Today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, we have some family-friendly comedy from husband and father Jeremy Nunes. My wife makes me nervous. Any time she's going to try to get the girl to take a nap, my wife says she's going to put her down.
I'm like, last time I heard that, my dog didn't come home. Well, clean comedy is definitely a great way to start a new year, and this presentation from Jeremy was one of our most popular shows of 2024. Jeremy has been working in comedy for over 20 years, and for our audio-only audience, let me point out that he is a very tall man, standing 6 foot 6. And we appreciate that you may not be able to do so, but if you want to check the visuals out, stop by our YouTube channel for this entire presentation.
Here now, Jeremy Nunes on today's episode of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Wow. How cool would it be if I walked into my house and that happened? I appreciate you guys coming out, man. What a great time this is going to be. I'm so excited. Man, and everybody here just made everything so easy for me.
I am so grateful. A lot of times, we do these shows, and it is not easy. I was actually just driving to a show a couple weeks ago, and ended up getting lost. I had to stop and ask for directions, and I ended up at one of these tiny little gas stations where it's just the one guy in the booth with his microphone.
And you can't hear anything he says unless he talks right into that thing. I tell him where I need to go, he goes, oh yeah, all you got to do is go to that stop sign there, take a left. And then, you just go... There's been a string of carjackings. That gas station got robbed down. It's right next to the prison.
Hope that helped. I was like, yeah, thanks a lot. We get back to the car, my friend goes, what did he say? I go, well, we're going to go to the stop sign over there and take a left.
After that, we probably die. But this is a cool job to have. I get to travel around. I work with a lot of comedians you see on film and TV. Some of you might actually recognize me from the movies. I'm that guy that always sits in front of you at the theater. But one of the things I don't understand about being tall is like, everyone asks me if I used to play basketball.
And I don't get it. Nobody walks up to a short guy and goes, hey, are you a jockey? Or nobody walks up to an overweight guy.
Hey, is there a buffet around here? And it's the same conversation every time people come up to me. They're shocked at my size.
They'll walk up. Whoa! You are tall. How tall are you? 6'6". No, you're way taller than that. Nobody does that with the overweight guy.
Nobody walks up to him. Whoa! You are big. What is your waist size?
68. No. You're way bigger than that. Any store I walk into, someone will stop me and ask me to get something off the top shelf.
That doesn't work both ways. I can't grab some short guy walking down the aisle. Hey! I dropped my keys.
Why don't you pick those up? Weird stuff happens to me all the time. I do a lot of fundraiser shows.
I did one fundraiser. There was a lady at the show the same height as me. I was like, this is crazy. I wanted to say something to her, but I didn't know how to approach a situation with her being the same height. I just tapped her on the shoulder.
I go, hey, do you play basketball? I've been seeing my family a lot more lately. I actually used to live in Chicago.
I moved back to my hometown in central Illinois, and it did not take long for weird things to start happening. I was riding along Christmas Eve. Dad's driving. I've got my little five-year-old boy in the backseat. As we ride along on Christmas Eve, out of nowhere, a deer hops out.
Bam! Dad nails it. First thing the little boy says, Rudolph! Dad goes, don't worry, buddy. We didn't kill him.
I'm pretty sure he died when he fell out of the sky. I'm around for holidays, which is nice. I don't know if ours worked like yours, but a lot of the ladies make their own dish, and they bring to share. My grandma's 87 years old, still helps out, makes her specialty, which is homemade baked beans. After all these years, she finally revealed the secret ingredient in the baked beans, cigarette ash. You never saw food shoot out of people's mouths so fast.
I have to admit, though, it does give it a nice smoky flavor. So I'm back in the small town where I grew up, and I've learned that in the small town, we have our own official sport, fishing. Yeah, we've got some fishers in the audience tonight. Fishers? Nobody?
No, not at all. Sir, right here, my friend, when you catch a fish, you take it home and cook it, you let it go back. You take it home and cook it?
Really? I usually let it go back. I catch a release.
I get it, send it back on its way. I also do that when I hunt. I'll shoot a deer, like, go on. Go to your friends.
Shoot and release, they call that, actually. But anyway, a funny thing happened when I moved back to my hometown. I got elected mayor of my town. And the thing is, I ran for office as a joke. I got my name on the ballot as comedian Jeremy Nunes, and my campaign slogan was, put a real joker in office. So I was like, who would vote for that person?
80% of the town. So I guess I did an alright job. I actually won an award for being one of Illinois' most ethical mayors.
It was largely because I issued a fine to my parents. I remember my dad calling me when he found out. He was like, Jeremy, why did I get this fine in the mail? I was like, well, your grass is way too high. You have to mow your grass. He goes, Jeremy, you mow our grass.
I go, well, you should have called me sooner. And it was a weird job. I had to like review people's resumes that wanted to work for the town. One guy, his email address listed on his resume was bankrobber247 at AOL. I was like, how creepy is that?
Obviously, I cannot hire someone who still uses AOL. And another guy was interviewing him to be our city manager, and I asked him, could you tell me the difference between a regulation and a statute? And he goes, sure, a regulation is a rule or a code you have to follow.
A statute is a sculpture, like the Statue of Liberty. I hired that guy. And when you're on a city council, sometimes you've got a topic you think is going to go right through, it takes all night. Other times, you think it's going to take all night, it goes right through. So I asked my council to approve the purchase of six new picnic tables for the park.
No problem, goes right through. And then I just kind of toss out there, anybody care what color we get? Two hours. You know what color we decided on?
Wood. And there's always one bonehead on the city council. We had one guy on the council, won $100 on a lotto scratch off ticket, quit his job.
I put him in charge of the budget. Back in the small town, and the best part about being back in the small town, I was able to start dating women from the small town. I'm married now, happy I am. Being single, it was so tough. I remember I took this girl out on a date, our very first date together, she told me if I ever wanted to go out with her again, I had to spend at least $200 on her that night.
I go, $200? I didn't plan on spending that much on an engagement ring. She ended up breaking up with me, I still don't quite understand. She was mad because I wouldn't break the law for her.
She's 4'8", so I made her ride in a car seat. But anyways, like I said, I'm married now, happy I am. It's a very special day today, actually, for me. Seven years ago today, I proposed to my wife, told her I'd make her the happiest woman in the world, and she said yes. I lied to her. But we got married, and of course we had to combine all of our stuff, so what was hers is now ours, what was mine is now for sale at Goodwill.
So my wife and I have been doing different stuff, trying to have some fun. We just went to an auction for the first time. Got any auction folks here tonight?
Oh yeah, alright. So, we go to this auction, I've never been to one, so I get right down, right in front, right in the middle of the action. And they're auctioning off like a shed, I think it was. So, as they're taking bids, I happen to see my buddy across the way, and I was like, hey! So then, the auctioneer points at me. I was like, oh, you're going to point at me?
Point at you. Then I realized, oh, he thinks I'm bidding on this. So now I'm trying to politely interrupt without actually interrupting anything. So, I'm kind of watching him take bids over here, and he looked back at me, and I was like, oh, uh. And then, I try a new strategy, because that's not working, and if you're a real auction goer, you know this isn't helping either.
I'm going, uh. That means half, yeah. So, if he's asking $1,000, I'm saying that's $500.
I'll give you $500. So, I'm still bidding, even though I'm like, I'm cutting this off. So, long story short, now we own the shed. So, we have fun. My wife and I play a game a lot of you have probably heard of. It's called, pick what restaurant we're going to eat at. She says, this is your night. I want you to pick.
I'm like, alright, let's go get some seafood. No. Steak? No. Mexican?
No. Then, as the guy, we say the same thing every time at this point. Well, it sounds to me like you have a place in mind. If you do, that's fine. Just say where you want to go, we'll go there.
No big deal. Then, she says the same thing back every time. Oh, I don't have a place in mind. I want you to pick. I'm like, alright, I'll keep guessing. Chinese? No. Pizza? Well, if that's where you want to go.
I'm like, yeah, thank you for letting me pick. And then, she drug me to one of these escape rooms. You guys familiar with these things? Okay.
Alright. So, if you don't know, they take you to a group of friends, they lock you in a room, and you have to solve a series of clues to get out. So, basically, show up, give a guy your credit card, let him lock you in a room. And we get in there, and the first clue is this voice over the sound system that goes, I have hands but cannot hold. And everybody's like, what is it?
What could it be? And I'm like, why am I here? Because everyone knows hands that cannot hold any riddle is a clue. Everyone knows this, not the people I'm locked in a room with. You know what my wife's friend says? I bet it's a cat. I go, what? Yep, yep. I wonder if there's a cat in here.
I tapped her on the head. I go, I wonder if there's a brain in there. I go, guys, it's a clock. Everyone knows hands that cannot hold is the clock. Check the clock. They check it. Guess what?
I was right. So, we work our way through the clues. We get to the final clue. And it's this huge, long, elaborate math problem. It says, enter the answer on the phone keypad and it's done. And everybody's like, it's too complex.
We'll never figure it out. I'm like, guys, it said enter the answer and it's done. The answer is done on the keypad. D-O-N-E. And they go, oh, is it? Is it smart guy?
Guess what? Didn't work. So, eventually, we run out of time. They have to come let us out. And on the way out, just for kicks, I entered done on the keypad and it worked. And the lady that hit the buttons originally, she's like, oh, I am so sorry.
I do kind of feel like when I hit the buttons, I might hit a couple at the same time. I was like, thanks a lot, Deb. We'd already be out of here if it wasn't for you and your sausage fingers. Well, this thing is like a bonding experience.
All I know is I have way less friends now. We have to work together. You know that? We have to work together. My wife helps me get dressed. Anytime we're getting ready to go somewhere, she'll go, you're not wearing that, are you?
I'm like, what? I always wear sweatpants to weddings. And one time, she asked for my opinion when she got dressed.
And if you notice, I said, one time. She walks out of our bedroom and goes, does this outfit look weird? And I go, whoa. She's like, why would you say that?
I go, you asked me. It looks weird. Like you're wearing an orange pantsuit.
Like you look like an escaped convict who's about to give an important speech. Sometimes we don't even leave the house. We just sit around and watch TV. One of our shows is This Is Us.
Do you guys watch This Is Us? So my wife says she wishes I would be more like Jack from This Is Us. So my wife wants me dead. Still figuring out the marriage thing. We married, what did I say, six years I think it is. Sir, are you married down here? How long, sir?
A long time. You know what that means? That's short for I really don't know, please don't talk to me. I'm still learning, sir. So my question to you, would you say it's normal that you're going to have to work together to solve problems?
Correct? Sure, okay. So I was just telling my dad, our water heater went out. So I had to boil pots of water to dump in the tub so my wife could take a bath. He didn't quite understand.
He's like, whoa, whoa, let me get this straight. She just lays in the tub while you pour boiling water on her? I go, yep, that's what we do. Now, would you also say is it normal to once in a while have a small verbal disagreement? You see, I'm not trying to get you in trouble.
He looks very uncomfortable. Okay, so my wife came home from the grocery store. She goes, I hope you're not going to be mad at me, but I bought the wrong kind of tortilla chips. I was like, how?
I said you could buy any brand of tortilla chips. She goes, well, I bought unsalted. I go, get out!
Then that led to a dark discussion over which of us would be in worse shape if the other one died. She goes, Jeremy, you would be lost if something happened to me. I go, you're right. I would be lost because I have no idea where you've put any of my stuff. She goes, yes, you do.
It's at Goodwill. So anyway, we try to travel when we can. You know, we got the two little ones now.
It's a little tougher. But we got I think I mentioned I got a five year old boy, one year old girl. And my wife makes me nervous because any time she's going to try to get the girl to take a nap, my wife says she's going to put her down.
I'm like, last time I heard that my dog didn't come home. The little girl, I had her up against me, kind of hugging her. And I felt her put her arms around me and hug me back. It's very special. First time I've ever felt that, you know.
And right then she pulled out my shirt, puked down my chest. Anybody else have little ones out here? How old are yours? 21 and 17. 21 and 17? That's not little.
What are you talking about? Oh, you've been there. Got any little ones? Yeah, 21. Do what? Wait till I get to 21.
Is it way worse? So in other moments, my son is super energetic. You know, we're just playing out in the yard, had one of those like rubber dodgeball things or bouncing it, rolling it back and forth. And out of nowhere, he just decides he's going to run straight for the road. So I start chasing after him and I realize he's going to get to the road before I get to him.
There's a car coming. So I took the ball, nailed him with it. And now I can say I hit my kid with a dodgeball for his safety. You think back when your kids were little, right? Did you have to go to the doctor all the time with him?
Sometimes, yeah. We were at the doctor's office all the time. We were just in there. We thought my son had a concussion. Some guy hit him in the head with a dodgeball. So he's always got something to say. He was running around the house wreaking havoc and he's just laughing and laughing. As he's doing it, we're trying to get him to stop.
He won't stop. And eventually I catch him and I put my hand on him and I look right in the eyes and I go, son, nobody's laughing. And he goes, yep, just like your show. I didn't even say anything. I was like, that was pretty good.
He's always got something to say. He wanted to be done with his food. And I said, nope, you did not eat all your vegetables. You're not done. And my wife goes, yeah, don't you want to be big and tall like daddy?
And he goes, well, I want to be tall, but dad is freak tall. I ate just the right amount. Anytime I'm in front of an audience, I always try to take a moment to find a way to educate, motivate, inspire. So I tell you all that to tell you this, the power of prayer is amazing. So when we got married, I remember standing on the stage of the church watching my bride walk down the aisle. I started crying because I could not believe someone would love me so much that they would forgive me for all of my past and just accept me for who I am. And that's exactly how Jesus feels about each and every one of us. Amen. So my wife just told me this, that when she was single, she was so tired of having her heart broken that she would pray and pray and pray that she would never have another first date again until it was her final first date. And one by one, every date she had scheduled fell through until the day I was there. I was like, wow, that is amazing.
You know, I just found this out. And I go, so does that mean on that first date when you saw me in that doorway, did you think there stands my future husband? And she said, no, I thought, does he play basketball? And with that, we've come to the end of a best of 2024 presentation from the six foot six inch Jeremy Nunes on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Well, John, that is tall.
He's definitely built for basketball. And that was really some refreshing humor, I thought. And, you know, the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes says there's a time to cry, a time to laugh. And so I'd encourage you to get the CD of this presentation to pass along to a friend who needs it.
It's OK to laugh once in a while. And we would love to provide you with the entire Best of 2024 collection. It's full of great stuff. Visit us online for complimentary access to 18 programs, including Insights on Heaven from John Burke.
Great advice for single moms. Tips on getting to know others better through conversation from Heather Holloman. All top shows.
Yeah, it's quite a collection and we've made it very easy for you to download. Just stop by the show notes. We've got the link right there for you. Well, next time you'll hear from podcasters Chris and Jenny Greby. They'll explain the benefits of setting an intentional rhythm in your home. On behalf of the entire team, thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Take a moment, if you would, please, and leave a rating for us in your podcast app and share about this episode with a friend.
You undoubtedly know somebody that can identify with some of the humor or benefit from the humor of Jeremy News. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. If the fights with your spouse have become unbearable, if you feel like you can't take it anymore, there's still hope. Hope restored marriage intensives have helped thousands of couples like yours. Our biblically based counseling will help you find the root of your problems and face them together. Call us at 1-866-875-2915. We'll talk with you, pray with you and help you find out which program will work best. That's 1-866-875-2915.
