With his name attached to some of the greatest comedies of the 21st century — Knocked Up, Trainwreck, Bridesmaids, Superbad, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and Pineapple Express, to name a few — there seems to be a general consensus in the culture that Judd Apatow is a pretty funny guy. But there's a party of two that strongly disagrees with that assessment: the writer-director's two teenage daughters.
On Wednesday's episode of Conan, Apatow told the host just how much his kids — 14-year-old Iris and 19-year-old Maude with wife Leslie Mann — loathe his sense of humor. And it goes way beyond not laughing at his dad jokes. "She doesn't think I'm funny, but like to such an extent that it's deeply hurtful," Apatow said of his younger daughter, Iris. The Big Sick producer said to host O'Brien that she recently told him, "'Dad I hate your jokes so much that sometimes my friends make jokes which are funny, but I don’t laugh, because you make jokes.’" O'Brien replied, "She's saying your comedy is so horrible to her, it has ruined all comedy?" Apparently so.
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And the Apatow girls' detest for their famous father's comedy extends to his fans. "If anyone likes me, that bugs her too," he said. "So on the rare moment that someone walks up to me and is like, 'Hey, I liked Knocked Up, it made me happy,' the second they walk away she mocks them."
But the cruelty doesn't stop there. The beleaguered dad went on to reveal how his kids talk to him whenever he tries to use his famous name to get dinner reservations (which he says fails 19 times out of 20). "She keeps calling me this name that's really harsh. It might be true, though," he said. "As soon as I hang up, my daughter always turns to me and goes, 'What a Hollywood dick.'" He added, "There's no winning."
Maybe for Father's Day, Apatow's daughters will laugh at one of their dad's jokes.