BONUS Albert Brooks Just Left (the Hotel)
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Guest:I was going to say, you know, what we normally do here is when a person just left and I would say Brooks just left, but he didn't.
Guest:You left him.
Marc:Well, yeah, I drove down there to Santa Monica.
Marc:I've not been to that hotel.
Marc:I did.
Marc:I have seen it before.
Marc:To be honest with you, going into it, I was apprehensive because him and I have gone back and forth for years.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Sometimes on Twitter.
Marc:Over a decade.
Guest:You can look it up.
Guest:The earliest tweet back and forth from you and him is like 2011 of you wanting Albert Brooks to be on the show and being like, Albert, you should come do this.
Guest:So it's been over a decade.
Marc:Well, oddly, I don't even know why I was so hung up on it other than he's Albert Brooks.
Marc:Yeah, I think he's great.
Marc:And I thought he'd be interesting.
Marc:And I something about him might maybe feel like I would connect well with him.
Marc:But, you know, he kept holding us off.
Marc:And then there was times where we actually got we emailed this manager when he was in drive, I think, or something.
Marc:And, you know, he said the manager said no.
Marc:And Brooks was always sort of teasing me here and there.
Marc:And now, like after a decade, he does a documentary where basically he's interviewed for an hour or whatever, and now he wants to do it.
Marc:And some part of me was like, well, that's kind of...
Marc:fucked up but but also then you know he didn't want me to come to his house he didn't want to come over to this house he wants to do it a hotel and i'm like what is this a junket and then we found out it's not a junket then we find out he's only doing this podcast yep that's right so i going into it i was sort of like i don't know you know now i got to work around what he's already talked about on the show and you know is he who i think he is why you know the hotel but you know
Marc:You know, the hotel's beautiful.
Marc:The suite's like looking out over the ocean.
Marc:You know, the table's right there looking out over the ocean.
Marc:And then I'm there like a half hour early thinking it over, setting up the stuff, worrying about backup, worrying about the machine crapping out.
Marc:And then his publicist knocks on the door and she's like, is everything all right?
Marc:I'm like, fine.
Marc:Is he here yet?
Marc:No, he'll be here in 10 minutes.
Marc:And I'm waiting 10 minutes.
Marc:And he comes in.
Marc:And, you know, he's very, you know, happy to see me.
Marc:We'll give each other a pat on the back and then we just get into it.
Marc:And, you know, I told myself, you know, why am I at a hotel?
Marc:Not that it's not nice.
Marc:He actually is allergic to cats.
Marc:And I think he had heard someone, either he listened to it or someone mentioned the Ed Helms episode to him.
Marc:And he seemed very concerned about that.
Guest:Totally different place.
Guest:And no cats have been in the garage since.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:But I mean, obviously, this was easier for him.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:But as a show business person, as as an artist, he's not you know, he's not insecure.
Marc:He's not really, you know, the way he talks about what he does and why he does it and how he was able to do it.
Marc:You know, he's a confident guy.
Marc:uh in terms of what he does you felt that like right away you could get into it with him yeah i mean he was like so i'm the white whale it's a lot of pressure i'm like well i mean and i told him that the last guy interviewed at a hotel was jerry lewis and he walked out half hour in and i said that's you know it's a precedent but i don't need you to do that
Marc:And I asked him if he'd ever met Jerry Lewis.
Marc:He said no.
Marc:But, yeah, he was game because I think he knew – because I said to him, I said, you did a fucking documentary about yourself and now I got to interview you.
Marc:He goes, well, I didn't – it's not all there.
Marc:And I'm like, fine.
Yeah.
Marc:All right, well, let's do it.
Marc:But he was game.
Marc:He was conversational.
Marc:He told stories that he has not told.
Marc:We did a lot of stuff around his whole life and his career.
Marc:We filled in a lot of those gaps already.
Marc:around his standup career and how that all happened.
Guest:And gaps because in the, in the doc, he basically just, you know, goes from, you know, being a funny kid to all of a sudden he's on, you know, these variety shows and we didn't really get much in the doc on his standup career.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But he's, he, I mean, that's how all the stories go.
Right.
Marc:You know, there were still gaps in terms of, like, when did he actually do stand-up?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, we just got into it.
Marc:And, you know, we were able to sort of definitely fill that gap in between him being, you know, a teenager at Carl Reiner's house and then doing the variety shows.
Marc:But the truth is, is that it's still...
Marc:You know, the fact is, I said, but it wasn't you weren't actually a stand up in the sense, you know, and I said that to him that you didn't do it.
Marc:You were doing it for the first time, but you wrote these bits.
Marc:But he says, no, I'm a stand up.
Marc:I just didn't like doing, you know, the clubs.
Marc:He didn't like it.
Marc:And I said, and it would have been hard for you to do that stuff.
Marc:He says, I don't know.
Marc:I could have done the dummy and this and that, but it just never it was not appealing to me.
Marc:That was interesting.
Marc:We also talked a bit about his experience at Carnegie Mellon for a year.
Marc:Really what it is is he left after a year because he had done some, I think over –
Marc:A summary, you did some dinner theater with the I guess the crew from Mr. Rogers show.
Marc:And, you know, there was a story about that.
Marc:And then there was a story about how he went back and his favorite teacher said, you know, you should just go and do and start working.
Marc:Basically said, you know, you're good enough.
Marc:You don't stay here at the school.
Marc:So we came back here.
Marc:So the crew from Mr. Rogers, did that include Michael Keaton?
Marc:Oh, I don't know.
Marc:He didn't mention that.
Marc:But no, it was like his it was most of the bit players.
Marc:I you know, he didn't bring up Michael Keaton, but but it was some sort of theater show where, you know, he explains it in in in the interview.
Marc:He had bombed there and.
Marc:And but he didn't get too far into it other than to say that between that and, you know, doing the year, you know, a professor who he respected gave him the confidence to just quit and come back here and start working a bit now throughout high school and stuff.
Marc:He had been doing.
Marc:Like, when he was away, you know, he was doing radio bits.
Marc:And I think Bob Newhart had talked about this market, too, where, you know, a lot of these syndicated radio shows are just regional radio shows would buy bits.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he would do that.
Marc:And also, he did...
Marc:He did radio stuff.
Marc:He talked about having a CB radio and diligently when he was in high school doing like a full hour show on CB radio to nobody.
Marc:But he would tape the talk button on.
Marc:I'd say to truckers.
Marc:He's like, yeah, but there are no truckers, you know, in where I lived.
Marc:And he's like he didn't – Hollywood truckers.
Marc:Yeah, and he didn't think anybody was listening to it.
Marc:And then he hooked up with a guy who was in radio and –
Marc:And that guy turned out to be the guy he used for that famous short film about the school for comedy.
Marc:And that guy, you know, by way of radio and he got with that guy, got the job writing on that George Schlatterfeld show, the tune in.
Guest:Oh, he wrote on that.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:That thing's fucking terrible.
Marc:Yeah, I don't know.
Marc:He didn't seem to have seen it, but he said it's out there.
Guest:Yeah, I watched it after we had George Slaughter on, and it's one of the worst, most ill-conceived things you'll ever watch.
Marc:Yeah, well, I mean, well, good.
Marc:He said they shot a bunch.
Marc:They aired one in New York, and they didn't even air it in California.
Guest:It's a famous show for being canceled before it was off the air.
Guest:Like, it was canceled in the middle of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like literally some stations turned it off.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, he was part of that because he got brought in by the guy that he met doing radio with him.
Marc:But but and then there was these other sort of networks of people, but it wasn't really the comedy people.
Marc:I asked him about his childhood, who was hanging around when he was a kid.
Marc:And he said, well, his father was really sick and out of the game by the time, you know, by the time he was born.
Mm hmm.
Marc:But I asked him, Eddie Cantor, you know, his father used to work with Eddie Cantor.
Marc:Do you never met those guys?
Marc:And he's like, no, there was my dad was not.
Marc:And then he's like, all right, there's an Eddie Cantor story.
Marc:And then.
Marc:And he's got an Eddie Cantor story from when he was five.
Marc:All right.
Marc:It's a very funny beat.
Marc:You know, he garbled some words when Eddie Cantor asked him a question.
Marc:And then Eddie Cantor said, you know, Parkey, your son's funny.
Marc:And then he just went to his room.
Marc:And I said, so that was it.
Marc:He goes, yes, I didn't feel at that point that I had a career in show business.
Marc:But he did give me an Eddie Cantor story.
Guest:Now, did you get the sense that he started doing this stuff through a radio format because of emulating his dad?
Marc:Yeah, he said that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He said that he used to listen to his dad on 78.
Marc:They had the records of his dad on radio.
Marc:So that's where he got a love for it.
Marc:But he did do a bit of radio.
Marc:And that becomes apparent with the stuff he did with Shearer and with the stuff he did with...
Marc:On both his records.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But he actually did a lot of radio and it was through radio where he got his start in doing it on television because Gary Owens, he did some stuff with Gary Owens, who was a radio guy, right?
Marc:And a voiceover guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Isn't that funny, though, dude?
Guest:It's like we knew this from doing morning radio, that it puts you in a different headspace when it comes to the theatricality of what you're doing.
Guest:We used to always call it theater of the mind, right?
Guest:And like, that makes so much sense that he kind of forged himself doing that stuff.
Guest:And then you watch those old clips, even just watch the ones that are in the doc.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The more famous ones like the elephant tamer with the frog and all that stuff.
Guest:It is radio comedy.
Guest:It's conceptual radio comedy that you have to build and put together in your head.
Guest:And then he had the good fortune to be able to have these outlets of variety shows and go out there and do these bits on stage and put his face to them, which is, you know, essentially what made him famous.
Guest:But like, yeah, that's it's all a radio base.
Guest:You could totally see that.
Marc:Well, I mean, that's what happened is that Gary Owens.
Marc:There was a local talk show that was hosted by a radio guy.
Marc:And Gary Owens used to guest host it.
Marc:And Albert had created the dummy bit, you know, as a party thing and, you know, did it around.
Marc:And Gary Owens was guest hosting...
Marc:This this local midday TV show and asked Albert to come do the dummy bit.
Marc:And he did.
Marc:And then he did more.
Marc:And then he had a kinescope of him doing the dummy bit.
Marc:So he got a manager and then he got an agent.
Marc:And then from there, you know, he got the Dean Martin show.
Marc:And then he did the the Dean Martin summer thing, which wasn't even with Dean Martin was with Paul Lynn.
Marc:He did.
Marc:We talked did a funny Paul Lynn.
Marc:And then, you know, through that, he did the Circuit of Variety shows.
Marc:And he said by the time he did Carson, he'd done 100 of those things.
Marc:Like, or whatever.
Marc:But, you know, he had several bits.
Marc:And then, you know, he did Carson after doing a lot of that.
Marc:And it's so weird.
Marc:I realize now we didn't talk about doing Carson, really.
Marc:We did.
Marc:We talked about getting to Carson.
Guest:Yeah, that's okay, though.
Guest:It's in the doc so much, and so much of that was surrounding the feelings he had with his mom about being on Carson, and that was where the genesis for the movie Mother came from, that he realized that was probably a failed dream of hers to do that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, we talked a bit about that and talked a bit about his mother.
Marc:And, you know, he told stories outside and around the stuff he did on the dock that's definitely not in the dock.
Marc:And, you know, we talked about he told me a story about Jack Benny that he's never told before about visiting Jack, you know, to ask him to be part of a thing.
Marc:that him and Shearer did on that second record, that second comedy record.
Marc:What was that?
Marc:A Star is Bought?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that's a great story.
Marc:And he told, you know, he did the funny Paul Lin thing.
Marc:You know, he talked about, you know, the experience he had with touring with comedy.
Marc:Because he did it a bit, but it wasn't until later, until, like, you know, he did the record and he missed the jump on it.
Marc:But he, you know, he started...
Marc:Doing stand-up just by virtue of the fact that Neil Diamond had asked him to tour with him.
Marc:So he would go up and do the four or five bits that he did on the variety shows.
Marc:And then eventually he just started talking.
Marc:And that really was the open mic for him in terms of developing the stand-up routine.
Marc:But he didn't like it.
Marc:He didn't like the lifestyle.
Marc:of touring on the road, and he didn't like, you know, that it wasn't, you know, it didn't really seem to be going anywhere, and he just said he was thinking about doing movies, and then, you know, we talked about that.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Marc:And we talked about, like, his mom, and we talked about death a bit, you know, just in relation to the movies and, you know, about his dad and about, you know, people and his wife who had given him advice.
Marc:There's a couple of very funny stories about people giving him advice that—
Marc:We're pretty good.
Marc:There's a great story he tells about how like he wanted to do radio, you know, and he and he went to interview for this job at a Long Beach station.
Marc:And and there was a.
Marc:The guy he was going to audition for or interview for the overnight job because he thought he could, you know, get get the time in and do the things he wanted.
Marc:And it's just this whole story about there's just one guy at this station and there's a map behind him about, you know, showing these circles around these cities and that on certain days, you know, the signal could reach Chicago.
Marc:And he was talking like 150 million people.
Marc:It's a very funny story.
Marc:I don't want to ruin it for people.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But he was very animated and engaged and reflective and, you know, things would come up and it was pretty good.
Marc:We didn't talk a lot about his personal life or about his family necessarily other than his mom and dad.
Guest:Well, to be honest with you, you know, I don't know if there is much to talk about.
Guest:He married a civilian, first of all, essentially.
Guest:I mean, like, you know, I believe she was a writer.
Guest:Painter.
Guest:Yeah, oh, a painter, okay.
Guest:But, you know, she was not someone with a tremendous public profile.
Guest:You know who her sister is?
Marc:No, I do not remember, but I remember looking it up and seeing.
Marc:Tiffany Schlain.
Marc:Is her sister.
Marc:Do you remember me doing the Webby Awards?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:The first Webby Awards and all the shit me and Boulware caused.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Because Boulware wrote that article.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:And I hosted the first Webby Awards.
Marc:Tiffany was the founder of the Webby Awards.
Marc:And when I met her...
Marc:She had told me that her sister was married to Albert Brooks, and I just couldn't even wrap my brain around that.
Marc:Oh, no kidding.
Marc:Yeah, that's where I met Tiffany.
Marc:But, yeah, I mean, his personal life is, you know, he's got a couple of kids or whatever.
Marc:But, you know, in terms of really kind of filling in these gaps, you know, because there was the idea that, like, because he didn't have a dad was, you know, that's why he was hanging out at Reiner's house and whatever.
Yeah.
Marc:And he's like, no, not when he was a kid.
Marc:It was when he was in high school.
Marc:But then he did, you know, because he saw he sort of saw Carl as like a father figure.
Marc:And and I'm like, well, you just go over there to perform.
Marc:He goes, no, I could go over there any time.
Marc:And, you know, sometimes, you know, Mel Brooks would be there and other people and they'd be talking and laughing.
Marc:And, you know, I'd try to be funny.
Marc:And he also talked about Carl like it was interesting because.
Marc:When he conceived of real life, you know, he didn't think he could direct it.
Marc:And he went and talked to Carl about it.
Marc:But again, no spoilers.
Marc:But there's a series of father figures here and there.
Marc:And in terms of him remembering advice people gave him, there were kind of these pivotal moments of advice that kind of defined the way he thought about something.
Marc:The one thing that was interesting to me is that he...
Marc:Like he claims and there's no reason not to believe him that he didn't really consider.
Marc:He doesn't give a fuck what people think.
Marc:And I find that hard to believe on some level.
Marc:But on another level, I get it.
Marc:He said that he had an interview with a producer.
Marc:Oh, it was it was for those Dean Martin shows when when, you know, he had a tape and he went in and met the producer of not the Dean Martin show, but the thing that Dean was part of the summer of something.
Marc:But it was Dean's family doing it.
Marc:And it was a weird time.
Marc:I remember reading about it.
Marc:And, you know, but he has this conversation with the producer about the bits he had.
Marc:He had four months.
Marc:They gave him the show and he had four months to put together bits to pitch for when he was going to do the show.
Marc:And they had him wanted to contract him for three or four of them.
Marc:And he went in with the producer of the show to pitch the bits.
Marc:And what the guy said sort of defined Albert's way of...
Marc:thinking about the audience and why, if he was going to do what he was going to do, he couldn't give a shit about them in a way that would define what he does.
Marc:It's a pretty good story.
Guest:Well, you could tell in the doc when he's talking to Rob about how that looking for comedy in the Muslim world got basically released without a release.
Guest:And he talks about the meetings that he got pulled into where they sold him on it.
Guest:His immediate ability to have disdain, but an absurd...
Guest:for these show business executives is, like, the kind of thing only created from a lifetime of dealing with them.
Guest:Like, he knows, like, the instant he's in a room with show business people, like, the line of bullshit, what things they say actually mean, you know, where...
Marc:But that wasn't always the way.
Marc:I mean, these stories that he tells when he was coming up, primarily as a comic, were helpful.
Marc:And they were not those kind of stories.
Marc:The stories around not having control of your work for one reason or another is where that starts to happen.
Marc:And I think that starts to happen around...
Marc:when he realizes the power of promotion and how the first album kind of got stalled because of timing and promotion and the tour got stalled.
Marc:But I asked him, are there any regrets around any of the movies?
Marc:And the only story he has, really, is about...
Marc:The In-Laws.
Marc:And it's very specific.
Marc:Oh, that remake that he made?
Marc:Right.
Marc:But, you know, he did not have a problem with doing the movie.
Marc:It was why it got called The In-Laws, because it wasn't called that originally.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:And it's a kind of convoluted kind of, you know, fight on his part, you know, even though it was a remake, basically, but they weren't calling it The In-Laws.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And Albert was very upset that they decided ultimately to call it the in-laws.
Marc:And you can listen to that story, him tell it.
Marc:But around executives, it was really just around control and how many people get involved in everything.
Marc:And I think, you know, when did the Muslim world come out?
Guest:Well, it was 2005.
Guest:It got, you know, a kind of minor release.
Yeah.
Marc:Well, also he had written a movie.
Marc:He was talking about the muse and the ending of the muse and the two endings of the muse and why.
Marc:And, you know, he met his wife, you know, she came to visit him.
Marc:Like when he met her, she, he, she, uh, he took her over to the Paramount lot where he had an office.
Marc:He must've been working on the muse, I guess.
Guest:I think he says in the doc, he was just finishing up post on mother when he met his wife.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Guest:Which makes sense because he met her through a party at Carrie Fisher's.
Guest:Her mom was in Mother.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But did he say the parking lot story?
Marc:No.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:So that's – I got that.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I didn't talk very much.
Marc:I didn't talk about Debbie Fisher specifically.
Marc:I talked more about the movie and about – Debbie Reynolds, yeah.
Marc:Debbie Reynolds around his resolving things with his own mother.
Marc:Did he talk about that his mother was asked by Variety to review the movie?
Marc:No.
Marc:Oh, yeah, I got that, too.
Marc:He also says that when he went into therapy, his mom gave him some very specific but very good advice about therapy.
Marc:That's a funny story.
Marc:We talked a little bit about Charles Grodin.
Guest:Did you get a sense that he was at peace with what his mom had wrought?
Marc:Yeah, I think that he was always at peace with it.
Marc:And I think that she was probably an okay mom.
Marc:And I think that his relationship with her seemed good.
Marc:It wasn't horrendous.
Marc:But she was just a fairly standard...
Marc:version of that kind of mom.
Marc:But his point of view really is that most moms gave up something to be a mom.
Marc:And many times it was their dream.
Marc:So it's not like he looks at it as some specific case of whatever.
Marc:He definitely has...
Marc:you know, a closure and an understanding of it for himself.
Marc:He doesn't strike me as an emotionally hobbled guy, you know, in that, you know, we were thinking, like, you know, is he—you know, this thing about his father and about trust and about this and that.
Marc:I didn't really get that.
Marc:I definitely was surprised to find—
Marc:You know, not unlike when you talk to anybody that his characterization of himself in the movies that you would think it was him, primarily Lost in America and Modern Romance, you know, is a character.
Marc:And he's very clear about, you know, having set out initially to be an actor.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And and when we talked about acting later in the show in terms of the roles he wants to do and everything is that he's very clear that even as a comic that the persona is acting, even though it sometimes it's close to, you know, closer to who you are.
Marc:But he he does have a separation around that.
Marc:And the Muslim world thing that I mean, and I think he talked about in the doc.
Marc:I mean, all that was about the controversy around the portraying Mohammed thing.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:It happened right after those Danish cartoons and the artist getting killed.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And the studios got nervous and eventually they sidelined it.
Marc:And, you know, it didn't.
Marc:Again, it was about promotion.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:He didn't get it.
Guest:Um, but yeah, he does talk about through the whole doc, like he keeps referring to the Albert Brooks character and he taught, you know, talking about it in relation to the movies about how like, Oh, you know, the screenwriter of lost in America.
Guest:Oh, she really got the, or I think it was of modern romance, right?
Guest:That she really got the Albert Brooks character.
Guest:He said, you know, and I, right.
Marc:Well, I mean, but I think he was referring to the character that he was playing, but it does go both ways.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, and, and,
Guest:Well, I guess I wonder, did you get a sense, like, if anything he's done, maybe, you know, just in his acting performances or even his, like, vocal performances, is there anything that he's done where he's, like, closer to who he really is rather than that character?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I think he is, you know, he is close and I think he knows that.
Marc:But, you know, and he's aware that it's slightly heightened.
Marc:I mean, if you want to, you know, hear the who he is, you know, you listen to this conversation.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And it's not that far away.
Marc:I mean, you know, the way he's funny is is the way he's funny, whether he's a character or not.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, but he is aware that there is a performative element.
Marc:I don't know if he's hiding behind anything necessarily, but but he's aware of it, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He has a sensibility around comedy that, in terms of it being personal, he's not going to throw his family under the bus.
Marc:We were talking as we were walking out about Binder doing jokes about his kids, and it's like, aren't they going to...
Marc:Hear it.
Marc:And, you know, so he's he's he's aware of that stuff.
Marc:And I think he protects, you know, his personal life to a degree.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But he didn't do that kind of very well adjusted in the film.
Guest:You know, I know.
Marc:I think that I don't think he I think he's a well adjusted guy.
Guest:Hmm.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What do you think he's been like has been his motivation for work or just drive or otherwise the last like 10, 15 years, like where his output has clearly slowed down?
Guest:He hasn't made a movie.
Guest:He doesn't really write.
Guest:He shows up in things as an actor and as a voice actor.
Guest:But is there do you think there was a there's a conscious reason behind it?
Guest:Yeah, right.
Marc:But that's a long time ago now.
Marc:That's 2012.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I think that, you know, I mean, COVID was COVID, but he likes acting and I think he likes doing the voiceovers, but he's got a funny story about, you know, why he's not doing as many.
Marc:I think he wants to work.
Marc:I asked him if the book was thought of as a movie.
Marc:He said it was not.
Marc:But there was some talk about maybe making a series out of it, you know, a limited series.
Marc:And I think from what he said with movies is that, you know, he doesn't like the nature of –
Marc:The sort of the disposability and the accessibility of what's happening with algorithms and with, you know, executives, you know, it seems worse than it was.
Marc:But I think ultimately he needs he he's got ideas for movies.
Marc:He'd like to do another movie, but he wants to make he wants it to be in a movie theater.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he was very clear about that, that part of it, because he's working in a vacuum, but because of stand-up and the way he did stand-up, he likes doing the movies.
Marc:He doesn't care necessarily what the audience thinks.
Marc:But he wants it out there.
Marc:He doesn't want to do it all for naught.
Marc:What he wants is to be able to go to the theater and sit in the back.
Guest:But that actually then, whether he's conscious about it or not...
Guest:when you hear him talk about the fact that that looking for comedy in the Muslim world essentially got dumped, it got, you know, a very minor token release.
Guest:I bet that bothered the fuck out of him in the, just in the sense, not even in the struggle.
Guest:I'm sure as a rational guy, he understood like the bind that they were in kind of politically and, and the sensitivity around the Muslim stuff.
Guest:But the, the,
Guest:The idea that he worked his ass off that you do when you make a movie, he's like you.
Guest:He has that mindset of like, I don't want to spend all this time on this and then nobody sees it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, yeah, I think that was streaming was well underway, right?
Guest:No, no, no, not yet.
Guest:I mean, 2005, we're, you know, a decade removed.
Right.
Marc:Well, I mean, from what he says, the comparison he made is going into the theater to sneak in and watch your movie with an audience.
Marc:And also he says, like when you do a comedy album, you know, if you don't bring it over to your friend's house and sit down and listen to it, how are you going to know?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I wonder if he – it's also, you know, so many things now are brought to him on the basis of reputation.
Guest:Like, you just watch that doc and how people talk about him.
Guest:You know, there's got to be something to be said for crafting this mythology about yourself.
Guest:A lot of it's not even at his own hand.
Guest:It's what other people, people like yourself, have done.
Guest:Like, you know, oh, Albert, you know, he was –
Guest:I remember watching those SNL films when I was a teenager.
Guest:And, you know, you build up this kind of legend around the guy.
Guest:And, you know, he's just a guy.
Guest:He's got, you know, a wife and kids and he's trying to raise them and he's trying to provide for the family.
Guest:But you have cachet built up by having this reputation and you don't want to burn it.
Marc:I guess so.
Marc:I just think that, like, he said, you know, he didn't want to come on the show without it attached to something.
Marc:And I understand.
Marc:And this was the something.
Marc:There wasn't really a something since we started that I think he wanted, you know, to get behind.
Marc:He's very proud of the doc.
Marc:He thinks it came out well.
Marc:And I think that mythology is just by virtue of the fact that...
Marc:You know, there just was a couple stories out there about him, and he wasn't telling them.
Marc:I don't know how calculated it was.
Marc:No, I don't think it was.
Marc:It probably snowballed.
Marc:Yeah, and I think that...
Marc:He's always known that he was a specific thing for specific people and that, you know, I don't think he goes and watches his movies again or anything.
Marc:And also he's older now.
Marc:So this idea that people are bringing him stuff is not 100 percent true anymore.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And, you know, and he talks about, you know, enjoying doing the voiceovers.
Marc:But, you know, you know, it.
Marc:It's not like he's turning things down.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I don't think.
Guest:Well, you know, he like saved their ass with Finding Nemo.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because they made almost the whole movie.
Guest:It's a really interesting story behind that, actually.
Guest:That movie essentially cost Michael Eisner his job at Disney.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because they were not yet the owners of Pixar.
Guest:Pixar was a separate studio that Disney would just distribute the films.
Guest:And they were in negotiations to buy them.
Guest:And Eisner goes up to the Bay Area to watch the film.
Guest:And he comes back to Disney and he says, call off all talks with Pixar.
Guest:Do not do any more sale talks with them.
Guest:Because I saw this Phish movie and it's a fucking bomb and they are gonna crash and burn and the price will go down.
Guest:So do not continue negotiations with them.
Guest:And the crazy thing was, he was right.
Guest:Like, it was a disaster of a movie.
Guest:It was not working at all.
Guest:And it was not, you know, anyone who's told this story says it wasn't his fault, but William H. Macy was playing the fish dad.
Guest:And they said that, among many other things...
Guest:The energy was all wrong in that character and it was cascading throughout the film.
Guest:And so they overhauled the whole movie at great expense because this is, you know, animation.
Guest:It takes forever.
Guest:But part of what they did was they recast it and they did it what they show in that doc about showing Albert...
Guest:what he would sound like if they used like his character from defending your life in the voice of the fish.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And it's what sold him on it.
Guest:But he also, you know, a million percent, he sold the film.
Guest:Like the relationship between him and the kid is why it's this universally beloved thing.
Guest:And then it comes out and it makes, you know, $500 million or whatever.
Guest:And now Disney's on the hook.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:for an even bigger price tag for pixar and michael eisner gets fired over the fact that he told them stop negotiating it's pretty crazy yeah and he has a funny story about you know doing that kind of work and wanting to do that kind of work and taking that job uh you know and why that didn't necessarily lead to more work it's a funny story oh good
Guest:Good.
Guest:Well, I mean, look, here's the deal.
Guest:One of the things we talked about before you went to do this was your concern that there wasn't going to be enough.
Guest:And it's like you talked to him for 90 minutes or whatever, and it sounds like it was more than thorough.
Guest:You got a ton of stuff that you never would have heard before.
Marc:No, totally.
Marc:Yeah, and I wasn't sure.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, and he was aware of what was in the...
Marc:In the doc.
Marc:So we didn't, you know, I like I didn't talk about Spielberg.
Marc:We didn't talk about this or that.
Marc:You know, like I went into a little bit more detail around, you know, who he influenced.
Marc:And he talked about, you know, Andy Kaufman being, you know, coming up to him and being nice to him.
Marc:And but there's there's a couple of moments where, you know.
Marc:he basically does that thing, you know, where, where it's like sitting with Will Ferrell and you're waiting for him to be funny, you know?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But there's a couple of moments where he does a thing where the Paul Lynn thing, as short as the story was, is, is tremendous.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:The, the moment, you know, where, cause Paul Lynn's on one of these Dean Martin things where he's, you know, 20, 20 years old, 21 years old doing these bits on this variety show.
Marc:And Paul Lynn's on one with him and,
Marc:He'd never met him before.
Marc:And there's a story on there just about meeting him in the hallway.
Marc:Just the idea of, you know, this young Albert and this, you know, this old Paul Lynn or old-ish, you know, and what he says to Albert is just very funny.
Marc:And then Albert reacting to, you know, what he would have thought at the time.
Marc:It's a funny beat.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There's a couple of funny beats in there where he Alberts it up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, that's, you know, it'd be, you know, Will Ferrell, you talk about him all the time, or you've said, you know, Melissa McCarthy's the same way where you like, just kind of wait for them to, to do the funny thing that they do.
Guest:But the thing about Albert is like, he's not that he's not like that.
Guest:No, but his voice is funny.
Guest:It's funny to listen to him.
Guest:Like, yeah.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:Totally.
Marc:We're going all the way with this.
Guest:Yeah, that's why he's so good on this.
Guest:They cast him any time they want, like on The Simpsons.
Guest:He's not like a regular character on that.
Guest:They just put him in various roles because he's just so funny and they love listening to him.
Marc:He's got this frequency he does.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:That, yeah, that's what he used to do a stand-up with.
Marc:And he did all those characters with it, too.
Marc:It was just all of this bluster and this very sweet yelling.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, and you can see why those old Jewish comedians loved him.
Guest:Like, a kid with that kind of energy and that, like, you know, put-upon nature, they must have thought it was, this guy came out of the womb.
Guest:Hilarious.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, it's funny, but it's funny that, you know, when he committed to work on it, you know, and that it really did start, you know, whatever he did in Carl Reiner's living room.
Marc:But it really, it's interesting that it really started in earnest, you know, with radio.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I honestly think that you saying that is the first time I was like, oh, that's I understand more than watching the doc.
Guest:What kind of the key to his foundation for comedy is, you know?
Marc:Well, yeah, in that great beat on Letterman.
Marc:When Reiner's on and they call him.
Marc:Oh, yes.
Marc:Hey, David, I've got a silly pet trick for you.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I can't do his voice.
Marc:Hold on a minute.
Marc:That's a perfect example.
Marc:What's the dog doing, Albert?
Marc:He's talking, David.
Guest:that this is in the documentary and yes it's a bit where and it's so funny it was uh uh tiffany haddish i think was the one who was like that was the moment where i was watching and i thought this is the funniest person i've ever known and i didn't even see him i just heard him and she's telling this to reiner and she's like i just remember he called somebody you he called you yeah because it was rob yeah
Marc:No, I remember watching that live.
Marc:It was just, that was those things where, because Albert becomes this sort of rare bird that you only see occasionally.
Guest:Yeah, right, right.
Guest:Well, good job, man.
Guest:And I'm glad it worked out going down there to Santa Monica, a nice hotel and everything.
Marc:Did you get it?
Guest:What's that?
Guest:Did the file show up?
Guest:Oh, yeah, I got it.
Guest:Yep.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Uh, I'll make sure it's there afterwards, but, uh, but yeah, good job.
Guest:It's one of, yeah.
Guest:Like I, I, we should, we should put some of these in the intro to the, to the episode.
Guest:These, these tweets, there's, there's dozens of them here between you and him.
Guest:Sometimes you just pestering him, but then there'd be days where you and he would go back and forth for, for hours.
Guest:Just like, Oh,
Guest:really like okay let's do the interview here and you'd be sending him questions on twitter and he'd be replying and you guys would start joking like we should definitely talk about some of this you're like sending him pictures of obama and you're like look this could be you in the other chair and he goes i don't want to interview him
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:We had extensive back and forths.
Marc:Oh, lots.
Marc:Yeah, we'll have to go through them.
Marc:It's definitely good to do.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Because I remember pestering them, but I don't remember.
Marc:I guess I don't have a clear memory of...
Marc:Of us having some fun.
Guest:Oh, I mean, like this, he wrote, had a lovely Father's Day, got an electric drill, a robe, and a bill.
Guest:And you wrote back to him, wander the streets wearing the robe and holding the other two.
Guest:And he wrote back, I heard Obama made an offer on your house.
Guest:And then from there, you guys just went on and he said, yes, but oddly, he wasn't willing to negotiate, so I'm keeping it.
Guest:He said, Ronald Reagan once came to my garage, but that's a very long story.
Guest:You wrote, well, why don't you come over and tell me that story?
Guest:Someday, it's more fun to be wanted.
Guest:Once I spill, I'll never get a call again.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, it finally happened.
Guest:It finally spilled.
Guest:And I'm glad it was a nice experience for you both.
Guest:And everyone listening to this will hear it next Monday.
Guest:Monday the 27th will be Albert Brooks Day on WTF.
Marc:And it's good.
Marc:It's good.
Marc:You know, people, it's...
Marc:It's more Albert than you're going to know.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:It's more than the doc.
Marc:And it's definitely him showing up for what we were doing.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Good job, man.
Guest:Thanks, buddy.