Episode 308 - Andy Daly
Guest:Are we doing this?
Guest:Really?
Guest:Wait for it.
Guest:Are we doing this?
Guest:Wait for it.
Guest:Pow!
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:And it's also, eh, what the fuck?
Guest:What's wrong with me?
Guest:It's time for WTF!
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:With Mark Maron.
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fucking knots?
Marc:What the fuck cakes?
Marc:Here's one.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:I am Mark Maron.
Marc:Welcome to the show.
Marc:Today on the show, the wonderful Andy Daly, one of the funniest comedic actors in the business today.
Marc:You may know him from Eastbound and Down.
Marc:You may know him from movies.
Marc:You may know him from Comedy Bang Bang.
Marc:You may know him.
Marc:Why don't we take a look at his IMDb page?
Marc:If I'm going to do this, if I'm going to try to do the efficient, let's give the guy some respect and look at his IMDb.
Marc:Am I really doing this in real time?
Marc:Am I really looking up Andy Daly's IMDb in real time in order for me to give you credit?
Marc:See, this is the kind of thing that I could have prepared a little earlier.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Look at that.
Marc:No, I don't want Adobe Flash right now.
Marc:Remind me later.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:Eastbound and Down.
Marc:Delocated.
Marc:The Life and Times of Tim, of course.
Marc:The Paul Reiser Show, which I don't imagine any of you saw.
Marc:The Informant he was in.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:This guy works.
Marc:Reno 911.
Marc:All right.
Marc:You know what?
Marc:You get it.
Marc:Mad TV.
Marc:I forgot how much this guy's fucking done.
Marc:Well, he's on the show shortly.
Marc:He's coming up in a minute.
Marc:I need something authentic.
Marc:I need something real.
Marc:You know, I was just on the toilet.
Marc:I don't want to be crass.
Marc:I'm not a big reader in there.
Marc:I don't know why people stack up magazines.
Marc:I mean, how long do you really want to sit in there?
Marc:How long does it really take?
Marc:Are you okay?
Marc:Are you okay?
Marc:It takes that long.
Marc:Are you okay?
Marc:But I got my denial of death in there just sitting there on the toilet because I don't fuck around.
Marc:You know, if I'm going to be taking the time to read, I want it to be deep.
Marc:I want it to have some resonance.
Marc:And God knows I've talked about this book enough on this show.
Marc:But every time I pick it up, and that is the true testament of a work of genius.
Marc:Dig this, quote, people create the reality they need in order to discover themselves, unquote.
Marc:What do you even do with that?
Marc:What is it all about perception?
Marc:When you think about that question about reality, and I'm not going to slide into philosophizing, but that thing had some impact on me because obviously it's all relegated or relevant to our perception.
Marc:That's the context of our reality is what we perceive.
Marc:It's all right here in front of us, but you can't take it all in all at once and acknowledge that really your brain would explode.
Marc:But for some reason, that line in that moment really, people create the reality they need in order to discover themselves or conversely, obviously, to avoid themselves.
Marc:But I think that's the ultimate drive is to find your groove that you can live in and feel that you are being the best you.
Marc:Maybe shop around for a reality.
Marc:You don't have to commit to any one reality.
Marc:You don't have to be locked into a reality.
Marc:You can always return a reality.
Marc:You can exchange a reality for a reality that fits you better.
Marc:You can tweak your reality so it makes more sense to you.
Marc:You don't have to commit to the reality that you were given.
Marc:Feel free to do whatever you want with it.
Marc:Trade it in.
Marc:You can trade a friend for their reality.
Marc:That's called marriage.
Marc:Authenticity.
Marc:That might be what dictates your search for your reality there.
Marc:People create the reality they need in order to discover themselves.
Marc:How do you get close to that fine wood grain?
Marc:How do you get close to that, the real deal that you are?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Terror is one way.
Marc:Creativity is another way.
Marc:Being humbled and handed your ass is another way.
Marc:Sometimes the world will chip away at you and then you just have to assess what's left.
Marc:And then you're like, oh God, this is me.
Marc:I finally, finally life has taken a few chunks off of the illusion that I had built for myself.
Marc:And look what I'm left with.
Marc:I'm slowly crumbling, but I'm okay with it.
Marc:Could somebody make me some shelves, please?
Marc:A cabinet?
Marc:I don't want to go to Ikea.
Marc:There's no authenticity there.
Marc:There's part of you that rationalizes it.
Marc:Like, look, it's quick.
Marc:It looks good enough.
Marc:It'll fit the wall, but it'll look like fucking Ikea no matter what.
Marc:There's three colors they have.
Marc:I'm not buying it.
Marc:I'm not doing it.
Marc:why does it why does it i'm not willing to pay a craftsman a reasonable amount of money to build me a wall shelf for my uh for stuff is there anyone out there a fan of wtf in the la area who is a cabinet maker who toils away as they listen to me sanding wood dictating finishes and
Marc:Getting the stain right.
Marc:Where are you?
Marc:Maybe I should write to Nick Offerman, but that can't.
Marc:He's got to be busy.
Marc:He's not making a goddamn console for me.
Marc:Look, I'm willing to work with you.
Marc:Help me out.
Marc:Throw me a bone.
Marc:I'm looking for something real.
Marc:I'm looking for something authentic.
Marc:I'm looking for something close to the grain.
Marc:You dig what I'm saying?
Marc:Something that feels like something that somebody made, not something that feels like I put it together with ridiculous tools.
Marc:Damn it.
Marc:I got a speeding ticket.
Marc:Did I tell you that?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:4.30 in the morning.
Marc:I'm driving 55 miles an hour down York Boulevard at 4.30 in the morning.
Marc:It's still dark.
Marc:I'm going to the airport.
Marc:I'm running late.
Marc:This is my neighborhood, man.
Marc:There's nobody out.
Marc:Where's that rule?
Marc:Where's the rule that if there's nobody on the road and it's the middle of the fucking night and you're not drunk, you could drive fast if you keep your shit together.
Marc:Where's that rule?
Marc:So I'm just cruising, man, down York.
Marc:I'm not going 100.
Marc:I'm going 55.
Marc:All right.
Marc:It's a 35 mile an hour zone.
Marc:Who pays attention?
Marc:You're just trying to get someplace.
Marc:There's not supposed to be cops there.
Marc:There's usually other cars around.
Marc:Boom.
Marc:Motorcycle cop on my ass.
Marc:Pulls me over.
Marc:Comes up to the window.
Marc:I open the window.
Marc:Do whatever the male equivalent of pushing my tits up.
Marc:Hey, how you doing?
Marc:I'm trying to get to the airport.
Marc:I'm on my way to the airport.
Marc:Look, there's my bag.
Marc:Got my bag in the back seat right there, officer.
Marc:I'm running a little late.
Marc:He's like, oh.
Marc:He actually got flustered and was sort of accommodating.
Marc:It was very weird.
Marc:The power of, I guess...
Marc:Being white in Los Angeles, I got an accommodating police officer who was.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, I can't complain.
Marc:He's like, oh, well, do you have insurance?
Marc:I'm like, yeah, I got insurance.
Marc:He's like, all right.
Marc:Didn't even ask for my insurance card.
Marc:You just give me your license.
Marc:Let me get this done.
Marc:Let me get this written up.
Marc:And I guess I should be grateful for that.
Marc:I guess I am.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:But he's standing in the back of my car, writing it up.
Marc:Then I see like three other motorcycle cops come gather around him, get off their their their motorcycles and do the I guess they literally were high fiving each other.
Marc:I don't know if I was this guy's cherry, if I popped his cherry or, you know, they were looking for.
Marc:For people, I don't know why congratulations were in order, but I was the guy.
Marc:I was the one that tipped the scales.
Marc:Maybe they just made their quota, but I can't imagine that they'd be that excited over that.
Marc:So he comes back.
Marc:He's like, look, man, you were going 55 into 35, and I just don't want to be calling your kin next time with some bad news.
Marc:Who's calling kin next?
Marc:Where does that language come from?
Marc:We in the Wild West.
Marc:And then there was that moment where he gives me the ticket.
Marc:I'm like, thank you.
Marc:I appreciate it.
Marc:Do I appreciate it?
Marc:What is with that moment of politeness?
Marc:Why can't at least at that moment, why can't you be like, you know, I hope you feel better about yourself.
Marc:You think you taught me a lesson?
Marc:Eventually they do teach you a lesson.
Marc:Somebody needs to tell me to slow down.
Marc:That's his job, is to keep me keeping me in check.
Marc:I can't get another ticket, man.
Marc:I'm too old to lose my license for bullshit.
Marc:Did I mention that we're going to be running three episodes a week a bit, occasionally now?
Marc:Like this week, we're going to be doing... If you don't mind, I'm going to re-release the Bryan Cranston episode from last year.
Marc:that we did with him before the season finale of last season's Breaking Bad.
Marc:Because, you know, there's a lot of people that haven't heard that.
Marc:And there's a lot of people that would be interested in hearing that.
Marc:I want to share that with you.
Marc:You can get all the episodes if you upload to that premium app.
Marc:But we're going to run Bryan Cranston on Wednesday.
Marc:And then on Thursday, our regular shows, we're going to be featuring Todd Snyder, the singer and songwriter.
Marc:He was here, did a couple songs.
Marc:Interesting guy living that life.
Marc:So there's that.
Marc:Live WTF tomorrow.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:The 28th at the Steve Allen Theater at the Tripany House at the Steve Allen Theater.
Marc:Live WTF.
Marc:Come out.
Marc:I don't know if there's tickets or what, but it's going to be big.
Marc:I got Dave Hill.
Marc:I got Moby.
Marc:I got Ari Spears.
Marc:I got Jake Fogelnest.
Marc:I got Jim Earl.
Marc:And I got Mike Bobbitt from the Midwest.
Marc:Moby.
Marc:Hmm.
Marc:That's going to be interesting.
Marc:So there's that.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Enough of me.
Marc:Should I give you that one more time, though?
Marc:Should I give you one thing one more time?
Marc:One thing.
Marc:One thing.
Marc:People create the reality they need in order to discover themselves.
Marc:Get on that.
Marc:Let's talk to the hilarious Andy Daly.
Marc:So you went to Glendale.
Marc:You didn't go to Silver Lake or Los Feliz.
Marc:Nope.
Marc:You really are that guy.
Marc:I am that guy.
Marc:This isn't a character at all.
Guest:I went for the full suburban lifestyle.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:I have nobody.
Guest:None of my neighbors are in show business.
Guest:None of them?
Guest:Well, no, that's not true.
Guest:I have an actor who lives behind us.
Guest:Behind you?
Marc:On your property?
Marc:He's in the shack.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He's about to... Like a big actor?
Guest:No, no, but a great actor.
Guest:He's really good.
Guest:You know where you know him from?
Guest:Where?
Guest:If you watch Deadwood, he's in a very memorable scene in Deadwood where he's like a really big fan of Wild Bill's, and then Wild Bill's like, all right, move it along, and he gets furious with him.
Guest:It's a great scene because it starts with, hey, you're Wild Bill, and it ends with, fuck you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's really good.
Guest:That's show business in a nutshell.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They summed it up in like a two-minute scene.
Marc:Do you have people that come up to you and are like,
Guest:you're that guy yeah sure but is that do they know your name uh sometimes they do yeah but a lot of the time you know that there's that way of being recognized that's not the best of the world where it's like help me recognize you yeah and no that's not it that's not it nope help me no help me have a moment where i go yeah that's you it may take a while yeah
Guest:I had that moment in Santa Fe.
Guest:It just reminded me.
Guest:Here's a new etiquette rule.
Guest:I think if you see somebody but you don't know who they are, it's fine to say, where do I know you from?
Guest:But then just politely accept whatever the first thing is that they tell you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, you might know me from Eastbound and Down.
Guest:Then don't go, no.
Guest:I don't want you.
Guest:Just say, yeah.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:Well, I think you're great.
Guest:Then we're done.
Marc:But the problem is that Andy Daly, by the way, is in the garage from Eastbound and Down and a lot of other things.
Marc:You were in a lot of other things.
Guest:I've been in it, yeah.
Guest:Been in some movies.
Guest:There are certain people of a certain age range, and often if somebody is black or Hispanic, they know me from MADtv.
Marc:That was the big break, though, right?
Marc:I suppose so.
Marc:I mean, I didn't realize.
Marc:You were on there for, what, two years, three years?
Marc:Two.
Marc:More like a season and a half, really, my first season.
Marc:I think I've known you since you were a child.
Marc:That's probably true.
Marc:Is that probably true?
Marc:Well, I think we would have met in the Luna Lounge days in New York, like 95, 6, 7.
Marc:Right, and you were doing some stand-up, and then you were hanging around with that Secunda guy.
Marc:That's right, uh-huh, the two Andys.
Marc:The two Andys, that's right.
Marc:And you, of course, were the funny Andy.
Guest:I was the fun though.
Marc:I was the funny one and the smart one and the good-looking one.
Guest:It was a big burden.
Guest:Where is Andy Secunda?
Guest:Andy Secunda.
Guest:He just moved to Los Angeles, as a matter of fact.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Take your time.
Guest:Don't rush into show business.
Guest:He held out for a long time, but he just moved.
Marc:And his sister's been here forever.
Marc:Yes, I know.
Marc:She's still an agent?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:She was my first agent.
Marc:She was my first agent.
Marc:Why?
Marc:Do you ever talk to her?
Guest:Yeah, I've talked to her, yeah.
Guest:I have no idea what she's up to.
Guest:She's doing, just being a super comedy agent.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Agent to the stars, yes, of course, absolutely.
Guest:Who are her big people now?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Why don't we get her on the phone?
Marc:Get her on the phone and find out who her big people are.
Marc:Ruthann, who are you getting the new version of development deals for these days?
Marc:I think she has a lot of big clients, yeah.
Guest:it's so weird because you know when you're younger you think like they're my friends and then you like my friend doesn't call me no I think well Ruth Ann was a friend because I went to college with Andy Secunda right and so you knew the family
Guest:uh yeah yeah i didn't i never met her until after college but he and i were we wrote together and we're on a sketch show together in college and then after college we did some stuff together so i met her i think i met her socially as my friend's sister before i really right you know was it like your friends like hot sister like so how old's your sister any of that going on no i don't i don't think so you don't like shoes come on let's get to the bottom of this
Guest:Well, I do despise Jews.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:I figured, yeah.
Marc:You have that vibe to you.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah, but not in a hostile or an unfriendly way.
Marc:I'll tolerate you because you live in my neighborhood.
Marc:Right.
Marc:We're in the same business.
Marc:Yes, right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think I make it friendly.
Guest:I don't go the Bill Gibson route.
Guest:Yes, of course I hate Jews, but there's no reason that we can't be friendly.
Marc:Yeah, because we're people.
Marc:And what I say at home and in my head is my business.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Where'd you come from?
Marc:Where do you come from?
Marc:New Jersey.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:What part?
Guest:Town called Ridgewood in Bergen County.
Guest:That's not far from where my roots are.
Guest:Oh, where's that?
Guest:Pompton Lakes.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:This happens almost every time I have a conversation about New Jersey.
Guest:With Pompton Lakes?
Guest:No, I don't know.
Guest:I've never heard of the town.
Marc:Do you know a place called the Milk Barn?
Marc:Nope.
Marc:The ice cream place?
Marc:Nope.
Marc:How about Willowbrook Mall?
Marc:Anything?
Marc:I've heard of it.
Marc:Paramus Park Mall.
Marc:Yes, that was my mall.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:The Paramus Park Mall was my mall.
Marc:Thank God.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So let's do that then.
Guest:There was a giant turkey.
Guest:There was a giant statue of an Indian boy riding a turkey.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:In the middle of the Paramus Park Mall.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Fond memories of that.
Marc:What the hell was that about?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I remember when Paramus Park Mall was discovered.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It wasn't built.
Marc:It was discovered.
Marc:No.
Marc:It was always there.
Marc:It was built by the people that used to farm the giant turkeys.
Marc:Yeah, like a lot of people don't know that.
Guest:Archaeologists discovered the Parabas Park Memorial.
Marc:There was already a Spencer Gifts there.
Marc:Spencer Gifts with a fully stocked adult section.
Marc:Beautiful.
Marc:Yeah, and it turns out the sense of humor of the ancients was no different.
Marc:You could go in there and open a box as a 12-year-old and go, look, it's a sock like a penis.
Marc:it's a box of farts yeah a box of farts ah i i don't know were you uh uh old enough to remember did they have the black light section in the back sure yeah where you go back there and you're like ah this is like everything plays out in spencer's gifts you walk in it's like stupid ashtrays and bullshit gifts and then all of a sudden man you go into the back and you're like man there's another world out this could be my life yeah yeah yeah i had a black light you did what were your posters
Guest:I had the Led Zeppelin guy up on the hill with the lantern.
Guest:You did from the Zofo album, from Stairway to Heaven, sure.
Guest:Oh, you did?
Guest:You had that?
Guest:Whatever it is, like velvet, but the cheap version of it.
Guest:Right, right, but it lit up bright, yeah.
Guest:And that was it?
Marc:That's all I recall having.
Marc:Some reason or another, my parents let me have the horoscope sexual positions.
Marc:I had that one, yeah.
Marc:I don't know that one.
Marc:Yeah, it was just each month in each different fucking position, and I had that.
Marc:disturbing yeah i don't know why they it wasn't that graphic you know it was just you know vague but uh i don't know why they wouldn't have it so you had one black light poster that's all i recall having yeah i don't know what else i did with that black light i don't know either probably just looked at the specks of dust on your sheets yeah look what is this oh my god my cum stains light up
Marc:I better not let my mom turn this on.
Guest:One thing I remember about my black light, I had a little brother.
Guest:He was eight years younger than me.
Guest:I still have that brother.
Guest:That's a long way.
Guest:Yeah, it is.
Guest:But he wrote at some point on the box of the black light, hot, do not touch.
Guest:Meaning that he had some personal experience.
Guest:Burned his hand on that?
Guest:How many siblings do you have?
Guest:I have an older brother.
Guest:He's three years older than me and a younger brother.
Guest:Eight years younger.
Marc:That's a big age jump.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Was that last one at whoops?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:We never talked about that.
Marc:Never got down to it.
Marc:I never asked my parents.
Marc:Never sat down with your younger brother and your parents and just said, tell him.
Marc:Tell him he's an accident.
Marc:There's no way.
Marc:He deserves to know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You didn't want him.
Guest:He's your younger brother in show business?
Guest:He is an illustrator.
Guest:He's a great illustrator.
Guest:Really?
Guest:He did all the artwork on my album, and he does cartoons online about video games for this website.
Guest:He's a nerd guy?
Guest:Yeah, he's a super nerd guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He does these cartoons about video games that sometimes I have no idea what is being discussed.
Marc:Because it's like vintage video games and stuff like that.
Marc:Going how far back?
Marc:Not my video games.
Marc:We're not talking like Galaga.
Marc:Yeah, stuff like that.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:And the one where you shoot asteroids.
Marc:And Space Invaders.
Marc:Space Invaders.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:Yeah, he's into all that weird stuff.
Marc:That's not weird.
Marc:It's old.
Marc:That's what it is.
Marc:It's old.
Marc:Retro.
Marc:Back before people shot people that looked like people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He writes about the history of video games.
Marc:Interesting.
Marc:Pong.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Pong.
Pong.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Well, that's good for him.
Marc:Yeah, he's great.
Marc:He's very funny.
Marc:And your older brother does what?
Marc:He's a lawyer.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Does he help out sometimes?
Marc:Are you in trouble?
Marc:Hey, buddy.
Marc:Hey, bro.
Guest:I have asked him for advice over the years.
Marc:Bro, I got to get out of jail.
Guest:You've never been in jail.
Marc:I've never been in jail.
Guest:No, I don't think I've ever been close to being in jail.
Marc:Yeah, you seem like a decent upstanding citizen.
Guest:That's the vibe I get.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:That's precisely right.
Guest:Civic minded.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Conscientious.
Guest:Well, I mean, that's sort of your character, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's not too far from the truth.
Marc:Really?
Marc:To be honest.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Well, there needs to be a guy like you.
Marc:You're almost like you're an archetype.
Marc:Oh, uh-huh.
Marc:And a television archetype.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He's the pleasant guy.
Marc:The guy you want to see lose it.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:And there's nothing that I love more than that.
Guest:And then losing it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Being 100% together and then losing it.
Guest:That's so much fun.
Guest:It's the best.
Marc:Are you friends with Rachel Harris?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I think you guys should just do that together.
Marc:You should have a lose it off.
Marc:She's like the female companion part.
Marc:The perfect suburban couple that's got everything all together and then just fucking loses it in front of your eyes.
Marc:You just fucking snap right in front of each other.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:When did you do, like, how did you get to where you are now?
Marc:I mean, in high school, were you a do-gooder student government guy?
Marc:That's funny.
Marc:Yes, I was.
Guest:I might as well be a fucking fortune tower.
Guest:Well, I was and I wasn't because I ran unsuccessfully for student government every single year.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But then in my senior year, there was an appointed position that I was appointed to by the principal.
Yeah.
Guest:Like a Supreme Court appointment?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Was there a recount?
Guest:He threw me a bone.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:No, the principal had to appoint somebody to be the student representative to the Board of Education, which meant that I attended Board of Education meetings and represented the student's point of view.
Guest:Oh, he found a sucker in you then.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Who the fuck would want to do that?
Marc:This is a big opportunity.
Guest:Let me find somebody who always runs for office and loses.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:Seems genuinely interested in things.
Marc:and would like to feel important, but I know that no other student would possibly want to do this.
Guest:And I really dug into it.
Guest:I mean, I read the agenda front and back.
Guest:I asked questions.
Guest:Like, I was heavily involved in that.
Guest:At the school board, you were asking questions?
Guest:Yes, yes.
Guest:And you were, like, what, 15?
Guest:I was 17, and I had a seat there with the school board members.
Guest:Were there other students?
Guest:Very seriously.
Guest:No, this was the one student representative to the Board of Education.
Guest:And I got very involved in student parking and went to lots of town council meetings and was very, like...
Guest:Truly a civic-minded teen, and I wrote for the school newspaper, and I was always letting the local newspaper know what I was up to.
Guest:They were constantly writing articles about me.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I was always firing off press releases about what I was up to.
Guest:I was a very high-profile, but not well-liked young man.
Guest:LAUGHTER
Marc:Everybody knew who I was, but I never got invited to the parties.
Marc:I would say not.
Marc:They were afraid that you were, like, undercover.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:There was something more than just illegal alcohol at the party last night, writes Andy Daly.
Guest:That would not have been outside the realm of possibility.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:There was a class or a health class the day that they talked about that the guy did the do not drink alcohol class.
Guest:I attended that voluntarily a couple of times beyond what I had because I wanted arguments against alcohol.
Guest:I wanted to arm myself with more arguments against alcohol.
Guest:That was a weird move.
Marc:So you wanted no friends.
Marc:I mean, who were your friends?
Marc:Were you like friends with teachers?
Marc:Were you on a first name basis with the principal?
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Yeah, Bob.
Guest:What a horrible childhood you had.
Guest:Look what you did to yourself.
Guest:I was in a band.
Guest:I played drums in a band.
Guest:Those guys were my friends.
Guest:A band of chess players?
Guest:What do you mean you play drums?
Guest:What kind of band?
Guest:We played a lot of classic rock covers and stuff at charity functions.
Guest:Charity functions.
Guest:Never any high school parties.
Guest:I don't know that we ever got hired to do a dance.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Did you ever do parties?
Guest:gee whiz no i don't think so gee whiz no your rock band didn't play high school parties i don't think we ever got asked to play any parties no what what kind of classic hits we talking about you know we went from phoenix arizona all the way to tacoma oh yeah yeah for sure sure there was some credence in there oh real classic yeah yeah all that stuff you were like a do-goody good guy
Guest:Yes, except that I was flunking all of my classes was the one weird thing about me.
Guest:I was a horrible, horrible student.
Guest:I got C's and D's and everything.
Guest:And I had all these extracurricular activities that I was heavily invested in and involved in.
Guest:And in every way was a model teen, except that I was flunking all of my classes.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that was a very stressful lifestyle.
Guest:And all my friends were like college bound.
Marc:But wait, was the allusion to the other students that you were doing well?
Guest:Yeah, I don't think anybody knew that I wasn't doing well.
Marc:So you were hated because you were such a do-gooder.
Marc:I wasn't hated.
Marc:And then the illusion was that that guy is just the perfect guy, but secretly you were flunking.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you couldn't even be a rebel.
Marc:You couldn't even be like, yeah, fuck you, I'm flunking, I'm out of here.
Guest:Yeah, I was not a burnout.
Guest:I was a model citizen who just happened to be doing poorly in school.
Marc:And how did that play with the principal?
Marc:Did you have connections?
Marc:Were you like, Bob, can you throw me a bone here in the...
Marc:sort of a little bit i did have to go in front of like a review board of teachers who all loved me to to because i had like 30 absences in physics i just didn't go and so you ditched class yeah yeah yeah so you're that guy what were you doing when you were ditching physics were you busy cleaning up at an old folks home or doing some random community service around your neighborhood
Guest:Well, I was very involved in extracurricular activities.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There was a television production elective that we could take in my high school.
Guest:I was heavily into that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you know that Andy Blitz and I were high school buddies and we were- Andy Blitz?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's a pretty good impression.
Guest:We did sketch comedy together in high school, believe it or not.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Andy Blitz?
Marc:Did he talk differently?
Marc:My name is Andy Blitz.
Yeah.
Guest:He might have been slightly more high energy.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I'd like to see him do improv.
Marc:Go.
Marc:Maybe if we didn't do it that way, we could.
Guest:That's pretty good.
Marc:I always liked him.
Guest:He ropes you into his energy level, I feel like.
Guest:Oh, he's great.
Guest:What's he doing?
Guest:Stand up and stuff.
Guest:He's out here?
Guest:Yeah, he goes back and forth.
Marc:You were in a sketch group, just the two of you?
Marc:Andy?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You only work with other people called Andy.
Guest:I only work with other guys named Andy.
Guest:That's it.
Marc:Andy Quits, Andy Secunda.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was just the two of you in the sketch group?
Guest:It wasn't really a sketch group.
Guest:We just wrote sketches and filmed them.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Yeah, we had a little sketch show.
Guest:And yeah, someday those sketches should see the light of day.
Guest:Do you have them?
Guest:Yeah, I do have them.
Guest:And Blitz was like a really, like a fully formed sketch comedy genius at 16, 17.
Marc:Really funny stuff.
Marc:What does it mean to be a sketch comedy genius?
Marc:Do you always understand sketches?
Marc:You've done a lot of sketch work, and it's one of my blind... Sometimes I watch sketches, and I'm like, how did anyone say this is done on paper?
Marc:When you write a sketch, what do you usually... If you were teaching a class on sketch writing, what would you say?
Marc:Would you say, first, just have an idea, and then just work it?
Marc:There you go.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:Yeah, and I'd try to get paid like $300 for that class.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But it would be.
Guest:And then you go, all right, go ahead, do it, and turn them in.
Guest:We'll have a look at them.
Guest:I think like a sketch comedy person is always shopping around for sketch premises in their life, and everything that happens to them is like, is that a sketch?
Guest:Is that a sketch?
Marc:Almost like we do jokes.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Absolutely, and then, you know.
Marc:And how do you take it over the top usually is what it is.
Guest:Well, one of the things that we learned at the UCB theater and, you know, my early days taking classes there was that it is about finding a game for the scene, you know, whatever it is.
Guest:If it's this guy's trying to return a dead parrot and this guy's trying to convince him it's not dead.
Guest:There's your game for the scene.
Guest:Right.
Guest:How do I play?
Guest:Just play that out.
Guest:Oh, I get it.
Guest:Heighten those beats.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, and it becomes more and more ridiculous and you're done when it can't get any more ridiculous.
Marc:And then like when and then sometimes you walk off stage and go that that should be a sketch.
Marc:I find that is rare, personally.
Marc:When you do an improv, that becomes a sketch?
Guest:I don't know if it's just my point of view, but I never walk off stage after an ASCAT and go, we gotta write that up, I don't know.
Guest:I think it's just a sensibility that I feel like we put it, we did it, it's gone, it's done.
Guest:Now I'm thinking about something else.
Guest:Okay, so after flunking out of high school.
Marc:Yeah, I think I graduated with a low C average.
Marc:Okay, and then you were like, I'm done with this government thing.
Marc:Was there a point where you were like, I should be in politics?
Guest:Yes, except that, you know, I'm more of a man of action than a man of learning.
Guest:I would have had to take school a little more seriously.
Guest:I really, really just completely did not like school.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So no.
Guest:And I wasn't going to go to college at all until I read a unauthorized biography of David Letterman, where I learned that he went to college and got a degree in television and radio.
Guest:And I was like, well, I could do that.
Guest:And that's what you decided.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You were moved by Letterman.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, because my parents really wanted me to go to college.
Guest:Not going to college didn't seem like an option.
Guest:And when I found out you could major in television and radio, I was like, I think I could swing that.
Guest:That could hold my interest.
Guest:And where did you go to college?
Guest:I went to Ithaca College.
Guest:Way up there.
Guest:Yeah, upstate New York.
Guest:But actually, my grades were not good enough to get into their television program.
Guest:So you went to their moron program?
Guest:I did.
Guest:Yeah, pretty much.
Guest:They literally sent me a form saying, well, you can't get into that program because it's competitive.
Guest:But here, check off, choose one of any of these like 40 majors and you can come and do whatever that is.
Marc:We have our version of community college.
Marc:Kind of.
Marc:That you can do for two years and then we'll integrate you into the main population.
Marc:Is that what that was?
Guest:Well, I went there hoping to get good grades in my first year there so I could transfer into television radio.
Guest:And is that what happened?
Guest:My grade point average my first semester of college was 1.48.
Guest:Jesus, you're a moron.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's all very surprising to me.
Guest:No, I just couldn't.
Guest:I couldn't.
Guest:I just couldn't focus.
Guest:I didn't care.
Guest:I just couldn't do it.
Guest:Really?
Marc:I'm a daydreamer.
Marc:This is very surprising to me.
Marc:So you're not a druggie.
Marc:No.
Marc:And you seem to be successfully repressing your childhood.
Marc:Yes, thank you.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:It's hard work.
Marc:You were just a space case, like ADD or something?
Marc:No.
Marc:Maybe.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:No, I just have other things to think about.
Guest:What were you thinking about?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Girls.
Guest:It's a good question.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Why was I so bad in school?
Guest:I think a lot of the time, like in math and science classes, I would understand what they were talking about for two weeks, and then I'd be like, could we just hang here for about a month?
Guest:But then they'd keep going on to other stuff.
Guest:Moving too quick.
Guest:Yeah, they were just moving too fast.
Guest:Just got to hang on that what is X thing.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:Now where are we?
Guest:We're talking vectors.
Guest:Now we're on to something else.
Guest:Yeah, forget it.
Marc:I would just lose the thread, and that would be it.
Marc:I'd be out of the game for the years.
Marc:I'm the same way, though.
Marc:I spaced out during everything.
Marc:And if you miss that one day in geometry or the one day in algebra, you're fucked.
Guest:Forget it.
Marc:There's no going back.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's done.
Marc:Numbers aren't.
Marc:They're not for you.
Marc:Nope.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:You space out two days in algebra.
Marc:You're never going to be a scientist.
Marc:Nope.
Marc:Matter of fact, you're never going to get past algebra.
Yeah.
Guest:In my physics class, I sat next to this guy who was like, physics is common sense.
Guest:You don't have to read the book.
Guest:You don't even have to pay attention.
Guest:Do whatever you want in this class.
Guest:And I was like, fucking, that's great news.
Guest:And then I just got lost.
Guest:I didn't know what was happening.
Guest:And then one day the teacher was out and the guy, this guy, went up and taught the class.
Guest:The guy who said, come on, it's easy.
Guest:Because he's a fucking genius.
Yeah.
Guest:Did you say, you misled me?
Marc:I didn't know you were a genius.
Marc:I don't know what's happening in the ripple tank.
Marc:Yeah, it's different.
Marc:Common sense for a genius is something highly elevated.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Common sense for me is like, what am I going to eat for lunch today?
Marc:Maybe something not poison.
Yeah.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Oh, I had a bad diet too.
Guest:But no, well like English and history classes, like I would constantly get papers back that had like an A written on it but crossed out and then a D minus for lateness.
Guest:It was just that kind of thing.
Guest:I just couldn't make myself do it and I wanted to.
Guest:I just did not have the willpower to like sit down and fucking do it.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:And yeah.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:It's good to know.
Marc:So you're just kind of paralyzed with some sort of-
Guest:I was at the time.
Guest:Well, then after that one point four eight debacle in college, I was on the dean's list for the rest of college because I just decided like at that point, I was like, all right, come on.
Guest:You know, like this is you know what?
Guest:It was kind of like about saying this is about me and it benefits me to be here doing this.
Guest:I never quite understood it that way in high school.
Guest:You just thought it was something you had to do.
Marc:In the first year of college, my parents wanted me to be here.
Guest:Right, exactly.
Marc:Yeah, because I almost flunked out of high school.
Marc:And then my senior year, I realized, because I was one of those kids, I was like, I'm not going to college.
Marc:What do I need it for?
Marc:I had no fucking clue how life was lived by anybody for any reason.
Marc:I had no career goals.
Marc:I had no structure.
Marc:My parents were stupid.
Marc:They gave me no guidance whatsoever.
Marc:I might as well have been in the wild, but I wasn't.
Marc:I think in my heart I was in the wild, but they gave me a nice car when I was old enough to drive.
Marc:You don't always get that in the wild.
Marc:Sometimes you do.
Guest:You never have to find it.
Marc:A nice vehicle that you take driver's head and you walk out and there's a bow around a Datsun B210.
Marc:Gee, my parents aren't animals.
Guest:Beautiful.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:What was your first car?
Guest:A Chevy Celebrity wagon.
Guest:That was a nine-seater.
Yeah.
Marc:That was a hand-me-down?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:My dad drove it hard for five or six years.
Guest:A nine-seater.
Guest:Nine-seater.
Marc:I had room for eight more friends than I had.
Guest:To go to the school council meeting.
Guest:Who's going?
Guest:Plenty of room.
Guest:This is ironic.
Guest:I didn't get that car until college.
Guest:And in high school, a lot of the kids who went to my high school were pretty well off and had cars.
Guest:And there was a whole controversy about student parking around the high school.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Like the neighbors around there did not want the kids parking on the streets.
Guest:And I led a protest to maintain student parking on the streets, like going to town council meetings and collecting signatures and all that.
Guest:I didn't have a car.
Guest:And none of the fucking kids who had cars ever showed up to my rallies.
Marc:It's the saddest story I ever heard.
Marc:Your big attempt to get friends just didn't pan out.
Marc:You're like, these people, how will they not like me now?
Marc:I'm fighting for their right to park in walking distance of the school.
Marc:I'm fighting for their right to smoke pot in front of neighbors' houses.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And to make dogs uncomfortable around the neighborhood.
Guest:It is funny looking back on it.
Guest:I think those parents had a point.
Guest:At the time, I was like, this is so insulting.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But yeah, of course.
Guest:We're human.
Guest:We're just kids.
Marc:No, you don't want those kids driving up and down your street.
Marc:It's a mess.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:Yeah, during the day.
Guest:Animals.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And none of them supported you.
Marc:So when did you find yourself with a friend finally?
Marc:I did have a few friends.
Guest:I had some friends in high school.
Guest:What were they like?
Guest:You know, smart, college-bound kids who also like to play classic rock at charity functions.
Guest:The two guys in the band with you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that was it.
Guest:No.
Guest:Did you play sports?
Guest:Andy Blitz was my friend.
Guest:Did I play sports?
Guest:Mark, please.
Guest:No, I didn't play sports.
Guest:Nothing?
Guest:No golf?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:I did take golf in college.
Guest:That first semester in college, I took golf.
Guest:That must have been what you were working on.
Guest:No, that class, I went to the first class, and then I never went back because it was on the other end of the campus, and it was early in the morning.
Guest:And at the end of that semester, the golf teacher said to me, he goes, I'm not going to fail you because I've never failed anybody.
Dude.
Guest:But this isn't your game.
Guest:They're going to give you a D minus because you literally came once.
Guest:Somehow that made sense to him.
Guest:Because I've never failed anybody, I'm not going to fail you.
Marc:Okay, so you're ditching physics and you're ditching college and you're not smoking pot.
Marc:What the fuck were you doing?
Marc:Watching television.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No pot?
Guest:No, not in high school, but in college.
Guest:I did smoke some pot in college.
Guest:And then actually, once I started drinking, I started drinking like senior year in high school.
Guest:That became a very big part of my life.
Guest:I very much enjoyed it.
Marc:Sure, that's a good part of one's life.
Marc:You're like, I found a friend finally.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:And it's a friend that'll keep me at home.
Marc:And when I go out, it makes me funny.
Marc:Yeah, right, true.
Marc:So when did you get into the acting and whatnot?
Guest:I was always acting.
Marc:Throughout your entire childhood?
Marc:Yeah, pretty much.
Marc:You were acting like you gave a shit about things?
Yeah.
Guest:Things other than me.
Guest:Yeah, no, I was actually, I know that in first grade, my first grade teacher recommended I take a drama class because I was a ham in class.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was always acting, and I was in little plays and stuff in like fourth grade and sixth grade.
Guest:Really?
Guest:In junior high, yeah.
Guest:In junior high, did you do any musicals?
Guest:Yes, I always managed to get the part in the musical of the guy who didn't have to sing.
Guest:Like there's one T-bird named Sonny in Grease who doesn't have a song.
Guest:I got that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was the landlord in Wonderful Town.
Guest:He doesn't have a song.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Evil Eye Flegal and Little Abner.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He doesn't sing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you're those guys.
Marc:The non-singing parts in musicals.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Surprisingly enough, most musicals have a part for somebody that cannot sing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And could you sing?
Guest:I could carry a tune, but I didn't like the idea of me standing there singing.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:What do you think about it?
Marc:Not a good idea.
Guest:No, it didn't sound like fun.
Guest:Silly.
Marc:Yeah, it did seem silly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And when you were doing the acting, I mean, did you at least feel excited about that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:No, I felt excited about a lot of things.
Guest:Like I was always engaged, like heavily engaged in like creative projects and extracurricular activities and stuff like that.
Guest:But I just wasn't into school.
Guest:What were some of the other extracurricular activities?
Guest:Writing for the school paper.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Breaking the big stories.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Breaking the real big stories?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Writing incendiary columns.
Guest:Did you?
Guest:Getting in trouble, yes.
Guest:I wrote a column once where I had a humor column.
Oh, boy.
Guest:And I wrote... The cheerleading squad used to put up signs in the cafeteria and... Like go team signs?
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:On Fridays.
Guest:And they were ugly.
Guest:They were like these really ugly posters on like that brown paper and stuff.
Guest:And they would always cover over the clock in the cafeteria.
Guest:And so in one of my hilarious humor columns, I complained...
Guest:About that and about the fact that it didn't work because the team always lost, which they always did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that managed to, right off the bat, infuriate the entire football team and the whole cheerleading squad.
Marc:Making friends all over the place.
Guest:That was a bad move.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And from what I understand, the football coach at the next practice called me an asshole.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And got everybody riled up against me as a way of psyching up the team.
Guest:Like, look at this article.
Guest:This kid's making fun of us.
Guest:So I did get beat up a couple times.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:For that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How bad?
Guest:I kind of deserved it.
Guest:Well, it was more intimidation, like a bunch of guys pushing me against lockers and making threats and things like that.
Guest:So they put out a hit on you.
Marc:They did.
Guest:Yeah, the football coach put out a hit on me.
Marc:So you alienated the jocks entirely without any stoner support.
Marc:No stoner support.
Marc:Yeah, and the nerds, you couldn't really rally them.
Guest:Nerds are hard to rally in high school.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:They're just looking out for themselves.
Marc:I'm just trying to figure out these other band members.
Marc:They must be a real piece of work, these guys.
Guest:We were a good band.
Guest:Calvin was our guitarist, and he went on to MIT, and he used to build his own guitars.
Guest:He's a really smart guy.
Guest:And then John, this bassist John, yeah, it was a good group.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Any recordings of that?
Marc:Yeah, we did make a recording.
Marc:Do you have that?
Guest:I do have that, yes.
Guest:We were called John Calvin and the Protestants because John was the bassist and Calvin was the guitarist.
Guest:So it was a pun about the Reformation.
Guest:Sure, that's popular in high school.
Marc:I guess it's really catchy, those kind of jokes, when you're a high school man playing Credence covers.
Marc:John Calvin and the Protestants.
Marc:Some high-minded shit there.
Guest:You're kind of making me seem like a nerd.
Guest:You are a nerd.
Guest:I don't know where that's coming from.
Marc:I'm not sure.
Marc:I didn't tell you this was going to be the... I'm on the dais of the Andy Daly roast.
Marc:I've never really done a one-on-one roast before, but it's very fun.
Marc:It's the most intimate roast of all.
Marc:Am I beating up on you too bad?
Marc:You've done great things.
Marc:High school.
Marc:Yes, thank you.
Marc:I'm poorly representing my former self.
Marc:You are?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, I think you worked hard at things that didn't matter.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Marc:And you played some music for people that didn't care.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It just sounds like a rough to the high school.
Marc:High school's rough for everybody.
Marc:High school is miserable, yeah.
Marc:But you weren't the funny guy.
Marc:But you're hanging around with Blitz.
Marc:He must have been funny.
Marc:He was really funny.
Marc:But did Blitz have friends?
Guest:Yeah, Blitz had some friends, yeah.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:It's not that I did not have no friends.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I just wasn't in that popular crowd, you know.
Marc:so when did you get into the the big acting like in college did you make it into that program or what no I never made it into the television radio saddest back story I've ever heard in my life big bunch of you know almost lies about achievement
Guest:I don't think I ever actively lied about my grades.
Guest:It was just an unspoken kind of.
Guest:But no, there was a sketch comedy television show at my college that I got involved with.
Guest:And that Andy Blitz, no, Andy Secunda was in that.
Guest:And a lot of really funny people were on that.
Guest:And I did I did that comedy acting.
Guest:And then I realized, like, my grades are not good enough to ever get into the television program.
Guest:But I auditioned for the acting program because one of the other teachers who could have flunked me but didn't that first semester was this acting elective acting class.
Guest:And she was like, I think you're really good.
Guest:And I kind of want to encourage you to keep doing it.
Guest:So I'm going to give you a D minus.
Guest:A T minus?
Guest:Because I never went.
Guest:That's encouraging.
Guest:Yeah, I should have had enough.
Guest:You never went to that either?
Guest:No, not that I never went, but I exceeded the six absences that you were allowed.
Marc:Did you make it halfway to class, or did you just not get out of bed?
Marc:Were you depressed?
Guest:I just didn't get out of bed.
Guest:I didn't get out of bed.
Guest:Maybe I was depressed.
Guest:The fact that you could order a pizza at like 2.30 in the morning was just overwhelming to me.
Guest:That kind of freedom is hard to... It was insane.
Guest:I couldn't go to bed knowing that there's pizza out there.
Guest:And chicken Parmesan sandwiches.
Guest:And everybody had beer.
Guest:There was no going to bed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's a new world.
Guest:Yeah, it was too much.
Guest:I remember, yeah, the worst moment was my psychology, my intro to psychology of all classes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She said, you could get a zero on one of the exams I give, and I'll drop that score, and I average the rest.
Guest:So I took advantage of that on the first test.
Guest:I was like, I'm not going to study for it, and I'm not going to go, and that'll be my zero, and then I'll buckle down from here.
Guest:And I did okay, and then the last test, I fell asleep and didn't set an alarm, and I woke up with like 10 minutes to go before I had to be there to take the test.
Guest:I could have made it, but I didn't go there.
Guest:That was the saddest moment of college, I think.
Marc:Had you studied?
Guest:No, no.
Marc:So you had 10 minutes to study and go.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You woke up, you had 10 minutes to study what the test was going to be.
Guest:And I just had 10 minutes to go, I guess I'm not going to do anything about this.
Marc:And you just watch that clock go a minute past the hour you're supposed to be in class.
Marc:I'm like, this isn't happening.
Guest:I'm not going.
Guest:I'm actively not going.
Guest:I'm actively not going.
Guest:And that was a fascinating ride home.
Guest:My dad picked me up from college and drove me home four hours for Christmas break.
Guest:And somehow the topic of how I had done didn't come up.
Marc:you lucked out no i didn't yeah i didn't bring it up so all right so you got into drama and that's when you started doing well yeah yes because your your uh creativity was woken up yeah i think so yeah i yeah i didn't have to take any classes that didn't interest me at all right this was kind of a revelation of just like yeah so you were in the theater program yeah i was in the theater program yeah and you did all that kind of stuff i did clowning
Marc:It's a fair amount of clowning.
Guest:It was mostly clowning.
Marc:Did you do fencing?
Guest:No, I never did fencing.
Guest:Did you do dance?
Guest:I was compelled to take dance.
Guest:Yes, dance.
Guest:Six hours a week of voice and movement.
Guest:Voice and movement.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Did you do Alexander technique?
Guest:Certainly, yes.
Guest:I enjoyed that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I like Alexander technique.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But also a little too much of like, let's all put our heads on each other's stomachs and pass a sound around.
Guest:A little too much of that.
Guest:I don't know that one.
Guest:Is that an exercise?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:When you've got six hours a week of voice movement, that's an exercise.
Guest:Along with the anatomy coloring book.
Guest:That took up a lot of time.
Guest:What is that?
Guest:It's just a, I don't know.
Guest:It's a coloring book.
Guest:But we also did a variation on the trust fall that was like the most time consuming variation possible.
Guest:We're like one person stands up high and everybody else looks like they're ready to catch you.
Guest:And then you turn around and close your eyes.
Guest:And during that time, everybody else scrambles and hides.
Guest:So then you turn around again and now you're looking at a completely empty room because everybody has completely hidden things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Then you turn around and count to 30 and fall.
Guest:And in that 30 seconds, everybody has scrambled into place to catch you.
Guest:Wow.
Marc:I don't know why.
Guest:It just ups the stakes a little bit.
Marc:Sounds like a teacher was experimenting with some stuff.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:Stretching that time out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that was a voice and movement exercise?
Guest:Voice and movement.
Guest:Trust.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:That'll help you move and speak.
Marc:Yeah, but it seems like it's pushing the envelope of that.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It was kind of exciting.
Guest:What plays did you do in college?
Guest:Well, here again.
Guest:Now we run into trouble.
Guest:I didn't like doing the school-sponsored productions because there was a little too much authority and stuff.
Guest:I only did student-directed productions.
Guest:So you had a problem with authority.
Guest:A little bit.
Guest:Just in terms of somebody telling me exactly when I had to be at rehearsals and all that stuff.
Guest:I preferred the thing where let's all get our date books out and figure out when we can rehearse.
Guest:So you preferred like what would become regular show business for you.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're basically, your entire life was heading towards the UCV.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Kind of.
Marc:Can we all get up at around noon?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:That's not good for me.
Guest:Let's do it another time.
Guest:I was in one.
Guest:It's opening night, Andy.
Guest:I know, but I'm tired.
Guest:I was in one student like school official production and it really was a drag that like the stage manager was like you must be here a half an hour before blah blah blah and all that stuff and he just hated that guy so your way of dealing with your way of rebelling was like nah I'm just not gonna go
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, fuck you, man.
Guest:No.
Guest:Why does it have to be like that?
Guest:Just don't go.
Marc:Well, because then the fuck you, man, is just stuffed down.
Marc:It's stuffed down inside you.
Marc:Where it belongs.
Marc:Absolutely.
Guest:Stuff it right down there and go do something else.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:I'll take this schedule under advisement.
Guest:Where did he go?
Guest:He never came back.
Marc:So you're just a big bag of repressed fuck yous.
Marc:Is that what you're telling me?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's good.
Marc:That is the comedic power of you.
Marc:So you leave college with a degree in drama under your belt.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And you head to New York City.
Guest:Well, my parents lived in Jersey, so I lived in their basement for a while and worked at Bennigan's.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Basement in Bennigan's.
Guest:That could have been your life.
Guest:I know.
Guest:As a matter of fact, when I quit Bennigan's, the guy told me, you cannot quit.
Guest:And somehow I believed that.
Guest:He was like, you can't quit.
Guest:I need you.
Guest:No, the answer is no, you cannot quit.
Guest:And I was like, oh, fuck.
Guest:I can't quit.
Guest:I'm stuck here.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:I bought that.
Marc:How long did you stay after that?
Guest:I stayed for several months after that, but it was licensed to get drunk and high all the time.
Guest:After work?
Guest:No, on the job.
Guest:And I came up with some great innovative ways of waiting tables during that period.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like what?
Guest:What?
Guest:Well, like, why should I, if somebody gives me a drink, go and fill the drink order, like, immediately?
Guest:Why don't I wait until, like, 10 people give me drink orders and fill them all at once and then come back with a giant tray full of drink orders?
Guest:Some people are going to have to wait longer for their drinks, but the efficiency, you know, like, that was one of my innovative ideas.
Marc:And you were innovating wearing your own choice of hat, probably, because it was Bennigan's.
Marc:Don't you get, can't you wear flair?
Marc:Was there flair involved?
Guest:I was there in the post-flair period, huh?
Guest:Post-Flare or pre-Flare?
Guest:Post-Flare.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, they had moved on from Flare and moving into, yeah, just khakis and white shirts.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:Yeah, when I got that job, it sounds like a joke, but it's true.
Guest:The manager, the general manager, sat us down at the orientation, me and a few other kids, and he goes, my marriage just ended, and she took the kids and moved four hours away.
Guest:I never get to see them.
Guest:I'm living in a studio apartment above a laundromat.
Guest:I have nothing in my life but this Bennigans, and I want to make this the best Bennigans in the country.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Is this the guy that wouldn't let you leave?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was like, well, I can't get on board with that.
Guest:I don't care if this is the best Bennigans in Anglewood, New Jersey.
Marc:Do you know that if he ever made his dreams come true with that?
Guest:I know for a fact that, no, that did not work out.
Guest:Because he got to a point where he couldn't let one guy quit.
Guest:The whole staff left.
Guest:I wonder what happened to that guy.
Guest:You ever call him?
Yeah.
Guest:He does have kind of a Google-able name.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I could track him down.
Marc:Oh, probably.
Marc:You don't want to do that.
Marc:I just didn't know there was a national ranking system for Bennigan's.
Marc:I guess they know what stores are doing better.
Guest:Oh, by the way, the whole thing is out of business now.
Guest:Oh, shit.
Guest:There is no Bennigan's anymore.
Guest:That's probably his fault.
Guest:Yep.
Marc:He's probably carrying that burden now.
Marc:It may have been my fault.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:My stupid bringing too many drinks at once.
Marc:No, you've put in an extra three months to make up for that, though.
Marc:Drunk and high.
Marc:So you're drunk and high and, you know, devising new ways to serve drinks of Bennegan's, women in your parents' basement at age, what, 21?
Marc:Those were the golden years.
Marc:That was the best period of life.
Marc:What old were you, 22, 21?
Marc:22, yeah.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then what made you go, got to move out?
Guest:Well, my intention was to go to Chicago because I had heard all about the great things were happening at Second City and Annoyance Theater.
Marc:Was there a moment where you were watching something or doing something where you were like, this is a possibility for me?
Guest:You know, actually, I read Wired, the book about Belushi.
Guest:I read that before I went to college.
Guest:And that description of his time at Second City was like...
Guest:That made me know that that was something I really wanted to do.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then I read something wonderful right away, which is another great book about improvisation, and then a book called The Compass by Janet Coleman.
Guest:So I was like, and Viola Spolin, like I was getting kind of steeped in all that in college.
Guest:And then during my spring break, senior year spring break, I went to Chicago to see comedy improvisation, my college spring break.
Guest:And I saw a group there called the Improv Institute that I've never been able to find anybody else who knows.
Guest:It was in a space surrounded by antique stores.
Guest:And they just did this long form set that was amazing.
Guest:And I also that week saw Second City and Carell was in that show.
Guest:So, yeah, I wanted to go to Chicago.
Guest:But I was in debt.
Guest:I was in credit card debt.
Guest:And I figured I needed like $5,000 on hand before I moved to a new city.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that's why I got the job at Bettingham's.
Guest:But then it took...
Guest:By the time I had enough money to go, I was driving into New York, getting involved in the New York comedy thing.
Guest:So now it seems ridiculous.
Guest:But like after about a year and a half, I could have moved to Chicago by my own rules about how much money I needed.
Guest:But I felt like I was too kind of like I had already put down roots in the New York comedy scene at that point.
Guest:At 23, I was like, I can't move.
Guest:I can't start over in a new town.
Guest:Yeah, the manager of New York told you you couldn't quit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:You were in.
Guest:And I also auditioned for Second City in the most ridiculous, like, oh, I was so deluded.
Guest:Right, like, days after graduating from college, I wrote the most braggy letter to Kelly Leonard at Second City, saying, like, you gotta, you know, you gotta get a load of me.
Guest:Like, I'm gonna fucking revolutionize your whole business.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I told him one of the lines in the letter was, in the book Wired, it said that Belushi used to do an impression of Richard Daly, Mayor Daly, and the audience would chant, Daly, Daly.
Guest:And I told him, you know, that's probably going to happen again.
Guest:Because my name's Daly, yeah.
Guest:Different reason.
Guest:And I got a letter back saying, yeah, come up and audition.
Guest:And I was under the impression that that was an individual invitation for me to go up and audition.
Guest:And I hit my dad up for a plane ticket and everything and got there.
Guest:And it was like two days of auditioning people five at a time in groups of five.
Guest:So you were literally disappointed.
Marc:Did you pull someone aside and say, I'm Andy Daly?
Marc:I'm Andy Daly.
Guest:I wrote that letter.
Guest:Ha, ha, ha.
Guest:I'm pretty sure I was just supposed to be up here like one on one.
Guest:And everybody else auditioning like they were astounded that some kid flew up from New Jersey who had never taken a class, never studied improvisation or anything like everybody else had been through the system somewhat.
Guest:One of the guys in my group of five had been in the touring company for a while.
Guest:It was a disaster.
Guest:It was just like, oh, I get it.
Guest:Did you get in?
Yeah.
Guest:I want this to be a good story.
Guest:No!
Guest:Not only did I not get in, but like the scene that I was in had to be stopped by the guys running the audition.
Oh, no.
Guest:Because I was going so big.
Guest:Because I was sitting on the sidelines watching this scene, and then there was like the exercise was whatever, tap yourself in and continue the scene.
Guest:I'm like, this is so boring.
Guest:Somebody's going to get in there and zip this up.
Guest:That's why I went in and did some big character.
Guest:Let's do it like that.
Guest:Come on, you guys.
Guest:It was like, stop.
Guest:Can you just try to play it real or whatever?
Guest:I don't even know what that means.
Guest:I'm working here.
Guest:I am being hilarious.
Marc:So that reminds me of, I don't think I've ever said this before, but I auditioned for Yale Drama School.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:The graduate.
Guest:Oh my God.
Marc:Yale Graduate Drama School.
Marc:And I was in this mode where I'm like, I got this.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And I went and had Derek Walcott write me a letter of recommendation.
Marc:You know, the playwright.
Marc:He's a playwright and poet.
Marc:And I had taken a class with him.
Marc:And he literally, he said, all right.
Marc:And I watched him.
Marc:I went over to his apartment on campus.
Marc:He was in his bathrobe.
Marc:And he had a little hand typewriter on top of a file cabinet.
Marc:And he typed it out as I stood there and gave it to me.
Marc:So I had this.
Marc:And then I'm like, they wanted pictures.
Marc:Of course they wanted a professional headshot.
Marc:I went to a photo booth.
Marc:and had you know the three i did i did all four oh you gave the series the whole strip taped it right on a piece of paper that gives you opportunities to show your range yeah drama school and then i went up there and i did an audition i did a sam shepherd like an esoteric sam shepherd piece that involved a guy that was basically jerking off his belt oh so i didn't get in no but i i was uh you know i had my own thing
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I'm sure they appreciated it.
Guest:It was a monotony breaker for them.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I remember standing, you know, waiting to go on.
Marc:There was another woman who was going on before me, you know, into the audition room and she was doing all these weird warmups with her face.
Marc:And I'm like, it was at that moment I realized like, wow, I'm not prepared at all.
Yeah.
Guest:I don't know, a tenth of what it takes.
Guest:Yep, that's exactly how I felt.
Marc:And they wanted a classic, so I picked it.
Marc:I didn't know what that really meant, so I just picked some Greek play.
Marc:Well, that's a classic, surely.
Marc:I guess, but I don't even remember what it was.
Marc:I think they're expecting Shakespeare.
Marc:There's just no way I could wrap my brain around that.
Marc:No.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So he's got some more story.
Marc:So you got your ass handed to you.
Marc:You were humbled.
Marc:Big time.
Marc:Went back to New York.
Marc:Flew all the way up there to do it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What did you tell your dad?
Guest:You know, what did I tell my dad?
Guest:I think I presented it as a complaint that I had been misinformed.
Guest:I get up there and there's like 500 people auditioning.
Marc:Yeah, that was not the way it was set up.
Marc:That was not the way it was supposed to be.
Marc:Do you get along with your parents?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What's he do?
Guest:They're both retired, but my dad spent,
Guest:My dad spent 25 years as a salesman of video teleconferencing equipment.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:So when he started that in 1985, people were like, oh, there's picture phones.
Guest:And by the time he retired, it was like, yo, you still need specialized equipment to talk to somebody face to face.
Guest:So, yeah, that's what he did.
Guest:My mom's a nurse.
Marc:A nurse.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:So that's good to have in the house.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If you want someone to overreact to every minor problem.
Marc:Maybe we should call a doctor.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh.
Marc:So you go back, and what was the process there you got involved with?
Marc:I remember seeing you at Luna, doing the teamwork.
Guest:Well, before that, in 93, right when I graduated college, I started taking classes at Chicago City Limits.
Guest:I remember that in New York with Leslie Epson.
Guest:Yes, Leslie Epson was there.
Guest:And her husband, John Weber, was like an early comedy mentor to me.
Guest:He was really, really funny.
Guest:I went to college with Leslie Epson.
Guest:She's funny.
Guest:I was in that show with her.
Guest:I was in the main stage Chicago City Limits show with Leslie.
Guest:She's a funny lady.
Guest:What's she doing?
Guest:Is she out here?
Guest:Yeah, she's out here acting and being hilarious and things.
Guest:Really?
Marc:Doing voiceover work, yeah.
Marc:No kidding.
Marc:I have not seen her.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:In many years.
Marc:They still married?
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Children?
Guest:No, I don't believe so.
Guest:And he's an actor as well?
Guest:He is an actor as well, yeah.
Guest:He was like a very early supporter and booster of mine, and I took his classes at Chicago City Limits, and...
Guest:And through that, got involved with this sketch group that the Stengel brothers, who are now Letterman's Head writers, were in charge of.
Guest:And so I was doing that in New York.
Guest:And then Ruth Anson couldn't have told me to start doing stand-up.
Guest:So I did stand-up for about a year and a half and didn't like that very much.
Guest:I wasn't very good at that.
Guest:But I was much more interested in improv and sketch and stuff like that.
Guest:And then Andy and I started doing the two Andys in, like, 95.
Marc:And we all went to Aspen together, I think.
Marc:Oh, in 99 we were in Aspen.
Marc:I was there earlier.
Marc:I don't know if I was there with you guys, but I remember you guys were around.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:I remember seeing you maybe once or twice.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:And then all of a sudden you were on television.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's just like you were one of those guys.
Marc:Like, well, he's on television now, that guy?
Marc:That guy used to hang out with the other guy?
Uh-huh.
Marc:How'd that happen?
Guest:How did that happen?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I was at, so the UCB came to town in 96.
Guest:In New York, right.
Guest:In New York, and I saw them at Luna Lounge, and after their bit at Luna Lounge, which I loved, I was just like, these guys are kindred spirits.
Guest:Right, they're doing it.
Guest:It's really funny.
Guest:All four of them, great performers, a great premise that they played out well, and
Guest:And they mentioned ASCAT from the stage.
Guest:So I went to ASCAT that next Sunday.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was one of the early ASCATs.
Guest:And then after that ASCAT.
Guest:Did they invent that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:ASCAT.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Walsh said, we're going to be teaching a class.
Guest:He's like, I'm going to teach a workshop one day and you can sign up for that.
Guest:And so I did.
Guest:And that was the first class that the UCB ever taught in New York.
Guest:Walsh taught at a one day workshop.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I went to that and just became totally involved in that scene.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Doing Harold and stuff like that and taking classes from all those guys.
Guest:And so by 1999, Mad TV and other places were kind of they knew that UCB was a place, a potential place to look for people.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they came in and saw me there and asked me to audition.
Guest:And you'd done some little sketch work here.
Guest:Yeah, I had done.
Guest:How did I get in at Conan?
Guest:I think I auditioned.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:I auditioned for the Dana Carvey show.
Guest:For Louie and Rob and Smigel.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:And Smigel, they didn't hire me, but Smigel saw me from that and based on that recommended me to Conan to do bits on the Conan show.
Guest:So I did a bunch of those.
Guest:That was great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then Smigel used me for TV Funhouse cartoons too.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, okay.
Marc:So then you like, when you got mad TV, you auditioned and then you moved out here and the rest is history.
Guest:Yes, precisely.
Marc:But did you know you were a type?
Marc:I mean, did you know, like, cause like, it seems like I've talked to people before who have found this comedic disposition and I imagine it's you, but you, you are that guy.
Marc:You're, you're sort of the, the sort of the, you're like a overly straight kind of character.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Who's always the brunt of the joke for the most part.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're kind of that do-goody, kind of tightly wrapped.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:But I've seen you do other characters.
Marc:I saw you do a character recently at that Glazer premiere.
Marc:Was that a poet or an existential?
Guest:What was that character?
Guest:Based on the incredible Criswell.
Guest:Oh, yeah, the Criswell.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So you have a range of characters.
Marc:But I mean, as somebody who shows up in movies and television shows, you're kind of like,
Marc:Hey, how are you?
Marc:You know, that guy.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And that was definitely not anything I consciously did.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I think I would have imagined myself earlier on as somebody who was endlessly versatile of what I could do.
Guest:But I don't know where that came from.
Guest:I think at MADtv, I saw that other people weren't doing a lot of straight man stuff.
Guest:And it even goes back to Conan, doing bits on Conan, where your job is to play it real and serve the bit.
Guest:This is not about you giving like an incredible comedy performance.
Guest:You're there to kind of communicate the premise and the beats of the bit because that's what your job is when you're brought in to do a bit there.
Guest:And that plus the UCB ethic of trying to play to the top of your intelligence and have truth and comedy and all that stuff definitely made me focus on the straight man thing and
Guest:And I'm also a huge, crazy huge Charles Grodin fan.
Guest:And he's like the ultimate fucking incredible straight man.
Guest:So that at Mad TV, I ended up getting kind of pigeonholed as the guy who the recurring character came in and tortured.
Guest:And and it was fun for me, actually, to really try to ground scenes and play it real and have real reactions in a bizarre world.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that became a thing that I began to sort of work on.
Guest:and it's it's essential to the bit like because you make the other guy funny and your timing is going to dictate the the whole thing really your reactions is what's going to drive this thing along I think so and I think if you if you honor that position and if you if you really say like I'm a real person in the real world and this is happening to me and what is it like you can get so much out of it like if there's any kind of writing that's been done in the piece you can get so much out of it you know
Marc:And then, like, but you've become, like, you're one of these guys that, you know, you're a real kind of character actor in a way.
Marc:I mean, you work a lot.
Marc:I mean, you show up everywhere in movies.
Marc:You find that, like, when you do movies, it's sort of like, here's your little part.
Guest:Sometimes, yeah.
Guest:Sometimes I'll read a script and I'll go, well, that part's just perfect for me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't think I knew that this kind of persona was something that people were writing into scripts on.
Guest:It was not like a calculated thing.
Guest:Do you find you're thought of now?
Marc:Do you get called in with a bunch of guys that look like you sometimes?
Guest:Sure, yeah, of course.
Guest:That's always been going on.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:yeah and how did uh eastbound and down come about eastbound and down i think that might partly have had to do with um semi-pro because semi-pro was in some ways the perfect example of me playing like a super straight character and finding a lot to do that was the movie that guy yeah uh the will ferrell basketball movie right that's the courtside announcer yeah yeah of just like a man with a real commitment to broadcasting you know yeah uh that was so much fun and then
Guest:I think based on that, like agents and people knew me and knew that, and what those guys, Jody and Danny have the same agents as me, so I think they recommended them to me.
Guest:And I just went in and auditioned for it and had a couple of auditions and worked with Danny and improvised with Danny.
Guest:Sweet guy.
Guest:He's great.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, that show is so fucking weird and funny.
Guest:I love that show.
Guest:How much improvising is there on that show?
Guest:A lot.
Guest:There's a lot.
Guest:But it's the perfect combination of an amazing script, a really great script that if you just did that script, it would be hilarious.
Guest:But they're never precious with it.
Guest:They don't even want to get it once.
Guest:They're just kind of like, yeah, just tell the story of this scene.
Guest:And I feel like I have enough experience.
Guest:It used to be of improvising in that style of like, I see what the objective of the scene is and I can play with it and play within the boundaries of the scene and the story you want to tell in this scene.
Guest:I'm not going to take it off in some other crazy direction and write all kinds of backstory that you don't have in mind.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I can, I can play out more beats on this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, so that's what we do on.
Marc:That skill seems to be very important in, in the type of television that is popular now.
Guest:Hmm.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And personally, as an actor, like, I feel like I can connect to material in situations where I can't improvise at all.
Guest:But it's so much better for me to feel like I'm a real person saying real things if I can if I can make it my own a little bit.
Guest:You know, it just helps me as a performer.
Marc:And the Paul Reiser show, that was something you were involved in.
Guest:Yes, precisely.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And the Paul Reiser show.
Marc:When was that?
Marc:Did anyone see that?
Guest:No.
Guest:Weirdly enough, once they finally crunched the numbers, they realized no one had seen it.
Guest:But I mean, did they run all seven?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:They ran two?
Guest:They ran two.
Guest:Yeah, that was so weird.
Guest:Like that show, we made the pilot.
Guest:And to be honest, no reflection against the material.
Guest:I enjoyed it.
Guest:And I loved my character.
Guest:Like my character was exactly this guy I love to play.
Guest:Like a billionaire who everything in the world is right for him, except that his wife is fucking around on him and his kid is violent.
Guest:But he's upbeat about it.
Guest:Well, we're doing what we can.
Guest:Super fun to play.
Guest:And that guy, Omid Jalili, was fucking hilarious.
Guest:There were so many great things about it.
Guest:But I felt from the beginning of that pilot, I was just like,
Guest:don't know if this will be on NBC it's I somehow sort of can't picture that right you know and then I heard that it had not gotten picked up and then it got picked up for six for midseason so it was kind of from the beginning it was like this is iffy yeah and then while we were shooting it they announced the midseason schedule and Paul Reiser show was not on it right but we're still shooting the episodes like this is over right I mean this thing is dead isn't it dead we're having fun and
Guest:But it's dead.
Guest:Can we all just say that?
Guest:What have we all just admitted today?
Guest:This is dead, but it's fun.
Guest:And then, if any, I was surprised that they premiered it.
Guest:Because there was also a change in leadership at NBC in the middle of that.
Guest:All those guys left and all that.
Guest:And so, yeah, they put two on.
Guest:And they gave themselves like three weeks to promote it.
Guest:It was silly.
Marc:And there's five that have never been seen.
Marc:yes that's right wow and we do Life of Tives of Tim together I've been on that show a few times I love that that's another example exactly that same thing of like an awesome script but do whatever you want oh god there's so much dicking around oh my god yeah I love it yeah that show just got cancelled did it yeah but they ran them all they ran them all yes it's just it's not coming back it's not coming back and you work with Glazer on Delocated yes again yeah another perfect example of what I'm talking about
Guest:That's the way I like to work.
Guest:You're in the loop.
Guest:Oh, I love that show.
Guest:My God.
Guest:Those scenes are so funny.
Marc:Oh yeah, he's so funny.
Marc:He's so fucking funny.
Guest:So what do you got coming up?
Guest:Now I'm doing a show for Comedy Central and I will be the star of it and I will write it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're gonna write them by yourself?
Guest:All by myself.
Guest:No.
Guest:But yeah, we did a pilot that I co-wrote and starred in.
Guest:Sketch?
Guest:Nope.
Guest:It's an adaptation of an Australian series.
Guest:In Australia, they called it Review with Miles Barlow.
Guest:Did you buy rights to it?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:Comedy Central did and attached me to it.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Yeah, it's really funny.
Guest:It's about a guy who reviews life experiences so that people write in and say, I'm thinking of stealing my mother's dress.
Guest:And he goes, stealing?
Guest:What is it like to take someone else's property?
Guest:And, you know, so it's like mock documentary style.
Guest:Oh, and you go do it?
Guest:I go do it.
Guest:And I do it like with like strict scientific integrity.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm going to find out exactly how it feels and report back to you on how it feels to steal something.
Guest:And I enjoyed it.
Guest:And this guy, he has no moral compass.
Guest:He's a self-experimenting scientist and things always go wrong.
Marc:And who are you working with on that?
Guest:Jeffrey Blitz, Andy Blitz's brother, who directed Spellbound and directs a lot of episodes of The Office, is coming on as an executive producer type guy on that.
Guest:Andy Blitz will certainly rope into it.
Guest:And we're staffing up the rest of it now.
Guest:Yeah, it's exciting.
Guest:We're going to shoot him over the summer?
Guest:No, in the fall.
Marc:In the fall, this fall.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:Going to ride him over the summer.
Marc:Yes, precisely.
Marc:And you've got kids and a wife and a house.
Marc:That's correct.
Marc:We're back in Glendale.
Marc:Three weeks from today, my second child will arrive.
Marc:That's exciting.
Marc:It's crazy.
Marc:Do you have some place to put it?
Marc:Like, not really.
Marc:Not really.
Marc:I don't know how you guys do it.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:They just come out and you're like, okay, let's do this.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:I've never done it.
Guest:I've never done it.
Guest:No.
Guest:The first kid, we spent nine months getting ready.
Guest:This kid, we got a little cocky and we're like, we've been through this, but now it's three weeks out.
Guest:Literally, where are we going to put it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It will take up some space.
Yeah.
Guest:You gotta get it at a crib and stuff, or did you save all that shit?
Guest:No.
Guest:No, our other kid is almost five, so this is a big break between them.
Guest:On purpose?
Guest:Was this an on purpose thing?
Guest:Literally, when the other kid turned four was the first moment that my wife and I were like,
Guest:I could see doing this again.
Guest:But it was four years of crisis mode of just like responding to new information at all times.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And constantly playing catch up with this child and her development.
Guest:And she's crazy.
Guest:She's great.
Guest:She's amazing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She's funny, funny.
Marc:It's good you didn't wait the full, you know, that's not eight.
Marc:No.
Guest:Into mistake territory.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:How old are you?
Guest:I'm 41.
Guest:I just turned 41.
Marc:So your brother's like 33, 34?
Marc:Sounds right.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:You guys are close?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Yes, he keeps me up to date on what's happening in the world of popular music.
Guest:Oh, that's good.
Guest:You need that.
Guest:You're a guy that needs that.
Guest:I sure do.
Marc:I need somebody to send me CDs.
Marc:You've been 50 since you were 15.
Guest:That's true.
Guest:50 Since I Was 15.
Guest:That's the name of my autobiography.
Guest:And the new record.
Guest:Yeah, the new record.
Guest:You've got a CD out?
Guest:I do have a CD out.
Guest:Is it stand-up?
Guest:No, it's character bits.
Guest:Yeah, that's what it is.
Guest:I think of it as one-man sketches.
Guest:And how's that selling?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Fine, probably.
Guest:It's been out since 2009, 2008.
Guest:On Comedy Central Records?
Guest:No, Special Thing Records.
Marc:I've recorded with them.
Marc:We just did a thing with them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, good, man.
Marc:Well, it was great talking to you.
Marc:I hope you feel good about it.
Guest:I do.
Guest:I feel like somehow that I came off like something of a nerd, which I feel like really doesn't reflect my sensibility.
Guest:I think I'm very punk rock.
Guest:I think I'm very dangerous.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I think I'm really quite cool.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Well, I think that it's open to interpretation.
Marc:You're either a nerd or just a guy who is just kind of like...
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Those are two great things to be.
Guest:Fixing and editing.
Guest:Would you make me seem sexy?
Marc:I don't know if punk rock is going to come into it.
Marc:Maybe you have a punk rock inside of you.
Marc:You have a punk rocker in there, but you keep them to yourself.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:See, that was your punk rocker talking.
Marc:That was it right there?
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:That's how you would kick off your punk rock song.
Marc:One, two, three.
Marc:Here we go.
Guest:Well, this will be something.
Guest:Thanks, Andy Daly.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:It was fun.
Guest:It was.
Marc:All right, that's it.
Marc:The lovely Andy Daly.
Marc:I hope you enjoyed that.
Marc:As always, go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.
Marc:Maybe a little of this.
Marc:Whoa, pow!
Marc:I just shit my pants for reals.
Marc:JustCoffee.coop available at WTFPod.com.
Marc:Get the app.
Marc:Get on the mailing list.
Marc:Kick in a few shekels.
Marc:Get some merch.
Marc:You're going to be introducing some new posters there soon.
Marc:What else?
Marc:Live WTF tomorrow night.
Marc:The 28th at the Steve Allen Theater, the Trippany House at the Steve Allen Theater with a big roster of guests.
Marc:It should be fun if you've never experienced one of those.
Marc:Come down for that.
Marc:Oh, it's hot.
Marc:I can't get Boomer in here right now.
Marc:I can't do it.
Marc:Also, I'm going to be re-releasing the Bryan Cranston episode on Wednesday.
Marc:A little special treat for you guys.
Guest:Maybe I should just get on medication, get off these nicotine lozenges.
Guest:I mean, it's ridiculous, ridiculous how many I eat.
Guest:I can't.
I can't.
you