Name: How Craig Ferguson got on The Drew Carey Show!
Uploaded: 2025-05-17T14:01:01.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'How Craig Ferguson got on The Drew Carey Show!' from Are You Garbage Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-05-17. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'How Craig Ferguson got on The Drew Carey Show!' from Are You Garbage Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-05-17. Transcript available.

How far removed are we from the Drew Carey show?
We're pretty close now.
I mean, what happened was that I do this show, and it's not working.
And, you know, back then when the shows weren't working,
they would try other things.
Like, they'd add people into it.
So they kind of—
They did do that.
Yeah.
Make him an alien.
Put a baby in.
That's right.
So they added a hot, young stand-up comic to the cast of maybe this time.
A young gentleman called Dane Cook.
No kidding.
Yeah, Dane was just starting out.
So Dane comes in, and he was as sweet as anything and funny as fuck.
I mean, he was great.
And he came in, and he started—
He was getting all the shit that I was getting.
I was like, fucking writing's on the wall for me.
So I didn't know you couldn't do this, so I quit.
I quit a sitcom, which was, like, crazy.
It was like Disney TV.
And there was a guy called Dean Valentine, who was the head of—
And he was, like, meant to be really super scary and stuff like that.
And I said to him, I want to quit.
This is not working for me.
This show's not going to work for me.
That's insane to do it that time.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it was nuts.
And he said, okay.
And he let me quit, which he didn't have to do.
He could have kept me there.
And what happened was that I had to look for another job.
I've told this story before, but I'll tell it quickly for you.
So I get this audition.
I'm going on auditions, and my buddy from Scotland is there, a guy, my oldest
friend.
And we're just kind of tooling around, and I get this call to go for an
audition.
So I said, send me the sides.
They used to send you, like, little bits of paper with your lines on it.
So he sent me the sides.
And it's for a sitcom called Suddenly Susan with Brooke Shields.
Of course, yes.
And the sides—
That's insane.
The sides are for the part of the Hispanic photographer.
I'm like, the fuck?
I'm good at acting.
I can do Hitler, but I can't do Spanish.
I said, I can do German.
I can do this one.
Farewell.
Can't the photographer be from Germany?
So I'm like, I'm not even going to fucking go for this.
And my buddy who's there, he's like, what?
What the fuck else are you doing?
You need it in surgery, doctor?
Go to fucking audition.
It's always that story.
So I go to the audition, and everybody in the—
There's all these actors waiting.
I said, everybody looks like Antonio Banderas.
Yeah.
Right?
And I'm like, oh, for fuck's sake.
And I go in, and the Warner Brothers casting people are there.
And so I try and do the lines.
Everybody's there, and they're all doing it.
And I try and do the lines with my best, you know, Mexican accent,
which I'm not going to fucking do.
Yeah.
All right.
But I sound like fucking, you know, Shrek and Speedy Gonzales.
Right?
And I fucking do this.
And they're laughing their asses off.
And it's not working.
But I'm laughing at it, too.
And at the end of it, the casting guy says,
look, obviously, this is some kind of mistake.
I went, no shit.
And he said—
Oh, you don't do it, do you?
Yeah.
And then he said to me, he said,
but, he said, the Drew Carey show is looking for an English boss.
Can you do an English accent?
And I said,
si, senor, yes, I can.
This guy's a bro.
And that's how—
And I went in and do the Drew Carey show for, like, one episode.
And then that became three episodes.
And then Drew was like, you want to stay?
And I'm like, yeah.
Yeah, I do.
Because I was really—
I remember I've told this before.
I had 27 cents left.
I don't know if you—
After quitting the Betty White show.
Yeah, I'd spent it all.
On what?
Fair enough.
What a man, a trial?
What are you, a fucking cop?
It was a library fees.
So, I just got through it.
I don't know why, actually.
You're right.
I don't know why I got through it.
Because by that time, I'm not doing drugs.
I'm not drinking.
I don't know what the fuck I spent it on.
Right.
Okay.
Probably, if my guess is right, probably representation.
Yeah, of course.
You know what I'm saying?
Sure.
Certainly back then.
Also, it's like, at that time, too, you get a check through that.
It's like, half the taxes, managers, agents.
Yeah, yeah.
It's like, it's all—you end up getting, like, 22% of it.
And where were you living right before you got the Drew Carey Show?
Were you—so you were—
I had a—
You didn't have a lot of—you didn't have money saved up.
No, I had a rental place in Hollywood.
By yourself?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, and then I met a girl, you know.
Okay.
She moved in, and then we got married.
Okay.
And we're not married.
I understand.
Yeah.
But we got married.
We were married for a few years, and we had a—I had my first kid.
Okay.
And he was born.
And that all happened around about that time.
That's nuts.
Yeah.
That was it.
Yeah.
The fucking—
Drew Carey Show.
Yeah, yeah.
It changed my life, that thing.
That's crazy.
And I don't know if you've ever had 27 cents in a bank account, but you can—
Yes, we have.
Well, you can't—
In my 40s.
Yeah, you can't—
I'm 49 now.
You can't get it out.
No.
It costs a fucking dollar to get your 27 cents out.
Yeah.
This is all very new to us.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You guys are doing great.
Look at you.
You got a fucking table.
You got a fucking—
It's just from Raymore and Flanagan.
These microphones aren't even on.
Look at this shit.
That's amazing.
That's how these cameras work.
Holy shit.
Wow.
Now—
Okay, sorry.
I was going to say, even though—
Okay, so you had just gotten married.
You had a kid.
Yeah.
But when you started getting those kind of checks on a 90s sitcom.
Yeah.
Good times.
Amen.
What was that like?
Now, you had quit drinking.
You had put your past behind you.
Yeah.
Were there any—
Was there a crazy big purchase?
Or what was that like?
A house, a car.
I bought a house.
Uh-huh.
And then during this time, I wrote a movie.
Okay.
I used to write movies in my trailer.
Like, Norm Macdonald, God rest him, he was doing a sitcom across the way.
I like Norman.
Right.
He's a lovely man.
And he said he would be out smoking cigarettes, and I'd be in writing movies in
my trailer.
And he said, I didn't realize what a burning furnace of ambition you were at
the time.
I thought you were just, like, unsociable.
But I would write these movies.
And one of the movies did really well.
It was a movie called Saving Grace.
And it was about a lady who—
That's not bad.
Yeah.
Pretty good.
It was about a middle-aged lady who grows marijuana in her greenhouse to get
herself out of financial trouble.
And it did well.
And I made a bit of money.
So I bought a house in the Hollywood Hills.
But I made a little more money.
So I also bought an apartment in Paris.
Bought an apartment in Paris.
Did you?
Yeah!
That's what it's all about, baby.
Now, if we stopped there, that'd be great.
But after, when I got divorced again, oh, yeah.
Gotcha.
Do you know that thing as well when they say you lose half your stuff?
That's people who haven't been divorced.
Yeah.
You lose all your stuff.