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Speaker 1: Welcome to Strictly Business, varieties weekly podcast featuring conversations with

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Speaker 1: industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. Today,

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Speaker 1: my guest is Evan Shapiro, president of National Lampoon. This

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Speaker 1: installment of Strictly Business was recorded on location in the

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Speaker 1: basement of Union Hall, a bar and performance space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

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Speaker 1: Shapiro and I spoke as a group of comedians set

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Speaker 1: up for a live comedy show dubbed the Lesbian Agenda,

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Speaker 1: led by the charming Sophie Santos. I ventured to Union

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Speaker 1: Hall to see the rehabilitation plan in action for National Lampoon,

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Speaker 1: a once cutting edge comedy brand that has fallen on

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Speaker 1: hard times. In our interview, Shapiro details the plan to

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Speaker 1: embrace Lampoon's past of delivering what he calls twisted mainstream humor,

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Speaker 1: but bring it into the present day with a multicultural

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Speaker 1: lens that is far more inclusive than the Lampoon once was.

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Speaker 1: Piro is a season comedy veteran who ran i f

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Speaker 1: C and Sundance Channel, and recently launched NBC's CSO service.

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Speaker 1: He was recruited for the Lampoon job in May by

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Speaker 1: the principles at Palm Star Media, which bought the company

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Speaker 1: as a distress property in Shapiro and his partners want

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Speaker 1: to turn it into a humming comedy production entity for film,

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Speaker 1: TV and digital properties. This effort begins in Earnest on

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Speaker 1: December nineteenth with the launch of The National Lampoon Radio Hour,

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Speaker 1: a sketch comedy podcast. The title harks back to one

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Speaker 1: of Lampoon's most influential works, a radio series that featured

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Speaker 1: Gilda Radner, John Belushi, Bill Murray, Christopher Guest, Michael O'Donohue

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Speaker 1: and others as performers and writers. To start us off,

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Speaker 1: here's a clip from the debut episode of the New

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Speaker 1: Model Radio Hour. I'm Chris Harrison and this is the Bachelorette. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's been one wild ride. Here we are at the

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Speaker 1: final rose ceremony. As you'll see, Chad the hung farmer

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Speaker 1: and Hancock, the pilot with a huge penis, are both

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Speaker 1: in a coma, but nothing would keep them from missing

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Speaker 1: this the most important moment of their lives, as those

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Speaker 1: who don't receive a rose will be executed. Let's cut

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Speaker 1: to the chase and take you there now. Welcome, Kelsey,

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Speaker 1: have you major decision. What have you decided which man

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Speaker 1: you want to marry? Oh yeah, I thought you said

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Speaker 1: something about my legs. I did not. Okay, well, I'm

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Speaker 1: ready to present the rose. First of all, Chad, with

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Speaker 1: your big farmer's hands, you tilled the soil of my

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Speaker 1: heart and made love grow. However, the autumn shill of

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Speaker 1: our final date killed the crops of romance. I'm sorry, Chad,

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Speaker 1: you do not get this rose. Evan Shapiro, President of

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Speaker 1: National Lampoon, thank you so much for inviting me out

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Speaker 1: for a field trip for strictly business. We are in

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Speaker 1: the comedy performance space at Union Hall, a legendary venue

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Speaker 1: in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, soaking up the atmosphere, and we're going

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Speaker 1: to start talking about how you are in the process

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Speaker 1: of reviving the National Lampoon brand, and of course it

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Speaker 1: being almost how do you revive a comedy brand? Launch

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Speaker 1: a podcast? Starting tomorrow, December nineteenth, the National Lampoon Radio Hour,

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Speaker 1: a brand that has a lot of resonance to people

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Speaker 1: to comedy aficionados of the seventies and eighties, is coming

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Speaker 1: back as a half hour podcast. Evan tell us how

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Speaker 1: this how this plan was born, and what you how

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Speaker 1: you hope to speak to your audience through the through

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Speaker 1: the revival of the Radio Hour. Sure, UM, so you

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Speaker 1: know we're not so much starting a podcast as we're

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Speaker 1: reviving an iconic comedy brand. So National Lampoon is obviously

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Speaker 1: an iconic, uh comedy brand, if not the most important

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Speaker 1: comedy brand of all time. UM. But the Radio Hour

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Speaker 1: was this thing that launched a couple of years after

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Speaker 1: the magazine, which really personifies the importance of National and

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Speaker 1: Poon writ large. So it was the venue or the

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Speaker 1: vehicle that launched John Belushi, Guilda Radner, Bill Murray, Brian

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Speaker 1: Doyle Murray, Christopher Guest, Harold Ramos, Michael O'Donoghue as a

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Speaker 1: as a writer of sketch format UM. He had worked

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Speaker 1: for the magazine prior to that. UM. And then right

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Speaker 1: after the Radio Hour launched, and they you should do

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Speaker 1: live shows, and they had UM an album that they

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Speaker 1: did called Radio Dinner. Um. They they were approached to

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Speaker 1: turn it into a television show, UM and turn it

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Speaker 1: down Lampoon did uh. And then NBC and Lauren mike

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Speaker 1: Us came along and hired everybody from the Radio Hour

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Speaker 1: and took the format and turned it into a television

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Speaker 1: show which is now called Saturday Live. So we're relaunching

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Speaker 1: that Save Haven comedy venue, the Radio Hour itself as

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Speaker 1: a podcast. UM. I don't know that we would have

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Speaker 1: launched a podcast as our first venture otherwise, but we

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Speaker 1: had this great property that was the launching pad of

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Speaker 1: the brand, and it was the launching not just by

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Speaker 1: itself with the magazine, but launching pad for all this

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Speaker 1: great talent and really the inventor of a format of

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Speaker 1: electronic sketch comedy that is still running today. So we

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Speaker 1: wanted to go back to our roots, and we think

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Speaker 1: that this show does that. Um. It goes back to

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Speaker 1: the very idea of giving young talented community geniuses a

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Speaker 1: safe haven and a format and a form where they

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Speaker 1: can literally do anything um and and and a platform

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Speaker 1: to you know, critique and satirize mainstream culture. And we've

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Speaker 1: assembled what we think is a merited next class of

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Speaker 1: The Radio Hour. Coloscula, Joe Firestone, Rachel Pegram, Meg Stalter,

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Speaker 1: Alex English, Aaron Jackson, all these great young community geniuses

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Speaker 1: who are just at the same kind of precipice um

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Speaker 1: that that original class was at um and and we

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Speaker 1: get gave them a venue to literally do almost anything

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Speaker 1: they wanted to from a from a sketch comedy standpoint.

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Speaker 1: So that's that's really the premise behind it. And then

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Speaker 1: the show itself is really a larger thesis for what

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Speaker 1: we're doing with Lampoon itself. Let's talk a little bit

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Speaker 1: more about the radio hour in terms of developing the

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Speaker 1: kind of prism, the filter that you want National Lampoon

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Speaker 1: to stand for fresh voices. Obviously, given given the history

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Speaker 1: that that's the bar is pretty high there. Um, How

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Speaker 1: when you sat down with the current owners of Lampoon

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Speaker 1: you joined the company in May, so going on about

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Speaker 1: seven months ago when you sat down, was the radio

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Speaker 1: hour something that you knew of and you wanted to revive? Like?

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Speaker 1: How did that? How did that become? First the first

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Speaker 1: thing I did when I first sat down with my

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Speaker 1: business partners. Who are who are the people who bought

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Speaker 1: National Lampoon about three years ago? Um, audio was a

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Speaker 1: big part of it. You know that My thesis and

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Speaker 1: what we discussed and agreed upon was the idea of

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Speaker 1: focusing on that development funnel that the magazine and the

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Speaker 1: radio hour and live was for National lampooning back in

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Speaker 1: the day, and what I call that is the monetization

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Speaker 1: of the development process. So you're publishing comedy material, you're

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Speaker 1: fostering comedy talent in an environment with a little bit

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Speaker 1: of a low risk factor to it, so you can

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Speaker 1: grow the ideas, um and then you've let them flourish,

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Speaker 1: and you flourish along with them. So you know, a great,

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Speaker 1: great example of that was Vacation started as an article

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Speaker 1: in the magazine by John Hughes and then got turned

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Speaker 1: into the largest film franchise in our history. That Chevy

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Speaker 1: Chase hit correct, um so, you know, and Radio hour

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Speaker 1: be got Saturday Night Live. UM. So today I said,

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Speaker 1: we had a conversation around the idea of um, if

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Speaker 1: you're going to be an iconic comedy brand, now, you

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Speaker 1: have to really fit into the comedy lifestyle, right, And

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Speaker 1: the comedy lifestyle is I listened to three or four

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Speaker 1: comedy podcasts a week. I go see live comedy shows.

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Speaker 1: I watched a ton of comedy on YouTube. And to

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Speaker 1: revive National Lampoon and not take the approach of going

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Speaker 1: through the filters and formats and platforms that today's comedy

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Speaker 1: audiences go through would be a mistake. And so podcasting

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Speaker 1: was something that was central to our our development process

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Speaker 1: on our thesis, UM as a way to monetize the

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Speaker 1: development process, find new talent, find new i P, put

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Speaker 1: it out in the world, collect data, build awareness, generate revenues. UM.

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Speaker 1: So yes, that was really a part of it. But

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Speaker 1: it really it wasn't until I started to dug dig

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Speaker 1: into the i P that there are two properties really

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Speaker 1: jumped out, UM, the Radio Hour and Lemmings UM, because

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Speaker 1: they both fit into today's comedies like comedy lifestyle. They

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Speaker 1: both fit into today's comedy lifestyle in that one is

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Speaker 1: a radio hour hence a podcast, and the other is

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Speaker 1: a live show. UM. And that that's what today's comedy audiences. Yes,

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Speaker 1: they want to watch a good television show that's funny,

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Speaker 1: but they really also want to get these immersive experiences. UM.

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Speaker 1: And that's that's where you're seeing. The explosion of audience

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Speaker 1: is happening in audio and live for comedy as well.

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Speaker 1: So you're gonna have a mix of live shows running

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Speaker 1: in different parts of the country under the National Lampoon

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Speaker 1: brand and a weekly podcast, weekly half hour podcast. So

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Speaker 1: this show is eleven episodes, half hour each UM. So

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Speaker 1: that will run for eleven weeks UM, and then we

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Speaker 1: will have new shows coming in after that, UM and UM,

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Speaker 1: all under the National Lampoon brand. UM. Some of the

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Speaker 1: shows will be so lesbian. Agenda is an actual great

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Speaker 1: example of this is a show that UM we've been

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Speaker 1: working with for a while. UM. We co presented it

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Speaker 1: with the creator, Sophie Santos standing right there UM uh

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Speaker 1: at Near Comedy Festival. Did really really well. We're going

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Speaker 1: to take it out as a as a television pitch

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Speaker 1: next year at some point, but we also may do

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Speaker 1: a podcast. UM. You know, the importance is the talent

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Speaker 1: and the idea. That's the most important thing. And UM,

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Speaker 1: when we find talent, we find a concept that we

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Speaker 1: want to we want to put it where it belongs,

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Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So so sometimes it'll be live,

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Speaker 1: sometimes it will be a podcast. Sometimes it will be

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Speaker 1: a television show. Sometimes it'll be a film UM. And

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Speaker 1: other times who knows it, you know, it could be

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Speaker 1: a social media channel, an Instagram feed. UM. What we

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Speaker 1: don't want to do is pre pre pre presar. We

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Speaker 1: don't want to presuppose where something should be until we

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Speaker 1: figure out or getically what's the best home where they

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Speaker 1: can build the biggest audience and realize their vision in

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Speaker 1: the best way possible. Can you make money on a

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Speaker 1: podcast or is it a like a talent incubation or

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Speaker 1: a project incubation type of vehicle for you? Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean you can make money on a podcast. You can't

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Speaker 1: make a you know, unless you're doing Joe Rogan like numbers.

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Speaker 1: You can't make a ship ton of money on a podcast.

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Speaker 1: But what you can do is make money on a

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Speaker 1: on a on a property. So a show that does

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Speaker 1: a podcast gains a listenership, you get advertising there. On

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Speaker 1: the flip side, you also promote live shows from that podcast,

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Speaker 1: and you sell tickets and you make money there and

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Speaker 1: then ultimately hopefully you adapt it to long form on

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Speaker 1: other platforms. Um. So, we were all we've already adapted

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Speaker 1: one of Forever Dogs podcasts and sold it as a

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Speaker 1: television series. Um and we're in the process of adapting

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Speaker 1: other projects as well. We're also reverse engineering. So Radio

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Speaker 1: Hour is a great sketch show. Television needs a great

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Speaker 1: sketch show, right, So we formulated Forever I'm sorry, we

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Speaker 1: formulate we So we formulated Radio Hour as a format,

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Speaker 1: um and as a talent pool to a We've already

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Speaker 1: done it live that worked incredibly well. Be we shot

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Speaker 1: it as we recorded it, and we're going to release

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Speaker 1: it as a video series simultaneously on YouTube, whereas my

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Speaker 1: mom like just likes to say the YouTube um. And

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Speaker 1: the whole idea is to see if we can also

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Speaker 1: adapt this into long form TV as well. This is

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Speaker 1: this is a hard time in comedy because of where

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Speaker 1: the culture is on issues of marginalized people and inclusion

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Speaker 1: and how I'm going to do you decide what is funny?

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Speaker 1: I'm going to have to well, first of all, it's

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Speaker 1: not my job to decide what's funny. But but I'm

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Speaker 1: going to disagree with you. I don't think it's a

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Speaker 1: hard time to be to be in comedy. I think

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Speaker 1: what you have to do so to go back one

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Speaker 1: of the big changes. One of the first things we

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Speaker 1: did was decide what our brand Shelter was going to

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Speaker 1: be UM, and we went back to the very beginning

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Speaker 1: and looked at everything Lampoon has done and what made

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Speaker 1: it important and the idea of twisted mainstream of satirizing

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Speaker 1: mainstream culture. UM vacation kind of personified as a family

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Speaker 1: goes on vacation. Dad's trying to get laid Grandma does

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Speaker 1: the dog gets dragged for miles and gets destroyed. Like

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Speaker 1: that's pretty subversive stuff, right, Um, So we brought that forward,

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Speaker 1: this this punch up rebel point of view from the

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Speaker 1: from the original brand from fifty years ago legitimately you know,

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Speaker 1: next March um, and brought it to today. And then

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Speaker 1: we made took extra pains to include the people who

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Speaker 1: were excluded last time. People who that's a pretty big crowd. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, if you weren't a sisgendered white dude from Harvard,

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Speaker 1: you know, or one white woman from you know, from

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Speaker 1: that crowd, then you were excluded. And not on purpose

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Speaker 1: but just systematic, you know, institutional the avenues for you

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Speaker 1: to get there, we're just so steep or non existent.

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Speaker 1: They were all from Harvard, so they were taught comedy

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Speaker 1: inside the ivy walls at Harvard. So this time, you know,

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Speaker 1: the same week, Um, Shane Gillis and Senent Live got

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Speaker 1: all that guff for for the things he said on

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Speaker 1: a podcast, we announced one of the most diverse casts

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Speaker 1: and writer's rooms in comedy. And by the way, it

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Speaker 1: wasn't hard to find talented people of gender fluidity and color,

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Speaker 1: diversity and different types of backgrounds. It was actually pretty

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Speaker 1: easy because there are more of them now than there

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Speaker 1: ever have been. And so, yeah, it's hard to be

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Speaker 1: in comedy if you're not a good writer, but if

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Speaker 1: you're very inclusive in your point of view and you're

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Speaker 1: very inclusive in the talent that you hang out with,

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Speaker 1: and you put yourself in situations where the biases that

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Speaker 1: you might have been taught as a young person are

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Speaker 1: challenged on an ongoing basis. You know, it's not very

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Speaker 1: difficult to be funny and not piss people off, not

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Speaker 1: piss the wrong people off, and by that I mean

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Speaker 1: not piss off the people who have been subjugated for

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Speaker 1: the last two hundred years in American history, but the

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Speaker 1: ones who need to be celebrated and given the spotlight.

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Speaker 1: Now we're sitting at The Lesbian Agenda, which is a

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Speaker 1: show created by and starring a queer latinos comic and musician. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, we didn't go on the hunt for a

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Speaker 1: queer Latin. He didn't checklist. It's just that this is

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Speaker 1: the type of talent that's really getting a moment to shine,

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Speaker 1: and we just start running around trying to work with

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Speaker 1: as many of them as we can. Not that we

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Speaker 1: don't like cisgendered white dudes, it's just, you know, it's

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Speaker 1: not going to be every performer for us the way

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Speaker 1: that it's traditionally been in comedy. And when you look

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Speaker 1: at the writer's room on Radio Hour, Rachel Pigram Uh,

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Speaker 1: Lorelai Ramirez, Uh, Meg Stalter, Joe Firestone, Aaron Jackson, Alex English,

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Speaker 1: Cola Scola, you know, this is a very diverse and

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Speaker 1: oftentimes not necessarily always well represented. You know, it's a

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Speaker 1: shame to say women are under representating comedy, but it's

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Speaker 1: still is a situation where we're still dealing with the

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Speaker 1: ramifications of the last generation of misogyny in the comedy culture,

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Speaker 1: where club owners could resist putting more than one woman

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Speaker 1: on a bill, like that's not old news, that's like

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Speaker 1: fifteen minutes ago. Um. And you know, the the aftermath

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Speaker 1: of the whole Louis c k situation isn't just that

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Speaker 1: Louis was doing stupid ship in hotel rooms with female comedians.

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Speaker 1: It's that he would often and and the infrastructure of

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Speaker 1: comedy would help suppress careers to make sure that word

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Speaker 1: didn't get out. And so if you want to not

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Speaker 1: make comedy, It's not hard to not do that in

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Speaker 1: this day and age when so many people are when

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Speaker 1: there are so many people that are finding the platforms,

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Speaker 1: whether it's YouTube, whether it's live shows. You know, the

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Speaker 1: world is more exactly social media. The world is more expansive.

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Speaker 1: So it's it is, it is. You can have that voice,

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Speaker 1: but here is a here you're marrying a legendary brand

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Speaker 1: and expertise and and a real ethos about what you

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Speaker 1: want to do and and both honoring the past but

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Speaker 1: taking it very much into the president. Yeah, it's un

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Speaker 1: I mean, oddly and maybe unfortunately, it's unexpected for Lation

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Speaker 1: Lampoon to work with a whole bunch of uh, female

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Speaker 1: people of color, gender diverse group, but it shouldn't be.

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Speaker 1: It's a professional lampoon. In it's surprising in that the

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Speaker 1: brand hasn't necessarily always done that. But on the flip side, um,

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Speaker 1: it shouldn't be surprising because in to be fair to

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Speaker 1: the folks who founded National Lampoon, they reflected that culture

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Speaker 1: at that time very well, and they reflected young culture

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Speaker 1: at that time. They may not have reflect to African

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Speaker 1: American culture or necessarily, um, you know, the culture of

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Speaker 1: people of color. But you know, America was also significantly

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Speaker 1: less diverse back then, and the media outlets were substantially

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Speaker 1: less of diverse. But from a from a diversity of

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Speaker 1: point of view, um they brought up issues, they tackled subjects,

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Speaker 1: They took on the mainstream culture, they took on the

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Speaker 1: the infrastructure in a way that was necessary, and they

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Speaker 1: were very reflective of that time. Now we're doing exactly

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Speaker 1: the same thing. We're not fifty years ago, you know,

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Speaker 1: almost to the minute. We are very reflective of this time,

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Speaker 1: and we are holding up a mirror to the culture

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Speaker 1: that needs to know that those genes do make your

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Speaker 1: g ass look fat. And you can say that, but

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Speaker 1: interesting that you are. You've made a real, almost conscious

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Speaker 1: decision that it's going to be a largely Trump and

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Speaker 1: largely politics free zone, at least our radio our That

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Speaker 1: was one of the big set of boundaries we put

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Speaker 1: around it was to not take on politics, to take

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Speaker 1: on culture, not politics, to take on mainstream American is

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Speaker 1: um um, rather than to take on us, to satirize us,

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Speaker 1: as opposed to satirizing what is ultimately satirized every night

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Speaker 1: on television. So part of it is just fatigue of

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Speaker 1: that same joke everyone's telling about Donald Trump and his hair. Um.

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Speaker 1: But then secondarily it's also to give the audience something

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Speaker 1: new and different to reflect upon from from a comedy standpoint,

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Speaker 1: from different points of view than than you know, what's

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Speaker 1: on every single channel and every single streamer every single

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Speaker 1: day and every single night. You know, how do you

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Speaker 1: stand out in in the era where there are ten

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Speaker 1: million things on the TV and nothing to watch? Well,

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Speaker 1: don't do what everybody else is doing is edg choices

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Speaker 1: to skip the chump jokes. The edgy choice is yeah,

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Speaker 1: and the Pens joke and the Pompeo joke. And you know,

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Speaker 1: like enough, you know we have these really great um

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Speaker 1: you know, Cole plays this unbelievably gorgeous character, uh name

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Speaker 1: Mave who's a cabaret singer who gets hired to sing

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Speaker 1: the Super Bowl halftime show when j Lo breaks her leg,

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Speaker 1: and and that whole piece as a satire on popular

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Speaker 1: mainstream television culture is just it's just different and weird

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Speaker 1: and patient and silly and fun and escapist all at

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Speaker 1: the same time, and it still says something. Let's talk

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Speaker 1: a little more broadly about national Lampuna's a business. I

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Speaker 1: mean basically you have described it as it's a comedy studio,

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Speaker 1: correct that aims to make content for a range of platforms,

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Speaker 1: building on the past. So obviously podcasts are big focus.

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Speaker 1: What do you think is going to drive this drive

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Speaker 1: the company forward in a big way from it just

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Speaker 1: from a purely financial perspective, Yeah, So the idea of

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Speaker 1: creating formats in one media and adapting them to another.

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Speaker 1: So you know, Radio Hour to me is a really

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Speaker 1: good personification of what we're trying to do and that

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Speaker 1: we want to build an audience quickly and relatively and

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Speaker 1: expensively on one platform and then migrated to another. Um.

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Speaker 1: But we have great scripted TV shows and development. We've

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Speaker 1: got a number of films and development as well. We

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Speaker 1: just started a weekly live show in Long Island City

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Speaker 1: at this great new space called Plaqueall Gallery. UM. So

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Speaker 1: you know, we have plans for reinvigorating the merchandise of

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Speaker 1: the of the business. So we're a studio, but we're

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Speaker 1: also a consumer phacing brand UM and I think it'll

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Speaker 1: you know, the diversification of revenue is something I'm kind

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Speaker 1: of obsessed about when I look at these other businesses

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Speaker 1: out there, because you look at some of these businesses

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Speaker 1: that only have a single revenue stream and you wonder, well,

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Speaker 1: how's that going to work long term? UM. So you know,

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Speaker 1: we want to be the ultimates dealer in the streaming war.

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Speaker 1: We also want to have a consumer facing brand that's

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Speaker 1: really really important with an engaged community around it. And

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Speaker 1: I think ultimately, media brands that have engaged communities and

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Speaker 1: ones that can be sustained over time, those are going

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Speaker 1: to be the truly successful UM media enterprises on an

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Speaker 1: ongoing basis. Marvel is a great example. You know, not

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Speaker 1: only was that business dead, it was bankrupt, UM, but

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Speaker 1: the way they reinvigorated it around the engaged community is

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Speaker 1: kind of the lesson. But there are others Archie, Look

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Speaker 1: how well they've brand. Who would have thought that that

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Speaker 1: would have been a hit TV show and one on Netflix.

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Speaker 1: UM Snoopy is now incredibly popular, more so overseas and

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Speaker 1: it's been historically in the past. Sesame Street, which just

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Speaker 1: celebrated its fiftie anniversary, is as important and relevant, and

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Speaker 1: you know they're in every commercial right now. So you know,

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Speaker 1: those publishers and those studios are a great Those are

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Speaker 1: the case studies we look at when we look at

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Speaker 1: models UM to put out there where there really isn't

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Speaker 1: a comedy brand that's done what those brands have done

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Speaker 1: except us. National Lampoon has done film, it's done magazine,

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Speaker 1: it's done radio. UM hasn't done so much TV. But

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Speaker 1: we are we are going to emulate Archie, Comics, Marvel uh, Snoopy, uh,

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Speaker 1: these other brands and and serve as a publishing arm

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Speaker 1: for a certain genre, which is comedy. And we're going

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Speaker 1: to do it everywhere. And we want to be that

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Speaker 1: brand that people want to wear on their chest. The

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Speaker 1: difference between us and a startup brand is like Marvel,

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Speaker 1: like Snoopy, like Archie, we are already a brand that

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Speaker 1: people want to wear on their chest. National Lampoons means something.

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Speaker 1: Is there a special National Lampoon font? When I see

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Speaker 1: when I see those lettering, Oh my god, that lettering

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Speaker 1: is so distinctive. It absolutely telegraphs there may be in

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Speaker 1: I don't think there isn't. That's a good idea. So

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Speaker 1: there's a product right there. Yeah, there's money in that. No,

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Speaker 1: I'm a fontiphile. I've ever seen helvetica that documentary, So yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm partial to aerial myself. Yeah, I'm a gill Stands

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Speaker 1: kind of guy. But that, uh, that is that's a

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Speaker 1: hand drawn that's a hand drawn image. That's amazing. That

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Speaker 1: is somebody had a really and if you look at

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Speaker 1: so if you look at the artwork for National Impoun

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Speaker 1: Radio Hour, the podcast, Um, what we did was we

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Speaker 1: brought that that iconography forward, right. We brought another really

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Speaker 1: well known piece of iconography for it, which is the

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Speaker 1: dog whose name is cheese Face from the cover of

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Speaker 1: the magazine, which the famous one where the by this

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Speaker 1: magazine or the dog gets there's a gun being pointed

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Speaker 1: in the head, right and by this magazine world shoot

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Speaker 1: this dog. And um and so we brought that forward.

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Speaker 1: But we hired a nice young artist named Zach who

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Speaker 1: redid it um and and and and redrew it um

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Speaker 1: in kind of more electronic, up to date but still

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Speaker 1: old school way. Um. And you know to me, that's

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Speaker 1: like I could see you know, it's not baby Yoda,

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Speaker 1: but it is a very recognizable icon and um. And

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Speaker 1: in terms of the in terms of the talent that

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Speaker 1: you're working with on the Radio Hour, will you have

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Speaker 1: like are you building a stable? Will you have long

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Speaker 1: term relationships with some of the tosh that's the hope.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we don't have them under indentured

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Speaker 1: servitude unfortunately, but you know, if we can continue to

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Speaker 1: work with Cola Scala and Joe Firestone and Alex Angelish

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Speaker 1: and Martin Orbano and Meg Stalter Mix Stalter who was

426
00:25:41,760 --> 00:25:45,280
Speaker 1: in Chicago working as either a babysitter or a nanny

427
00:25:45,359 --> 00:25:49,080
Speaker 1: like eighteen months ago and is now a huge blossoming

428
00:25:49,119 --> 00:25:52,480
Speaker 1: star in the comedy scene because primarily of social media.

429
00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:55,560
Speaker 1: To start, She's also a brilliant live performer and writer.

430
00:25:55,680 --> 00:25:58,040
Speaker 1: But that's how she that's how she kind of got

431
00:25:58,040 --> 00:26:02,919
Speaker 1: recognized or get got discovered. UM and Maeve Higgins and

432
00:26:02,920 --> 00:26:06,040
Speaker 1: and at Laura l A Ramirez and Rachel Pegram and

433
00:26:06,119 --> 00:26:09,119
Speaker 1: Aaron Jackson. We are we would love to continue working

434
00:26:09,119 --> 00:26:10,879
Speaker 1: with them, and you know, we are talking to a

435
00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:13,119
Speaker 1: bunch of them about other projects. A lot of the

436
00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:17,640
Speaker 1: cast members have their own ideas for TV and film.

437
00:26:17,800 --> 00:26:21,640
Speaker 1: UM and we are actively developing a number of projects

438
00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:23,159
Speaker 1: with a number of cast members, and the hope is

439
00:26:23,200 --> 00:26:26,720
Speaker 1: they'll come back for a subsequent season of the podcast.

440
00:26:26,760 --> 00:26:28,639
Speaker 1: But also you know when and if we get to

441
00:26:28,680 --> 00:26:30,639
Speaker 1: adapt it for television. They'll also come back for that

442
00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:32,960
Speaker 1: as well, so that yes, the answer is, we would

443
00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:35,840
Speaker 1: love to work with them. And the idea is to

444
00:26:35,920 --> 00:26:39,080
Speaker 1: establish relationships with artists. I mean, Laura Michaels is the

445
00:26:39,600 --> 00:26:43,119
Speaker 1: is the quintessential you know, godfather of this. You know,

446
00:26:43,359 --> 00:26:45,760
Speaker 1: he took what was the cast of the Radio Wire,

447
00:26:45,840 --> 00:26:48,960
Speaker 1: turned it into Saturenaite Live, and then held onto a

448
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:51,320
Speaker 1: lot of the relationships with the talent over years. You know,

449
00:26:51,359 --> 00:26:54,720
Speaker 1: he still works between fae on a Broadway show and

450
00:26:54,760 --> 00:26:57,040
Speaker 1: on other things, even though they don't necessarily work day

451
00:26:57,040 --> 00:26:58,800
Speaker 1: to day together. And I believe you told me that

452
00:26:58,840 --> 00:27:01,280
Speaker 1: The story is that the National Lampoon guys back in

453
00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:04,960
Speaker 1: the mid seventies said yeah, no, we're not interested in weight.

454
00:27:06,320 --> 00:27:08,480
Speaker 1: Is that's true or is that pretty much? That's that's

455
00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:11,119
Speaker 1: pretty much the truth is that that I think NBC

456
00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:13,760
Speaker 1: and Lauren came to the Lampoon and said do you

457
00:27:13,760 --> 00:27:16,000
Speaker 1: want to do this? And there they said, no, it's

458
00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:18,920
Speaker 1: not quarter of what we want to do, and they

459
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:23,760
Speaker 1: they I believe the story is Lauren and um Bernie

460
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:28,160
Speaker 1: Brelstein went and scooped up John and Gilda and Bill

461
00:27:28,280 --> 00:27:30,960
Speaker 1: and just and Michael O'Donohue and hired him as a

462
00:27:30,960 --> 00:27:33,560
Speaker 1: as a writer. Now you can do a little bit

463
00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:35,480
Speaker 1: more research and find out how much of this is true,

464
00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:39,280
Speaker 1: But that's general and directionally story and part of your

465
00:27:39,440 --> 00:27:41,240
Speaker 1: and part of what you have to work with. Part

466
00:27:41,240 --> 00:27:45,320
Speaker 1: of your resources at Lampoon is almost twenty years of

467
00:27:45,600 --> 00:27:48,320
Speaker 1: or more than almost thirty years of a magazine of

468
00:27:49,720 --> 00:27:53,520
Speaker 1: magazine D and thirty issues of the magazine, um like

469
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:57,639
Speaker 1: forty hours of audio um with you know, people like

470
00:27:57,720 --> 00:28:01,520
Speaker 1: Larry David and John Hughes and Kenny and Henry Beard

471
00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:06,680
Speaker 1: and h and he beats Um and Gilda Radner and

472
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:09,919
Speaker 1: Michael O'Donohue and pg O Rourke. So yeah, there's a

473
00:28:09,920 --> 00:28:12,679
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of I P there um and there's all

474
00:28:12,800 --> 00:28:16,159
Speaker 1: the brand halo that goes into that as well. The

475
00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:18,680
Speaker 1: story of National Lampoon in the last decade or so

476
00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:22,080
Speaker 1: has not been pretty, um you in terms of the

477
00:28:22,160 --> 00:28:25,440
Speaker 1: of the brand. It's gone from a couple of different owners,

478
00:28:25,480 --> 00:28:29,240
Speaker 1: the previous owners to the to the Palm Star team

479
00:28:29,280 --> 00:28:32,520
Speaker 1: that bought it in. A couple of them are now

480
00:28:32,560 --> 00:28:35,760
Speaker 1: serving time and the federal penotential they're out, okay, but

481
00:28:35,800 --> 00:28:38,640
Speaker 1: they so they served their time for financial did they

482
00:28:38,640 --> 00:28:41,760
Speaker 1: paid their time? Nonetheless, the bar for you is very low.

483
00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:45,120
Speaker 1: As president out of jail. What does the sort of

484
00:28:45,320 --> 00:28:48,200
Speaker 1: recent history National Lampoon teach you, as I'm sure you

485
00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:50,680
Speaker 1: have studied as you're getting your arms around the company.

486
00:28:51,200 --> 00:28:54,480
Speaker 1: Everybody who's running the National Lampoon up until I think

487
00:28:54,520 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 1: the current group paid absolutely no attention to why the

488
00:28:58,800 --> 00:29:01,720
Speaker 1: brand was so important back of the day. They just said, well,

489
00:29:01,720 --> 00:29:03,440
Speaker 1: it's got to be funny and that was the only

490
00:29:04,840 --> 00:29:07,120
Speaker 1: that was the only filter. Just make it funny and

491
00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:11,880
Speaker 1: slap our name on it. And that's not how it works. Um.

492
00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:14,800
Speaker 1: You know. There there's something to the subversiveness, there's something

493
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:17,360
Speaker 1: to the punch up nous, there's something to taking on

494
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:21,240
Speaker 1: the establishment. Um. You know. The I boiled it down

495
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:25,360
Speaker 1: into twisted mainstream, you know, into those two words because

496
00:29:25,400 --> 00:29:28,440
Speaker 1: it's fast and easy to understand. Um. But the idea

497
00:29:28,520 --> 00:29:31,400
Speaker 1: that a whole bunch of people who are not the

498
00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:35,040
Speaker 1: establishment will take on the establishment through the prism of comedy,

499
00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:38,720
Speaker 1: that's what twisted mainstream means to me. They never did

500
00:29:38,720 --> 00:29:41,840
Speaker 1: that homework, you know, not that I can tell anyway.

501
00:29:41,880 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 1: There's there's no no one sat down to understand the

502
00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:49,400
Speaker 1: legacy of the brand. They just assumed it. And I

503
00:29:49,440 --> 00:29:51,800
Speaker 1: think that was the biggest mistake that was made, was

504
00:29:51,920 --> 00:29:54,240
Speaker 1: let's just rush to put our name on something that

505
00:29:54,320 --> 00:29:58,160
Speaker 1: we think might be funny. Funny Funny is very subjective,

506
00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:00,000
Speaker 1: you know, I said, it's not my job to say

507
00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:03,840
Speaker 1: what's funny. I mean comedy. Comedy is hard. Dying is easy,

508
00:30:03,920 --> 00:30:06,680
Speaker 1: Comedy is hard. You know, drama, You know a drama

509
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:10,400
Speaker 1: when you see it, it's either drama or it's not drama. Um,

510
00:30:10,440 --> 00:30:14,120
Speaker 1: But comedy, there's several different forms of it. And so

511
00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:16,040
Speaker 1: how do you under how do you how do you

512
00:30:16,040 --> 00:30:18,400
Speaker 1: make it all hang together under a brand? You come

513
00:30:18,480 --> 00:30:20,640
Speaker 1: up with a filter that everybody agrees to, and you

514
00:30:20,680 --> 00:30:24,320
Speaker 1: pick voices that line up with that vision. And so

515
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:26,120
Speaker 1: I think that was the big mistake that was made

516
00:30:26,120 --> 00:30:29,000
Speaker 1: in the past. And when we go out there and

517
00:30:29,040 --> 00:30:32,800
Speaker 1: we do our pitch for people and we sample what

518
00:30:32,840 --> 00:30:36,000
Speaker 1: it is that we're doing, you say National Lampoon's Lesbian Agenda,

519
00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:39,520
Speaker 1: and then you come see this project, Um, you get it,

520
00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:41,600
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It may not even be

521
00:30:41,640 --> 00:30:43,280
Speaker 1: for you, but you go out I I see what

522
00:30:43,320 --> 00:30:46,800
Speaker 1: they're doing there. When we took Radio Hour out, um,

523
00:30:46,840 --> 00:30:49,200
Speaker 1: you know, and people understood what it is that we

524
00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:51,360
Speaker 1: were trying to do, and we were able to articulate

525
00:30:51,360 --> 00:30:53,440
Speaker 1: what the vision of it was and why we were

526
00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:56,000
Speaker 1: doing the things that we were doing. Spotify is a

527
00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:58,320
Speaker 1: great example. So this partnership is Spotify came from the

528
00:30:58,320 --> 00:31:01,120
Speaker 1: fact that they said, yes Bury the lead. I forgot

529
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:03,960
Speaker 1: to mention you just fresh off of the contract. You

530
00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:07,280
Speaker 1: just inked a deal with Spotify to distribute a podcast,

531
00:31:07,320 --> 00:31:11,400
Speaker 1: which is an enormous boost given how much how much

532
00:31:11,480 --> 00:31:15,040
Speaker 1: energy and attention there put Spotify is putting into into podcasts. Yeah. No,

533
00:31:15,280 --> 00:31:17,440
Speaker 1: they you know, they spent almost as much on us

534
00:31:17,440 --> 00:31:20,080
Speaker 1: as that they did on Gimlet. That's not true at all. Um.

535
00:31:20,400 --> 00:31:23,880
Speaker 1: The key here though, is that they said, this is

536
00:31:23,920 --> 00:31:27,160
Speaker 1: a really good piece of content, and we love this brand,

537
00:31:27,280 --> 00:31:31,440
Speaker 1: and the two of those things together. It's hard for

538
00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:33,240
Speaker 1: me to explain how easy it is for people to

539
00:31:33,240 --> 00:31:36,120
Speaker 1: get it when you when you do it right, um,

540
00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:39,200
Speaker 1: you know, And so it's very difficult for me personally

541
00:31:39,640 --> 00:31:41,880
Speaker 1: coming to this as I do. You asked me how

542
00:31:41,920 --> 00:31:45,720
Speaker 1: long I've been interested in comedy, you know, since birth, Um,

543
00:31:45,760 --> 00:31:48,640
Speaker 1: and I've been doing comedy professionally for some time. Now

544
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:54,280
Speaker 1: to walk and so so and then you know, on

545
00:31:54,320 --> 00:31:57,760
Speaker 1: my own a little bit and um, and we've been

546
00:31:57,760 --> 00:32:02,360
Speaker 1: able to really so me. It was pretty it always

547
00:32:02,480 --> 00:32:05,360
Speaker 1: very obvious on how to cater this brand. And what's

548
00:32:05,440 --> 00:32:08,200
Speaker 1: nice is walking in there with the legacy that and

549
00:32:08,240 --> 00:32:11,200
Speaker 1: the history and comedy that I do, walking there in

550
00:32:11,240 --> 00:32:13,360
Speaker 1: their arm in arm with the talent that we're bringing

551
00:32:13,360 --> 00:32:16,600
Speaker 1: to the table. You know, we don't underestimate how important

552
00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:20,120
Speaker 1: it was to have Cola Scola and Joe Firestone on

553
00:32:20,160 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 1: our roster when we told people we were making this

554
00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:25,080
Speaker 1: show like it's it's what brought all the other artists

555
00:32:25,080 --> 00:32:27,960
Speaker 1: to the table, it's what got Spotify on board. It's

556
00:32:28,360 --> 00:32:31,160
Speaker 1: you know, it's a big part of who we are. Well,

557
00:32:31,280 --> 00:32:34,920
Speaker 1: the preparations for the lesbian agenda are starting to step up,

558
00:32:35,040 --> 00:32:39,440
Speaker 1: so we should probably clear clearer path for a wave

559
00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:42,200
Speaker 1: of comedy to happen. Evan, thank you so much. We

560
00:32:42,280 --> 00:32:44,520
Speaker 1: will be listening and good luck to you and all

561
00:32:44,560 --> 00:32:46,560
Speaker 1: in all your endeavors. I hope you make them laugh.

562
00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:52,760
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, thanks for listening. Be sure to tune

563
00:32:52,760 --> 00:32:56,880
Speaker 1: in next week for another episode of Strictly Business O