Ben Stiller Pays Tribute to Jerry Stiller with Stories About LSD, Stolen Bikes, and More

Ben Stiller is paying tribute to his late father, comedy legend Jerry Stiller. On Tuesday night, the Meet the Fockers star appeared via satellite on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to share a few hilarious stories about his endlessly “supportive” father, who passed away last week at the age of 92. Stiller offered one particularly great anecdote about calling his dad while high on LSD, an experience that the actor remembers to this day. “I think he was just feeling, ‘Oh, I’ve failed as a parent,'” recalled the younger Stiller.

While Stiller is still grieving the loss of his father, he welcomed the opportunity to “celebrate” his late father last night on The Tonight Show. “It’s a weird time,” said the actor. “I think somewhere down the line we’ll do a memorial for him, when everybody can get together. There’s just so many people who loved him and he worked with.”

Fallon gave Stiller space to reflect on Jerry’s life and legacy, as well as his decades-long marriage and comedic partnership to Anne Meara. “Growing up in the ’70s in New York was a whole other world,” he recalled, launching into a story about his bike being stolen. When Stiller saw the kid who stole the bike, Jerry began “running after the kid … and he chased him down.” Jerry eventually followed the kid into his apartment, and after a brief conversation, “he let the kid keep the bike because he felt bad.” Funny and generous!

Years later, Stiller tried LSD for “the first and last time,” and he began to have a bad trip. “It was not a fun experience for me,” he said. “I got freaked out, scared, and my first instinct was, I’ve got to call my parents.” At the time, his parents were in Los Angeles shooting an episode of Love Boat, but despite their busy schedules (and their total ignorance about drugs), they talked him down. “I said, ‘Dad, I took some acid,'” recalled Stiller. “I think his first thought was like, acid, he drank battery acid.”

Stiller was met with silence from his father, but he quickly recovered. “The next thing he said was, ‘Oh, it’s gonna be okay.’ And he started to talk me down even though he knew nothing about drugs,” he told Fallon. “He said, ‘I know what you’re feeling. When I was 10 years old, I smoked a Pall Mall cigarette and I was sick for two days.'”

“And I said, ‘No, it’s not — this is different,'” said Stiller with a laugh. “Very straight, my dad. His thing was, it was all about the work. He was always just putting it all into the work.”

Watch Ben Stiller pay tribute to Jerry Stiller in the clip above.

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