Episode 1222 - Robert Smigel
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucksters?
Marc:What the fuckadelics?
Marc:Robert Smigel is on the show today.
Marc:Robert Smigel.
Marc:Comedy genius, Robert Smigel.
Marc:Everyone knows him as the guy behind Triumph the Insult Dog.
Marc:But look, man, this guy has been part of the defining force of comedy on television, certainly, and some movies for 35 years.
Marc:You know, he was he was a writer at SNL, longtime writer at SNL.
Marc:He was the head writer, the original head writer of the original Conan O'Brien show.
Marc:That was a big deal in New York, man.
Marc:That was when I first really sort of got hip to the fact of Smigel was when he took that show and he hired people I knew.
Marc:He hired Tom Agna.
Marc:He hired Louis Dino and that crew, that original crew of Conan writers.
Marc:I mean, they did some wild shit.
Marc:This guy could push the envelope.
Marc:And he's fucking hilarious.
Marc:And I always had this sort of fascination with him.
Marc:He's the guy behind TV Funhouse.
Marc:He was a writer on that Dana Carvey show that we've talked about with a few people that was so crazy.
Marc:He's in a lot of Adam Sandler's movies.
Marc:Big champion of Sandler.
Marc:And now he's got this new show on Fox called Let's Be Real.
Marc:And it stars a lot of puppets.
Marc:And if I make the cut, I'll be in the puppet show.
Marc:Also, get vaccinated.
Marc:Don't let anyone tell you not to get vaccinated.
Marc:This is not the hill you want to die on of COVID.
Marc:It's not the hill you want to die on or kill somebody of COVID.
Marc:Look at India.
Marc:Look at the possibilities.
Marc:Look what we went through.
Marc:If you're not too fucking selfish or malignantly and incorrectly fighting for some weird breach of liberty, then just go get the fucking shot.
Marc:What kind of dumb ass world do we live in?
Marc:Back in the day, you know, it was exciting.
Marc:Hey, we stopped a fucking disease from killing us and we all fucking did it.
Marc:But now it's sort of like, yeah, I don't know.
Marc:Some people might deserve to die.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I don't trust it.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Seems kind of dicey.
Marc:Can't tell me what to do.
Marc:But I can say you're stupid.
Marc:I mean, what are some of these fucking people basing their patriotism on?
Marc:It's ridiculous.
Marc:Grow the fuck up.
Marc:Anyway, Sammy.
Marc:Sammy the cat.
Marc:Sammy the red.
Marc:Lord Samuel is now at that age where he's about three months coming up on three months.
Marc:He's just fucking destroying everything.
Marc:I've forgotten what it's like to have a cat at that age.
Marc:Just loosen the house.
Marc:Whatever can be destroyed will be destroyed.
Marc:Wires will be bitten through.
Marc:Curtains will be unhemmed.
Marc:Things will be scratched.
Marc:Bodies, my arms, my legs, scratched, destroyed.
Marc:I have to ride it out.
Marc:I have to ride it out with this little fucking terror, not take it personally.
Marc:And even Buster, the old fat man, is just dealing and playing with him, beating him up a little bit.
Marc:But I think fucking Sammy, Sammy the Younger, is going to fucking own this house.
Marc:That seems to be where it's going.
Marc:So I'll probably be on my way to Florida to deal with the human that birthed me just for a few days.
Marc:I figure once I got through the vaccination tunnel and I'm vaccinated, I'll mask up and I'll go see my mommy.
Marc:It's been over a year.
Marc:I don't see my mommy that often.
Marc:I don't call her mommy that often, but she's my mommy, I guess.
Marc:My mother.
Marc:So I'm going to go see my mother.
Marc:My brother's down there.
Marc:My cousin's.
Marc:People staying in my house, taking care of things, managing the kitten.
Marc:You got to get a team, man.
Marc:You got to get a team on that kitten.
Marc:Or they're fucking, I'm going to come back and my entire house will just be destroyed.
Marc:It'll be like a cartoon, like a Buster Keaton movie.
Marc:I'll just return and on this mound of rubble will be a victorious Lord Samuel just sitting there like he didn't do nothing.
Marc:Playing with a feather on top of the house that once was.
Marc:So I got to bring a team in.
Marc:Got a kitten management team coming in.
Marc:I'm a little nervous about traveling, but not so much about traveling.
Marc:I'm kind of excited.
Marc:I'm just a little anxious and full of dread.
Marc:I know I'll be wearing a mask down there.
Marc:Hopefully, I'll get some stuff done.
Marc:Hopefully, I can read my friend Jerry Stahl's new book, which isn't out yet, but I've got the manuscript.
Marc:I got to make the time.
Marc:I don't know where all the time goes, man.
Marc:But every day, I don't have enough time to get my shit done.
Marc:Maybe it's just the pace I do it.
Marc:I started to realize that too.
Marc:Maybe that my process just takes longer.
Marc:Because I don't feel like I'm doing a lot of stuff.
Marc:I'm done with the bread experiments.
Marc:I'm done making dough.
Marc:And I'm now feeling doughy.
Marc:And that's how it goes.
Marc:Got some good episodes coming up.
Marc:I've been talking to people, people coming back around.
Marc:That weird moment where they come to the door with masks.
Marc:They're like, I'm vaxxed.
Marc:You vaxxed?
Marc:I'm vaxxed.
Marc:Me too.
Marc:Take it off.
Marc:We're free.
Marc:We're free.
Marc:You know why we're free?
Marc:Because we're vaxxed.
Marc:We're not free because we fought the vax.
Marc:Because then you're just like a guy who's got to wonder if he'll ever get it.
Marc:Or just assume that you're not going to die of it.
Marc:That's what the confidence of that assumption of so many people who are like, no, I'm not going to get the vax.
Marc:I'll just take the hit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Will you?
Marc:Is it really worth it to push back on medicine that much?
Marc:To where you're willing to dive something just because you think you're healthy?
Marc:How often do you go to the doctor?
Marc:How healthy do you think you are?
Marc:What do you really know about what you're made of?
Marc:Is that how you want to find out?
Marc:Not breathing in an ICU, intubated, and fucking watching stars before your eyes as you drown in your own fucking mucus?
Marc:Is that liberty?
Marc:How are you?
Marc:Everybody okay?
Marc:So Robert Smigel is here.
Marc:And it was an honor and a joy, and it was great to talk to him.
Marc:And again, his new show is called Let's Be Real.
Marc:And after the interview, I was recruited, and I got roped into doing a bit with the puppets here in the garage.
Marc:Maybe that'll make the cut.
Marc:Maybe.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:But it's puppets, folks.
Marc:Big, human-sized puppets.
Marc:Doing the satire.
Marc:Before you listen to me and Robert, I think it's important to tell you that just before when he came over for a 230 interview, we were waiting to hear the Chauvin verdict.
Marc:And we sat there and we heard it together on the couch.
Marc:I don't know Robert that well, but we watched and we wept with relief.
Marc:And I don't know what it was.
Marc:It was a very emotional thing.
Marc:We were just both trying to keep our shit together on the couch after they read that verdict of guilty, guilty, guilty.
Marc:And it was a powerful moment.
Marc:I will always remember where I was when the Chauvin verdict was read.
Marc:on the couch with one of the funniest people in the world trying to control our weeping.
Marc:That's what happened right before I talked to Robert.
Marc:But this is me talking to Robert about the whole arc of it.
Marc:The arc of Smigel is discussed now.
Guest:Are we emotionally together enough to do it?
Guest:You feel all right?
Guest:I will.
Guest:You know, it's such a crazy time for me to be doing this on so many levels.
Guest:On so many levels?
Guest:Yeah, because I'm just in the middle of this ridiculous program I'm doing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is not the way I ever pictured doing your show.
Guest:I pictured it being like calm and focused.
Guest:Yeah, but I mean, how long have you been out here?
Guest:Just like five days.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And how is it for you in general?
Guest:I mean, I just, I'm living like a, you know, a freaky, like a, like I'm 25 again with like two other writers in this house.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:And, uh, you know, I try to talk to my kids on the phone when I can't.
Guest:I've got, yeah.
Marc:How many you got now?
Guest:I have three.
Guest:You do?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I have the older boy with autism and I got two twin boys, 13.
Marc:I don't think, really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:13?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Has it been that long since I- They've had just no midspeed.
Marc:Since I, they were?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:A double bar mitzvah?
Marc:A double bar mitzvah.
Marc:But you're like, you're hardcore.
Marc:So did they do Friday and Saturday?
Marc:No, they didn't.
Marc:People do that?
Marc:I did.
Marc:You did Friday night too?
Marc:Oh, they just did Saturday?
Marc:Just a Torah and that's it?
Marc:Knock it out?
Marc:You know what they did?
Guest:Because of the quarantine, this was pre-vaccine, nobody was going to come.
Guest:My wife, Michelle's mom, lives in Arizona, so I had it on a Thursday when the Torah is taken out on a Monday and Thursday.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So I had it on a Thursday because- Afternoon?
Guest:No, in the morning.
Guest:Thursday morning.
Guest:The Talmud specifically says it must happen after Regis and before the view.
Guest:No, it's got to be Regis.
Guest:That's how old I am.
Marc:Didn't he die?
Marc:He is a dead man now.
Marc:Yeah, so is Larry.
Marc:I watched a clip of your show.
Guest:Everybody's dropping light flies.
Marc:Yeah, all these guys are in a hundred.
Guest:Yeah, it's such a tragedy.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:So the bar mitzvah was, I wanted my mother-in-law to be able to watch it, and it was in an orthodox synagogue, and orthodox synagogues will not let you use cameras on a Saturday, so that was the only way we could zoom it.
Marc:So it's show business.
Marc:You made some changes to the schedule.
Guest:Yeah, so you could shoot.
Guest:Did some last minute things.
Guest:You know, a bar mitzvah is never really ready.
Guest:A bar mitzvah happens when... It goes on when it happens.
Guest:Did you invite him?
Guest:I didn't invite anybody.
Guest:I sent everybody like an email saying, here's a link to a Zoom.
Guest:It's on a Thursday morning.
Guest:I totally understand if you're not going to watch this.
Guest:How'd the kids feel?
Guest:That seems like a lower pressure gig.
Guest:I think they liked it.
Guest:I think they liked the lower pressure.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:They could just be really focused on their tour portions and they kind of felt like the pressure was off.
Guest:And yeah, one of them was like, do we even have to zoom this?
Guest:Can't it just exist in a void and it's just between us?
Guest:You know we did it.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Who's this really important to?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But no, then we put it on YouTube.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Yeah, because I didn't want to pressure people to watch it on Thursday morning.
Guest:It really was lovely and very, very strange.
Guest:They did good.
Marc:Now, is this regular your temple, your rabbi, your people?
Guest:No.
Guest:Well, here's what it was.
Guest:I live in New Jersey now, and we're all dispersed.
Guest:What part of Jersey?
Guest:I live in Bergen County.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I moved there for my older son because there was a better school for him.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:For autism.
Guest:Yeah, New Jersey at the time was like- My people are from Morris County.
Marc:They're from- Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, from Pompton Lakes.
Marc:Pompton Lakes, sure.
Marc:Off the Hamburg Turnpike, I think.
Marc:I love New Jersey.
Marc:I do too.
Guest:I knew nothing about it before I moved there.
Guest:But we all condescended.
Marc:We all condescended.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I lived in Manhattan until I was like 45 or something.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I just had to check out New Jersey and I knew nothing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it's like farmland.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's beautiful.
Guest:It's gorgeous.
Guest:It's really gorgeous.
Guest:It's gorgeous.
Guest:And then there's gross stuff.
Guest:Driving past Elizabeth, New Jersey.
Guest:That's where my grandfather's from.
Marc:What are you driving over there for?
Guest:You know where that Budweiser factory is?
Guest:I'm just going past it on the turnpike, but it always reeks.
Guest:It's like that powerful a city.
Guest:Do you know that Budweiser?
Guest:Elizabeth Strong.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:There's a Budweiser factory right there in Linden that you see from the highway.
Marc:My grandparents are in this horrible little Jewish cemetery.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:Just right in the parking lot of the fucking Budweiser plant.
Guest:No, I have grandparents in a cemetery in Lake Queens and it's like, it's literally like, you know, the rat race of like, oh my God, you know, I got to negotiate between all these people.
Guest:I guess they liked being in a crowd.
Marc:No, I think that when they built them, they didn't know that what was going to come up around it.
Marc:Yeah, that's true too.
Marc:You know, like it was probably a nice little cemetery in New Jersey and then the Budweiser plant and then it just becomes this industrial area.
Marc:But you, but aren't, didn't you grow up Orthodox?
Marc:I didn't.
Guest:I grew up conservative.
Guest:Yeah, me too.
Guest:Kept a kosher home.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:We did keep a kosher home, but the synagogues we would go to were Orthodox because my dad, his father founded what the non-Jews might never have heard of, a shtiebel.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A shtiebel, a small little synagogue on the Upper West Side.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so we would go there and I was completely lost because everybody's like, the women are behind a curtain and the men are like over 90.
Guest:They're all over 90 except for me and my cousin and they're handing me a prayer book and they're turning the pages with their, like licking the, that was the thing.
Guest:They lick their finger.
Guest:There you go, lick it.
Guest:There you go.
Guest:Enjoy.
Guest:And there's no English in the book.
Guest:And the rabbi's speech literally was in Yiddish.
Guest:So then when I was 13, we switched to like a more, you know, my mom was like, we can't.
Guest:It's got to be with the English and the relatives.
Guest:What will they say?
Guest:Is that you?
Guest:I'll turn that on.
Guest:I'm sorry, man.
Guest:I thought it was me.
Guest:It's like a million people texting me.
Guest:Like I said, this is the craziest time.
Guest:we did it for me to do yeah the yeah they're texting you about no not about the trial they're texting me about should the should the puppets asshole be perfectly clean bleached or should it have a little bit of a rash
Guest:Poo on the asshole, no poo.
Guest:Little poo, little bit of poo.
Guest:This has been, yeah, this is like I'm 25 again.
Guest:That was the stuff I would do when I was 25 and agonize over every detail.
Guest:So we'll get there.
Marc:Let's move through the Jew stuff.
Marc:Because when I first heard of you, because I was always very impressed with you.
Marc:I was sort of mildly obsessed with the comedy because back when I was friends with Louie and you guys were doing the Conan thing, I'd heard...
Marc:One of the best guests we had.
Guest:You know that's true.
Guest:I was one of the most available guests.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:There were many available guests who weren't as funny as you.
Guest:Well, me and Conan- You ran circles around John Tesh.
Marc:Oh, thank you, man.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Well, I think Conan and I developed a rapport after a while.
Marc:Where he was sort of like, oh, here we go.
Guest:Already, it's bad.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:But I just remember certain things stuck out to me.
Marc:One of them was like, he was going to be a dentist.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I'm like, really?
Marc:He's like, yes, dad's like a revolutionary dentist.
Marc:What does that mean?
Guest:My dad's contribution to dentistry dwarfs my contribution.
Guest:It's not even close.
Guest:That can't be true.
Guest:It is true.
Guest:It's not even close.
Guest:My dad changed the way...
Guest:people think about dentistry.
Guest:Really?
Guest:He really did.
Guest:And he's still around, right?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:He's not, sadly.
Guest:But he lived a great long life until he was 91.
Guest:92, actually.
Marc:Because I remember seeing him somewhere at some thing.
Marc:I don't know why.
Marc:But I didn't see you many places.
Guest:No, I don't see me many places.
Guest:I'm a recluse.
Guest:But yeah, my dad...
Guest:My dad was, well, he was on television a lot too.
Guest:Like in the seventies, he was like, not only did he help develop this.
Guest:So tooth bonding, everybody knows what that is.
Guest:And it started as a guy invented an acrylic material that looked like a tooth.
Guest:And the whole idea was that it was just going to replace fillings, silver fillings.
Guest:And then my dad developed the idea of like, what about chipped teeth?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, it started with teeth and then it expanded into just like building out people's smiles without having to wear caps and all that shit.
Guest:And then that expanded into laminates.
Guest:And then in the 70s, he was like, then he also became the guy who like... The laminate king?
Guest:The laminate king!
Guest:Erwin!
Guest:I need a laminate.
Guest:Come to the right place.
Guest:Let me see those hoppers.
Guest:I'm Dr. Smigel.
Guest:My son sticks his hands up a dog's ass.
Guest:But that's not what we're here for.
Guest:How you teeth.
Guest:I'm here to tell you about teeth.
Guest:No, he went on like, that's incredible.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And places, shows like that.
Marc:Oh, just show like, look at this guy's teeth before and look after.
Guest:He would do like live demonstrations and show how quickly it could be done like on the Mike Douglas show.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:So he did guest shots on Mike Douglas?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:With comics?
Guest:Sonny Bono was there.
Guest:Oh, Sonny.
Guest:And Daisy Duke.
Guest:Oh, of course.
Guest:And he actually had a really funny one-liner about Daisy Duke.
Guest:I don't know if he had prepped it, but he got a huge laugh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What's her name?
Guest:Catherine Bach.
Guest:And he said she was showing she had a little, you know, it was such a minor flaw in Catherine Bach.
Guest:In her teeth.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She had like an eye tooth that was a little thin.
Guest:He said, I could fix it in 20 minutes.
Guest:And once I've fixed it, nobody's going to look at anything else but that tooth.
Guest:It's going to be so beautiful.
Guest:All they're going to notice is your smile.
Marc:But you were like, I'm going to do it.
Marc:I'm going to be a dentist.
Guest:Yeah, I just... Look, I loved being funny.
Guest:It was all I felt like I was really good at.
Marc:I mean... Did you do it in high school?
Marc:I mean, not professionally.
Guest:Oh, yeah, since I was a kid.
Guest:Like, I started, like, when I was five.
Guest:Doing bits?
Guest:When I was five, I realized I could draw really well.
Guest:I could draw, like, Fred Flintstone and then Peanuts.
Guest:And just having... It was really... I was very good at it.
Guest:And for a five-year-old, that's, like...
Guest:To have a talent at all was like, wow, I'm just going to do this all day.
Guest:Just the positive reinforcement.
Marc:Look how excited people get.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Marc:I made a Snoopy.
Guest:Yeah, and I like being funny.
Guest:And then it just developed into doing impressions of my classmates and drawing cartoons of my classmates.
Guest:And this was why I was popular, basically.
Guest:In school, just being funny.
Guest:But I never thought that it was something I could do professionally.
Marc:As a job?
Marc:Did you ever put together sticks in high school with another guy?
Guest:No, because I got all my satisfaction just being an asshole in class.
Guest:I was such a goody two-shoes.
Guest:My sister liked to party and was crazy.
Guest:Just the two of you?
Guest:Yeah, it was just the two of us, and she was not a good student.
Guest:I was a great student, hardworking, but I would get in trouble for making fun of other kids.
Guest:I did make a couple of kids cry, and I was like, well, don't they get it?
Guest:I'm just having fun.
Guest:it's funny so it wasn't bullying it wasn't bullying it was really it was a person with the inability to process like empathy like i just i just did not have it i just thought but but it's so funny what i'm saying uh-huh come on you can make fun of me yeah fun of my nose or something oh so it was like there was no way you could picture how it could land wrong
Guest:It was weird.
Marc:I just feel like... Did you have to learn empathy?
Guest:I think... No, I did.
Guest:I mean, I'm sort of self-involved.
Guest:I think I absolutely had to learn empathy.
Guest:I think I always had it on some level because at the same time...
Guest:You know the bully-nerd dynamic that sometimes happens when those two become friends?
Guest:I did have empathy because I was also the kid who there was a circle of people who would throw parties.
Guest:We'd all throw parties, and I was the only one who would invite the unpopular kids.
Guest:I was literally the only one.
Guest:I didn't care what my other friends thought.
Guest:I liked these people that I made fun of.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I would invite them to my parties.
Guest:So you could have a show.
Guest:No, it wasn't so that I could make fun of them.
Guest:I genuinely liked them.
Guest:That's the thing.
Guest:It wasn't the equivalent of pushing someone into a locker to show who was boss.
Guest:I just found them funny.
Guest:I found popular kids funny.
Marc:You didn't have a locker at the house.
Marc:I had a virtual locker.
Marc:No, you liked everybody.
Guest:I really did.
Marc:You could move through all the different people because you were funny.
Marc:That's usually the way it goes.
Marc:But then when you bring people together, there were the two crowds that didn't quite, you were the only connective tissue.
Guest:Yeah, to some degree.
Guest:I mean, other kids liked these kids, but they didn't feel like, I'm not going to invite them because that'll be uncool.
Guest:I just didn't care.
Guest:I was always anti-hierarchy.
Guest:I hated that kind of shit.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah, I just hated people.
Guest:I was a hippie kid, too.
Guest:I grew up in the 60s when I was a little kid.
Marc:That was always the most appealing to me.
Marc:How much older than me are you?
Marc:I'm 57.
Marc:What are you?
Marc:I'm 61.
Marc:Not that bad, but you did catch the tail end of it.
Guest:I caught the tail end, and I got to see Vietnam protests outside my- You remember it.
Guest:Yes, and-
Guest:1969 moratorium day i got to march with hippies and oh yeah yeah you know it was like really exciting parents activists my parents were liberal then and then they kind of tightened up they kind of tightened up you know what it was more than is money thing is it was israel exactly it's always israel it's always israel the liberals they want us to stay don't care they just yeah it was i i'm not gonna no no my parents are wonderful people and uh
Marc:But that's usually always what it is.
Guest:Israel is.
Guest:It's a complicated thing.
Guest:Have you been?
Guest:I am not.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I've been three times, but not since, like, 1995.
Guest:It's been years.
Marc:Because my mother is like, you know, I got to get back there.
Marc:Like, I went twice, and I'm like, I'm never going back there.
Marc:Really?
Marc:I enjoyed it.
Marc:No, I enjoyed it.
Marc:But what am I going to do there?
Guest:Now I have kids.
Guest:I want to bring my kids there.
Marc:But you show them the stuff.
Marc:Here's the wall.
Marc:Look at me.
Marc:Put a note in.
Guest:Well, now I'd like to go because now I have Israeli friends who live there.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:People that I met on the Zohan movie that I did.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And then I have people that are like my neighbors in New Jersey who go every year.
Guest:And I would love to go that way.
Guest:But not just as a tourist, you know.
Marc:Yeah, okay.
Marc:All right.
Marc:You know, but could you see yourself living there?
Guest:I'm pretty adaptable now that there's the internet.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All I do is stay in my room anyway.
Guest:But would you like to live there?
Guest:Because, I mean, that's sort of the idea.
Guest:I kind of like to live everywhere.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:But I just, I never even think about this stuff.
Guest:Ireland.
Marc:I want to live in Ireland.
Guest:I don't even know why.
Guest:There's so many things I want to do, but I just, I have two kids and I got this autistic child and that's my, you know, I've got to take care of him.
Marc:What's the age difference?
Guest:their 10-year difference.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Because I remember when the autistic child was young and how involved you became with taking care of them and services for them.
Marc:And how difficult is it?
Marc:How does he function now?
Marc:I mean, is it high functioning or what?
Guest:I mean, you know, people don't like the term functioning anymore.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It's OK.
Guest:I just I try to keep up, too.
Guest:And it's very complicated.
Guest:And I don't like to complain about it because I think it's important that, you know, there are a lot of people in the autism community that have voices now that didn't when I started.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and there was much more of.
Guest:misinformation back then yeah i mean my son is mostly non-verbal has a lot of issues as it's taken many years to kind of get him to control his self-injurious behavior and things like that and uh
Guest:But at the same time, I just think it's a great thing that more voices are out there because they weren't out there.
Guest:The only person who was autistic who ever spoke about it back then was Temple Grandin.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And now there's like a wide variety of people, thanks to social media, who have access.
Guest:And I think that's a good thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Connection.
Guest:That just I mean, in the last 20 years, just so many amazing people have like just come in and out of our lives.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:People who are just incredible empathy and patience and, you know, gentleness.
Guest:And, you know, with him, people who've been, you know, have helped him learn to talk and communicate.
Guest:He communicates through an augmentative device on an iPad.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I think the iPad is like nobody talks about it, but the iPad has made.
Guest:I know it's a big step forward technology-wise, but the difference it's made to people with autism, autistic people who have needed to communicate that way.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He used to have to carry around like a 20-pound device.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's ridiculous.
Guest:But yeah, just...
Guest:Just having those people in our lives has just been incredibly inspiring.
Guest:And seeing what my wife is capable of.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like living with your hero.
Guest:That's amazing.
Guest:Is he at home?
Guest:Well, now he lives in a house with other young adults, young autistic adults.
Guest:These people are amazing.
Guest:So he contracted COVID.
Guest:Oh, did he?
Guest:He did.
Guest:Because one night person, they tried so hard to quarantine those people and sequester them in a hotel.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:One person got it and brought it in, and Daniel has trouble sleeping at night, so he got it, and he was okay.
Guest:So what happened was he had to be isolated, and we were horrified.
Guest:We weren't allowed to be with him.
Guest:Right.
Guest:who's gonna take all this time to be with him in his room he was like isolated in his room and all these these people who worked at the at the house yeah just were like raising their hands i'll wear the ppe i'll spend hours with him in this room you know it's just what can you what how how else can you feel but just blown away by that
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that happened.
Guest:And then he and then he went to the hospital.
Guest:Six weeks later, he had a he had a delayed immune response and he was sick.
Guest:And now we were completely horrified.
Guest:Like, how is he going to handle being in the hospital?
Guest:And yeah, the same people were willing to go to a hospital with other covid patients and where they were permitted to have one person there because the other people that work with them all the time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Beautiful.
Guest:Yeah, it's stunning.
Guest:So these are the kind of people that I've been blessed to be in contact with.
Marc:It's quite a life, man, in terms of figuring out or really understanding what's important.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, that too.
Guest:That's clearly like, obviously, the gift of clarity.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which, you know, people like us, that's like the most elusive thing.
Guest:Elusive because we keep it away.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:No, it's just we fucking just... We just...
Guest:stuff our minds with ridiculous aspirations and self-criticism.
Marc:But also, the kind of stuff you do comedically or that you have done in your life where you're kind of defying expectation early on in the sense that I don't know where some of this stuff comes from.
Marc:The crew that you accumulated, certainly in the first season of Conan,
Guest:it's like where the fuck i mean i don't even understand how that kind of comedy works you know it's that was like that was a bunch of people who you know conan and me and odenkirk like we were in a box at saturday night live we loved saturday how do you get there though like so you what you you had a meltdown in dental school what happened
Guest:I just sucked in college at science courses.
Guest:I was a very good student in high school.
Guest:Science was the only thing I had to work hard at to get A's or A minuses, and then that's what you have to be good at.
Guest:Right.
Guest:in order to be a dentist.
Guest:And my dad would be like, why do they have to make you learn all this shit?
Guest:You're not going to need it.
Guest:I could train you to do this in like, you know.
Marc:That'd be so funny.
Marc:If you like, you never went to dental school, but your father just taught you stuff.
Marc:Sort of an under the table kind of thing.
Guest:He could have.
Marc:I'm going to bring my kid in.
Marc:I taught him.
Marc:He can do that.
Guest:Put the final layer on.
Guest:Where's his diploma?
Guest:What are you asking me where his diploma is?
Guest:I've come up with bonding.
Guest:What's the matter with you?
Guest:My son.
Guest:This is, I'm telling you, he knows how to do this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That would have been hilarious.
Guest:You know, if that had been legal, I would be a dentist right now.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:Because that was the one impediment.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I went to Cornell, because like I said, I got pretty good grades, and that was the only Ivy League school I got into, so I just like, okay, I'll go there.
Guest:So you're going for pre-med?
Guest:Yeah, I'm taking biology and general chemistry and fucking...
Guest:D minusing it yeah and like and I'm telling my parents this on the phone and like I'm half in tears and they immediately switch like to absolute pity and empathy like whatever man you don't have to be a dentist what you can give it up if you want and I'm like no no
Guest:If it was reverse psychology at work, no, I'm going to keep at it.
Guest:Were you feeling pressure?
Guest:No.
Guest:I never felt pressure.
Guest:You made up the expectation?
Guest:I literally did not believe.
Guest:The only thing I ever wanted to do was be funny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Honestly.
Guest:Or be an NBA basketball player, which was like, look at me.
Marc:Not going to happen.
Guest:But you knew that you could be funny professionally.
Guest:I didn't.
Guest:That was the only thing I ever enjoyed doing that mattered to me.
Guest:And I was like, well, if I'm not going to do that, I might as well be a dentist because my dad's an amazing dentist and I'll be in on this incredible practice and I'll be good at it because I was good with my hands.
Guest:I thought I'd be good at it.
Guest:And that'll be that.
Marc:But then you'd be like, you know, what's your father's name?
Marc:Erwin.
Marc:Erwin's son.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Guest:I didn't care about that.
Guest:The laminate guy?
Guest:No, that was the father.
Guest:I didn't care about that.
Guest:I didn't care about that.
Guest:The one who was on Mike Douglas?
Marc:No, his son.
Guest:That stuff, I worship my dad.
Guest:And honestly, like I say, it's like I'm prouder of being his son than any of my pooping or...
Guest:humping or any of the stuff i've done yeah i i and i mean that but i just felt like i'm never gonna i'm you're never gonna nowadays i think people you can't make as much money but there's way more opportunity now there's just so much no no in comedy oh sure there's just so many more venues back when you could do it right now you i mean anyone can do it
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:Make a video and you're in comedy, basically.
Marc:I don't know if you make a life out of it, but you can certainly make an impression.
Guest:No, but you can say, I make comedy films and I make kind of a living.
Guest:Yeah, it's like being a musician now.
Marc:I'm a musician, I'm a comedian, whatever.
Marc:I hate it and I love it at the same time.
Marc:I'm glad people are expressing themselves, but they didn't all do the work.
Marc:The work, I know.
Guest:Well, I don't know what I did.
Guest:I went to Chicago.
Guest:You did the work.
Guest:So you dropped out of Cornell?
Guest:I transferred to NYU for a year, and my parents, this was after two years, and it was like, I just want to take all these courses and get them out of my system and see.
Guest:So I took an acting class, I took communications at NYU, which is like a complete...
Marc:You know, it's like radio.
Marc:Those people that majors in it.
Marc:Majors in communications.
Guest:I know.
Marc:What does that mean?
Marc:It's like, don't go to college and do that.
Guest:Just learn anything that you can only learn in college.
Guest:We worked all the different jobs in a TV studio.
Guest:That's what I would do.
Guest:Today, you're running the telecine machine.
Guest:This week, you're going to be the assistant director.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so there were two weeks that I would look forward to.
Guest:Right.
Guest:The one where I was on camera.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And the one where I got to write the bit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Those were the two weeks.
Guest:And I realized, like, what the fuck am I doing?
Guest:Who am I kidding with this communication?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I know what I want to do, and I'm never going to do it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I...
Guest:I'm like 21 and NYU is throwing a standup comedy contest.
Guest:And I'm thinking, okay, I have to commute to NYU.
Guest:Nobody knows me because they wouldn't let me live in a dorm because I had a Manhattan address.
Guest:Nobody knows me.
Guest:So I'm going to write an act and I'm going to enter.
Guest:God damn it.
Guest:I'm going to do this.
Guest:I'm going to enter and I won't be humiliated because I'm literally invisible.
Guest:It's true.
Guest:I knew people the year I took acting courses, but once I went back into this pathetic, mediocre attempt at pre-med, I just became this sad guy who would just have trouble getting up out of bed in the morning.
Guest:didn't know anybody so i wrote this act yeah and i invited like my high school and camp friends like four people jewish camp jewish camp of course that's a whole other digression and and i you know did this ridiculous thing where i was an orthodox rabbi actually turning the pages and i had a cotton candy beard and i would eat the beard and
Guest:It was ridiculous.
Guest:And then I, it was just nice because I was an Andy Kaufman lover, of course.
Guest:So I had this ridiculous thing that started.
Guest:And then I just did topical or I just did humor about living at NYU, like conventional standup.
Guest:But I was one of the winners.
Guest:They picked three winners.
Guest:I was definitely third.
Guest:I know I was because Hugh Fink, you know Hugh Fink.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:He pulled his fiddle out and killed it.
Guest:He pulled his fiddle out and murdered.
Guest:I mean, he was a pro.
Guest:He'd already done it.
Guest:And then this other kid named Jonathan Weinstein, I think, who I think is still a working comedian.
Guest:He was better than me.
Guest:But fortunately, there were three slots and I finished third and it was the most, it changed my whole life because I was like, I've never made strangers laugh.
Guest:I never thought I could.
Guest:And you did good.
Guest:Well, I'll never forget that moment of being shocked that I was one of the winners and seeing my four friends light up at the table in the distance.
Guest:It's just frozen in my head.
Guest:It's the moment that changed my whole life because I had never made a stranger laugh like that.
Guest:I never even thought to try.
Guest:And then, from then on, I was like, God damn it, I can fucking do it.
Guest:Just like any self-centered, narcissistic, creative person, they just think, I suck, I suck.
Guest:What?
Guest:I'm good?
Guest:Fuck everybody.
Guest:Here we go.
Guest:Here we go.
Guest:So actually, the winners of this contest got to perform at the comic strip.
Guest:against other schools.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:So I did that too, modified the act a little, added something about Reagan.
Guest:I did a Reagan impression of him trying to keep his boner down while he was fucking Nancy.
Guest:And he's just saying, show should have programmed.
Guest:It was that kind of thing, you know?
Guest:And I'm literally like humping the micro stand on stage in front of my parents who are now like, Robert won a contest with, let's go.
Marc:After the comic strip, they were embarrassed?
Guest:No, no, I won.
Marc:Oh, you won the comic strip?
Guest:I won that and I won a spot.
Guest:What?
Guest:Yeah, so Richie Tinkins like, hey, you know what?
Guest:Your material's really good.
Guest:I mean, I've got to say it's really good.
Guest:You've got to, you know, just relax a little.
Guest:How you doing, folks?
Guest:That kind of thing.
Guest:You're a little nervous up there, but you're really good.
Guest:The material, I'm telling you, the material is like, you're ready to, right now, you're ready to go.
Guest:So you won the whole thing?
Guest:I won the thing, and then I won a spot.
Guest:Did you do the cotton candy beard?
Guest:I did the cotton candy beard, but then when I would do the cotton candy beard at two in the morning, the only people, because it's like, you're going to start at two in the morning.
Guest:It's not like I was Adam Sandler, who they put on at 9.30 right away.
Guest:The miracle boy.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I wasn't like that.
Guest:I just had good material.
Guest:Late night spots.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So now I'm like a new version of pathetic.
Guest:I'm staying up till one o'clock and living with my parents.
Guest:With your cotton candy?
Guest:on the up east side and i'm bringing my little thing of cotton candy to the comic strip and there's like four people there and sometimes i'd kill and other times it'd be like do something because like people who stay at a comedy club till two in the morning they don't want to see an andy kaufman bit they just want to be talked they're like what's happening why aren't you talking to us why are we just like break it down we stayed here to be part of the act you asshole
Guest:so i did it for a while and by the end like the last time i ever did the comic strip i was the last act i was on for 40 minutes i killed with four guys and we just talked and i was just riffing yeah and i had a great time and then i was just like i don't know what else to do
Guest:And I met this guy, coincidentally, this wonderful Chicago sketch performer named Tim Kazerinsky.
Guest:I remember him.
Guest:He had just been cast on Saturday Night Live.
Guest:This is 1982.
Guest:Dick Ebersole had taken over from Deumanian.
Guest:I think it was 82, 81.
Guest:And he was shocked that I knew him because I was just an SNL nerd.
Guest:Tim Kazerinsky, how are you?
Guest:He's like, huh, you know who I am?
Guest:And then he explains to me that
Guest:You like comedy?
Guest:Oh, you should go take an improv class in Chicago.
Guest:You can do it in a summer.
Guest:And that sounded good to me.
Guest:Like, oh, really?
Guest:No commitment?
Guest:I don't have to feel like I'm falling on my face if I'm not good?
Guest:I like the sound of that.
Guest:So I went there and then I met all these people that I...
Marc:What was the class?
Marc:Where was it at?
Marc:Was it Second City?
Guest:It was a place called the Players Workshop of the Second City.
Guest:I never heard of that one.
Marc:Oh, so it's part of Second City.
Guest:It was an offshoot of the Second City that was really the first improv school.
Guest:Bill Murray went there.
Guest:George Wendt went there.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:People like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was an incredibly nurturing place and half the people- So it's a school.
Guest:It's a school.
Guest:You take classes.
Guest:They give you very fixed rules about comedy.
Guest:There's three kind of sketches.
Guest:There's inappropriate behavior.
Guest:There's one-upsmanship.
Guest:And it was actually like, it sounds kind of corny, but it gave you confidence because they were kind of simple games to play.
Guest:It was easy to feel funny.
Guest:And a lot of people who were in the class weren't even trying to be funny.
Guest:They just wanted to...
Guest:Learn how to be confident around other people and be funnier at parties or something.
Guest:So it was easy to be like one of the funniest people.
Guest:Who was there?
Guest:Anyone we know?
Guest:Not in my class, but I got to know Bob Odenkirk through that place.
Guest:He must have been very serious back then.
Guest:No, he was serious, but he was also universally acknowledged by me and my friends to be the funniest person in Chicago.
Guest:I was in awe of Bob Odenkirk.
Guest:I even told my girlfriend, who I ended up marrying, I think maybe I should quit and manage Bob Odenkirk.
Guest:That's how much.
Guest:And he's the one guy when I got Saturday Night Live, I was so intimidated.
Guest:And a lot of people go there and they try to like hire their friends.
Guest:And I loved all the people I'd worked with, but I was so intimidated that I just couldn't bring myself to push for anybody except Bob Odenkirk.
Marc:Oh, that's interesting.
Marc:So you take these classes and you're doing it.
Marc:Because I've known Bob a long time.
Marc:Now he's an action star.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Did you see it?
Guest:I have not seen it yet.
Guest:It's good.
Guest:I haven't seen it.
Guest:I'm sure it's good.
Guest:I'm sure it's good.
Guest:Bob knows what he's doing.
Guest:He's so funny.
Guest:He never does anything bad.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What is that about him?
Guest:He's just got taste and he's smart and he's also brilliant.
Guest:He works his ass off.
Guest:He works his ass off, which I respect.
Guest:He doesn't pretend to be too cool for school.
Marc:Nothing come easy to that guy, really.
Guest:No, I mean, no, I have so much respect for him because he wasn't intimidated at SNL.
Guest:I know he calls himself an asshole, how he behaved there, but he wasn't in awe of the place.
Guest:And he inspired me to write sillier stuff because I was just trying to emulate what Alan Tom did.
Guest:How did you get in there?
Guest:I got in there through, so I made friends in Chicago with some people in my class and I got into a comedy group.
Guest:We formed a comedy group together.
Marc:What was the name of that?
Guest:Well, I didn't name the group, Mark.
Guest:Okay, okay.
Guest:It was called All You Can Eat.
Guest:And it was done... The guy who named it was very Machiavellian.
Guest:He was like, this way it's going to be the first name in the Chicago Theater Guide.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A-L, it's going to be the first thing people see.
Guest:And he was right, actually.
Guest:And the show... I mean, I think the shows were good, but we were incredibly successful.
Guest:Oh, that's great.
Guest:We ended up having our own...
Guest:150 seat theater that would sell out and we did four shows a week and i didn't have to work like i we split the proceeds anyone we know yes um uh jill tally do you know yeah yeah she's married to tom kenny she does a lot of voices now and um uh a writer mr show too
Guest:Yes, she was on Mr. Show with Tom, yeah.
Guest:And Dave Reynolds co-wrote Finding Nemo.
Guest:He's a very talented screenwriter now.
Guest:There were a lot of funny people in there.
Guest:This guy, Doug Dale, who I think is one of the funniest people I know, and he was...
Guest:when i did that comedy show when i did that sketch puppet cartoon show on comedy central called tv fun house yeah yeah it was like a child uh a children's uh show hosted by like a gentle guy and all the puppets every week would desert the place and go off on adventures and leave them hanging right and doug dale played that guy oh yeah yeah but he and he almost got he was beaten out by john lovitz
Guest:He got that far.
Marc:In the SNL thing?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:He was beaten out by John Levitz and then he never... It's amazing how that kind of shit happened.
Marc:Who pulls you into SNL?
Guest:Al Franken and Tom Davis were shooting a movie in Chicago.
Guest:Al's funny.
Guest:So he's shooting a movie with Tom Davis.
Guest:The premise is so ridiculous to describe now.
Guest:They were playing like a Grateful Dead kind of band because they were deadheads, Al and Tom.
Guest:It's like he's so... Al's a total deadhead.
Guest:Yeah, total deadhead.
Guest:He and Ann Coulter, oddly enough, right?
Marc:Is that true?
Marc:I believe Ann Coulter is a deadhead.
Marc:Oh, that seems wrong.
Marc:That makes me upset.
Guest:I know.
Marc:She shouldn't be allowed.
Guest:Or maybe she's a fish.
Guest:Maybe it's fish.
Guest:Then I could understand.
Guest:I think it's Deadhead.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So anyway, Al and Tom were shooting this movie, and they cast my friend Dave in a major role in the movie.
Guest:And so Al and Tom came to our show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they really liked our show.
Guest:And then we had drinks afterward at a place called Zumdeutschenek.
Guest:And I was like, this is great.
Guest:It's validation, and that's that.
Guest:And then two weeks later...
Guest:Remember how TV Guide had that front page of the non-shiny section that was like all the TV news that you could ever have access to?
Guest:It was just the front page of the non-shiny part of TV Guide program section.
Guest:And I'm reading two weeks later, Lorne Michaels is returning to Saturday Night Live and Al Franken and Tom Davis are going to be his producers.
Guest:And I just, like, my head exploded.
Guest:Like, I'm going to get a chance to... They know me.
Guest:I'm going to get a chance.
Guest:There's an opening.
Guest:Maybe they really like us.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I couldn't believe it.
Guest:And sure enough, like, three of us got to audition for Lauren.
Guest:And then Doug made it to the next round.
Guest:My Howie Mandel impression didn't impress him.
Marc:Did you do the glove?
Yeah.
Guest:We did, me and Doug did Howie and Pee Wee doing who's on first.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:And destroying the bit with props.
Guest:That was the premise.
Marc:Did you blow the plastic rubber glove up on you?
Guest:Yes, of course I did.
Guest:That was, you know.
Marc:You had to.
Guest:I had the honker for it.
Guest:But then they invited me to interview as a writer.
Guest:I submitted a separate packet and Jim Downey liked it and then I got hired.
Guest:I ended up being the one person from the group who did get hired.
Guest:As a writer.
Guest:As a writer.
Guest:And that's Lauren's first year back.
Guest:Lauren's first year back, that infamous year with Anthony Michael Hall and Robert Downey Jr.
Guest:And is that the year that... Did that go well that year?
Guest:It was a very difficult year because he had all these incredibly talented people, but they weren't necessarily sketch performers.
Marc:Did they want them... Weren't they looking to kill it, the show?
Marc:No, I think Lauren... Once he got back, it was like...
Guest:I think Lauren wanted to reinvent it and he was maybe slightly insecure about wanting to be cutting edge and not feeling like he was repeating himself.
Guest:So he went aggressively for like, I'm going to get Robert and Michael Hall were like 19 and 18.
Guest:And then he hired Joan Cusack, who's one of the funniest people on Earth.
Guest:Very funny, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and Randy Quaid was there.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Wow, that's a wild season, man.
Guest:And Nora Dunn and John Lovitz and Dennis Miller, who were all more from a sketch background.
Guest:Well, no, Nora and John were.
Guest:And then Dennis was the Weekend Update guy.
Guest:And those were the three who ended up surviving that season.
Marc:And then everyone else got cleared out?
Guest:Everyone else got cleared out.
Guest:And you survived.
Guest:I barely survived.
Guest:And I thought I was going to get fired.
Guest:Franken on the phone almost told me as much.
Guest:I was a great, you did great.
Guest:You did great, but it's hard.
Guest:I just, hey, you know who really might get back is Schwarzwelder.
Guest:God, he was funny.
Guest:I'd love to keep talking about how funny he is, Al.
Guest:Yeah, he wrote that sketch.
Guest:And then it ended up, then three people stood up for me.
Guest:And I'll always owe Dennis Miller, A. Whitney Brown, John Lovitz.
Guest:They were all invited back.
Guest:They were all like really tight with Lauren at this point because they'd all done great that first year.
Guest:And they all advocated for me to come back.
Guest:They all thought I was a funny writer.
Guest:And I think that is really the big, I don't know if I would have been a stain on the wall.
Marc:So what was your relationship with Lauren early on?
Marc:I mean, I have to assume that it got very good.
Marc:It got very good, but it wasn't the first year.
Guest:wasn't the first year and I was very I was so nerdy and so in awe of the place like I literally walked in there and I knew this is Leo Yoshimura the you know they'd introduce me this is Leo the set designer I hear very funny in the Star Trek sketch O'Donohue wrote where you played Sulu and Leo Yoshimura this is Edie Baskin I very much enjoy your hand tinted bumpers of Gilda and the lights
Guest:And they're like, okay, this guy is not going to be any fun.
Guest:Plus, I had like a Jufro that I would not get rid of.
Guest:This is like 1985, and I didn't want to break up with my Jufro.
Guest:I was attached to it.
Guest:And meanwhile, the kids in the hall guys are in there.
Guest:Bruce McCullough and Mark McKinney are the other young writers, and they've got the buzz on the side.
Guest:Clean cuts, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and they're wearing oversized sweaters, and they're incredibly confident, as they deserve to be.
Guest:And you're doing the old Franken, like the 70s Franken.
Guest:I'm just like, hi, I'm just here.
Guest:What can I do?
Guest:How can I please you?
Guest:And Lauren just thought I was the biggest nerd.
Guest:I know he did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I sort of had this reverse kind of like...
Guest:i'm not cool and i know i'm not cool and i don't care yeah i'm just gonna be judged on the work yeah and like so i made no effort to ingratiate myself and when did it start to like turn around like what was the work that made people go like holy shit well like okay so george meyer was a great writer at the time yeah who had joined snl that year and
Guest:And he had assured me, don't worry, no matter how you do, Lauren never fires anyone.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He gives everyone a year.
Guest:It's going to be, you know, you're very funny.
Guest:Then I got one sketch on on the very first show with Madonna and then five weeks in a row of nothing.
Guest:And I was writing like weird shit.
Guest:Because there was a part of me, I was so in awe, but at the same time, Letterman was the cool show back then.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And my comedy was sort of more about that, and I was writing stranger shit.
Guest:Like what?
Guest:Oh, like stuff that Jim Downey would like that Lauren would just, this is bullshit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like I wrote a sketch, like a candid camera sketch,
Guest:That was practical jokes on animals, live animals.
Guest:So it was like, watch this goat react to the moving mailbox.
Guest:And it's just a goat.
Guest:And it's like a stuff that a human would be confused by on the goats just like this.
Guest:We told this turtle that he was going to meet Burt Reynolds and have lunch with him.
Guest:But what this turtle doesn't know is that it's a Burt Reynolds impersonator.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Wait till the look on his face when he realizes that that voice is not Burt Reynolds' voice.
Guest:So then the Burt Reynolds impersonator starts talking, and then there's just like a snap zoom on the turtle's head.
Guest:No reaction.
Guest:To me, this is like the funniest thing in the world.
Guest:And Jim Downey loved it, but Lauren was just, fuck this fucking nerdy.
Guest:So then on my fifth show, Tom Hanks, who I was a huge fan of.
Guest:Nobody really knew him back then.
Guest:He had done Splash.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I love the show Bosom Buddies.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Everybody jokes about Bosom Buddies.
Guest:Tom Hanks was so funny on that show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know if you've ever seen it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It was like some like it hot sitcom.
Marc:There's a famous story about a Boston comic who actually got the part, a guy named Mike Donovan.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Who got the part in Bosom Buddies or was like up for it.
Guest:Okay, and he's this guy, Mike Donovan.
Guest:You know, he talks like this.
Guest:He's pretty monotone.
Guest:He's kind of an odd guy.
Guest:But the whole story is like, he flies out to LA, and he's like, I gotta dress like a fucking lady?
Guest:You know?
Guest:Shit.
Guest:Sorry.
Guest:My headphone.
Guest:That was a headphone knocker off.
Guest:Yeah, and that was the end of it.
Guest:I just lost my headphones.
Guest:I got a dress.
Guest:What the fuck is this?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:What's Nick DePaulo going to say?
Guest:Are you fucking kidding me?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Not a chance.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And that was that.
Guest:You're paying for my return flight, motherfucker.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Dress like a lady.
Guest:That's hysterical.
Guest:So you love tanks.
Guest:I love tanks.
Guest:And okay.
Guest:So I wrote a sketch.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was, this is something Lauren used to say a lot.
Guest:That was true.
Guest:He would say, when you're young, you define yourself by what you don't like.
Guest:you know and that was actually not a bad point because you know how in comedy when you're young a lot of at least sketch writers a lot of sketch writers love to make fun of bad comedy right and I God knows I did so so Seinfeld
Guest:was very popular at the time, but there were a lot of comedians who were adopting his mannerism.
Guest:I remember that bit.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Three comedians backstage.
Marc:All doing Seinfeld.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was you?
Guest:Not deliberately.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And the whole point was that it's such an unnaturalistic way of speaking.
Guest:That's not the kind of thing that I'm going to blah, blah, blah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know about you, but I want to know.
Guest:Like, so, and I noticed that other comedians were doing it.
Marc:It happens all the time.
Marc:It depends on the act.
Marc:There was, yeah, it happens.
Marc:I've seen it with other people.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, there was a bunch of Attels for a while.
Guest:There were a bunch of Attels, and how about how many Kinesens, not necessarily in stand-up, but how many people started saying, I want to, like, that whole thing became a thing that everybody stole.
Marc:Do you know where he got that?
Marc:No.
Marc:Dude, it's the best story.
Marc:It's going to blow your mind.
Marc:where'd he get it like because i i've told this on the air before but i love telling it to people who i have no idea you will never guess because i used to do coke with that that so like i remember you know sitting around you know because i was like 22 yeah at the doorman at the comedy store i'm like how'd you do it man how'd you figure it out you know i'd always ask people that i've got two great stories like that like he's like he just looks at me he goes gene wilder
Guest:Oh, is it in Willy Wonka?
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:That's just two words and he explained it.
Guest:Right?
Guest:That's amazing.
Guest:The build.
Guest:That's amazing.
Guest:But I give him credit.
Marc:because it's also a preacher if i had heard that yes it's definitely a preacher thing here's the other story he made it his own it's not i don't i don't think he was hacking at all no no no yeah yeah yeah but the drive shaft that's amazing the build yeah like you know he noticed that as the device it's not a ripoff at all because now would you ever know exactly um exactly the other one was uh i was in the car with jimmy miller and janine garofalo in boston jimmy was like i don't know what he's doing looking for people or whatever and he should be
Marc:He was already managing Janine.
Guest:Scoping some people out there.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:I do Dennis for Jimmy.
Marc:So, well, this was the great moment, like, because I was always that guy.
Marc:I was always sweaty and like, what about how did you tell me what I got to do?
Guest:You know?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So I just remember like yelling at Jimmy.
Marc:It's like, you know, I'm just trying to figure it out.
Marc:And your brother figured out.
Marc:How do you figure it out?
Marc:How do you find his voice?
Marc:And I just hear from the backseat, he's doing Belzer.
Yeah.
Guest:I love the two words for each story.
Guest:Gene Wilder, no one bells her.
Guest:It's so funny that you say that because when me and Dana Carvey in the office would imitate Dennis.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I would always say, hey, Bap, when are you doing Bap?
Guest:And he's like, Bobby, I don't use Bap.
Guest:I don't do Bap.
Guest:And I guess that was like an unconscious Belzer thing that we were doing.
Marc:But you guys, okay, so you tapped into the making fun of the other comics.
Marc:So Lawrence said that when you're younger, you define yourself by things you don't like.
Guest:So that sketch was a big hit that night.
Marc:Yeah, because of the Seinfeld thing.
Guest:Yeah, so Tom, I knew Tom would be great at it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Oh, that was the fifth show.
Guest:That was the fifth show and it was the big hit of the night.
Guest:And I went home and nerdily had, I, you know, I would VHS every show and I literally watched it like five times.
Marc:I was like, just killing.
Marc:I can die.
Guest:I made people.
Guest:Wasn't Leno in it or something?
Guest:Who was in it?
Marc:Didn't say,
Marc:some comic show up?
Guest:Leno did it later.
Guest:Leno did a second version of it.
Guest:No, it was actually originally I wanted Steve Wright to be in it, but we cut him out of it where he's just like stone-faced trying to have a conversation because Steve was a guest that week.
Guest:But we ended up, it was better for the energy.
Marc:Who was in it?
Marc:It was Dana?
Guest:It was Dana.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:It wasn't Dana.
Guest:It was Tom Lovitz and Damon Wayans.
Marc:So that fifth show, that locked you in?
Marc:You feel like that turned it?
Guest:At least I felt like, you know, personally, I felt like, well, if I get fired, at least I did this in my life.
Marc:So you were, oh my God, dude, you were there for so long.
Guest:Well, yeah, I mean, I was there for till 93 till I got the Conan show.
Guest:Yeah, I ended up doing very well.
Guest:The next year is when I really kicked in.
Guest:I did the Reagan is a genius sketch behind the scenes and the Star Trek Trekkies thing.
Guest:That was the best.
Guest:Get a life thing.
Guest:That was the best.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:And I wrote these.
Guest:When I say I did it, I always had people like John Vitti, George Meyer type of collaborators or even Downey sometimes.
Guest:But did you go back there?
Guest:Yeah, so what happened was I...
Guest:I was the type of person, I think a pattern I've seen developing, like where I'm like, I'm never going to be able to do anything.
Guest:So like I would not leave SNL unless I had another job.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And that's when the Conan thing, I mean, I tried.
Marc:And that was like almost in house in a way.
Guest:yeah i mean and conan and i wrote this adam west pilot look well that was our that was our escape hatch at one point but so wait so you we've neglected so you pulled bob in a year bob in in like 1987 yeah and then uh you know and then conan joined in 88 okay so with greg daniels and then we became then we became all really tight
Guest:okay because i would always gravitate toward the young guys like it used to be but you and bob you and bob aren't harvard greg i think it's harvard right greg and conan are harvard but bob and i are no yeah no we're we're from chicago i consider myself a chicago professional yeah yeah yeah performer yeah uh yeah no i didn't do any comedy in college other than this one contest at nyu
Marc:So but I mean, but just the weird fraternal brotherhood of the Harvard thing is its own thing.
Marc:But yeah, so you guys became you all wrote together.
Marc:And how does it work over there?
Marc:You guys?
Marc:How did you end up?
Marc:Because I remember I used to judge you for some reason because I don't like I'm not sure I always understood Sandler.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:Right.
Guest:A lot of people did.
Marc:And and like, you know, as time goes on, you know, I look at things differently.
Marc:But at the time, there was sort of this... Because I always respected you, and I respect Adam.
Marc:I don't want to get in any trouble with Adam.
Guest:He's totally fine.
Marc:He's done amazing things.
Marc:But when I was a more cunty, cocky guy... You had a totally different...
Marc:comedy vibe than Adam did.
Marc:Right, exactly.
Marc:And I remember you're much more grounded.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I'm just an angry asshole.
Marc:I understand.
Marc:But the thing is, or I was then.
Guest:He was funny.
Marc:But you appreciated that.
Marc:That's what I'm finding when I'm talking to you.
Marc:You're not judging on... You're only judging the comedic...
Guest:the funniness yes but i would i mean i was judgmental about other sketches that i thought sucked but i would get into arguments with people like al franken about sandler though oh really yeah because sandler would write a piece and people would assume it was idiotic because he was doing a voice like this yeah well i don't know what you're talking about like he wrote a piece called canteen boy
Guest:Which was about a guy who is obsessive about his canteen and knew all about like, you know, he would rattle off facts about snakes and things like this camping and and everybody.
Guest:It was this incredibly complex scene because.
Guest:All these people would come up to him at parties and like, oh, really, Canteen Boy?
Guest:They're being totally passive-aggressive and feeling superior.
Guest:And Canteen Boy is just doing his thing, rattling off these absurd facts.
Guest:But Canteen Boy was aware that he was being fucked with.
Guest:And he would eventually get snakes to get their revenge on these people.
Guest:And it was so much more...
Guest:psychologically complex than 90% of the stuff being written.
Guest:And I remember saying this to Al after a read-through.
Guest:And he was like, he would do this tilted head.
Guest:He would tilt his head like the chuck wagon dog.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, because so many sketches.
Marc:I like that the Al impression just becomes noises eventually.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:All my impressions back then.
Guest:Everything I did was like a surreal impression.
Guest:Dana Carvey and I would just have so much fun.
Guest:I mean, my Lauren impression was just Jim Downey would ask me a question.
Guest:What do you think of Ellen Cleghorn?
Guest:Show.
Guest:How about David Spade?
Guest:Show.
Guest:He's that kind of idiot.
Guest:But anyway, Sandler, he would write sketches.
Guest:And me and Conan and Greg and Bob would be giggling like five-year-olds in the corner of the read-through room.
Guest:They would play to dead silence.
Guest:You know, he'd play like a guy.
Guest:Just because of snobbery?
Guest:He could update bits.
Marc:Just because of snob?
Marc:They were being snobby?
Guest:I just don't think they... I just think he was ahead of his time.
Guest:I think he was one of the most innovative writers that I came across at SNL.
Guest:Like, if you look at a sketch like The Hurley Boy, have you ever seen that?
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Guest:it's like just a commercial where he's like let me let me stay at your house let me let me watch your kids let me watch your kids it was so you got to watch it i'm not going to do justice to it but then he would just keep talking about you know a message from the hurley boy yeah you know and he's just saying let me and then they'd cut to farley for god's sake let the boy watch your kids
Guest:It was completely, it wasn't structured like any sketch you'd ever seen.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Sandler was one of the few people who were reinventing sketch structure back then.
Guest:I swear to God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A lot of us were just writing simple kind of like premise escalates kind of shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they were smart and funny.
Marc:Right.
Guest:But they weren't as inventive.
Guest:They weren't as fresh.
Marc:But he knew he could drive them.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Well, I mean, he was just so pure.
Guest:He brought so much originality to the show.
Guest:He didn't fit any mold.
Guest:He was in his own world.
Guest:He had all these voices that you never heard done in comedy before.
Guest:I mean, a couple of them were derivative of, like, he did one character that was like Ed Wynn.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Like, he'd stand up in the middle of an audience and just...
Guest:Excuse me.
Guest:Excuse me.
Guest:How dare you?
Guest:Pat, don't you realize people want to see you do sketches with celebrities?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:We love you, Pat, but we want to help you.
Guest:It's like just a guy who took like a fan who took his advice way too seriously.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Again, it was like a sophisticated idea.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Cloaked in a nonsensical, silly voice.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, that makes sense.
Marc:And I also think that I sort of missed that chunk of SNL.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Marc:Like, I just sort of like I knew Stan.
Marc:I knew the movie.
Marc:You're like working Saturday.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And I knew like the you know, but it was more about like I knew who liked him.
Marc:Like, I think that I judged him on his fans.
Marc:People do that.
Guest:And I used to say people hate him because he reminds them of the kind of kid who picked on them in school.
Marc:And I think I dismissed it as infantilized, you know, in a way.
Guest:Yeah, no, it was easy to do and people did it at the show.
Marc:And we had a beef because of it over nothing.
Marc:Because I did a sketch, I did a bit on Conan that was really making fun of his fans.
Marc:It was like this big piece.
Guest:I get it, man.
Guest:He can, you know.
Marc:Sensitive.
Guest:He can be sensitive about that stuff.
Guest:And I kind of didn't blame him.
Guest:I think there was a little bit of... And I'll tell you why it didn't bother me that he was sensitive.
Guest:Because he's the kind of guy...
Guest:who would never go after another comedian.
Guest:He's just that... He just, like... It's not what he does.
Guest:It's not what he does.
Guest:No, but he doesn't... Yeah, right.
Guest:I mean, it doesn't... No, but he would never... He doesn't say anything negative about other people.
Guest:He thinks it's...
Guest:He's like, you know, sometimes I'll have a friend that I really like and that friend will do an interview and they'll shit on a movie that they did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Adam's like, what the fuck is he doing that?
Guest:These people worked on that movie with him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, they're not big stars like he is.
Guest:And what's he getting the laugh off of that for?
Guest:You know, why is he taking a shit on these people who worked hard?
Marc:He's always nice to me and he's said nice things, but I don't really know if we're okay.
Yeah.
Guest:I've been waiting all this time for you to ask if someone in you are okay.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I don't really know.
Guest:No, no, I know.
Guest:I just enjoy it because it's the Marc Maron thing.
Guest:Are we okay?
Guest:Yeah, but I thought I got- Part of the sketch that I want you to do on Thursday has to do with this.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I heard about this.
Guest:It's up to you.
Guest:I'm not going to force you.
Marc:No, no, I'll do it.
Marc:Why not?
Marc:But that's one of the outstanding ones.
Marc:There's a couple of people I know I'm not okay with.
Marc:It's never coming back.
Marc:It's not coming around.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But with Adam, like I see him at the Netflix events or I saw him at an award show.
Marc:He's very nice.
Marc:He's a forgiving guy.
Guest:He's the best guy.
Marc:I like his new special a lot.
Marc:His new special is amazing.
Marc:And I went to college with Brill.
Marc:We used to write together.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Brill's a great writer and director.
Marc:Well, that's the thing about that thing.
Marc:It's like it's like it's so hard for me.
Marc:It really has to be sold well to me because I'm not really a surreal guy.
Marc:But like I know that you do it and I know that that Adam does it and I've grown to appreciate it.
Marc:And sometimes I really it really kills me.
Marc:But there seems to be part of your brain that's sort of like how fucking where can we push it?
Marc:How weird can this get and still work?
Guest:I think it's just... Yeah, I think we're just... I don't know.
Guest:I feel like I'm not as social.
Guest:I'm one of those writers who's not as socially adept.
Guest:And so my comedy goes into those kind of stranger places that are more about alienation and looking at people through a detached kind of... Right, right.
Marc:But it seems to me that because of that, whatever happened...
Marc:You know, when you guys got to do Conan, to me, that first season of Conan just seemed like guys like you who were like, let's just fucking do this.
Guest:No, it was the greatest job I've ever had or will ever have.
Guest:Because, as I mentioned, I worship David Letterman.
Guest:And the opportunity, the challenge to take over that slot and try to create a show and do everything he didn't do and try to make it original was something like Conan was originally supposed to have my job.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, as a writer.
Guest:No, as the producer of the replacement show.
Guest:of whatever that was going to be yes yeah yeah yeah and then but he just didn't have he wasn't jonesing to be the guy figuring it out he wanted to perform yeah and he finally was honest with lauren and he had like had lunch had dinners with like drew carey and john stewart and other people when lauren was trying to cast it yes yeah and conan finally was like i gotta be honest with you i just there's a part of me that thinks that i can do it and whether you think so or not it just makes me feel like i gotta pursue that's my dream and this isn't and
Guest:Lauren respected that and then came around and gave him a tryout.
Guest:And then Conan called me because he already knew that it was my dream.
Marc:To make the show.
Guest:I wanted to be that guy.
Guest:I wanted to be, who's the guy?
Guest:Sigourney Weaver's dad, Pat Weaver.
Guest:That's one of my heroes.
Guest:He reformatted the Today Show and the Tonight Show.
Guest:And I just love the idea of trying to come up with a whole new way
Marc:to do a late night show and you know so it was the most thrilling job and then we hired a lot of people we didn't know like I didn't know Louie or Dino Stamatopoulos yeah like that was the thing is like what a perfect like I couldn't like Louie who is like right up your alley at that time totally surreal totally ballsy in terms of like you know finding this other zone and then Dino like I still don't understand that guy ha ha ha
Guest:Dino is sort of performance art, his whole thing.
Guest:I think he, I mean, he's very true to himself, but he loves the persona as well.
Marc:He reminds me of like, if you're an SNL nerd, it seems to me that like the Michael O'Donohue school.
Guest:That's what he aspired to be, like sort of the dark outsider.
Guest:Was he at SNL as well?
Guest:Like he would ride a motorcycle at the time, even though he was a geek when he was a kid.
Marc:Was he at SNL as well?
Guest:No.
Guest:Oh, no.
Marc:So where'd you find him?
Guest:He submitted.
Guest:He was he had written for the Ben Stiller show.
Guest:So I was aware of him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he actually went to college with my wife in Chicago.
Guest:So I was aware of him there, too.
Guest:So he was in my radar.
Guest:But he submitted the best packet I've ever seen.
Guest:Like where there were like 10 ideas that I would put on the show immediately.
Guest:Did you?
Guest:Every one of them, I'm sure, got on the show.
Guest:Some of them bombed.
Guest:Who were the other... Well, that was the thing.
Guest:But that was the year.
Marc:But that was also the great thing.
Marc:But it wasn't just... It wasn't a bomb of like...
Marc:It was of something falling flat.
Marc:It was a bomb of like, you know, what the fuck was that?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Noble failures or flailing period.
Guest:I called it the flailing period.
Guest:We were so arrogant because like, you know, when Conan first got the job, I was like trying to be happy for him, but I was nervous that he couldn't handle it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like slightly selfishly like, wait, this is the my shot is going to be trying to make him work.
Guest:Even though he was one of my best friends, this selfish thought came through my head.
Guest:Maybe he can't do it.
Guest:Can he really do it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But then I called him back 10 minutes later and said, of course I'll be your head writer.
Guest:Because I remembered...
Guest:he's just been a great friend to me.
Guest:Like Lauren would put me on SNL once in a while doing the bears thing or some update thing I did.
Guest:And Conan like spent hours helping me polish the bit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, what am I even fucking hesitating?
Guest:Of course I'm going to do it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's like, this is going to be totally worthwhile just to try to help.
Guest:It's a Lauren.
Guest:It's a Lauren joint.
Guest:Well, that was a complicated thing because Lorne didn't feel like he was involved enough because Conan and I were so tight.
Guest:Lorne didn't want me to do it.
Guest:Lorne wanted to get someone from Letterman to work with Conan.
Guest:Partly because he didn't want me to leave SNL, but I also think he thought...
Guest:those guys are so tight.
Guest:They're just going to do whatever they want.
Guest:And that kind of is what happened, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, but I mean, he, he, we, he definitely stayed involved, but it was a different gig than it would have been if he was pairing two people who were not as simpatico.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So it was,
Guest:you and conan and louis at the core and then we hired louis and dino was it brian hart or what's that no uh marsh mccall michael gordon david reynolds um amir golan do you remember that comedian of course chuck sklar sklar yeah yeah tom agna oh agna right yeah yeah louis ck of course yeah and um and we took it so crazily far that
Guest:Then there became this tension because things would bomb and Conan was getting bad reviews.
Guest:And there'd be this part of Conan that's like, I love this, but I'm not sure it's servicing me as a host as well as it could be.
Guest:So there was that kind of tension and we adjusted.
Guest:over time we had to by the time I left I feel like the show had changed a lot and was much more still silly and funny but not as completely crazy like we would have people interrupt interviews yeah like my friend Doug yeah my friend Doug who ended up doing TV funhouse he played this character called Doug the neighbor yeah and like Conan would literally be talking to Gore Vidal yeah
Guest:And there'd be all of a sudden, hey, Coenzy, how you doing?
Guest:And he'd be like the Tim Allen neighbor from behind a fence.
Guest:Oh, I'm sorry, everybody.
Guest:I'm sorry, Mr. Vidal.
Guest:It's Doug, my neighbor.
Guest:Who are you talking to today?
Guest:Gore-va-who?
Guest:Or who-va-who?
Guest:And, you know, it was that kind of shit.
Guest:And then Conan would have to get back into the conversation.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It was not...
Guest:Like if Conan had been a seasoned guy who'd done a lot of, if he'd been like Jimmy Kimmel was, where Jimmy had been on radio for years.
Guest:Yeah, had chops.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But Conan was finding all of that.
Guest:So it was literally like a practical joke on Conan to do those kind of things.
Guest:And it's not like I was pushing it on him because he's a writer at the core and he loved these ideas.
Guest:It's like, yeah, let's try it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it was like sort of this painful realization that I'm not ready to do this.
Guest:I love it.
Guest:I'm not ready to do it.
Guest:It took a long time.
Guest:It was a painful learning curve.
Guest:How long were you there?
Guest:I burned out, man.
Guest:I was there for like a year and a half.
Marc:Were you there when I did Bad Fruit Theater?
Marc:I think I was.
Marc:I was Dennis Hopper in the Apocalypse Now.
Marc:Yes, that was Louie's bit.
Marc:It was Louie's bit, and he did the Apocalypse Now the night of Coppola, when Coppola was on the show.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Oh, that was really exciting.
Guest:Yeah, we did it just for Coppola.
Marc:I just remember working that voice, man, the Hopper voice.
Marc:Yeah, you were great.
Marc:And then whatever I was, a rotten pear or something, it immediately just fell off its post.
Guest:of course of course like a good rotten pear was supposed to do it did it exactly on cue but then you like so you burnt out there and then like you know what happened i i i didn't totally it was like i had just been a newlywed i got married yeah three months into the show yeah and i had been such a shitty boyfriend yeah for eight years at saturday night live yeah this is everything this is everything this comes first
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then I'm finally married.
Guest:And when you get married, it's different.
Guest:It's like that feeling of commitment.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, you're terrified of it.
Guest:And then it happens and everything changes.
Guest:And it's like, wow.
Guest:And it felt great.
Guest:You wanted to enjoy it?
Guest:I didn't want to let her down.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, that's nice.
Guest:And then it became like, oh, this job is harder than that job was.
Guest:And I waited until I got another job.
Guest:And and I use that as kind of an excuse.
Guest:But is that when Groff Groff came in?
Guest:No, Groff was like he came he came in like a year later.
Guest:so Louis filled in who took Louis was supposed to do it and then he backed out because he realized this is not what I want to do with my life yeah so then Marsh McCall did it for like a year and then Marsh McCall left to do sitcoms and then Groff came in yeah and Groff I think was probably the best he was fantastic yeah I started with Groff as a stand up and he wrote for my dumb show on I gave him his first writing job for your Marin show no no for a short attention span on Comedy Central S A S T yeah
Marc:Yeah, I made them hire him because it was so terrible.
Marc:And that was like his first writing job.
Guest:He was a fantastic head writer at Conan.
Marc:Solid guy.
Marc:He's one of those grounded people.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:That's why he's grounded.
Guest:That's why he can write sitcoms.
Guest:He's had much more success writing that kind of shit than I ever have.
Marc:But then the Dana Carvey thing.
Marc:By shit, I mean quality sitcoms.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So Dana Carvey happened 1996.
Guest:So I left Conan and I had two blissful years with my wife where all I did, I had like piled up some money and I didn't have kids at this point.
Guest:So all I did was occasionally submit to SNL and do like the lips of different characters at Conan.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I did all these voices.
Marc:I always knew when it was you.
Guest:yeah well it's almost always me you have such a good timing was that your bit yeah me and me and dino dino said let's do i my one of my big ideas for the show was like conan's going to interview people in the news i wanted to bring sketch comedy to a late night talk show kind of like steve allen's show was that's what i picked and i was like we'll get people and they'll dress up as celebrities and conan will interview them and
Guest:And then Dino, one day he was just, we were pitching ideas and he said, we should do something with Clutch Cargo.
Guest:Dino was a Chicago guy and Clutch Cargo was still running in Chicago when I was there in the 80s.
Guest:So everybody would joke about it.
Guest:And then I connected that like, oh, that's way better to interview celebrities that way.
Guest:Because it's like, first of all, there's no makeup and wigs.
Guest:But secondly, you're playing a practical joke on a photograph.
Guest:Right.
Right.
Guest:And then I ended up just like riffing as Bill Clinton.
Guest:And Dino said, you should just do these voices.
Guest:They don't have to be like 100% perfect.
Guest:Just be funny.
Guest:And so I ended up doing most of them.
Guest:Because I was a decent, I called myself an imprecisionist.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, they were good.
Guest:And then you had a good build.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:That's the most fun I've ever had.
Guest:Yeah, doing that.
Guest:Was doing that.
Guest:More fun than Triumph.
Guest:There's too much pressure with Triumph.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:To land a joke a certain way?
Guest:Just like, am I going to hurt this person's feelings?
Guest:There's that pressure.
Guest:And also triumph is, I don't mean to brag because a lot of people write it with me, but triumph's hysterical.
Guest:It is hysterical.
Guest:And I feel the pressure of keeping it at that level.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm sorry if that sounds like cocky or something, but Triumph is a very collaborative thing.
Guest:I have great writers who help me with Triumph, so I don't feel like I'm... Who are they?
Guest:Oh my God, I could list, you know, lately, like David Feldman, you know that guy.
Guest:Yeah, sure, yeah.
Guest:He didn't help me at Conan, but since then, Feldman and some of the great Conan writers at that era, like Brian Rich, who created The Masturbating Bear, he would write great jokes for Triumph.
Guest:And there are just many people.
Marc:It's so funny because it's one of those bits where it's like if somebody's just out and driving, they come up with a one-liner, like, oh, I should just send that to Robert for the dog.
Guest:I love it.
Guest:I have no... I'll take anything.
Guest:You know, originally, Triumph...
Guest:was like a practical joke on the dog.
Guest:It was like, this dog's so limited, all he can say is for me to poop on.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He'll pay a compliment, and then he says for me to poop on.
Guest:That's his idea of an insult.
Guest:That was the bit, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it was a joke on the dog.
Guest:And then we realized, oh, Conan's got a lot of cheesy guests.
Guest:And it would be very satisfying for the audience because Conan's so polite.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:to shit on the guest somehow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like everybody's been waiting for two acts for something to John Tesh.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, and then this dog, it's just like catharsis.
Guest:Finally, someone points out that you'll suck.
Marc:But like all this stuff, it seemed like that evolved and like some of the stuff that you do now evolved out of these smaller bits that were parts of other things.
Guest:Triumph was a definite evolution.
Guest:It came out of... So I had this mantra at the show.
Guest:We're not going to do anything Letterman does.
Guest:We're going to make stuff up.
Guest:We're going to do a show that makes shit up.
Guest:And we're not going to do any found comedy.
Guest:There's no stagehands that we're going to break the fourth wall with.
Guest:None of that shit.
Guest:And by shit, I mean genius.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I was like, I didn't even let Conan do remotes the first year.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Conan's the funniest person who's ever done remotes at this point.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so people, if I say that, you'd think, what a fucking horrible producer you must have been.
Guest:But the idea back then was like, we're not going to do anything Letterman does.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And by the way, it's hard because everything, he did everything.
Guest:Well, no, he did everything related to found humor.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Okay.
Guest:He did not do, like, he did not interview a fake Bill Clinton.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:He did not, like, do bad fruit theater.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:You know, there were a lot of bits like that.
Guest:And he did this thing where the Westminster Dogs, this was a classic Letterman type thing,
Guest:He had just moved to CBS and he was experimenting and having fun with the new space and being able to run people in from the street.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Here's Rupert G delivering food.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he had the Westminster champions just run down the aisle.
Yeah.
Guest:That's all they did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was really funny because it was so reductive.
Guest:And and I was like, we're going to have dogs that have actual that are puppets and have actual talent.
Guest:And it happened because so my wife and I.
Guest:had gone, we were newlyweds, and we were shopping for a new table at one of these quaint southern furniture stores, and they had a rack of heads of realistic-looking animals.
Guest:Dogs, cats, a rabbit, a seal.
Guest:And they were so realistic-looking, these dog puppets, that it cracked me up.
Guest:I'd never seen anything like it.
Guest:The detail.
Guest:Mostly you think of rubber puppets, you think of Kermit-type things.
Guest:This dog, I just immediately put a dog on my hand and started sniffing her ass in the store with the puppet.
Guest:And she had no problem with that because she's a freak.
Guest:Married to you.
Guest:Yes, and she's a freak.
Guest:And that's why we got along.
Guest:So then she surprised me on my birthday with like seven of these things.
Guest:And that's how I got the idea.
Guest:And Westminster was like a week later.
Guest:So that's how I got the idea.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:These dogs will have talent.
Guest:They'll sing the theme from the bodyguard and we'll throw, throw roses at them like they do at Westminster.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it'll be very stayed and it wasn't, and you know, and then it evolved like one year there was like a magician dog who sewed another dog in half or the, my favorite, a dog would light its own farts.
Guest:A dog would, my favorite dog ever was a dog who impersonated Jack Nicholson.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it was like this plastic dog and it had the long paw and he just put the paw over his forehead like the hack.
Guest:I'm Jack Nicholson.
Guest:You can't handle the truth.
Guest:Because I made all the dogs talk with Russian accents.
Guest:Because when I grew up, I had Russian grandparents and somehow I associated dogs.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I have no idea.
Marc:Were they funny?
Guest:My grandparents, not particularly.
Guest:They just had a funny accent.
Marc:And that's where it came from.
Marc:That's why dogs in my head.
Guest:Yes, that's where it all came from.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And so it came, the bit itself came out of the desire to do the opposite of what Letterman was doing.
Marc:Well, what happened with the Dana Carvey show?
Marc:Because I can never get that opening bit out of my mind of the first show.
Marc:It scarred me forever, the Clinton with the nipples.
Guest:Yeah, it was insane.
Guest:It was insane.
Guest:It was literally like a kamikaze mission.
Guest:Like, what are you guys doing?
Marc:Yeah, it was like you guys had taken to a certain level with Conan, but then all of a sudden it's like, what was their edict on that show?
Guest:Well, listen.
LAUGHTER
Guest:I surrounded myself with my favorite writers, and Dino and Louis by then were like two of the people I loved to write with the most.
Guest:I made Louis the head writer, and Dino was there, and Odenkirk helped out early on.
Guest:And Louis had an idea where that was perfectly... Well, it was already silly.
Guest:It was like Clinton is going to say that he's both the father and the mother to... Hillary was in a lot of...
Guest:trouble back then with whitewater and a lot of her her approval rating was very low at the yeah so he was gonna assure the public that he could be both the mother and the father to the country because he had that whole nurture that yeah right that whole nurturing i feel your pain right and then louis had the idea that clinton would say and to take just to show you my commitment i have worked with uh health experts and scientists and i've developed the ability to breastfeed
Guest:And then he like whipped out like a prosthetic thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we had babies.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We had like two babies, one on each boob.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then, I mean, that probably would have killed the show already.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But just like, Louie, I don't think we're killing the show enough.
Guest:He wanted more boobs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Can I play, you know, Yes End sabotage version?
Yeah.
Guest:what if folks you know i like animals right what if he was breastfeeding kittens and puppies as well and we gave him eight boobs like a kitten and a puppy and um and with everybody was like yes you're in charge i guess we're doing it
Guest:I love positive and reinforcement.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:So, so, so we did it and I had no idea.
Guest:Here's what I had no idea.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We were following home improvement.
Guest:They were so cocky about this show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We're going to give you the best slot on the network.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:930 after Tim Allen.
Guest:It was Dana, right?
Guest:They were like, we got a hit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Everybody.
Guest:We thought we were cocky too.
Guest:And so sounds good.
Guest:The bigger the audience, the better.
Guest:Bring it on.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:It wasn't until, like, four weeks into the show that I actually watched an episode of Home Improvement.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my jaw dropped.
Guest:Like, all I knew about the show was that Tim Allen had once been busted for coke.
Guest:Busted for coke, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And that Pamela Anderson was on the show.
Guest:So I thought, oh, yeah, this is a raunchy kind of lead-in thing.
Guest:And I was so... Listen, just...
Guest:My advice to young producers is to be aware of the show you're following on network television.
Guest:I didn't know we were following a show.
Guest:I didn't realize that the reason Home Improvement was the number one show.
Marc:You didn't realize you were following America?
Guest:It was because parents could watch it with their kids.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:And everybody loved the show.
Guest:Oh, I didn't realize it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was like American Idol became in the zeroes.
Guest:That's the kind of show it was.
Guest:I watched it like four weeks in and I was just, oh my God, this is nothing that I would ever watch.
Guest:That's anything like my show.
Guest:It's a family, wholesome show.
Guest:And you're still dealing with a late night sensibility.
Guest:No, and we're starting with fucking Bill Clinton and eight boobs.
Guest:And I just felt like I had, what have I done to my friend Dana?
Guest:How could I have not realized this?
Guest:And there was no coming back from that.
Guest:The show had like minute by minute ratings that went like, like it was like a new record for like, you know, a cliff dive.
Marc:Did it cause a rift between you and Dana?
Guest:No.
Guest:I mean, I think it was stressful.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:for a while because it was you know it's the same thing with conan it's like you realize that you have to protect your star his name's on it he's the first thing people see uh he's carrying the whole thing and you may wanted you may have envisioned the show to be this level of crazy but you've got to scale it back
Guest:And that's what happened with both shows.
Guest:And I actually think by the time we finished the Dana Carvey show, it was a perfectly fine, acceptable, smart show.
Guest:But it was just way too late to sway the people at that network.
Marc:Let's talk about the new thing, because I watched some coming attractions of it.
Marc:And then I had to watch...
Guest:I was hoping the coming attractions were horrible.
Guest:They like had somebody else.
Marc:I don't think they sent me a whole thing.
Guest:Did they show you the sketch with Matt and Charlie?
Guest:Did you get to watch that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's funny.
Guest:I got that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:Good.
Marc:But, but it was so funny cause I had to sit through a trailer for the mask singer, which I've never watched.
Marc:And, and I don't, I don't even understand what's happening.
Marc:I don't, I don't.
Marc:Oh, the mask singer?
Marc:With anything.
Marc:With anything.
Yeah.
Marc:Like, I know you and I were, you know, a couple hours ago on my couch, you know, choked up because of the Chauvin, you know.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That justice happened.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I know that.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:But then I watched The Masked Singer.
Marc:I'm like, what the fuck is happening here?
Guest:What is it?
Guest:You're just disoriented.
Guest:Ken Jeong is there.
Guest:What kind of world do we live in?
Guest:Wait a minute.
Right.
Guest:There should be nothing surprising about Ken Jeong being on The Masked Singer.
Guest:Ken Jeong will take any job.
Guest:He's a good friend of mine, and Triumph has made relentless fun of him.
Guest:One of Triumph's jokes was, if you have a Susan B. Anthony coin and a Buffalo nickel and an original wheat Lincoln penny, what do you have?
Guest:Enough to pay Ken Jeong for one day's work.
Guest:He'll take anything.
Marc:He'll say yes.
Marc:That's funny.
Marc:So the new shows, it seems like that British show almost.
Marc:What was that called?
Guest:Triumph would say, imagine if spitting image didn't suck.
Guest:Does Triumph pay a big role on this show?
Guest:Triumph has nothing to do with this show.
Guest:He doesn't?
Guest:No, these are all human...
Marc:I noticed what the puppets is like, how many times are you going to use these?
Marc:They must take a long time to make.
Guest:I know.
Marc:You made a fucking Matt Lowen puppet.
Guest:How many times am I going to use it?
Guest:Well, he's coming back, but I know.
Guest:I'm not sure the show is practical.
Guest:These puppets cost a lot of money.
Guest:And the Trump puppet, isn't that done?
Guest:Uh, we're going to find ways to use Trump.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:We're definitely going to find ways to use Trump, but you're right.
Guest:It's like, you know, it's a, it's a shitload of money.
Guest:And then like how many times you're going to, so you try to use puppets that will have some of some shelf life as it were.
Guest:And, um, who's the puppets you have?
Marc:What do you got?
Guest:Oh, God.
Guest:We're just, you know, we made a Ted Cruz.
Guest:He's got a lot of legs.
Guest:Oh, sure.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:McConnell.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:Rachel Maddow.
Guest:Chris Cuomo.
Guest:Then Andrew Cuomo.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Chrissy Teigen and OJ.
Marc:Alpha Cuomo and more Alpha Cuomo.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Alpha and Alpha.
Guest:Alpha and Alpha.
Guest:We've got separate sketches for each Cuomo.
Guest:And Tucker Carlson.
Marc:That was a good one.
Guest:You do the voice?
Guest:No, I didn't.
Guest:I mean, I could.
Marc:That guy's a fucking monster, dude.
Guest:I work for the Fox Network.
Guest:That's interesting.
Guest:He's great.
Marc:He's a great man.
Guest:You can take shots at him.
Guest:I think I'm excited to be able to...
Guest:Make fun of Fox News on Fox.
Marc:Right, but doesn't everybody separate the two people who get opportunities, who are forward-thinking, interesting comedic shows and writers?
Marc:They have to be like, well, Fox News is a different hallway.
Guest:Well, I know.
Marc:I mean, they're owned by the same people.
Marc:I know, but somehow or another, there's this ability to compartmentalize.
Marc:Nobody's boycotting.
Guest:20th was owned by, I mean, The Simpsons.
Guest:All those shows have made the Murdochs a shitload of money.
Marc:Yeah, it's weird how that works, right?
Guest:You know, it was finally, 20th was finally seen by Disney.
Guest:But you know what?
Guest:Like, I worked for GE.
Guest:I know, I know.
Guest:I worked for GE when they were dredging the Hudson River.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, one of my most famous sketches was something that wasn't that funny, but it was like a schoolhouse rock parody where I got to make fun of GE.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was like conspiracy theory rock.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it was all about I made it was especially originally it was supposed to be a weird conspiracy theory about Kennedy put to music.
Guest:But then I was like, fuck it.
Guest:I'm just going to make it about everything GE is doing right now.
Marc:And did you get pushback?
Guest:We got it on the air.
Guest:There were several hurdles we had to get through, like make sure the homeless man looks a little nutty.
Guest:But they let us do it.
Guest:And then, so Bob Wright is the head of the network.
Guest:Warren puts it on at like 12.30, thinking that Bob Wright goes to sleep after Weekend Update.
Guest:And he gets home late that day, and he turns it on, and the show never showed it again.
Guest:It was a very rare instance where they took the sketch out of the rerun.
Marc:It's like the broader question or is it because I mean, I've lived in this reality.
Marc:We all live in this reality.
Marc:There's a certain amount of monopolization that goes on in media companies.
Marc:But to what end does satire remain effective and not just part of it?
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I mean, I'm trying to parse.
Marc:OK, so you're saying that I really possible or is it just another appendage of the fucking monster that that that appropriates everything?
Marc:Aren't you immediately appropriated?
Guest:I mean, when I did that sketch, I literally called out GE on things that nobody talked about.
Guest:Look what happened.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:No, I know.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Well, it'll be interesting to see what you can say.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They're letting on a lot of shit we're going to make fun of.
Guest:a lot of conservative people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They want us to, you know, not be completely that way, but it's not that hard to make fun of Nancy Pelosi.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Sure, sure, sure.
Guest:So I have no problem.
Guest:I don't believe in, like, bean counting and, like, what's that phrase?
Guest:Whataboutism?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, if people are wrong and there are more people wrong on one side, I'm like, fuck it.
Guest:There's also puppets, right?
Marc:It's puppets.
Marc:So, you know, you make the shaking lady.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I'm going to try not to make it all about, you know, this guy's senile and this guy's fat and this guy looks like a turtle.
Guest:I want to get I want to get jokes that actually cut through.
Marc:It's just an interesting question whether or not like everything starts to cancel everything else out and whether or not anybody is going to help anybody have a more grounded grasp on reality.
Marc:Like, I don't know how it all doesn't just become part of the same fucking noise.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Sorry, buddy.
Marc:It's going to be great.
Marc:No, it's okay.
Guest:That's all right.
Guest:I mean, I don't aspire to change people's minds.
Marc:And I'm not talking about your show, really.
Marc:I'm just saying it's sort of an interesting intellectual thing to figure that out.
Marc:How do you accommodate the idea that you're on Fox?
Marc:And when you really did something that pissed GE off, they're like, that's not happening again.
Marc:That's okay.
Marc:I got more funny things.
Guest:uh i was a little upset about it you were there were other people who were more upset about adam mckay was really upset well yeah you know well he's gone on to make some real you know oh no well he's a real activist you know right and he always put that first and he actually like leaked it to the press oh really yeah and he nobody knew at the time but mckay deliberately leaked it to the press and it became sort of a source of embarrassment at the time for ge
Guest:For the network, for Lauren, for everybody.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:And Adam, I don't think he copped to it.
Guest:I don't remember how it panned out, but 10 years later, I called Bob Wright personally, and he let me put it on my Best of TV Funhouse DVD, so...
Guest:Oh.
Guest:So, you know, enough time had passed.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I think NBC had been bought by Comcast at that point.
Marc:Well, no, because it looks like, you know, the Charlie Rose, Matt Lauer bit, that's a funny bit and, you know, it definitely has a point and you figure where the comedy is and also their puppets.
Marc:Puppets are, you know, they buy you a lot.
Guest:I think the layer of silliness that they provide makes everything lighter and less threatening.
Guest:Certainly does with Triumph, like I said, because he's low status.
Guest:But I think it will here, too.
Marc:Well, this has been fun, buddy.
Marc:Yes, a lot of fun.
Guest:I think we covered it.
Guest:I was terrified to do it.
Guest:Were you?
Guest:I'm always afraid I'm going to hurt someone's feelings, say something stupid.
Guest:No, that's me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If you think of anything, you let us know.
Marc:I've turned to me and Sandler.
Marc:I hope he knows that I love him.
Marc:Let me call him.
Marc:Yeah, call him up.
Marc:Did you see him?
Marc:Mark wants to know if you're good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Ooh, he doesn't sound happy.
Guest:Did you hang out with him?
Guest:Always.
Guest:Oh, you go over there for dinner?
Guest:He's like my favorite human being.
Guest:Oh, that's good.
Guest:Practically.
Guest:That's nice.
Guest:He's my best friend in show business.
Guest:I'd have to say that.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:He's the greatest.
Guest:He's just like the closest thing to a brother.
Guest:And I, but the thing is like, there's like 15 people who could say that about him.
Guest:Cause he's that kind of guy.
Guest:He makes you feel, you know, he really made a difference in my life.
Guest:Like he made me like myself more at a time when I was like, so wrapped up in SNL.
Guest:And I just felt like I, all I am is the work I come out with.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm nothing but my output.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he like kind of connected with me in a way no one else had at that show.
Marc:Oh, that's nice.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And it stuck.
Marc:It stuck.
Guest:Since then, I've been an arrogant, cocky prick.
Marc:Never.
Marc:No.
Guest:All right, buddy.
Guest:I'm glad we finally did this.
Marc:It worked out, and we were both crying at the beginning, and we made it through.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:God bless the criminal justice system today.
Marc:Today.
Guest:All right, man.
Marc:Good luck with the show.
Guest:Thanks, buddy.
Thank you.
Marc:So there you go.
Marc:The new show is called Let's Be Real.
Marc:It's a puppet show.
Marc:Life-size puppets.
Marc:Funny.
Marc:It's on Fox.
Marc:That was a fun talk.
Marc:I enjoyed it a great deal.
Marc:He's a sweet guy.
Marc:Okay, I'll talk to you soon.
Marc:Next time I talk to you, I might be in Florida.
Marc:Hopefully.
Marc:That's the plan.
Marc:If I don't talk to you from Florida, something's gone horribly wrong, and you'll hear about that.
Marc:I'm not sure I will.
Marc:Boy, this has gotten grim.
Marc:Let's play some guitar.
.
.
.
Thank you.
Guest:boomer lives and monkey and la fonda cat angels everywhere