Howie Mandel Told The Most Delightfully Insane Story About Having To Buy Jock Itch Cream

It’s no secret that Howie Mandel suffers from mysophobia, commonly known as germaphobia, which made it particularly traumatizing when he was recently diagnosed with athlete’s foot. Thursday night on Jimmy Kimmel Live, about a minute and a half into the above clip after segueing from a story about his son toilet-papering his house, Mandel talked about the humiliating yet highly entertaining (for us) ordeal he went through.

The whole thing actually started due to his showering compulsion, namely, showering in hotel showers. But here’s the thing: Howie Mandel, a self-professed germaphobe, has no idea how athlete’s foot works. After going to the doctor and being told to go buy Lamisil for his condition, he went to a drugstore and found jock itch cream. Obviously, you and I and pretty much everyone knows that jock itch and athlete’s foot are the same thing, namely a fungus that thrives in warm, damp conditions. But Mandel does not know that.

That apparently led to him calling the number on the box of Lamisil in the middle of the drugstore to talk to a woman — as he wondered, “Who puts a female on an itchy nut hotline?” — and ask whether or not he was buying the correct product. Oh, but it gets even better! Having been told that jock itch and athlete’s foot are the same thing, Mandel then extrapolates that jock itch must be caused by rubbing one’s nuts on the shower floor.

It was amazing. I don’t understand how Howie Mandel is even a real person.

×