Terry: Conan, I feel so inadequate. I feel so bad.
 
Conan: Why? Why do you feel bad?
 
Terry: Well, you know, I didn't bring my secret sex tape. Oh. [ Laughter. ] You didn't even tell me about it.
 
Conan: We have that tape.
 
Terry: Oh, do you?
 
Conan: Not worthy of showing, my friend. [ Audience reacts. ]
 
Terry: I can do a re-enactment for you.
 
Conan: You want to see a re-enactment?
 
Terry: No, I can do a re-enactment of the sex tape.
 
Conan: Oh, well, get it on my friend. [ Laughter. ]
 
Terry: Well, what, here? Now? Really?
 
Conan: Well, no, on our HBO special.
 
Terry: Oh, yeah, okay.
 
Conan: We'll reserve it for there. How have you been?
 
Terry: We'll I've been alright actually. Yeah, a bit busy writing things. Starship Titanic book, you see.
 
Conan: You were afraid I wasn't going to get to this.
 
Terry: Well, my publishers have said, they're sitting in the back actually now, and they said, "You have to mention the it at least sixteen times. You have to get the name Starship Titanic on." So that's three times.
 
Conan: So that's three times. I'll--
 
Terry: If you're keeping score, please, everybody..
 
Conan: I'll mention it a few times actually.
 
Terry: That'll be alright.
 
Conan: Starship Titanic, Starship Titanic. Andy?
 
Andy: Starship Titanic.
 
Terry: Hold on, hold on.
 
Andy: Starship Titanic cubed.
 
Terry: Oh, is that alright?
 
Andy: Takes care of some of them.
 
Conan: You can do that. There's no problem there. This is interesting because Douglas Adams, of course, from Hitchhiker's Guide To The Universe [sic], I guess, he had the idea for the book and he told it to you, and you wrote it. I don't think I've experienced this before. Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic, a novel by Terry Jones.
 
Terry: It's very clumsy, isn't it, yes. We realized that we made a mistake. It should've just been Starship Titanic, a novel by Douglas Adams and Terry Jones. But, what happened was, Douglas wanted to do a CD-ROM game, so, Starship Titanic is actually a CD-ROM game.
 
Conan: That's right because you, on the CD-ROM game, you play..
 
Terry: [ squawking ] Parrot!
 
Conan: You play the parrot!
 
Terry: Well, that's what happened. Douglas invited me in to play the parrot, a deranged parrot, in the CD-ROM game. [ squawks like the parrot ] And what Douglas had realized that actually all my life, I've always been playing parrots. Every part I've ever had has been a parrot. I mean, when I played Brian's mother in Monty Python's Life of Brian, that was the Virgin Mandy as we called her, "'E's not the messiah, 'e's a very naughty boy!" [ Cheers and applause. ] It was a parrot, you know, and the woman in the Spam sketch, "Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam!" [ Laughter. ] That's a parrot.
 
Conan: So, pretty much the only voice you've ever been doing is a parrot.
 
Terry: Yes!
 
Conan: And you've built a nice career on it.
 
Terry: Yes, Douglas actually brought be out of the cupboard, out of the cage, as it were. I can play what I've always wanted to play, to be a real parrot in the CD-ROM. The Starship Titanic CD-ROM.
 
Conan: Yeah. Starship Titanic.
 
Terry: Starship Titanic. Starship Titanic. [ Laughter. ]
 
Conan: Starship Titanic. Uh, I always feel when I talk to you that I'm actually in a Monty Python sketch. [ Laughter. ] It's interesting, I was going to ask you about the TV project that you've been working on now, it sounds interesting.
 
Terry: I'm doing a thing called Ancient Inventions. An episode we've been filming here in New York. It's based on a book actually, Ancient Inventions. It's quite curious to look back at the past to see what people do. For example, some of the inventions of the past, it's not the use they were put to. It's quite strange, for example, the first mechanical clock, Conan, was not, as you may think, invented to tell the time. It was actually invented to regulate the sex life of the emperor of China.
 
Conan: Is that true?
 
Terry: This is absolutely true.
 
Conan: You're not making this up?
 
Terry: Absolutely true. See, what happens is, the emperor of China at around like 2000 years B.C., he had eighty wives, and he had to go to bed with them in batches of nine throughout the month.
 
Conan: Good deal all around. [ Laughter. ]
 
Terry: Yeah, and to the astronomers, at the full moon, he went to bed with his number one wife, and it was very important at the moment of conception. Can I say that on late night television?
 
Conan: Yeah. Yes you can, many worse things have happened here.
 
Terry: So, it was very important that when he came off, oh I'm sorry I shouldn't say that, the moment of conception..
 
Conan: Yes. Wait a minute, we had agreed on a term and then you go and use the nasty one.
 
Terry: That's what the mechanical clock was invented for, to find out the moment of conception. So that was basically what it was for.
 
Conan: And, uh, well it's freakish!
 
Terry: Well, the, uh, Ramses the first, the pharoah..
 
Conan: You just went into a parrot by the way. [ Laughter. ] You became the parrot again. It's more of an illness with you.
 
Terry: It's more of the Welsh in me. [ like a parrot ] Welsh! Welsh! Things like that. Ramses, when he was building the first pyramids, the slaves went on strike because they ran out of makeup.
 
Conan: Why?
 
Terry: Well, you see makeup, it was like sunblock. It wasn't makeup, it was sunblock. And they ran out of makeup and they wouldn't go put up the pyramids.
 
Conan: And so they had to come up with more makeup in order for the pyramids to be built. Is that how makeup was invented?
 
Terry: That's it.
 
Conan: This is a fascinating show.
 
Terry: It is.
 
Conan: See, we have taken more time talking about the show than Starship Titanic.
 
Terry: Oh, Starship Titanic! Oh my God, I'm sorry! Publishers, say Starship Titanic!
 
Conan: Uh, one last thing I wanted to ask you. I heard a rumor about you and I'm curious about it. I heard that you have a house that doesn't have a great view, I swear to God I heard this and I thought, "This can't be true. I've got to ask him the next time I see him." You have a house that does not have a good view, so you put a giant magnifying glass contraption on the roof of your house so that you actually have a good view now. Is that true?
 
Terry: Well, it is true in a way. I put this camera obscure on the top of my house, it's like a sort of touret.
 
Conan: Like a big periscope.
 
Terry: That's what it's like, yes.
 
Conan: So, you're a pervert. [ Laughter. ]
 
Terry: It's the sex tape, you see! I wanted to bring my sex tape!
 
Conan: We've come full circle here! I just wanted to know. I see you wearing a German U-boat hat [ Laughter. ] on backwards.
 
Terry: We got the missiles as well, yeah. Sink any other house in the neighborhood.
 
Conan: Oh, good Lord. Well, the book of course, I believe it's called Starship Titanic.
 
Terry: Starship Titanic, yes.
 
Conan: A novel by Terry Jones thought up by Douglas Adams. It is available everywhere. We always love it when you come by, thanks for doing it again.
 
Terry: Thank you.
 
Conan: Come by again. Terry Jones, everybody! [ Cheers and applause. ] We'll take a break, stay right there, we'll be right back! See you in a second.