Episode 450 - Will Ferrell
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuck in here?
Marc:What the fuck nicks?
Marc:What the fuckadelics?
Marc:What the fuckaholics?
Marc:What the fucksters?
Marc:Alright.
Marc:How about you newbies?
Marc:How about you people that are just listening to this for the first time?
Marc:Welcome.
Marc:Welcome.
Marc:I am Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:This is my podcast.
Marc:I've been doing it at my garage for a few years.
Marc:This is the 450th episode.
Marc:I don't know if that's really an anniversary episode, but it is a big deal.
Marc:I can't believe it.
Marc:450 episodes.
Marc:Now, if you're just starting to listen, the reason I'm introing it like this is I know Will Ferrell is on the show today.
Marc:And I know a lot of you know Will Ferrell.
Marc:I know some of you may not know me, so you're kind of checking it out.
Marc:Like, what is this, Will Ferrell?
Marc:I like Will Ferrell.
Marc:He's a funny guy.
Marc:I'm going to listen to this.
Marc:I don't know about this podcast.
Marc:It's weird, man.
Marc:For as long as I've been around, for as much television I've done as a comic or as whatever...
Marc:However, I've appeared in the media landscape.
Marc:There's still plenty of people that don't know me.
Marc:I would say that most people don't know me.
Marc:I'm okay with that.
Marc:I got no problem with that.
Marc:I'm glad that some of you enjoy what I do and you've figured out where I am and what I'm doing.
Marc:But a lot of people, most people on the planet have no fucking idea who I am, which is fine.
Marc:But I thought I might want to tell people who are just coming in what's going on.
Marc:And by the way, this week, this is insane.
Marc:This is insane.
Marc:But this week, WTF will pass 100 million downloads.
Marc:100 million.
Marc:That seems crazy to me.
Marc:But for people that don't know what we do here, I talk to people.
Marc:I generally talk to people for about an hour or so.
Marc:I'm going to talk to Will Ferrell today for about 90 minutes.
Marc:Now, also, if you are just getting involved with this, you'll notice that only the most recent 50 are available on iTunes or on the site for nothing at any given point in time.
Marc:We keep everything for free for six months, and then you're going to need the app.
Marc:You can go get the WTF app for free and upgrade to premium for a few bucks, and you can stream all 400, the 400 other ones.
Marc:400 fucking hours.
Marc:Damn it, man.
Marc:Here's one thing I know.
Marc:And you probably have this in your life, but the one thing I've learned is that you think you know a guy, you think you know a person, you think you know a woman.
Marc:You don't.
Marc:You bring a lot of your own baggage to it, a lot of your own expectation to it, a lot of your idealization, your fantasy of what that person is.
Marc:And when you're dealing with celebrities or public people, you put together an idea of who they are with what they offer you publicly and this and that, bits and pieces.
Marc:But...
Marc:But I'm never right.
Marc:I just want to have a conversation that is real and in the moment.
Marc:And I want to get to know somebody.
Marc:Out of the 450 I've done, I'd say 430 of them.
Marc:I knew people kind of.
Marc:I didn't know them that well.
Marc:I never sat down with them for an hour.
Marc:Certainly didn't ever know.
Marc:I don't know Will Ferrell at all.
Marc:I do know that he's one of the funniest guys in the world.
Marc:In the world.
Marc:As far as I'm concerned, Will Ferrell.
Marc:is the funniest guy alive.
Marc:All right, so that's what I'm bringing to this conversation.
Marc:I booked the interview.
Marc:You know, he wanted to do the interview.
Marc:His buddy Adam McKay, he's had a lot of friends on this show.
Marc:Very sweet guy.
Marc:Down to earth.
Marc:And you'll see, you'll hear this interview.
Marc:And you're probably heading into it the same way I headed into the conversation with him.
Marc:I sat there...
Marc:And, you know, when you go to a Will Ferrell movie and, you know, I told him this, I said this in the interview, I'll go to any Will Ferrell movie because I know that at some point I will get an insanely deep, tremendous laugh.
Marc:And if I get one of those for 12 bucks, it's worth it.
Marc:It's worth it.
Marc:And he can deliver that.
Marc:So I'm bringing that baggage, my personal expectation and my idea of who Will is.
Marc:So I start talking to him, and there's part of my face.
Marc:I know my face is just sitting there going like, it's going to happen any second.
Marc:It's going to happen.
Marc:I'm just going to laugh.
Marc:I'm going to laugh any second.
Marc:I'm just going to laugh really hard in a second.
Marc:And the weird thing was is that, sure, we had a couple laughs, but it was very organic.
Marc:We had a very down-to-earth conversation.
Marc:And I had no idea who Will Ferrell was.
Marc:And you think you know a guy because you love him.
Marc:You love what he does.
Marc:It was great.
Marc:It was great.
Marc:And I'm excited that you're going to get to hear it.
Marc:And you know what's weird about that idealization, that fantasy thing, that putting people up on pedestals.
Marc:I mean, that happens with me.
Marc:I guess it's expectation.
Marc:Like you take a little of what you glean from somebody, whether it's in a relationship or whatever, even if it's the person you're married to or the person you're in love with, especially if you're in love with somebody, you immediately sort of build this amazing being.
Marc:out of what you think they are and then it's almost like you know a relationship is like it starts off where you're like oh my god this person couldn't be any more perfect for me and it's almost like a relationship is is just the process of slowly chipping away at that to you're just standing face to face with a human and you go all right okay so uh what happens now
Marc:Are we still good now that I'm not what you thought I was and that you're not what I thought you were?
Marc:What do we got here?
Marc:Do we have do we have trust?
Marc:Do we have do we have real intimacy?
Marc:Do we have any way to talk to each other?
Marc:Can I still get laughs?
Marc:There's a lot of that.
Marc:A lot of that.
Marc:What happens when the laughter dies?
Marc:Huh?
Marc:What do you do?
Marc:It's very hard being real, folks.
Marc:It's fucking ridiculous.
Marc:Let me give you a cat update because some of you are wondering.
Marc:I got some issues, a couple of issues.
Marc:I don't know where Def Black Cat is anymore.
Marc:There's some new guy out there.
Marc:I can't claim to understand cat politics.
Marc:I got scaredy cat out front, the striped cat, the feral cat that eats out front.
Marc:Then I got deaf black cat that eats him back.
Marc:Him and I were good.
Marc:I got him fixed up.
Marc:He was looking great.
Marc:He's looking healthy.
Marc:Now there's some new guy there, some shitty brown and white cat who I've seen on and off for the years.
Marc:I don't know if he's on hiatus from an owner.
Marc:I don't know if he lives down the street, but I don't know what he's done with deaf black cat.
Marc:I don't know where the fuck deaf black cat is.
Marc:I can't get too engaged.
Marc:This happens.
Marc:Sometimes there's a shakeup out there in the territories.
Marc:Sometimes some territory is lost.
Marc:Some territories are gained.
Marc:I don't know what's going on.
Marc:I'm going to assume that Deaf Black Cat's still around, and now I've got to feed this fucking guy, this brown and white guy, who's a little more entitled than Deaf Black Cat.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:I don't know who this guy is, but I've got to wait it out.
Marc:What am I going to do?
Marc:He's under the house.
Marc:He's eating.
Marc:Def Black Cat, don't know where he is.
Marc:Hope he's okay.
Marc:Also, seems to be a skunk issue.
Marc:Where's the skunk?
Marc:I don't know where the fuck the skunk is.
Marc:Did my entire house smell like skunk yesterday?
Marc:It smelled like a skunk blew up under my house.
Marc:This happens about once a year.
Marc:I don't know how skunks live.
Marc:Sure, I could Google it, but why not speculate?
Marc:Do they live in tunnels?
Marc:Do they live in the walls?
Marc:The entire house smelled like skunk, and this was legitimate.
Marc:I couldn't come home and, you know, grill my girlfriend about whether or not she was smoking weed in the house.
Marc:Not that I care, just want the truth, but usually it's skunk, and I don't have a girlfriend.
Marc:Just got the smell of skunk.
Marc:You adapt to it pretty quickly.
Marc:What else?
Marc:I saw Inside Llewellyn Davis last night, the new Coen Brothers film.
Marc:It demands to be reckoned with.
Marc:It's a good movie.
Marc:I'm not going to spoil anything.
Marc:There's a cat in it.
Marc:And that's another level of appreciation that I never thought I would have.
Marc:Having worked with cats on my own show, this year we got some amazing cat handlers and the cats have been, there's going to be a few more cats in the show this year because these cats are actually doing what they're supposed to do.
Marc:But there's a cat in Llewellyn Davis, inside Llewellyn Davis, and I know they should get an award for that.
Marc:They should be given an Academy Award for dealing so well
Marc:With a fucking cat in a movie.
Marc:Because I know that took time.
Marc:Cats are cats.
Marc:You can't train the little cats.
Marc:But they pulled it off.
Marc:And it was good.
Marc:A lot of metaphors.
Marc:A lot of things that are provocative.
Marc:It's a journey.
Marc:It's a journey.
Marc:And all good stories are a journey.
Marc:Let us now enjoy my conversation.
Marc:With the incredibly funny.
Marc:And very earnest.
Marc:Will Ferrell.
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Marc:So this is your operation right here.
Marc:This is all of it.
Marc:This is the whole thing.
Marc:It's been a big morning already.
Marc:I woke up early.
Marc:I had to deal with a desperate raccoon.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you have raccoons where you live?
Guest:I don't think we do.
Guest:No?
Guest:You wouldn't know.
Guest:We had a lot of wildlife and then we fenced it all out.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like what kind of... But I think we did have a visit of a raccoon.
Guest:Possums?
Guest:Once.
Possums.
Guest:I think we had all of it.
Guest:Coyotes.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Everything.
Guest:You had a zoo.
Guest:You had to close it off.
Guest:But we fenced it because we have dogs and now we have nothing.
Marc:Where do you live?
Guest:I live in Hollywood Hills.
Marc:Oh, you live here?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I thought you live further away.
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:Oh, so this wasn't that.
Guest:It wasn't that bad.
Marc:I thought you were coming from far.
Marc:Like the feral compound.
Guest:Silmar?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I thought you were out in the desert.
Marc:How long have you been out in Los Angeles, though?
Marc:I'm from New York.
Guest:But, I mean, you were in New York for years, right?
Guest:I mean, for seven years, technically speaking.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I always came here for the summers.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I'm from here.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The whole life was here?
Guest:The whole life was here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there was no reason to stay in New York for the summer.
Guest:So, I was always working out here.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But didn't you love New York?
Marc:You didn't like it?
Marc:I did.
Marc:I loved it.
Marc:I think that was the first time.
Marc:I think I saw you once.
Marc:I think you might have showed up at Luna Lounge once.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:Once.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Down the Lower East Side.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Right around the time where you first started doing SNL, and you came down with some people, and you walked in, and you were the new guy, and I was just this angry asshole that used to do the shows down there.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And you guys all came in, and I was like, who are those guys?
Marc:What are they doing down here?
Marc:That's how I thought.
Marc:And we probably felt sheepish.
Marc:Well, I think you guys were always pretty nice.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was a nice crew when I started there at the show for some reason.
Guest:Who was on that one?
Guest:Do you remember everybody?
Guest:It was Molly Shannon who was already there.
Guest:She's been on here.
Guest:She was in here.
Guest:She's a delight.
Guest:She's the best.
Guest:David Koechner, Nancy Walls from Second City.
Guest:Norm MacDonald was still there.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Spade.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Tim Meadows.
Guest:All those guys.
Guest:Mark McKinney.
Guest:Mark, he was only on for a little while, right?
Guest:Just a couple.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A couple years, yeah.
Guest:But, you know, they had fired everyone, so we were forced to kind of be all for one and one for all.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, it was a real feeling of like, okay, we'll either...
Guest:This will either work or the show will get canceled.
Guest:That was probably the first time in SNL history.
Guest:Everybody was on the same page.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Steve Higgins, you know Steve.
Guest:I do.
Guest:Steve kind of fostered that.
Guest:And then once the show, once we were okay and we were going to survive, then people started getting petty and weird.
Marc:Yeah, now did Adam, was he already there with Adam McKay?
Guest:Yeah, and McKay too.
Guest:And that's where you met him?
Guest:They had like 15 new writers too.
Guest:Where'd you grow up exactly around here?
Guest:Irvine.
Guest:Oh my God, there's nothing Irvine, is there?
Guest:The mean streets of Irvine.
Guest:Oh, you don't know Irvine.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Tell me about it, man.
Marc:It is tough.
Marc:It is.
Marc:All I know about Irvine is that mall.
Marc:The mall where the improv is.
Marc:That's all I know about.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's my- Which is, you know, that Irvine improv is where I would sit in the back of the room and watch open mic nights and- Like study?
Guest:Think.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:oh, I can go up.
Guest:It was there that long ago?
Guest:It was there that long ago, and it was just after I graduated from high school, and I'd come back on weekends from college, and I would sit in the back of the room and go, oh, I'm just as funny as that guy.
Guest:Oh, wait, I'm not as funny as that guy.
Guest:Oh, wait, I'm just as funny as that guy.
Guest:Oh, wait, no, not that guy.
Guest:And I would nerve, I think I went four times.
Guest:Like you were 19?
Guest:Four times I was going to sign up and do it, and I chickened out every single time.
Guest:Terrifying, right?
Guest:Terrifying.
Guest:Terrifying.
Marc:Yeah, the idea of just even putting your name on the list.
Marc:I'm ready.
Marc:There's no way.
Marc:There's no good feeling.
Marc:Yeah, there's none.
Marc:Even when you're on the list, that means you're going to be on in six weeks.
Marc:Oh, shit.
Marc:This is every day.
Marc:It's coming.
Marc:It's coming.
Marc:My four minutes is going to happen.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:But yeah, Irvine, I was born in Newport Beach.
Guest:I grew up in Irvine.
Guest:I went to university high school.
Guest:and then i went to college what'd your parents do uh my mom uh was eventually in education really after many odd jobs and my dad's a musician what kind of musician he's uh you know he's old time old time rock and roll
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, he did a country album.
Guest:But like guitar, drums, bass?
Guest:No, piano, keyboards, keyboards and sax.
Guest:He played with the Righteous Brothers for like 20 years.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Did you go to concerts?
Guest:Yeah, I'd go to the shows and sit up there and-
Guest:That was a real treat to sit in the lighting booth and watch the shows.
Marc:But was it like, did anything become a, like, I know that once you watch an actor over time where you, there's some weird moment you have where you're like, oh, it's a show.
Marc:They're not just, you know, like when they improvise the same joke.
Marc:Oh, right, right, right.
Marc:Where you're just sort of like.
Marc:Well, I knew the patter.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Guest:No, but my perverted thing was I was always really proud of them.
Guest:I was like.
Guest:Of the Righteous Brothers?
Guest:I was of the patter.
Guest:I was like, it's really working well tonight.
Guest:They're doing great.
Guest:But I didn't have that disillusioned thing of, oh, they say the same thing every time.
Guest:No.
Guest:And they have the same pauses and they have the same fake laughing at each other's jokes.
Guest:My thing was like professionals.
Guest:God, professionals.
Guest:And last night, not so good.
Guest:Tonight, wow.
Guest:The fake laughing is extra good tonight.
Guest:And your dad just was like in the back in the band.
Guest:He was, he was, uh, he was road manager for a little while when I was really little.
Guest:And then, yeah, then he was just band leader.
Marc:And so they were already like past, obviously past their prime and just touring.
Guest:And they were still a big touring gig.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Um, nice guys.
Guest:Uh,
Guest:Nice to me.
Guest:Well, you know, they had little rises because Bill Medley had the big hit with Dirty Dancing, the Time of My Life song.
Guest:Oh, that was one of the Righteous Brothers?
Guest:And then in Ghosts, they used Unchained Melody, which is Bobby Hatfield.
Guest:So then that gave them another rise.
Guest:So they'd have these little moments where they'd become relevant again.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then Top Gun.
Guest:And Top Gun.
Guest:That was huge.
Guest:You lost that love and feeling.
Guest:So there was always these, even though they'd started in the 60s, they were still getting big crowds 30 years later.
Guest:Isn't that wild about those bands?
Marc:It's happening now with bands we grew up with.
Marc:It's crazy.
Marc:You just go and people love them.
Marc:I wouldn't think to go see Journey, would you?
Marc:I wouldn't.
Marc:Who would you go see if someone came around?
Marc:Who were your bands?
Marc:The band, I remember I'd listen to a lot of Steely Dan.
Guest:Really?
Guest:As a kid.
Guest:I can't wrap my brain around it.
Guest:A lot of Kansas.
Guest:Oh, carry on.
Guest:Genesis.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you were into that.
Guest:I had an older... We had an upstairs neighbor in the apartment complex I grew up in.
Guest:Irvine's only apartment complex, by the way.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Park West Apartments, which the rich kids referred to as Park Watts.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:It was bad?
Guest:There was just one black family, but everyone thought, wow, it's ethnic.
Guest:Yeah, that was the only ones they noticed.
Guest:Anyway, we had a neighbor...
Guest:up above who was who was our babysitter and the guy we looked up to and taught us sports and we listened to all his albums you need that guy yeah you need that guy to show you the way yeah someone's gotta that haven't been said i don't know if i'd go to any of those concerts no but like i i talk about this a lot with people that there's like if you're lucky when you're a kid and i your dad was probably on the road a lot yeah yeah yeah
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, because my dad was- But you need that guy in the neighborhood- Who's going to show you- Who shows you how to play baseball.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And turns you on to music.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:Or you just hope he has good taste.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, yeah, it seemed like it was a mixed bag with this guy.
Guest:We were into it, I got to say.
Marc:Doobie Brothers were good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That Kansas, you know, they had the one good record.
Marc:And sports too.
Marc:Your dad didn't show you about sports?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was very unathletic.
Guest:He was very supportive.
Guest:Was he surprised?
Guest:He's like, what is happening?
Guest:Can throw a ball.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, I think he was.
Guest:I think he was surprised that my brother and I were actually athletes.
Guest:But he would go to all the soccer games and go to this and go to that.
Guest:Were they together?
Guest:Your folks?
Guest:No, they split up.
Guest:Pretty early.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was like eight, I think.
Marc:But I can't, so you knew about the show business life, that's a real show business life, that your father's just kinda.
Guest:Yeah, which is why I was dead set, even as a little kid, of going into show business.
Marc:Yeah, because you're never home, you're traveling constantly.
Guest:And when he would say, well, the job at the club is over, what happened?
Guest:Manager said, it's over.
Guest:Oh, did something... Did you do something wrong?
Guest:No.
Guest:So they're going in a different direction.
Guest:Oh, so it can just end like that?
Guest:Yep.
Guest:Got to find a new one.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Yeah, I thought, oh, I'm not going to do that.
Guest:I'm going to have a real job and I'm going to carry a briefcase.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:That was the image in my...
Guest:I heard about this briefcase story.
Guest:No, that's a different briefcase story.
Marc:No, but we'll get to that.
Marc:Is that a classic Will Ferrell story?
Marc:I guess.
Marc:The briefcase story?
Marc:Not to me, but yeah.
Marc:So what was the plan then?
Marc:So you go to high school, your dad's being let go from...
Guest:bar gigs right spontaneously no the plan was uh you know even though i was dead set against a life in entertainment i still loved comedy and i loved uh entertain my friends and and that sort of thing but the plan was to find a legitimate uh you know
Guest:way to do that yeah in my mind's eye which was uh broadcast journalism so right so anchorman sort of close to your heart and it well that way kind of is sadly yeah i loved watching the news as a kid um but local news right local news loved it it's the best it's so good because like and it felt comforting you were getting the information of the day at six o'clock
Guest:Right, from your neighborhood.
Guest:Yeah, from your neighborhood.
Marc:Oh, that's the supermarket that's on fire.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That guy doesn't seem very shocked about it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And these guys could show up in your area.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:At the opening of the supermarket.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And what would it be like to meet them?
Guest:It's a real thing.
Guest:Yeah, it was a huge, huge thing.
Marc:Where did you grow up?
Guest:New Mexico.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Marc:Albuquerque.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Who was the big guy in Albuquerque?
Marc:Johnny Morris.
Marc:Johnny Morris, okay.
Marc:Dick Niffing.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:I remember him.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:Dick Niffing was Channel 7.
Marc:I think Johnny Morris was Channel 4.
Guest:Yeah, we had Jerry Dunphy, Channel 7.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Hal Fishman.
Marc:Hal Fishman.
Marc:Channel 5.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I feel like that's an L.A.
Marc:guy, isn't he?
Marc:Hal Fishman or no?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Those were L.A.
Marc:guys.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah, I remember Johnny Morris and Dick Niffing, and then I remember seeing Dick Niffing.
Guest:Dick Niffing, by the way, refuses to change his name, obviously.
Guest:He stayed with Dick Niffing.
Yeah.
Marc:With a K-N.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's a K-N there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Silent K at the beginning.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:But do you remember, like, I remember seeing these guys in person for the first time?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, you just see them out at an event or, you know, by accident, and you're like, oh, my God.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:What's wrong with him?
Marc:He's just a guy.
Guest:Well, then, growing up in L.A., the L.A.
Guest:media, you actually saw people who went on.
Guest:So I remember seeing Connie Chung as local.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:And then she went on to be Connie Chung as global.
Guest:It was good for her.
Guest:She made it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How did that happen?
Guest:She was just doing the news here.
Guest:Just doing the news in small LA.
Guest:And then she somehow made it.
Guest:Boom.
Guest:To the big time.
Guest:Now she's doing this other thing.
Guest:So.
Marc:That seems to be bigger.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, I remember when some girl I went to high school with became a TV, like a news person.
Marc:Penny Griegos.
Marc:I was like, oh my God.
Marc:Penny Griegos.
Marc:I remember Penny Griegos.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Is she out here?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:You got to look her up.
Marc:you guys gotta go have coffee but it's a big thing she was like channel four i think you're right i think she did come out here i went to like uh high school with her and you know if you know people that go on to uh become broadcast news people they were they were much more interesting when you knew them you know they flatten out right they have to become neutral yes you do you gotta turn something off
Marc:But anyway, that was the plan.
Guest:I was going to do sports.
Guest:I love sports.
Guest:I was going to do sports casting.
Marc:Are you a real sports guy?
Marc:You follow everything?
Marc:Did you watch the game yesterday?
Guest:Whatever happened?
Guest:I saw the highlight.
Guest:I was in Austin, Texas all day yesterday.
Guest:You were?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What were you doing?
Guest:We were doing a little staged reading of a script by Vince Gilligan.
Guest:Really?
Guest:The Breaking Bad guy, yeah.
Guest:Holy shit.
Guest:It's a script he's had for 18 years that they want to do a reading of.
Guest:does he live out there no but it was just sponsored by the austin film festival we're like yeah let's do it let's fly out and read this thing are you in mind for the part i'm apparently i'm up for the part you're up for it so it was it was an audition and i found out immediately that they're going to brad pitt no
Marc:That'd be horrible if it was an audition.
Marc:It's like, where you go out there, it's like, you're going to read half, and the other guy is going to come in.
Guest:We're going to have someone, we're going to take a brief intermission, and you'll be replaced.
Guest:Yeah, but they know you.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:It was great.
Guest:It went great.
Guest:Is it a comedy?
Guest:It played like a comedy much more than we thought.
Guest:It's a pretty...
Guest:I don't know if it's studio fair, but it's... Intense?
Guest:Kind of an intense examination at racial stereotypes.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And it's been sitting around for 18 years.
Guest:It's been sitting around for a long time, and we're still like it.
Marc:But how are you not going to... I think you're one of those guys... See, even with me sitting here, talking to you.
Marc:I know you from films and television.
Marc:There's part of me that's sort of waiting to laugh.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I have to assume that when you get in, I'm not saying there's no pressure.
Marc:No, no, I know.
Marc:I'm going to laugh even out of context.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I'm going to laugh no matter what.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:But I imagine when you do something like that.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Like no matter how, you could be doing something dark and horrible and people are like.
Guest:And that's kind of what happened yesterday.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because there's a lot of language in this movie where it's basically about these racist group of guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Who kind of realized that all this hate isn't isn't doing anyone any good but right But to say the n-word and all these things in the audience went from laughing to oh wait a minute And oh really yeah, I'd kind of stopped him in their tracks, which was kind of fun for me Did you say the n-word?
Guest:I did how'd that feel?
Guest:It feels weird.
Guest:It does feel weird, right?
Guest:It's a weird word.
Marc:Because there's part of you that after you say it, it's written on the... No, you want to immediately have a discussion about... I'm going to stick this thing in here.
Guest:Now, what's that thing?
Marc:I've been forgetting to do backup.
Marc:You know, like to back up my files.
Guest:You've got to run your own deal here.
Marc:Flying by the seat of my pants.
Marc:And I apologize to interrupt you.
Guest:And all the guitars.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Guitars, not guitars.
Marc:Do you play?
Guest:No.
Marc:You don't play anything?
Guest:Saxophone from sixth to eighth grade, and then it was over.
Marc:So you did the sax thing?
Marc:I did.
Guest:I played my dad's sax.
Guest:You did.
Guest:And then I started playing sports, and I'm like...
Marc:That's interesting, though.
Marc:You sought to kind of meet him.
Marc:I tried, yeah.
Marc:Okay, all right.
Marc:Dad's a musician.
Marc:I'll give it a whirl.
Marc:And it didn't connect, huh?
Guest:Yeah, he'll still tell me.
Guest:Don Hawkins, who's this great saxophone player, who was my teacher.
Marc:we'll still they'll still talk occasionally it's like will could have been really good is that don't they all say that they all yeah they have to say it yeah all right so all right so you go you go to high school you're gonna be uh you're gonna be the next connie chung or uh or what's the other guy's name fish fish fish back al fishman
Marc:What was the name of that weather guy?
Marc:They used it.
Marc:Fishback?
Marc:Was it Fishback?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Hal Fishback.
Marc:Hal Fishback.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I believe he started in Albuquerque.
Marc:Is that possible?
Marc:Could have been.
Marc:Hal Fishback.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He was pretty big out here.
Guest:Very easily.
Guest:Weather guy.
Guest:Yeah, he was quirky.
Guest:He wore bow ties.
Guest:That was his hook.
Guest:The weather guy's got to be quirky.
Guest:He's got to be quirky.
Marc:Yeah, and who else was there?
Marc:Oh, a guy who used to do comedy, I think.
Guest:Well, there's the guy still at Channel 4.
Guest:With the glasses, right?
Guest:Fritz Coleman.
Guest:Fritz Coleman!
Guest:And he'll do stand-up.
Guest:Did you ever see it?
Guest:Did you ever do shows with him?
Guest:I did not follow Fritz.
Guest:When he was a comic, he was- He played to the back of the room.
Guest:He was a back-of-the-room guy.
Guest:Always.
Guest:Not so much guy.
Guest:What's he pointing at?
Guest:He didn't make the audience laugh, but, oh, the guys in the back of the room loved it.
Guest:Yeah, they loved it.
Guest:They loved it.
Guest:Yeah, the fake blue screen thing.
Marc:He's moving his hands.
Marc:So, okay, so you finish high school and you're like, I'm going to be a sportscaster.
Guest:Yeah, well, I finished college.
Guest:Where'd you go college?
Guest:I'm saying I'm going to be a sports guy.
Guest:I went to USC, and then I graduated, and then I set out to try to find a job in the world of broadcasting, and I realized that... But did you do any in college?
Guest:Were you doing the... I did the...
Guest:It's funny, for such a big school, they really didn't have that much practical application.
Guest:I think you had one television production class.
Guest:And one time where you got to on camera, like, read the news.
Guest:It's like antique equipment.
Guest:That was it, yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:For this big school.
Guest:So then I leave and I re-enroll.
Guest:I move back home.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I re-enroll in a local junior college that had a great facility.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they had a weekly television show.
Guest:And I started doing stuff there and building my tape, but the real, the real.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I realized it's just as hard to get, you know, a job in Yuma, Arizona starting out as it would be to try comedy.
Guest:So meanwhile, the back of my head, I'm like, I still want to try comedy.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So, but you were actually thinking like, sort of like, I'll just get a job as a broadcaster, wherever I can, you know, in the country.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:But I also realized that I cared nothing about reporting on anything.
Guest:I liked being in front of the camera, but I didn't care about what I was reading.
Guest:I didn't care about going out and getting the big story.
Guest:And I thought, well, that's not a good sign.
Guest:I should want to die to go get the Coach Krzyzewski interview or...
Guest:Or, you know, go to Dodger Stadium and interview whoever.
Guest:But I could care less.
Guest:You took no journalism classes?
Guest:No, I took journalism classes, but I did not build the fire.
Marc:Who, when, where, why didn't move you.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And this local cable show actually had decent credentials.
Guest:So I could get into a Laker game.
Guest:I could get into all these things and really interview these athletes.
Guest:But I didn't really care.
Marc:Did you go to the games with the equipment and just watch the game and leave?
Guest:Well, sometimes I'd have my friend Brian operate camera for me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then, yeah.
Guest:There was some story where I like, I can't.
Guest:Oh, they're busy?
Guest:That's okay.
Guest:I'll leave.
Guest:Too much trouble.
Guest:Did you get the story?
Guest:No.
Guest:I couldn't get to them.
Guest:Good game, though.
Guest:Great game.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Good nachos.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So subsequently this whole time, the nagging thing of, you know, trying this thing that we've all.
Guest:Stand up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Stand up.
Guest:And I was also sort of taking some acting class as well.
Marc:In LA, in town?
Guest:Down in Orange County.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:South Coast Repertory Theater, which is a big rep theater.
Guest:And my mom gave me a nine-week scene study class as a Christmas present.
Guest:And I took the class and...
Marc:So you're going to this class, you're like, what, 19 years old?
Marc:Yeah, 20.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And who's in that class?
Guest:You know, housewives.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And local Orange County actors.
Marc:So you're doing scenes with like, you need a woman in the scenes, you're doing with someone who's like, she's hit the wall at home.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Trying to make her life relevant.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Oh, boy.
Guest:And yet...
Guest:i loved it it was fascinating and uh and then i was trying and then i uh i enrolled in a stand-up comedy workshop who taught that steve klasky hmm usually i know the uh failed comic that embarks on that you would never know this guy steve klasky so this was the um
Guest:This was, as my mom turns it, the graduate school portion of my life.
Guest:Because she said she made a deal.
Guest:It's like, you can live at home for free as long as you're moving forward and pursuing these things.
Guest:So very progressive.
Guest:Pursuing the dream.
Guest:Yeah, or something.
Guest:What was your brother doing?
Guest:He was in school.
Guest:He's three years younger, so he was in college.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So yeah, so Steve Classy, a stand-up comedy workshop at Irvine Valley College, which took place in a junior high classroom where there was a mic and like a PV amp.
Yeah.
Marc:The mic plugged directly into the guitar amp.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And once again, first class, 30 people in the class.
Guest:Everyone had to get up on the mic and introduce themselves.
Guest:By the second class, it was down to 20.
Guest:By the fourth class, there was just eight of us.
Guest:And you're just doing your act into a microphone, and he's not really equipped to critique you in any way.
Marc:What's he do?
Guest:He's a comic himself.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But the thing I noticed in the course description was it ended in a performance at the Golden Bear down in Huntington Beach.
Guest:Ooh.
Guest:I was like, okay, this will force me to get up on stage.
Guest:Not even a comedy club, but the Golden Bear.
Guest:No, the Golden Bear.
Guest:so do you remember what your act oh yeah you do yeah yeah yeah i had um i started with a nice block of star trek material okay you did a couple impressions in there i would do um i would start by singing the theme to star trek yeah so i'd go through the whole oh i'd sing the whole thing yeah oh
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that would usually get applause or some reaction.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I was like, originally I was a singer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, of course, I don't have any testicles.
Guest:Boom.
Guest:Ah, boom.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I would go through the show and how, you know.
Guest:That was the opener, though.
Marc:That was the opener.
Marc:Long, a long singing.
Marc:That was the opener.
Marc:And then a no balls joke.
Marc:A no balls joke.
Guest:Good.
Guest:Solid.
Guest:And then it was off to the races.
Guest:But I did well enough in the final performance to be recruited by Steve Klasky to be on his stable of comedians that would do local.
Guest:So this is 91, 92, which was, you know, one of the booms of stand-up comedy.
Marc:I'm not sure when the official one happened.
Guest:But in that, you know.
Guest:where every restaurant in town had a comedy night which literally meant building a stage in the corner right yeah a sad attempt to draw people into a failing business yeah and uh comedy night so i did all these all these places in orange county as it with what like eight minutes yeah it just opening for klasky well no klasky would open
Guest:Really?
Guest:And Klasky would then bring us up one at a time.
Guest:And the deal was no one got paid, but at least he got stage time.
Marc:So he recruited a bunch of guys from his class.
Guest:He would get all the money.
Marc:And he'd take you to different gigs.
Marc:He'd get these gigs and they'd pay him.
Guest:They'd pay him.
Guest:And he's doing you a favor.
Guest:He's doing us a favor.
Marc:Stage time.
Marc:So that was the thing.
Marc:That's beautiful.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it was all under the radar because it was Orange County.
Marc:No one was going to crack out on that guy.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Do you remember any of the other people in it?
Marc:Did any of them go on to anything?
No.
Guest:I never talked to any of the other comics.
Guest:But that gave you the bug.
Guest:So now you knew you could be funny?
Guest:Well, then I started to go up to L.A.
Guest:when they still had the Santa Monica improv.
Guest:Yeah, they used to shoot Evening at the Improv there.
Guest:and then you'd have to go audition for um bud not for bud the other guy mark mark yeah to see if you could go up at the melrose one for open mic for mondays or whatever exactly yeah and um did you do that i did it and he had to wait in line to talk to mark and he was like
Guest:Pretty funny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Why don't you call back in a month and tell the girl that you get eight minutes this time instead of four?
Guest:At Santa Monica.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So then I did my eight, and then I never heard back.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I did the Ice House a couple times.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I did- That's a good room.
Guest:That's always a good room.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But you wanted to be a stand-up, so that was it.
Guest:No, I-
Guest:What happened, though, subsequently, while I was doing that, I also discovered the Groundlings.
Guest:I've never been over there.
Guest:So, yeah.
Guest:I noticed they had a school, improv school you could go through.
Guest:And then when I started taking classes there, that's when I realized, oh, I'd rather work in the ensemble and...
Guest:Right.
Guest:Fail up on stage with a bunch of people than just by myself.
Marc:Right, because it's more fun.
Marc:More fun.
Marc:Yeah, and you can sort of embrace the failure as a group.
Guest:And as much fun as stand-up is when it works, the times that it didn't were so crushing that I didn't have the... So I did it for like a year.
Guest:Weren't built for it.
Guest:I don't think I was built for the pounding.
Marc:The sad, lonely, just hearing yourself talk.
Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Blank faces.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Nothing but disappointment.
Guest:Just going on and on.
Marc:And there's nowhere to go.
Guest:There's nowhere to go.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But at a certain level, you could just leave.
Marc:Like, I guess that's it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right after the ball joke.
Marc:Boom.
Marc:Good to go through it.
Marc:Got to take the hit.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:Was your dad into it?
Marc:He was.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He was like, show business.
Guest:He was good with it.
Guest:Yeah, the family was good.
Guest:Really?
Guest:They weren't... I wouldn't call them cheerleaders.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They weren't like, you can do it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But when I got it going on my own, they were like...
Guest:All right.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Did he have any comedian friends like they used to open for the Righteous Brothers or anything?
Marc:Were there people in the world of comedy that he knew?
Marc:Tom Dreesen.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He's an important guy.
Marc:Tom Dreesen.
Marc:Tom Dreesen.
Marc:Unionized the comics in the early 70s.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So Dreesen used to open for the right thing.
Guest:The big thing in front of the comedy store.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah, that was all Dreesen.
Marc:The guy committed suicide.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Steve Lubitkin.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's a good book that I'm dying up here.
Marc:Just check it out.
Marc:I recommend it to everybody.
Marc:But he's an interesting guy.
Marc:He was like a union organizer.
Marc:You never would think that.
Marc:Going from there, okay, so you go to the groundlings.
Marc:I go to the groundlings, yeah.
Marc:And you take the class and that's sort of like, that's the moment where you're like, oh shit, this is.
Marc:Well, this is great.
Guest:Yeah, this is so much fun.
Marc:What was the big difference for you?
Guest:I mean, when you started learning that stuff.
Guest:Because I wasn't a good, I realized in my stand-up that when you have those opening slots, which are four, three minutes, four minutes, five minutes, I'd get through two bits maybe.
Guest:yeah because i wasn't a joke teller yeah long form long setup yeah here comes my funny character and then then you get the light and it's done you're like oh okay uh halfway into your character halfway into my great character
Guest:Which was, you know.
Guest:What was it?
Guest:A guy.
Guest:I'm trying to think.
Guest:A guy mispronouncing food items at like a Taco Bell or something.
Guest:So it was a guy doing bad pronunciation of Spanish items.
Guest:So I'm going to have the Fajitas.
Guest:And let's take a couple of quesadillas.
Guest:Do you want that?
Guest:Does that sound good, honey?
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Two quesadillas.
Guest:You got the fajitas, right?
Guest:And then we'll have... So that was... But that would take up... Five, six minutes.
Guest:I got to set up... I got to get into the setup.
Guest:I got to create the visual for you.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:This guy walks in.
Guest:And then I'm done.
Marc:So... You don't even get through four menu items.
Guest:Right.
Marc:That must have done pretty well, though, right?
Marc:No, that...
Guest:I have to say in my one year of maybe doing it 50 times total in that year, that my ratio of bombing was... I was decent enough to... That character did not make it to SNL.
Guest:That character did not.
Guest:The mispronouncing...
Marc:Mexican food guy did not make it that would have been big could have built a movie around that guy just have him go around the world to other countries and just pronounce things different dishes yeah so when you started doing improv though was it like because I know there's a certain you know juice to do in stand up where you're like oh okay
Marc:I'm going to do it.
Marc:It's just me.
Marc:I'm on stage.
Marc:But like with improv and then with doing with the groundlings, I don't know how much of it was scripted, but that must have been like the drug almost, I would think.
Guest:Well, that was, yeah.
Guest:I mean, it wasn't so much the improv because, you know, whereas Second City and UCB and all these places are so improv heavy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We actually, the classes there were more writing background.
Guest:Oh, really, yeah.
Guest:Sketches.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:you would sketches or monologues yeah and that's where that's what that's where i kind of realized oh okay i think i can write a sketch pretty decently and yeah that's kind of where the where i got energized from doing being able to write my own material and collaborating with people and then you know i don't i don't know if i felt i was the strongest improviser leaving that place how about now
Guest:Now I'm much better.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I still don't.
Guest:It's not like I seek it out and have to go and do the Thursday night show.
Marc:I'm just going to drop by where the kids are hanging out.
Marc:See if I can get this going.
Marc:Creepy old guy.
Marc:Look at him trying.
Marc:Yeah, that would be totally.
Marc:It happens.
Marc:I mean, well, that shows a certain amount of fortitude that you feel comfortable enough with yourself that you're not sitting at home on a Wednesday night.
Marc:Oh, I just got to get out in front of some youngsters.
Marc:Just the opposite.
Guest:No, because I went back after I'd been on the show.
Guest:To the ground.
Guest:Yeah, for a couple shows.
Guest:And I could tell, yeah, the audience was like, what's he going to do?
Guest:You can't follow the excitement of them knowing you're there.
Guest:And I literally had a guy in the lobby after the show was like, hey, man, I'm in the Marines.
Guest:Here's my girlfriend.
Guest:We drove all the way from Camp Pendleton to see the show tonight.
Yeah.
Guest:And I know it's improv.
Guest:You've got to kind of give into it.
Guest:But I wish you were funnier tonight.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:And I said, well, I don't know what to tell you.
Marc:Thank you for your service.
Guest:Yeah, right, right, right.
Guest:Oh, God.
Guest:I hope you're shipped out immediately.
Guest:But yeah, and I thought, oh, well.
Guest:That was the end of it.
Guest:No good deed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Goes unpunished.
Guest:No, I came back to do the fun improv show, and then, yeah, just, you know.
Guest:Yeah, you really let us down, man.
Guest:Work out a little bit.
Guest:Yeah, just so you know.
Guest:I saw you with live ammo and... Nothing.
Guest:No.
Guest:Nothing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So now I know.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Who you really are.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:So that was it.
Guest:That kind of shut me down.
Marc:I was like, ugh.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I don't know how you do that, though.
Marc:I mean, because even me, to a certain degree, I don't know.
Marc:You're going to come over, and I don't know what's going to happen.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you're one of the funniest guys in the world.
Marc:So I imagine that at any given point in time, no matter where you are, there are people going, hey.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It must be hard.
Marc:Do you have to fight it?
Marc:Was there a point where you're like, I'm going to turn on the juice a little bit?
Guest:Because it's like magic juice, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, and it's like anything else.
Guest:You have those days where you feel playful and you have the other times where you're with the kids trying to get them in the car and-
Guest:So I try not to feel guilty, but I did.
Guest:I've worked through that because when I first was on Saturday Night Live and someone would come up in the street.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The cheerleader guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Do a cheer.
Guest:Like, I don't.
Guest:That takes a whole week to work those things out.
Guest:We don't just.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:I thought you'd be funnier.
Guest:Sorry.
Guest:And I just like slink away and I'm just like, well, I let them down.
Marc:Oh, well.
Marc:But it did bother you at first.
Marc:At first.
Marc:But then you're like, come on.
Marc:It's okay.
Marc:I'm trying to live a life.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:It's okay.
Marc:Put your camera away.
Marc:I'm going to the bank.
Marc:Yeah, right, right.
Marc:But it doesn't seem like you get followed around much or anything.
Guest:No.
Marc:So what was the structure?
Marc:Explain to me how the groundlings work.
Marc:Who was there when you were there that kind of made it through all the ranks when you first got there?
Guest:Yeah, well...
Guest:kind of collectively whether they were a little behind me or a little in for the same time it was you know Chris Kattan and Sherry Oteri and Anna Gasteyer and Chris Parnell and Maya Rudolph and um that's unbelievable yeah a lot of people uh I think even Jimmy Fallon was taking Groundlings classes I don't think he got into the main company at all but
Guest:And then even after us, it's like Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy.
Guest:It was a great environment.
Guest:It really was a lot of people just trying to put on a good show.
Guest:And then I heard it change, though, once some of us got on the show, people literally started showing up at the school saying, I want to be on Saturday Night Live in three years.
Guest:That's my goal.
Guest:And I'm like, well, we're here to teach.
Guest:That's something down the road.
Guest:I wouldn't worry about that right now.
Guest:Nope, that's why I'm here.
Guest:Is that what you get when you graduate?
Guest:Bob, you and Mark go improvise.
Guest:No, I don't think he's funny.
Guest:I'm not going to improvise with him.
Guest:Like people making these calculated moves in class where when I was there, it was just a bunch of actors who were trying to be funny.
Marc:But did you have any career aspirations?
Guest:I mean, what were they specifically when you decided to move out of the Taco Bell guy and do a bigger... I guess, you know, I don't know if I was... Well, I knew...
Guest:i knew that the groundlings was a place that people did come to look yeah for whether it be for sitcoms or for saturday night live right you know i did know that i mean to to i guess just to work yeah was the goal right even though um
Guest:I had lunch with my dad one day when I said, hey, I'm going to try to go for this.
Guest:Whatever that means, I don't know.
Guest:I said, do you have any advice?
Guest:And he gave me kind of some of the best advice, which doesn't sound like great advice, but he said, well, if it was all based on talent, I wouldn't worry about you because I think I've watched you now on these shows and I think there's really something there.
Guest:But you have to remember, there's a lot of luck.
Guest:And if you get to a certain point, three years, four years, five years, and you just feel like it's too hard, don't worry about quitting and don't feel like you failed.
Guest:And it's okay to pick up and do something different.
Guest:And for some reason that took the pressure off.
Guest:I'm like, oh, okay, well, this is like the lottery.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I'll just give it a shot.
Guest:And if it doesn't work, I'm not going to feel bad about it.
Guest:And I'll go and... Of course, I desperately wanted to succeed like anyone else.
Guest:But that weird piece of advice, which if it was written on a piece of paper, would be the most uninspirational... But it's practical.
Guest:But it's practical.
Guest:And it came from a guy who's been a musician for 30, 40 years.
Guest:And all of a sudden, it just was like, oh...
Guest:Okay, well, this is a crapshoot anyway.
Guest:Let's just relax and try not to squeeze the bat too hard and just have fun and throw it away.
Guest:And so I kind of tried to use that as my approach.
Marc:It's amazing because given your dad's experience and seeing how...
Marc:show business can really beat up a person's dream.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Because like everybody, and I imagine him included.
Guest:And that's what happened.
Guest:I think that's what happened to him on some level too.
Marc:Because you get in too deep and there's no plan B, man.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, either you can work or you just sit there sort of like...
Guest:And he had the big moment in his career.
Guest:He had the Hollywood story of someone in the nightclub listening to him.
Guest:Hey, we're starting a new record label.
Guest:We'd love for you to cut a country album.
Guest:He flies out to Nashville.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's out there for a month.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's working with all the top studio musicians.
Guest:They make this album.
Guest:He's back home.
Guest:He's promoting it.
Guest:It's starting to get play on the radio.
Guest:And then it turns out that the label was all a tax scam and a front for something.
Guest:And it all goes under.
Guest:And all these records sit in a warehouse.
Guest:Your dad's records?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he went through that thing.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Bad luck.
Guest:Bad luck.
Guest:And so I think that's where he was like, hey, so just, just so you know.
Marc:You feel like that's it, hanging your hopes on that, and you can't even get your record.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Can I just get a box of them?
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:No box.
Guest:And they're sitting in some warehouse, and who knows whatever happened to them.
Guest:That's the heartbreak of it.
Marc:And he'd done his time.
Marc:He was... You know what I mean?
Guest:It was lined up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was... Opportunity was meeting preparation and... Yeah.
Guest:It was his moment and then... Got derailed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:By bullshit.
Guest:So, I think that was his... Through that experience, he was kind of like, just so you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You don't know... And instead of... But a different... I guess someone else would react to that and go, oh, so I shouldn't even try.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I took it as like, okay, so just have fun with it and...
Marc:you know yeah trust that you can do something else if it right yeah that's i so anyway that is the most practical paternal advice i've heard yeah on this show because there's no pressure in it he was he was a supportive well you're a talented guy looks like yeah yeah yeah no you i've seen you you've got some talent is he still around yeah yeah you guys are good you were great yeah he must love it now oh he now he's like he just emailed me today like
Guest:Ron Burgundy?
Guest:Ben and Jerry Ron Burgundy flavor?
Guest:This is incredible.
Marc:That's fucking beautiful.
Guest:And he just... Is he retired?
Marc:Does he still play?
Guest:He's still, you know, he's 71 and he's still trying to play where people want to hear a 71-year-old piano player.
Guest:But yeah, he kind of just... He's always pinching himself...
Guest:uh i think you know both my parents yeah but uh but especially my dad just because i think he's like you don't even realize yeah you know how big you are like he yeah yeah yeah yeah you don't even realize do you no not really no i try not to think about it it's worked so far yeah it's really well so but that same you know that i mean so you know fast forward to me having to audition
Guest:at least the year I auditioned for SNL was... Did you audition?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:For the news?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or just generally?
Marc:I'm getting bits and pieces of that, of that story.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, I auditioned.
Marc:I was... I jumped through the hoops.
Marc:He saw me... Marcy saw me...
Marc:Marcy saw me at Largo or at Luna Lounge.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:And then set up an audition at the comic strip for Lorne to come down.
Marc:But see, you got to do it.
Marc:And then Lorne had me in the studio.
Guest:Oh, you had to do the awful one where no one laughs and you're just in there.
Marc:And then he met with me and somehow I feel like I botched it.
Marc:It's been hanging over me.
Marc:But I talked to everybody who's been on SNL about my audition there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:and um oh so i just wandered right into sure you did yeah jim brewer gave me some new information that because i never knew like i'd heard different things that you know norm was was leaving or he wasn't leaving maybe i was being used to pressure uh norm but brewer said that that lauren pulled him aside and said what do you do you know mark maron and uh and and brewer's like yeah yeah i know and and lauren says what do you think of him
Marc:And Brewer said, well, I think he'd be great for the job, but he's a very difficult person.
Marc:And apparently Lauren said, that's what I've been hearing.
Marc:So, you know, I don't have too many regrets about it.
Marc:I don't think at the time I was ready for the gig.
Marc:I probably would have.
Marc:I definitely was not.
Marc:But yeah, it looms large.
Marc:I need to talk to Lauren.
Marc:Can we call him?
Marc:We probably can't get a hold of him.
Guest:Okay.
Yeah.
Marc:But how did you get called up?
Guest:So you were in the main stage of the Groundlings, and somebody said... Yeah, Marcy and that crew came out, and they saw... Yeah, they flew out Sherry and Chris and I. Yeah.
Guest:And Jennifer Coolidge.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And... She was a Groundling, too?
Guest:She was a Groundling, too.
Guest:She's a pretty astounding talent.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:Very funny.
Guest:Pretty funny.
Guest:And, yeah, we did that weird, nondescript...
Guest:Well, the first one was more specific.
Guest:It was five to eight minutes of a character of your choice, a celebrity impersonation if you did one, and a political impersonation if you did one.
Guest:What'd you do?
Guest:And I did Harry Carey at a play reading.
Guest:I did Ted Kennedy doing stand-up comedy.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And then I did this character that actually I did in the first show, this dad yelling at his kids to get off the shed.
Guest:So I did those three things, and then that was it.
Guest:The general word were the groundlings... All of the groundlings had done really well.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:So then there was the callback.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's when you had the meeting with Lorne.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that's where I thought... Oh.
Guest:I blew it.
Guest:Between the meeting and then the second audition where... So you had the meeting first and then the next... Yeah, the meeting first.
Guest:What was that like?
Guest:Well, the meeting was pretty rough because...
Guest:Lauren asked me, what are you planning to do for the second audition?
Guest:And, you know, you always hear, anytime I ever heard about, and I hadn't done any sort of callbacks for anything.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I'd always heard when you get called for network, for a TV show, like, just do what you did the first time.
Guest:And so I was roughly saying, oh, I'm going to do this again and do that again.
Guest:And Lauren was like, no, I wouldn't do that.
Guest:And no, I wouldn't do that.
Guest:And did you argue with him?
Guest:No, no, I'm going to.
Guest:And I thought, okay.
Guest:And what I realized he was doing was for the network.
Guest:He was like, just, he couldn't just come out and say it, but he was like, he wanted me to just bring in a whole brand new thing.
Guest:They've seen you do one thing now.
Guest:It wasn't for him.
Marc:He believed in you and he wanted, I think so.
Guest:Um, and, uh,
Guest:so anyways i'm in the hotel revamping the entire audition for the next day yeah so i literally was coming up with it that night and just did it that day and then the next day i do the audition and then i see lauren in the studio and i walk by i'm like thanks lauren and i went to shake his hand and he just walked right by me so then i thought oh that's it yeah did you did you create new characters though that night
Guest:I had done, I just kind of tried to cobble little pieces from sketches I'd done at the Groundlings.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I did, you know, I did like a, there was a sketch I'd written with a friend about, there's not much to the sketch, it was just behavior of police officers and how they just love to do that, you know, the ask you questions.
Guest:With the light.
Guest:With the light, holding the light.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And the long pauses.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How you doing tonight, Mark?
Guest:Let me speak a little too loud.
Guest:I'm okay.
Guest:You're okay?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Do you have identification on you?
Guest:Yeah, I do.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You still live in Highland Terrace?
Guest:Yeah, I do.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You comedian?
Guest:You think you're a comedian tonight?
Guest:No, but like that whole thing.
Guest:Did it work?
Guest:I don't know, because it's just a vacuum in that studio.
Guest:No one's laughing.
Marc:And it's horrible.
Guest:So I thought, well, I'll just try not to rush through it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I did a thing where I'm a guy who plays with cat toys.
Marc:That was a complete physical bit?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where you're just batting at things?
Guest:And then I did a bad Bill Clinton impersonation, because I knew, well, they need someone who's going to play the president.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And...
Guest:And then Lauren left you hanging in the hallway.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I left going, oh, brother.
Guest:Do you remember comedian James Stevens III?
Guest:I do.
Guest:The black guy?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, sure I do.
Guest:I somehow was meeting my good friend Jeff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was the only person I knew who lived in New York at the time.
Guest:So after that audition, I said, Jeff, let's meet because either I'll be in a really good mood or I'll be in a horrible mood.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So let's have beers regardless.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But somehow...
Guest:James Stevens the third intersects with us we spend the whole night three I just wanted to see my buddy who I grew up with and he is just the opposite I'm thinking I blew and he was like he's already planning what he's going to do on the first show because he auditioned he auditioned as well oh interesting
Guest:so he was he did his thing he did his thing in a british accent the whole time uh-huh and convinced lauren that he lauren thought he was from london and then when he called his friend in london have you heard of this british comedian the guy was like that guy's not from england so so he just lied so then that backfired i think on that guy yeah i don't know where that guy is now no i know uh-oh i'm gonna close that
Marc:So how did you find out you were on the show?
Marc:I mean, how long did they make you wait?
Guest:It was a, yeah, it was another two weeks, and then the word was they were going to come see us in the show, and I thought, oh, well, that's better than I thought.
Guest:At the Groundlings?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You were doing a show in New York, or they were out here?
Marc:No, they came, they flew out here.
Marc:So you did that second audition here?
Guest:No, no, second one in New York as well, flew back, and then- And then Lorne came out?
Guest:Lorne came out.
Marc:So he had to recast the whole show.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So he was active and on top of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he was there and Bernie Brillstein was sitting out in the audience.
Marc:He's a character.
Guest:Character.
Guest:And then it wasn't for another week.
Guest:So it was all in all about six weeks.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And then who told you?
Guest:He did, but not really.
Guest:So they said, Lorne wants to see you again.
Guest:He just wants to get to know you some more.
Guest:I thought, boy...
Guest:How much longer is this going to take?
Guest:But I'm like, but I can't feel impatient.
Guest:This is still the coolest thing.
Marc:You didn't say, is he going to shit or get off the pot?
Guest:I'm going to go in there with my demands.
Guest:But this is back to the briefcase story.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What is that story?
Guest:Which in the first time I sat down with him, I had heard how the rumor was Adam Sandler had sex with a chair and was signed to a four-year deal on the spot.
Marc:That's what you'd heard?
Marc:That he had sex with a chair?
Guest:He did a bit where he humped a chair and Lauren signed him to the- Classic stand-up closer.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I thought, oh, well, you know what?
Guest:He took the bull by the horns.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I'm going to do something funny in our meeting.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I got a briefcase full and I just went to the toy store and I bought a bunch of fake money.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was just going to, while Lauren was talking, in my mind's eye, I was just going to open the briefcase and just start stacking stacks of fake money on his desk.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And just say, Lauren, look, we can talk all day long, but we all know what really talks.
Right.
Guest:That's cash money.
Guest:And then I was going to walk out of the room.
Guest:I'm like, look, I'm going to walk out of here.
Guest:You can either.
Guest:I'm not going to know if you take it.
Guest:Only you'll know.
Guest:And I'm just going to walk out of the room.
Guest:Well, I come in and I can immediately tell the atmosphere is not.
Marc:Not funny.
Guest:And so I sat there nervously for my 10 minutes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:With my briefcase.
Guest:And I never get to my great joke.
Guest:And I walk out and I'm like, God.
Guest:He must be thinking, what comic carries a leather briefcase around with him and just nervously sits with it in his lap?
Guest:So then when I got called to meet him again for the final time, I told my roommate, like, fuck it.
Guest:I'm bringing my briefcase.
Guest:I'm going to do this thing.
Guest:And then I go... I'm about to go in the room.
Guest:The assistant goes, oh, leave your briefcase.
Guest:You don't have to bring...
Guest:And I'm like, ah, so I left it in the course of this second meeting with Lauren.
Guest:He starts asking me questions.
Guest:And then he was, you know, he basically said, so have you ever lived in New York?
Guest:No, I think you'll like it.
Guest:What is he talking about?
Guest:And we're hiring Sherry Oteri, so you'll know someone.
Guest:And then I realize, oh, I've got the gig.
Guest:But I'm so shocked that I don't react with any excitement.
Guest:And then we stand up and I go, oh, gosh, thank you.
Guest:I'm going to shake your hand.
Guest:because i didn't know he's like do whatever you have to do and so we shake hands and then i leave and then i have my briefcase i say the assistant like would you give him some of this fake money i've tried to do this twice now and i never could pull the trigger but just hand him some of this fake money and then apparently he thought that that was so funny that i could never pull it off oh that that didn't happen that never happened right um
Marc:But did you end up carrying a briefcase for a long time or was it just those two meetings?
Marc:No, it was just those two meetings.
Marc:What I heard was that you're so embarrassed about it that for the whole season you showed up to work with a briefcase.
Marc:I should have.
Marc:No.
Marc:So that started the seven-year role then.
Marc:That started seven years, yeah.
Marc:So Adam was already there, and now he's your partner, really.
Guest:Well, McKay, Adam and Tom Giannis, they were hired on the same day that I think Cher and I were out there.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:So you all started at once?
Guest:They're all the same group.
Marc:And then you guys just, you know, I don't know how it works over there, but it seems like people kind of connect, and they find people they can write for.
Marc:You start, you know, the writers start casting you.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You start...
Guest:you start kind of figuring out whose sensibilities you share in terms of the writing staff.
Guest:And for Adam and I, you know, it was quickly apparent like he was one of the, just the, you'd always look forward to seeing a McKay sketch.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because it was going to be just funny and weird and just like anything you hadn't heard before.
Guest:And then I think somehow we, I knocked on his door and was like, should we, let's write something sometime.
Guest:Yeah, let's do it.
Guest:And we,
Guest:we both uh you know shared the the same same uh strategy in terms of writing quickly we didn't overthink it we would just kind of you know take a couple hours write something look at it later and that was it um and you know and then of course naturally thought the same things were funny so and it just kind of started from there
Marc:Do you have any sort of like, cause it's hard to like, you know, you're sitting here and we're talking and you're just a guy talking.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Do you, is there some part of you where you know, do you feel something turn on when you have to be funny or is it all character driven?
Marc:Cause there's a difference.
Marc:I mean, does it have to do with, with people?
Marc:Does it have to do with being in a character?
Marc:Do you feel them?
Marc:Do you ever isolate it?
Marc:Huh.
Marc:It's an impossible question to answer and it's a stupid question all in all.
Marc:But there's just.
Guest:I think when you're thrust in front of a group of people.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it's been set up that you're coming.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Then you're game on.
Guest:Yeah, it's instinctual.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because there's that moment and this is- Because you kind of, yeah, you kind of become a different, you know, it's like Steve Martin, the wild and crazy guy persona in his whole, you know, growing up listening to his albums and how he was so cocky.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean, it's just, that's what he took on because he was so unlike that guy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And yeah, I think I step into- Into that.
Guest:Being someone slightly different than myself.
Marc:But you can do all kinds of characters, and it's just instinctual.
Marc:I mean, when you come up with a character, I mean, do you work it?
Marc:I mean, do you do it beforehand, or do you just sort of lock in and just ride it out?
Marc:Like on Eastbound and Down, that character's crazy.
Marc:It's like this bizarre thing.
Marc:But where did you, how did that evolve?
Guest:I'm just laughing because so many times I don't know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You just don't, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, that was kind of a multi-stepped because Danny and Jody had the idea of basing this guy on, I don't know if you remember the old wrestler Ric Flair.
Guest:Okay, yeah.
Guest:He had bleach blonde hair.
Guest:So there was a precedent.
Guest:So there was a precedent there, and they sent me a thing, and then I worked it off of that.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And he would make these big speeches when WWF was huge.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he'd always, his punctuation was, I don't want to blow your mics out.
Guest:Go ahead.
Guest:But he'd go, and you've got to come down to Fulton County Stadium.
Guest:We're going to do it right tonight.
Guest:It's going to be crazy.
Guest:Woo!
Guest:so he would do a huge yeah so then ashley schaefer i knew he's just kind of this lascivious guy so i augmented that to just be a little like woo woo i've had uh danny uh in here he's a he's a genuine dude he is and how yeah you found that guy right kind of
Guest:We, well, we had been sent their movie, Foot Fist Way.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we, Adam and I had just started our production company, and it was one of those things where...
Guest:agents and managers had sent it our way and said you guys should really look at this this is one of these things that it's been you know was that Sundance or something it's been around for a year or so but no one's really you know kind of shepherded it along and we watched it and we're like wow this is really funny and we sat down and met those guys and that was the first thing that we helped kind of produce or at least get out in theaters and
Guest:Yeah, I mean, they had a bunch of, I don't know if we necessarily found them in the sense that, because I think they'd already met with the Ben Stillers of the world and all these people knew already about them.
Guest:But in our meeting, they sat down and they pitched this show about a former Major League reliever.
Guest:That long ago.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Who gets bounced out of the big leagues and has to move back to small town North Carolina and eat crow and teach it at a junior high while his quest to get back to the big leagues.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, that's hysterical.
Guest:We'd love to help you guys out with it.
Guest:And so that's how we started.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I just watched the first two of the news.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There's nothing like it.
Marc:There really isn't.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because he's such a unique guy that he can bring such humility to such an asshole.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Anyone else who plays that part, it just wouldn't work.
Guest:You can't do it.
Guest:But he's kind of, yeah, he has an amazing capacity to kind of pull that off.
Marc:Now, when you sort of got lumped in or became part of this crew of comic talent, like with Vince Vaughn and still, like there was a whole bunch.
Guest:Yeah, into the 90s.
Marc:There were these different camps.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Marc:Like there's the Stiller camp and the Apatow camp and the Feral camp.
Marc:Are you guys friends?
Marc:Do you talk?
Guest:I mean, do you know that you're all... It gets very heated.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's not...
Marc:There was that scene in the first Anchorman, right, where you had the fight?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It almost seemed like that was playing off on the idea of these two camps of comedy.
Guest:Well, you know, that... Actually, there was a time... It doesn't happen anymore, really.
Guest:But there really was a time where...
Guest:we would go and do read-throughs of each other's scripts.
Guest:So, you know, I went and read on a script for Ben.
Guest:Ben came and I remember he read... Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, we would actually kind of... There was communication.
Guest:There was communication.
Guest:There was like a sense of, you know... Camaraderie.
Guest:Camaraderie and actually appreciation of everyone's work.
Guest:And then everyone kind of became... Huge.
Guest:Huge and too busy and...
Marc:that's really what it is a lot of times people read into things like they don't talk to each other they have families and they're making movies what do you think that people are doing it's like when people send me stuff at the show i appreciate it but like right i can't read your book right now right yeah exactly you know i have other things to do but you guys were all very aware that you know you were the comedy guys
Guest:Yeah, it was kind of funny.
Guest:I mean, it was, yeah, and that was one of those junket questions where it was like, tell me about the frat pack.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, it would be met with like, oh, okay, yeah, because I guess... Yeah, we are kind of doing movies.
Guest:I did Old School and then Ben Zoolander and, you know, Owen and Vince did The Wedding Crashers and... Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I saw those movies.
Guest:I did a cameo and, yeah, I mean, well, I think it's just...
Guest:I think it's people who actually genuinely admire each other's work and if they can work together, great, but it doesn't, you know.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But it's so interesting because comedy is very difficult.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And there's this crew of guys that like really kind of nailed it and it's not easy.
Marc:I mean, you see a lot of, it's so rare that you see like, you know, really funny shit.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I mean, you guys are producing.
Marc:How much really funny shit comes through?
Marc:I mean, you got Funny or Die.
Marc:How did that idea come to create that?
Guest:Funny or Die, it's too much.
Guest:There's too much stuff on there.
Guest:It's hard for me to keep up.
Guest:Well, of course.
Guest:It's just... But isn't it amazing how many people are trying to be funny?
Guest:It's incredible.
Marc:And occasionally there are some very funny people.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But it's...
Marc:See, I don't know about that whole thing.
Marc:It's like, you know, I know that there's a big celebration.
Marc:The democracy of that.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Because what I'm doing, I mean, it would never happen at another time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But there's still like, it's like, yeah, it's great.
Marc:Everyone can do what they want to do and get it out there.
Marc:It's like, well, that's all that means.
Guest:And then you get asked the question, are there so many more opportunities?
Guest:I'm like, well, there are so many more opportunities.
Guest:Just by the strict definition of an opportunity.
Guest:To put your thing out there.
Guest:To put your thing out there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it's harder than ever to get paid.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:So it feels like, oh, there's all this stuff.
Guest:There's all this content.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Free content.
Guest:But.
Guest:Yeah, there's a great opportunity to provide free content for people.
Guest:But it's ultimately about getting seen by an ad agency who will hire you off of a short you did on Funny or Die to direct their commercial that will be shown back on TV.
Guest:So the main mediums are still the big sources of income.
Marc:Well, that's interesting about the democratization because I don't think I realized it until right now is that you can put anything out there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you're sort of depending on consensus to make it relevant.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:So, like, somebody's got to decide, like, did you see this shit?
Marc:And then that's got to be passed to that guy.
Marc:And then all of a sudden it's like, God, this many people looked at that.
Guest:Then the big guy goes, well, I don't get it.
Guest:So, I don't know if the ball's been pushed forward.
Guest:I think it has a little bit.
Marc:It's a lot easier for people to get strung along by their dreams now.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That's the great opportunity is you can now delude yourself for longer than you used to by generating your own stuff.
Guest:And yet, you know, yeah, Funny or Die is kind of crazy that, but it is, it is a, you know, I think we employ based off the ad revenues, you know, up to a hundred people and there's writers and editors and, and so it's, it is a,
Guest:A little comedy lab.
Guest:Yeah, no, it's great.
Guest:People love it.
Guest:It was an important thing to do.
Guest:That's what's so funny about the internet, too, is that here's this big success story of Funny or Die, and yet who knows what it will really ever even turn into or not.
Guest:Or something's just going to push it aside.
Guest:Right, and be the new thing.
Marc:And people will be like, oh, Funny or Die, no one goes there anymore.
That was lame.
Yeah.
Guest:I never liked it from the beginning.
Marc:I still got a video and that's like the MySpace.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Let me ask you a couple of questions about the Spanish movie.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Casa de mi padre.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You just did that because it entertained you?
Guest:I did it.
Marc:Because it seemed like a funny... Maybe think of Hispanic newscasters who... Yeah, they're great.
Marc:They put a lot of energy.
Guest:There was a shooting today on Alvera Street.
Guest:Yes, Casa.
Guest:My altruistic... I actually thought it would work commercially.
Guest:In Latin America.
Guest:even here yeah but which it did not but uh but yes it was just a thing that i i for five years i had this idea of putting myself in a spanish language movie and committing to speaking spanish as well as i possibly could as opposed to the joke of of oh he speaks poor spanish and just what would that look like if did you speak spanish someone from american comedy would just appear in that world um
Guest:Just my high school Spanish.
Guest:So you had to study.
Guest:No, I had to work ferociously with a translator every day.
Guest:Do you speak Spanish now?
Guest:No.
Guest:No.
Marc:And what about these, didn't you do a series of local beer commercials as well?
Guest:Yeah, we did old Milwaukee commercials.
Marc:And that was just for, because you enjoyed the format?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:We had been approached by Old Milwaukee.
Guest:They're about to kill the brand, and they said, if you guys want to go out and do whatever you want creatively, my buddy Andrew Steele, he had this idea of what if we just went to Terre Haute, Indiana, just these towns in the Midwest, shoot these spots, guerrilla style, get in and get out without anyone knowing we were ever there, and they just appear locally.
Yeah.
Guest:and those markets they're not nationwide and i said i love that idea and you did we got paid nothing other than the cost of our travel and we did it and then these things started popping up did you save the brand i think it helped a little yeah but i i think it's still teetering and then the one thing that was hysterical was
Guest:And two Super Bowls ago, we did one of the spots.
Guest:We bought time in some market in Nebraska for $800.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it got more play on the internet than the big Budweiser spots on the internet.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So anyway, it just- It was fun.
Guest:Fun opportunities to do weird stuff.
Guest:You like to do that.
Guest:To keep people scratching their heads.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, there's people like you who get it and appreciate it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But a lot of people are like, why?
Guest:Why?
Guest:What?
Guest:Explain it again?
Guest:A movie in Spanish?
Guest:Do you speak Spanish?
Guest:No.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And it's all in Spanish though?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Subtitled in English.
Okay.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And it's a comedy.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Oh, yeah, good.
Guest:That's fun.
Marc:No, you're just pushing the envelope.
Marc:I mean, like, you obviously are not resting on your laurels.
Guest:No, trying not to.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But you got, how many kids you got?
Guest:Three.
Guest:And that's a full-time job?
Guest:That's full-time.
Guest:How old are they?
Guest:Nine, six, and three.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:So you're doing, that's full-time.
Guest:I got soccer practice tonight.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Got six o'clock soccer practice.
Guest:Are they all sports guys?
Guest:They're all sporty.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's interesting.
Guest:Getting each other up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And they're all boys.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, that's great, man.
Marc:I mean, it sounds like you're living the dream.
Marc:Are you?
Marc:Pretty much.
Marc:But how do you deal with when you got to shoot for months?
Marc:That gets hard.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:When you have them come out, you fly the family out and you get set up good.
Marc:Try to do that.
Guest:You can go in the pool, that kind of thing.
Guest:You get to go visit the Civil War Museum.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, as they get more into school, they can't do that as much.
Marc:Do you feel like what your dad most have felt like?
Marc:A little bit, yeah.
Marc:Like being on the road, like the other side of it?
Guest:Even though I have to say that's even harder than what my dad did because you have the gig and you have the downtime.
Guest:Right.
Guest:A shoot day, you're so busy.
Guest:You go home, look at your lines, and you're out.
Guest:And so it's almost like if they were around the whole time, I wouldn't see them anyway.
Guest:You'd be like, just read the other part for daddy.
Yeah.
Marc:So, all right, let's talk a little bit about Anchorman.
Marc:Did you look at it?
Guest:I've looked at every single one, every single test screening, every single moment.
Guest:And I think we did a really good job.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I mean...
Marc:i think it's just as funny yeah yeah i think what's interesting if i have to be in talking totally hard on it yeah in talking to you is that and i think it comes off because i i sort of knew that you know going into this that you do have this uh there is a very deep and weird and uh kind of childhood respect for these guys yeah on some level
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And I think that's what makes your characters so great is that they all seem to be, you seem to like them.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Because there's one moment where, literally, I'll go to movies if you're in them, even if I know the movie won't be good.
Marc:No, because here's my logic.
Marc:My logic is it's like, all right, he's in it.
Marc:So it's going to cost me, what, $12 to go to the movie?
Marc:I know I'm going to get at least two big laughs.
Marc:And that's worth $12 for two really good Will Ferrell laughs.
Guest:Except for Bewitched.
Marc:I didn't see it.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Yeah, you don't need to.
Guest:You couldn't even.
Guest:You don't need to.
Guest:You don't need to.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I just saw that on cable recently, and that was a...
Guest:Why did I do that one?
Guest:Why did you?
Guest:I think it was... You know, it was... It was like... Oh, now let's try romantic comedy.
Guest:And Nora Ephron... Sure, sure.
Guest:Big deal.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Nicole Kidman, big deal.
Guest:And I thought...
Guest:Why not?
Guest:Everything else has worked so far.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This will work.
Guest:No.
Guest:No.
Guest:What about Land of the Lost?
Guest:Land of the Lost is just, you know, the Monday morning quarterback on that one was we either needed to make a big expensive kids movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or a...
Guest:weird cheap low budge tongue-in-cheek tongue-in-cheek make and make it like the series right and we tried to do both and then audience not horrible is it no no yeah i mean no it's actually if you if you if you go into it thinking it's going to be a family movie it's actually weird yeah it's a weird funny movie if you if you think if you think you bring your kids you're going to be uncomfortable exactly
Guest:And we ran up against The Hangover the same weekend.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The Leviathan.
Guest:The monster.
Guest:The largest comedy of all time.
Guest:Ever.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you and Zach did a thing.
Marc:You did the campaign thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That was funny.
Marc:That was fun.
Marc:And the Bush thing was funny.
Marc:The one man show.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That was great.
Marc:That was real fun.
Marc:That was great.
Marc:That had some purpose to it.
Marc:That had a little purpose.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:A little purpose.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I was involved in that purpose.
Marc:How can we stop this man?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How can we change the tide of history?
Guest:That was always amazing.
Guest:Every night there'd be laughter, and then I would hear some people laugh at the jokes, and other people go, oh, like, right, that happened.
Guest:Wow.
Marc:Why didn't we pay more attention?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He was a pretty good character to be in front of.
Guest:He was outstanding.
Marc:The weird thing about him is that having been railing against him on radio for a year and a half is that then he goes away and you're kind of like, I kind of miss that buffoon.
Marc:He was the most consistently involuntarily funny president that ever existed.
Marc:Hands down.
Marc:But there was some weird, endearing, fucking homespun bullshit.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That you sort of like, as much as you hated him, you're like, what's he gonna do?
Marc:What's next?
Marc:Well, that moment where he couldn't get that door open, you know, in China, where he like, he left the podium.
Marc:Like, how do you, you can't top that.
Guest:You can't top that.
Guest:Brownlings can't do that.
Guest:And getting shoes thrown at him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And just to know that all he does now is to like sit around and watch baseball.
Marc:That like, it's almost like- And he paints.
Guest:He's taking up painting.
Marc:Oh, I think I saw some of those paintings.
Marc:But it was so weird because he's one of these guys where you're like, he didn't even really want to be president.
Guest:No, he didn't.
Guest:And that's where you start going, oh,
Guest:oh it's not it's not about it wasn't even yeah him yeah no it's like we think we can make you the guy he was you know you know daryl hammond yeah and you know daryl is always tied into i know he goes deep with all the i've heard some stories political people and yeah he'll go do their things he'll go do their things and he'll get to know and this and that and he had heard the story of after that the new hampshire primary no one remembers this but
Guest:bush got whacked yeah and i guess the story was he just lying in the hotel room on the bed like okay we got to go you know down to the to the little local pie store and say hi to the just lying on the bed just petulant going do we have to oh
Guest:Really?
Guest:And that was from like a really good source that Daryl, you know, Daryl always had great sources.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, you know, that's exactly what happened.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That got thrust upon him.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:The other guys, that was a good movie.
Guest:That was great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I enjoyed that.
Guest:That was great.
Guest:That was very funny.
Guest:It worked out good.
Guest:But Anchorman, we're just, the only thing we're battling right now is the MPAA with the rating.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that's the only bummer.
Guest:You're trying to get it to- PG-13.
Guest:And they keep saying, it's R. Really?
Guest:Based on- Based on stuff that if you saw it, you go, really?
Guest:Why is this R?
Guest:How do you negotiate something like that?
Guest:You kind of give a little and- You say, we'll take that out?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, so you're still cutting?
Guest:You usually go in with a bunch of things that you know that you're happy to give up.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then you throw them out and go, see?
Guest:And then they go, two more.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Well, how about one more?
Guest:Okay, done.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But this, I don't know, they're out to get us this time.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, it's where we've made the cuts and they come back with more notes and more notes.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:and these are meanwhile you have in a studio it's not even an executive decision it's literally sort of this panel yeah and uh and i just love that you know hunger games yeah a movie about children slaughtering each other in the future is pg-13 no problem it's the violence thing is different than comedy yeah yeah they they're more threatened by comedy for some reason they think we're gonna undermine the entire order of things
Guest:So anyway, but we're I think we're we're we're very proud of the movie in terms of it actually has a an interesting story for us.
Guest:I don't know if we're the best storytellers, but it has an interesting story and yet is just as bizarre as the first one.
Guest:And you had fun.
Guest:And we had those most importantly.
Marc:Did anyone make any special appearances?
Guest:Harrison Ford.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:Oh, that's fun.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Nice guy.
Guest:He was great.
Guest:We didn't know how he'd be and what he'd think of our weird style of just McKay throwing lines at him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Is that what he does?
Marc:Try this.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do this.
Guest:Just roll it.
Marc:Is that what he does with you too?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He just keeps doing takes?
Guest:We got this new system where you just had a microphone with a speaker.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So if you're the type of actor who needs cut and you need direct consultation and let's really mull it over, you would not like it.
Guest:But we just roll it and you'll just hear Adam's voice going, now say this.
Guest:What about this?
Guest:how about this that's great and you just you just go and it's and then you think of things on top of what he said and it's and you guys have an understanding with each other he does that with corral and with everybody everyone that's just how he direct adam's only problem is he's he's so quick yeah he'll give you four lines yeah and you'll go okay i'm just trying to remember the first they're all brilliant yeah and you're like okay what was the first one again
Guest:He'll go, say A, B, C, D, or whatever you want to do.
Guest:I'm like, well, you just gave me four amazing lines.
Guest:I'm trying to remember just the first one.
Marc:Do you know the moment that I refer to, like Louis C.K.
Marc:said something to me once.
Marc:Do you remember years ago there was a video before the internet that was released of that televangelist, I think his name was Bob Tilton,
Marc:And he used to make facial expressions.
Marc:And someone had dubbed fart noises under all these facial expressions.
Marc:And it was just cut after cut of him doing these faces.
Guest:He's a preacher.
Marc:And someone who would do all different farts.
Marc:Just riding the farts.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And Louis had gotten hold of that.
Marc:And I was at his house.
Marc:It was in New York.
Marc:And he says, you got to watch this.
Marc:So he puts it on.
Marc:And we sat there and I never laughed so much in my life, right?
Marc:And then he takes it out and he goes and he puts it in a drawer and he's like, I can't look at that anymore because I want it to remain as funny as it was that first time.
Guest:So I can't.
Marc:There are moments like that where you're like, I'd like to have that experience again.
Marc:Just keep it in the capsule.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So give it 10 years.
Marc:Well, there's a moment in old school, and I always refer to this, for some reason, this moment out of most of the funny moments you've done,
Marc:I can go back to it and still get laughs over and over again.
Marc:The first drink you take and you're like, that moment, it hits your lips.
Marc:It's just so good.
Marc:You know, like that excitement of like, that was fucking hilarious.
Guest:Yeah, and that was, that's so funny that you circled that one.
Guest:Was that an improvised moment?
Guest:Yeah, that was just, because there's nothing there in the script.
Guest:I'm just supposed to beer bong.
Guest:And I just remember feeling like, well, this guy would comment on it.
Guest:He would want to share his lame white guy interpretation of.
Marc:But it was just so, it was like a passion to be reawakened.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It was great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I love your work and I'm very flattered and honored that you came up here.
Guest:Sorry it took so long.
Marc:No, it was great.
Marc:I got worried.
Marc:I thought you were coming from like... No, no.
Guest:Sorry it took so long to come on the podcast.
Guest:I know we've been trying to do it for a long time.
Marc:And now this is the time.
Marc:Now this is the time.
Marc:So what, do you go to the office now?
Guest:I'm going to go home and I'm going to go try on a bunch of clothes for some press stuff.
Guest:Oh, coming up.
Guest:And then I'm going tonight to introduce a screening of the movie.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:For the Paramount International Division.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:There's so many levels that are beyond the fun of it.
Guest:Once you do the fun part, it's like... The studio, could you and Adam please come and introduce the screening?
I'm like...
Guest:okay, but we're just up there for five minutes.
Guest:I know, but it just means so much.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:It does, right?
Guest:So we'll... And you like to think like, what could it mean?
Guest:I know.
Marc:Why would it matter?
Marc:Because those people have jobs that are not glorious.
Marc:I guess.
Marc:And they want to say like, they came and they... They took the time.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So then, yeah.
Marc:You're selling a movie.
Marc:It feels good.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Sure, it's part of the job, I think.
Marc:You can spin it however you want, but it's work.
Marc:It is part of the job.
Marc:Good talking to you, man.
Okay.
Marc:Well, that's it.
Marc:That's our show.
Marc:I hope you enjoyed that.
Marc:I hope you guys know Will Ferrell a little better.
Marc:I know I do.
Marc:I just sat there with that dumb smirk on my face for an hour and a half.
Marc:And instead of laughing uproariously for that time, I was like, wow, this guy is a much more...
Marc:uh you know well-rounded person and thoughtful and then I ever would have assumed by how funny he is it's amazing about him too is that he knows how to turn it on I mean that that was what I came away from that conversation with is that his comedic skills are so precise and so grounded in in his talent that you know he could just turn it on and be completely fucking hilarious and then it's just you can just turn it off and like well yeah that's that's my work and this is who I am
Marc:It's an amazing distinction to make, one that I will never know.
Marc:I enjoy having you all here.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.
Marc:Have a little...
Marc:Pow!
Marc:Look out.
Marc:I just shit my pants.
Marc:JustCoffee.coop.
Marc:Available at WTFPod.com.
Marc:If you get the WTFPod blend, I go a little back end on that.
Marc:And you should get on the mailing list.
Marc:I don't know if you realize this, but every week, if you need more of me, on paper, I do an email thing every Monday.
Marc:And you can sign up at the website at wtfpod.com.
Marc:And I just do a dispatch, kind of a, hey, what's up?
Marc:A little personal thing.
Marc:You know, I just like to keep in touch.
Marc:It's not heavy on plugs or anything.
Marc:It's just, you know, what's going on with me and what's going on with this week.
Marc:And maybe there'll be some special deals on there or whatever.
Marc:So if you want to be part of that, if you want to be on the, if you want me to email you every Monday, bright and early, you know, get on the mailing list at wtfpod.com, okay?
Marc:All right.
Marc:I'm going to pat myself on the back.
Marc:Pat my partner, Brendan McDonald, on the back.
Marc:My production partner.
Marc:My partner in crime.
Marc:My partner in business.
Marc:My partner in the podcast.
Marc:Brendan McDonald.
Marc:We've got... We're coming up on 100 million downloads this week.
Marc:Fucking unbelievable.
Marc:Boomer lives!
Boomer lives!