Tom Papa Reveals The Secret to Marriage on Conan

Tom Papa didn’t do a set on Conan on Tuesday night, he headed right for the couch. That’s because he’s got a brand new hour of stand up called Tom Papa: Human Mule and it’s available now on Epix. Tom Papa fans be sure to check out our write-up on his comedy special, Tom Papa’s Human Mule: Optimistic, Positive, With an Undercurrent That Things Are Wrong by Debra Kessler.

Tom is always a comedian that’s willing to share what he’s learned along the way in life. Tuesday was no different. He talked to Conan O’Brien about the secret to a good marriage. Tom has now experienced 16 years of wedded…well, you can’t say “bliss”. Let’s just say he’s been wedded for 16 years, which now also includes two kids. As he told Conan, who asked what the secret to a good marriage is, “you have to lower your expectations”. According to Tom Papa, marriage is not a dream, even though a lot of young couples try to start it off that way with their magical weddings and the brides dressed up as princesses. Tom says it’s far from a dream. He added, “you still go there to Edison, NJ and sit there like a lump.” He didn’t mean literally go to New Jersey. He was just using it as a metaphor for any place where you would live a dull, listless, monotonous existence. Apologies to the people of Edison, but don’t kill the messenger.

His point was to lower expectations and be prepared for the monotony of listening to the same person’s same stories over and over again for the rest of your life. That’s where he also offered a solution to his advice. After 16 years, he feels it’s really time that he got a girlfriend. And not because of selfish needs, but to help his wife’s half of the marriage as well. He thinks a dumb, young girlfriend would be beneficial to both of them, saying, “Don’t think of her as my girlfriend. Think of her as your assistant.”

There was also some bad news in the Papa family. In the billboard for Tom’s new special, which he’s very proud of by the way, he drives his kids past it every day on their way to school, but you’ll notice the family cat in the center of the advertisement below. That’s his actual family cat. Well, it used to be. On the same day the billboards went up, the cat got put down. That was met with groans of shock and sympathy from Conan’s studio audience, which just bounced off of Tom. He didn’t have a personal relationship with the cat. It was his children’s cat and he had nothing to do with it except to bring it home when they first got it and take it back out when it was time for the kitty to go. In the clips below, you can watch Tom Papa talk about how he’s more like a pet prison warden working death row and how he got forced into saying his goodbyes to the cat, which somehow got through that Tom Papa hard candy shell.

You can also watch Tom in his brand new comedy special, Tom Papa: Human Mule, now available on demand on Epix.

 

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