Leanne Morgan on This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #627 (Transcript)

He’s just the kind of guy you have to support as he makes those choices, but, God, he is just a great guy. There’s some great people over there. And yeah, and yeah, that was fun, though. Had you met Morgan before?

Meeting Morgan Wallen

LEANNE MORGAN: Yes, honey. Morgan and I did a show together. When he got kicked off of “The Voice,” you told me that that little thing was mowing… had mowing equipment. And we both got asked to do a charity thing. I think they paid us $200 if they paid us anything. I can’t remember. And he sang, and we were in the back and I promised him a casserole because I thought he was so sweet and darling. He goes, “I’m going to try to make it in country music.” And I thought, how’s that little thing going to go? And not that I didn’t think he was talented.

THEO VON: No, of course. But I thought, that’s just so sweet of you that you would even consider making a casserole for him.

LEANNE MORGAN: Well, he’s the age of my children.

THEO VON: He’s great.

LEANNE MORGAN: And darling, he is great.

THEO VON: Yeah, he does a good job. He’s a smart guy. Yeah, he’s a smart guy. He’s competitive and he just… he’s really fine-tuned on who he is. He’s… you know, some people are willing to be this or that, but not Morgan, it’s this is who I am, you know?

LEANNE MORGAN: I know.

THEO VON: And he doesn’t care.

LEANNE MORGAN: And that’s a good place to be, you know? You don’t care. I think you do your own thing.

Starting in Comedy

THEO VON: Well, you’ve been working in comedy for how long have you been doing comedy for, if you don’t mind if I ask?

LEANNE MORGAN: Oh, no, I don’t mind. You angel. I was 32 when, I think, when I… my baby was 18 months old. The first time I ever opened at… I opened at Zanies. I’d been… I’d been fooling around, like at the Rotary, you know, like I’d take a baby to mom’s day out, go and do a little something at the Rotary, make $50.

THEO VON: And now were you East Tennessee? Okay. Yeah.

LEANNE MORGAN: And then I came…

THEO VON: What county was that in?

LEANNE MORGAN: Hamblen County.

THEO VON: Over in Hamblen. Okay. And that’s where you met Chuck Morgan?

LEANNE MORGAN: I met him at the University of Tennessee.

THEO VON: God, I knew it. Huh? And what was he doing over there, loitering or was he enrolled?

LEANNE MORGAN: I was probably the one loitering.

THEO VON: Okay.

LEANNE MORGAN: He was enrolled getting a master’s, an MBA, and I was trying to finish up an undergraduate. That took me several years, Theo, because I drank… I wasn’t drinking. I was smoking cigarettes.

THEO VON: That’s fine.

LEANNE MORGAN: Coke and coffee.

THEO VON: Oh, that’s fine.

LEANNE MORGAN: I was… and I was… I was not going to class. I was having to flirt with people to get notes. I didn’t care, and I wish I’d have cared, but I was doing stuff like that and making out with people.

THEO VON: Yeah. God.

LEANNE MORGAN: Like Italian boys, because I never seen one. Okay, so I was raised, like, right outside of Nashville in a town of 500 people, farming community, so everybody was the same. So when I got to UT, I was like… and I, you know, went to the club.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah. If you see something new, you got to put your lips on it, you know? That’s a Hamblen County motto, I think.

LEANNE MORGAN: But then Chuck Morgan came to get an MBA and then horseback or something.

THEO VON: When you saw him, was he on a damn torso? What was he on? He was just on a damn big dachshund, wasn’t he? Like, God thing. He’s got a long one on him. Under him is a dachshund. A dog.

LEANNE MORGAN: Dachshund’s a dog. I’ve had a dachshund.

THEO VON: Puddin’. Puddin’.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah, she was precious.

THEO VON: Well, she’d bring up a picture of her, look up Puddin’ dachshund.

LEANNE MORGAN: She was a little bitty toy, little orange, overweight, had some thyroid issues. Loved to cuss UPS trucks. But darling, like another baby to me. That’s a beagle. That’s my beagle right now.

THEO VON: That is beautiful. That’s that old Lord.

LEANNE MORGAN: That was a dress from Dillard’s, from the junior department. That was too tight on my back.

Growing Up Poor

THEO VON: Theo, honey, look, baby girl, I know I used to have… I used to have shoes that weren’t mine growing up. And I’d have to stuff the edges of them. I’d have to put a hand towel around each one of my feet and put them on and go to school. Look like a damn vaudeville character or something. Just like, damn. I look like they used to call me Ronald McDonald’s son, Lil Ronnie.

It took me seven minutes to get off the bus from going down those steps, dude. Because if I got out ahead of those skis, baby, it was downhill, you know, it was just slope central.

LEANNE MORGAN: You kill me. Louisiana. Is that where you were raised?

THEO VON: Yeah.

LEANNE MORGAN: What part of Louisiana?

THEO VON: Over in Saint Tammany Parish, Louisiana.

LEANNE MORGAN: Okay, I just did Shreveport and Baton Rouge. Is that over in the hoop-de-doo part?

THEO VON: Shreveport, and I’ll say it out loud, has definitely gone downhill, which is interesting for a place that’s… it’s flat land over there. Somehow it finds a way to go down.

LEANNE MORGAN: I heard you said something about it when you got on stage. What’d you say?

THEO VON: Everybody, they look like a damn missing person. If you meet anybody in the city, the city is vacant. It looks like a movie set.

LEANNE MORGAN: I know. I mean, the buildings are empty. And they told me they go, “Do not leave this hotel.” But I love that theater. And they’ve got a little Elvis museum in it, you know. And Priscilla brought some britches of little Elvis that you could not get your toe in. He was so tiny.

THEO VON: That’s beautiful. Bring up a picture of little Elvis.

LEANNE MORGAN: How little did he get before he got in bad health? Have you ever been to Graceland?

THEO VON: Yes, I have.

LEANNE MORGAN: And you’ve seen his little… all those jumpsuits and you… and they were… his little waist.

THEO VON: He was getting little as he got older.

LEANNE MORGAN: Look, there’s little baby Elvises.

THEO VON: Look at little Elvis right there. And they probably had him down singing already. Probably 11 months old, they got him out there.

LEANNE MORGAN: I know. And his little daddy had written bad checks just to take care of their family. He couldn’t help it.

THEO VON: And he had dysplasia. That’s how he got the hips going. You know that.

LEANNE MORGAN: No.

THEO VON: Yeah, like an Australian shepherd. That’s how it happened in the beginning. He didn’t know what he was doing. Dude, he wasn’t feel like he’s a dancer. No, he ain’t. Damn. He just got a loose arm.

LEANNE MORGAN: Are you kidding me? Because you know that I’m gullible. You can tell that about me. You can smell it, honey. Okay, honey bun. He had dysplasia.

THEO VON: Baby girl, I’m not joking with you. Yeah, he had dysplasia. He had a loose tailbone, dude. He was missing a couple joists on that thing and yeah, and he just had that tick tock in him, you know.

Hell, we had an Elvis impersonator in our neighborhood. He had the same thing. He had a thing, this guy. He broke his leg, right? He had a couple children. He kept him on an electric fence in our neighborhood because they were prized possessions. And I actually respected that.

The rest of the kids in our neighborhood got real, you know, you’d be out there and the elements would get you, you know, people smoking or getting in trouble, drinking or people catching crows and fing picking bugs off of them and shit. Just fing loose cannon type stuff.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah.

THEO VON: But this fella said, well, I got to take care of my kids. I’m going to get me a little electric fence, right? So we had that thing. And anyway, he kept people out. Kept people out. Kept the kids in.

LEANNE MORGAN: Kept the kids in because my people had electric fans. And that’ll keep you in. You don’t want to get buzzed by that thing.

THEO VON: You turn into a f*ing doorbell for a couple hours, dude. That bitch. You get hit by that bitch.

LEANNE MORGAN: We really were so bored little country kids that we would go and just stand on it to feel something.

THEO VON: Oh, God. Yeah, honey. Oh, I remember one time I grabbed it on accident. I couldn’t fing close my mouth for fing four days. I couldn’t close my house.

LEANNE MORGAN: Were you from farming? You weren’t from, you weren’t rural, right?

THEO VON: I couldn’t finish a can of Campbell’s around that for half a week. I couldn’t. And it was daylight savings time too, so it was an extra hour I had to do. I was stuck like that. It’s horrible, dude.

My sister, she stays. This is where I’m from. My sister and her boyfriend will stay up to watch daylight savings time. I’m like, what in the f* are y’all doing?

LEANNE MORGAN: They’ll stay up to watch daylight savings day.

THEO VON: Like it’s 11:59 again. And then they’re like, they, you know, they think it’s great. I’m like, you idiot. It’s the one night you get a free hour from God. It’s God.

LEANNE MORGAN: I know.

THEO VON: It’s God caring about you. Finally, after all that year when you.

LEANNE MORGAN: Feel good and you think, what happened? Oh, I got that extra hour.

THEO VON: And they stay up and watch it. I’m like, what are you watching? But that’s who she is.

LEANNE MORGAN: Is she the one that’s got the beautiful babies? The boys that.

THEO VON: I’ve seen you interview those and, no, that’s my brother has those two little boys. Those are good boys. My, take this. My family makes beautiful children.

LEANNE MORGAN: Beautiful.

THEO VON: Thank you.

LEANNE MORGAN: They are beautiful. And that’s why I call you Beautiful Theo. And you need to receive that.

THEO VON: Gotcha. Thanks, girl. My best Hugh Howser impersonation. Huh?

LEANNE MORGAN: He’s skipping right now up 12 South. He knows every one of those girls and they all love him.

THEO VON: Oh, he is a just.

LEANNE MORGAN: I met him the night that.

THEO VON: He’s one of a kind, for free.

LEANNE MORGAN: I came and opened for Lady Antebellum.

THEO VON: You did?

LEANNE MORGAN: Uh huh. At a thing. At a thing. Not a Bridgestone.

THEO VON: No, at a charity thing. Yeah.

LEANNE MORGAN: Under the bridge. And he was in the back with his shirt unbuttoned down to his belly button with a fresh spray tan, hair extensions. And we fell in love. That you know, and so we’ve been good friends ever since. And now he’s doing stand up.

THEO VON: Oh, he’s the Female Michael Landon. That’s what I call him. He’s known in a lot of homoerotic circles as a ginger Michael Landon. He will f* your book club up. I know that. Just with his sheer entertainment and volume and attitude.

Starting Comedy at Zany’s

LEANNE MORGAN: Uh huh. And then he also can tell you how to do a tablescape. But you asked me when I started doing comedy. I opened for Billy Gardell at Zany’s when my baby was 18 months old. She’s out there. She’s my makeup artist. She’s about to turn 28, Tess.

THEO VON: So she’s beautiful.

LEANNE MORGAN: Thank you. Thank you. And she’s my, she’s my makeup artist on my television show. And then she tours with me and tells people she’s my caregiver now.

THEO VON: Oh, yep.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah. And she doesn’t want to be. She wants to date, you know, and meet men. And it’s hard with your 60 year old mother.

THEO VON: Well, it’s hard once your mother, if your mother goes downhill early. That’s what they call it, going downhill early. Yeah, you turn immediately. And that’s how to really, as a parent, I think that’s what you want to gauge.

You want, right when they get out of high school or college, you want to hit that downhill so they have to take.

LEANNE MORGAN: Care of you so they can tend to you.

THEO VON: That’s how it used to be. They shouldn’t get those free 10 or 12 years of joy into their mid-30s. And that’s when you start capping off that you need to catch it. You just, you got to hit it right at the right time. So I like your strategy. Really. I do like that.

LEANNE MORGAN: Thank you. I thought when I hit it big, I would be younger and thinner, but that’s okay.

Breaking Through Later in Life

THEO VON: Yeah. Tell me about some of that. So what was that like, going through? Because you, when do you say you should really start to kind of hit it big? And also I love your show on Netflix. That was the thing that I started.

LEANNE MORGAN: Thank you. And you shared it. Thank you, my darling.

THEO VON: Yeah, that’s the thing I started watching. I was like, this is good. It reminded me of kind of Reba in a sense that it’s a Southern show. They hadn’t had a good Southern show in a long time because Hollywood hates us. And so, but finally they’re so desperate because they realize that, oh, we are human, at least that we’re going to put this great show on there.

And they chose you. And was that scary doing that? Had you done that before? And then when did your, when did your break start to come? Because it kind of came a little bit later than maybe you expected or wanted.

LEANNE MORGAN: Oh, yeah. My break came in my early 50s and I was just about to quit.

THEO VON: Were you really?

LEANNE MORGAN: I was just about to quit. I was working a lot. I had done a Dry Bar and.

THEO VON: My manager Dry Bar comedy special.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah. And my manager at the time said, these Mormon people are doing these specials. And he said, nobody will ever see it. They’re going to pay you a couple of thousand dollars. You’re going to fly to Salt Lake City. We’ll get some clips out of it where you can do more corporate. I was doing the Chamber of Commerce for Dubuque, Iowa.

THEO VON: Oh, God, I love it. There’s.

LEANNE MORGAN: Dubuque’s beautiful.

THEO VON: You know, Al Capone had a yes in that hotel. I love that place.

LEANNE MORGAN: I know. And beautiful people. There’s real pretty people in Dubuque, Iowa.

THEO VON: Is some of the best people in the world. Clear Lake, Iowa. Have you been there?

LEANNE MORGAN: No.

THEO VON: So good. It’s where Buddy Holly, and then when they took off from that plane out of the Surf Ballroom.

LEANNE MORGAN: Oh, murder.

THEO VON: Remember hearing about that?

LEANNE MORGAN: Yes.

THEO VON: You can still go there. It’s perfectly. You can still go. You can still see the payphone that they all called their family from before they took off out of there. Anyway, not to bring it down, but that is a beautiful place. If you ever get to go. There’s a lot of beautiful places in Iowa. But go on. So, you know, my career was in.

The Dry Bar Special That Changed Everything

LEANNE MORGAN: The toilet and I thought, okay, I’ll go and do this special. I did a bunch of old material that people hadn’t seen. I was rusty, I think. I think it sucked. And I did that special and some things went viral in it and, but I couldn’t sell tickets from it. I was getting work from it, but it wasn’t the work I wanted.

THEO VON: What do you mean? Were you getting, what, pressure washing or what kind of gigs are you getting clothes? Because, dude, I’ve seen, I’ve had somebody. Some guy saw me at a comedy club. He’s like, man, I love you, dude. I want you to come pressure wash at the house. And I’m like, well, that ain’t helping me. He’s like, 200 bucks. I was like, I’ll be over there. I’ll damn spit really fast on that siding if I have to. I don’t know. To pressure wash him. See? Go on, baby, darling, little baby girl.

LEANNE MORGAN: Corporate things. Stuff that, you know, they pay you so much, but you got to pay your travel out of it. I’d get in an Uber with a man on marijuana drive for two hours and stay at a motel on the side of the road. Think I was going to be murdered. I mean, it just was, it was just not good.

And I got very down, and I told Chuck Morgan, I said, I’m going to quit and I’m opening up a hardware store. Because I always thought that would be fun. And he said, no, you’re crazy.

THEO VON: But did he really say that?

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah. He goes, Leanne, that’s crazy. It’s fine. You’re fine. And just keep going. And so I hired these little guys that did social media for me. These young guys who knew how to do all that stuff. I didn’t know.

And they put out the clip where you showed me in that tight dress from Dillard’s, from the juniors department. And I did a bit about, and I’d never done it before. I just had taken Chuck Morgan to go see Def Leppard and Journey at Thompson Bowling, and everybody looked sick and had plantar fasciitis. All the people looked bad.

THEO VON: All the band members.

LEANNE MORGAN: All the band members. A Def Leppard guy, I think had a hernia.

THEO VON: We were deaf. Yeah.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah. Tiny legs.

THEO VON: Oh, God. Yeah.

LEANNE MORGAN: Thin hair. Anyway, it must have resonated with people. And that went viral. And I started selling out all over the United States in clubs that would not have had me.

THEO VON: Yeah. Wouldn’t even answer your emails.

LEANNE MORGAN: Wouldn’t answer. No. And then, or they’d had me, and they’re like, she’s sweet. She doesn’t get drunk and fight in the parking lot. But we’re not having her back. She can’t sell tickets. So I started selling out, and then I got my first tour, and then the Big Panty Tour, and I was.

THEO VON: In your early 50s and, you were in your early 50s, and what was that? Do you remember the first place that you played at that it was sold out at?

LEANNE MORGAN: Oh, gosh.

THEO VON: First comedy club where you’re like, oh, my God.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah, probably. Oh, Off the Hook in Naples, Florida.

THEO VON: Yeah. Brian’s Club.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah.

THEO VON: Oh, Captain Brian.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah, Captain Brian, you’ll be.

THEO VON: Dude, you’re on stage and there’s just serving shrimp right up between your leg. Dude.

LEANNE MORGAN: Big platters of shrimp. I thought it was a seafood restaurant and I thought, I’m in the wrong place.

THEO VON: It is a seafood restaurant.

LEANNE MORGAN: A lot of clanking, but it was, but I like that stage. And they were darling, and I had a ball.

Comedy Clubs and Early Career

THEO VON: Oh, no. It is a seafood restaurant and you’re in the right place. It’s both of those things. And that’s what’s amazing about it. Oh, Captain Brian’s done a great job over there of keeping Comedy Off the Hook comedy club. That’s what it is.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah. In Naples or Bricktown in Oklahoma, all these places that had never had me before.

THEO VON: But that was the first place that you went.

LEANNE MORGAN: That was. That was one of the first places. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

THEO VON: I was touring for probably 12 years, 13 years out there, maybe. I don’t know if it probably about that, just getting in there. Lucky to be a feature, hoping you’d finally get to headline, hoping you’d hit a bonus. You wouldn’t. So you were at that kind of tap, $1,200 a week mark, and they give you $300 for travel. But you had to decide if you were just wanting to drive 18 hours or spend the $300 to fly over there.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah, dude.

THEO VON: Hanging my food out. When I remember in Kansas City, I would, it was cold out there, so I got my groceries and I would put them in a bag and hang them out the window at night because there wasn’t like a fridge in the room. I’d hang them out. I’d get them in the morning, let them thaw out, and then have me a little few hours later. And yeah, just little things you would figure out over time.

Finding Support in the Comedy Circuit

LEANNE MORGAN: But there were some clubs that always, like Brian Dorfman at Zany’s in Nashville, always let me play Cap City and Austin. I consider that my home club. Chuck Morgan moved us to San Antonio for his job. So I worked the River Center and Cap City in Austin, and they were really good to me.

THEO VON: Wait, in Austin or San Antonio?

LEANNE MORGAN: Oh, San Antonio, the River Center and then LOL, and then Cap City in Austin believed in me. And I would drive back and forth from San Antonio with little children. I had three babies, three, five, and seven. And in San Antonio, I’d get up at the late show when everybody was high on marijuana at midnight and talk about how somebody pooped on a T-ball field. Because I was a mama, you know, I was different from all those boys. There was a lot of young boys doing Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonations.

THEO VON: Oh, baby girl.

LEANNE MORGAN: So I stood out. But that’s, not a lot of clubs wanted to book me. Yeah. But I got to raise these children. I was raising children in Knoxville, Tennessee, in Texas.

SEC Football and Lane Kiffin

THEO VON: And first of all, let me say this beautiful place, Knoxville. And also, I think Knoxville probably best place to see a football game. I think the best place to see an SEC football game. I haven’t seen a lot of football games outside of the SEC, but, man, Neil. And there’s something special about it. I just got to go to Ole Miss and see their game.

LEANNE MORGAN: I saw that you were with Lane, and did y’all do hot yoga?

THEO VON: Yeah, we did.

LEANNE MORGAN: He’s been on a cleanse. I’ve said horrible things about Lane Kiffin on stage when I have. Well, you know, he left us.

THEO VON: Yeah.

LEANNE MORGAN: So I said some crap.

THEO VON: Oh, when Daddy.

LEANNE MORGAN: But I’m sorry for it now.

THEO VON: Here we are right now.

LEANNE MORGAN: Because he’s doing, he’s, you know, he’s, he was cute, and there was a lot of girls.

THEO VON: Well, you can tell I was raised by a single mother, too, with how I wear that towel. I’m going ahead and say that that’s why people like, what are you doing? I’m like, what are you doing? Okay. With your dad? Okay. So you can tell that’s who I am. And those are some wonderful ladies there that were training. They was, I don’t know if they were trainers or something. One of them, I think they work at Facebook Marketplace. I don’t know what. One of them was actually going to buy a cat off of Facebook Marketplace.

And I said, honey, she’s like, I’m driving to Batesville to get a cat off a Facebook Marketplace. And I said, baby girl, that’s a bad idea, okay? She said, it’s a $60 cat. I said, I’ll give you $70 right now.

LEANNE MORGAN: Not to go.

THEO VON: Yeah. Just to get you a little nap or something, just to watch Cats on YouTube and get you a little shut eye.

LEANNE MORGAN: Oh, my Lord, I hope she made it.

THEO VON: Well, I hope she made it, too. And, you know, who knows? You can’t follow up on everything.

LEANNE MORGAN: But you give people, you’re so busy.

Trailer Life and Mobile Home Ministry

THEO VON: Well, you give them a little bit of advice, if at that point, she drives off to meet somebody off a damn Facebook Marketplace. But a trailer where they’re like, well, we’re going to add an addition to the trailer. That is when I’m like, do not do it anytime. And let me make this speech right now, and I’m going to put my hat on to make this, because I don’t like my hair today. My God, I need a wife.

But what I’m telling you is this, okay? If you meet someone and they’re like, yeah, the trailer. We got the trailer. And then we’re going to add on to it, you’re like, that, it doesn’t work. It’s not a realistic project. You can’t just add on to a trailer with extra housing or quit creed or whatever. They’re using all type of s*, you know.

LEANNE MORGAN: Did you know that Chuck Morgan is in the mobile home ministry?

THEO VON: I could imagine it. I didn’t know that. And did he put you in one?

LEANNE MORGAN: Yes, I lived in a double one. And he said to me, we’re just going to be there temporarily. And it was big. You could ride a bicycle through it.

THEO VON: Oh yes, that’s right.

LEANNE MORGAN: But I was pregnant with my third baby. It was in the middle of nowhere. It was a hard time for me.

THEO VON: Was it?

LEANNE MORGAN: There was a mom that lived behind us. She had a pot belly pig. It charged me all the time. It wasn’t a big pig, but it was scary, to have a little pig charging you while you’re big pregnant. Trying to get up in a double wide when you don’t have steps.

THEO VON: Yeah, it’s kind of, yeah. Oh, definitely, dude.

LEANNE MORGAN: Chuck Morgan owned the business and had steps sitting out in the field several and just forgot to bring steps home. So I had to pitch two babies up in a double wide, then hike my leg up being pregnant. I mean, I had Tess that baby. I was pregnant with her. And we lived on, and it was on a gravel road. And he said, I promise you I’m going to, I’ll make money.

THEO VON: He’s got big hands. I saw. So hell yeah. I can imagine that thing helping you balance on the way up a little.

LEANNE MORGAN: Oh, no. And then he did. He flipped it. But yeah, Chuck Morgan still works in the mobile home industry. And I don’t think, I don’t know, maybe some people do try to build onto a mobile home. But I get what you’re saying.

THEO VON: Yeah. It’s just when you.

LEANNE MORGAN: You could put a fire pit out in front. Put it.

THEO VON: But I don’t know, do not try to put it inside. That’s what I’m saying. Do not do that. That’s a thing. You know, we’re going to take, my sister was always like, we’re going to tear down this wall inside and we’re going to, no, you don’t need a living room that has a bathroom in it. Like, you know, but no wall.

LEANNE MORGAN: Like, did you ever live in one?

Growing Up in Sinking Apartments

THEO VON: I didn’t live in one. We lived in an apartment complex that was sinking. So we’d sit, I remember we’d sit there at night and watch Unsolved Mysteries of mom and stuff. And one part of the fing apartment after about the second episode. Once, once Full House came on, your fing bottom was getting wet. Because it was just a few could, the floor was sinking. There was some sinking there, some sinking in the living room.

And people would steal or, this is the worst part about our place. People would steal our, the wood from our balcony. See me find that picture. I’ve talked about this before, but people.

LEANNE MORGAN: Would try to steal the.

THEO VON: So people.

LEANNE MORGAN: There was a balcony up on that top.

THEO VON: Yes, there wasn’t. The police were like, whoa. You have any pictures of it? We’re like, officer, you don’t think there was a balcony there? What do you think we just live with a witch or somebody who just travels on this propulsion or something? Or some woman on her period who can just levitate out like that? What do you? He’s like, well, we need to see some images or something. And I’m like, it was just, that was a nightmare.

But people would steal that and they would use it to build something at their house. And then we go get it back and get it back installed. If my mom was seeing a guy, we convince him if he was drunk to go get that wood back. It’d always be a little bit less of it. Every time he got it back. It was that sort of deal.

Family Background

LEANNE MORGAN: Where are you and your family? Are you the baby?

THEO VON: No, I’m the second one. We have four children, and I’m the second one. So we had a, yeah. Older brother, two younger sisters. What about you?

LEANNE MORGAN: I have an older sister.

THEO VON: You do?

LEANNE MORGAN: Mm.

THEO VON: What? She.

LEANNE MORGAN: We were pretty big deal in Adams, Tennessee, of 500 people.

THEO VON: Yeah.

LEANNE MORGAN: You know, we were tall, blonde. I played sports.

THEO VON: She twirled, she twirled, she twirled.

LEANNE MORGAN: She was a majorette, and boys used to call and breathe into the phone.

THEO VON: That’s flirting my problem. Oh, she’s beautiful, huh?

LEANNE MORGAN: Thank you. She was national Sigma Chi calendar.

THEO VON: You’re dressed like a damn dish set we had when I was a kid.

LEANNE MORGAN: That was at the Opry.

THEO VON: God, that’s great.

LEANNE MORGAN: Oh, my Lord. We both have an unrealistic hair color right there. We’ve both gotten some dimensions since then.

THEO VON: Yeah. A lot of your photos, you kind of look like an Asian woman that’s dyed her hair to look American. In some ways because of my eyes.

LEANNE MORGAN: Do you think my eyes.

Growing Up with a Beauty Queen Sister

THEO VON: No, I just feel like you are a beautiful lady. A lot of these pictures, I don’t see you in them for some reason, but they look great. I’m just saying. And maybe I’ve seen a lot, too. I’ve been on too many sites with Asians on them or something. But go back. I want to talk about your sister for a second. What’s her name?

LEANNE MORGAN: Beth.

THEO VON: Beth. Oh, she’s beautiful. And so what was it like having a sister like her? She was a majorette.

LEANNE MORGAN: You said she was a majorette and, you know, 5’11”, and she was in Miss Tennessee.

THEO VON: Of course she was, dude. Any tall girl, they just, they will get it all if you just happen to be f*ing tall. I don’t care. For whatever reason or something. Maybe it wasn’t a lot of gravity in the home or whatever, but whatever happened. And you got to be tall. They were like, she’s beautiful. You remember that?

LEANNE MORGAN: Uh huh. And we, you know, when you’re in, I graduated 42 people. I think she graduated with 20 something.

THEO VON: Okay. So easier for her to do well.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah. And, but she was always very, and still is very prim and proper. And she went to Austin Peay. She was homecoming queen. And she was national semi calendar on the, yeah. And then I went to UT and I was in a mass. A mass. A mess. I was flailing around.

THEO VON: But were you dating women too? You were keeping.

LEANNE MORGAN: No.

THEO VON: Okay. I mean, I just didn’t have that.

LEANNE MORGAN: I love men. Love them.

THEO VON: I don’t know how weird it got.

LEANNE MORGAN: No, I didn’t go through that.

THEO VON: Yeah. And were you knocked up outside of wedlock or not?

First Marriage and Early Struggles

LEANNE MORGAN: No. She did pretty good, you know. But I dropped out and I got married the first time. That wasn’t Chuck Morgan. I have a past.

THEO VON: Who was it?

LEANNE MORGAN: It was a guy that was older than me. He went to UT. He had already graduated. Well, I think so. I think so.

THEO VON: It just didn’t work out.

LEANNE MORGAN: He had problems. It was bad, and I don’t think he could help it.

THEO VON: Oh, my God. I hope he’s all right. Is he alive?

LEANNE MORGAN: No. God.

THEO VON: Aw, that’s sad. Thank you for telling us about him.

LEANNE MORGAN: Oh, my darling. But you know, it made me who I am today. It’s okay. It’s okay. And he was a beautiful, talented. He was beautiful, talented and all that. But it was bad and I was dumb and 21. And then we’re talking the late 80s. I still probably had some big hair and.

THEO VON: Were you listening to any type of music?

LEANNE MORGAN: Annie Lennox.

THEO VON: Okay.

LEANNE MORGAN: Prince, Billy Idol, Rick James. Nasty Rick James.

THEO VON: Okay. You guys were partying a little.

LEANNE MORGAN: I mean, I was dancing and smoking cigarettes, but I was not a drinker. I didn’t care about drinking. And I didn’t, I never did drugs because I’m scared of things.

THEO VON: That is you, huh?

LEANNE MORGAN: I was. That’s me, 17, a junior in high school.

THEO VON: Tess, looks like you kind of, huh? Beautiful ladies. Oh, my God. And who is that?

LEANNE MORGAN: Me and my sister.

The Von Erich Connection

THEO VON: Oh, I thought that was two of the Von Erichs. You ever seen those kids? The wrestlers?

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah.

THEO VON: Bring them up.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yes.

THEO VON: Didn’t you interview Kevin Von Erich? We did, honey.

LEANNE MORGAN: After that I looked him up because it was so fascinating as children. They were fascinating.

THEO VON: They are fascinating. Great guy. But yes. Some of the, that picture room, I thought it was two of them.

LEANNE MORGAN: Well, yeah, we were little blonde headed children and our family owned the little grocery store in our town.

THEO VON: Oh, I could easily.

LEANNE MORGAN: Is that all those wrestling boys?

THEO VON: Yeah.

LEANNE MORGAN: The daddy sitting there, did he wrestle or.

THEO VON: He did. He wrestled too.

LEANNE MORGAN: Where were they raised?

THEO VON: Maybe East Texas.

LEANNE MORGAN: That’s Kevin and their little mama. You can tell she cooked.

THEO VON: Oh, definitely.

LEANNE MORGAN: And she tended to them and got them casseroles.

Morgan Wallen and Dating Stories

THEO VON: She did not have a choice to cook. I can’t believe you gave Morgan a casserole. What kind was it?

LEANNE MORGAN: I didn’t. I never got to fix little Morgan. He now, he did take my Maggie, my middle child, on a couple of dates.

THEO VON: Oh, that’s beautiful.

LEANNE MORGAN: But she said, I think he likes wild girls that like to key cars.

THEO VON: Oh, well.

LEANNE MORGAN: And see, my children went to a Christian school and were taught not to. But she said I just, she thought it was darling. And she said, I think he likes wild. This was a long time ago. This before he hit it big. He was, you know, he liked girls that like to fight in the yard.

THEO VON: Yeah, dude. Yeah, I could see that. I mean.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yes. Yeah. And that’s okay. There’s pretty girls in Powell. They were all from Powell, Tennessee.

THEO VON: Yeah.

LEANNE MORGAN: And he was a baseball player and.

THEO VON: Mowed a free fight. Yeah, yeah. And especially if he just mowed the yard.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah.

THEO VON: Somebody needs to throw down in it, you know? That’s what I’m saying.

LEANNE MORGAN: I know. And see, my sister and I and my kid, we don’t like to fight. We’re not fighters. My son, 32, he’s not a fighter.

THEO VON: Y’all are lovers then?

LEANNE MORGAN: We’re lovers. Uh huh.

Family Business and Farming Roots

THEO VON: I interrupted you though. So he owned a car dealership, you said. What were you saying before I interrupted you?

LEANNE MORGAN: My little mom and daddy.

THEO VON: No, I told you. You were talking about, oh, when the two little kids go back to them as children and sorry I interrupted you and took you on this crazy thing.

LEANNE MORGAN: Where I compared you to look like with the wrestlers.

THEO VON: Yeah. And I’m very sorry. But now here we have two beautiful children.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yes, that’s me and my sister. And I think that was taken in the back of our, I think people could get their picture made in our grocery store.

THEO VON: Oh, I love that.

LEANNE MORGAN: My family owned the little grocery store. And we’re farmers. We have land. We still have farming in outside of Knoxville, tobacco farming in Middleton, say here outside of Nashville on the Kentucky Tennessee border, near 101st Airborne, Fort Campbell, Clarksville. That’s where I was raised.

THEO VON: Oh, beautiful.

LEANNE MORGAN: But I went to University of Tennessee and then, you know, married a bunch of men up there, but. So we had grocery store, and then my little daddy opened a meat processing plant, and he did everybody’s beef, deer and hogs and all that.

THEO VON: And y’all do nuggets too, or anything like that?

LEANNE MORGAN: No.

THEO VON: God.

LEANNE MORGAN: It’s kind of like, now these fancy people that do grass fed that, my people were doing that a long time ago.

The Soup Galore Days

THEO VON: Yeah, well, I was from, if they saw a cow eating grass, like, this thing’s a little gay, you know, like, it was feed only back then. You know, if you saw some grass, like, look at this thick b having a salad, you know, it’d be like. It was a different time. I worked at a place called Soup Galore. I worked over there.

LEANNE MORGAN: I love soup.

THEO VON: Yeah, enough people didn’t love it like you did, I think, because we could not keep a strong clientele in there.

LEANNE MORGAN: Really.

THEO VON: Well, it’s just hard. And our big thing was, it was supposed to be like the Baskin Robbins of soups, right?

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah.

THEO VON: So they were supposed to have 31 soups. And I’m like, dude, we don’t have enough. If everybody came in here and had two bowls of soup, they’re like, well, maybe after the game, everybody will come in, have a couple bowls of soup. I’m like, there’s not that. There’s only like seven parking spots, too. It was like, it didn’t even make any sense, dude. And I’d be back there just damn stirring, like a bouillabaisse or a fing split pea. I mean, that s would.

LEANNE MORGAN: Are there 31 soups, is what I’m wondering.

THEO VON: Oh, of course there are. Bring up a list of soups, if you don’t mind, brother. For the non believers out here, for the Methodists, as I’ll call them. Okay, bring up a list of decent soups. Put that on there. Tomato, French onion. That was an easy one. Cream of mushroom. That was pretty basic. We had that butternut squash, we didn’t do. Now, I’ve had that a lot as an adult.

LEANNE MORGAN: Do you like that, my darling? Because that’s not what a go to for me. Butternut squash soup.

THEO VON: It’s a rich thing. Like, sometimes I’ll be at a place where somebody will invite me to something where you have to have all your clothes on to eat and hoopty doo. Yeah, hoop de. No paper. And there’s nowhere to put your gum. You have to swallow it.

Special Moments and Friendships

LEANNE MORGAN: Do you get invited to a bunch of nifty things because you’re so cute and fun and everybody wants to be with you and it, and you’re exhausted. Is that basically it?

THEO VON: No, I don’t think that’s true. I do. Like, one thing that was one thing that sometimes is neat. Like, my best friend went to Ole Miss, so I got to go to Ole Miss. It was his birthday, right? So we went up to Ole Miss and so I met Lane Kiffin from podcasting with him. So I got to take my best friend on this walk that they do at the beginning of the thing.

But if you’ll see, play that video and I’ll tell you when to pause it in just a second. Okay, Pause it. Right behind me on the right is my best friend. So he loves SEC football. He loves Ole Miss. I’ve never, in fact, I’ve only supported Ole Miss because he was an Ole Miss guy and I love him. He’s my, we’ve been friends for children. His father convinced me to go do comedy. His father was a Jerry Clower fan and used to put Jerry Clower on the radio and on the CD.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah.

THEO VON: But little things like that are great. Like, I know you’re doing, but it’s probably similar stuff. I know you’re doing the CMAs at Lainey Wilson. Right. You’re going to just guest with her on there for a little bit, which is amazing.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah, I get to intro somebody, but I get to be on stage with her for a little while. She and I played each other in Family Feud. Celebrity Family Feud. Uh huh. She invited our family to play and then I did something else with her with CBS. So I love her and she’s the real deal.

THEO VON: She’s the best. I went and saw her and Ella Langley play not long ago and that was beautiful.

LEANNE MORGAN: And Ella Langley, I got to meet her on the Today show. Beautiful, beautiful.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah.

LEANNE MORGAN: Is she dating anybody?

THEO VON: Huh?

LEANNE MORGAN: Is she dating anybody?

THEO VON: I don’t know a thing. I don’t know anything.

LEANNE MORGAN: I mean, she’s got beautiful bangs and legs. Did you notice that?

THEO VON: I know. She is a great performer. She is a firecracker. I know that. She’s just a, you know, confident young lady. So talented.

LEANNE MORGAN: She is so talented.

THEO VON: But I don’t know. I don’t know. She, whoever, she whoever. If she’s dating somebody, they’re a lucky.

LEANNE MORGAN: They are very lucky because she’s a doll, a living doll. She was with Riley Green and I got to meet him. He was, darn, look at her. That doll oh.

THEO VON: Mm. Beauty.

LEANNE MORGAN: Beauty.

THEO VON: Yeah, she.

LEANNE MORGAN: Lainey’s a beauty, too.

THEO VON: Oh, she’ll iron your f*ing shirt with her stare, too. She could put. Look, Ella will get something done, I’ll tell you.

LEANNE MORGAN: And Ella, where was she raised?

THEO VON: Alabama, I think, in the Jungle Book. Have you seen that movie? She is a wild one, and I mean that lovingly. Ella, she knows that she is from Alabama. Hope Hole, Alabama.

LEANNE MORGAN: Hope Hole, Alabama.

THEO VON: I know she just won a couple Sea-Doos, I think, in a raffle down there. I saw her using them. They had a raffle down there at the hardware shop, and she won them. I remember my granddaddy, when we were kids, would take us over there, like, “Let’s go enter the raffles through Apple Week. You go interim.” And then he’d go over there to the pool hall and smoke. And you have to sit out in his truck or whatever. Yeah, with a couple stuff.

LEANNE MORGAN: I think we were raised similar. A lot of people sitting, smoking, out in a truck.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, yeah. The men would go cry behind the Winn-Dixie. If things weren’t going well, they’d park back there and cry.

LEANNE MORGAN: Oh, good chicken, though.

THEO VON: Yeah, they had great produce. My buddy Robbie. My buddy Robbie Taylor worked over there for a long time. He was a steadfast employee there and went on to create some businesses of his own. But, yeah, we go up there and watch the fellas cry over there.

LEANNE MORGAN: There were people crying outside of the…

THEO VON: Winn-Dixie in the back, not out front. If you were crying out front, that’s a gay guy. You know what I’m saying? The real man parked and cried in the back. We were just up there having a little too much trouble getting one of those big bags of ice out of the icebox thing. That’s just a fella that’s afraid to admit something to his wife, you know.

LEANNE MORGAN: Oh, okay. I used to go back when I was waiting tables and smoke with the line cooks. They’re fun. They’d gotten out of jail, had fun stories.

THEO VON: First of all, if you consider the people that work at Winn-Dixie the line cooks.

LEANNE MORGAN: No, the restaurant that I worked at.

THEO VON: Oh, so.

LEANNE MORGAN: Oh, those boys, those line cooks that I worked with. Pretty fun criminals. Had a ball wanting to hear what they did.

THEO VON: Where was your first job? So this was a restaurant.

LEANNE MORGAN: This was a restaurant.

THEO VON: It was a real place.

LEANNE MORGAN: A real place where I met Chuck Morgan when he came to get his MBA and I was finishing up that undergraduate. That took me many years.

THEO VON: And this is in Knoxville.

LEANNE MORGAN: In Knoxville, Tennessee. The restaurant where everybody wanted to work because it stayed on a wait all day long. You made big money.

Meeting Chuck Morgan

THEO VON: Oh, I like that. Because you seem like a woman that’s probably slept away to the top of a Marie Calendars, you know what I’m saying? I’m not judging you, but go on anyway. Sorry, I shouldn’t be talking while you’re here. And I’ll say this, that place was nice. That f*ing pie aquarium they had at that Marie Callender.

LEANNE MORGAN: You know, I’ve never been in. Are you talking about a real Marie Callender? There were restaurants.

THEO VON: Yeah.

LEANNE MORGAN: Where were they? I’ve never been in one.

THEO VON: I don’t know. You know, they had. I think they had one up there towards Missouri. They had one and it was. I think it was in the same town as they. Had you ever placed that Lambert’s. The throw rolls? You ever been in that place? That was up there?

LEANNE MORGAN: Yes, I think I’ve been in a Lambert’s.

THEO VON: Marie Callenders is based out of Mission Viejo, California. Oh, I did not see that coming.

Early Comedy Days

LEANNE MORGAN: Okay. Were you living in Los Angeles when I saw you do Last Comic Standing? Were you out there living as a young, young, young, young boy? Because I see, I was a little mama out in the middle of nowhere. Wanted to be with y’all. I mean, but I mean, I wanted, you know, I wanted to be one of the cool kids at the Comedy Store, and I would.

THEO VON: And where were you at that time? That’s when you were working at that restaurant?

LEANNE MORGAN: No, this was when I started doing Cap City Comedy Club and all that. And then he got. Chuck got promoted, and then we came back to Knoxville where the corporate offices are, and that’s when I. Well, I mean, I worked, but I, you know, nobody cared.

THEO VON: Well, honey, I don’t even have f*ing long socks. Look what I’m wearing. We’re both of our socks.

LEANNE MORGAN: Very cute, very lanky.

THEO VON: Your ankles look nice.

LEANNE MORGAN: Oh, thank you. I got a spray tan for you.

THEO VON: You did?

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah. Somebody came to my home and did it.

THEO VON: That’s nice of them.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah. But, yeah, I wanted to be out at the Comedy Store and all that. Wanted to be like you.

Balancing Comedy and Family

THEO VON: But was there a thing, what was it like really having the children and you’re wanting to do this? Did you have to say, “Okay, I can’t do it these years. I can’t do it this time of year.” Were there times you had to set off or did you not be able to do that? Because I know sometimes it’s like you get a week. You’re like, “That’s the week I’m working,” you know, I mean, that’s how it was for me.

I didn’t have. I had friends for 12 years that I was out there touring, but I didn’t see them that much. I was gone. If I met a girl I’d start to get to know, I was gone. I came back in town three weeks later. I didn’t remember who she was. I didn’t know who I was. You know, just things were. It was hard to keep things together. What was that like for you out there?

LEANNE MORGAN: I mean, I just. I took any job I could get, and I tried to stay on stage when I could, and at times I would go on a little tour with, like, two other female comedians because Blue Collar had blown up and so. Do you remember Etta May? A comedian named Etta May?

THEO VON: Yes.

LEANNE MORGAN: I toured with Karen Mills and Etta May. We called ourselves the Southern Fried Chicks.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, she plays a character, Etta May. She used to be do the Funny Bone in Baton Rouge sometimes.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah. And she was. She lived out in LA and was in movies and stuff.

THEO VON: Wow. I don’t know if I ever got to meet her.

LEANNE MORGAN: She’s out there working theaters and clubs still.

THEO VON: Etta May, so funny. And who else?

LEANNE MORGAN: Karen Mills, who is a good friend of mine who opens for me on when I tour.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah. I got to get to spend. See that Etta May, because I remember. Yeah. You see the flyers at the clubs, at the Funny Bone, that’s who was coming through. That’s back when Baton Rouge had a Funny Bone. And they don’t have one anymore. I don’t think Louisiana even has a comedy club anymore.

LEANNE MORGAN: Well, I know in Knoxville there were Side Splitters, but you would come to the Tennessee Theater when I was working the Side Splitters.

THEO VON: Yeah. By the time I get to Knoxville, I was already doing outside the Bijou or.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah, I know. You were at the Tennessee Theater.

THEO VON: I was outside of clubs. That Tennessee Theater is awesome, beautiful.

LEANNE MORGAN: But I would do. I would work when I could. I did a lot of private things. I did clubs when they’d have me. And I always had television deals, though, going. That’s the thing.

THEO VON: Oh, you did?

LEANNE MORGAN: I had Hollywood after me.

THEO VON: Well, honey, shush.

LEANNE MORGAN: You had.

THEO VON: Damn.

LEANNE MORGAN: But they wouldn’t make it. I mean, I had big television deals, but they wouldn’t make it.

THEO VON: They weren’t making any of our shit. But at least you had the deal.

Television Deals and the Netflix Show

LEANNE MORGAN: I did, and that kept me going. You know, I’d get down and I’d think, “Well, something must be telling me to keep going” because I would have a. You know, I’d get a deal with ABC and Warner Brothers. And then I had one with Nick at Nite and. And then Sony and then. So the one I had with Chuck.

THEO VON: Lorre, that was my yes for this new show.

LEANNE MORGAN: Uh huh. And that, that, I mean, for Leanne. Yeah. And this went like he just said, “We’re doing it.” And Netflix said, “We’d love for you to do it.” And we got to. I got an unbelievable cast.

THEO VON: And you know who put your sister in it?

LEANNE MORGAN: Kristen Johnston from 3rd Rock from the Sun and Righteous Gemstones.

THEO VON: Y’all are so good.

LEANNE MORGAN: And she is brilliant. And she had to tell me what all they were saying to me. I didn’t know. I go, “What is all this?” And then Ryan Stiles from Whose Line is it Anyway? Brilliant. Celia Weston plays my mother. She played my mother in the only movie I’ve been in with Reese Witherspoon and Will Ferrell, You’re Cordially Invited. She was my mother in that. Blake Clark, who’s in all the Adam Sandler movies, plays my dad.

THEO VON: Blake Clark plays your dad?

LEANNE MORGAN: Yes.

THEO VON: Oh, that’s beautiful.

LEANNE MORGAN: And he is darling.

THEO VON: He’s great. He was in the water. I thought he passed away.

LEANNE MORGAN: No, honey, he is my daddy.

THEO VON: I swear to God. I went to this guy’s funeral online during COVID. Oh, my God. Good to see him alive.

LEANNE MORGAN: And he does great. I mean, he is. Men love this show and I think it’s because of him and Ryan Stiles. And then my love interest on it is Tim Daly from Wings. So I made out with Tim Daly.

THEO VON: I never watched Wings. And is he gay fella or straight?

LEANNE MORGAN: He’s straight. He’s married to Téa Leoni. You know that beautiful actress?

THEO VON: He is.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yes.

THEO VON: He’s married to Téa Leoni.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yes. They just got married. They’ve been together for 14 years.

THEO VON: Oh, that’s wonderful. She is in my favorite movie ever, Family Man with Nicolas Cage.

LEANNE MORGAN: Oh, my gosh. Okay. I loved her in Spanglish with Adam Sandler. Wow. He plays Agent Andrew, my love interest, because my husband Ryan Stiles’ character has walked off and left me after 33 years of marriage.

THEO VON: You sure he wasn’t just looking for something? And do you have any clue. Is there any. Has he called or anything?

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah, he’s still around.

THEO VON: He is.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah, that’s.

THEO VON: Yeah, that’s Blake.

LEANNE MORGAN: We’ve got two grandbabies together in this and God.

The Reality of Filming

THEO VON: And has this. When it. When this started, all. Yeah. What were your?

LEANNE MORGAN: I cried every day. I was like, “What the. What have I gotten myself into?” It was so scary.

THEO VON: Yeah. When this finally happened, what was it like?

LEANNE MORGAN: It was like, “Oh, no, I’ve got to learn a script every week, and I’m in every scene.” I’d never done that before. I was overwhelmed by that.

THEO VON: That’s a lot.

LEANNE MORGAN: It’s a lot. You got 250 people there staring at you. A set, darling. People that have worked for Chuck Lorre for years. They’re counting on you.

THEO VON: Yeah.

LEANNE MORGAN: They’re counting on you not to screw. Yeah.

THEO VON: And for people that don’t know the show starts off where you just found out that your husband cheated on you, kind of. That’s where you girls are spending so much time in the laying in the bed together and kind of just getting through life.

The Bell Witch

LEANNE MORGAN: I remember that we had 16 episodes, and at first, Netflix was going to do, because, you know, they only do things in eight or ten episodes, so they were going to drop eight, and then my new Netflix special dropped November 4th, and then we’re going to drop another eight this coming spring. And then they got a wild hare and dropped 16 at one time and first time in their history.

THEO VON: Wow.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah. So it all got drunk and it did really well. I’m so thankful. I was scared to death. I thought, is anybody going to, because it’s a multicam. And they said to me, at Netflix, we think you can bring back the multicam. And I’m like, don’t put that burden on me.

THEO VON: Yeah.

LEANNE MORGAN: And then it did really well. And I think people miss that format. I think people think of it as comfort and comfort food kind of, and people really liked it. What the thankful.

THEO VON: On a streamer, you can be a little bit more edgy. Right. You’re not as, like, locked in. It’s like a lot of the cable laws. What things are allowed on streaming that aren’t allowed on cable? Can you find. Is there any information on that? Can you look up on We.

LEANNE MORGAN: I think Ryan did say shit.

THEO VON: Can you look that up on Perplexity real quick?

LEANNE MORGAN: They wanted to probably cuss a lot.

THEO VON: More, but let me see.

LEANNE MORGAN: You know, I didn’t want it.

THEO VON: Streaming services allow certain types of content that cable television cannot. Correct. Right. Streaming platforms often feature uncensored profanity, explicit sexual content, nudity.

LEANNE MORGAN: I was not nude.

THEO VON: Okay. Graphic violence, and mature themes that would not be allowed on cable channels. There are fewer restrictions on the depiction of drugs, controversial political topics, or socially sensitive material in original programming produced for streaming on streaming. Creators are less limited by requirements around Content rating or time of broadcast that apply to cable and especially broadcast TV. Cool.

Examples of content differences. Shows and movies on streaming may include swearing, nudity, sexual situations, and violence without censorship, while cable versions of the same content are often edited or bleeped for language, blur nudity, and cut explicit scenes.

LEANNE MORGAN: I did carry a gun.

THEO VON: You did.

LEANNE MORGAN: Well, that’s.

THEO VON: That’s fair.

LEANNE MORGAN: I was breaking in.

THEO VON: It’s a Tennessee state law. You can.

LEANNE MORGAN: Well, Ron Styles said to me, I didn’t know how to hold one. And he goes, you know how to hold them, Lynn? You’re from Tennessee. I go, we’re not just going around packing guns. My people call it packing. And I said, I mean, I know people that have them and hunt, but my daddy never did. And I don’t know how to. I think people think in Tennessee, it’s like the wild west.

THEO VON: Yeah. Oh, people think it’s shoot them up out here. You know what I’m saying? Like, people are just like, yeah, if it gets a little weird, you can shoot. But I do like the fact that if somebody thinks they’re going to walk into a place and get a little weird, they’re going to have to know that there’s six or seven men and women and people, you know, women in the middle who are willing to pop. Who are willing to.

LEANNE MORGAN: I know. In the movie theater immediately. I know. Yeah. There’s some bad mama jamas taking care of business, which I like.

Season Two and Family on Set

THEO VON: The show is great and people are loving it. How many, what season you guys are now do what? You only have your first season?

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah, I go out.

THEO VON: Are you going to do a second season?

LEANNE MORGAN: Uh huh. I go out. Thank you, my darling. I go out in January and start again.

THEO VON: And we’ll test you out there with you where? Your daughter’s house.

LEANNE MORGAN: She’s about to get her union, so she works on the set with me.

THEO VON: Okay.

LEANNE MORGAN: And is my makeup artist. And also, I mean, it’s just good to have family out there because Chuck Morgan’s still working a big job and I don’t want to be out there by myself. It makes me feel better to have one of my children with me.

My oldest child’s married and got my two grandbabies and working. And then my middle child lives in, I told you that at the UT ballgame. The one that went to Chipotle with Morgan Wallen. She lives in New York and works for the food bank. She’s a nonprofit. She’s always worked in nonprofit. And this baby went to school for makeup for television and film in Manhattan.

THEO VON: That’s beautiful. I know.

LEANNE MORGAN: So I get, so they get, you know, she takes care of me while I’m out there. Cause I need. I can’t. I got to learn all this stuff.

THEO VON: Honey, you can’t just be. Yeah. Just wandering around, just wondering if your bra fits. All right.

LEANNE MORGAN: All day. Right. And then.

THEO VON: I ever been in a tight bra? Yeah. What’s that?

LEANNE MORGAN: Like, band? Is it bad? Yeah. I don’t want to be so pitiful that I’m like Mariah Carey and like men had to carry me around, but I do. I need people to tend to me now. I never thought I would get that way, but, I mean, I got to learn a lot.

And my girlfriend’s back home. They’re like, just drink some wine at night. You got so much on you. I go, I can’t drink wine and sweat in the bed all night and not be able to learn a script the next day. I can’t be drinking.

THEO VON: And you wake up. Yeah. And your mouth is all dried out and stuff.

LEANNE MORGAN: Uh huh. And it makes women’s blood vessels expand and you sweat in the night. I hate to even tell you that when you get a certain age, it’s not girls your age, they’re not sweating. I don’t know, they might be beginning to sweat.

THEO VON: Some people are. Yeah. People are losing water. I know that people are losing it. Well, people are losing weight too. I mean, Everybody’s on those GLPs or whatever. The XPBs or the CBC. Yeah. People are on all that shit. I mean, they busted a lady selling ozempic outside of a damn vineyard vines out there.

LEANNE MORGAN: You know, she was outside of the vineyard vines selling it.

THEO VON: Yeah.

LEANNE MORGAN: Selling dope or selling GLP1s.

THEO VON: Selling Ozempic, baby. Yeah. And all you can do is pray for her. I know it’s hard. It’s. Everybody’s going through something.

LEANNE MORGAN: Everybody’s going through something.

THEO VON: Yeah. What was your town like? Like, was there any like lore in your town? Like any famous people that came to visit or did anything? Like, was there any like. I’m trying to think of something interesting that happened, honey.

LEANNE MORGAN: There was a demon, of course. The Bell witch.

THEO VON: The Bell witches from your town?

LEANNE MORGAN: Yes.

THEO VON: Oh my gosh.

LEANNE MORGAN: We just heard of the Bell Witch.

THEO VON: We had some ghost hunter children and I don’t know if something happened to them through the church or something. They, they didn’t tell me everything that happened to him. But we had two young fellows who were touched by the spirit and out there hunting the Bell witch. They went to the Bell, which is the only, that is the only time that the government got involved in and investigated. Investigated a witchcraft situation.

LEANNE MORGAN: Right, honey, that’s where I’m from. Oh, those little boys. They look like they love a ghost.

THEO VON: Sam and Colby. Yeah, Sam and Colby.

LEANNE MORGAN: Sam and Colby.

THEO VON: Great guys. But yeah. So that’s. Oh, so that was.

LEANNE MORGAN: That’s where I’m from and I was raised. Yes. With a demon. They talked about it all the time. If there was a, if there was a fourth of July picnic, they put a dummy in a, in a coffin and said, that’s the witch. That’s Kate Batts.

THEO VON: So that was big lore around, y’all.

LEANNE MORGAN: Oh, yeah. And the Vanderbilt football team. Fraternities would come down, torment each other, beat the windows out of our church. They’d have to. Everybody had to pass money around to put more windows in the church. Oh, that’s graveyard. Dogs that had bullet holes that couldn’t explain why they’re still walking. Crows comes in. She comes in the, in the. She comes in the, in the form of a black dog. A crow. A black crow. Crazy man. And I was raised in it.

THEO VON: Yeah. She just showed up dressed like Chris Robinson. Yeah, it was great.

LEANNE MORGAN: And people come from all over. They still come. And during October is the Bell Witch play. And it’s sold out. And I was. I went. My sister got me tickets a couple of years ago, and I sat by a guy that works at Warner Brothers on the Pit.

THEO VON: Wow. With it.

LEANNE MORGAN: And shrinking. He came to see it.

THEO VON: He was drinking.

LEANNE MORGAN: Shrinking with Harrison Ford, that television show.

THEO VON: Oh, God.

LEANNE MORGAN: Drinking on Apple.

THEO VON: Does he.

LEANNE MORGAN: A Warner Brothers executive? I’m sorry.

THEO VON: Is it worth going to see that?

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah, I think if you. Do you want to be around a demon? I don’t, but do you want to go? Do you like scary mess?

THEO VON: I would not.

LEANNE MORGAN: I know you’ve got the Holy Spirit, and that probably bumps you, I think.

THEO VON: It doesn’t make me feel great, but I do like to go over there and just every now and then make sure that the devil’s still out and about. So I know that the path I’m on is what I’m supposed to be doing.

LEANNE MORGAN: Right. I get that. I get that. Because the devil is at work. Okay. There’s a cave. You can go in the cave. And there’s Native American bones. There’s animal bones. The witches in there. People come from all over to go through that cave. I’ve never been through it. I didn’t want to go, and my daddy didn’t want me to go in it.

THEO VON: Oh, my God. And what town is that? And that’s over in Adams.

LEANNE MORGAN: That’s in Adams, Tennessee, on the Kentucky Tennessee border in Robertson County.

THEO VON: Wow.

LEANNE MORGAN: There’s been movies written about it, books. See, children that grew up in Tennessee used to have to do a book report on it, but now nobody. I don’t think they make them do it.

The Bell Witch Cave Story

THEO VON: The Bell Witch cave story is one of America’s most famous mysterious events experienced by the Bell family in Adams, Tennessee, between 1817 and 1821. The haunting began when John Bell, the family patriarch, encountered a bizarre creature resembling a dog with a rabbit’s head on the property.

LEANNE MORGAN: Dog with a rabbit’s head. Yeah, I haven’t heard that one.

THEO VON: It sounds like a hormone issue, but I don’t know a lot.

LEANNE MORGAN: See, Betsy must have been beautiful.

THEO VON: And then John, because there was a Betsy. Let me see. Oh. Disturbances escalated to eerie. Sorry to interrupt you.

LEANNE MORGAN: No, that’s all right, Angel.

THEO VON: Disturbances escalated to eerie noises. Objects moved by unseen forces. Bed sheets pulled away. And this could have just been a pervert. And violence towards the family. Especially daughter Betsy Bell, who experienced beatings and fainting spells. Dang.

LEANNE MORGAN: I know the real story.

THEO VON: You do know the real story. Then set us straight.

LEANNE MORGAN: Okay, first of all, let me say that before Nashville became the capital of Tennessee, it was going to be Adams because of our rich, dark, fired tobacco crops that grow. We grow tobacco for Copenhagen and Skoal. But because it was so rich in the land for tobacco, it was going to be the capital. But then for some reason, they made it Nashville.

John Bell ran for president at one time with the Whig Party. So they were very prominent family. Lucy must have been a beauty. A man came to through town, was in love with her.

THEO VON: Lucy or Betsy?

LEANNE MORGAN: Lucy. Okay, wait. Lucy. Wait, Leah. Lucy’s the daughter. Betsy was the mom.

THEO VON: Okay, John.

LEANNE MORGAN: Okay. So Lucy, he. She did not want that man. And so to torment her, he could throw his voice. They said he was a ventriloquist. I know what you’re going to do with that.

THEO VON: My guy, like Frank Caliendo. “Hey, I’m John Gruden. You need an exorcism, Betsy.” Go on. “Hey, Lucy.”

LEANNE MORGAN: But they blamed it on a slave, God love him. And it wasn’t him. It was this man that was a slave.

THEO VON: Every time the slaves, like, “What did I do?”

LEANNE MORGAN: This was a man that could throw his voice. He was a mathematician, a ventriloquist. And he fooled them all and then poisoned John Bell and killed him. And then she didn’t. Lucy didn’t know it. And I think Lucy ended up marrying him.

THEO VON: How it works.

LEANNE MORGAN: That’s how it works.

THEO VON: Hey, they say shooters shoot.

LEANNE MORGAN: And women are attracted to twisted.

THEO VON: Are they?

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah, so. And trauma. So. And you know, you want to fix people because we’re nurturing. So anyway. And that is the Bell witch and the whole thing. And people come and it’s always on the front of USA Today is one of the oldest ghost stories. And because it’s part of Tennessee history, like you said. But that’s what I was raised and that’s what we’re known for now. Maybe they’re known kind of for me, maybe.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, I think so.

LEANNE MORGAN: Me and a witch. I think she’s beating me.

THEO VON: I think it depends. How many tickets do they sell every year to that event?

LEANNE MORGAN: I sell more.

THEO VON: Let’s go. Let’s just say I sell a few more tickets in the Bell Witch.

LEANNE MORGAN: They sell quite a few, but not. But I’m, you know.

THEO VON: Yes, I know you do some small arenas this year and I’m just joking, you know that.

LEANNE MORGAN: I know, but that is popular. And, you know, people that love ghosts love ghosts.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah.

LEANNE MORGAN: And people are speaking and, you know, channeling the Beatles and all that kind of crap down there. But I don’t like all that. I believe in demons. I don’t like all that.

Summoning Spirits and Faith

THEO VON: Well, you know, we talk. This is one thing that we just did talk about when Sam and Colby were here, these ghost hunter children who I’m not saying were victims of sexual crime. I have no idea. I don’t know what their lives were like. Some of that’s alleged. I’m not saying that. I read that somewhere.

What I am saying is that, yeah, they said. Well, we talked about how it’s just like if you summon something, it’ll show up. It’s like having faith asking God to show up in your. If you sit out there and ask for it to come, it’ll be there. And that’s sometimes why I think the devil’s winning, because you have people that are spending more time summoning the devil and you have people that are sitting here asking God to show up.

LEANNE MORGAN: But see, and there’s the thing about the Bell witch. And I growing up, my cousins would do it and it would scare me to death that they go, “Say her name three times, turn around, she’ll appear.” Okay. I was at the Stardome in Birmingham. In Birmingham, doing.

THEO VON: I finally got to do that place. I’d emailed them 11, 12 years. And then finally one day it just came up on the schedule. Now you’re going to be at the Star Dom.

LEANNE MORGAN: And I bet you killed.

THEO VON: I was so excited.

LEANNE MORGAN: Well, I was in the back. You know, they have several little. I guess a little theater in the big theater, a big room. And there was the girl that you’ve seen and a million posters that go around to comedy clubs and talk to dead people. I mean, she talks to dead people. And she says in the audience, “Who? You know, your uncle. So and so’s.”

She was in the green room at the Stardome and she said. And she was a doll. And she said, “Oh, yeah, they’re in here right now. Dead people.” And I thought surely to goodness our sweet Lord would not. If I die, I don’t have to be in the green room in a comedy club with a half a bottle of mustard with, you know, something on TBS on the TV. I’m surely I’m not going to be stuck in a green room, you know.

Yeah, I don’t. Surely he’ll let me walk somewhere fun. Not where, you know, the pillows don’t match on the sofa, that hard a sofa in there.

Green Rooms and Comedy Clubs

THEO VON: A lot of times. God, this. Oh, green rooms are crazy. And then sometimes like this is a green room. I’m like, this is a bathroom. It doesn’t have a toilet in it. I’m like, you’re like. Sometimes the green room is great, sometimes it’s a curtain. People don’t like. Oh, there’s nothing like that. That all the clubs over the years that coming up, all the places you go do, you know.

But I think it’s like that about everything. You think like backstage then is going to be amazing once you get to certain levels. And then sometimes backstage is. You’re just hiding behind the edge of the stage waiting to walk out there, you know, it’s all exciting, but it’s always just about putting the show on, making sure that it looks good out there. Backstage is never. There’s not a lot of money spent backstage.

LEANNE MORGAN: It’s kind of dusty. Yeah, but isn’t it thrilling, though? I’ve watched you in big places and women yelling and all that. I mean, do you.

THEO VON: Some of those are men with long hair, but yeah, those are men that have had sex changes but happy they’re there. We did have a guy peeing a woman’s hair one night out there in Colorado and we gave. We had to give her a free shirt.

LEANNE MORGAN: Because somebody peed in her hair.

THEO VON: Yeah.

LEANNE MORGAN: Just drunk and crazy or what was it?

THEO VON: I don’t know. She wanted a hoodie too. I’m like, baby girl. Okay, so you know the shirt we. They’re pretty good shirts.

LEANNE MORGAN: I know. Probably $65.

THEO VON: Oh, we don’t see. Yeah, we actually sell pretty cheap on the road.

LEANNE MORGAN: You do?

THEO VON: Yeah. We don’t sell super expensive.

LEANNE MORGAN: See, my people don’t want a big hot hoodie, but I’ve got women in menopause and their husbands. I do skew a little bit younger now.

THEO VON: Yeah.

LEANNE MORGAN: But I don’t know. I love a hoodie and I think hoodie’s cute and I can see where one of your hoodies would be, darling. But I got to go with a V neck. Everybody’s sweating.

THEO VON: Yeah, yeah. When you start, the fire starts to have to get out. You know, the heat starts to pop out after a while.

LEANNE MORGAN: And I don’t even. Somebody does the merch now, it’s like. That’s like a ghost. I never see them. I don’t know.

THEO VON: I know. I can’t even get a hold of my own church people, like, can you give me shirt? I’m like, I don’t. You know, I just go online and order and pay for it and buy it. Yeah, I can. But it is kind of interesting once it, you know, you get to certain spots and or certain parts of your career, if you’re fortunate enough to have some of those moments.

Yeah. What an exciting ride that you’ve had. Because did you ever feel like women don’t get the appreciation that men did? Did you feel that in comedy?

Women in Comedy

LEANNE MORGAN: No, I always hear women talk about that and I don’t know, everybody was always good to me, and I never. If I didn’t get something, I thought. I didn’t think of it as man woman kind of thing. I just thought, I’m not ready or I’m not edgy enough. You know, Comedy Central was big. I would always audition for stuff. Didn’t get it just for laughs. Didn’t get it until later.

And I never thought of as a man woman thing. I just thought, it’s not my time or I got to get better or I don’t have that whole man woman thing. I just don’t. Yeah, I mean, I always. I know there’s a lot more male comics and all that, but I did not feel anything. Nobody was disrespectful to me or that I didn’t deserve something or I just didn’t get that. I don’t know if people didn’t want to bully. I don’t. Because I’m a mom.

THEO VON: I don’t know. I have thought that some people don’t. People are used to seeing men be the jesters, right. And there is something. Or I think it used to be more this way because I don’t think it’s this way anymore. That it used to feel like the jester is supposed to be a male. You don’t want to see a woman. You know, it’s like, you want to. You don’t want to see a woman.

Like, imagine if it’s something that’s kind of vulgar, something like that, you know, that there’s. It’s not as popular of a view of women. So I think it took some of it. I think it took time for the view of that to be more possible. Does that make any sense?

LEANNE MORGAN: Like, a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense.

THEO VON: Now it’s like, yeah, you’re like, “Oh, that chick’s hilarious.” You know, But I think there was probably. I could see there being a generation or two ago where people were more like, “Oh, I can’t believe she’s saying that.”

LEANNE MORGAN: Or I think also they want a woman to be pretty and not making faces where she’s not as attractive or something. I fought with that. Like, I wanted to be pretty, but I didn’t want to look stupid. And when I was younger.

THEO VON: Now, I mean, whatever we can do.

LEANNE MORGAN: Whatever we can do. And Christian Johnson would say to me, because when I first saw myself on TV, I thought, “Oh, my gosh, where’s my chin? And I need to get a facelift.” And, you know, Hollywood, how that does that mess to you? And then she goes, “Leanne, think about the funny. Think about Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, Mary Tyler Moore.” And, you know, instead of just fixating on trying to be youthful and the prettiest and all that.

And I do think that’s wonderful that this has happened to me at my age, because I don’t have that pressure of somebody. I mean, you look at Nikki Glaser’s legs, she is stunning. You know, she is a beauty.

THEO VON: Yeah. Like a couple of. Damn. She got this in Charleston shoes on her. Baby. Things are nice. Yes.

LEANNE MORGAN: All these young girls that are, you know, so pretty, and. And I think I feel like that even puts more pressure on them that I don’t feel that pressure anymore. I used to feel that pressure.

THEO VON: Yeah. So it really kind of. Everything kind of happened at the most perfect time.

LEANNE MORGAN: You feel like, oh, I know it did. Right.

THEO VON: And it’s kind of a silly question because it’s, to me, it’s all on God’s time, and what else am I going to do about it?

LEANNE MORGAN: I know. And you think about if, I always think, if those television deals have made it, these children would not be who they are, my kids.

THEO VON: Was there any real tough moments with your kids where they kind of held it against you, that that was more of a thing or something like that?

LEANNE MORGAN: No, no. And really, I wasn’t, I was not working. I mean, I was working, but I was always there for them, and I never had to hire anybody, that nobody ever resented me for anything. I did miss a couple few things as they were growing up.

THEO VON: Yeah, but.

LEANNE MORGAN: But not bad. Not bad. I got to be there with them. And when I did that movie with Reese Witherspoon, she said to me every day on that set, “You got to raise your own children, Leanne.” So did. And I did.

THEO VON: I saw her the other day. I just met her first time.

LEANNE MORGAN: Beautiful, is she not? Beautiful and smart?

THEO VON: Connor. I met her kid, Cullen. She had two boys with her. Cullen.

LEANNE MORGAN: Oh, Tennessee’s the baby.

THEO VON: Cullen in Tennessee. Those are the names. I just met her the other day. Yep. Beautiful, nice, friendly children. We chatted for a little while, actually. I told her I would check in and just say hey to her. Yeah, I got to say hello, but.

LEANNE MORGAN: She’s smart.

THEO VON: Ava. Deacon in Tennessee. Wait, Deacon?

LEANNE MORGAN: You saw Deacon? And I was trying to think of that baby’s name, and he’s stunning.

THEO VON: No, she has two little ones, though.

LEANNE MORGAN: That Tennessee’s the baby. She had the first two by that Felipe boy.

THEO VON: Okay, Ryan Felipe. Yeah, yeah.

LEANNE MORGAN: And then this baby I got to meet.

THEO VON: Maybe.

LEANNE MORGAN: Well, I met all of them, but.

THEO VON: Maybe his friend was there. I thought it was.

LEANNE MORGAN: Oh, I did. He probably had a little friend with him.

THEO VON: I had a damn friend. And then I met.

LEANNE MORGAN: She said he loves living in Nashville. He gets out and plays in the neighborhood and does all that.

THEO VON: They were joyful children. I mean. Yeah, I met them at the Vanderbilt game. Yeah, that would be the tough part. I wonder, was it tough balancing any of that? Is it tough?

Balancing Family and Career

LEANNE MORGAN: It wasn’t tough. I need to tell people it was not tough because I had Chuck Morgan, that was an executive that made good money, so Chuck could help provide everything.

THEO VON: Chuck could help provide everything.

LEANNE MORGAN: Uh huh. I didn’t have to. I mean, I took horrible gigs. I did horrible gigs like everybody, but I wasn’t sleeping in a Ford Festiva.

THEO VON: Right. And we, yeah, my mother had a Ford Festiva, actually. And we used to make jewelry in the trunk in there at night.

LEANNE MORGAN: Making jewelry.

THEO VON: We’d sit in there and make little earrings and stuff like that and bracelets and stuff.

Starting Out in Comedy

LEANNE MORGAN: Well, I sold jewelry when I started. That’s how I got into comedy is I, Chuck Morgan moved me to Beans Station, Tennessee, in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. And I sold jewelry like women sell Mary Kay in Tupperware. Because I had my first baby and I wanted to stay home with him.

And I was supposed to be talking about jewelry in these women’s living rooms. And I would, you know, I started some of my first material there, talking about breastfeeding or hemorrhoids or whatever. Got laughs. Women would book me far in advance.

And then that gave me the confidence to do comedy club by the time I got to San Antonio, I had a comedy club and I did open mic and all that, but I sold jewelry. I wasn’t making it in the back of a Ford Festiva though, my darling.

THEO VON: Well, yeah, we would just do it in there because it was quiet in there. It was a kind of loud.

LEANNE MORGAN: And you need quiet to make jewelry.

THEO VON: Yeah, it was just peaceful in there kind of, you know, we’d go sit out in the car a lot at night. I would. I’d go sleep out there sometimes. My mom had these boxes she used to deliver cookies. My mom mostly did delivering, so she was always boxes of some shit at our house. Boxes that is like little dabbies or.

LEANNE MORGAN: What are we talking?

THEO VON: Oh, she worked for this cookie company for a while called Voortman Cookies. I remember. And I’d go sleep out there and that Ford Festiva, that bitch would barely go, dude, that thing was. Probably had about 400 pounds of cookies in that bitch car. Only weighed 80 pounds.

Dude, you could, dude, if you drop something near the car, you could pick it up and look under there for was so easy. Look at that car. Yeah, that one right there. Yep, that was it. Ours was gray, though. That thing was small. Brother and my mom could beat all of us and while she was driving. Play us like a damn drum set in there while she was driving. Dude. And my long neck brother hit his cymbal ass. But she could pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. We were misbehaving in that little car.

But yeah, there was never any peace in the area. But I’d go out there at night sometimes and spend a little bit of time. I go lay on those boxes of cookies. They smelled so good. They had gingerbread cookies too. Around Christmas. I go lay on there and just smell that gingerbread and just pretend I lived in England or something.

LEANNE MORGAN: Oh, my darling, I love that.

THEO VON: And my mom had a big rug in her room and it was a, I don’t know if it was a cow. I don’t know what it was. It was an animal that had died.

LEANNE MORGAN: Real hide.

THEO VON: Real hide. I think it was an animal. Hell, it could have been a damn Doberman. I don’t know what it was, but it was big. It was pretty big. And it looked like somebody milked it, but.

LEANNE MORGAN: And you laid on me.

THEO VON: I’d lay on that thing and just smell that animal and just think of being out on the prairie or something. Or being a cowboy or something. I remember that.

LEANNE MORGAN: Well, your imagination, honey, was.

THEO VON: It was fun. But yeah, the damn apartment was sinking and people would steal that wood. I just want to finish the love life here. So Chuck Morgan, you meet him over there in Knoxville. And he walks into where and sees.

Meeting Chuck Morgan

LEANNE MORGAN: You at the restaurant that I was working.

THEO VON: And what were you doing there? Working? What was your.

LEANNE MORGAN: I was waiting tables. And I was standing, waiting for my table to get seated. And he came through with a training group, and he’s 6 foot 4. And I said, “You’re tall as a tree.” And he said, “Sorry.” And I thought, another butthole’s come to work at Grady. And I thought, stay away from him. He’s not fun. And he just would stand next to me, you know, and kind of lurk.

THEO VON: And then we’d be in shade. You mean? I love you. Can’t see the positive in it, Leanne, go on.

LEANNE MORGAN: And then we would have shift meetings and I’d be eating a baked potato with some sour cream and butter on it and maybe cheese. And he would, I remember the second thing he said to me was, “You don’t need to eat all that fat on your baked potato.” And I thought, man, what a butthole. I mean, he doesn’t need to sit by me. Leave me alone.

The next time, I think I said on the back there doing catch ups or something, I said to one of the girls working, “I love your Danny and Burke purse, girl.” The next day he brought me a Danny and Burke purse and a big box with a bow on it and then started doing all my side work. And if I had a test, he would say, “I’ll take your shift. I’ll give you the money.” And started pursuing me, wooing me.

And see, I had been through a divorce at 23. I was divorced at 23. Which, how redneck is that?

THEO VON: Were you living in a group home? Where were you living? Where y’all living?

LEANNE MORGAN: Well, I roomed with two boys that were in the basement. They, I was working at behind a clinic counter.

THEO VON: Honey, that’s a group home. I think it’s a halfway house. Go on, though.

LEANNE MORGAN: And they said, there’s these new apartments.

THEO VON: Did y’all have a wreath or not? Wreath or no wreath?

LEANNE MORGAN: No wreath.

THEO VON: Yeah.

LEANNE MORGAN: And they said one of them worked in the shoes and one of them worked in security. And they said, “There’s a new apartment complex being built in the Fort by UT campus. If you, Lou,” they called me Lou. They go, “Do you want to share an apartment with us? We’ll keep you safe. We’ll be in the basement. There’s two down below. The stamps you can have.”

There were two bedrooms up. We didn’t have a fourth roommate. Except one time this little boy moved in there for a little while that wanted to be a weatherman. He did not have it.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah. Sometimes that’s a gay guy, too.

LEANNE MORGAN: He was gay and darling. And we did each other’s hair and had a ball.

THEO VON: Okay, but 200% chance of sunshine. I tell you that, baby.

LEANNE MORGAN: He had a little bitty robe, and he’d walk around in, and he had a big pompadour, and he wanted to do the weather. But, you know, some people just don’t have that. The support behind them.

THEO VON: Oh, God.

LEANNE MORGAN: I don’t think he ever got to do the weather. But anyway, I don’t know how he came in. But anyway, I took care of these boys. They were dating and doing. And I was kind of not the mom. I was 23 years old, but I made a good rotel dip. I to make over them. They’d have their girlfriends over. They’d have their boyfriend, guy, friends, fraternity boyfriend.

And so it was something to help me get over this divorce and have, you know, and have friends and all that. And turns out Chuck Morgan was in their fraternity and was in MBA school with one of them. We made that connection later. But by then, I had been through a horrible divorce. I cut all my hair off.

THEO VON: I had shaved it off.

LEANNE MORGAN: Not shaved, but short.

THEO VON: Were you going to join the Air Force? That type of shit.

LEANNE MORGAN: If I had had the guts, yeah, but I didn’t. I’m sissy, but, but I did not want anything to do with men. And because I was so hurt and all that. And then Chuck Morgan just would not take no for an answer. And wooed and wooed and wooed me and bought me gifts and paid my rent. And, you know, later. Now in interviews, he brings it up and acts like he resents it. “I had to pay her rent.” I go, “What? Nobody asked you to.”

THEO VON: First thing, he told me I had to pay her. He had a damn invoice written up in his phone. He said, “I’ll email it to you.” I said, “Look, bud, I’m.”

LEANNE MORGAN: He probably kept that receipt.

Falling in Love

THEO VON: But did you finally, was there a moment you realized you loved him? Kind of. Or did you just kind of?

LEANNE MORGAN: Yes, I fell in love with him. And then.

THEO VON: But was there a moment you did or just kind of slowly build up?

LEANNE MORGAN: It slowly built because I did not. I was, had trust issues because I had been through something terrible. And I told him, “I’ve been through something terrible. Don’t woo me.” And he does not take no for an answer because he’s a mobile home salesman.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, they are.

LEANNE MORGAN: They got a lot of testosterone. They’re very dominant.

THEO VON: And the first thing you tell them is no.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah. And they don’t take no for they can sail. I mean, he’s been successful. He does not take no for an answer.

THEO VON: He still does it. Oh, you’re slinging Moho’s. Dude, that shit’s f*ing. You got to, you got to.

LEANNE MORGAN: It’s lucrative.

THEO VON: You can’t give up. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah.

The Breakup and Reunion

Warren Buffett company, Berkshire Hathaway. Anyway, yeah, he would not leave me alone. And then he said, when I get a job after MBA school, we’ll get married. And then I was cocktailing, he was bartending by then. And he broke up with me.

THEO VON: What?

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah, he broke up with me for no reason.

THEO VON: What? No reason?

LEANNE MORGAN: Well, he said that I smelled from the cigarettes and he could not take anymore. But I don’t think that was the main reason. I did smell Marlborough.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, they’re good.

LEANNE MORGAN: They’re good.

THEO VON: Loved them.

LEANNE MORGAN: I wish they were healthy. Anyway, I just, I don’t know what he was going through, but he broke up with me and then he bought a used mobile home business up in Bean Station, Tennessee, where there’s no women his age. I think that was also a factor. He gets up there, there’s women working at the bank, you know, in their 40s, had a hard time.

Okay. So then I’m down finishing up my degree. I went to Fort Lauderdale on spring break, got a tan. I was a third wheel with another couple.

THEO VON: Don’t matter, b*h. The sun hitting everybody.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah. And he had never seen me with a tan. By then I was working behind another counter. I had like four jobs, you know, trying to make it. And he saw me with a tan and then said, can I buy you a pair of tennis shoes? And I was like, Miami. And then I took him back. He bought me a pair of Asics.

THEO VON: Oh, God. They were nice. They were pretty nice.

LEANNE MORGAN: I thought they were nice. Yeah. And yeah, and he wanted me back.

THEO VON: He…

LEANNE MORGAN: I’d been dating a long haired boy that was an artist who was poor. Poor. And I do like a man with health insurance. I got to tell you. I like a man that when he takes you to Costco, he buys the toilet paper. He doesn’t say, let’s split it. Yeah, I don’t like that.

THEO VON: Yeah.

The Long-Haired Artist

LEANNE MORGAN: So this was a long haired artist. And one of my roommates said, either Lou’s got a date or we’re being robbed. And he did kind of look like my sister. But anyway, Chuck, yeah, he was a pretty guy. He was pretty, but he had a bicycle. He didn’t own a car. He could make mayonnaise from scratch. And that was pretty nifty.

THEO VON: Oh, my God. And that was considered also a hair. People put in their hair back then. Remember that? Yeah.

LEANNE MORGAN: Deep condition. Yeah, yeah. And he also, I thought about this the other day because it was fall. He made pumpkin cheesecake. He said, I’m going to, this was, Lord, what was this, the early 90s? And he goes, you know what? I think pumpkin, canned pumpkin would be good in a cheesecake. And I remember thinking, I don’t even know what you’re saying.

THEO VON: Who is this fruit wizard over here? Yeah, who is this f*ing Halloween fruit wizard doing that crazy st? I mean, that was considered damn experimental at the time.

LEANNE MORGAN: I know. He really was, you know, kind of a savant. So then he said to me he…

THEO VON: Was in over his head at a damn Marie Calendars, I’ll tell you that. That’s for sure.

LEANNE MORGAN: And he rode a bicycle, and the bicycle had a sticker on the back of it that said, burn fat, not oil. And I was driving a Toyota Corolla.

THEO VON: Ooh, those are nice.

LEANNE MORGAN: That my little daddy bought me because I had been driving after a divorce. My granddaddy’s Impala that was beige, that when I drove through a parking lot, people threw dope out of the window, thinking I was the FBI or the police.

THEO VON: Did it have one of those lights on the outside of it? Remember those? Sometimes you get those police vehicles, people at an auction. That was the big thing in our town. Somebody get them a damn auction vehicle. And b*hes go on, though, so.

LEANNE MORGAN: And so the long haired boy said to me, if we marry, I want to stay home with the children and you be the breadwinner. And I broke up with him that day. And I was like, I’m not, I don’t have any earning potential. And I need somebody who’s a hunter and a gatherer like Chuck Morgan.

I’ve never had to worry about Chuck Morgan. If whatever happens, if the world’s coming to an end, Chuck Morgan will get out there and dig ditches or drive a truck or do whatever.

THEO VON: He’ll be fine.

LEANNE MORGAN: He’ll be fine. He can make it off a flat rock. He can make a living off a flat rock.

THEO VON: Amen.

LEANNE MORGAN: So, yeah, so that, that we married and then that’s when he took me up into Appalachia.

Life in Bean Station

THEO VON: Because, yeah, once you get something good, you go hide it near the mountain. You got to hide it somewhere if he’s a man. So he put you over there.

LEANNE MORGAN: He put me up in those mountains.

THEO VON: Bean…

LEANNE MORGAN: Bean Station, Tennessee.

THEO VON: Bean Station, Tennessee. Pull that up. I want to see that beautiful joint.

LEANNE MORGAN: That’s, and it’s beautiful. Look, looking at the mountains and the lake. But we didn’t have that. We didn’t have that kind of view. Very tiny town. There was an IGA grocery store.

THEO VON: I remember those.

LEANNE MORGAN: Huh. And I liked it.

THEO VON: They were good.

LEANNE MORGAN: And there was a post office, and his business was right behind the post office. And he had that business at 27, he bought that business and was running, had employees.

THEO VON: Was it a car wash or what was it?

LEANNE MORGAN: Used mobile home refurbishing business.

THEO VON: Oh, I like that.

LEANNE MORGAN: And I worked for him few weeks and we don’t work well together. And I honest to goodness, I know that that helped start my comedy career because I saw things you’ve never. I saw a family drive up in a gremlin with the window and a nine year old smoking a cigarette, looking for a single wide.

And they came in the office and the grandmama said, or the baby said, give me a light, mama. She lit her cigarette off of that. Her Grandmama, she was 9. And I thought, okay, I need to go home. I need to go home, get pregnant.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah.

LEANNE MORGAN: Because I can’t take this. I mean, I, it was a lot.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah. I want something to, I want something to come out of, climb out of my body and start smoking. Yeah.

LEANNE MORGAN: But, yeah, it was. My husband is very loving and giving and there would be like, if a family didn’t have a home, there was a little old woman that didn’t have a, that wanted a house and he said, she said, I can make you blankets. And so he took a blanket that she would make every few months and that was her payment.

So Chuck Morgan also had a mobile home park and bought all the children their Christmas. He would come home and say, we’ve got to get a Justin Bieber doll ASAP. I’d be like, okay. So then Chuck went to work for a big company because he, he would give everything he had away to everybody. And he still does. He still is very giving and loving. Not to his own family.

THEO VON: No, not at all. He captured you and put you in…

Touring on a Budget

LEANNE MORGAN: The heels or tells me that I don’t need to be flying first class on tour. So, because all these boys have these big buses and stuff. These comedians have. I am in a Mitsubishi rental car.

THEO VON: Yeah.

LEANNE MORGAN: This baby and I share a hotel room. I talk about that in this new special on Netflix that dropped. That’s the truth. If people watch this. Chuck Morgan wants us to share a hotel room. She’s going to be 28 years old. We are sleeping butt to butt in a king God. Yeah. Oh, and he prefers us to eat the free continental breakfast.

THEO VON: Some of now went. I will say this. The ones at Hampton Inn got better. They did an upgrade about nine years ago.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah.

THEO VON: That I respect that you could start see it. They put like pictures inside of the elevator. And I was like, okay, okay, okay.

LEANNE MORGAN: And they had that little omelet you could get with cheese in it.

THEO VON: That was good. And they started to get that thing. Waffle maker.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah.

THEO VON: But then somebody leaves it on and you have to turn it over. It’s very hard to use. I watch somebody, you’ll just, you’ll see somebody get burned. There’s a lot of issues. I wonder if they’re still keeping those. But Hampton…

LEANNE MORGAN: But they make a good waffle, those things. They’ve done a great job. Yeah.

THEO VON: Yeah.

LEANNE MORGAN: And you know, a Hampton Inns. Clean. Clean, you know.

THEO VON: Of course, man. Yeah. Those are the days, you know.

LEANNE MORGAN: Well, I’m still in them. I’m still in them. But you know.

THEO VON: But that’s love.

LEANNE MORGAN: He was not used to this. Like, I didn’t make money for years. I mean, I’d make a little bit of money, get my children, Santa Claus, get everybody a haircut. Not save for taxes. That he’d be real mad, you know, come April.

But then when this started happening, you know, he’s just not used to it. It takes your family a while to figure out what’s happening. The baby knew what was happening. Cause she’s out there with me. He’s like, this could end tomorrow.

THEO VON: Yeah, he just, yeah, he’s just looking at the balance sheet. When you guys get home, it’s never great. You know, who spent $60 at a damn Wendy’s? You know? And it’s just like, well, you know…

LEANNE MORGAN: Or in an airport, one of those. You know, you got to have some magnesium for stress.

The Secret to Marriage

THEO VON: Yeah. Yeah. And how long have you guys been married now?

LEANNE MORGAN: It’ll be 34. I had three babies and two grandbabies.

THEO VON: And everyone asked, what’s the secret to 33 years of marriage?

LEANNE MORGAN: I say it’s a lot of praying in the bathtub. It’s hard.

THEO VON: Tornado prayers, kind of.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah, it is. It’s hard. And you just got to fight the big battles, not the little ones. You know, just let things roll off your back because it’s a lot to live with somebody. And it’s not easy. It’s not easy.

And Chuck Morgan and I are both very opposite. He’s very introverted, very anal retentive. Everything’s got to be in its place. I’m an artist, Theo. Yeah, my junk drawer is pretty bad in my kitchen. But I’ve raised these children. They’re fun.

Like, if I, he’s very well educated and loves school. If he had been at home with them. I’ve always said if he wasn’t traveling, they would end up in Harvard with a nervous tick. But they had me and we went to the zoo and we went to Dollywood. I didn’t let them skip school, but we had a good time.

THEO VON: I love that.

LEANNE MORGAN: And they want to be with me now.

THEO VON: Of course they do.

LEANNE MORGAN: You know, they’re fun and they want to be with me, but they’re not over. They do great, but they’re not. He’s an overachiever.

THEO VON: Not us.

LEANNE MORGAN: Never enough. Never enough. Driven, driven. I realized now I’m kind of driven in my stand up. I want things to be like the special coming out. I told you at the UT ball game. I’m worried sick. I just, you know, it’s just, it’s never good enough for me. I don’t, you know, I wish I could do it a hundred times more. Even though I don’t. Cause it’ll give me the shingles. I don’t want to do it again because it’ll give me the shingles.

Netflix Special Success

THEO VON: Unspeakable thing. That just came out on Netflix. Congratulations. Your second one.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yes, thank you, my darling. My second one. And it went to number one on Netflix. And then, you know, in my mind, I’m thinking, oh, nothing else came out that week. Raw wrestling will be out Monday. That’ll knock it out. And then the squid games. The little children who were, I don’t even know what that is.

But my, okay, my television show had to compete with that went to number two. That had to compete with those girls that were killing those boars in their panties.

Hunting Wives and Mormon Wives

THEO VON: Oh, I don’t know if I saw. That was Hunting Wives. Oh, I haven’t seen Hunting Wives. Is it good?

LEANNE MORGAN: It is kind of. It’s nasty. If you like a good nasty. There’s some lesbian going zone.

THEO VON: Oh, I’ve heard about this.

LEANNE MORGAN: And they’re killing boars in their panties.

THEO VON: People are watching Mormon Wives right now.

LEANNE MORGAN: I’ve heard it is fascinating.

THEO VON: I’ll take either one of them. I’ll take. I got to get a dad. I think I could handle a hunting wife.

LEANNE MORGAN: Whoever made that show, I don’t think cares for Republican people in Texas because it’s about Republican people that are shooting bores in their panties. And that was number one. I never got to number one with my television show because I could not compete with that.

THEO VON: Who could?

LEANNE MORGAN: Who could?

THEO VON: Yeah, honey, you got to number two, and that’s great. I think that that’s perfect.

LEANNE MORGAN: Thank you.

Growing Up Lou

THEO VON: Yeah. That’s love. So you got Chuck Morgan. You got your. You’ve had a nice life so far, Leanne.

LEANNE MORGAN: I do.

THEO VON: Lou. They call you Lou.

LEANNE MORGAN: My. In college. Everybody called me Lou in high school.

THEO VON: Were you a tomboy? Kind of.

LEANNE MORGAN: Mm. And I love sports until I’m. You know, then I love boys. And I got real boy crazy. And I still played sports, but I didn’t care as much. And I. And then I projected onto my children, made my kids play all these sports because I knew I didn’t do as much as I should have.

THEO VON: I love that, though. You have to do that as parent.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah. They played club volleyball. My girls played all over the United States. Travel.

THEO VON: Yeah. Oh, my kids. You know, my kids are going to play sh*t that I never got to do, whether they wanted or not or.

LEANNE MORGAN: You look athletic. Did you play ball?

THEO VON: I played high school basketball. I smoked also at the same time, but they let me play. I was pretty good for. I was the only kid that would smoke. It was an active smoker.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah.

THEO VON: I remember one time I was out there smoking, and the one of the assistant coaches up there smoking, so nobody could could say sh*t, but I was pretty good for somebody out there that was. That had a.

LEANNE MORGAN: That didn’t have your full lung capacity.

THEO VON: Yeah, I had. Yeah, I was good in spurts. That was. That was my nickname. Good in spurts.

LEANNE MORGAN: Well, they made me play everything because I went to this little bitty, tiny country school, and they need. I was tall, so I played softball, basketball.

Small Town Life

THEO VON: She’s the model. She’s basketball, everything. Meet up at here for in a field and people are lost. Meet up at her. The tall person always gets all that. All of all the action. They’re the lighthouse of the f*ing world. When you’re tall. Those are the days, especially in a small community. Yeah, Tall one.

I miss that, though. I miss, like. Yeah, there’s something. I wonder where I’d like to live one day whenever I get a family and stuff. Maybe in a small place.

LEANNE MORGAN: There’s small little towns around Middle Tennessee that are darling. Do you think you’d want to stay in Tennessee?

THEO VON: I think so. You know, I want to spend time back in Louisiana when I can, but I do. I’ve enjoyed it here. I miss my home. I miss a lot of the people, but I go back and see them every time I’m home. I spend most of my time home traveling and seeing teachers that taught me when I was a kid. I’m still close with a lot of like people from my childhood.

LEANNE MORGAN: Well, you’ve had to have been very smart and bright and they knew it.

THEO VON: I don’t know what I.

LEANNE MORGAN: Cause you’re so quick witted.

THEO VON: I do all right, I guess. What was I like? I don’t know what I was like.

LEANNE MORGAN: I bet you were a yummy little kid and they thought that kids got it like Elvis and JLo and Michael Jackson. You know when somebody’s got it, they’ve got it and you can’t manufacture it and you have it.

THEO VON: Well, that’s a sweet thought, but Theo.

LEANNE MORGAN: It’s true, my darling. And then you’re bright and you’re quick witted. So they knew you were smart. And then, you know, you people are fun. That used back then, that used to smoke. That’s fun. That’s a fun kid. Wrong. Nobody needs to be smoking. Now let’s say that nobody needs to be smoking.

Smoking Stories

THEO VON: But it’s fun to watch a kid smoke. I’m saying when that nine year old pulled up in your store to buy that double wide. And he’s a little girl.

LEANNE MORGAN: That’s a little girl.

THEO VON: Look, she’s getting a discount.

LEANNE MORGAN: We had a smoking porch at my school. Everybody smoked on that porch. I didn’t smoke. Then I waited till I got to UT and I started like 19 because all these girls are waiting tables and had Louis Vuitton purses. I wanted to be like them.

THEO VON: Yeah, of course.

LEANNE MORGAN: And they were like, let’s go smoke in the bathroom. Screw that manager.

THEO VON: Yeah. Oh, dude, I remember first time. Yeah, I never like. Yeah, I definitely smoked and then finally got a little bit of cocaine and then.

LEANNE MORGAN: Who gave you cocaine?

THEO VON: I don’t remember. I just remember I’d been.

LEANNE MORGAN: There was cocaine in a little town in Louisiana.

THEO VON: Not a lot. Not a lot a lot. But somebody had it enough to keep you up.

LEANNE MORGAN: See, I didn’t even know what in the world. We didn’t know what. There was a couple of boys that, that, that they’d be like, they like to do dope. But we stayed away from. We were scared of them because they were all these farming kids that had future Farmers of America jackets. So we stayed away from that but we couldn’t write a paper either. You know, we were. We didn’t. We weren’t ready for college, but we weren’t. It wasn’t a wild. It was insulated from farming people.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah, well, that was more when I got to college. In our town, we never had. Yeah, you’d have people smoking.

LEANNE MORGAN: Oh, so it was college.

THEO VON: But yeah, in our town, you. You did have people smoking, but it was like weed. Yeah, we’re smoking dope. Yeah, like those kids smoked dope. That’s when they would say dopey. You didn’t really see, like pills and stuff back then. It would just be. People got high on weed and it was kind of an issue.

But I don’t know. I miss it. I miss this being in our neighborhood. You know that guy, the Elvis impersonator who put that fence up? He had broken his leg. And so somebody set it in cement, right. Save money from going to the hospital or whatever. So they set that b*tch in cement and it must have been fine, right? Seven weeks, whatever. They take that cast off. They broke the cast off. They broke it with a. The hammer was too big that they broke it with. And it broke his hip when they beat the.

LEANNE MORGAN: Are you kidding me?

THEO VON: No, I’m not kidding at all. When they hit the thing with the hammer, it cracked his hip. So now his sh*t’s re broken up at his hip. And he ended up getting that kind of tick tock in him like that. And he got into Elvis impersonating, which is so wild.

LEANNE MORGAN: But that helped him when he gyrated.

THEO VON: Well, that’s what I’m saying. He was. Yeah, he was built like it was just about to be noon, you know what I’m saying? He was built like. You know what I’m saying? Another 60 ticks and it was time, you know, it was lunch break, you know what I’m saying? He was just a d*mn pentameter walking around town. That’s all he was. He was one of those things where the thing goes back and forth. You know when you pull the ball and you let it go and then this one goes and it’s like that. That was him. He was just tick tock my gutter right there. And he was just cruising around.

But yeah, he had a couple kids kept him in the yard. And I don’t remember what that story was about.

LEANNE MORGAN: Kept him in the yard.

THEO VON: And that was the electric fence that he got. I don’t remember how well that started.

John Morgan, The Raging Cajun

LEANNE MORGAN: All right, let me ask you. How far is St. Francisville? Is that anywhere near where you were raised.

THEO VON: That’s about two and a half hours from me. You know who it was from there that you’re making me think of? John Morgan, the raging Cajun.

LEANNE MORGAN: Raging Cajun. I opened for him.

THEO VON: You did.

LEANNE MORGAN: I’ve opened for him.

THEO VON: Bring him up. He was a good storyteller and he still is.

LEANNE MORGAN: And he could get a crowd going.

THEO VON: God, he could.

LEANNE MORGAN: Very high energy.

THEO VON: John Morgan, the Ragin Cajun.

LEANNE MORGAN: That was at the Star Dome. I opened for him. Our featured for him at the Star Dome and then in San Antonio.

THEO VON: Play a clip as real quick if we can. Or just. Is he still doing it on one?

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah, I think so.

THEO VON: God, there was nobody like him. And he had adopted 30 years of being together. You make love and you move on. You get up and you move on. You ask the right questions. Do you want them? Nothing but milk.

LEANNE MORGAN: Scheme.

THEO VON: I’m at the point in my life where you can ask me, you want to f* or you want none of us to give you milk? That’s whole milk. I love him, man. He was the best when I was starting out. I mean, he’s a great comedian. There’s a lot of comedians that people that, you know, that don’t get some of the acclaim maybe in some.

LEANNE MORGAN: I know. Do you remember little Mark Ryan? Mark Ryan was a good storyteller too. That was kind of like him. And he was from Louisiana.

THEO VON: Mark Ryan. No, I do remember Mark Ryan.

LEANNE MORGAN: A little blonde headed, yuck, that boy.

THEO VON: Oh, wait, you know what? I don’t know if I remember him.

LEANNE MORGAN: I worked with him.

THEO VON: That’s cool. Yeah, it’s hard to know. He totally did. He yelled.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yelled. I mean, like, you know, high energy. Like John Morgan.

THEO VON: Oh, dude. John Morgan. But John Morgan lived in St. Francisville, I believe, and he had a little Asian daughter. They adopted a daughter, I believe, and he had this. He would tell some stories about her. He was. He’s one of the best storytellers that I ever heard. He kind of reminded me of that Jerry Clower in some ways, you know, but yeah, there he is right there. John.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah, he’s a sweet guy. He stayed in touch with me. Yeah, he was darling. Raging Cajun, John Morgan. Well, one of my good friends owns. I ask you that because one of my friends owns an Inn in St. Francisville that is beautiful. And I go there sometimes and I just didn’t realize how. And I did these shows in Baton Rouge and Shreveport and I thought Louisiana is fascinating. People in Louisiana are fun and wild and darling. I had a ball.

The Spirit of Louisiana

THEO VON: What’s one of the reasons, I think there’s not a lot of comedy clubs there, because you can have just as good a time talking to somebody, anybody. Everybody there is an entertainer. Everybody there is a comedian. Everybody there, they’re going to open their mouth, and you’re going to hear something that’s going to make you smile or think or question. They’re entertaining. It’s an entertaining state.

You know, it’s one of the most native states where people are born there that never leave. I think, like, per capita, it’s the. It’s the number one where people are born that never even leave the state. They’re born and then die right there, I think, because they just got everything they need over there, you know, it’s a special place.

You’re a special person. Leanne Morgan. Thank you so much.

LEANNE MORGAN: You don’t need me to vacuum or anything. I feel like.

THEO VON: I think we’re.

LEANNE MORGAN: I need to do something for you for letting me be on here, because you’re so darling.

THEO VON: You know what you can do for me, really? Honestly. Come back next year, will you?

LEANNE MORGAN: Oh, my darling.

THEO VON: You promise you will? Yeah. Because I’ve just had so much fun. This has been a gift of my whole life. It’s just like, yeah, the past, like, week. Like, I went. I did Joe Rogan’s podcast yesterday, and it’s like sometimes it’s like, you know, it’s like I think sometimes I live in a place where it’s like, there’s so much of me out there, like, just online, and some of this could be, like, paranoia or ego stuff. I don’t know. But it’s still something that I think about sometimes that I just get. I, like, I don’t know. I’ve just felt, like, nervous the past few weeks.

So to be able to sit down in a conversation that is easy and it’s fun, you know, Joe’s like, he knows a lot of information, so it’s like you’re having to learn a lot. And, like, sometimes I think I feel like I don’t, it’s hard for me to, like, chime in because I don’t really know about stuff, and this is just two people I don’t know a lot, and we can just, which is what I love.

LEANNE MORGAN: Oh, you angel. When I watch you, I think, and I’m not blowing smoke up your butthole. When I watch you, I think, well, thank you. I think when I watch you, I think, “He’s got the sweetest spirit.” You’ve got a sweet spirit.

THEO VON: Oh, thank you.

LEANNE MORGAN: You really do. And I feel like God gave me that discernment. I know he did. And I’ve always, and I’ve said to John Crist and to Hugh and people that know you, and they go, “He’s got the sweetest spirit.” They think it, too. And just so bright. You’re such a bright light. When I think of you planking and then talking about those hamster bones.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah.

LEANNE MORGAN: And we were crying, laughing so hard. There’s just nobody like you. And that’s, and, you know, in this business, I mean, you’re just so unique. There’s just nobody like you, and I hope you know that. And you give so much joy.

When I told people I was doing this, they said, “Please tell him hello from me.” My stylist who’s from Australia, who dresses Oprah Winfrey and Maria Shriver said, “I love him.” She goes, “I would marry him.” Everybody wants to have a baby with you. I just want you to know that I would have carried one for you. I think Chuck would have let me. I was very fertile at one time. I could have done it. I’m very healthy. I’m from farming people. We killed her on beef. I could have done it, and I would have done it, because you’ve got to have some children. You are so beautiful and fun, and your teeth are pretty.

Finding the Right Partner

THEO VON: Well, thank you. Yeah, I appreciate it. I want to have kids. I want to have a family and stuff. It’s just been like, you know, it’s tough. It’s like, you got to meet the right person, you know? I don’t know. I met somebody that was kind of neat the other day, and so that was kind of cool, because it made me think, like, okay, this is still possible, right?

Whether or not that ends, like, if there were ever anything there, like, because sometimes you start to be like, you know, you get in this space where just something doesn’t kind of click for a long time, you know? Like, you meet people when you go on dates and, like, you have people you just kind of, like, are flinging with or philandering with, but when you’re like, “Oh, this is the partner that I want,” and I think, like, are there something about this person just that would keep me interested for a long time? You know, just something about them.

I don’t know what it is. Maybe they got, you know, it could be a damn mole or something, or they’re missing a f*ing vertebra or whatever. One of them bitches is off a little, you know what I’m saying? Like, they got a ver.

LEANNE MORGAN: Like, but you want a girl that wants to have babies. Yeah.

THEO VON: I would like to have a woman that likes to have a faith, that wants to be a good mother. That’s super important to me. That’s hard working, you know, I’d like to have a, want an attractive woman, but that, that’s not the most important thing to her, you know, like, you know, you can be attractive, but if that’s the most important thing to you, that’s, that’s okay. But that’s not really what I need. I need somebody, you know, like, I just, like a teammate.

But here’s the thing. It’s like, it’s just always hard to figure out. But then once you start trying to figure everything out, that ruins everything. So you know what? God’s made it perfect for me that I got to do all this work, you know, I got to go and do all these fun things and live out, like a lot of my dreams, you know?

LEANNE MORGAN: I know.

THEO VON: You know, you’re living them out.

LEANNE MORGAN: I know it’s crazy.

THEO VON: You’re living them out.

LEANNE MORGAN: I’m living them out. I could see this. I knew this as a child. Did you know it as a child?

Childhood Dreams

THEO VON: No. I knew something was wrong. I didn’t know what it was.

LEANNE MORGAN: You didn’t? Because I’ve heard Steve Martin, Steve Harvey, say to his teacher when she said, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Because I’m going to be on television at 10. And she said, “No, you’re not.” Make fun of him, all right? And then I heard Eddie Murphy in an interview on today’s show, he said, “I knew I was going to be famous.”

I feel like in Adams, Tennessee, at 9 or 10 years old, I thought, “Is something wrong with me?” Because that’s all I could think about is I wanted to be in movies and in television. And I thought, “Is something wrong?” Because nobody else is talking about this. But I just knew it in my heart. But then I, you know, I went to school and got divorced and blah, blah and all this crap. And then this happens to me at this time in my life.

But I could see it. I didn’t know it was going to be this unbelievable. It’s bigger and sweeter than I ever dreamed of. But I could see. I could see this happening for me. And I just wondered if you felt that way. You didn’t know.

THEO VON: I knew. You know, at one time I got voted most likely to either be on TV or succeed. You know what? I loved laughing with my friends. I just loved it. I loved making people laugh. I just loved it. You know what it was? It made me think that it gave me some sense of worth, you know, it was like, you know, I don’t even know if I wanted to be joking around all the time, but I felt like it was the only way that I knew that I had some kind of value as a kid.

If that’s kind of crazy, you know, and not to make like, like a sad thing, but I think it makes sense as a kid. You’re like, “Oh, well, this is, if I do this thing, whatever it is, you know, if it’s a trick, if I hide my legs behind my neck, whatever.” You know what I’m saying, or do that, you know, do, you know, some weird shit or something, or, like, tuck my eyelids and whatever it is, then, like, people think it’s fun, you know.

I didn’t do any of those things, but if I say certain stuff, it’s entertaining to people, you know. So I was like, “Well, I got to just do that,” you know? I don’t know. Did I ever see it? I don’t think so. I didn’t go to a comedy club till I was in college. I didn’t really know it existed. I’d seen, like, Chris Rock, and I knew he was very, you know, he was just so funny in the way he sounded and just him, you know. But I never felt like I was close to that.

Discovering Comedy

LEANNE MORGAN: I didn’t know about comedy club. I watched, I would watch, you know, David Letterman and Jay Leno and all that, but I was more like, I wanted to be like Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, but I didn’t know there was, I thought I didn’t know how to get there. But then I came into the Comedy Store. Chuck Morgan took me to the Comedy Store, and we were dating, and we came out to LA, and I said, “I want to go on that, Hearst. I want to go in there and see where people have been murdered in LA.”

THEO VON: Oh, it’s beautiful.

LEANNE MORGAN: Oh, it was fun. And then I want to go to the Comedy Store, and little Dom Herrera was up there.

THEO VON: Oh, yeah.

LEANNE MORGAN: And I.

THEO VON: One of the greats.

LEANNE MORGAN: My heart beat out of my body and I thought, “Okay, that’s it. But I can do, I think I can do that, and I want to do that.” But I didn’t, you know, I didn’t know how.

THEO VON: But you just start. And then that’s the thing, you know what somebody said one day? They said, “You kind of start this job, and then comedy chooses you.” It’s like, does your life work out enough for it? Right? There’s so many great comics that, you know, John Morgan might have had to raise his daughters and stuff like that and, or his family. And, you know, he, he, his, he had a beautiful wife. I’m not sure if they still married.

LEANNE MORGAN: But I remember they are. And she’s like a detective or an investigator or something, because she was in a documentary about a murder in Louisiana.

THEO VON: God, I love that. And that’s every woman’s dream. But no, he had a beautiful wife. He just had such a great life that it’s like at a certain point, you’re like, “Well, this life’s so great here that,” you know, I’m not saying, but that, but, but it’s like somebody said at a certain point, it kind of chooses you. Can you still do this?

You know, I didn’t like any commitment, so I didn’t like, so that was one thing that was perfect for me. It was like, “Oh, I have a chance to leave. I want to go. If, oh, I can say bye. I want to go. Whatever it is, I have somewhere else I have to be. I don’t have to be right here.”

So it’s been good. You know, it’s given me so many unique things. I mean, now it’s like, more it’s fun because you get to have, like, unique experiences and, like, you know, like, you go places and they’ll let you be on a sideline. Some of it feels a bit extravagant for me, and I wish that some of the things, it was a little more normal. Some of the popularity part I do not like about today. A lot of that’s from social media and stuff. I’m not saying boohoo or anything, but some of it’s uncomfortable.

You know, sometimes you want to just be, like, in a place where you’re sitting there with everybody else, just kind of enjoying the deal, you know, that’s.

LEANNE MORGAN: The first time I went on the field was at UT. And you did great.

THEO VON: When you came out there and waved, I was like, “She’s a pro.”

LEANNE MORGAN: Thank you. I was very nervous, and that didn’t feel real to me, like I deserved to be. I don’t know. I just thought, “What in the world? What are they doing?” I love my school. I don’t want anybody to know my GPA. I mean, I barely got out of there, and they’re so good to me. They’re so good to me because I’m the only comedian that came out of there. And I guess, but, but that made me feel special. But I thought, “What am I even, what am I doing?” But it was wonderful. And Chuck Morgan enjoyed it.

Southern Storytelling

THEO VON: I’m glad he did. Well, you, you know what? And you’re inspiring young women to do comedy and inspiring young Southern women. We need that. We need, like, the south to stay alive through storytelling. You know, it’s like, we need that. I would love to eventually get back to just telling stories from home, like, just stories from growing up and locking it down more and really getting in, like, writing some tales from growing up and, and I hope that that’s something that’s part of my future.

LEANNE MORGAN: You tell the best stories from growing up.

THEO VON: Well, I love them. And it’s something, you know, it’s like, but it’s like, yeah, it’s just important, and it’s so good that you’re doing it. And, you know, one thing I forgot about my wife. I want a funny gal. Some of the funniest girls, I think, are from Philadelphia and New Jersey. I’ll say that flat out.

LEANNE MORGAN: They are funny.

THEO VON: They are funny.

LEANNE MORGAN: And Laura Peake, I mean, she’s from Tennessee.

THEO VON: She’s great. She’s married her.

LEANNE MORGAN: And I know she opened for me a lot. And she would tell me that she’d be out on the road with you. She loved being out there with you.

THEO VON: We had so much fun.

LEANNE MORGAN: She’s very funny.

THEO VON: She’s the best. When you have a show in town, you’re going to have to invite me. I’m going to. I think we’re going to finish up the end. And here’s why. Because I’d rather you come back sometime and we get to do it again.

LEANNE MORGAN: Oh, my God. Honey, I’ll make you a casserole.

THEO VON: Yeah, you promised Morgan one. Look, you make me want to give it to Morgan. I’m seeing him tomorrow. Bible study, actually.

LEANNE MORGAN: So you will see him at Bible. I think he’s going to end up.

THEO VON: Preaching that little thing, you know, I don’t. I have no idea. I just know. Yeah. I don’t know. He’s an inspiring guy. He’s just an interact. Morgan is. There’s.

LEANNE MORGAN: He is him.

THEO VON: You know, he is him.

LEANNE MORGAN: Authentic.

THEO VON: He is.

LEANNE MORGAN: But you’re authentic, too.

THEO VON: Yeah, for sure.

LEANNE MORGAN: And y’all are in a Bible study. Is it a Beth Moore? What are y’all studying?

THEO VON: I mean, it’s. I mean, tomorrow I think we’re watching a movie, but it is Bible study.

LEANNE MORGAN: That’s so sweet, Theo Von.

THEO VON: I’m not sure what chapter we’re on. I shouldn’t even have said that because.

LEANNE MORGAN: I’m not in one right now. I used to be in one. I was growing, raising my children. But I don’t. I’m not in one. And I need to be disciplined to do it on my own.

Bible Study and Raising Children

THEO VON: Well, that’s when you need the Lord the most, when you’re raising those little hints, women and men. But no, I’ll tell him you said hey. And that was fun even just to get to see you guys next to each other.

When I saw y’all at the game and talking to each other, like, little moments like that bring me so much joy. When there’s two people that you think are, like, all these people are so interesting, and they get to meet each other or talk or get to spend time around each other, you know, watching stuff like that is fun.

All right, Leanne Morgan, Unspeakable Things. Yeah, it’s out now. Your second special. It’s on Netflix. You guys can go and watch it. And you’re going to be touring again at some point. No, you’re going to do the second season of your show.

LEANNE MORGAN: I’ll do the second, and we’ll wrap, I think, in April, and I’ll start touring again.

THEO VON: Okay.

LEANNE MORGAN: If I can come up with another hour. Honey, I’m working on that.

THEO VON: You’ll be fine.

LEANNE MORGAN: Will I?

THEO VON: I think just have Chuck Morgan tell you the truth about yourself.

LEANNE MORGAN: I know. Yeah.

THEO VON: It’ll hurt, but critique it.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah. Critiquing what I eat, and if I’m eating too much fat. Lord, he does give me a lot of material. He does.

THEO VON: He does. See, that’s a blessing. Yeah, I think. Yeah. You got.

Marriage and Material

LEANNE MORGAN: And when you marry and have babies, that’s a whole other. You’re going to have to work for another 30 years, honey, because you’re going to be so prolific over all that.

THEO VON: Really?

LEANNE MORGAN: Oh, yeah. I think that was my best.

THEO VON: I’m ready for some of that. I got to pray. I got to spend more time in prayer, I think, you know, but it’s okay. Everything’s fine.

LEANNE MORGAN: Everything is wonderful. Look at your skin tone.

THEO VON: Thank you.

LEANNE MORGAN: I just sit my hands and you got that full head of hair. You didn’t have to go over to.

THEO VON: Turkey time of year, you know, I don’t know what that is. I’m going to have to call Hugh Hauser.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah. You will know, because he’ll say to me, would it kill you to tease your hairline?

THEO VON: Yeah.

LEANNE MORGAN: Let me get back there, see if.

THEO VON: You put a little conditioner in there. So nothing.

LEANNE MORGAN: Yeah, a root lift.

THEO VON: Yeah. Maybe he’ll just help me get a root lift.

LEANNE MORGAN: I thank you for having me, you sweet angel from heaven.

THEO VON: Oh, my God. You’re the best. Leanne Morgan. Thank you so much. The pride of Tennessee. Here she is. And grateful to spend time with you today. Go, Vols.

LEANNE MORGAN: Go, Vols. My darling.

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