Joe Rogan - I Got Fear Factor Because I Treated It Like a Joke

And then Fear Factor, what was the work schedule like for that one? Three days a week, but constant. We did, you know, one year, 34 episodes, I think maybe 36. That's a ton. Oh, we just shit it out. Yeah. It's like, wow, America was eating. We were shitting, shitting on that plate. Which which they should, though, because that show was so clean. Right. You find contestants, you set up the game. It was very big. Bang. Bang. It was very easy to do initially, but then the second version of it, when it came back in 2000 was 11 or something like that. That version was a real problem because that version, they were ramping it up. The stunts were way more difficult, way more dangerous. I was freaking out, but a couple of them was like, this is getting rough. Like bungee jumps off a fucking helicopter is in the middle of a canyon. And God, you know, launching people on these bungee jumps. Like there was some crazy shit. I think the eating stuff always got to me. Yeah. People eating the bugs. I was always like, like, how much money did you win on that show? I can't remember. You could win. Well, there was a couple of shows where people won a million dollars. Damn. But even when you win a million dollars, you don't really win a million dollars. You win a million dollars before the government comes in. Steals everything. Right. Yeah. Plus, is there something for winning it on a game show? Like, do you have some more taken out because it's a winning or something? I don't know. It's a lot like if someone won 50,000, which was a normal week, they would really take home 34. The government doesn't eat any animal dicks. They don't jump off any buildings and they just steal 16 grand from you. Animal. I remember the animal dicks now. That was my favorite. We did that in Griffith Park. Eat an animal dicks in the park, dude. Served up from animal dicks. That was fucking crazy. What a crazy show. Thinking back, the liability on that fucking thing. What's really crazy is it all happened post September 11, like right afterwards. Yeah, that's when it aired. And it was a preposterous show, like from the jump. And I always thought it was going to be canceled. And it was a giant hit. It was a giant huge show. And like immediately it was a hit. I was like, this is so stupid. The show is so stupid. And the reason why I got the gig was because I made fun of it. Like everybody else was trying to like be spooky. Like they're like, you know, the fear is fear a factor for you. And I came into this meeting. I was high as fuck. I came into this meeting and they were they were telling me what they wanted to do. One of the casting directors got Jeff from NBC hooked up the meeting. He thought I would be a good good fit for it because I was, you know, I'd just been on NBC for news radio. And I came into this meeting. I was like, what are you going to do? I'm like, you're going to sick dogs on people. I'm like, this is like a I'm like, this is like a bit in an act. It is like this is like a bit of like where it goes terribly wrong. You're going to make people eat animal dicks. You're sick dogs on people. You're going to throw people off buildings. I'm like, this is this is like the running man. Right. It's a bureaucracy. Yeah. It's yeah. Before it was even a movie. I was like, this is this is the most insane idea for a television show I've ever heard. This is going to be canceled immediately. And I'm going to have all this material about remember when I used to host Fear Factor. Meanwhile, one hundred and sixty fucking episodes later, we did one hundred forty eight episodes and then we did another. I think we did six or seven, but only six aired because one of them was the one when they had a drink come. No shit. Yeah. What are you talking about? Jug of come. Who made it? Donkey from Joe. Yeah, my own. Took me a year to fill up everyone's Stein. Are you fucking kidding me? Donkey come and not a cattle prod up a donkey's asshole. Yeah. And they would come like that. They just zap them, zap them in the old testes and they just shoot buckets. Yeah. And they played horseshoes. So they played horseshoes. And you could never win. Even if you made like a ringer and you like made the you would have to drink one ounce, but if you fucked up, you were drinking like 10, 11, 12 ounces. There's a jugs, jugs. Yeah. So what happened was I remember. Yeah. Remember this. What happened was the TMZ folks got a hold of the fucking they got a hold of the pictures. These people drink and come early. And then it became this giant fear that like people like what? Like there's no way this is real. Like this is a joke, right? No. And it turns out they really did make them drink. Come. Look at you. Chugged down. Yeah, I encourage those girls. One of them had a drink piss. The other one had a drink. Come. This is this was a real TV. It was insane. Look at these guys are drinking. How much come they're drinking a jug. Oh, come. It's like a stone. Yeah. And he just choked it down. His brother is right next to his twin brother helping him choke down. Come. How much money? Not enough. Thirty four grand. Whatever they went inside. Even if they want a billion dollars. If Warren Buffett sucks their dick and then like immediately get to throw up. And these poor girls are jumping in. Here's this interesting. Girls chose to come over the urine. Well, duh. I mean, yeah, we're come drinkers. You learn to do this shit when you're 15, man. She's been training her whole life for this moment. Oh, so hard. So hard to imagine that that was a real show. I know. Looking back now. But at the time everybody watched this. It was normal. Well, this was the one that killed it. Yeah. That episode killed it. And now Ludacris took it over. Luda. Damn. But Ludacris is doing like a like, whoa, whoa. Is it fear factor if you leave your house without your phone? Like, right. Like, what are the what do they do? They don't do it. Yeah. Right. Nothing is it still on. They do in season two now. There's definitely no. I figured something would be uploaded recently. Maybe it was a hit. Maybe I don't know. Luda. They came to me though before this. I'm like, bitch, there's not enough money. You don't have enough money to go. You would never host it again. Really? It's over. It's over. I did it. Yeah, you've been done that shit. I'm so not interested. Well, but I'm glad I did do it. It was it was great for the time. I mean, that was a huge thing. And I mean, it's good. It was good because it was money. That's what it was good for. It was good because I didn't have to worry about money. And then when you have to worry about money, like you don't worry about your choices comedically. Like, I didn't worry like, oh, if I say something, then they're going to cancel me or fire me from the show. And then I can't do it anymore. I didn't. That wasn't that wasn't my concern at all. My concern was like, OK, now I have enough money. So I don't have to worry about not having money. And I already make money doing stand up. So now I put some money away. So now you're free. Now I can do whatever. Yeah, you're free to create whatever the fuck you want. Just just free to do stand up and free to do it. However, I want it with no worries about tonight show sets or any of that fucking nonsense. Yeah. So wait. So that when you were doing, excuse me, fear factor, was there a thing where you couldn't kind of do your stand up the way you wanted to, like, oh, yeah, before that. Yeah. And there was some concern with that. They had talked to me once about drugs. I talked too much about drugs. Like, like one of the producers pulled me aside. It's like, you know, you're doing these interviews. You're talking about like these. These are illegal drugs. I go, yeah, you should do them. You should do DMT. It's good for you.