Bill Burr Hilariously Explains How Fatherhood Has Changed His TV Habits
"What are we doing here? I’m getting misty-eyed watching a cartoon."
Comedian Bill Burr and his wife, actress and producer Nia Renee Hill, share a seven-year-old daughter and a son, born in June 2020. But parenthood doesn't come without sacrifices, which the the 55-year-old comedian learned the hard way soon after becoming a father.
Speaking with the Today show in a prerecorded segment this week, Burr opened up about how his television viewing habits have changed since having kids.
"I used to watch, you know, a 1 o’clock game, a 4 o’clock game, and then a late game," he explained. "And then with the package, I would be taping other games. And then you already had a Monday night and you had a Thursday night game. So I’d have a Tuesday and a Wednesday game and a Friday game to watch during the week that I had recorded. And then on Saturday, I would watch college football."
"Now I have kids, and I don’t know, I’m always watching Bluey?" Burr added, referring to the popular Australian animated kids series about an an anthropomorphic Blue Heeler puppy and her family. "Which is oddly, you know, really deep. What are we doing here? I’m getting misty-eyed watching a cartoon."
Turning back to the studio, it turned out the Old Dads star wasn't alone. "Oh my gosh, Bluey has got a death grip on the Daly family," remarked co-host Carson Daly. "Yes, I can relate to that."
Back in 2017, shortly after the couple welcomed their daughter, Burr admitted to Jimmy Kimmel that he watched the Patriots playoff game "on the worst TVs ever" in the hospital after his wife had given birth.
"Like the hospital thing, it's like they're trying to kill the dad," he quipped. "They had like this La-Z-Boy from like, 1968, like the prototype that I'm supposed to sleep on it. Every time I moved it was squeaking—I thought it was my baby crying, I'd like wake up."
"So they had this little TV, and you know like going into a dream sequence kind of thing that it does? It was doing that the whole game," Burr continued. "I had no idea what quarter it was, and I was like yelling at the announcers, 'Say the score! Say the score!' So I was able to watch it."
When Kimmel noted that his kid was "already affecting his lifestyle," Burr admitted that she laid on his chest for the entire second half of the game. Suffice to say, it sounds as though things have changed considerably in the Burr household in the years since.