Name: Craig Ferguson! | Are You Garbage Comedy Podcast w/ Kevin Ryan & H. Foley
Uploaded: 2025-05-14T23:00:11.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Craig Ferguson! | Are You Garbage Comedy Podcast w/ Kevin Ryan & H. Foley' from AreYouGarbage? Comedy Podcast on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-05-14. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Craig Ferguson! | Are You Garbage Comedy Podcast w/ Kevin Ryan & H. Foley' from AreYouGarbage? Comedy Podcast on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-05-14. Transcript available.

Craig Ferguson! | Are You Garbage Comedy Podcast w/ Kevin Ryan & H. Foley

Gang tickets for the Back on the Block Tour are going quick, baby, so get them
what a getting is good.
Yeah, we're coming to San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Burlington, Boston,
Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh, Richmond, Baltimore, Philly, Rochester, and
Toronto.
All tickets available at RUGarbage.com. We'll see yous on the road.
Welcome to another exciting edition of Are You Garbage?
The show where you find out if your favorite comedians are classy individuals
or absolute trash.
Now, here are your hosts, Kevin Ryan and H. Foley.
Hey, everybody out there, and welcome back to everybody's favorite podcast.
This is RUGarbage.
It's that little show we sit there with your favorite comedians, and we find
that if they're good to be classy,
if they're just a big old piece of trash.
I'm your host, H. Foley, coming at you on a beautiful day.
We're out back here at Tootie's in a new edition.
She's on her way to JCPenney's for a little accident.
A little slip and fall money going to be coming here pretty soon.
Very good.
My co-host is coming at you from right next to me.
He is the CEO of RUGarbage.
He is an international businessman and my best pal in the whole wide world.
Give it up for KJ.
Kevin James Ryan, everybody.
What up, gang?
Shout out to you.
Thanks for tuning in.
It's the first time that's ever happened.
As always, please make sure you're going to do something.
I mean, you do all that, and then, boom, it's like everybody hates you or
something.
You got to go, yeah!
He's the boss.
KJ, and it's like, oh, boom.
Hang him, I say.
Pick it up and leave.
Patreon.com.
Check it the fuck out, gang.
Gang, we couldn't be more excited to have our incredibly, and I mean incredibly,
special guest
here with us today for the first time.
He is a legendary stand-up comedian and writer.
You can hear him every week on his podcast, Joy, a podcast.
He is on his Pants on Fire tour right now.
You can get tickets at thecraigfergusonshow.com.
He has a brand new special out on YouTube.
I am so happy that you got to check out.
Of course, he did 185 episodes of the Drew Carey Show.
Oh, yeah.
And he was the host of the Late Late Show from 2005 to 2014.
Truly one of the great late-night talk show hosts in history.
Give it up for the one, the only, Mr. Craig Ferguson.
Yay!
Thanks, everybody.
That's someone you clapped for.
That's something you clapped for.
Thanks.
Thank you for having me.
I'm very excited to be here.
We're on it.
It's an honor to be here.
Shall I wear these?
It's up to you.
If you want to, yeah.
I want to look like I'm podcasting.
You're a goddamn...
I'm podcasting.
You got them on over your eyes.
Am I a podcasting or an influencer?
What's the difference between a podcaster and an influencer?
I don't know.
Tits.
That's what it is.
Well, we got them.
I was going to say it.
A nice ass in a bikini.
Yeah, there you go.
You're a legend, my friend.
An absolute legend.
Stop it, man.
I mean that when I say that.
Like, truly one of the last great late-night talk show hosts, man.
Unbelievable.
You know, I think we're a dying breed, the late-night talk show.
I think this is the way forward, gentlemen.
You are the new Bastions.
You're the wedge.
You're the icebreaker.
Thank you.
You are the...
This is the way forward, podcast.
Because it doesn't exist in the old world anymore.
Of course.
It's just going away.
It's going away.
Yeah.
Time gone by.
Yeah.
Give us the backstory.
Give us the origin story, Mr. Craig Ferguson.
Well, I was raised in a swamp by Shrek and Fiona.
I was found in a basket of reeds and the pharaoh's daughter came over.
I'm from...
There was no pharaoh.
I'm from Scotland.
Of course.
It's well outside Philly.
Yes.
But where I am in Scotland, because I know Philly quite well, obviously.
And it's not unlike...
Where I'm from in Scotland, Glasgow in Scotland.
It's not unlike Philadelphia.
Gotcha.
It has a lot of gentlemen that look a little like yourselves.
You know what I'm saying?
Sure.
And it has an enjoyment.
Good-looking guys.
Good-looking guys.
A lot of guys in sweatpants.
A lot of guys in sweatpants.
A lot of guys who enjoy meat and cheese.
I've got to check this place out.
I think you'd enjoy it.
Do you know what's funny?
Because also, Cleveland is a similar city.
Yes.
Right.
We're just in Cleveland.
Right.
Man, that's a bad look.
Cleveland and Philly.
Well, it kind of is.
Not very much so.
But Cleveland is kind of like a portable Philly.
Do you know what I mean?
Like Philly's big.
And Cleveland is like...
If you've only got hand luggage...
If you take Cleveland.
But Cleveland...
Sort of a day trip kind of town.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But Cleveland is where Drew Carey is from.
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
So when Drew and I were...
You know, we got to know each other on his show.
Mm-hmm.
He...
I said to him, you should go to Glasgow.
It's like Cleveland.
He's like, don't be fucking...
Fucking city in Scotland.
Fucking...
That's how he talked back then.
Motherfucker.
And then he got into soccer and he went to see a Rangers Celtics game in
Glasgow.
And he fucking called me up.
He went, this is just like Cleveland.
It's too fucking late, man.
We got dirt balls here, too.
Look at that.
Yeah.
It's a whole lot of sports rivalry.
Yeah.
But with a little bit of religious sectarianism to make it spicy.
There you go.
Spicy.
I keep the tension up a little bit.
Yeah, that's right.
A little Protestant and Catholic going on.
I like it.
Oh, yes.
What did your mom and dad do?
What kind of house did you grow up in?
Were you in the burbs?
These are garbage questions, right?
Yeah, yeah.
So my father was a postman.
Okay.
Okay.
But in the course of my life, he went from being...
They used to deliver telegrams, right?
He was a telegram.
Like, hey, telegram firm, right?
So he started off with that when he was a little kid.
Uh-huh.
Jesus.
And then he goes to the army for a couple of years.
Then he goes back to the post office and he becomes a postman, delivering a
letter.
But by the time he finishes, he's, like, the head of the post office in
Edinburgh, Scotland.
All right.
Oh, great.
He makes a big, long trip that way.
And my mom was a schoolteacher.
Your mom was a schoolteacher.
When you say the head of the...
He was the head of the...
He was the king of school.
For real?
Like the postmaster general?
He's still on the stamps.
Nuh-uh.
No.
He reads everybody's mail, probably.
No, he's not on the stamps.
Yeah, someone's pregnant again.
Oh, look at what Margaret's been up to.
No, he became the chief inspector of the Edinburgh post office, which
apparently...
I don't know a lot about post office, but that...
Sounds high up to me.
Chief inspector sounds good, right?
Was there a big increase in his pay?
Like, did you guys kind of move up a little bit?
Yeah, because when I was a kid, like a young kid, it was...
Like, dinner was like egg and fries, right?
Okay.
Stuff like chicken maybe once, twice a month.
No kids in.
So meager beginnings.
Well, yeah, we didn't...
I mean, chicken once a month.
Chicken's really good.
That's not great.
Yeah, chicken maybe twice a month.
I don't want to overplay it.
It wasn't fucking Angela's ashes, right?
Every Christmas, we got the smell of hamburger.
That's right.
Oh, it's another gather round the potato for Christmas.
Everybody just rubs it.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
The lucky potato.
But we were...
The lucky potato.
But there were a lot of...
I didn't know we didn't have much money because we were surrounded by...
We didn't have much, but it wasn't terrible.
And my parents weren't alcoholics, so step up.
There you go.
Gotcha.
That's pretty good.
Yeah.
Were we in an apartment?
Were we in a house?
Were we in the city?
Were we in the suburbs?
When I was born, they were in a one-bedroom tenement with my older brother and
my older sister.
But then after I was born, they moved us out.
There was this thing called New Towns in Britain.
What happened was, after the Second World War, all the cities were bombed.
So they had to build new housing just outside the city.
Kind of like the project, basically, right?
So we moved out, but the projects, but they were meant to be fancy.
They weren't fancy at all.
But they said they were fancy so that people would leave the city and go live
in them for nothing.
So we lived in a little modular house in the projects until I was about seven
or eight years old.
Then we moved to a slightly larger house in the projects until I was about 16,
17.
Then I'd leave home.
Then my parents make a little money and move to an actual house.
Gotcha.
So there was a bit of a journey.
Now, where'd you go when you were 16?
Well, I've got to tell you that ship.
I can't tell you everywhere.
I don't know what the Statue of Limitations is on that ship.
But I joined a band.
It was punk rock.
I did see that.
Really?
You were a drummer.
I was a drummer in punk rock bands.
So I lived for a long time in the back of a van.
No shit.
But, you know, I actually didn't live there.
I mean, I shared a room with some guys in a band in the West End of Glasgow,
which is
a really fucking great neighborhood.
Still is.
Like really kind of before hipsters were invented.
Oh, they might have been invented there.
Do you know what I mean?
It was like they were pure, but hipsters.
You know what I mean?
Like they like good music, but they didn't know what kale was.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, I understand.
Right.
So I lived in a kind of shared apartment there with the guys in bands that I
was in, and
we would travel in transit vans around Britain playing bad music.
That's crazy.
What are we talking?
Are we talking the 80s, early 80s?
Yeah.
I guess 1980 to about 83.
So you're in the mix.
Are you rubbing elbows with like the Ramones or the Misfits or anybody like
that?
No, no, no, man.
Lower.
That's a big swing.
Were you rubbing elbows with the Ramones?
The Ramones were in CBGBs.
That was in fucking Margaret's fucking pub in Falkirk.
No.
The old guy's yelling at you, turn that shit down.
That's rubbish.
Put on Frank Sinatra.
Did you know the Ramones?
Yeah.
Actually, no, I didn't.
But when I was about 21.
Okay.
So I met a girl who's part of all this crowd, and we got married.
Okay.
And we went to, she liked New York City, so we came to New York City when I was
21.
Wow.
And I was living in the East Village when I was 21.
What year is this?
This is 84.
Jesus.
That's when the East Village was the East Village.
Holy shit.
There used to be a, it was a fantastic woman who lived nearby.
Grandmaster Flash lived in my building.
It's amazing, isn't it?
It's great.
I mean, it was fucking crazy.
I remember because I-
Hey, man, I got your mail again.
It was like, who's this Grandmaster Flash, and why have I got his electricity
bill?
But he used to have this ankle-length gold lame coat.
He would walk around.
It was fucking amazing looking.
He stand out.
Yeah, he was a really nice guy.
Although, I guess he was Grandmaster Flash.
Sure.
He was, you know, why wouldn't you be in a good mood?
Sure.
But there was a lady who lived nearby us, and I used to hear her every night
because she
was a waitress in a bar.
But the neighborhood was so dangerous that when she was walking home late at
night, she was
also, she wanted to be an opera singer.
So she would walk home singing opera all the way down the block, and the noise
would be
like, everyone would know she was coming down.
If the noise stopped, everybody would look out the window to see if she was
okay.
Yeah, see, we looked after ourselves back then.
Talk about older people in the city.
Jeez.
That's genius, though.
And we were all awake because we all had a cocaine problem.
So it was fine.
You thought the cops were after you looking out the door.
Who?
Why'd she stop singing?
Is that cops?
But I tell you, it was an interesting thing, though.
They had this, the day that it started to clean up, the East Village.
I remember, it was a buddy of mine worked in, I worked in construction up in
Harlem.
So we had to take the train across town and then all the way up to Harlem.
And one day he s