Jay Mohr likes gossip, and Tom Arnold’s quite the raconteur. There are the Roseanne stories, the Chris Farley stories, the Hormel pig processing stories. Name a star, and Arnold’s hung with him or her, and something invariably went down. But he’s a very entertaining and gracious guest, and promotes whatever he’s working on with subtlety. He’s quite the get in podcastia.
He’s so frenetic he can be hard to keep up with though. I’ve had to take a break from some of his Carolla spots just to catch my breath. On episode 190 of Mohr Stories, the listener may even get the impression that Mohr, who’s been known to step on a story from time to time, is doing the same to Arnold. But Arnold’s trademark ADD is the real culprit here.
Arnold was more relaxed and a bit less revealing this time. And that’s OK; a little Tom Arnold goes a long way. He was still all over the map, but he took his time. And it made for a nice hour.
There was a story about Julie Louis-Dreyfus taking his parking spot when he was shooting a series next to the Seinfeld lot. Apparently, he still carries a torch for that altercation.
He also touched on the relationship he had with Bob Hope. Mohr unleashed a deep-cut zinger on the legend (something having to do with Hope’s “leaky eyes”). I laughed, but Arnold didn’t. He just maneuvered around it, and brought it back to how Hope was the only thing that made his dad laugh.
There is one thing Arnold does that throws me a bit. Out of nowhere he drops a “here’s what I like about (host)” line and the host understandably reciprocates. The first time I heard him do it on a podcast, it made me happy. I felt good for a solid three minutes. But the second and third times it happened it came off like a form letter. A little too gracious. In Arnold’s defense, I can be a crotchety cynic. He could very well be this genuine. It just sounded a bit perfunctory in this interview.
Anyway, back to the important stuff. The guys talked wrestling, a thematic touchstone for many of Mohr’s guests. And they kept the ball moving throughout. My biggest takeaway from this episode was a little aside Mohr threw out there that I now intend to use in an applicable situation to make myself sound cooler. It was a wrestling reference, and it could work in so many boring day-job issues I’m faced with: “If I could just get this fight to the ground I’d be fine.”
