Jim Gaffigan on the Craft of Comedy and His Bourbon Born Out of Chaos

Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist

NBC News

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4.7 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 23 November 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jim Gaffigan is a stand-up comedian, bestselling author, writer and acclaimed actor whose 11 specials and countless viral bits have made him one of the most beloved voices in comedy. Jim sits down with Willie Geist in front of a live audience to look back on his unlikely journey from a small town in Indiana to selling out arenas and starring in films and television. Plus, he opens up about the moment David Letterman helped launch his career, the inception story of his Fathertime Bourbon, and why the creative process still drives him after more than two decades on stage.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks as always for clicking and listening along. Got an extra special one for you this week, a Sunday sit down live conversation with the hilarious Jim Gaffigan. You might remember we had a
0:23.4	Sunday sit-down live with Nate Bargetse earlier this year and then one with Ina Garten,
0:28.7	all in front of a live audience of you, the viewers, at City Winery in New York City. City
0:35.1	Winery is our gracious host and sponsor for these events. We love having a
0:39.7	good comedian in there. Nate was hilarious. We thought Jim would be the same, and man, does he
0:44.2	deliver as you're about to see? Jim's got his own line of bourbon out. That's the level of his
0:49.8	success right now. He loves bourbon, discovered it over the pandemic, as you're about to hear, and so decided,
0:56.5	hey, what does it take to get into the business? It's called Father Time Bourbon. So we thought we'd sit down,
1:02.9	have a long conversation about his life, career, about his family, and food, which tend to be the two
1:09.2	most prominent subjects of his own comedy,
1:11.7	and do all that over a glass of Father Time Bourbon.
1:15.0	He also had a little surprise for the audience of you, the Sunday Today viewers, who came once again,
1:21.2	we were so moved from far and wide.
1:24.3	People coming from Texas and California and Atlanta and Chicago and Canada and Florida
1:31.7	all over the country to come see us and to see Jim Gaffigan. You know who Jim is. I don't have to
1:38.3	tell you. He's one of the most popular stand-up comedians in the world, one of that rare
1:42.3	collection that includes Nate Bargtsey, of guys who
1:45.8	can just sell out not only theaters, but arenas as they go on these tours. So just one of the all-time
1:52.5	great guys famously has a large family of five. Those kids are the source of much of his comedy,
1:59.5	and is the youngest of six himself, so he knows
2:02.3	from big family. So a great conversation at City Winery in New York City right now in front of a
2:08.5	live studio audience, a Sunday Sit Down live with Jim Gaffingen right now on the Sunday Sitdown
	...

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