Dan Le Batard welcomed Izzy Gutierrez to his South Beach Sessions podcast this week. The show is usually a deep dive into the life and opinions of the guest, but Gutierrez wanted to talk about working with Papí, who Le Batard says Gutierrez “has an unusually good relationship with”.
Gonzalo “Papí” Le Batard, is an immigrant that fled Cuba after Fidel Castro took power. He came to the United States at 12 years old and eventually earned a masters degree in industrial engineering from Fairleigh Dickinson University.
He became an unlikely star while working with his son on ESPN’s Highly Questionable. While Le Batard led the show’s segments, Papí would sit next to him, laughing at viral videos and cracking jokes.
“It’s all anyone wants to talk to me about either,” Le Batard said. “I spent eight years slaving on that show looking at looking for bear videos, bears falling out of trees and landing on a trampoline to entertain the people. And all they want to talk about is my dad.”
He compared it to the way people react when he talks about the frustration of working with Stugotz on The Dan Le Batard Show. All the audience knows is the show. They may not realize how much the personalities carry over into dealing with these people in real life.
Izzy Gutierrez revealed that Papí wore an ear piece and was fed one-liners by the show’s producer, Erik Rydholm. He said that while the rest of the cast was enjoying the videos and reacting to the hi jinx, Papíwas actually working, waiting to deliver his next line.
Dan Le Batard said that might be the first time the audience has heard that not everything the elder Le Batard said was original thoughts off the top of his head.
“I don’t know if they know that he’s being fed lines,” he said to Gutierrez. “I think they think that my father is a 100% authentic personality who was just that clever every single night.”
Gutierrez countered that as the show went on, Papí began to be a little more spontaneous and deliver zingers off the cuff. Le Batard agreed that was true.
“When he was having a good time, that’s what it was the best,” Gutierrez said. “Like, that’s when it was 1,000% genuine. I loved just the fact that this man is sitting here giggling and doing a job he’s getting paid for that he never once in his life thought he would ever do.”
