Episode 1035 - Nahnatchka Khan
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuckineers?
Marc:What the fucktarians?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast.
Marc:Welcome to it.
Marc:Today on the show, Danachka Khan is here, the creator of Fresh Off the Boat and also the recent film that I enjoyed, Always Be My Maybe.
Marc:She directed that.
Marc:It's starring Ali Wong and Randall Park.
Marc:Fresh off the boat's been on for a while now.
Marc:It's in its sixth season.
Marc:And she's got a great story, a great show business story, a great sort of first generation story.
Marc:A great, you know, she comes from the world of animation, actually, which I don't talk to too many people that start there and end up in reality.
Marc:They ease out of animation and and then then come into reality.
Marc:So, all right.
Marc:I think that there's a creeping theme happening around Buddhism.
Marc:Could it be?
Marc:Is it possible?
Marc:I don't know what's going on with my mind.
Marc:I moderated a conversation with Sophie Huber and Herbie Hancock after the screening of Blue Note Records behind...
Marc:the notes over here, right down here in Glendale at the Lamley.
Marc:Great movie, great educational movie.
Marc:And I was supposed to do the Q&A with Sophie, and it was just down the street.
Marc:I figured, okay, she kind of got me last minute.
Marc:But then she said Herbie was coming, and then I got incredibly nervous.
Marc:Herbie Hancock being one of the founding architects of modern jazz, I think we can say that.
Marc:One of the transition folks who's been, you know, just doing it.
Marc:For like 60 years probably or more.
Marc:So I was nervous because this was it.
Marc:But then once I focused in on it, it was really just a short chat with two people about the film, about Bruno.
Marc:But it just turns out that he's just a very deep guy and a Zen dude, thoughtful in conversation, as well as his incredible musicianship.
Marc:But there was something in the movie.
Marc:Maybe I'll get him on a WTF.
Marc:I don't I don't know.
Marc:I mean, I did meet him and I think it would be good.
Marc:I'll work on it.
Marc:That said, there was something in the movie that struck me that Wayne Shorter said, the great sax player.
Marc:And then it was sort of confirmed that he said when they started doing that music, bebop or the jazz that they were working on, which and Herbie sort of said this as well, that they knew they were doing something that requires something other than just passive engagement, that they were doing something that was in the realm of art.
Marc:For sure.
Marc:They knew that what they were doing was not for everybody and they knew that they were doing it in a pure expression sort of form.
Marc:And they knew that that what they were doing was not commercial product.
Marc:And and Wayne Shorter said something about that.
Marc:He just wanted to feel that he was doing something of value, something of value.
Marc:And then Herbie sort of said that.
Marc:And then Herbie said that they were both both are our our Buddhists and have been for years.
Marc:And I don't know that that has anything to do with doing something of value over something commercial, over something selfish, over just am I putting something out in the world of value?
Marc:And that's enough.
Marc:You know, I am I am pure in my expression of this.
Marc:It comes from the right place.
Marc:Is it a value?
Marc:I can't control that.
Marc:But is it a value?
Marc:And I never really thought of that.
Marc:And certainly I never really thought about it as myself.
Marc:But it's an interesting way to think about it in a world where, you know, when people say things like that was very on brand about humans.
Marc:You know, like I'm a human.
Marc:And when somebody when I do something, when I lose my mind or rant and rave or, you know, have certain.
Marc:verbal tics or whatnot, and people go, well, that was very on-brand.
Marc:It's like, what the fuck are you talking about?
Marc:I'm not a brand.
Marc:I'm not a corporation.
Marc:Why are we buying into the court's definition of if they're going to allow corporations to identify as people in a legal sense, and we don't have to meet them there.
Marc:We don't have to present ourselves as corporate entities or describe ourselves.
Marc:It's sort of like, am I on-brand with the content I'm putting out?
Ha, ha, ha.
Marc:That's a human talking about a human.
Marc:How about I'm trying to speak from my heart and create from my heart and put something of value into the world?
Marc:It kind of resonated with me, that and all this jazz I'm dumping into my head, man.
Marc:Some cat just sent me a record by someone named Mary Halverson, the Mary Halverson octet, and it's fucking just disassembled my brain and put it back together in a new way.
Marc:That's of value.
Marc:Hey, did you like that movie?
Marc:Did you like that music?
Marc:Did you like that piece of art?
Marc:Yes, it disassembled my brain and then reassembled it in a different new way.
Marc:And I think it's going to stick, man.
Marc:I think it's going to stick.
Marc:David Lee Roth, right?
Marc:Everybody loved that David Lee Roth thing, man.
Marc:That talk.
Marc:A little Buddhist in there, too.
Marc:A little Buddhist thread.
Marc:The Buddhist is creeping up.
Marc:The Buddha is creeping up on me.
Marc:I'm not a searcher in that way, but I am sort of a push-a-weyer.
Marc:I'm not a searcher.
Marc:I'm a push-a-weyer.
Marc:Pow!
Marc:But I don't know.
Marc:Maybe there is something spiritual to be had.
Marc:Dig it.
Marc:How about some emails?
Marc:But thank you for all the feedback on the David Lee Roth.
Marc:I was really...
Marc:elevated by the whole thing i really enjoyed it and it seemed that i sort of was able to manage something that people who have talked to him in the past have not managed which was just to manage at all emails turning 60 and filling my head with good things subject line mark in years past i couldn't even tell you what day my birthday fell on but i'm turning 60 fucking years old on july 15th
Marc:And I've been preoccupied by it all year.
Marc:A lot of reflection, a lot of ghosts along the highway.
Marc:I try to get through each day as best I can.
Marc:Recently, I believe you were in Ireland.
Marc:You commented that you, quote, try to fill my head with good things, unquote.
Marc:That's become one of my recurring themes.
Marc:Good books, good music, and good people.
Marc:Thanks for that one, brother.
Marc:Several years back, I tried your podcast because you had Dave Alvin on, and I've been hooked ever since.
Marc:And you're here every Monday and Thursday.
Marc:Thank you for that.
Marc:As I stumble my way along, I find heartbreak just as devastating as when I was a kid.
Marc:But life can also be sweet as fuck.
Marc:Thanks for always being there.
Marc:Rave on.
Marc:Cheers.
Marc:Joe.
Marc:Thanks, Joe.
Marc:I'm glad I put something out into the world of value.
Marc:Try to fill your head with good things.
Marc:Because good things is broad, man.
Marc:You put stuff in your head and you don't know how it's going to fucking work your brain and work your perception and work your heart.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:That's why you got to keep putting stuff in.
Marc:We get into habits.
Marc:We get into immediate gratification.
Marc:We get into the binge thing.
Marc:Binging on anything.
Marc:Binging, like this idea of binge watching.
Marc:Binge is not good.
Marc:It's not good, but we do it.
Marc:But just know that there's a hangover.
Marc:There are repercussions.
Marc:There's a void after the binge.
Marc:That's the thing is that they're creating voids.
Marc:They're out there.
Marc:They know we're binging and then they create a void.
Marc:What do you do with that void?
Marc:Well, you're lucky.
Marc:We've got plenty of garbage to fill it with.
Marc:Some of it's not garbage.
Marc:Some of it is a heightened garbage or enlightened garbage.
Marc:But don't worry about your void because
Marc:this particular culture and media landscape, they will just fucking bulldoze content into your void.
Marc:As soon as you open the ditch, man, there you go.
Marc:Binge, there's a ditch.
Marc:Bring the bulldozer in.
Marc:to fill the void with content anyway thanks for the email man good things man good things in your head another one subject line david lee roth i usually rode to your podcast and my tempo was much faster listening to your david lee roth interview what a blast enjoying your podcast thanks mark marin margaret yeah look at that i got people me and dave made those oars go faster
Marc:pulling those oars.
Marc:Buddha's on my trail.
Marc:He's gaining on me.
Marc:The Buddha is gaining on me.
Marc:Hmm.
Marc:Am I on brand?
Marc:Am I being on brand right now?
Marc:Is my content coming out of my face?
Marc:Is it on brand?
Marc:Is it
Marc:Whew, man, I'm all lit up today.
Marc:Nanachka Khan is here.
Marc:What a great conversation.
Marc:I really enjoyed talking to her about her creative path and about where she comes from and about how she pulled it together to make Fresh Off the Boat, which is in its sixth season, a hit on ABC.
Marc:She also directed the Netflix original film Always Be My Maybe, starring Ali Wong.
Marc:And Randall Park and great story.
Marc:And she's going to and we're going to talk about it.
Marc:She's going to tell it right now.
Guest:For some reason, I'm remembering that.
Guest:Remember that crazy woman who wore adult diapers and drank energy drinks?
Marc:Oh, yeah, and drove the astronaut.
Guest:And drove, yeah, drove the astronaut.
Marc:She was the astronaut.
Guest:Was she the astronaut?
Marc:I think she was the astronaut.
Marc:That was the sad, horrible thing about it.
Marc:She got obsessed with a man or something.
Guest:Yeah, it was definitely obsession.
Marc:Yeah, but I think she was like an astronaut.
Guest:And she drove across country and didn't want to stop.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So she had like Red Bulls and adult diapers.
Yeah.
Marc:Well, you know, she planned ahead on that level.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:She definitely knew what she had to do and how she was going to do it.
Guest:That was her NASA training.
Marc:So what part of town do you live?
Marc:Where do you live?
Marc:Los Feliz somewhere?
Guest:Yeah, just above Los Feliz.
Marc:Oh, so not far?
Guest:No, not far at all.
Guest:How long have you lived here?
Guest:I've been in LA for a long time.
Guest:I went to college out here.
Guest:So I went to USC and then just sort of stayed.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:But you didn't grow up here?
Guest:No, I was born in Vegas, actually.
Marc:I don't know how that happens.
Marc:I've only known one other person that I talked to.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:You know, my parents were kind of just like moving around.
Guest:They lived, you know, in Washington and New York and a lot.
Guest:My dad was a salesman.
Marc:Where'd he come from?
Marc:He comes from, he's an immigrant, right?
Marc:First generation guy?
Guest:Comes from Iran.
Guest:Both my parents are from Iran.
Marc:Do you still have family there?
Guest:I still have family there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I, you know, we don't go back.
Guest:I mean, it's too dangerous.
Marc:Well, what do you like with what's happening now?
Marc:Do you talk to those family members or is this just an ongoing thing in terms of?
Guest:Yeah, it's an ongoing thing.
Guest:I mean, I talk to family members who are here in the U.S., but very rarely, you know, back in back in Iran.
Marc:Because, I mean, the perception of it is so, you know, it is what it is here, you know, and you just assume, like, I know a couple of more Iranian-Americans, like, you know, Mazjarani, I know, and they don't, you know, it just seems that we have no understanding as Americans what's really going on over there.
Marc:And generally, when you hear about it, it's like, yeah, it's just a bunch of regular people with a weird ruling government.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:Completely religious ruling government.
Marc:But the rest of the country is just having a party.
Marc:I mean, that's always the impression.
Guest:That's always the thing, especially with like the young women.
Guest:They always say like, oh, they're so fashion conscious and fashion forward and everything like that.
Guest:But it's so you can kind of get a glimpse with this administration here, how the government can control the narrative.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Like, so whatever they want you to think, especially with a smaller country.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And there is no, you know, I mean, I'm sure there are small sort of independent, you know, newspapers or somehow you can get information.
Marc:Coffee shops.
Guest:Something like some acoustic sets, some poetry, some poetry jams.
Guest:But yeah, I mean, it's.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you would have to imagine that like with a country that is more intimate and more sort of nationalized in a very specific way.
Marc:that they probably put the mind fuck on a lot of people.
Marc:Here, thank God, it's not as big a minority as I'd like, but there's more than you'd think, but they can really, with the controlling the narrative thing, can really put the mind zap on people.
Guest:It's wild.
Guest:I mean, all that like, you know, it's crazy, like false information being spread.
Marc:And then like people who live in these like I was thinking about that, you know, initially about like fresh off the boat that the fact that this this is that show which you created and run.
Marc:is only the second one or so of Asian-American family being depicted on television.
Guest:Definitely, yeah, on network TV.
Marc:Right, there was Margaret's show years ago.
Marc:But I wonder, like the question I guess I had in relating to what we're talking about, is it because like the, could that have happened when there was only three networks?
Marc:Not really, right?
Marc:Have that show on the air?
Guest:I mean, I don't know.
Guest:You know, that's a good question.
Guest:Like, I think that when Margaret's show came out in 94, was there pretty much three networks?
Marc:I think so.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But it didn't last that long, did it?
Guest:No, it didn't even last.
Guest:I think it lasted maybe a season.
Marc:Because I think like because of the expectations and because of the exact same reason we have these bubbles that create monsters, you also have a fragmented media sort of landscape where if you can grab your audience and hold them, you know, the numbers aren't relative to what they used to be.
Marc:So you can have that show on a network.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Because you can you can find the people and they come.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:And I think also it's it's very necessary to have like like minded people in positions to pick up those kinds of shows to like it would have been great if Margaret Cho had worked or something like that, because who knows what that would have changed in terms of the TV network landscape for the next 20 years.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Until we came out in 2015.
Marc:So you're saying if there was some courage on the executive level, we might have had more representation of of of different types of people.
Guest:I think it's courage, and I also think it's that thing where when you get one shot, you're not allowed to fail.
Guest:So because her show didn't work, I think they were like, well, people don't want to see that.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Asians are out.
Guest:Asians are out.
Guest:They're not in.
Guest:We don't need them.
Guest:So I think, yeah, that was the mindset.
Guest:And it would have been cool to have seen, because when you did have way more eyeballs on network TV, before it all got splintered and everything,
Guest:It would have been amazing to have shown other kinds of cultures and people and families.
Marc:To a lot more people.
Marc:To a lot more people.
Marc:It might have been a bulwark against the horrible things that are happening now.
Marc:Because I always think about that.
Marc:That there was something...
Marc:Good about three networks, because if something did get through, like everybody was sort of on the same page.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And everyone's having the same conversations about the same shows.
Marc:I mean, it seems like that's less freedom, but it was also a more defined national conversation.
Marc:yeah for sure i mean it was it it was such a huge influence i mean now i guess we have game of thrones is the only thing that is kind of fantasy it's like what i mean but like but it's like those are the kind of shows though it's not people aren't watching organically they begin to feel like they have to right yeah it's just like this weird you know nerd peer pressure like i didn't watch any of them and then when you say something like that they're like oh so you're so cool
Marc:It's like, what the fuck is happening?
Guest:You lose subscribers.
Guest:You're like, what happened?
Marc:It's a TV show.
Marc:I tweet, I hardly ever tweet, and I tweeted some criticism.
Marc:Oh, boy.
Marc:And that is definitely the world where, and I liked starting the shitstorm because it's hilarious.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:We're going to get this hung up.
Marc:You can't get people to sort of speak out about these abortion bans, but in Game of Thrones, it's like, oh, shut up.
Guest:I know.
Guest:This ending did not serve the story.
Marc:Jon Snow fans coming out.
Marc:Yeah, I don't even know any of, I don't know anything about it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, I love that you weighed in, even though you didn't know anything about it.
Marc:Well, that's how I weighed in.
Marc:I said, I'm just tuning in on this final episode.
Marc:I'm a little lost.
Marc:Could somebody tell me what's happening?
Guest:Just a quick recap.
Yeah.
Marc:And they just went ballistic.
Marc:They went nuts.
Marc:That's so funny.
Marc:I just find that I'm getting old and I don't care as much and I can't pay attention to everything.
Guest:I just have this image of your fake wife coming in to defend you on Twitter being like, leave him alone.
Guest:My husband is stressed.
Marc:I should create a fake wife.
Marc:See, that's the thing you can do now.
Marc:I can just create a fake wife.
Marc:So Vegas, so why'd they end up in Vegas?
Marc:So you grew up in Vegas?
Guest:I was born in Vegas.
Guest:We lived there for, you know, a number of years.
Guest:Then my family moved to Hawaii because my dad got another job.
Marc:Do you remember Vegas or when did you leave?
Guest:I remember Vegas.
Guest:I left when I was pretty young, maybe like nine years.
Marc:Oh, so you didn't have to go through your formative years in that weird city?
Guest:No, but my brother.
Guest:So after I graduated high school.
Guest:There's just me and my brother.
Guest:I graduated high school in Hawaii and I went to USC and then my family moved back to Vegas.
Guest:So my brother did his last two high school years in Vegas.
Marc:Oh, he's younger than you?
Guest:Yeah, he's younger than me.
Marc:And he's in show business?
Guest:He is a sports media agent at CAA.
Marc:I don't know how you both got into show business.
Marc:Isn't that weird?
Guest:No one in my family is.
Marc:So what part of Hawaii?
Guest:Except I just want to say that my dad wanted to be an actor.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:But he didn't.
Marc:A salesman.
Marc:I mean, it's close.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I have his old headshots in a book.
Marc:Oh, he went that far?
Guest:He went that far.
Guest:I think he got a guest spot on, I don't even know, Gunsmoke or something like that.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, something.
Marc:When he was out here?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He changed his name because it sounded too ethnic.
Guest:So he changed it to Philippe Monday.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What's the origin story of Philippe Monday?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:And Monday was spelled with a U, like M-U-N.
Marc:M-U-N-D-A-Y?
Marc:Yeah, Monday.
Marc:That was the one he came up with?
Guest:I guess he thought it sounded like French and exotic.
Guest:I don't really know.
Marc:You never asked him?
Guest:I mean, I think I was like, where did it come from?
Guest:And he was like, I don't know.
Guest:It was just inspiration.
Marc:Is he still around?
Guest:Yeah, he's still around.
Marc:Oh, you could probably get to the bottom of it.
Guest:Yeah, I'll find out.
Marc:Philippe Monday.
Yeah.
Guest:And in the show, in Fresh Off the Boat, we had a hair dryer, like a sit-down hair dryer that the dad sits in, which my dad used to do, by the way.
Guest:Really?
Guest:We had a full salon hair dryer.
Marc:In your house?
Guest:In our house.
Guest:And he would sit under it.
Guest:He'd put a hair net on, sit under it, and then a Reed Sports Illustrated.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:So we named that hair dryer in the show Philippe Monday.
Guest:Philippe Monday 3000.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's hilarious.
Marc:So your dad had this, a fairly vain man, I guess.
Guest:Vain man.
Guest:He still dyes his hair jet black to this day.
Guest:I'm like, Dad, you know, you're in your 70s.
Guest:You know, it's like, I don't think no one's buying that.
Marc:You're not fooling anybody.
Guest:No, and it's the home thing, you know, with the gloves and the thing.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:So it's that weird black.
Marc:It's got no, there's no way to sell it.
Guest:Completely unnatural.
Guest:A little skin, you know.
Marc:Some of that's black?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A little tainted.
Marc:The scalp is black?
Guest:It's too black.
Marc:What island were you on?
Guest:Oahu.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah, on the South Shore.
Marc:And what was he selling down there?
Guest:Oh, my gosh.
Guest:He was selling everything.
Guest:He was selling vitamins and suntan lotion.
Marc:It's a real hustler, huh?
Guest:Hustler.
Guest:Just right now, he'd be like, Mark, what do you need?
Guest:You need some microphones?
Guest:I got some in the trunk of my car.
Guest:What do you mean?
Guest:Everything's in the trunk of his car.
Marc:That's so interesting because there's something so essentially American about that.
Guest:I mean, that was the dream.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:That's so true.
Marc:It's like you can make your life however you want to make it.
Marc:You just have to have your bullshit in order.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:I mean, that's it.
Guest:You just catalog that bullshit and then take it out.
Marc:I can bullshit a life here.
Guest:For sure.
Marc:That's crazy.
Guest:For sure.
Marc:And he's still working that angle?
Guest:He's still working that angle.
Guest:He's slowing down, you know, but he's still like.
Marc:Not so much stuff in the trunk of the car?
Guest:Not so much.
Guest:No.
Guest:There's less stuff in the trunk.
Guest:But he's still, I think the other, you know, I don't know, a few weeks ago was like pitched an idea for like a restaurant chain.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:To you?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was like, we should open a restaurant called Vegas in Vegas.
Guest:I was like, why?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's like, well, you know, because there's so much history in Vegas and they've imploded all these hotels and you can do like the old like Sahara and whatever.
Marc:Theme restaurant.
Guest:Theme restaurant.
Guest:And I was like, you know, I mean, maybe.
Marc:My dad's a big idea guy, too.
Marc:He doesn't do it as much as he used to, but he used to come up with ideas.
Marc:One of them was like, you know, you have a certain, you put screens on the tables at McDonald's.
Marc:It was like this idea where there was gonna be advertising.
Marc:I'm like, you mean like the internet?
Marc:You mean like computer?
Marc:We have that already.
Marc:That's already existing.
Marc:But he'd always have these ideas and he'd just have to listen to them.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, that's it.
Guest:And nothing ever came of it, right?
Marc:No, it goes away.
Guest:It goes away.
Marc:What do you think you're gonna do?
Marc:What if you go like, okay, let's go.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Let's do it.
Guest:Let me find a real estate agent.
Marc:Yeah, and a backer and we're gonna make a restaurant.
Guest:Yeah, that's it.
Marc:Usually I think it's how they occupy their mind and it just goes away.
Guest:I think so, too.
Guest:I think so, too.
Guest:Just always ideas.
Marc:And what's your mom like?
Guest:My mom is great.
Guest:I mean, she she was always a stay at home mom.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They called it homemaker.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Back in the day.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And yes, she was just sort of dedicated to me and my brother.
Guest:And she's she's still with us, but she's in poor health now.
Guest:So, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I wish like, you know, Ali and Randall's movie is coming out.
Guest:We're doing a premiere this week.
Marc:She can't come.
Guest:She can't come, which is a bummer.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But how does it go?
Marc:What drove you to this job?
Marc:Like when you were in high school in Hawaii, were you doing plays and things?
Guest:I mean, a little bit.
Guest:You know, I wrote like a column for the school newspaper, just sort of like I could write whatever I wanted.
Guest:So I wrote about like dumb stuff like prom.
Guest:But comedically.
Guest:Comedically.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I remember really liking that feeling, like, you know, whenever the paper would come out or whatever, people would come up to me in the hall and be like, oh, I read your thing.
Guest:It was so funny.
Guest:And I liked that sort of time release.
Guest:You know, it's not the immediacy of like what you guys do, like stand up, performance.
Guest:But I like that people are sort of consuming it wherever they are and then coming to you and talking about it.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And it was provocative.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, listen, I blew the lid off of prom.
Marc:You did?
Marc:You just destroyed it?
Marc:I did.
Marc:What was the angle?
Marc:This is bullshit?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It was something about hair.
Guest:Yeah, I don't know.
Guest:Like, we're all spending all this money and getting our hair done or something like that.
Marc:Renting dresses, buying dresses, getting those flowers.
Marc:It's all a racket.
Marc:It's all a racket.
Marc:The whole goddamn thing's a racket.
Guest:Prom is a racket.
Marc:All right, so you're writing about prom.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:And then you decide to, what, study prom?
Guest:Yeah, so when you live in Hawaii, it's too expensive to kind of go tour campuses.
Guest:So during my senior year, I was applying to different colleges, and a lot of schools come to Hawaii and do like a seminar or whatever on the weekend.
Marc:Give a presentation.
Guest:Give a presentation and talk through the different, you know, whatever, things you can study.
Guest:And USC came, and I didn't want to go.
Guest:It was a Saturday.
Marc:You didn't know anything about USC, the reputation, the film school and all that?
Guest:I didn't know about the film school.
Guest:I applied to USC and I'd gotten accepted as a, I think I put like, I didn't know what I wanted to do.
Guest:So I put like international relations.
Marc:That's one of those ones.
Marc:It's like communications.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:It's like, okay, that sounds good.
Guest:Communications, you're like, I like to talk.
Marc:My family's from another place.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:I'm international.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I like to relate.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:So I had gotten accepted under that school.
Guest:And so my dad and mom forced me to go to the seminar.
Guest:And so I was there and they were talking through and I was kind of flipping through the brochure.
Guest:And then I saw a school of cinema television and I read about it and I told my dad, I was like, oh, this is actually what I want to do.
Guest:Like, this sounds great.
Guest:So we went to like the guy after he finished talking.
Guest:I was like, hey, you know, like I really am interested.
Guest:And
Guest:It was kind of like a thing where they laugh at you a little bit.
Guest:They're like, this is a very difficult school to get into.
Guest:But you were already in, right?
Guest:I was in.
Guest:The cinema and television thing.
Guest:Yeah, that's like a separate admission.
Guest:You can get into USC, but not the School of Cinema TV.
Guest:I think now it's called School of Cinematic Arts or whatever.
Guest:But anyway, so he was like, the deadline for that school is like in a week and a half.
Guest:So here's all you need.
Guest:You can put together a packet and, you know, get it in and they'll consider you.
Guest:So that was the hardest I ever worked in high school.
Guest:Get the packet together?
Guest:Get in the packet.
Guest:You got to get the recommendations.
Guest:You got to get like all the stuff you've ever worked on.
Guest:The essay why.
Guest:The essay why I need to go to the school.
Guest:We had to write five movie ideas.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:That, you know, were just like one page or whatever.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So and then, yeah, submit the whole thing.
Marc:Are those ideas still around?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:I hope not.
Guest:I did write a script in school about garlic heads, about people who follow garlic festivals around like they're dead heads.
Guest:That never went anywhere.
Marc:So that's still available.
Marc:That's very specific.
Guest:That's available.
Marc:That seems like a good streaming.
Marc:You could probably do it.
Guest:Listen.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Make a web series.
Marc:The garlic heads.
Marc:Pick a few garlic heads.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:That have problems with each other and their approach to garlicness.
Guest:And we just start with them exploring different bulbs.
Guest:Like, what kind of garlic is this?
Marc:It is sort of a weird idea.
Marc:Do they really exist?
Guest:Well, the garlic festivals do.
Guest:There's one in California.
Marc:Gilroy.
Guest:Gilroy.
Marc:Right.
Guest:That's it.
Marc:The Gilroy Garlic.
Guest:Gilroy Garlic Festival.
Marc:It's off the 5, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I kind of remember that.
Guest:That's off the 5.
Marc:Because you stop at a place, like a gas station there, and they have garlic everything.
Marc:You can buy pickled garlic and garlic in jars.
Guest:Well, and then there's that restaurant, The Stinking Rose.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's, yeah, in San Francisco.
Marc:I think there's one here, too, though, I think.
Guest:There is on, like, La Cienega, I think.
Marc:I never went there, and I lived in San Francisco for two years.
Guest:I went there once.
Guest:The L.A.
Marc:one.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:It's rough.
Marc:Really?
Guest:I mean, it's so good.
Guest:You're hit in the face by garlic.
Marc:It's really a garlic-themed restaurant for the most part?
Guest:Everything has garlic in it.
Guest:I mean, you don't have to choose garlic, but it just overpowers it.
Guest:Everything smells like garlic.
Marc:Okay, but you didn't have to write a script to get in.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:Just like the ideas and the packet and your essay.
Marc:It's so wild that like, you know, you didn't really know what you want to do.
Marc:But this like it's a testament to people that put together sort of like course description and catalogs.
Marc:It is that you're just sort of looking at these different because I remember doing that when I was going looking at colleges.
Marc:You're just sort of like this seems like my whole life right here on this.
Marc:This paragraph here seems to be a life.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:I'm going to dedicate everything to this path based on these two paragraphs.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Perfect.
Marc:It's all been answered for me.
Guest:Well, you know, I didn't even realize, like, I don't know how you felt about it, but I didn't know that people could make money doing that, like writing for TV or writing for movies.
Guest:Like, I was a big movie fan.
Marc:I'm still not clear on it.
Marc:It seems like some people can, yes.
Guest:Some people can.
Marc:But a lot of people who even know that other people can, they never do.
Marc:It's a tough racket.
Marc:No, I didn't know how anyone made money in show business when I wanted to be a comic.
Marc:I just knew I wanted to be a comic.
Guest:Right.
Marc:I didn't know how any of it.
Marc:I think until I did my own show, really, did I not learn how it actually worked.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, even I don't know.
Guest:For stand-up comics, do you guys get paid in cash?
Guest:Or is it like a check?
Marc:All under the table.
Marc:Is it all in cash?
Marc:No.
Marc:In suitcases.
Marc:Like the big comics, they demand being paid with a black briefcase just filled of bundles of money.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:Just click.
Marc:Ali Wong just opens up her.
Marc:Yeah, you can ask her.
Marc:She's making the big cash.
Marc:Duffel bags of cash.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:She's got those Gucci bags.
Marc:Yeah, she does.
Guest:No, but I mean like when you get big, yeah, but just like when you're going up and someone's like, hey, do you want to come two nights a week?
Marc:Oh, yeah, there's a shady element sometimes, but usually you get, you know, there was definitely a time where you're like, I don't want to check from you.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:There's definitely certain people.
Marc:You're working with a lot of different booking entities at that time before you're represented properly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, you're doing one-nighters.
Marc:And there were definitely people where you were like, you know, you got to pay me in cash.
Marc:That's it.
Guest:Like they're trying to pay you with a personal like Bugs Bunny check or whatever.
Marc:Or else they're just notoriously bad on the checks, you know, kind of going through.
Marc:There was always that concern.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:More with the kind of, you know, initial stuff, the one-nighter stuff.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Guest:When you're on the come up, when you're trying to like, you know.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But once you're going to clubs that you do in the week, you know, usually you're pretty good.
Marc:Even some of them, though, you're like, are his checks any good?
Marc:You never knew when something was going out of business.
Marc:But yeah.
Guest:That's it.
Marc:But eventually, yeah, you're represented properly and you can trust certain club owners who get your money.
Guest:Right, right.
Marc:But there's definitely cash sometimes, yeah.
Guest:But that's the thing.
Guest:I didn't know how to start.
Guest:I didn't know how you got paid or anything like that.
Guest:I was just like, hey, I like movies.
Guest:I like TV.
Guest:I watch all of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It is interesting that we think it's magic initially.
Marc:It's obviously a huge business.
Marc:But when you're younger, it's like, that's ridiculous.
Marc:People make money doing this.
Marc:They make a fortune doing this.
Guest:A fortune.
Marc:So how did you learn?
Marc:So you get in and you're excited?
Guest:Get in.
Guest:I'm excited.
Guest:Went to USC.
Marc:Did you learn this stuff?
Guest:I learned.
Guest:You mean writing?
Marc:Well, I mean like the business.
Guest:You learn how things are made.
Guest:You don't really learn the business angle of it, but you learn structure.
Guest:You learn how to write a script.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How to break a story, write a script, shoot something.
Guest:No business, though.
Marc:That's interesting.
Guest:Not really.
Marc:Weird, huh?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They really don't prep you for that stuff.
Guest:But there is programs within the film school, like the producer programs or whatever, that are more business-oriented.
Guest:But I was focused on writing was my primary thing.
Marc:And that's what you did?
Guest:That's what I did, yeah.
Guest:For four years, I was out there writing, writing bad stuff.
Marc:But is it a basic liberal arts curriculum?
Marc:You got to do the other stuff, too?
Marc:Did you take history and art?
Guest:You don't have to do that much other stuff, to be honest.
Marc:You didn't have to learn anything other than how to write a TV script.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:And they...
Guest:They're ready.
Guest:They're preparing you for the real world.
Marc:And then they just throw you out on Sunset Boulevard and say, good luck.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:Good luck.
Guest:You're on Pico with your resume and like two scripts.
Marc:You're like, what's up?
Marc:You just walk over to Fox, I guess.
Marc:That's what you did.
Marc:That's what I did.
Guest:You just started to walk down the street.
Guest:Got the number two bus.
Guest:I don't know if there is a number two, but you know.
Marc:Yeah, I do know.
Marc:How does it end, though?
Marc:So you get a degree, a four-year degree, and then you've written some spec scripts in college?
Guest:Yep, written some spec scripts.
Marc:What specs did you write?
Guest:I wrote, let's see.
Guest:I wrote Seinfeld.
Guest:I wrote Murphy Brown.
Guest:Murphy Brown was, it was, I think, like 78 pages.
Guest:It was way too long.
Guest:I think it's supposed to be low 50s.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And there were just pages and pages of monologues.
Guest:And I was like, can't cut a word.
Guest:Right.
Guest:We need everything from Jim.
Guest:Jim needs to say three pages.
Guest:That's it.
Marc:It's his big show.
Marc:It's his big episode.
Guest:It's all him.
Guest:He's the crux of the story.
Guest:You guys don't understand because you haven't been to film school for four years.
Guest:No, but yeah, wrote some bad specs.
Guest:And then somehow one of my professors at the time sent it to somebody who worked in Disney TV animation.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And they hired me to kind of come on as like kind of a creative consultant, creative executive kind of thing.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was my first like real job.
Marc:And you were like 20?
Guest:Yeah, I was 20.
Marc:And like so like at this time, like I know like I've been guilty of it and I know that there's like a lack of women representation in writers rooms.
Marc:So what was your first experience with that?
Guest:Well, I started out in kids animation, you know, so that was different.
Guest:Like, that's just kind of, you know, the Wild West a little bit.
Guest:Like, it's not even covered by the Writers Guild.
Guest:There's a whole separate guild for kids animation.
Marc:Really?
Guest:It's Ayatzee.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Ayatzee?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What is that?
Guest:It's this animation guild that, you know, so all this like SpongeBob, like all those like Nickelodeon.
Marc:That's got to be like huge money.
Marc:It's not even under AFTRA.
Marc:No.
Marc:Weird.
Guest:You don't get residuals or anything like that.
Marc:That's a wreck.
Guest:I know.
Guest:That was wild.
Guest:That's what, I mean, if the WGA wants to start focusing on issues, there's a whole swath of writers who are not covered by the Guild that write, you know, on shows that make a ton of money.
Marc:And there's like hundreds of episodes.
Guest:Hundreds of episodes, Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, like, you know, free form or wherever.
Marc:No kidding.
Marc:So that's like sort of this weird loophole.
Guest:It is.
Guest:It's a weird loophole.
Guest:And, you know, for us, it was like we were just starting.
Guest:It was our first paid writing job.
Guest:What do you care?
Guest:Whatever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm like, this is more money than I've ever made.
Guest:So what was the show?
Guest:It was called Pepper Ann, and it was created by this woman, Sue Rose, and it was about a single mom raising a 12-year-old girl.
Guest:And that was the first, I think, series created by a woman starring a girl.
Marc:For Disney?
Marc:For Disney, yes.
Marc:Did it run for a while?
Guest:It ran.
Guest:We did 65 episodes of it.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:It was on ABC Saturday mornings.
Marc:See, I would never know that.
Marc:I know.
Marc:So it was a popular show.
Guest:It was a popular show.
Marc:Saturday morning cartoon.
Guest:I mean, that's it.
Guest:It was like, you know, whenever it was, 830 or something on ABC Saturday morning.
Marc:And it seems very specific and it speaks to a very sort of painful reality.
Guest:Yeah, it was.
Guest:She had a very active fantasy life, you know, and so she would imagine herself in these like great scenarios.
Guest:And, you know, for us, it was it was amazing to get to write those kinds of stories.
Guest:It was like grad school, really, because I learned on the ground, like how to make a TV show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:From the beginning all the way to the end.
Guest:I was faking my way through all these meetings because I became like the head writer.
Marc:You did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She was like, do you want to?
Guest:They were like, do you want to, you know, run this?
Marc:The creator said that.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then Disney agreed.
Guest:So.
Marc:And you're like 20?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, at that time I was probably 21, 22, something like that.
Marc:And you're the showrunner.
Guest:Yeah, but I mean, you know, of like a show that's like a very small show.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:But I got to hire my friends who were like just out of films.
Guest:And my one friend was temping.
Guest:My one friend was giving like tram tours at Universal Studios.
Guest:I was like, do you guys want to come right on this show?
Guest:They're like, yes.
Guest:Yeah, we'll quit our jobs.
Marc:That's crazy.
Marc:I know.
Marc:Because like despite the fact that it's animation, you've still got to deliver these scripts.
Marc:Was it a full half hour show?
Guest:Full half hour show with two 11 minute episodes in the hour.
Guest:So it was like you had to break two full stories.
Marc:That's really amazing, you know, hands on experience.
Guest:It was amazing.
Marc:And you can do it without, you know, anonymously almost.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, you're just like learning.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it's on TV.
Guest:It's on TV.
Guest:Your name is there.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I'm faking my way through all the production meetings, you know, because I give you all these schedules with these like charts and I had no idea what I was looking at.
Guest:So my trick was always to like never finish a sentence.
Guest:So I would always be like, I see you have the uh-huh.
Guest:Okay, good.
Guest:Do you think that's enough?
Guest:Yeah, you know what?
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And that was it.
Guest:And they bought it.
Guest:They bought it.
Guest:The bullshit.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Because you must have been delivering good shows.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, we were doing, you know, we were aspiring to do the shows that we loved, which was like Seinfeld and, you know, cheer, like all those.
Marc:You had that in your head.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we were like, hey, it's just it's for kids.
Guest:But I think we can do we can tell smart stories like, you know, there are sort of the grizzled veterans of animation that I've been like writing for a long time.
Marc:And they were over at Disney doing that.
Marc:That's wild.
Guest:And they, you know, they probably have the formula that you can plug into or whatever.
Guest:And it's like, eh, you know, like sort of turning it out.
Marc:So there's just people going like, you know, this is this.
Marc:It's like in Barton Fink.
Marc:It's a wrestling movie.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:It's like search and replace.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:What are we writing?
Guest:What is it?
Guest:Jungle Cubs?
Guest:It's like, all right.
Guest:You like search the kid and put it in, send it out.
Marc:We have a template for that.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:But for us, it was like our, you know, we were so excited and we took it so seriously and we really wanted to like challenge ourselves.
Marc:Do you still work with those people?
Guest:I do.
Guest:One of them is named her.
Guest:Her name is Laura McCreary.
Guest:She's won a Golden Globe on Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
Guest:She's writing on Superstore.
Guest:She was on Fresh Off the Boat for a while.
Marc:And she was one of your first hires.
Marc:Was she the tram?
Marc:She was the temp.
Guest:She was the temp.
Guest:And she came over.
Guest:And then the tram tour guy is named Matt Negretti.
Guest:And he's the showrunner of the spinoff of The Walking Dead show.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Yeah, he was on Walking Dead for several seasons.
Guest:The showrunner of Walking Dead, Scott Gimple, I hired.
Guest:It was his first job, too.
Guest:And then he became the showrunner of The Walking Dead.
Marc:At the anime, at Pepper Ann?
Marc:At Pepper Ann.
Marc:That's where you all started?
Marc:That's where we all started.
Marc:And look at the impact you've had on modern television.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:From that building back then, working on that one show.
Marc:That's crazy.
Marc:I know.
Marc:It was wild.
Marc:Now, it must have been kind of mind-blowing just to be at Disney, just to be in that machine.
Guest:It was.
Guest:It was.
Marc:All those animation cells everywhere on the wall.
Marc:I mean, classic.
Guest:Sleeping Beauty, every single movie you've ever seen.
Guest:As a kid.
Guest:As a kid.
Guest:And you're kind of walking through.
Guest:And they had that one building with all the dwarves holding up the thing.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:It's everywhere.
Marc:So then, like, then it just starts.
Marc:Your role starts.
Marc:I mean, you know, that means you enter the entertainment ecosystem, an experienced writer and showrunner to some degree.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:I mean, I got great experience there from, you know, beginning to end.
Guest:I learned how to, like, you know, edit and score and sound mixing.
Marc:And because it was animation, there was none of that sort of like writer's room sort of dick swinging stuff.
Marc:Not like that.
Marc:You brought, you know, you brought your friends in.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:A couple women, a dude.
Guest:That's it.
Marc:And you go.
Guest:And we go.
Guest:And we write weird stories that we want to see.
Marc:And it's fun.
Guest:It's fun.
Marc:That's it.
Guest:And we got to do what we want to do.
Guest:So I came in through a super weird door.
Guest:A lot of people have to work their way up.
Guest:You're a writer's PA.
Guest:You become a writer's assistant.
Guest:Then you get a staff writer.
Guest:So you're kind of indoctrinated early into the way of thinking.
Marc:And you know that system now because you probably have to sort of deal with that.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, you hire all those people.
Marc:Well, that's sort of a nice way to come in.
Marc:So when does the fun stop?
Guest:Well, you know, when that show ended, I was like, all right, well, let me go try.
Guest:Real people.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, like, let's see what's up.
Marc:Right for humans.
Guest:Right for humans.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So I bounced around a lot.
Guest:I wrote on Malcolm in the Middle for a season.
Guest:I did a staff writer.
Guest:A staff writer.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then I did a season on the show called Good Morning Miami, which was a multicam.
Marc:There's a morning show thing.
Guest:Yeah, it was like a play on a morning show.
Guest:It ran two seasons, but I came on season two and then it was canceled.
Guest:And that was my only multicam experience because that's its own sort of entity.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know if you've ever done any multicam stuff.
Marc:What, the stage?
Guest:Yeah, like tape night and all that.
Guest:Like the way, you know, all the sitcoms used to be filmed.
Marc:It's like a play.
Marc:It's like vaudeville.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's like a live show.
Guest:It's like a live show.
Marc:That you stop and start.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:You have a guy that comes out in between going, how's everybody doing?
Guest:We're going to need a big round of applause.
Guest:Throwing oranges or whatever to people, hyping the crowd.
Marc:Where are you from?
Marc:Sure.
Marc:I wonder which comic that was.
Marc:I probably know the guy that did warm up.
Guest:I'm sure.
Guest:And there were certain studios who love certain comics, so the guys were always kind of working.
Marc:It's a good gig if you can live with yourself because you get Guild coverage.
Marc:I mean, it's a union job.
Guest:Is it really?
Marc:I think so, yeah.
Guest:Oh, that's cool.
Guest:That's not one of those cash things we were talking about earlier.
Marc:No, no, no, no, no.
Marc:I think you're actually on the payroll of the show, you know, in that capacity.
Marc:I think you do get, you know, it's a it's a guild job.
Guest:That's cool.
Marc:Yeah, it's good.
Guest:It's definitely a skill to do.
Guest:Not only that, but to do a multicam.
Guest:I mean, it is sort of an old school, you know, from the honeymooners days, ways of telling stories.
Guest:You know, the scenes are very long.
Guest:There's a lot of entrances and exits.
Guest:It's a little unnatural, but you have to understand, like, how to write those rhythms.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:Everybody is a joke delivery machine.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And, you know, it's like – well, I think that's interesting, too, in talking about –
Marc:you know, fresh off the boat.
Marc:And then this movie is that, you know, the movie that you always be my maybe first film you directed.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But it's like, you know, you know, writing for television and writing, you know, comedy in that way, you know, these characters have to be fully understandable, you know, very immediately.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:To to be able to sort of suspend a little bit of disbelief that they talk like, you know, that they deliver jokes.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So it's all about character with that stuff.
Marc:You know, people have got to understand and relate and, you know, empathize and buy characters immediately.
Marc:And it's tricky.
Marc:It's a hard trick.
Guest:It's hard trick.
Guest:And people are good at that multicam rhythms.
Guest:You know, they've been doing it a long time.
Guest:Like that to me is not, you know, that's not the way that I like tell stories.
Guest:That's not my natural inclination.
Guest:So, you know, I much prefer animation or single camera comedy because those are just different pace, like storytelling pace.
Marc:We also don't have the pressure of jokes landing in the same way.
Guest:And you know how it is, too.
Guest:It's like when jokes land with a live audience on tape night, a lot of times those are the broadest jokes.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You know, and that might not be the best joke for the scene.
Guest:Joke jokes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's like, you know, it's a new joke.
Guest:It's their go to's.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, that you get like sex.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like, you know, shit.
Guest:Like all this stuff.
Guest:It gets huge laughs.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But then when you see it cut into the episode, you're like, what is this?
Guest:Why it doesn't serve anything.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No.
Marc:Other than the laugh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's like, you know, kind of easy.
Marc:And that show didn't last that long.
Guest:I mean, you know, that show didn't last that long.
Guest:But you can understand why like the like the choices is made because the the the reaction is huge.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:People love it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I don't like I don't like I grew up with those shows, but there were so many of them.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, most of the shows that like we I grew up with, I'm 55.
Marc:I mean, they were those shows.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Some of them were pretty great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But like, it's just a trick, you know.
Guest:And, you know, I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall at, like, cheers, you know, to see how they did.
Guest:I mean, that was beautiful storytelling.
Marc:Mary Tyler Moore.
Guest:Mary Tyler Moore was amazing.
Guest:Seinfeld, I mean, revolutionized the game.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know.
Marc:With the 90-page scripts.
Guest:90-page scripts and all these tiny scenes.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But, you know, the idea that it was about nothing.
Wow.
Marc:Malcolm did that too, though, right?
Marc:I mean, Malcolm was sort of groundbreaking somehow, wasn't it?
Guest:Malcolm was groundbreaking in the in the look of it, too.
Guest:You know, they really it's almost like a combined animation with live action because it was very stylized.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, there's a lot of camera movement, a lot of like, you know, it was heightened.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:In an interesting way.
Marc:So you wrote on that first?
Marc:I wrote on that first.
Marc:For one season?
Marc:For one season.
Marc:Then the Miami show?
Guest:Then the Miami show, and then I went to Seth MacFarlane's show, American Dad, for six seasons.
Guest:Back to animation.
Guest:Back to animation.
Marc:I've interviewed him.
Marc:See, that must have really polished up your joke writing capacity.
Guest:Oh, I mean, so much.
Marc:Integrating jokes into stories.
Guest:100%.
Marc:But you could go way off the grid with those jokes, right?
Guest:I mean, you could literally.
Guest:If you have a joke about whatever, you could cut to the thing that you're making a joke about.
Guest:Then you have a joke about the moon.
Guest:You can cut to the moon.
Guest:You can just follow this thread forever.
Guest:And then you're like, what were we doing?
Guest:And then you come back to the thing.
Guest:And Seth and I actually met each other at Disney TV Animation because we were both sort of just starting out before Seth was Seth.
Guest:What was he doing?
Guest:He pitched me an idea for a show that I thought was super funny, but he and I were the only two who liked it.
Guest:It was called Old Goat.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was this old goat who just hated everybody, especially kids.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we just thought it was so funny.
Guest:And then I tried to pitch it to somebody at Disney and they were like, what?
Guest:We're not going to do that.
Guest:That's the whole pitch.
Guest:That's the whole pitch.
Guest:Cranky goat.
Guest:I'm like, that's so funny.
Guest:He hates kids.
Guest:We're making shows for kids.
Guest:I'm like, right.
Guest:The kids will think it's funny that they're hated.
Guest:And they're like, OK, get out of here.
Marc:Take that somewhere else.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Wait till the future for that.
Guest:Fired.
Guest:They fired you?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:They just kicked me out of the office.
Marc:So what were the tools that you picked up working?
Marc:I mean, that's a long time to be on a show.
Marc:Yeah, six seasons.
Marc:And then you came back to humans.
Marc:I mean, what did you learn from doing that?
Guest:Just like you said, I mean, Seth created it with these guys, Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman.
Guest:And it was just the pace of storytelling.
Guest:And it was interesting, too, because for adult animation, it's like all animation, really.
Guest:But you can't like if I watch your show, which I love, by the way.
Marc:Thanks.
Marc:Which one, Glow or my show?
Marc:Marin.
Marc:Marin.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Thanks.
Guest:I could watch you walk into the kitchen and feed the cats and make yourself some tea because I'm like, oh, what's he doing?
Guest:Look at him.
Guest:He's just a genius.
Guest:Look at this guy, how he makes tea.
Guest:But in animation, I can't do that.
Guest:No one wants to see a cartoon walk in and pet the cat and make tea.
Guest:You're bored.
Marc:You're like, what's happening?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Just like, you know what I mean?
Marc:Why aren't these cartoons doing more?
Marc:Right, exactly.
Marc:They can.
Marc:They can do anything.
Guest:They can fly across the room if we want.
Guest:Like, why do we have to, well, we're not, you know, encumbered by human rules.
Marc:That's interesting.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So the pace of storytelling is accelerated.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You've got to get to it.
Guest:And you pack a lot of story in and then you've got to have jokes because it's like.
Marc:I guess that's a Simpsons thing, too.
Marc:I think that must have been the Seinfeld of animation.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:100%.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, Simpsons is still, you know.
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:I mean, crazy.
Marc:They had me on an episode where I played myself.
Marc:Did they really?
Marc:Yeah, I interviewed Krusty.
Marc:That was the framing.
Marc:That was the bookend of the story.
Marc:He was doing podcasts with me.
Marc:That's amazing.
Marc:And I was interviewing Krusty and we went off from there.
Marc:But I was not a Simpsons kid.
Marc:I seemed to miss everything.
Marc:But I watched it and I was like, it's tight.
Marc:It's really still quite a machine.
Marc:It's really funny.
Guest:Really funny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they still, I haven't seen it in a little bit, but I have friends that work on that show and they still seem very relevant to what's happening.
Guest:And I don't know, 30 years.
Guest:It's crazy.
Marc:It's crazy.
Marc:Billions of dollars.
Guest:Billions of dollars.
Guest:If you go to the Fox lab, they're like everywhere.
Guest:You know, all the bushes are shaped like Homer and donuts and everything like that.
Marc:They know where their bread is buttered.
Marc:So, OK, so after doing like and then you go back and create your first show.
Guest:create my first show while I was writing on American Dad.
Guest:I wrote the pilot for Don't Trust the Bitch in Apartment 23.
Guest:And initially had written it for Fox.
Guest:And everybody was really into it.
Guest:And they were like, yes, this is going to go.
Guest:We're going to shoot this pilot.
Guest:And then suddenly it was dead.
Guest:One of those things where you never know.
Guest:They're sending you lists of directors, potential directors.
Guest:And then suddenly you get the call like, no, no, it's not happening.
Marc:Well, when did you have the experience?
Marc:When did you have the common experience of women writers in these male-oriented writer rooms?
Guest:Well, the most women I worked with in those rooms was on Pepper Ann was the very first room that I put together.
Guest:But after that, I mean, I was one of, you know, sometimes I was the only woman.
Guest:Sometimes I was one of two.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Never.
Guest:I don't think I ever worked on a show that had more than two women.
Marc:But like something like American Dad.
Marc:I mean, that writer's room must have gotten pretty filthy and wrong minded at times.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I mean, that's it.
Guest:Like you just.
Guest:But.
Marc:is that bad or is that okay in your mind?
Marc:Because I know it's this weird, I know from personal experience because I didn't have a huge budget and when I staffed Marin, the showrunners were two guys and then I only had a couple like three slots and I didn't hire a woman but if I'm, to be honest with myself, I think there was part of me that was sort of like, are we gonna be able to talk about the stuff?
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Are we not going to be able to make dick jokes, not even for the show, but just to hang out?
Marc:Because you sit in those rooms for hours, sometimes not doing anything, but just looking at each other, trying not to fall asleep until someone says something horrible, and then you at least wake up.
Guest:Right, at least the dick joke snaps you out of it, like whatever.
Marc:Sometimes you do got to wake up with a dick joke and you need one.
Guest:But did you find that?
Guest:Well, you know, like because I wasn't the one making those choices, like it's weird for me to know, right?
Guest:Because I've only ever.
Marc:But did you feel uncomfortable?
Guest:No, I didn't feel uncomfortable.
Guest:I think because I'd had the experience and I knew that like this is the show we're on.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And a lot of those guys are amazing writers.
Guest:And I think that, you know, it's different when you look back like with like a 2019 lens on something.
Guest:You know, I started on that show 2004.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So it's like 15 years ago in a writer's room.
Guest:I imagine there's a lot of stuff now that you probably couldn't do or say.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it was all in service of the show and just being funny.
Guest:I never felt like.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I never felt like.
Guest:Well, that's sort of.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Or that.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You're threatened or that, you know, disrespected.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, it's like those, you know, it's just when you come at it from a different point of view, when you're talking about like the female characters in the show, you know, they're just not as fleshed out as these other characters.
Guest:And it's not because that was a choice.
Guest:It just, that's not as important to what you're doing.
Guest:So it's like when those choices are, it's like kind of latent things.
Guest:thing where you're like, God, I wish we had stronger female characters on this show.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And I think a lot of people have felt that way.
Guest:So it's like you try to do what you can, but the show is about a guy, a patriarch of a family, and has an alien in the act.
Guest:so you're like I mean that's the comedy comes from that you know what I mean so it's like so it's just about where you kind of focus you know what I mean right and then like you were able to sort of leave that and then create a very strong female character lead well that's the thing and so I was like but I love the idea of people just being fucked up you know what I mean and like behaving badly but to me like I love women behaving badly
Guest:or like unapologetically you know and not apologizing because that's the thing it's like I hate that role that you've seen in so many you know wives and moms whatever it's like apologizing for everything for your kid or your husband or the state of your house or whatever it is you know and it's like that's so boring to me so when I did Don't Trust the Bitch I was like I want to just center this girl who's like got the morals of a pirate you know what I mean she doesn't care yeah a hot monster yeah
Guest:A hot monster, you know?
Guest:That's it.
Guest:And then I thought it would be funny, like, the way in to, like, pair her with just a normal roommate who's, like, watching Dancing with the Stars and eating Chipotle.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:But it's like, who is this crazy monster that I'm living with?
Guest:So, yeah, that was fun.
Marc:And that did well, right?
Guest:It did well, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I think that we had two seasons on ABC.
Guest:You know, honestly, it wasn't a match for her.
Guest:It's not a good fit for the Disney.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So what do you think happened with the show?
Guest:Well, I think, like, I know Paul Lee, who was the president of ABC at the time, like, was the one who greenlit the show.
Guest:He loved it.
Guest:I know all the executives loved it.
Guest:20th Century Fox was the studio.
Guest:They loved it.
Guest:And then, you know, it's just, like, it's not...
Guest:necessarily an ABC network show so they put it on like the latest time slot they have for comedy which is 930.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And we were paired with the show Happy Endings which was also like a critical you know favorite but I don't think it got the ratings that anybody wanted.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it was also like a weird time because it was before, like now they incorporate like the live plus threes, live plus sevens.
Guest:Right.
Guest:All the streaming stuff on Hulu, like that all gets counted.
Guest:Right.
Guest:When we did that show, it was like 2011, 2012.
Guest:None of that stuff was in place.
Guest:No, it was right before.
Guest:So I feel like we kind of, we were just a little bit too soon.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because I feel like people were consuming it.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You know, because I felt it.
Guest:Like, people were like, oh, my God, I love your show.
Guest:But the number, that same old Nielsen number wasn't, you know.
Marc:The ancient method.
Guest:Have you seen?
Guest:It still works the same way.
Marc:I know.
Marc:From the 70s.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:There's some sort of fixes in around advertising.
Marc:I don't know what it is.
Guest:I don't either.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Because it's like with radio, they had these Arbitron ratings that were based on listener diaries, and they just held on to that forever.
Marc:Because I think there's a way to bend the numbers.
Guest:Right, right.
Marc:I think the big trick of that is, and I don't know, I'm just talking out of my ass, but it just seems like how can we make these sort of vague enough or expansive enough when we present this stuff to advertisers that it's slightly confusing, but we can get the money.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:We don't want people to understand it too well.
Marc:It's like insurance.
Marc:Like, what is this?
Guest:What is that?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, we've got this demographic nailed to be in the ages seven to fifty six.
Marc:What?
Guest:Isn't that everybody?
Guest:Kind of.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:It's everybody.
Guest:What?
Guest:Listener diaries?
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So like they would write like, hey, I like this show.
Marc:What they listen to, you know.
Guest:And then mail it in?
Marc:Yeah, I don't remember it was mailed.
Marc:I don't know how they were chosen, but they were, but it was just, it was just crazy.
Marc:They were supposed to, you know, keep these diaries of their listening, you know, habits.
Marc:I mean, with all the technology, that's the weird thing about certain things like, you know, like voting and all these other things.
Marc:It's like the technology is there to do this stuff pretty efficiently.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They avoid it.
Marc:They avoid it.
Marc:Because they like the wiggle room.
Guest:Mm hmm.
Guest:And that's the way that they've done.
Guest:But, you know, it's so hard.
Marc:The system.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:To change the system from within.
Guest:But then you had like the outlet.
Guest:That's why Netflix just blew everything up.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Because they could track exactly.
Marc:And they do.
Marc:And not tell you.
Guest:And not tell you.
Marc:Yeah, it's a genius system.
Marc:I know.
Guest:Allie, last night we had to do a Q&A for the movie and she was like, can anyone tell me how Tuca and Birdie is doing?
Guest:And no one would tell her.
Guest:She's like, well, someone let me know, is my show being watched?
Guest:And they were like, we can't tell you.
Marc:It's a real racket, man.
Marc:I think it's just like, you know, what it comes down to is that, you know, the truth would mean that someone's going to have to take a hit financially.
Guest:Right.
Marc:On any level.
Marc:Right.
Marc:We can't let the cat out of the bag or the whole house of cars is going to fall down.
Guest:That's it.
Marc:And they're going to realize no one's buying anything because of this.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Like remember when TiVo was introduced?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you could skip through commercials and people were freaking out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Then they started incorporating like Coca-Cola into the shows.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Like Tina Fey.
Marc:These people have to learn why we have commercials.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It was like they immediately.
Marc:What would you rather see everybody wearing these things and drinking these things or just watch the commercials like regular people?
Guest:Just watch the commercials.
Marc:You dummies.
Guest:So angry.
Marc:I find myself watching commercials because I watch Rachel Maddow.
Marc:It's the only thing I watch in real time.
Marc:And I just watch those basic cable commercials and I'm like, who's watching this show?
Guest:What are some of the advertisers?
Marc:Prevagen, there's a lot of that.
Marc:The memory pill for old people.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:It's just a very odd collection of ads that I see over and over again.
Marc:And then I make reference to them in my act and I realize like,
Marc:No one's watching these ads.
Marc:You used to be able to do jokes about commercials.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Because we all watched the same commercials.
Marc:Now I'm like, what are you talking about?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Those classic SNL sketches about Jewish genes and all that stuff.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Done.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So when you finish the bitch show- Yeah.
Marc:Do you have a deal?
Marc:I mean, is that in a deal?
Guest:Yep.
Guest:I was on an overall deal at 20th.
Guest:So I started that deal when I was on American Dad.
Guest:So I did Bitch for two years on that with Kristen Ritter and James Van Der Beek and Dreamer Walker there.
Guest:Eric Andre was on that show.
Marc:He's something.
Guest:He is amazing.
Marc:That was his first.
Marc:I haven't seen him lately.
Marc:Is he all right?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:He might be passed out in his set of his talk show.
Marc:It's like, are you living the thing?
Marc:What is happening?
Marc:I like him a lot, though.
Guest:He's great, but he is not that.
Guest:I remember when he was like, do you want to come to the premiere of my show, the Eric Andre show?
Guest:I was like, yeah.
Guest:We went and watched the first two episodes.
Guest:I was like, what is this?
Marc:That's who you are.
Guest:That's who you are.
Guest:Like, which one is the real you?
Guest:You're such a sweet guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Anyway.
Guest:So, yes, that show ended.
Guest:And then after that, the next year or the next development season, I guess, is when I had a couple of things I was working on, a couple of pilots.
Guest:I sold something to Fox.
Guest:And then Melvin Marr, one of the producers in Fresh Off the Boat, sent me the manuscript, the memoir of Eddie Wong's book and said, hey, just take a look at this.
Guest:I know you already have something, but maybe there's something here.
Guest:And I read it and I related to it so much from what we were talking about.
Guest:You know, my parents are both not born here.
Guest:My brother and I are first generation and sort of that being that bridge between your house and the outside world.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there's the memoirs his entire life, I think up to 30 years old or whenever he was when it was published.
Guest:But there's a section of it in the mid 90s where his family moves to Orlando to start his dad to start a Western themed steakhouse.
Guest:And I was like, that to me is the series like that, you know, whatever the chapter.
Marc:Like if you had made that up, people would be like, no.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Because it was out of real life.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:And, you know, it was like two chapters in this longer memoir.
Guest:I'm like, this is the ABC series.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, this family moves to the white suburbs of Orlando.
Guest:So the dad can start, you know, Cattleman's Ranch.
Marc:A Chinese man.
Marc:a chinese man yeah taiwanese that's it that's what we were talking about earlier that's the hustle it's like this is a great country that's it figure out the bullshit you want to sell yeah and you can be whatever you want you can and you watch the right thing you watch john wayne enough you're like i can get a hat like that sure i can get boots yeah you know why not why not me it's a classic american uh rig outfit
Guest:That's it.
Guest:So then we were going to take it around to pitch.
Guest:I'd just gotten my show canceled at ABC.
Guest:So I was like, I don't want to go to ABC.
Guest:And then Paul Lee and Sami Falvey, who was the head of comedy, were like, can we take you to lunch?
Guest:They took me to lunch and they were like, here's why we want you to bring this show here.
Guest:My whole thing was like, I don't want to be like, you know, Charlie Brown and you're Lucy with the football.
Guest:You know, you're going to hold it and I keep missing, you know, whatever.
Guest:It's like, you know, you just canceled my show.
Marc:Did you use that analogy?
Marc:No.
Guest:I don't know if I did at the time.
Guest:I can't remember.
Guest:I might have.
Guest:But they were convincing and they were like, we're not just paying you lip service.
Guest:This is a family show.
Guest:This is what we want to do.
Guest:This is a Disney brand.
Guest:So we had offers from multiple networks and sold it to ABC.
Guest:So we shot the pilot.
Guest:It was one of those things where, you know, we started... Nobody really thought it was... Because it had been 20 years, like we said earlier, since Margaret Cho's show.
Guest:So it was like, are people really going to watch an Asian family?
Guest:There's no data, right?
Guest:Like, executives love data.
Guest:They're like, what can I look at to prove that this is a thing that could succeed?
Guest:There wasn't anything for 20 years.
Guest:So nobody knew.
Guest:They were like, you know what?
Guest:Let's just shoot this pilot.
Marc:Now, when you... Entering that, like that idea, because now...
Marc:what are you really banking on?
Marc:I mean, it's like, when you're talking about audience, are you like, there's a big Asian audience out there, or are you thinking, like, you know, this is a family show with characters that are strong, that everybody can relate to, and even if they can't, they'll understand.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think to me, it's a combo of all of those things.
Guest:It's also about the immigrant experience.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because that, to me, is what I connected to.
Guest:And I think it's that feeling of being an outsider.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, of coming into a culture that you don't quite understand, a place that you don't know, feeling isolated.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And sort of being on the outside looking in.
Guest:And that's what we were banking on, you know.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then you have these kids that are completely encultured American.
Guest:That's it.
Marc:That have a distance from their actual immigrant roots.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:They're Asian American.
Guest:They're all born here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, so the kids are trying to convince their mom why they need the new Jordans.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she's like, what do you mean?
Guest:You have sneakers.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, like it's that kind of you're, you know, you're trying to communicate.
Guest:And then, you know, you bring your your weird food to school.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, you know, so it's like it's that you're caught you're in between these two places.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:The weird food to school.
Marc:That's important.
Yeah.
Guest:It is so, like, that's so relatable, I think, for a lot of people who didn't grow up with, you know, ham and cheese sandwiches.
Marc:Oh, yeah, or just as a person that, like, grew up with that stuff and then encountering it, you're like, what is, it's fascinating.
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:You're like, what's that smell?
Marc:But the weird thing is, is, like, almost any other kid's food is weird.
Marc:Like, if you, like, whether they're immigrants or not, if you go to someone else's family's house for dinner, you're like, what is happening here?
Right.
Guest:What is this, broccoli casserole or whatever?
Marc:My mom never makes this.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Well, that's another thing.
Guest:It's like when your friends come over, I remember begging my mom, can you just make hot dogs?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:We don't want Persian food.
Guest:No one wants lima bean rice with dill.
Guest:Don't embarrass me with our history.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:With our beautiful culture.
Guest:You're like 11.
Guest:You're like, I just want pizza.
Marc:Please, it's hard enough for me.
Guest:It's hard enough.
Guest:Hard enough.
Guest:You made me take the burned rice to school for lunch and I got made fun of.
Marc:So it's still going on years later.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, yeah.
Guest:So that's what we were baking on.
Guest:And, you know, we the whole casting process, we had to start early because trying to get those three boys.
Marc:Because they got to grow up in public for as long as the show runs.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:You know, and you got to you got to you got to find these kids, you know, where are they?
Marc:And, you know, there's you haven't had to change any out.
Marc:Right.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:Same kids from the beginning.
Guest:And a lot of the kids that the first round of auditions were, you know, there's some sort of someone somewhere has decided that like there's like a Nickelodeon school of acting for kids, you know, where like all these kids come in with probably USC.
Guest:Probably.
Guest:That's a USC for kids.
Guest:But they, you know, they're big and they're like this and it's like, you know, theater kids almost.
Guest:And so you're trying to get like, you know, where's.
Marc:It's been around since the Mouseketeers probably.
Marc:Probably.
Marc:It's probably been set in stone that you just got to over kid your kid.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like smile and, you know, dance and like whatever.
Marc:So you had to tamp them down.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:We had to find, like, where's regular kids?
Guest:Like, where are these kids hanging out?
Guest:So our casting directors did, like, a, you know, countrywide search in Canada.
Guest:You know, they went to all sort of cities that had, like, big Asian populations, went to schools, went to churches.
Guest:Most of Canada.
Guest:The big cities in Canada.
Guest:I mean, Vancouver, definitely.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Seattle.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Lynn Shelton directed the pilot.
Guest:Oh, she says hi.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she loves you.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I love her.
Guest:I'm so excited for your guys' movies, not to get off track, but sort of trust.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's funny.
Marc:She did the first one?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:She did the pilot.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then, you know, she's done multiple episodes since then.
Guest:But it was great to work with her on that.
Marc:She's good with actors.
Marc:She's good with comedy.
Marc:She's a real fan of laughing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She is.
Guest:And you would always pitch stuff to her and you're like, is this funny?
Guest:She's like, yeah, that's funny.
Guest:Let's try it.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, which is my favorite thing because I love working with people that you respect and admire and you're all just trying to do the best thing.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:There's no other agenda or ego.
Marc:So you create it and then you write the pilot script and then, you know, you write throughout, you know, because you're a writer, right?
Marc:But directing like it was not something you wanted to do.
Guest:It was not something I thought about doing.
Guest:I directed a few episodes of Don't Trust the Bitch just because our line producer, Jeff Morton, was like, you should really direct these.
Guest:And I was like, eh, I'm not really interested.
Guest:I'm like one of the few people who didn't want to always be a director.
Guest:I was like, you know, I love writing.
Guest:But at a certain point, it just becomes a little bit easier to just do it yourself because you know exactly what you want.
Marc:And also it's sort of like, why not be in that guild too?
Yeah.
Guest:Right, exactly.
Guest:I have an opportunity.
Marc:I can just decide that I'm going to direct and then I can get the card.
Guest:Get the card, get the screeners or whatever.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah, so I got to get an extra card and join that guild.
Marc:You got all the cards now, I guess.
Marc:I guess.
Guest:But I never thought that I would direct the pilot of Fresh.
Guest:So Lynn came in and we worked together on it.
Marc:But now, like, you know, it's funny because with a situation like this, unlike I think some more, some sort of comedies that are stuck in a world that doesn't age, is that like, you know, you can keep growing with these characters.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:You know, when you have kids, you know, you've got to deal with all this stuff that they all go through.
Marc:For sure.
Marc:And with parents aging.
Marc:So it's sort of like if you can keep the family together.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, you can just go for as long as it takes.
Guest:Yeah, it opens up a lot of storytelling, I think.
Marc:And you just got picked up for a sixth season?
Guest:Sixth season, yeah.
Guest:That's crazy.
Guest:Up until now, we've done 101 episodes.
Guest:So I think we're doing 15 more this year, which is crazy.
Marc:And it's being syndicated.
Guest:Being syndicated.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:Sold it into syndication.
Guest:But yeah, it's kind of like the anti-Simpsons that we were talking about.
Guest:They never age.
Guest:This is like, yeah, you're telling different stories because the kids are getting older.
Guest:So you're not telling 11-year-old kid stories.
Guest:You're telling 16-year-olds.
Marc:I know Allie wrote on the show.
Guest:She wrote on the show for the first two seasons.
Marc:And I've actually known her longer than she thinks I do, probably, because I think she featured for me in San Francisco before she left San Francisco.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But, you know, I'm a big fan, and I see her all the time.
Marc:She's the best.
Marc:And she breastfed on my podcast.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I heard that episode.
Guest:I loved it.
Guest:So I had seen her stand up.
Guest:I'd watched a bunch of her stuff online when I was staffing up the room.
Guest:And I remember asking, I think her manager or whatever, I was like, does she have any samples, writing samples?
Guest:They were like, yeah, absolutely.
Guest:So they sent a script over and I'm reading it.
Guest:And I get to page nine and it ends.
Guest:So I call and I was like, hey, I think there was some weird thing with the PDF file.
Guest:Like only nine pages came through.
Guest:And I'm like, no, that's it.
Yeah.
Marc:She wrote it the night before.
Guest:She wrote it the night before.
Guest:I don't know when.
Guest:She just banged out nine pages like, here you go.
Guest:So I just had to meet with her because of that.
Guest:I was like, okay, well, I have to sit down.
Guest:Who sent this nine-page sample?
Marc:Because she's such an ambitious, focused person.
Marc:They need a package.
Marc:She's like, oh.
Marc:Okay, and she just did as much as she could, and that was it, just send it in?
Guest:She just sent it in.
Guest:I don't know what, I have no idea what it was about or whatever, but I was like, okay, I'm gonna meet with her.
Guest:And then we sat down and we just clicked immediately.
Guest:And I was like, she's so funny and great.
Guest:And I was like, but are you wanting to commit to this?
Guest:Like, this is a full-time writer's thing.
Guest:You know, Monday through Friday, whatever, I know you're a stand-up.
Guest:But I think I told her, I was like, I think the hours shouldn't be crazy.
Guest:So, you know, if you wanted to perform at night, whatever.
Guest:And she was like, yeah, I'm in.
Guest:So she agreed and she was there every single day.
Guest:Yeah, she was amazing.
Marc:And, you know, and then she became a big comedy star in the interim after she left the show just after.
Marc:And then so how does this movie come together?
Marc:How does it all get arranged or set up?
Guest:So she blows up, right?
Guest:Her comedy special, Baby Cobra.
Marc:When did you shoot this?
Marc:In between babies?
Guest:She shot it in between babies.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she shot it.
Guest:She was prepping her material while we were working on Fresh Off the Boat.
Guest:She would go up at night in like little clubs and working on it.
Guest:She got married during that time.
Guest:She got pregnant.
Guest:And I remember her saying that she was shooting.
Guest:I think they shot it over two nights, maybe in Seattle.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, she was like expectations.
Guest:Nobody expected anything.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like this was her first baby Cobra.
Guest:Baby Cobra was her first special.
Marc:And she was like, look, I watched it and I knew right away.
Marc:I'm like, this is it.
Guest:She has such a clear voice and she's so funny and unafraid.
Guest:But I was complimenting her after I saw it on her story structure, which is like the way she structured her standup is like a narrative.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:She comes out, first of all, doesn't talk about her baby for the first 20 minutes.
Guest:She's clearly pregnant.
Guest:I thought that was great.
Guest:Brilliant.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And confident.
Guest:You know, like nervous, I think, performers.
Marc:A lot of fuck you.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You know, it's like, what?
Marc:What are you going to do?
Guest:We all know I'm pregnant, but you're going to wait.
Guest:I'm not nervous.
Guest:I have the confidence to know.
Guest:And then just the ride she takes you on as the audience.
Marc:Right, and then the twist ending.
Guest:Twist ending.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So she wrote this movie with Randall?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sorry.
Guest:So her thing blew up.
Guest:Baby Cobra blew up.
Guest:She gets interviewed by a bunch of different people.
Guest:New Yorker does a big profile on her.
Guest:And in it, she says, me and Randall Park, who have known each other forever, want to do their version of When Harry Met Sally.
Guest:So based on that line alone, she gets all this like people are calling her agents and be like, where's the script?
Guest:We want it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So they're like, we should probably write this script.
Guest:So her and Randall wrote it with their friend, Mike Golomko, who they all knew each other from like a theater group at UCLA.
Guest:And they asked me, they set it up at Netflix and then who Allie had a relationship with because of Baby Cobra.
Guest:And then they're like, will you come aboard just as a consultant to help us with the story and, you know, whatever.
Guest:So I was like, absolutely.
Guest:So that's how I first came on.
Guest:And then through a course of events, I was supposed to direct this other movie that fell apart.
Guest:And then they were like, would you want to direct our movie?
Guest:I was like, absolutely.
Guest:I'm in.
Guest:So, yeah.
Marc:And that was that was how you wanted to start your film directing career.
Guest:I mean, you know, it was so unexpected because I was going to do this other thing.
Guest:And then at the last second, it was like big changes at Lionsgate.
Guest:So there was a corporate restructuring.
Guest:And so that movie kind of fell apart like 24 hours before I was supposed to go scout in Atlanta.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I didn't have time to think about like...
Guest:Allie and Randall's movie as my directing thing.
Guest:So I was like, oh, shit, like this other thing fell apart.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then they immediately they were like, what about our thing?
Guest:And then that just like just sort of clicked into place.
Guest:I was like, of course, like that makes sense.
Marc:Well, I got to watch it, you know, and it's weird because I watch a lot of movies like, you know, I you know, I never know what's going to happen.
Marc:It is one of those movies where you're like, there's got to be a happy ending.
Marc:There's got to be a happy ending.
Guest:Right.
Marc:We're not going to be surprised at the end.
Marc:And it's not going to work out somehow.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But what I found great about it is that, not unlike a lot of comedies, there is a certain suspension of disbelief a little bit, but the characters are so great, and they're so grounded, and you believe the relationship, and it's very sweet, and the history of it is great.
Marc:And I was surprised.
Marc:You sold the aging thing.
Marc:I mean, this is a woman who just had a baby, and I'm buying her as a teenager.
Marc:I mean, it was kind of surprising.
Guest:I mean, you know, we did a little bit of de-aging work on them, but not a ton, you know?
Guest:And it was all, like, wardrobe and stuff like that and really trying to sell it.
Guest:But, yeah, I mean, I think it's a testament to those guys.
Guest:Like, Ali and Randall, you know, the three of us really were like, we want this movie to feel grounded.
Guest:It is a rom-com.
Guest:So, you know, that, like, any kind of genre, you know the beats.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I didn't have I didn't really have an issue with it.
Marc:And I thought it was very warm.
Marc:And I thought like I thought that the characters were especially oddly, you know, whatever happens between, you know, when Ali disappears and becomes a celebrity chef.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You know, whatever happens in those years between like the character of Randall, given what he went through psychologically and emotionally, that character I thought was very deep and really the evolution of him, the change that both characters made.
Marc:Like, I think he sold it pretty well.
Guest:Oh, great.
Guest:Great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think, you know, we wanted to sort of subvert any expectations in terms of like these two people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Where it's like Ali for, you know, for starters is like a successful career woman in the movie and also in real life.
Guest:So it's like we wanted that to feel real.
Guest:You know, you can also.
Marc:It did.
Marc:I think she did a great job acting.
Guest:Yeah, I did.
Guest:I was blown away by her.
Guest:Like I thought I, you know, I know she's funny, but she sold a lot of these emotional moments that she's supposed to sell because it's coming from a real place, you know, and it's like you can be successful and also be vulnerable.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I think like that's women that we actually know.
Marc:Well, yeah, there's that constant sort of play of like, you know, it starts with the phone voicing and like that she had sort of buried something.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:And she might have been aware of it.
Marc:She might not have been.
Marc:Maybe it was just the way she needed to live her life.
Marc:But to sort of get her back into the vulnerability was like, it was great.
Marc:It was a great turn.
Guest:That's great.
Marc:I mean, I would go as far to say is that, you know, the surprise, you know, as great as it was, was kind of crazy.
Yeah.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Is that a heightened moment?
Marc:It is.
Marc:It's very heightened.
Marc:Let's go ahead and talk about it.
Marc:You have Keanu Reeves as this compulsive love interest that happens out of nowhere.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, it's sort of a huge twist.
Marc:And it's really Keanu.
Marc:And he's playing Keanu.
Guest:He's playing Keanu.
Marc:And, like, I didn't doubt that they could have been together.
Marc:And I didn't quite doubt that it could have escalated as quickly as it did.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But, you know, because why wouldn't it?
Guest:Right.
Marc:It's Keanu.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then the scene at the hotel was in the weirdo girlfriend that Randall has.
Marc:That all made sense.
Marc:But I still think that even with that whole scene with Keanu in the hotel room, that it was really Randall's scene.
Guest:It totally was Randall scene.
Guest:And that you're tracking that whole sequence is Randall sequence, you know, and to talk about Randall for a second.
Guest:It's like the that character that he's playing, that sort of emotionally stunted guy who's still living, you know, in his childhood bedroom, working with his dad, smoking weed.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, performing at the same club forever.
Guest:Same club for no money for like, you know, tacos or whatever.
Guest:You know, like he's doing it because he loves it, not for ambition for him and Ali to sort of combine forces in this movie, you know, to to kind of butt heads in the way that they do.
Guest:Like that whole sequence with Keanu.
Guest:is Randall's sequence because you're tracking his emotion, right?
Marc:Right.
Marc:And she has those moments where she really feels for him.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And she says, I had a crush on you for 18 years during the game.
Guest:And he's like, why didn't you say anything?
Guest:So you break out of this sort of Keanu thing that's happening to have this moment between these two people.
Marc:And then she starts to sympathize for him.
Marc:Like she feels bad that, you know, she's trying to kind of like be in between Keanu and him with this sort of justification of Keanu's treatment of him.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:That's it.
Marc:And he's just taking it and it's just like brutal.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then he finally, so like when we've been screening it, you know, with the test audiences and stuff, when Randall finally punches Keanu, that gets like a huge cheer.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And like applause and stuff because like you're so with him and you're like fucking...
Marc:I think there's a lot of people that want to see that happen anyways, to see Keanu as Keanu take one to the face.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Just a personal problem.
Guest:Just a personal thing.
Marc:As much as you love Keanu, maybe you could take one, take a hit.
Guest:Because you feel like he'll be fine.
Marc:Oh, sure.
Marc:He's going to bounce back.
Marc:He's always going to be fine, yeah.
Guest:He had a great sense of humor about that, too, where he's playing this sort of heightened version of himself.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And the whole thing, the bit with him wearing glasses with no lenses in it, that was all his pitch.
Marc:Oh, was it?
Guest:Which was really funny.
Guest:I was like, yeah, that's amazing.
Guest:Of course, you're always an actor.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I thought it all worked great.
Guest:Oh, good, good.
Guest:Yeah, that was our whole thing.
Guest:It's like even if you know it's going to have a happy ending and you know that it's a rom-com, hopefully you'll be surprised on the way there.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:By the characters and the twists and the turns.
Guest:You know where you're going, but you can still have fun on the journey.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I think that that's very satisfying for us because also –
Guest:We're not trying to reinvent the wheel, but what we're trying to do is show that you can center other people at the core of these kinds of stories.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:At these kinds of rom-coms, it's like Allie and Randall, you follow them home.
Guest:You know their families.
Guest:You know how they grew up.
Guest:You know a lot about them.
Guest:As people, they're not relegated to these side character roles.
Guest:They're not the weird co-worker or the best friend or whatever.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Like, see, like, you know, because that's, yeah.
Marc:You know, when I watch those things, like you have to watch them for that.
Marc:Like you have, like you said, you're not reinventing the wheel, but this is a good wheel.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And they don't do them that much anymore.
Guest:That's it.
Marc:And and it's like because just the tracking of the emotional and psychological condition of both these characters, given that, you know, Ali's character had a lot to prove because her parents were detached.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And and, you know, he kid.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And Randall, you know, lost his mother.
Marc:So, you know, that sort of trauma of, you know, kind of stifling him and how that carries throughout and how they resolve that stuff is is is sort of sweet.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that's what you want.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:Like you want people to be invested.
Guest:You know, it's fun and funny.
Guest:You're laughing along the way, hopefully.
Guest:But in the third act, I want people to care about these people.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like I don't want to sell everybody out for a big third act set piece that could never happen in real life.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That happens a lot with comedies now.
Marc:There's an insecurity that sort of pervades, you know, to sort of transcend the story and make it ridiculous.
Guest:And you just take people completely out of it because it's like, you know.
Marc:I can feel that you're aware of that.
Marc:I mean, there is, like I said, there is a certain suspension of disbelief that has to be engaged, but not to the point where it diminishes any of the character.
Guest:That's it, for sure.
Guest:And so we tried to sort of isolate the suspension of disbelief mostly around the Keanu stuff, where it's like, yes, this is a little heightened, but it's also Randall's worst nightmare personified.
Guest:So it could be any guy off the street that she's dating, but it happens to be Keanu Reeves.
Marc:Yeah, I didn't know who it was going to be.
Marc:I saw that moment when she's like, what?
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:You don't know.
Guest:You don't know.
Guest:You don't know.
Marc:And even when he walked in, because I was watching on my computer, I'm like, who is that?
Marc:I'm like, oh my God, Keanu Reeves.
Guest:And then you realize where he's like, it's Keanu Reeves.
Guest:Oh, he's playing Keanu Reeves, too.
Guest:But yeah, I think that it's important.
Guest:And it's kind of what we were talking about earlier in comedy, like in multicams with the live audience.
Guest:Having gone through studio testing on this movie, testing it with a live audience, bigger stuff plays well in big crowds.
Guest:So I can see studio movies.
Guest:Look, I mean, we have the luxury of being on Netflix, so we don't have to worry about like, oh, if we don't come out of the gate with a huge box office number opening weekend, we're sunk.
Guest:It's like, that's the beauty of Netflix.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I can see how you chase that dragon coming out of those tests where it's like everybody wants that big comedy thing in act three.
Guest:But what you sacrifice is rooting for Harry as he's running down the sidewalk trying to get to Sally at the New Year's Eve party.
Marc:But certainly in those third act cluster fucks, you sacrifice the integrity of the entire movie.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:You sell it out completely.
Guest:You work so hard.
Guest:And then because you get nervous or whatever, you sell it all out.
Guest:And then the ending is like, eh.
Marc:It's forgettable.
Guest:It's forgettable.
Marc:And I think that, like, again, with the cultural sort of that, you know, this is sort of a look into a different type of American cultural motifs.
Marc:You know, that I like I'm always excited to see it, even when I watch like Pen15 with Maya's family.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, like, I don't know any of that stuff.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, and that, you know, he's sort of old school because of, you know, the hole that he's like has for his mother that, you know, this cooking thing.
Marc:And then it's sort of like to see how it inspired her.
Marc:And then the payoff to the new restaurant at the end, you know, like that that can seem a little sappy, which is what I mean.
Marc:But but but who cares?
Marc:I mean, that's what you're doing.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You want to land there.
Guest:You want people to feel something, you know, like that's it.
Marc:It's weird that like like I chose to use that word, but I'm not using it as criticism because it's the nature of that thing.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:It's that emotion.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like it's it's having been invested for an hour and 40 minutes or whatever in this story.
Guest:And wanting that like craving.
Guest:It's like in horror movies.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's the movie.
Marc:It's the genre.
Marc:It's the genre.
Guest:It's like you want a certain thing the way you want it, even if you know it's coming.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You don't want it.
Marc:You don't you're not going to watch that movie hoping that like or seeing him like wrestle with this feeling of inadequacy and fear and insecurity that he doesn't manage to get over.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Right, that he just stays in his childhood bedroom and continues to smoke weed.
Marc:Yeah, that's not a great movie.
Guest:No, that's not satisfying at the end.
Guest:It might be a great indie movie.
Marc:Sure, you leave going like, that's rough, but I got friends like that.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You have a beer and you're kind of like, well, I guess that's real.
Marc:Yeah, it's too real.
Marc:Why did we go see that movie?
Marc:That was a bummer.
Marc:What a bummer.
Marc:We could have just went over to John's house.
Marc:It's the same thing.
Guest:Talk to John for an hour.
Guest:Get his story.
Marc:No, but I think it was a great job and everybody did a great job.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:I appreciate it.
Marc:Yeah, and thanks for talking to me.
Guest:Yeah, thank you for having me.
Guest:It's a pleasure.
Marc:It was.
Thanks.
Marc:All right, folks, that was great.
Marc:What a lovely human.
Marc:Great story.
Marc:Comedy, people.
Marc:Comedy.
Marc:All right?
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Now I will play some guitar for you.
Marc:I took the distortion down a little bit, but kept the bouncy echo.
Marc:Go to wtfpod.com slash tour.
Marc:A lot of tour dates coming up.
Marc:Dig it.
Marc:Let's jam.
.
.
Boomer lives.
Guest:Boomer lives.