-host, the comedian Eugene Mirman, spoke about Joan Rivers as a pioneer of standup comedy. So, Eugene, we lost another one. And, you know, she's in your field. She's one of your own species. And I just wonder how you guys, as a community, reacted and how did you react personally to this news of Joan Rivers passing? I think that people reacted or... It's funny that I wouldn't say, like, oh, in a celebration, but I mean a celebration of her life, but not of the death. Right. She's been a constant throughout comedy. She was one of the people who created standup comedy. You know, as we know it today, she's one of a handful of people that sort of helped shape an entire art form that now we think of as a very viable thing. But at the time that she began, and also as a woman, it was probably, you know, it was very rare for anyone to be a comedian, yet alone do it for a living as a job. Mm-hmm. And people always ask, did they influence you? That's too trite to ask you. But can you comment the kind of comedy she did, not all comedians resonate with that. So how would you say she influenced or did not people who just had a completely different line of comedy than what she pioneered? I mean, I think that she pioneered, you know, stand-up in general in a big way where... Regardless of what you're joking about. Yeah, exactly. So I think that when you sort of broaden an art form, you broaden it. You know, stand-up comedy used to be, you know, you'd almost have a joke book, and you would just sort of read these jokes and the stuff, and that she was one of a handful of people who was like, this is my life. And she also had just a sort of a dark, a very funny kind of sharp, dark wit. And whether her specific type of comedy is something you do or not, it still influenced an entire world or genre. And then different people, as time comes, take pieces and things from that world. Yeah, and she was also self-effacing. And I don't know how many people did that before she did. I just don't know. She was sincerely self-effacing in the sense that there were people who had a lot of jokes that would be self-effacing, you know, or they had like a schtick, you know, where they were like, I'm the guy who's always cheap or whatever. But they didn't have an earnestness the way that she did about sort of life in the world and an honesty. I think that what she, she wasn't just self, I mean, she was self-deprecating, but she did it in a really, a very relatable way where it was very human and very personal, which is, you know, something that very much started probably in the, you know, late 50s, early 60s as comedy grew. But also she was self-aware of how much plastic surgery she got and she didn't hide that fact. And I got the sense that she would be first in line to make fun of her own plastic surgery, leaving you with nothing to joke about because she was already there. Right, there was no point to tease her. I mean, what's so great is that, yeah, she both knew what she wanted, which was to have, you know, plastic surgery or whatever and also knew that it was something you could make fun of. It was very much all things at once. She would make fun of stuff she did with herself, knowing that she would also make fun of that in other people. That's the honesty I think you're talking about there. Yes, yes, exactly. Well, if you were asked to give parting words to her lowering casket, what do you think it would be? Thanks. You're more creative. Come on. Sorry, I barely had to say parting words to a casket. I mean, with a body in it, I understand. I'm more of a comic and less of a eulogizer. Do you have a way of rephrasing it for me to... Okay, so how about... Okay, so Joan is on her deathbed, and you've been called to give her one last thing to laugh about. What do you think you would tell her? She's self-effacing, and she knows she's not going to make it till tomorrow. And she said, Give me Eugene Mirman. I want to laugh at something. I don't know, probably like, be careful what elective surgery you choose. No. What? That's macabre and funny at the same time. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. I don't think there's anything I would... I think my hesitation is, I don't think there's anything I would say that would have offended her. My fear is that what I would say wouldn't be funny enough. Funny enough and she said, get out of my... Yeah, exactly. My hesitation is not like, I don't know what to say that like really explains what she did for both like our culture and for comedy. It's that I'm like, I don't know that I have a good enough joke that would be worthwhile of her, you know, honor to like be self-deprecating or funny enough. That's my fear. So I remember in the day, I mean, I'm old enough, a little older than you, when a comedian came out to do standup on The Tonight Show, everyone gathered around, because when else would you see a standup comedian? I don't know back then if there were comedy clubs. Were there back in the... No, there were probably like two or three, yeah. When she was doing comedy, it was being invented as a thing. As an art form. Yeah, there were clubs. So is today anything as singular to the new comedian as a shot on The Tonight Show was back in the 1960s? There's basically nothing. Meaning in the 1960s, if you got on The Tonight Show, you became famous. And you often spent years, you know, I think she was 33 when she first did it. You spent years getting to that moment. Now there's hundreds of internet things and all this different stuff. So there's nothing that can make you overnight, really, in any... as it could before. But there are more comics than ever before. Yes. And so that's a good thing. Even if the field is crowded, there's more total comedic entertainment out there for all of us. Yeah, it's crowded but full of a lot of people. And we even borrow some for StarTalk every now and then. And now also, the difference now is you can also make yourself famous through a lot of channels that you didn't have in the 1960s. I think of it as kind of an advantage, but it is too bad that occasionally no one can become famous overnight. All right, Eugene, thanks. We'll see you in the studio. You have a dedication. Can I read it? It says to Edgar, your husband. Yeah, I had to do that. Who made this book happen. Who made this book happen. And to Johnny Carson, who made it all happen. Well, that's very sweet of you. I can only take credit for putting on the show, but I did say one thing that night, which I have seldom said on this show over the years. You finished your routine, and you were devastating, and the audience was just falling apart, and you walked over and sat down, and I said, you know, you're going to be a big star. I remember. And that's something you don't say, because it always sounds like, you know, you're just... And I looked behind me. I couldn't believe you were talking to me. And here you are. And Mill Kamen was on the show with us that time. And I was playing those terrible... I mean, I was playing with awful shows. You were opening for... Everybody. You were playing little coffee houses, places in the village. I was playing with them, going to the act. I was opening for Juanita and her amazing vibrator. Nevertheless, a fine act. I was so... Juanita didn't skyrocket, did you know? Shorted out one night and the career was over. And looked like John King. Do you remember, do you have fond memories of the early times in the career? I do now. Yeah. Looking back. You know what I mean? We were all down the village together. Bill Cosby was there and Richard Pryor was there and Barbara Streisand was all in the book. And we were all stumbling all over each other. And that was exciting then. But am I glad it's over with. I mean, you know, you can eat ketchup soup for a little bit. I had no boobs at that time. You mean these have changed since 65? I mean, I know the dresses. Has there been new additions to your person? Well, what I did, I put in what I had in in 65. There's a lot of rubber in me tonight. See, I had some boobs. I had so much rubber in me, they erased what I had. Except, you know something, with age comes wisdom. You don't need big boobs to be feminine. Look at Liberace. Welcome back to StarTalk, I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. This is our tribute show to the comedian Joan Rivers. In this next clip, I talk with Joan and my comedian co-host, Lynne Koplitz, all about astronauts, space travel and exploration. You know, astronauts have been criticized in the past for not being articulate in expressing what they felt, because they were just getting the job done, go to the moon and come back. Do you think we would be better off to send a comedian as one of the astronauts, or maybe the first one to land on the moon if he was a comedian? I'm just wondering. Who cares? I really couldn't care if Shecky Green landed on the moon. But you know what, here's my question. Wait, wait, wait, Dane Cook, they should send him because he's not funny. When Neil Armstrong landed, you know, he had this pertinent statement that he made. First words from the moon. Small step for, what is it? One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. Now, how do you think that would be different if a comedian was there? He'd say, boom, boom, boom. Knock, knock, who's there? Me, on the moon. Why did the asteroid cross the moon? I get aggravated all the time, Joan, because you always hear about men in space, but we don't hear a lot about women in space. And Neil and I were talking about this and women's issues. Like, I think I would be interested in knowing about how a woman shaves her legs. I would like to know what a woman does seriously. I might make a joke about a period in space. What do you do? That's why I think there's so few astronauts, ladies, that they send up. Remember that idiot that drove wearing a diaper? Of course. Now, you think she's an idiot because I say she's a genius. Everyone called her crazy. And I was like, only an astronaut comes up with the clever idea of going from Texas to Florida and wearing a diaper, so she just saved time. I know, but forgot. Would you want to sit next to her in the car? I mean, remember that she went to kill her boyfriend or the astronaut's wife? Only an astronaut would think that. But I've always thought of my body as kind of the last frontier. And my G-spot is a place that no man has dared to go. So. And if he does, he may not come back. He'll get sucked into some sort of black hole. Is that what you're telling? So there's some concern, because in the long voyages to Mars, people have to live in close quarters for a long time and they have to be really friendly with each other. And I find that really, you better make them very ugly lady astronauts. You don't put a good looking, hot little astronaut in there with other men. You put in like a big lumpy astronaut. I don't know if you know this, there is a NASA sex tape out there, because they wanted to see if they could have sex in space and they actually taped it. And I was saying that- I've never seen it, I haven't seen it. And I said that I thought the favorable position would be doggy style. It would have to be. You have to hold on to something. You gotta brush up on your laws of physics if you're gonna do sex in space. You understand, of course, that this is what you're gonna put on this viral video. Now I feel like Joan Rivers is actually gonna go in space. I mean, you're gonna leave here and call Melissa. I've got a plan for going in space next week. Okay, so just to recap, we put bad comedians on the moon. We put ugly women astronauts- In the space station. In the space station. And I think we make sure we regulate their cycle and make sure that they're not PMS when they're up there, because we don't need someone having some sort of space craze. I wonder when they do set up the women astronauts, they have to take that into consideration. To cycle, well, I mean the launch date. Or do you when you're in space not have your period the way ballerinas don't? I don't know. That's interesting. Well, ballerinas don't because they're basically dysmenoreic, right? Ballerinas are also busy working and working out. A lot of women athletes don't have their period. I wonder if astronauts do it. See, that's the kind of things people would love to know. But no, they tell us the stupid thing. Well, no, there's other stuff they don't tell you. They don't tell you every time an astronaut throws up. They don't tell you that. They do throw up all the time and they're in that little helmet. And it floats in the air and they have to vacuum it up. And that's why they would take a woman in space. Now we did another show Joan on commercial space travel. Do you think you would spend $200,000 to have a seat and fly on Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic to space? Only if there was a first class section. There isn't. JoJo, right now there's no flight attendant or meal included. Then you can sit next to anyone. Nope, nope, nope. You might not even have a bathroom because it's just a flight up and then back. You're just like, it's a suborbital and you come back. No, I definitely like first class. I like my own bathroom. I want to be given earplugs. I want to be given, no, I would not go. Why don't you be angry if you didn't get a window seat? That was my whole thing. For 200 grams? For 200 grams, I want a thing that you can sleep on. Sleeper seat. And definitely a flight attendant. For 200 grand, rubbing your feet. A flight attendant? I want three gay men lined up. An occasion massaging her. No, no, my cousin married a woman who was at Harvard who worked on making spaceships edible. Because if anybody got, worked on this the day she died, in a program at Harvard, because if they went up and they got stuck in space, it would take them like eight or 10 years to get somebody else up there to bring them back. So she would say, how are you, Shirley? And she'd say, we made the most delicious split pea desk. That's nasty. It's true, it's really true, really. It makes sense though, when you think about it, because- They'd say, if they're stuck up there and they say, Lynne, we can't, we're starting right now, Lynne, to figure out how to get you down, we'll be up there in 2014. What are you gonna do? You're gonna start eating your spaceship. That's what I was gonna say is, first of all, I would lose weight before I went up, because I would not want people looking at me with a bottle of A1 going, oh, she's got the big booty. We start with her. Have you ever performed for scientists or anybody at NASA? Or just a geeky crowd? Yes, as a matter of fact, I was hired to do a Trekkie convention and do my act, but it was in Miami, so they were mainly Shekkies, not Trekkies. Isn't that like a Jewish Trekkie? A Shekkie is a Jewish Trekkie. I've been around you long enough now, I knew exactly what you were, I saw the look on Neil's face, like, what's a Shekkie, because Neil is genius level, so he immediately wants to know why he doesn't know. I didn't want to embarrass myself by wondering what a Shekkie was. See, finally, you feel like I normally feel. So how did that go? It went very well, they were adorable. Remember, anyone who's interested in space is smart, we know that. They're interested in something outside of the shell of people like me, who all I care about is decorating my apartment, that's the only space I am interested in. But you know what? That's what I always tell Neil, that I'm like Saturn, that everything revolves around me. Oh, Saturn has a lot of moons, so Saturn is its own little solar system, actually. Now let me ask you, was Saturn the one that got hit? Oh, Jupiter got hit. Jupiter got hit, God, that really upset me. Jupiter got slammed by a comet, and Jupiter has the biggest gravity in the solar system, so it was kind of asking for it. But it's a shot across our bow, because we've got these things that could hit Earth. Yes. And we always wonder, if you know we're going to get hit tomorrow, and that's the end of civilization, what would you do today? Eat Italian food. That's it? No. No men, no sex, no nothing. If I knew tomorrow we were going to be killed and demolished, I would go in and eat fettuccine. That would be it for me. So not even men? Men are not doing it for you anymore, huh? Oh no, men are doing it for me, but fettuccine does it more. I would have fettuccine, and I'd probably have French fried onion rings. Joan, we can get that right now, and you can scratch that off your bucket list. Yeah, but then you get fat, I would like to know. You'd be fattened dead and it wouldn't matter. I would like to know a week before it happened. I wouldn't even tell anybody. I would just go in and start eating. I like that, but I would do that now. So for me, if I knew I only had a week, I think I would start open-handed slapping people. Wouldn't that be great? Just open-handed slapping in the middle of the drugstore. The minute the girl's like, we don't have those batteries, smack. I was at dinner the other night with a friend and he's a very elegant gentleman, very English, very distinguished, and he said to me, look around this restaurant, there are at least 10 faces here I'd like to slap. So that's why we need the comments, so that people that deserve getting slapped, they get slapped. It's a good idea to slap people. You get out of the taxi cab, I need a tip. Really come closer, smack. Okay, to my knowledge, no comedian other than myself, but I was probably drunk, has ever seen a UFO? Have you ever seen a UFO? No, but I have a friend who is doing a documentary on us, and she has interviewed so many really smart people who will not give out their names because they feel it will really hurt them by saying they have seen it. I have not seen it. A friend of mine in Connecticut saw them, she and the husband saw it in their car together. But I don't know, I never had anyone from Harvard or Yale ever come up and say, I've seen a UFO. It's always like two idiots with no teeth. I was skinning a rabbit and there it was. Or they use it as some sort of excuse for something. I'm sorry I didn't come home. I was abducted by aliens and probed. But I also had another friend who's very smart. He does Alf, you remember Alf? The funny little comedy. The show, the TV show. The TV show and the character. And he writes Alf and he swears he was in his house at Malibu and he opened up his eyes and there was this thing hovering right outside his window. And then woke his wife up, showed it to her and then again it went away. So I know two people that I respected have seen them. And then a lot of people that I asked is that I don't respect that I've seen them. But none of them are dragged in like an alien carcass in front of you to look at. No, but my cousin Sheila claims they abducted her from a Starbucks and they took her towards, I think it was Venus, and they let her go because she kept saying, are we there yet? Are we there yet? They brought her back. I was gonna say when your friend saw the craft hovering outside the window was Anne Hesch in it. Is there anything odd that happens? It always seems like Anne Hesch is involved. Now, we have done a show recently, Joan, on aliens and search for life on other planets. And in the movie Men in Black, Dennis Rodman, who's your friend, right? My very good friend. Is actually an alien in Men in Black. And in real life. Well, that's my question, I want to know what other celebrities you think might be aliens. Oh. Tom Cruise, for sure. Tom Cruise, but they believe in all that. Oh, Angelina Jolie with those stupid lips. Those are not human lips. Yeah, you're right. She has a velociraptor kind of feel about it. There are many celebrities. I think John Travolta because he's either the Antichrist to me or an alien because I don't think your career could go from Vinny Barbarino to Oscar winner without having some sort of. Some kind of help. Yeah, you've got some sort of pact with somebody. Oh, there's a pact with the devil, you can see that in his eyes. And he has pointy ears. He does now. Do you think that there is life in outer space as we know life? Excellent question and if you look at how big the universe is and how common the chemistry is of life, we're made of ingredients that you find everywhere in the universe, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen. It's the most common ingredients in the universe and the universe is vast and it's been around a long time. It would be inexcusably egocentric to suggest that life on earth is alone in the cosmos. But we keep thinking the search is for intelligent life. What we might find is like pond scum. Like at this point, we're dumbing it down. We just want to find anything. That's an interesting point. If we find life out there, it could be smarter than us. Or dumber, right? Do you have a feeling about that? If they're smarter than us, are you worried they might treat us the way we treat them, that would make us pets? So who should fear whom? Should we fear aliens coming to us or should they fear us if we visit them? No, I think we should be terrified if they're coming to us. Terrified. I don't want to know about it. I don't have to make friends with them. I don't want to wear a dog collar. I'm not interested in them saying she used to be a funny person on Earth. You can end up a pet in someone's house. I could be a rescue pet, but I always wonder, the whole universe, it's suddenly so incomprehensible, at least to me, because where does it stop? Where do you fall off? If it goes on forever, are there other planets that we could eventually connect with? Other solar systems. Well, now does this scare you? In the movie Contact, the radio waves that we send out, they go out to space, and if we are to reach other life forms, it will probably be through radio waves. Radio waves that we've inadvertently already sent out, the early TV shows. Like our mammograms are out there. Your boobs, Joan, could actually bring aliens here. So you mean any kind of radio wave? Jack Benny's old shows are out there? And Hitler, the Hitler speeches, that's why in Contact, the Hitler things. Everything from I Love Lucy to Hitler, the aliens are going to think of us as we love a quirky redhead or a... Yeah, the old Jackie Gleason, those are our emissaries because that's moving away at the speed of light and aliens will first see that about us before they know anything else. I think that's fabulous. That means I can see my original Carson shot again. Yeah, they'll be looking at it. Right back to me. You know, always bring everything back to yourself. That's good for me. That's how your marriage is going? No, it's not too good. I don't get along too well with his friends. Really? Problem with his friends? Well, I don't fit in. Like, he's a producer, you know, and all his friends are like these very beautiful wives, you know, like these tall, sexy, you know, like the legs never stop, you know, the women like the legs go like. Like I can't even spell it, you know. But nobody cares they're dumb, but me. Like the husbands don't care. Yeah, my mother, she, like she brought me up, my mother gave me philosophies, you know, as a kid during puberty, and she would say to me like, looks don't count. You know, when a man goes out, he takes that little mispainted face, right? When it comes to marriage, he's looking for other things. When it comes to marriage, a man wants a woman that'll cook for him and sew for him. A man is looking for the mother of his children, right? Right. But when it comes to marriage, a man doesn't want to come home after a hard day at the office and find some wild-looking, sexy wife lying on her carpet saying, hiya, tiger. In this next clip, I spoke with another frequent StarTalk co-host, the comedian Chuck Nice, where he reminisces about Joan Rivers' particular comedic style. So Chuck, thanks for doing this. You know, I wish it was on Happier Times. You're in the same world as she is, right? Professional comedians. How did that hit your people? I'm more like orbiting her world. You know, it's like her world, and then I'm like a moon around her world. Love the astro reference there. Very good. So being my co-host has rubbed off a little on you. But Joan affected everybody. If you're a comedian, she had an influence on you, whether you know it or not. She is one of the funniest comedians of all time, not just funniest female comedian, but one of the funniest comedians of all time. You never thought she was going to die because she was so full of PNV, if you want to say that. PNV? Vim and vigor. The PNV is another way of saying vim and vigor. Okay, I don't know what the, I'll stick with the VNV. All right, go on. Yeah, but the thing that she did constantly is that she didn't care how you felt about the joke. It's a joke and she's going for the joke and that's it. And you always have people who are like, well, that's just wrong and I can't believe you would say something like that. We all know the answer to that is it's a joke. It's a joke, okay? No, I don't believe babies are delicious. I don't really believe that. It's a joke. So, I think that's the greatest thing that she had, which was, you know what? I don't give a damn what you think. I'm going for this joke. It may seem inappropriate, but you have to be able to divine that it is indeed a joke and I'm not a horrible person who believes that, you know, serial killers sometimes do a service to society. So, I was privileged enough to interview her. She was in our first season of StarTalk. I think that's even before we linked up with you a couple of years later. And so I was in her apartment on the Upper East Side and there against the wall were these file cards. You know, can you imagine like a library, what they used to look like, these three by five card drawers? I'm quite familiar with the Dewey Decimal System. And so it was a whole wall of these. I say, what are those? They're jokes. You pull out, it's a joke. Yeah. Pull out another card, it's another. And it's like, then you realize she's not just somebody who happens to be funny. She's actually thought this stuff through and it's her life. Yeah. And you know, when you tell that story, I'm ashamed to be a comedian. You know, I have a bunch of notebooks sitting around with stuff scribbled in them, haphazardly, you know, unfinished thoughts that I occasionally go back to and that's my method. That's how I work. And her method was the right way to work. Well, Joan certainly would have loved that we were just having fun in her name. You know, that's the great thing about her too, is that she planned out her funeral arrangements and she said she wanted it to be very Hollywood and she didn't want a bunch of people sitting around in a macabre traditional setting where everyone was lamenting the loss and mourning. She wanted people to be laughing and you know, it actually came off that way and Howard Stern did her eulogy and opened up with a line about how dry her vagina was because that's something that she talked about on his show and she wanted it that way. So, I mean, true to the end and even beyond, Joan Rivers always about the funny and that's a cool thing. Welcome back to StarTalk. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. This is the final part of our tribute to the comedian Joan Rivers. I spoke recently with another comedian who often co-hosts StarTalk, Leighann Lord, about the influence Joan Rivers had on her career. So Leighann, on StarTalk, I'm privileged to work with professional comedians, and then Joan died, and I thought, I have direct access, degrees of separation to Joan, and I'm just wondering, how did it affect you, and was she to you? What does all that mean in your profession? Well, it feels like it's been a very painful year, comedically, in terms of who we've lost. It was right behind Robin Williams, and it was almost like, oh no, we're not ready. But you're never ready to lose an icon, and I think one of the things that people kept saying was that she's an icon, she's always there, so the longer you have someone, it's almost like your parents, the longer they're there, the longer you think you're going to have them. You start thinking, well, maybe she's a vampire, maybe she's immortal, maybe she's worked something out. Wasn't just the surgery on her face. Wasn't just the surgery, you know, there was actually maybe a portrait of her in her attic that we didn't want to look at. Very literary reference there, the portrait of Dorian Gray. Yes, English major, gotta throw it out there. Throw it out there, okay, it'll stick somewhere. Yeah, so as an icon, that would be to all of us, but to you specifically growing up as a comedian and coming onto the scene, did you reference her in your mind, in your heart, in your soul? To be honest, I think I was a little bit removed from Joan Rivers. I think I was more influenced by the people that she influenced, if that makes sense. Yeah, that works. So I was a big fan of Elaine Boozler and Rita Rudner. They would have been the more direct line to Joan Rivers. These are female comics who had a certain irreverence about them. Oh, absolutely. I mean, they were, you know, for... It wasn't just the one liner. It was an entire disrespect for them. Exactly. I mean, for Elaine Boozler. Yeah, for Elaine Boozler, she completely spoke her mind and looked incredibly gorgeous on stage. I mean, I remember her special. She's dressed in a sequined mini dress in pumps and running around on stage very energetically. Rita Rudner did her show in ball gowns. I mean, you can sort of trace that back to Joan, who always got on stage looking fabulous. You know, she looked fabulous. And then just, she opened her mouth and all was fair game. You know, she was honest. And while I'm not a huge fan of humor that's like that such an attack style. Right, yeah, it's not my style at all, but wow, was she ever honest. And did not hesitate to point that at herself, which you have to respect that. Again, I say the word icon, I say the word pioneer. She wasn't just a standup. She did so many things as a writer and an actress and a director. It's like, wow, you know, there's the blueprint, boys and girls. You want to be inspired. If I remember correctly, a few years ago, she was roasted on Comedy Central. And she'd be like the ideal roast candidate, because you know, in the old days, she was there with Johnny Carson and, how many decades has this been? Did we veer into math? I don't know. Why'd you tell you there'd be math on the show this time? Yeah, no, I've been deceived. But you know, it's funny you should mention the roasts. I actually am one of those odd comics. I don't like roasts. I think they're too mean. I don't watch them. But I heard an interview that she had done and she talked about the roast and she knew what was coming. She knew it was gonna be mean and she knew exactly what they were gonna go after. And her philosophy was, if you can't take it, you don't dish it. So she knew what was coming and her best defense was to be prepared. And she said, I know what they're gonna say and I'm gonna get them at their own game. Plus no one made more fun of her own plastic surgery than herself. Exactly. So if she's doing it to herself, what's your angle on that, right? Which is almost kinda how many of us get started as kids in school getting picked on. It's like, you know what? I'm gonna make more fun of me than you can and make you laugh and then people stop sort of making fun of you. So it goes back to that base there. So she, in her own words, owned her own roast, which, you know, if you're gonna be roasted, that's the way to do it. That's the way to do it. When we interviewed her, we were in her apartment on it. We did it in her library. How? It's like a Venetian- Her library? Venetian palace. It was gorgeous. And there's this entire wall of sort of card catalogs, like what you used to see in libraries, where you pull out the three- No, I'm unfamiliar. I've been born and raised in the digital age, Neil. You were lying. So you pull out the card cow, and each one was a joke of a different, an entire wall. She was one of those. And then you realize this is not just some woman who happens to be funny walking down the street. There's an entire comedic culture and industry that she created. And I'm just wondering, is that a lost generation of comedians? Is it? No, no, I don't think so. I think everyone has a different work ethic. You know, there are comics that, well, one of my favorite books was written by Franklin Ajai. I love his book because it interviews all these famous comics and it talks about their process. And you could go from someone like Sinbad, who at the time says he wrote nothing down, to George Carlin, who wrote everything down. So I think it really just depends on who you are and your work ethic and how you do things. I'm one of those comics, I like that method, that Joan is doing. I've taken mine digital. It's completely on my computer. I, of course, print it out from time to time, because you don't always want to look at the screen. So I think I fit in that Joan Rivers school of making sure everything is cataloged. The only difference is I'm doing it digitally. So if you were at a funeral, and I didn't get to see the funeral, but there was a lineup of people, what would you say to make everyone think and laugh and just add it all in the same moment? Joan, we love you, we're gonna miss you, thank you. And which jokes of yours can I use now? What's up for grabs? What's up for sale? What can I say and just put a footnote on Wawa Monstey? You know what I would ask? I'd ask, did she leave permission to have scientists open her casket once every 10 years to see if anything has changed? No, that's a joke she would have given. She would love that. She would totally have done that. I mean, she was 81 and still at it. That's why I thought she was gonna live forever as she had kind of morphed into a cyborg. You know, she was gonna continue. Well, Leighann, thank you for these reflective comments. And we'll all miss Joan and we'll miss her as one of their first guests on StarTalk, but I feel privileged to have you and other professional comedians carrying her legacy, just trying to make people laugh. You know, if I could be half the comic and have half the career that she made for herself, I too would have a library. In this final clip, my comedian co-host back in 2009, Lynne Koplitz and I spoke with Joan Rivers about her interest in science and her hopes for the future. Have you ever chased a man who had a slide rule or calculate, I mean, any- I like a very smart man. So I think math is a very sexy thing on a man. I think it is on a woman too, because it's not to be expected. I mean, Pamela Anderson now, that she knows she has two breasts, everyone is so impressed. If you could pick two, you prefer smart or wealthy or good looking. Wealthy and more wealthy. Wealthy with a bad cough. I want an old man with a bad cough, an orphan and a nurse. That tells you he's going. No living relatives. Older the better, and maybe we could just shoot him off into space. Joan, I saw a pillow here that said something about a man in five minutes or something. What was that pillow? A person can earn more money in five minutes by marriage than they can earn in a lifetime or something, it says. But it could be a man or a woman, if they're smart. But I do like the idea of getting an old man with a cough and no relatives and then giving him as a gift, like the way, remember when Sharon Stone gave her husband the kimono dragon visit and then it bit him? I like the idea of like, I'm giving you, you're gonna be on the intergalactic Virgin, the Virgin Galactic first commercial space flight. Good luck. Didn't Martha Stewart was dating this very wealthy man who paid to go into space? Yeah, Charles Simone plunked down 20 million to go into space. And did he go? Yes, he did. And he came back. He came back. Good for him. You're just worried that she was trying to get rid of him, that's what you're saying. Oh, I think, you know, honey, I love you, but I'm off to Mars. I mean, look, if you got the money, do what you want. So did you take science in college, like math and physics? I loved biology. I was very good in biology. I was very good in geometry. I was a terrific geometry student because it's very logical and I like the logic of it. So you're liking smart men. So a man with a pocket protector, that's not like birth control for you. No, it is for me. I like them cute and dumb. I like them very smart. I like them smart. At this age, I just like them alive. If they have a pulse, you say, he's hot. You're very smart. You majored in geometry? Did you use geometry? I've never used geometry. I just loved it because I love things that make sense and you can control. And geometry is a very controllable science. Well, okay, so is humor and comedy, right? Comedy is not controllable because you could think something is very funny and nobody else does. You don't control an audience. You can never control an audience. But geometry, yes, you can control this to that equals this. It's controllable and that's it. And you can't change it and I can't change it. And that's it. Comedy, you have some idiot in the front row that can ruin your whole show. So there's nothing to do with it. Neil's always asking me if there's a formula to joke writing. And my type of joke writing, there's no formula. I'm just kinda, I don't work that hard. You can't, there's no formula. No, I don't think so either. And the strangest things they think are funny. You know, you write and work on something you think is hilarious and it isn't. And then you'll say, and they'll go, and you go, that's funny, okay, that stays in the act. I always have them laugh at the setup. Like I'll set up a joke and they'll laugh and laugh and I'm like, really? I haven't even gotten there yet. I don't understand why we're laughing. Okay, so we conclude that comedy is not geometry. It's not geometry. It is not a science. There is no such thing as a science of comedy. And people that try to teach it, I feel, are so cruel. So if anyone is listening out there, if you've got any kind of a logical mind, don't take a course in comedy. I took one. And just while we were on the subject of geometry, I'm obliged to say that geometry means earth measurement. Geometry, earth measurement from ancient Greece when they first used math to measure the earth. I can't. It's very interesting. Isn't it great? And by the way, did I tell you that Neil can sometimes cure any kind of insomnia you might have? It's my duty to share you that with you. Neil makes fun of me a lot on our show. I do not. Yes, you do. He makes fun of me because there are certain things that he thinks that should be tense and knowledge for everybody. That's true. I don't know. For example, I could not at first name all seven planets, so we thought it would be fun to see if you could. There's eight planets. Okay, whatever. All right, I'm sure I'm on Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars. Now I'm getting. You're good so far. That's four for four. Uranus. Saturn, Pluto, Pluto got demoted, but we'll give you one. Oh, don't do that. Pluto had a comment. Pluto had a comment. No, Pluto is a planet. It had a comment. It was toward that ethical culture school and it's staying a fucking planet. You're sticking with it. It's a planet. Pluto and then who's on, then out here is Jupiter. Yeah, you got Jupiter and did you say Saturn yet? Did she say Saturn? I said Saturn before. I think you got them all. That's because of my grandson that we made, we've also made a thing that goes around a mobile. You're hooking him up. He's gonna be a next astrophysicist. Well, kids love that and they should know where we are in the universe and they should know about Earth and they should know about how we're ruining our planet. I think it's all very important to make them aware. No, we did a whole show on telescopes. That was in fact our opening show. Yeah, because it was the anniversary of Galileo, you know, 400th anniversary of Galileo on his telescope. I dated him. The telescope was, he had a very small, you know what, and so he made this small. It was small. It was an extension. You know how men- The bigger the telescope, the smaller the- Yes. So did you ever own a telescope? Yes. I have a country house and I have views of the mountains and I love to look at them. I own a telescope. Also, again, it's a great decorating prop. You love to look at the sky or you love the mountains, not the other neighbors? No, no, I like to look at the mountains in the fall because it's pretty. I don't care what they- No, but I think it's wonderful. I love the heavens. I think they're very beautiful. I can't even find the stupid Milky Way though. I'm not very good. Well, not from New York. You're not going to find the Milky Way. You got to be like in the boonies for that. I feel better. Because I can't find the North Star. I was stuck in a boat. I'd be screwed. Oh, yeah. Yes. So have you ever been to the Hayden Planetarium in your whole life? Of course. I'm a New York child. I've been there as a child. I've been there as a mother, and now I go there as a grandmother. And it's wonderful. My grandson loves it. My grandson's in that magical age where everything is wonderful. We did a whole astrological chart up on his ceiling. The like sticky stars on the sun. Yeah, and he loves that. He's very impressed. And you know, they have a night at the planetarium where you can spend the night at the museum actually. It's called night at the museum. You spend the night in the well room. It's great. And you tour the exhibits with flashlight at night. It's a little bit like a homeless village. They all stay. And they sleep? Do they sleep there? They sleep in the Hall of Ocean Light. Terrible. That's part of the mystery of it because you're a little kid and you get private tours of dinosaurs at night with flashlights. That's so exciting. I'm going to do that. That's a brilliant idea. Have you been disappointed by anything science has promised you? Yes. I'm very disappointed because I can't work with my Tivo. But you have the Tivo though. But scientists have promised us stuff. Voice commands never work. They never work. They do not work. Voice commands do not work. A great diet pill, a cure for cancer, all these cures that we have spent millions and millions. Of dollars on, and they never work, and they never work. We should all be grateful for the Tivo. We should all be grateful for the Tivo. We should all be grateful for the Tivo. We should all be grateful for the Tivo. We should all be grateful for the Tivo. They'd have a cocktail slide by with us. You have to still smash your breast between two cold boards. Like that just seems very strange to me. Yeah, but I like it. Neil has referred to me on our show as a Luddite. Now, at first, I was very angry because I didn't know what Luddite meant, and I thought it had something to do with the big butt. But apparently, it's a person who's frightened of technology. So I wanted to know how tech savvy you are, Ms. Joan. I am very upset. I have now that Skype thing so I can talk to my grandson and see him. And it kills me because now I say to myself, does my computer make me look fat? I mean, it's ruined my life. I like the old days. I don't like that they can reach me on my BlackBerry, that you are totally reachable around the universe. I find that awful. You need your own time. I need my own time. I hate when people say, well, I emailed you. Yeah. Joan, we're sitting in your library. There's not a single trace of technology in the entire library. It's a very classical library. Yes. It's very, behind one of these bookshelves is a TV screen. Is that what those fake books are on the show? The sawed-off books on the side? That's the saw. He noticed it right away. So, Joan, my last question. What do you want to live long enough to see, technologically or scientifically? That Bernie Madoff gets out of jail, calls me up and tells me where the 62 billion dollars are. Bernie and I spend it all. I would like to see the planet cleaned up. We're being very serious for a second. I shouldn't be. But I think it's a disgrace what we are doing to our atmosphere, it's a disgrace what we are doing to our planet. And I think we better clean ourselves up. Well, you know, Venus already has a greenhouse effect. It's 900 degrees Fahrenheit on Venus. It could melt lead on Venus. So we already have an example of a planet gone bad. So your deep concern about the Earth is very well taken. I want you to tell me why, if we could have saved the Universe, why did all these hybrid cars come into fashion very quickly three years ago and gone out of fashion? Yeah, there's not many of them now that I've seen. Yeah, they came and went. You know why? Because I'm telling you, it's because they're not sexy, because enough celebrities aren't using them. I'll tell you something. They're ugly. They're ugly. I can convince people. Who cares that it's an ugly car? You are saving the planet. It is the same thing, again, and I'm getting off this, that I read in some, I don't know, Time magazine, if we all painted our roofs white, we would deflect so much heat off the planet. If we all painted our roofs white, then make a rule, every roof has to be white. That's all. Then nobody can say, my house isn't pretty with a white roof. If everybody's roof is white, that's it. And you've saved the planet, you idiots. Plus, you have cheaper cooling bills in the summer. Yes. In some countries, you actually get a tax write-off for beautifying your home. If you beautify your property, you can actually write that off your taxes. Then who comes and judges that it's beautiful? I do. No, like lawn care and maintenance and stuff is a percentage of that, is a tax write-off. Why not make those things tax incentives, paint your roof white and drive a hybrid car, you get a tax... Why don't you use the same drivers to make that happen? And also, I'd like to live until they can tell me nothing is going to fly in from outer space and destroy us. That is very scary when they say, a meteorite may come down and may kill you. And that's terrible. It just makes me want to charge up more on my Amex card. I have the same way. Can you tell me exactly when it's going to hit? Wait, wait. Actually, so it's not the day we'll tell you it'll never hit. It's the day we tell you that if it's headed towards us, we can do something about it. Yes, yes. I just want to know. Science, I think, wastes so much time on stupid things. And I think we should clean up the universe, clean up the space. And don't worry about going out into space. They'll come and find us. So, Joan, any parting thoughts for the StarTalk audience? Just that I think how wonderful it would be if there were something out there and if they were all single and Jewish. Joan Rivers, I got to hug you, Joan. Oh my gosh. Thanks, Joan, for doing this interview for StarTalk Radio. You've been listening to StarTalk Radio, brought to you in part by a grant from the Sloan Foundation. This is Neil deGrasse Tyson compelling you. Until next time to keep looking up.