Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from iHeart Radio on Here's the Thing. We'd like
Speaker 1: to draw attention to the fiftieth anniversary of Saturday Night Live.
Speaker 1: In those fifty years, some of the most famous names
Speaker 1: in comedy, films and television have passed through Studio eight
Speaker 1: h at thirty Rockefeller Plaza. However, as is evidenced by
Speaker 1: Jason Rightman's film Saturday Night the most enduring names who
Speaker 1: performed on the show of the original cast from nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy five Gilda Radner, Chevy Chase, Garrett Morris, Jane Curtin,
Speaker 1: John Belushi, and Loray Newman. And after fifty years of SNL,
Speaker 1: the one who has had arguably the most interesting career
Speaker 1: of them all is my guest today, dan Aykroyd. Whether
Speaker 1: conjuring the state puffed marshmallow Man, jamming an entire fish
Speaker 1: into the basmatic, or dancing wildly to soul Man, few
Speaker 1: people are more enjoyable to watch than dan Ackroyd. His
Speaker 1: prolific career skyrocketed when he became the youngest cast member
Speaker 1: of the inaugural season of Saturday Night Live at just
Speaker 1: twenty three years old. Ackroyd's tenure at Studio eight h
Speaker 1: Berth iconic sketches about Julia Child, Richard Nixon, and of
Speaker 1: course the Blues Brothers, which evolved into feature films and
Speaker 1: a touring live band. Dan Ackroyd is also the screenwriter
Speaker 1: behind the classic comedic films Dragnet, Cone Heads, Spies Like Us,
Speaker 1: and of course Ghostbusters. He reprised his Ghostbuster's role of
Speaker 1: Race Dance just this year in Ghostbuster's Frozen Empire. If
Speaker 1: that weren't enough. He's also the co founder of the
Speaker 1: House of Blues music venues and Crystal Head Vodka. The
Speaker 1: suttle and humble comedian he is Canadian, after all, is
Speaker 1: an Emmy winner as well as a Grammy and Academy
Speaker 1: Award nominee. I wanted to begin by asking how a
Speaker 1: young and gifted Akroyd almost missed his calling and ended
Speaker 1: up on the path to the priesthood.
Speaker 2: Well, that's a fun question.
Speaker 3: What happened was my parents wanted me to have a
Speaker 3: little better education than the public school system at the
Speaker 3: time there in the Ottawa Hall area and the Gatineau
Speaker 3: area and on the Ottawa River up there in eastern Ontario,
Speaker 3: at our capital city. They wanted a stricter education. So
Speaker 3: they took me into the seminary and they sat me
Speaker 3: down in front of Father Leney, the Saint Pius, the
Speaker 3: tenth minor preparatory seminary for boys. So in I go
Speaker 3: with father Loney, and my mom's sitting there, my dad
Speaker 3: sitting there. They really want me to get into this academy,
Speaker 3: which was an excellent school, by the way, I ruined
Speaker 3: it when I was there. But so he says, well, Dan,
Speaker 3: in the Newfoundland accent, the Nova Scotia accent, or the
Speaker 3: rural Ontario accent slightly Irish, those all are well, Dan. Now,
Speaker 3: so we understand your father and mother tell us that
Speaker 3: you see a vocation for yourself in the priesthood. And
Speaker 3: of course I had no intention ever of doing that,
Speaker 3: but I had to please my parents. And here was
Speaker 3: my answer to father Leney.
Speaker 4: Ah why yeah, yeah, yeh yes maybe.
Speaker 3: And then after three years there, where I was a
Speaker 3: horrible class clown and drove the teachers crazy, they let
Speaker 3: me go in grade eleven and they wrote a letter
Speaker 3: to my parents and it said, we believe your son
Speaker 3: is no longer suitable for the priesthood, their loss, their loss. Well,
Speaker 3: my mother didn't like one of the teachers who was
Speaker 3: kind of hard on me, but he should have been.
Speaker 3: I was a bad class mate. My mother kind of
Speaker 3: tore a strip into him, so she was happy when
Speaker 3: I left. And then I ended up, thankfully, I ended
Speaker 3: up failing mathematics and having to go to a summer school.
Speaker 3: Had I not failed in Grade eleven at Saint Pias
Speaker 3: in math, had I not been failed by the teacher
Speaker 3: who didn't like me, you didn't like me, he failed me,
Speaker 3: I would never have met one of my best friends,
Speaker 3: David Benoa, who I know today. We met in summer school.
Speaker 3: So life takes those beautiful, beautiful turns. Yes, yes, but
Speaker 3: no priest stood for me, No priest for me. I
Speaker 3: got thrown out. You got thrown out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, obviously you got thrown out because you had
Speaker 1: to be liberated so you can go to your next
Speaker 1: level of study, which was deviant sociology. You and I
Speaker 1: have some really strange overlapping things here, which we're going
Speaker 1: to get to. But tell us a little bit about
Speaker 1: what you were after in terms of the deviant sociology calling.
Speaker 3: So, after pious, I went to Saint Pat's which was
Speaker 3: a progressive school, and it had an item there that
Speaker 3: I had never really known in class before, and that
Speaker 3: is the female. So we had mixed co ed school there,
Speaker 3: and that was where I started to get into drama.
Speaker 3: We did murder in the cathedral, we did Carousel, we
Speaker 3: did our carnival at called and we did all kinds
Speaker 3: of great plays. There was a teacher there named Brady
Speaker 3: Long And I know you have an influential teacher in
Speaker 3: your life or several, probably yes, And he was the
Speaker 3: most influential in my life. He saved me. In Grade twelve,
Speaker 3: I got into more trouble at that school with my
Speaker 3: friend Harvey. We were kind of a duo there and
Speaker 3: a little bit of a trouble mainly because of the
Speaker 3: doing the acts in class. You can't do that in class.
Speaker 3: They're not there for the entertainment, you know. We learned that.
Speaker 3: So the drama bug bit me there in that in
Speaker 3: high school. Then I had to figure out what to
Speaker 3: do for a living, so I went I had worked
Speaker 3: for the Canadian Penitentiary Service in the Solicitor General's Office
Speaker 3: of Canada. I worked at the Penitentiary Service for a
Speaker 3: summer as a clerk five, and so I was very
Speaker 3: interested in that corrections and how it's done and classifications.
Speaker 3: Now why well, because I suppose I wanted to understand
Speaker 3: deviant behavior myself for what it was in myself and
Speaker 3: my friends and other people. And so I loved working
Speaker 3: at the Penitentiary Service because I got all the statistics
Speaker 3: of every prison across Canada, how many people were there.
Speaker 3: And I wrote a manual for the signature of the
Speaker 3: Commissioner at the time on the deployment of weapons in
Speaker 3: a riot by prison guards. And I thought, this is
Speaker 3: an interesting world. So then I went to Carlton. I
Speaker 3: took sociology, I took deviant psychology, I took criminology and
Speaker 3: a few other abnormal psych I think too. And I
Speaker 3: lasted at Carlton for about three years. But then Valerie Bromfield,
Speaker 3: who's in the new SNL movie, which is great, by
Speaker 3: the way, was my partner and she almost made it
Speaker 3: under the cast of the show. But she was in
Speaker 3: Saturday Night Live. She did a stand up. I don't
Speaker 3: know whether she caught it, but Jason Reitman depicts her
Speaker 3: in the new movie. She was my partner, and she said,
Speaker 3: there's no way you're going to be a prison guard. No, No,
Speaker 3: You've got a gift for comedy and that We did
Speaker 3: stuff together. We had our own show, fifteen minute show
Speaker 3: called a Change for a Quarter on the cable show.
Speaker 3: We did it with robot cameras and one operator. And
Speaker 3: that's what we brought into Lauren Michaels a two inch
Speaker 3: thick videotape. Remember they came in a briefcase of videotapes,
Speaker 3: So we give that to Lauren and that's what got
Speaker 3: us hired for the special he did and then got
Speaker 3: me known to him for when SNL came along. So
Speaker 3: it was Valery who yanked me out of Carlton from
Speaker 3: criminology Studies, which I liked.
Speaker 2: I had great instructors. She dragged you to where Toronto
Speaker 2: were New York Toronto.
Speaker 3: We had a great duo. We loved Nicholson May and
Speaker 3: we had some great sketches. We were hired by Second City,
Speaker 3: we were working together. We had a big, strong career
Speaker 3: in comedy, so she was quite right to haul me
Speaker 3: out of there.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I'm finding out more about the penitentiary system in Canada now,
Speaker 3: and it's on the surface, it looks organized, But it's not.
Speaker 2: It's disorganized.
Speaker 3: It's a bad world in there, in those places, particularly
Speaker 3: the big prisons, where I probably would have ended up
Speaker 3: working with you Ba and criminology. And then because I
Speaker 3: was a good writer even then with essays and that.
Speaker 3: You know, writers own the world, you know that, Alec.
Speaker 3: And you know in professional world, in the police world,
Speaker 3: the ones who rise up to chief in that are
Speaker 3: the writers who could write up reports.
Speaker 1: Right now. The woman that took you to Toronto, what
Speaker 1: is her name again.
Speaker 3: Valerie Bromfield, brilliant, wonderful to We had a lot of
Speaker 3: fun together.
Speaker 1: You worked with Lorne. You had some interaction with him
Speaker 1: when he did Heart and Lorne Terrific Hour. Correct, you
Speaker 1: work with him on that show.
Speaker 2: We gave him that two inch videotape.
Speaker 3: He looked at that and he hired us for a
Speaker 3: summer special on the Heart and Lauren Terrific Hour called
Speaker 3: the Great Canadian Humor Test.
Speaker 1: And that's where you met him.
Speaker 3: Yes, in sixty nine, that's right, and Lauren saw and
Speaker 3: Valerie and I something there and hired us and I
Speaker 3: played in that special. I was twenty one at the time,
Speaker 3: and I played characters over sixty you know heavily made up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, and so there Laurene put us on and
Speaker 2: there we were.
Speaker 1: So when you go to it seems eventually you end
Speaker 1: up crashing the SNL audition. You say to yourself, I
Speaker 1: can't wait in line here. You said, by the time
Speaker 1: I do the song, it's not going to be till
Speaker 1: seven o'clock at night. You cut the song, you go
Speaker 1: in and do a fast routine. Correct.
Speaker 3: Well, I said, you know, I'm just gonna scrub the audition.
Speaker 3: I'm not here to audition. I'm here to say a
Speaker 3: load of Lauren that I knew before before. So I
Speaker 3: walked in and I went in and teach the line.
Speaker 2: It's true.
Speaker 3: There was a line as if they were lining up
Speaker 3: for a movie tickets source pos event, and so I
Speaker 3: walked right up and I just kind of said a
Speaker 3: quick ColoAd of Lauren, A quick coloada Davey Wilson. And
Speaker 3: I was in the room for no more than a
Speaker 3: minute and a half, and I turned around and then
Speaker 3: walked out after that, because he knew me from before,
Speaker 3: and I said, wow, And they say, going to work.
Speaker 3: I was with a friend of mine from Toronto who
Speaker 3: had come down with me. And we had a song
Speaker 3: in that and I said, this song will die. If
Speaker 3: we do this song here, I'm telling you, we will die.
Speaker 3: We will never work in show business. We'll be recommended
Speaker 3: against by Lorne. And then I got the call. I
Speaker 3: was with Candy when I got the call. We were
Speaker 3: opening the Second City in Pasadena, California, and Candy and
Speaker 3: I had just driven in his Mercury Cougar, his late
Speaker 3: seventies Mercury Cougar, all the way across country and so
Speaker 3: we made that and then Lauren said, come in for
Speaker 3: the final round of edition here. We want to put
Speaker 3: you on tape. And I said, well, I got this
Speaker 3: job Second City. He said, well, you know, come on in.
Speaker 3: We really think we could work something out something like that.
Speaker 3: I went, I did the auditions, and then yeah, I
Speaker 3: got the words. Some time after that, I was back
Speaker 3: home in Canada when I heard.
Speaker 1: I read a quote where you're walking down the street
Speaker 1: with Chevy and he's getting assailed by people. They're all
Speaker 1: yelling Chevy, Chevy, Chevy. And you said to yourself, I
Speaker 1: saw what Chevy was exposed to and thought to myself,
Speaker 1: I don't want that.
Speaker 3: Oh no, absolutely, I for sure said I knew. I
Speaker 3: didn't want that, and now one of the joys of aging.
Speaker 3: I was at a restaurant the other day and the
Speaker 3: young woman was, you know, a local student, probably about
Speaker 3: twenty two twenty three, no clue who I was not, right,
Speaker 3: Thank you, Thank you for that type of anonymity.
Speaker 2: I love and I didn't want it.
Speaker 3: And I was sort of, you know, with Chevy there,
Speaker 3: enjoying watching him grow and watching his fame and his
Speaker 3: talent expand. And you know, he was my biggest fan
Speaker 3: at SNL. He was my biggest point. He was him
Speaker 3: and o'donnau Right and Lauren as well, of course, but
Speaker 3: those two guys lobbied for me heavily, and then Franken
Speaker 3: and Davis as well. I highly recommend the new SNL movie.
Speaker 3: It plays like a suspense film, does it really?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: Yeah, because they didn't know where where they were really
Speaker 3: going to go on the air at at eleven thirty,
Speaker 3: and you know, I remember just kind of being down
Speaker 3: among in the bleachers and before I was supposed to
Speaker 3: go on in the home Security sketch with Garrett, and
Speaker 3: I was just thinking, well, you know, maybe this works,
Speaker 3: maybe it doesn't, Maybe we go on, maybe we don't.
Speaker 3: But you know, I saw a good price on a
Speaker 3: nice big snowplow up there where I could get some contracts.
Speaker 3: And you know, I've got some sand on my property.
Speaker 2: I have actually a commercial.
Speaker 3: Level grade of sand and a load on my property
Speaker 3: up here, and those contracts pay very very well.
Speaker 1: You like living up there, huh?
Speaker 2: I love it? I love it well. I'm here only
Speaker 2: part of the year.
Speaker 3: I'm here mostly in the summers, and then go to
Speaker 3: Massachusetts and then I've got a home in the US
Speaker 3: Virgin Island, or my partner as a home there that
Speaker 3: I bunk in with her and our two kids. But
Speaker 3: you see, with the snowplow, I'm serious, I would have
Speaker 3: gone back because I would have had no career if
Speaker 3: I didn't get into SNL none. I couldn't go back
Speaker 3: to Second City. I wasn't going to go back to Toronto.
Speaker 3: I was looking for those county contracts, you know, where
Speaker 3: you're selling tons and tons and then you have a
Speaker 3: fleet of trucks. And believe me, you know, I have
Speaker 3: a friend up here who is the wealthiest guy in
Speaker 3: the county, and it's because he builds all the cement
Speaker 3: barriers for the highways. He has a car collection of
Speaker 3: two hundred and he's really an archetype. He's a spectacular
Speaker 3: human being, and he made his living with his hands,
Speaker 3: you know. So that's where I would have been headed.
Speaker 3: But I'm glad the rote that my life took and
Speaker 3: I loved working at SNL. I'm so grateful for having
Speaker 3: had a career in film and for all the things
Speaker 3: I'm getting to do now.
Speaker 1: Well, in four years goes by. You're there seventy five
Speaker 1: through seventy nine, and then after four years you leave.
Speaker 1: And there are some people in the business who you know.
Speaker 1: You look at them and you say, you're doing a series,
Speaker 1: let's say, and getting paid a lot of money. And
Speaker 1: I'll tell some of my friends, I say, you ride
Speaker 1: that horse till it drops, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: They're never going to have that good again. Whereas for you,
Speaker 1: who win an Emmy for writing, You're one of the
Speaker 1: stars of the show, and everybody admires you. Everybody just
Speaker 1: is crazy about your talent. When you leave, was that
Speaker 1: your decision? Did you decide it was diminishing returns, there
Speaker 1: was no reason to stay any longer.
Speaker 3: No, In fact, it was because Blues Brothers spilled over
Speaker 3: a couple of months in Chicago, and we couldn't go
Speaker 3: back to work, and we saw that we would have
Speaker 3: to be with Blues Brothers, you know, getting it through
Speaker 3: post production and all the things that needed to be
Speaker 3: done to get it released, publicized and all that. So
Speaker 3: we couldn't go back because we couldn't do both. But
Speaker 3: we did the movie, and we knew we couldn't commit
Speaker 3: to SNL, and we were both ready to kind of
Speaker 3: go in a way. But had Blues Brothers not existed,
Speaker 3: had I not written that, or had Judy and John
Speaker 3: and I not conceived that or originated that, I probably
Speaker 3: would have done another couple of years, if not more,
Speaker 3: at SNL. You know, it's video commando time. You know
Speaker 3: how hard it is. You're almost a cast member yourself.
Speaker 3: But I did enjoy it, and I could could have
Speaker 3: done another couple of years there, I think, right.
Speaker 1: Come seventy six, you do Love at First Sight. Come
Speaker 1: seventy nine, it's mister Mike's Mondo video. And then you
Speaker 1: do nineteen forty one, you're out of there. And then
Speaker 1: you proceed from nineteen eighty on, from Blues Brothers on
Speaker 1: to make a hell of a lot of movies, a
Speaker 1: hell of a lot of movies. Did you settle into
Speaker 1: a place eventually where the movies were home? This is
Speaker 1: what you preferred was making films?
Speaker 3: Well, I liked playing different roles, and of course a
Speaker 3: lot of those movies, you know, I was really only
Speaker 3: played the principal lead in about thirty if you could
Speaker 3: check and see that. So the others were guest shots
Speaker 3: or like Indiana Jones and a Temple of doom.
Speaker 2: Who wouldn't want to work for Lucas and Spielberg.
Speaker 3: So I talked my way into that one, right, And
Speaker 3: then there were some that I conceived of, I wrote,
Speaker 3: I think I I had eight screenplays made in the eighties,
Speaker 3: and wow, even today, I think people will be happy
Speaker 3: with that that record. Some of them, you know, they
Speaker 3: were just neat roles and opportunities to travel and work
Speaker 3: with different directors, and I did enjoy it.
Speaker 2: But my real home heart for work.
Speaker 3: And as you speak of it, is the writing part
Speaker 3: of it. I love writing more than anything. You're left alone,
Speaker 3: you know, you do three hours in the morning you write,
Speaker 3: I need to have lunch, and then three hours in
Speaker 3: the afternoon, go pick up a kid from school and
Speaker 3: write at night, and after nine hours you come out
Speaker 3: with seven pages and then you're you're moving on so
Speaker 3: and you you know, it's just your own devices, the air,
Speaker 3: the air around you, and your mind and a blank
Speaker 3: screen or a blank piece of paper. That's really what
Speaker 3: I'd like to be doing more of and always did enjoy.
Speaker 2: But I did like playing the roles.
Speaker 3: I got to work with so many great people like
Speaker 3: Robbie Williams, Robbie Coltrane and Terry Davis, the terrific director.
Speaker 3: We worked on House of Mirth. I wor got to
Speaker 3: work with Gillian Anderson and Laura Lenny and Anthony Naplaglia
Speaker 3: and film, so of course I'm going to take parts
Speaker 3: like that. It was more driven by wanting to work
Speaker 3: with these great actors and we did some really good
Speaker 3: work together. I got, you know, Driving This Days. I
Speaker 3: got to work with Jessica and Morgan and that was
Speaker 3: a beautiful five star release.
Speaker 1: And you got nominated for that film.
Speaker 3: Yes, sir, best supporting alongside Peter O'Toole and Marlon Brando.
Speaker 3: They were best supporting and Denzel. Of course, we all
Speaker 3: knew that Denzel would get it. So that I had
Speaker 3: the most relaxed and wonderful night at the Oscars that
Speaker 3: year because I knew that I didn't have to make
Speaker 3: a speech.
Speaker 2: I wasn't gonna win.
Speaker 3: It was going to be Denzel's performance in Glory in Glory,
Speaker 3: but then Daisy won Best Actress for Jessica and Best
Speaker 3: Picture of that year, and so you know, Morgan and I,
Speaker 3: even though we were both dominated, we were you know, we
Speaker 3: were thrilled for them and for everybody else in the room.
Speaker 1: Musician, writer and actor dan Ackroyd. If you and conversations
Speaker 1: with the incredible minds behind Saturday Night Live, check out
Speaker 1: my episode with Lorne Michaels. When it's over, describe how
Speaker 1: you feel after the very first show.
Speaker 5: I was the same way then that I am now.
Speaker 5: I only see the mistakes, and I tend to wear
Speaker 5: that up until about the second drink at the party.
Speaker 5: Even last week's show takes me really through midway through Sunday.
Speaker 2: Just take me a couple of days. I can get
Speaker 2: over it now in a day.
Speaker 5: Because you're always hoping that everything's gonna work the way
Speaker 5: you were hoping it was gonna work.
Speaker 1: To hear more of my conversation with Lornemichaels, go to
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing dot Org. After the Break, dan Ackroyd
Speaker 1: shares how he came to play music professionally on stage
Speaker 1: with the godfather of soul himself, James Brown. I'm Alec
Speaker 1: Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Dan Ackroyd
Speaker 1: is known for his iconic roles as Bell dar Conehead
Speaker 1: and one half of The Two Wild and Crazy Guys
Speaker 1: with Steve Martin, but his dramatic work is not to
Speaker 1: be dismissed. You may have seen him in My Girl,
Speaker 1: House of Mirth or his Oscar nominated role in Driving
Speaker 1: Miss Daisy, directed by Bruce Beresford. I wanted to know
Speaker 1: what he appreciated the most about the direction on Driving
Speaker 1: Miss Daisy.
Speaker 3: I loved Bruce's thoughtful way he took the actor through
Speaker 3: the process.
Speaker 2: That was beautiful.
Speaker 3: You know, I can also work with someone who is
Speaker 3: say it faster, say it's slower. You know, let me
Speaker 3: give you a reading there, no problem, just tell me
Speaker 3: what notes to play.
Speaker 2: But I like it spare. I kind of like that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: do it faster, do it slower.
Speaker 3: Just the mechanics of it and where I'm left for
Speaker 3: my own devices.
Speaker 1: When you leave the show, and you go make movies.
Speaker 1: Music is a big influences. The Blues Brothers of this
Speaker 1: is a huge hit for you, we get into House
Speaker 1: of Blues for you and your you know, your music
Speaker 1: cred is significant. Did the Blues Brothers contain everything you
Speaker 1: had to display musically? Did you want to do something
Speaker 1: other than that? Because that was like a sketch that
Speaker 1: became a music act Did you ever want to sing
Speaker 1: on Broadway?
Speaker 3: You know, we became Elwood and Jake because we were actors.
Speaker 3: We had written scenes, sketches, and we had written this movie,
Speaker 3: and so as actors we had to be musicians and
Speaker 3: dancers and vocalists. So that's where we learned sort of
Speaker 3: how to pull it off. I've always said that John
Speaker 3: and I were great frontmen, with the real talent being
Speaker 3: in the backup line behind us. And that's what Jimmy
Speaker 3: and I are today. Brother Zee and myself.
Speaker 2: We do go out.
Speaker 3: I've got a concert next week. We play all the time.
Speaker 3: We have a great R and B band and one
Speaker 3: of the top R and B reviews in the world.
Speaker 1: And you enjoyed that.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I think now if I can't be writing,
Speaker 3: I think that's what I like to be doing most.
Speaker 3: So yeah, so I had to kind of perfect well
Speaker 3: not pfoult. Still learning on the harmonica, but I did
Speaker 3: play on all the records, that's all.
Speaker 2: That's all me there for more or less.
Speaker 3: And on the movie I played, and so I learned
Speaker 3: the harp as an actor being a harmonica player and
Speaker 3: then a dancer and a vocalist.
Speaker 2: But it stayed with me.
Speaker 3: Of course, we did open House of Blues, and I
Speaker 3: got to jam on stage with James Brown five times.
Speaker 3: He opened five of them with me. I got to
Speaker 3: sing with him, I got to be good friends with him.
Speaker 3: I got to jam with Little Richard in Chicago, got
Speaker 3: to sing with his section, and jam with and so
Speaker 3: many other great artists. Had a great time there. House
Speaker 3: of Blues of course, still going in eleven cities. It's
Speaker 3: owned by Live Nation now. It is a beautiful place.
Speaker 3: If you've never been, you know, they've got millions of
Speaker 3: dollars worth of folk art and incredible to Louisiana menu.
Speaker 3: And I'm a consultant, so I do brag on it
Speaker 3: a few times, but so coming to it as an actor,
Speaker 3: still doing it, and I don't think I'm gonna play
Speaker 3: guitar or oregon. I don't think I have that talent.
Speaker 3: I have minimal talent that gets me by. It's the
Speaker 3: strength of my backup line and my people behind me
Speaker 3: who really pull off the act. So we're ludic ridiculous
Speaker 3: front men. You know, Cab Calloway and Mononi Harris. We
Speaker 3: take from them. They used humor to kind of lead
Speaker 3: the band, and that's what John and I did and
Speaker 3: what Jimmy and I do, and you know it still works.
Speaker 3: Nobody goes away unhappy because we do songs no one's
Speaker 3: doing anymore, Junior Parker songs and Lowell Fulson songs and
Speaker 3: people you've never heard of, but boy do they swing.
Speaker 1: I envy you.
Speaker 2: I envy you.
Speaker 1: That sounds like so much fun. But you never thought
Speaker 1: of Broadway because you're such, You've done live, You've got
Speaker 1: the stamina, fort you've got the strength for it, and
Speaker 1: the power forth. There's so many great roles over the years.
Speaker 1: I can think of you for you to have played
Speaker 1: decade after decade, but you never did a Broadway show,
Speaker 1: did you?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: But I love the form and I love seeing great performers.
Speaker 3: And Patty LuPone I got to know on driving Miss Daisy.
Speaker 3: I try to see everything that she's in, so I
Speaker 3: do love watching it. But Alec, I just don't have
Speaker 3: the time to do Broadway. But I love the Forum,
Speaker 3: and I admire those performers, and I've thrilled when I
Speaker 3: can sit in a New York Broadway theater as it
Speaker 3: can only do in New York City.
Speaker 1: Now, the Best Supporting Actor, the winner, as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: was Denzel and it's you, Danny Iello and Do the
Speaker 1: Right Thing, brandawin Drywhite Season and Marty Landau and Crimes
Speaker 1: and Misdemeanors. I mean, I can't believe the fucking company
Speaker 1: that you're in here. I mean, you were nominating for
Speaker 1: Best Supporting Actor with these guys who are like the
Speaker 1: giants of acting.
Speaker 2: I worship Marty.
Speaker 1: Landau worshiped, and I think Danny Iyello Do the Right
Speaker 1: Thing is one of the twenty five greatest movies in
Speaker 1: history as far as I'm concerned. Oh, and there you
Speaker 1: are with these guys. Did that make you feel different
Speaker 1: about movie acting? Did you want to pursue straight acting
Speaker 1: and more or comedy was always where you were more comfortable.
Speaker 3: Well, comedy's much harder than straight acting. Point because you
Speaker 3: got to keep that ping pong ball above the red lion.
Speaker 3: In comedy, you know, straight acting, you can lay back
Speaker 3: a little bit. Yes, I was confused when I said
Speaker 3: Peter O'Toole because he was in a movie that I
Speaker 3: made with Stephen Frye.
Speaker 2: And again, thanks, I'm going to turn down that. No,
Speaker 2: I'm going to Stephen Frye.
Speaker 3: It was called Bright Young Things, Vile Bodies, Bright Young Things,
Speaker 3: it was called and O'Toole was in that. So I
Speaker 3: was in a movie with O'Toole, even though we didn't
Speaker 3: act together. I love the community. And of course that night,
Speaker 3: as I say, I was so relaxed because I looked
Speaker 3: at these other names and thought, nice to have the nomination,
Speaker 3: but I'm not going to clinch this one tonight. So
Speaker 3: I was so relaxed. And then I knew Denzel. I
Speaker 3: think we all did that scene in Glory. Those scenes
Speaker 3: were spectacular, and I got to give him a hug
Speaker 3: and meet his mom. So no, I look, I'm nothing
Speaker 3: but grateful for having been able to work in this
Speaker 3: community and be with all the people that I have
Speaker 3: worked with and just enjoyed it so so much, and
Speaker 3: it's something I don't do too much anymore, and that's fine,
Speaker 3: but I do really love the community. And of course
Speaker 3: to have been nominated in that company, as you say,
Speaker 3: as I look back on it, now, wow, that is impressive.
Speaker 1: Well, I have you in a category with a few others,
Speaker 1: but not many for sure that you can do anything.
Speaker 1: You can do anything. You can do drama, you can
Speaker 1: do comedy, you can do very subtle quiet comedy. You
Speaker 1: can do your throwing the bass into the blender. You
Speaker 1: can do stuff that's sicill, outrageous and nutty, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can play in every key. And when
Speaker 1: I see in your work is I see someone who
Speaker 1: Then in terms of that, you decide to get off
Speaker 1: on a little detour here and take a little service
Speaker 1: road here into sales and products that you manufacture and sell.
Speaker 1: Describe your forays into the alcohol beverage business.
Speaker 3: Well, we started with I don't know if you know
Speaker 3: the brilliant entrepreneurs, JP Dujoria, Paul Mitchell, Hair Systems is
Speaker 3: this company, and Patron Tequila. I live with a sober
Speaker 3: partner for five years now. She's been sober, so I'm
Speaker 3: spending a lot less on wine. I've saved tens of
Speaker 3: thousands of dollars in wine. So I drink a lot less.
Speaker 3: But I'm fortunate in that I can moderately drink alcohol,
Speaker 3: and in moderation I don't have a problem.
Speaker 2: I don't over abuse it. I can go for.
Speaker 3: Days without it or weeks if necessary. And I don't
Speaker 3: have a jones there, which enables me to sell honestly
Speaker 3: and truly. So we have a beautiful home that my
Speaker 3: ancestors settled it two hundred years ago on the farm there,
Speaker 3: and it happens to be on a cliff on a lake,
Speaker 3: and I have this dock there, and then there's the
Speaker 3: whole culture of stopping by for sunset drinks. And I
Speaker 3: like tequila to make a nice sunset drink with a tequila,
Speaker 3: you know, margarita, and we could only get in Canada,
Speaker 3: if you can believe this, we can only get two
Speaker 3: brands of tequila.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 3: Now there are hundreds out there. So I went to
Speaker 3: my friend JP owned Patron Tequila. We were at the
Speaker 3: House of Blues bar in Los Angeles, and he said,
Speaker 3: have you try this this tequila, And of course I'd
Speaker 3: only tried the two brands in Canada. He poured me
Speaker 3: a beautiful smoky, silky, satiny shot of Patron and I said, JP,
Speaker 3: how can I get this up to my little government
Speaker 3: liquor store up there in Canada. I'll bring a few
Speaker 3: cases for the summer. He said, well, Dan, you'd have
Speaker 3: to bring it to the whole country. I said, well, okay,
Speaker 3: let's do that. So he appointed me the importing agent
Speaker 3: for Patron Tequila and we grew that across Canada into
Speaker 3: the number one luxury brand. It still commands lots of
Speaker 3: luxury sales up. It was bought by Baccardy there a
Speaker 3: while back, so I'm out of it now, but that
Speaker 3: taught me the business. So that's where it started. And
Speaker 3: then I started to look at vodka. And I started
Speaker 3: to open vodka bottles up and they either smelled like
Speaker 3: Chanelle number five or they were there was no smell,
Speaker 3: or were they tasted like a cat's tongue.
Speaker 2: And I don't men mention other brands. I thought, what's
Speaker 2: going on here?
Speaker 3: Why do these vodkas either taste like nothing or they
Speaker 3: taste bad? And I come to find out that many
Speaker 3: alcoholic beverages add three fusel oils. They add glycerine, and
Speaker 3: they add lemonine, and they added more sugar to mask
Speaker 3: the alcohol smell, mask the alcohol taste, make it taste
Speaker 3: like either nothing or be odorless. And I thought, well,
Speaker 3: what fun is that in a cocktail? So we devised
Speaker 3: with John Alexander full Package, which is our skull. Crystal
Speaker 3: Head Vodka's the name of it. We're in seventy eight countries.
Speaker 3: We've sold millions of bottles, and we have the skull
Speaker 3: made by Johnny. And when I saw the skull, I
Speaker 3: just went, I know what to put in this. He
Speaker 3: designed it, just drew it up one night at his
Speaker 3: place there and he said he always thought that a
Speaker 3: skull would make a good tequila vessel, which it would.
Speaker 3: And we went ahead and did a vodka because I thought,
Speaker 3: beautiful skull. You can't put a polluted substance in that
Speaker 3: beautiful bottle. So I took all the oils out. Are
Speaker 3: vodka has no additives, no glycer and no sugar, no lemonine.
Speaker 3: Bartenders love it and that's why we've been able to
Speaker 3: sell so well and be still alive in a very
Speaker 3: very competitive market because we're stripped down. We're a pure spirit,
Speaker 3: and we have notes vanilla and ease peppercorn.
Speaker 2: We've won metals all over the world.
Speaker 1: Where do they manufacture the crystal heads?
Speaker 3: We have two lines of glass. We have a line
Speaker 3: of glass in France and we have a line of
Speaker 3: glass in Italy.
Speaker 2: And you know what, we're having fun.
Speaker 3: And what's fun is things like going down to Pennsylvania,
Speaker 3: getting right in there, into the warehouse, and I signed
Speaker 3: a thousand bottles there the other day, roughly close to that,
Speaker 3: and met some really really great people who move the
Speaker 3: product who are down there. And boy, do I get
Speaker 3: a sense of where a country's at or where a
Speaker 3: society's at when I get down into where real labor
Speaker 3: is being done by people who do this work. Because
Speaker 3: it's all about family and so the people in the warehouse,
Speaker 3: I met the PCLB board the other day, the salespeople
Speaker 3: that I'm working with. It's just great to see people
Speaker 3: who are doing real work in an age where a
Speaker 3: lot of young people now don't want to work. They
Speaker 3: want it instantly. Actor and comedian Dan Ackroyd. If you're
Speaker 3: enjoying this conversation, tell a friend I'd be sure to follow.
Speaker 3: Here's the thing on the iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: App, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. When we
Speaker 1: come Back. Royd reflects on the passing of his close
Speaker 1: friend and writing partner John Belushey, I'm Alec Baldwin, and
Speaker 1: you were listening to Here's the thing. Dan Ackroyd grew
Speaker 1: up in Ottawa, Canada, in a rather unusual home, so
Speaker 1: much so that it inspired his father to write the
Speaker 1: book A History of Ghosts, The True Story of Seances, Mediums,
Speaker 1: Ghosts and Ghostbusters, which chronicles the family's interactions with the beyond.
Speaker 1: I wanted to know if Ackroyd's upbringing an exposure to
Speaker 1: the paranormal was influential in the conception of the movie Ghostbusters.
Speaker 3: Oh sure, yes, my great grandfather Sam, who's profiled in
Speaker 3: the book. It's called History of Ghosts. It's more about
Speaker 3: trance mediumship. But yes, my great grandfather Sam. He was
Speaker 3: a dentist and he was also kind of the local
Speaker 3: reviewer of are normal acts that would come through the
Speaker 3: town of Kingston in the late turn of the century
Speaker 3: and then in the nineteen twenties. And in the book,
Speaker 3: of course, we mentioned the Fox Sisters and the Bang
Speaker 3: Sisters who were precipitated painters, and the Campbell brothers. They
Speaker 3: were precipitated painters. They would sit in front of the
Speaker 3: canvas about maybe a foot away and wiggle their fingers
Speaker 3: and an image would appear on the canvas. So is
Speaker 3: it a hoax? What's going on? Who's painting in behind it?
Speaker 3: My great grandfather, they weren't hoaxes. Those two, those four
Speaker 3: siblings were true phenomena. And my grandfather was kind of
Speaker 3: the vetter in town here. He was kind of he'd
Speaker 3: see what was real and what wasn't. Levitators seances, and
Speaker 3: that he would have saoss himself.
Speaker 2: We had a family medium.
Speaker 3: So I grew up in summers in this old farmhouse
Speaker 3: where they had these seances, and they had journals from
Speaker 3: the American Society Psychical Research lying around and Fate magazine,
Speaker 3: and you know other cottages had McLean's and Look magazine
Speaker 3: and Colliers in these and we had all psychic books there,
Speaker 3: which I it. From eight years old. I was reading
Speaker 3: this stuff. And so essentially the Acroids are spiritualists. That's
Speaker 3: my religion. If you wanted to pegny with a religion.
Speaker 3: We are spiritualists. We believe not only that the spirit
Speaker 3: and the soul and the energy, the atomic energy of
Speaker 3: the soul survives after death. We believe the consciousness and
Speaker 3: identity of the being survives to reach back and communicate
Speaker 3: with us here. And I don't know if you remember
Speaker 3: John Edwards on CBS. He was a very talented medium,
Speaker 3: and there are many others.
Speaker 2: Who do it well.
Speaker 3: So History of ghost talks all about it. But I
Speaker 3: believe the consciousness and the identity survive and you can
Speaker 3: reach them. They touched back sometimes to help us, and
Speaker 3: so that's my belief.
Speaker 2: So yes, I grew up with all of that and was.
Speaker 3: In the old farmhouse one afternoon reading a journal about
Speaker 3: quantum physics and paranor own researching, and I thought, well,
Speaker 3: let's do an old style ghost comedy. Abbot Costello, Bing Crosby,
Speaker 3: Bob Hope, Dean Martin, Bowery Boys, they all did a
Speaker 3: ghosted and I thought, we'll do We'll get some of
Speaker 3: the guys together, We'll do a ghost comedy. But it
Speaker 3: will be based in the you know, in the real
Speaker 3: vernacular of the real science taking. And Harold was not
Speaker 3: a believer. Harold Ramis my co writer on Ghostbusters, not
Speaker 3: a believer at all. But he knew all about my
Speaker 3: monodes dream lab, the research at Duke University, all of
Speaker 3: the research William Roll and the cards.
Speaker 2: That's where that comes from.
Speaker 3: Billy with the cards, the Star of the Cross that
Speaker 3: was from the research was doing it being done at
Speaker 3: Deane Mercy in the paranormal department Allos. Yeah, he knew
Speaker 3: all about you know, Zachariah Sitchen and the Sumerian gods,
Speaker 3: so he was well versed in that. So we came
Speaker 3: to write that he had a great body of knowledge there,
Speaker 3: and of course I had my spiritualist side, and that's
Speaker 3: how it all came about. The first mention of ghostbusters
Speaker 3: in film in America is in a movie called Scared Stiff.
Speaker 3: I think it's with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis and
Speaker 3: the woman asks Dean Martin at one point, well what
Speaker 3: are you guys, and he says, we're ghostbusters.
Speaker 2: So of course I remember that and that helped to
Speaker 2: put the title to it.
Speaker 3: I love Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in that movie,
Speaker 3: just aside from the paranormal reference. Jerry Lewis basically he
Speaker 3: runs down these stairs in this old castle in a
Speaker 3: piece of physical comedy and dexterity. That is that Buster
Speaker 3: Keaton would be proud of. Just mind blowing that piece
Speaker 3: of physical business. So yeah, there were a lot of
Speaker 3: precedents for ghost movies, and I just said, let's do
Speaker 3: one and use the real science and make these guys
Speaker 3: paranormal investigators, the three of us, Spangler, Stance and Venkman
Speaker 3: and Zetemoa.
Speaker 1: And you wanted Belushi to play Vankman. He was your
Speaker 1: original cast from Veankman.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was writing a line for him when I
Speaker 3: heard that he died, you know. And I was at
Speaker 3: one fifty fifth Avenue in our offices, and I was
Speaker 3: at the typewriter and I was in the middle of
Speaker 3: a line. And then Bernie was on the phone there,
Speaker 3: my agent, and he told me what had happened. And
Speaker 3: I ran down the fifth Avenue to Judy's to get
Speaker 3: to her before she heard it on the media. And
Speaker 3: I passed a new star in the truck, just like
Speaker 3: in an old movie. They dropped the wire bound headlines,
Speaker 3: and there it was Belushi dead at thirty three, and
Speaker 3: I had to tell her and that was you know,
Speaker 3: And now Judy is with him. I am hoping conjoined
Speaker 3: with their energies twirling in the afterlife or wherever we
Speaker 3: do go.
Speaker 2: We just lost her.
Speaker 3: And now she's been and terred near John, and she
Speaker 3: had to say goodbye to him too early. But now
Speaker 3: their spirits are joined, and that gives me some comfort
Speaker 3: because of my belief.
Speaker 1: Now do you think that was johnsone who everyone who
Speaker 1: was important in his life? They were kind of holding
Speaker 1: their breath. They thought that something like this might happen.
Speaker 1: Did you worry, as his dear friend, that this is
Speaker 1: something like this was possible?
Speaker 3: Well, once cocaine came into the picture, which it did
Speaker 3: so heavily in the seventies. There the cocaine that we
Speaker 3: flushed down the toilet, hid from him, took from him.
Speaker 3: We tried to stop the dealers from getting to him
Speaker 3: once that came in and he once he enjoyed that,
Speaker 3: and he enjoyed it, he did.
Speaker 2: That's where it turned.
Speaker 3: That's where we became really really worried when the powders
Speaker 3: came in there. And of course they were pills to supplement,
Speaker 3: you know, to get to sleep and wake up in
Speaker 3: the morning. So it was pharmaceuticals that killed them, no
Speaker 3: doubt over the long term. And then of course by
Speaker 3: that bad episode at the Marmont where the woman hit
Speaker 3: him up with a speedball, which was a heroin cocaine combination. No,
Speaker 3: he was a smoker, so his lungs were a bit weak.
Speaker 3: He'd been drinking. I know that she did not want
Speaker 3: to kill him anymore than I did, and she did
Speaker 3: some time for it, and I'm sure she regrets it
Speaker 3: for the rest of her life.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, what about UFOs when you're talking about because I
Speaker 1: literally I was telling my producers on my show that
Speaker 1: I saw a UFO. I was laying on a dock
Speaker 1: on a lake in upstate New York. And as we
Speaker 1: were laying there, myself, my daughter, a couple of my nieces,
Speaker 1: a friend of theirs, and all of a sudden, right
Speaker 1: over us, I see something that literally resembles in its
Speaker 1: dimensions a stop light. It's a black brick like you
Speaker 1: know two thousand and one and Onnitor three large green
Speaker 1: lights that resemble a stop light. And literally, as were
Speaker 1: laying down, the thing moves over us. And as it
Speaker 1: gets in our vicinity, it's like maybe fifty feet in
Speaker 1: the air, it's not that high up, and the sun's
Speaker 1: almost down now, and the lights go on. You literally
Speaker 1: feel and the green lights light up over us, and
Speaker 1: it moves very slowly over us and then it passes us,
Speaker 1: the lights go out and it takes off and goes
Speaker 1: shooting into space.
Speaker 2: I saw this. I believe you.
Speaker 3: That is a spectacular sighting.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the dimension of it.
Speaker 1: I would have to guess that the body of the
Speaker 1: object of the spacecraft was probably from what I could
Speaker 1: tell from where I was, it was probably fifty feet
Speaker 1: by twenty feet across or something, you know, length wise
Speaker 1: fifty and the green lights come on and then they
Speaker 1: go off.
Speaker 3: That is a spectacular Alec that's a spectacular sighting.
Speaker 2: In Ireland saw that as well.
Speaker 1: No one would admit to seeing it. They were afraid
Speaker 1: to admit they saw it.
Speaker 3: Okay, well I did see that is a spectacular sighting.
Speaker 3: I totally believe you. I've had people talk to me
Speaker 3: about orbs, triangles, deltas. I've seen four of them myself,
Speaker 3: vivid on ambiguous sighting. No question that this is hyperadvanced
Speaker 3: technology operated by intelligent beings that are not from this Earth,
Speaker 3: or this is not earthly manufacturer. We don't know about it.
Speaker 3: There's nothing on the Earth that could do what the
Speaker 3: objects that I saw did. There was a young Soviet
Speaker 3: scientist named Nikolai Kardashev, and there was a meeting I
Speaker 3: believe in this in the seventies over there at one
Speaker 3: of the space centers, and he proposed a tier model
Speaker 3: for three types of civilization. Type one has harnessed everything
Speaker 3: on their home planet, all of the energy on their
Speaker 3: home planet.
Speaker 2: That's a type one civilization.
Speaker 3: Type two have harnessed all of the energy in their
Speaker 3: solar system. Type three have harnessed all of the energy
Speaker 3: in their galaxy. So what if a type three individual
Speaker 3: approached you and said, we're here now and we want
Speaker 3: you to operate for us on this planet. I've just
Speaker 3: written a book with that premise because I've seen four
Speaker 3: and it inspired me to write this book about if
Speaker 3: you had to have contact, willingly or unwillingly with such
Speaker 3: a powerful group of beings, what would you do? So
Speaker 3: these things they've been coming going like taxis for centuries.
Speaker 3: One of the British Aerospace a minister there, Lord hill Norton.
Speaker 2: I believe he.
Speaker 3: Said the twenty three different species and twenty three different
Speaker 3: types of creatures had crossed his desk in intelligence briefings.
Speaker 3: My theory is that they're tourists and this is such
Speaker 3: a beautiful planet they come by to take a look.
Speaker 3: You can look on your search engine sting ray UFOs
Speaker 3: and you'll get pictures of these basically two seaters. So
Speaker 3: I can see somewhere in another dimension or galax or
Speaker 3: a planet, a couple with one of these in their
Speaker 3: driveway or garage on another planet or galaxy saying let's
Speaker 3: go down to Earth for a few hours.
Speaker 2: It's a tourist thing. Now, there are some great books.
Speaker 3: There's one called UFO, The Governments for Extraterrestrials Here and
Speaker 3: out There by Garrett Graff Graff Garrett Graff UFO. That's
Speaker 3: a great book than Lewis Alexandro's book Imminent. He worked
Speaker 3: for the Pentagon, so did Chris Mellon his sponsor over there,
Speaker 3: and Alexando who did work for the Defense Department and
Speaker 3: has written this great book Imminent Debt. He believes that
Speaker 3: this is a threat that because of their interference with
Speaker 3: nuclear weapons over the years on our planet in multiple bases,
Speaker 3: that they know about our nuclear capabilities and they don't
Speaker 3: like them so much, and that they could shut down
Speaker 3: all of our weapons basically with the hit of a
Speaker 3: button and neutralize any defense that we have so they
Speaker 3: believe Chris Mellan and Lewis Alessando that the Defense Department
Speaker 3: should be more alert. And right now there is an
Speaker 3: office open for military and even civilians to report. It's
Speaker 3: the All Domain Anomaly a resolution office, so anomaly and
Speaker 3: all domain meaning water and on air, So that exists
Speaker 3: in the Pentagon. Now they're very seriously interested in this subject.
Speaker 1: One last question. You look at the show, you look
Speaker 1: at them coming to fifty years. This season is the
Speaker 1: fiftieth season, and obviously one couldn't have a perspective where
Speaker 1: you could predict fifty seasons back in nineteen seventy five
Speaker 1: when you started. Does it surprise you that it's gone
Speaker 1: on for fifty years?
Speaker 3: I guess a little bit. It's surprising, and any venture
Speaker 3: other than soap operas for something to go on that
Speaker 3: long in television and television venture maybe right Coronation Street,
Speaker 3: you know, or about Days of Our Lives. But an
Speaker 3: executive told Lauren a few years ago said, this is
Speaker 3: like the Today Show. This is an institution and it's
Speaker 3: never going away. And well, Lauren was gone from it
Speaker 3: for a while, but then, of course it's his guiding
Speaker 3: hand and his sensibilities that make it what it is.
Speaker 3: It could clunk along without him, but I don't think
Speaker 3: it would be what it is now, and I don't
Speaker 3: think it would endure another ten years without him.
Speaker 1: In the years I've gotten to know him. On one level,
Speaker 1: Lauren was somebody who knew how to handle different regimes
Speaker 1: of executives in NBC television, to teach them the fact
Speaker 1: that whatever you replaced my show with is going to
Speaker 1: lose money. LIKESNL may not be monetizing the timeslot as
Speaker 1: much as you'd like. And there are people who I
Speaker 1: know for a fact they view that as a pelt.
Speaker 1: They view that as a scalp. They wanted to prove
Speaker 1: their acumen as broadcast executives, and one of the things
Speaker 1: they wanted to do was to kill and euthanize SNL
Speaker 1: and bring on the next great thing that could tickets place.
Speaker 1: And Louren has lasted for fifty years because he's taught
Speaker 1: them all that that's a mistake. You know, this show
Speaker 1: it's always going to make money.
Speaker 2: It sure would be a mistake.
Speaker 3: And more importantly, it is the most effective and high
Speaker 3: quality political satirical.
Speaker 2: Organ in the country and we need it.
Speaker 3: And also the intelligence of the writing has always been
Speaker 3: very high. Anything that would come after its going to
Speaker 3: definitely be few notches below and it'll never be what
Speaker 3: that is.
Speaker 2: So here's too, hopefully as.
Speaker 3: Long as Lauren wants to do it, and then even
Speaker 3: beyond developing new talent that comes up. I've mean, I
Speaker 3: agree with the executive to toll Lauren, this is like
Speaker 3: the Tonight Show, this is like the Today Show, Saturday
Speaker 3: Night Live.
Speaker 2: We'll never go off NBC. We will have it forever.
Speaker 1: Now, are you going to make any movies? You got
Speaker 1: any movies coming up?
Speaker 3: I don't think I see anything on the horizon. I'm
Speaker 3: going to do some of these concerts with Jimmy, I'm
Speaker 3: going to work on the brand and we're doing some
Speaker 3: kind of a relaunch. We've all all new expressions coming out.
Speaker 3: I'm going to go work on the road as a
Speaker 3: humble beverage alcohol salesman happily. So I'm going to concentrate
Speaker 3: on trying to see my family as much as possible,
Speaker 3: all the members in the various scattered parts of the
Speaker 3: world they are at.
Speaker 2: And of course I have written this.
Speaker 3: Book that deals with what I was speaking about before
Speaker 3: with the UAP phenomenon. It would have to be a
Speaker 3: very special director or actor to approach me. You know,
Speaker 3: if Spielberg says, hey, we're doing a UFO movie. We
Speaker 3: want you to play an abductee or a general in
Speaker 3: the Air Force, well I would be there.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for doing this meeting my friend.
Speaker 2: I will see you at the fiftieth I assume yes,
Speaker 2: I'll see you in February. Thank you, Alec.
Speaker 1: My thanks to dan Aykroyd. Here's the Thing Is recorded
Speaker 1: at CDM Studios. This episode was produced by Kathleen Russo,
Speaker 1: Zach MacNeice, and Maureen Hobin. Our engineer is Frank Imperial.
Speaker 1: Our social media manager is Danielle Gingrich. I'm Alec Baldwin.
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio.