Speaker 1: When I do live gigs around the country, I'll be
Speaker 1: honest with you. I sell T shirts and swag to
Speaker 1: the folks who are there, and then people always say,
Speaker 1: can we get this wag without sitting through a whole
Speaker 1: evening of you. Well, it's happened. It's finally here. You
Speaker 1: can buy Craig Ferguson merch on the Craig Ferguson Merch
Speaker 1: website and you can buy it for yourself or someone
Speaker 1: you hate or someone you love. For more information and
Speaker 1: link to the web store, please go to the Craig
Speaker 1: Fergusonshow dot com. That's all lowercase, the Craig Ferguson show
Speaker 1: dot com. My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of
Speaker 1: this podcast is joy. I talk to interesting people about
Speaker 1: what brings them happiness. Today. My guest is Scott Akerman,
Speaker 1: who founded podcasts when he started comedy Bang Bang. He
Speaker 1: is the funniest cleverest you know what he's really really
Speaker 1: I'm a bit jealous, and the fact that I can
Speaker 1: get along with them shows that I'm making progress. I've
Speaker 1: just decided that I'm going to get plastic surgery. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to start with my tests.
Speaker 2: Oh good, because I feel like if it gets botched,
Speaker 2: it's testicles. People say, oh, you know, your testicles look weird.
Speaker 2: First of all, not that many people see them anymore.
Speaker 3: Exactly, they're ugly anyway, right.
Speaker 1: They're ugly anyway. And also they're weird looking. So if
Speaker 1: people say, you know, your testicles are weird looking, I go, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're technicals. Yeah they're They're still weird looking. They're the
Speaker 1: undersea creature of my pants. Now listen, I'm quite honorous
Speaker 1: in a way that you're here because you honored to
Speaker 1: be here.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you for saying we have a dual honor
Speaker 3: system going on.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I'm not going to the gate you
Speaker 1: saying that, although I feel like there may be a
Speaker 1: centiment fire. I feel like you may be the architect
Speaker 1: of what we're doing here. You are the You are
Speaker 1: the im mover, You are the.
Speaker 3: God like the Optimist Prime.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so. You are. Of the comedy chat podcast.
Speaker 1: You made it happen. You're the veil of underground Man,
Speaker 1: You're the ramones you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, am I disagreeing with you.
Speaker 1: I don't think you should. I don't think you should.
Speaker 1: It was a conscious kind of artistic choice. I just
Speaker 1: thought we'll just go with us and see where I ams.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think I wanted to do a radio
Speaker 3: show because I just grew up very obsessed with the radio, right,
Speaker 3: So like DJ's, I used to like tape my own
Speaker 3: voice doing when I was like thirteen, doing just top
Speaker 3: forty DJs, and I would tape the songs off the
Speaker 3: radio and edit them in.
Speaker 1: You know, that's great.
Speaker 3: What that is very nerdy a little bit.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm a little concerned for you, and we're
Speaker 1: going to get into that. But now we're beginning to
Speaker 1: see why you have comedy jobs though, because clearly, you know,
Speaker 1: the start was strange and uncomfortable, and my personal feeling
Speaker 1: is that you can't be funny at all unless the
Speaker 1: first fifteen twenty years are deeply uncomfortable in some way.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I started comedy in ninety five. Where are
Speaker 3: we now, twenty twenty five? Almost?
Speaker 1: Yeah. I came in America in nineteen ninety five. I
Speaker 1: was already thirty. What were you doing before then? Drinking?
Speaker 1: Pretty much?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, and you stopped when you're in America.
Speaker 1: I stopped before I came to America. Oh really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I stopped when I was twenty nine. Really, yeah, it happened, well,
Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff. I'm not quite clear on the
Speaker 1: statute of limitations. Well, no, I murder is the only
Speaker 1: one that still is going. No, I was. I drank.
Speaker 1: I was. You know, it was sad. It was a
Speaker 1: sad alcoholic. You've been in your business for a while.
Speaker 1: Do you understand what sad alcoholism is?
Speaker 3: Sure, I've seen a few of those.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And some people can make it work and some
Speaker 1: people can't. I couldn't. I've always found that really interesting.
Speaker 1: The people who quit when they're you know, like eighteen,
Speaker 1: in their twenties. Yeah, I'm suppressive. But if you quit
Speaker 1: that young, I feel like, I mean, good luck. I
Speaker 1: should have quit that young. But I'm glad I quit
Speaker 1: when I did because it was long enough to do
Speaker 1: some damage, but not long enough to fuck up. You
Speaker 1: call me fucking monologue, that's right. Got me talking about
Speaker 1: me the table sooner, Man, I don't want to talk
Speaker 1: about myself. Yeah, well you're going to. So did you
Speaker 1: ever like fall into the alcoholism trap or just a man?
Speaker 3: I've never done well, okay, that's not right, but I've
Speaker 3: never really done any drugs. So I did a podcast
Speaker 3: once right where I went to a Fish concert with
Speaker 3: my friend Harris Whittles, who's no longer with us, right,
Speaker 3: big fish fan. It was the premise of the podcast
Speaker 3: was him trying to get me to like Fish, the
Speaker 3: band Fish. Right.
Speaker 1: That would be a hard one for me, because yeah,
Speaker 1: I do not like Fish.
Speaker 3: So I never did. I we did, you know, eight
Speaker 3: up as, so I never you never go around to it,
Speaker 3: never never got around to it. But we went to
Speaker 3: Madison Square Garden to see Fish, and I promised that
Speaker 3: I would do the whole thing. I would do drug
Speaker 3: I'd never done any drugs. I would do drugs. I
Speaker 3: would really do it the way a real Fish fan would.
Speaker 1: What age are you when you do this? God help.
Speaker 3: My forties? So that's that's late to start. Yeah, So
Speaker 3: I did as much like anything anyone gave me, I
Speaker 3: would do right. And I never really got high.
Speaker 1: So like you didn't know what I mean? Do you
Speaker 1: know how dangerous that is? Like if you do that now,
Speaker 1: you'd be dead.
Speaker 3: The most that happened was at one point I went
Speaker 3: those lights are pretty. You can hear me on the tape,
Speaker 3: and I was like, Okay, I might have been high.
Speaker 3: Right there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's a bit of a tail. These lights
Speaker 1: are pretty, they're pretty, these lives pretty. You got a
Speaker 1: purty mouth. It's one of those tail phrases. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I I I don't care for fish. What kind of
Speaker 1: music you went through that? If you know, I imagine,
Speaker 1: let me let me get I bet you and I
Speaker 1: are into a lot of the same. Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: I think this is for me. This is my fantasy
Speaker 1: about you? Is that? But oh yeah, and I have
Speaker 1: many is the that you like Schubert? You know is Schubert.
Speaker 3: He's a little ostentatious for my tasty that's even beare
Speaker 3: that you said that?
Speaker 1: So what do you do?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: No, if you're mixing songs together in nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 1: it's what ninety I feel like.
Speaker 3: The nineties was a terrible time for music.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I really love like nineteen seventy seven to nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty three, like post punk electronics, you know, like, yes,
Speaker 3: that's my main style of music that I really love.
Speaker 1: But that's what comes up in the little music thing
Speaker 1: on your phone that you keep that right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But that's the stuff that I love the most.
Speaker 3: Everything else kind of branches out from that. Like nowadays,
Speaker 3: for the past few months, I've been trying to like
Speaker 3: buy every song that's on the R and B charts
Speaker 3: from nineteen eighty to through two thousands.
Speaker 1: Oh you left me behind there. I wouldn't even know
Speaker 1: where to begin with that.
Speaker 3: I have like a Billboard subscription, so I just look
Speaker 3: at the charts like for every week and just try
Speaker 3: to buy every song that's on there. It was like collecting, Yeah,
Speaker 3: music collectors, right, do you collect vinyl?
Speaker 1: Do you have vinyl?
Speaker 3: Not really, I never got I mean I started collecting
Speaker 3: music in vinyl in the eighties in the actual time. Yeah,
Speaker 3: But now I just you know, I have one record player.
Speaker 3: It's in the living room. I have to go in
Speaker 3: there specially just to listen to like, you know, all
Speaker 3: the old problems of vinyl of like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you have to sit down and listen to us,
Speaker 1: sit down, and I know, but musicians love that. They're like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, no, you have to sit down and listen
Speaker 1: to the music and going nah, I'll be running or
Speaker 1: playing pick a ball. Yeh do you play pick a ball?
Speaker 3: So I broke my foot two years ago playing pick
Speaker 3: a ball for the first time. My wife was like
Speaker 3: you got to play pick a ball?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you have to. I never have that, you've done it.
Speaker 3: So I did it. And I broke my foot first time,
Speaker 3: first time. And I've had a like fucked up foot
Speaker 3: for now two years and I just had surgery on
Speaker 3: it two weeks ago.
Speaker 1: Oh and yeah, so was it you to sleep surgery? Yeah? Oh,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the drugs. So what did they give you?
Speaker 3: So they gave me the propofol. And I've had this
Speaker 3: weird thing where every doctor who says they're going to
Speaker 3: give me propofol has the exact same thing that they
Speaker 3: say about it, which is they say, it's what Michael Jackson.
Speaker 1: Jackson, that's what you want to say. Yeah, you'll love it.
Speaker 1: I have a couple of times. The first thing I
Speaker 1: go to I was like he was shut out. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: Moon woke out of the place. It was a maze,
Speaker 1: But it is I can see how a person get
Speaker 1: who'd in a drug like that. I guess.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't really remember. I did wake up
Speaker 3: the first because I had a colonoscopy with propofol as well.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and they when I woke up, I felt
Speaker 3: I did. I was like, I don't feel different, And
Speaker 3: then I sent a really weird text to my friend
Speaker 3: Adam Scott that I thought was normal, and then three
Speaker 3: hours later I was like, fuck did I just said, Wow?
Speaker 1: See that's you're not good at monitoring when you're high.
Speaker 1: It's probably best if you stay away from drugs because
Speaker 1: if you like, these lights are pretty yeah, I know
Speaker 1: knowing you're high. I know that you're you're high.
Speaker 3: What's the best drug?
Speaker 1: Though?
Speaker 3: My friend was trying to to it because I was like,
Speaker 3: what's the best drug to take? And he was like,
Speaker 3: maybe liquid heroin that you just like swallow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd say some kind of uh oaxy conton. That's
Speaker 1: why people die of all the time, because the feeling
Speaker 1: is so euphoric and lovely, very dangerous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't do drugs now. I got for the foot,
Speaker 3: I got like a full bottle of hair cassette. It's
Speaker 3: either oxy or I don't know exactly what it was,
Speaker 3: so I'm just afraid to take it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're tricky. I mean, like, I know a lot
Speaker 1: of alcoholics would be sober for a long time that
Speaker 1: screw themselves up on that stuff. I mean, and uh
Speaker 1: and I'm I mean I didn't but I'm very wary
Speaker 1: of it because I reached the Gorvidal called the cedar
Speaker 1: side I years where I kind of like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm the doctor a little more than I used to be.
Speaker 3: Are you monitoring constantly, like where the doctor is, wherever
Speaker 3: you're at, because I know you travel a lot.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't do that so much, but I'm constantly monitoring,
Speaker 1: Like you're younger.
Speaker 3: You have like ten years younger than wait, something like that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: fifty three, okay, so.
Speaker 1: I'm sixty two on a Friday, so yeah, nineties, right,
Speaker 1: and I think probably I was in my early fifties
Speaker 1: when I started to develop reasonably intense hypochondria. But it's
Speaker 1: not really hypochondria, you know, if you're just monitoring things.
Speaker 1: I guess.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm at that age now where I'm sort of
Speaker 3: like constantly anytime anyone, like a celebrity dies, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm kind of like looking at their age, going like
Speaker 3: I'm really close to there, I know, And like any
Speaker 3: I've noticed anyone under fifty people are like, this is
Speaker 3: a tragedy so young. Anyone over fifty they're like that's
Speaker 3: about right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like if I died, know, like right now, people
Speaker 1: were like well, yeah's I mean, I can see now
Speaker 1: it's sixty you know, he was, you know, and so
Speaker 1: they feel because you look for ways to feel comfortable.
Speaker 1: You know. When when I think that's why people get look,
Speaker 1: I'm just guessing, but I'm thinking that's why people get
Speaker 1: into religion so much.
Speaker 3: I know, I know a lot of people are really
Speaker 3: super into religion. Like the closer they are to death,
Speaker 3: closer you get, you're like, well, you know, you need
Speaker 3: like some sort of meaning for it.
Speaker 1: I can't do. I've tried, my heart, it's so hard to.
Speaker 3: How did you then stop? Did you have to come
Speaker 3: up with a higher power?
Speaker 1: Did you do the proper game? Absolutely? And I I
Speaker 1: do have a have a kind of God centric belief system,
Speaker 1: I think, but it doesn't involve life after death. Oh really?
Speaker 3: Now, so do you think that it's just like we
Speaker 3: shut off in that.
Speaker 1: I feel like it might be like propofol do you
Speaker 1: know what I mean?
Speaker 3: You just like, except you never wake actually wake up.
Speaker 1: Well, they used to be on pagan tombstones for Christianity
Speaker 1: in the Resurrection and all that. The the they used
Speaker 1: to put on tombstones. I was not, I was, I
Speaker 1: am not. I care not that was the r I P.
Speaker 1: I was not a little worthy for well, I think
Speaker 1: probably in Greek it's probably a lot. It's like Craco
Speaker 1: creeky croco or something is.
Speaker 3: Just like three letters.
Speaker 1: Get it.
Speaker 3: Don't have to pay a lot.
Speaker 1: But my wife is a Yankee, right, so she's from
Speaker 1: like from the Northeast.
Speaker 3: She was, you're married to Derek Jeters.
Speaker 1: My wife is Derek Jeter, which, like you can't make
Speaker 1: fun of that.
Speaker 3: I mean it's for you, right, But I'm just surprised
Speaker 3: I could come up with a Yankee name. If it
Speaker 3: is one, I'm like, I took a stab. Yeah, hope
Speaker 3: for the best.
Speaker 1: No, my wife is like, we're in Scotland and we
Speaker 1: went to my parents' graves, right, so we're in this
Speaker 1: graveyard and it's a graveyard and school Now graveyards in
Speaker 1: Maine or in New Hampshire or for a month, it's
Speaker 1: like the person's name, a date, a hyphen a date, right,
Speaker 1: But in Scotland, particularly in recent dates, it's the person's
Speaker 1: name and says Margaret beloved husband of Sandy guinea pegg owner.
Speaker 1: And always like to take it like there's a whole
Speaker 1: bioll bio and I'm like maybe sometimes a video, a
Speaker 1: video on the actual tombstone, on the tombstone of like hello,
Speaker 1: it's me, I'm dead, you know. I mean I don't
Speaker 1: think it's that, but it's.
Speaker 3: You know, I mean, how long how long before that's obsolete?
Speaker 3: I know, you know what I mean. I mean I
Speaker 3: feel like within ten years the videos will stop working
Speaker 3: on these tombstones.
Speaker 1: Well, and also I mean it shows a profound lack
Speaker 1: of misunderstanding about time, right, like you know, as people say,
Speaker 1: oh no, you're like the Catholic Church had a problem
Speaker 1: with cremation for a long time. In what way. Well,
Speaker 1: they said, you can't cremate the body because it has
Speaker 1: to be able to come back for the day of resurrection.
Speaker 1: You're going to need your body back.
Speaker 3: Really, yeah, so when Christ would come down with the rapture.
Speaker 1: Well you know it comes back with the yeah, all
Speaker 1: the things.
Speaker 3: The trumpets and all that stuff. Right, so then your
Speaker 3: body and no matter what state it's in, you get
Speaker 3: a decompositioning ding ding doing diding do yeah, yes.
Speaker 1: Speaking of it, And that I think was a problem there,
Speaker 1: and it took them a long time. They had to
Speaker 1: have a big meeting about it and say.
Speaker 3: One big meeting.
Speaker 1: Okay, what about doing everybody step into the pop's office.
Speaker 1: We're having a big meeting about the afterlife because Chico
Speaker 1: Marx was there, obviously. The Craig Ferguson Fancy Rascals Stand
Speaker 1: Up Tour continues throughout the United States in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: For a full list of dates and tickets, go to
Speaker 1: the Craig Ferguson show dot com slash tour see you
Speaker 1: out there. Let's talk about comedy influences on you. Was
Speaker 1: it the Marx Brothers. I feel you're in an absurd
Speaker 1: list in a way.
Speaker 3: It was not the Marx Brothers.
Speaker 1: For me.
Speaker 3: It was when I was growing up. It was like
Speaker 3: Bob Hope really yeah, I'm surprised by Bob Hope was
Speaker 3: really big for me. The Road Movies, I love them. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so great. They got very meta and surreal in a
Speaker 3: lot of ways.
Speaker 1: They did.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Steve Martin huge. Like I was trying to explain
Speaker 3: to someone who never really had ever seen Steve Martin
Speaker 3: stand up or The Jerk or any of his early movies,
Speaker 3: just like, how insane it was that someone was doing
Speaker 3: anti comedy. Yeah, you know, in the early seventies.
Speaker 1: He was he was. It was very unusual, he to me,
Speaker 1: because run of it at the same time the pythons
Speaker 1: were working in the in the UK, and that that
Speaker 1: was he seemed to be like an American relative of
Speaker 1: the Goons and the pythons, right, and that that weird
Speaker 1: kind of almost born of the surrealist movement. Comedy that
Speaker 1: that that it went, Yeah, anti comedy, I guess is
Speaker 1: what it is.
Speaker 3: But yeah, were the pythons for you?
Speaker 1: Is that? Yes? Very very definitely. Yeah. I Uh. One
Speaker 1: of the crining achievements in my life, quite literally actually,
Speaker 1: is that Eric Idle made me a crown. Really, yeah,
Speaker 1: he made me a crown with a little bit would
Speaker 1: he do that? Eric marches to the beat of his
Speaker 1: own drum, and he was coming on the show and
Speaker 1: he said, I've made you a crown and I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: And there's a crown and it's got a little Roulette
Speaker 1: wheel on it and interesting, I still have it in
Speaker 1: my hands, so nice that I walk around wearing it,
Speaker 1: so I don't wear it actually doesn't.
Speaker 3: How many of the pythons have you interacted with?
Speaker 1: I've met Michael Palin and Eric I know quite well,
Speaker 1: and I think i've met. No, I never met Please,
Speaker 1: I talked to him in the phone once. How about you?
Speaker 3: You you told zero? Yeah, never met any of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: They were big for me too when I was like thirteen.
Speaker 3: I was dating someone when I was thirteen who was like,
Speaker 3: you've never seen a monty python thing, You're right, and
Speaker 3: showed me and so that was like, imagine a huge thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can imagine for you. It feels like that
Speaker 1: informs like between two ferns and all that kind of
Speaker 1: stuff feels like it. Yeah, it's not the same, but
Speaker 1: it has like.
Speaker 3: There's now that drops during the between two ferns.
Speaker 1: The giant food that comes down on Zach and all
Speaker 1: that's all that stuff, but but it's other than that.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not the same at all. The naked
Speaker 1: guy playing the piano.
Speaker 3: They oh, obviously the Spanish Inquisition, no one expected that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: all of that stuff is in there.
Speaker 1: But I feel like that stuff it didn't feel forced
Speaker 1: to me. It was felt fairy, kind of strange. But
Speaker 1: if I go back and look at old pythons now,
Speaker 1: mean I do from time to time. I'm kind of
Speaker 1: shocked at how how there's quite a long time for
Speaker 1: me between inspiration and then other inspiration, I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't remember this.
Speaker 3: It's yeah, it's interesting to watch anything that you grew
Speaker 3: up with. Yeah, where you're kind of like, oh wow,
Speaker 3: some of it was writing on just like brilliance. Yeah,
Speaker 3: in between boring a little bit, I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: but sometimes.
Speaker 1: But I think I think that's the there was a
Speaker 1: time though, I mean, Joint Cleaves is always banging on
Speaker 1: of It's like there's too many executives and gatekeepers for
Speaker 1: comedy now, and it makes it much more difficult experiment
Speaker 1: and stuff. I think in the in the in the
Speaker 1: areas that he's talking about.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think it probably if you're only interested in
Speaker 3: TV or movies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think it's terrible. Yeah, you can't really
Speaker 1: do it anymore. But didn't you know you did the
Speaker 1: the the Al Yankubic movie though, don't you.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, no, I was in it, but right,
Speaker 3: you were in it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Al was the band leader of my TV show
Speaker 3: for a year for a season.
Speaker 1: Right. See. I think Al is related to all that. Well.
Speaker 3: I love Alan Eric, I love very good friends. Yeah right, yeah,
Speaker 3: I feel like Al though the same kind of thing.
Speaker 3: Happened where he made UHF, and then you know he
Speaker 3: didn't make a movie for than twenty some odd years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, so it comes around. I think it's
Speaker 1: a little bit like music. Particularly if comedy is experimental
Speaker 1: or a little weird, a little stage, it goes out fashion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you have to wait for it to come
Speaker 1: back around.
Speaker 3: Comedy is very very not in fashion in movies and
Speaker 3: TV right now. It's just it's just very very difficult
Speaker 3: to get something made. So that's why podcasts you see.
Speaker 1: Oppenheimer, that's pretty funny. It was pretty funny.
Speaker 3: Got playing the bongos all the time. Hey, mister bongos,
Speaker 3: enough for making a nuclear bomb here?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Albert Einstein was there. That was great. That guy,
Speaker 1: what's his governor go? What's the governor go? East to me? Alberto.
Speaker 3: I do think it's funny that they made Robert Downey
Speaker 3: Junior wear that bald cap and he got an Oscar
Speaker 3: for it. For wearing a bald cap.
Speaker 1: That's how you get him. That's how you get an oscar.
Speaker 1: He's a pretty good bald cap. But yeah, like he
Speaker 1: should share it with the bald cap. Maybe he maybe
Speaker 1: he shaved it because that he's appropriate. I think maybe
Speaker 1: I do it.
Speaker 3: I can't see him shaving his head.
Speaker 1: He's pretty would do it, well, I shaved my I'd
Speaker 1: do right now for like forty bucks.
Speaker 3: Forty bucks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you go forty bucks, I'll shave my head.
Speaker 1: What would you do?
Speaker 3: Do you act much anymore?
Speaker 1: Not anymore? I get very impatient with it, do you now?
Speaker 3: I'm not really like one thing a year?
Speaker 1: Maybe, yeah, I don't get asked that much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, neither way. I'm off only of course, yo fuck yeah,
Speaker 3: which means I never work.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, yeah, because you know, auditions for me, I
Speaker 1: imagine I hated that.
Speaker 3: She hated I. I was auditioning in the time in
Speaker 3: La where you had to have the Thomas Guide map, yes,
Speaker 3: and you had to basically do three or four a day.
Speaker 3: And they were all over the city, growing to Santa
Speaker 3: Monica eleven and then back to the valley, and it
Speaker 3: was casting directors.
Speaker 1: Lived in little bungalows in the middle of nowhere and
Speaker 1: yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: And at a certain point, I think in like nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety nine or so, I was like, this is wasting
Speaker 3: all of my time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the whole day. Yeah, you're starting the car trying
Speaker 1: to get a job you don't really want anyway, but yeah,
Speaker 1: but your agent wants you to get Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I just told my agent I'm not going to
Speaker 3: audition anymore and so.
Speaker 1: And so you're not long you were still with that agent,
Speaker 1: but no, but.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, So I just found it like more productive
Speaker 3: to like write scripts and do stuff, you know, without well, I.
Speaker 1: Kind of go in the same thing because I was
Speaker 1: doing the Drew Carey Show because I one of those
Speaker 1: things clicked for me. I was running but nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 1: and then I found myself like, oh I did like
Speaker 1: once a week is going to go Getta You'll filed.
Speaker 1: And then that was that's all I fucking did. You
Speaker 1: got fired every week. Yeah you awful and getty you'll fired,
Speaker 1: and everyone's terrible. Good day. And then I had nothing
Speaker 1: to do, so I just would write in my trailer.
Speaker 3: Otherwise you go, but writing a trailer it's very hard
Speaker 3: for me, really, Yeah, trailer is my time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I get I think it's cause it was it
Speaker 1: was a job that went on forever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can only you know. I mean eventually, when
Speaker 3: you're when you're on a show like that, you don't
Speaker 3: have like a dressing room.
Speaker 1: You haven't well, you get a trailer, but it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's outside the thing, and it's it's okay. It was
Speaker 1: all right, right, I'm not complaining about it, but it
Speaker 1: was it got a little boring, I think. No, with
Speaker 1: the invention of Instagram, I wonder how many scripts have
Speaker 1: not been written.
Speaker 3: I know, yeah, it's so easy. You're basically writing on
Speaker 3: this thing that is the portal. Too fun for your brain, right,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean? And you and so like
Speaker 3: I'm constantly writing on a computer and being like, yeah,
Speaker 3: but if I click on this on the computer, I
Speaker 3: can have way more fun, I know.
Speaker 1: And it's it's actually I think maybe it's my age,
Speaker 1: but I feel like social media may be one of
Speaker 1: the worst things that's happened to human society in a while.
Speaker 3: I think so, yeah, I think that you know, so,
Speaker 3: so much of what has happened in the world over
Speaker 3: the past eight years, yeah, has really been because of it.
Speaker 1: Well, I think the I've correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 3: You're clever, Right, you are wrong, That's how clever you are.
Speaker 1: But I feel like for democracy to be functional, there
Speaker 1: has to be a reasonably honest press.
Speaker 3: Right, there isn't, so it doesn't work right, I mean,
Speaker 3: does not have to be completely It's best to be
Speaker 3: reasonably honest.
Speaker 1: I mean there was always William Hurst or all these motherfuckers,
Speaker 1: but it was nothing.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The problem is is that there used to be
Speaker 3: at least facts that we all sort of agreed on, right,
Speaker 3: and you would kind of go like, well, how do
Speaker 3: I feel about it? Maybe I liked it, maybe I
Speaker 3: didn't like it, but at least like we know what
Speaker 3: the facts are because you'd read it in the paper
Speaker 3: everything and every paper kind of said the same thing,
Speaker 3: you know, right, And now you know no one reads
Speaker 3: any papers, you know, they all just kind of maybe
Speaker 3: hear about something, you know, from social media or something.
Speaker 1: You know, stuff becomes like real when it's not real.
Speaker 1: Like do you remember the mine apocalypse? Remember that? I was?
Speaker 1: I was concerned. We live through that?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Twenty twelve?
Speaker 3: Oh my, how'd you fare in it?
Speaker 1: Well? You know, it was it was a tough time.
Speaker 3: It was so long ago.
Speaker 1: I remember the min apocalypse? Why two K?
Speaker 3: Why two K?
Speaker 1: Why too K? You imagine white two K? Now with
Speaker 1: social media like it might actually have happened. Why two K?
Speaker 3: I was always like because I was in California at
Speaker 3: the time. I was like, it will happen in Australia
Speaker 3: hours and hours before we'll know it's coming. Yeah, right,
Speaker 3: like so by the time, but everyone was still like,
Speaker 3: you know, trying to see what was going to happen.
Speaker 3: But all we had were computers back then too. I
Speaker 3: did my phone, and computers.
Speaker 1: Were powered by rabbits and yeah, smaller rodents on little
Speaker 1: wheels and the you had to use a I mean
Speaker 1: it was it was different. I remember Conan used to
Speaker 1: do that thing in the year to I love about
Speaker 1: Conan is that after the Year that genius wonderful?
Speaker 3: Did you so you got your show after Conan had
Speaker 3: already been going for fifteen years or ten for a
Speaker 3: long time. Yeah? Was he like an influence on you
Speaker 3: or Yeah?
Speaker 1: I loved Conan and I I was on a show
Speaker 1: quite a bit before I go late and once once
Speaker 1: I was up against.
Speaker 3: Him, the where could go again?
Speaker 1: Well I did eventually when he moved on to the
Speaker 1: other one or the the Conan Show. Yeah, but it
Speaker 1: kind of amite it a little.
Speaker 3: Weird because now we're seeing networks.
Speaker 1: Well, the networks then were very strict about were they
Speaker 1: really Yeah, it was a different like remember when Dave
Speaker 1: and j were meant to be enemies and all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: And our senior was going to kick Jay's ass.
Speaker 1: And all that. It's funny because I do gigs sometimes
Speaker 1: with our Senio and Jay really together. Yeah, Senior Senior
Speaker 1: Holiday Leanta. I've been friends for like four years, right,
Speaker 1: So I was like, well, wait, weren't you guys fighting
Speaker 1: each other? And I'm like, oh God, that's so stupid.
Speaker 3: I've always thought that because I did a fake talk show. Yes,
Speaker 3: I I wondered if it would be fun to do
Speaker 3: a real talk show because I was always sort of like,
Speaker 3: in my mind, I was kind of like, Okay, I'll
Speaker 3: do the fake talk show and then you know, I
Speaker 3: was trying to springboard into something bigger in my mind,
Speaker 3: and then all of TV just kind of shut down,
Speaker 3: and you know. But then I've heard from friends that
Speaker 3: I wouldn't have enjoyed it. But I wonder if I
Speaker 3: would have enjoyed it. If I had done it like
Speaker 3: you where it was just like a free flowing conversation.
Speaker 1: I think you would have been fine with it. I
Speaker 1: think you would enjoy it. I think that because what.
Speaker 3: I've heard most about it is that people find it
Speaker 3: very boring talking to people that they don't care about,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that that is a thing, But that only happens
Speaker 1: if you have to talk to them about what they
Speaker 1: want to talk But if you go into the Like
Speaker 1: why I came to reasonably quickly is I thought, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter what once they get out there, what are
Speaker 1: they going to do not talk to me? So I
Speaker 1: would say, like, right, you have to talk about the
Speaker 1: movie right away. So they come out and I would say,
Speaker 1: where'd you meet your wife? You know? And they're not
Speaker 1: going to say, I'm not telling you. It's not a
Speaker 1: horrible question, it's a reasonable quest. Would there be stars who,
Speaker 1: like politicians, would try to pivot like yeah, politicians to
Speaker 1: protect I had like three or four on in ten years,
Speaker 1: and then I was like, okay, that's I'm not having
Speaker 1: it because these guys are so trained.
Speaker 3: Professional pivoters to just get back to whatever they want
Speaker 3: to talk about.
Speaker 1: Right, So you say, you know, where'd you meet your wife?
Speaker 1: And then go where I met my wife? Reminds me
Speaker 1: of the time that, you know, And then we're having
Speaker 1: a lot of problems with that in this country, right exactly,
Speaker 1: Like I don't want to hear your ship.
Speaker 3: So you would not do any kind of pre interviews
Speaker 3: or anything like that.
Speaker 1: Well, they were done, they were done, they were done.
Speaker 3: They weren't look at them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't look at them. I did it well
Speaker 1: in the same way that when you were doing the
Speaker 1: fake talk show, constructing the interview the way you wanted
Speaker 1: it to be. I was just doing the same thing.
Speaker 1: That's why when I would watch like Between Two Firms
Speaker 1: or like that, I would go, well, that's kind of
Speaker 1: what I want to achieve here too, which is that?
Speaker 1: And you know that kind of discomfort, that kind of fun,
Speaker 1: that kind of.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's all. And I I feel like late night
Speaker 3: talk shows are so produced and so overproduced now basically
Speaker 3: you know that where you know that you'll have four
Speaker 3: pre interviews sometimes before you guessed on one, and they'll
Speaker 3: really be trying. Yeah, they'll really be trying to focus
Speaker 3: in on like the exact thing you're going to talk about.
Speaker 1: That sounds awful.
Speaker 3: And that's why like my show in Between Two Ferns
Speaker 3: were so fun is because we would never tell the
Speaker 3: people what was going to go, what was going to
Speaker 3: happen and it would all just be in the moment.
Speaker 3: And I love that feeling of, like you know, someone
Speaker 3: in the moment being surprised by something.
Speaker 1: It's more fun.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so much more fun.
Speaker 1: More fun, And as long as you're not some evil
Speaker 1: kind of killer that's trying to hide something and you're
Speaker 1: barely keeping it, and that's not a problem, you know,
Speaker 1: I think, although, of course, as we all know, Hollywood
Speaker 1: is packed full of evil killers that's keeping it do.
Speaker 1: What I love is when they say, you know, the
Speaker 1: Hollywood community get together and do that, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: what the fuck are you talking about.
Speaker 3: The community here? I wasn't advised.
Speaker 1: Yeah, is that a thing? When they would say it,
Speaker 1: I had to someone say the Hollywood cocktails are kid,
Speaker 1: I'm like, you're fucking mad. There's more people in a
Speaker 1: meetings and there are drinking cocktails in Hollywood.
Speaker 3: I mean, there is a certain like if I remember,
Speaker 3: I had a publicist for a little bit, right, and
Speaker 3: they really encourage you to go to these just like things,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, And they don't make a
Speaker 3: single lick of difference if you go to it or
Speaker 3: if you don't go to.
Speaker 1: No, I don't. I don't think it does. I think
Speaker 1: that what happens. It's a little bit like the executivization
Speaker 1: of things. Now that you know you and I both
Speaker 1: as we've been on pitches together. Pitch it's like, you like,
Speaker 1: why are all these people here? I feel like there
Speaker 1: were like eighteen people on a pitch that we just
Speaker 1: did recently, right, I don't like what the fuck is? Look,
Speaker 1: if we got an audience that big, I'll be happy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you'll be fucking lucky.
Speaker 3: My favorite pitch that we did was for the Michael
Speaker 3: Bolton special that we might have been Tricky, which was
Speaker 3: literally we we did a mock up poster of Michaelton
Speaker 3: shirtless on a bed and we took it to Netflix
Speaker 3: and said, it's just this.
Speaker 1: They put it and they were like, okay, yeah, you
Speaker 1: know what. I feel like I would have too. It's
Speaker 1: someone inspired. How did you did you have to say
Speaker 1: it to Michael Bolton?
Speaker 3: No, he wanted to do it. It was it was
Speaker 3: it was more of like he he approached Akiva. Do
Speaker 3: you know Akiva Schaffer of the Lonely Island. I know
Speaker 3: who you're talking about. He's great. So they approached Kiva
Speaker 3: to see if if he wanted to do some sort
Speaker 3: of special and Akiva said, like, well, if I were
Speaker 3: doing it, I would do like a parody of specials,
Speaker 3: and I would call it like Michael Bolton's Big Sexy
Speaker 3: Valentine's Day. And I think I would want to do
Speaker 3: it with Scott because he would understand that. He would
Speaker 3: understand it, and he does that kind of stuff on
Speaker 3: his show. So like he goes, I don't really know
Speaker 3: how to do it, So I think if we did
Speaker 3: it together, it would be fun, and they went, yeah,
Speaker 3: that sounds great to us, and so.
Speaker 1: We just kind of it was this is great.
Speaker 3: Ye, it was so fun because we had no parameters
Speaker 3: of anything to do, and.
Speaker 1: Michael Bowle looked great. You know. It's why I think
Speaker 1: they're trying to do with these roast things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I don't know why.
Speaker 1: Why would you ever do it? I can't connect to
Speaker 1: it at all?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, like, like, why would if you're Tom Brady, right,
Speaker 3: why are you doing this?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 3: I asked someone that exact same question the other day
Speaker 3: and they said, money. I think Tom Brady must he
Speaker 3: has money, right, Yeah, he's got so much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't be that.
Speaker 3: It must be like it's quest for fame.
Speaker 1: He's pretty pretty famous, pretty famous?
Speaker 3: Quest for more fame I actually need. I really don't know.
Speaker 3: It's it's baffles me.
Speaker 1: It might be a manifestation of greed.
Speaker 3: Hmmm, one of the seven Deadly sins.
Speaker 1: Exactly so, because I feel like, you know, if you
Speaker 1: look at just like straight up greed, like you know
Speaker 1: people who have billions like Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: or you know the like the big name money players,
Speaker 1: I'm like, what the fuck are you doing with all that?
Speaker 1: How could you even?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: What does it matter at that point? Why could you
Speaker 1: possibly want? You can? In twenty lifetimes? You couldn't get
Speaker 1: through it?
Speaker 3: Do you find that you were like, where are you
Speaker 3: in terms of like what you want to achieve in life?
Speaker 3: Have you done it? Have you done everything?
Speaker 1: Or do you still?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: I don't think that.
Speaker 3: You don't think so.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's I don't think that's healthy, have you? So?
Speaker 3: So there are still mountains that you'd like to climb.
Speaker 1: Not necessarily in career terms, you know, like, oh if
Speaker 1: only I could get you know that? Yeah? I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think I have that anymore. But I think
Speaker 1: I think that's I'm very grateful to Late Night and
Speaker 1: I wonder because you've been very successful in this in
Speaker 1: Hollywood as well, in a kind of sideways way that
Speaker 1: you probably didn't expect, which is exactly what happened to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I never expect to have a TV show.
Speaker 3: At a certain point I gave up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I never expected to have. Really I wanted like
Speaker 1: success was one thing, like you would be in a
Speaker 1: movie and with Sandra Bullock or something, and that was
Speaker 1: that was how you would be successful. And so I
Speaker 1: had this kind of slightways thing. But what it did,
Speaker 1: and I wondered if it did this to you, is
Speaker 1: it demystified the entire thing you managed to douschbag ratio
Speaker 1: amongst the mega successful. It's exactly the same as in
Speaker 1: the average Danny's I.
Speaker 3: Think I I sort of once I got my TV
Speaker 3: show and then I won a couple of Emmy's, I
Speaker 3: would something in terms of career was like, oh I
Speaker 3: don't need it switched off for me, where I was like,
Speaker 3: oh okay, I kind of I did want to direct
Speaker 3: a movie, so I directed the Between two Ferns movies.
Speaker 1: So I still did you like doing that?
Speaker 3: Uh, for the most part, it was fun. Did it
Speaker 3: come out the way I wanted it to? Not really
Speaker 3: exactly what.
Speaker 1: Happened me really, I directed one movie.
Speaker 3: Which movie?
Speaker 1: It was a movie called I'll Be There. Directed it
Speaker 1: in two thousands. I wrote the script I'm in the movie.
Speaker 1: I you know, I directed the movie, and I don't
Speaker 1: like it.
Speaker 3: You don't like it? Yeah, it's hard. It's it's very hard.
Speaker 3: There's this like just kind of magic thing that you're
Speaker 3: it's like a magic trick you're trying to achieve, and
Speaker 3: then it's so easy to fuck it up. And people
Speaker 3: people like my movie and stuff like that, and I.
Speaker 1: I I got the same thing as well, won some
Speaker 1: of the awards here and there.
Speaker 3: But it was like, I'm kind of embarrassed by it
Speaker 3: in a northerway because I'm like, that's no, it's I'm not.
Speaker 3: I guess I'm not embarrassed by mine as much as
Speaker 3: I'm just like, because it's good, all right, Well, but
Speaker 3: but I but I do look at it and go like, fuck,
Speaker 3: if only I had known this, Like so many of
Speaker 3: my projects are like if only I had known this
Speaker 3: in retrospect, in hindsight, now I know a different choic
Speaker 3: I would have made, like the only thing that I
Speaker 3: really have put out that I've been proud of just
Speaker 3: totally was I think my TV show where I was
Speaker 3: like made all the right choices. I feel like I did.
Speaker 1: That's great. I did the best I could. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: did well. You know, I kind of feel the same
Speaker 1: way about mine too. But the Late Night so yeah,
Speaker 1: it was like, by and large, I think that was
Speaker 1: that hits. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's tough, but but yeah, at a certain
Speaker 3: point in my forties, I was kind of like, oh,
Speaker 3: you know what, I sort of don't have that clawing
Speaker 3: need of you know, filling the hole in my soul
Speaker 3: with career. You know, you know whatever hole that was.
Speaker 3: You go, Phill doubla, Come, I want money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a couple of Emmys in a better cash and
Speaker 1: you know, and you feel a little better. Let anyone
Speaker 1: tell you differently, you know, it's like, oh, awards mean nothing,
Speaker 1: they do, but there's still not if you've.
Speaker 3: Never won any like award, you're kind of like going,
Speaker 3: it would be nice to get up there on stage
Speaker 3: and actually like hold the thing. Yeah, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean.
Speaker 1: And then when you get up there and hold the
Speaker 1: thing's fucking great.
Speaker 3: And I did a funny speech and so I was like, you.
Speaker 1: Weren't excited, and people liked it and were happy for you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, it's great. Yeah, I loved it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean would I do it again? Yes? Yes I would.
Speaker 3: Do they give awords for something like this? Can we
Speaker 3: win together?
Speaker 1: I don't know? Maybe probably?
Speaker 3: Can we hold hands as we go up on?
Speaker 1: So here's the thing. I got one. This is a
Speaker 1: great one. I got one from Scottish BAFTA, which is
Speaker 1: the British British Academy Film and Television Arts.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: I knew the bee right, So they have a Scottish
Speaker 1: one of it, and I'm bouta. I think it's Safta
Speaker 1: bafts of the Sabbafta or something. But it's the kind
Speaker 1: of divisional thing. It's in Scotland and.
Speaker 3: It's like the daytime Emmys kind of When I went
Speaker 3: for a game show, I called my mom. I said,
Speaker 3: I want an Emmy form my games woman. She went, ah, Daytammy,
Speaker 3: Thanks thanks mom.
Speaker 1: Yeah? Do you is your mom still around?
Speaker 3: My mom is, yes. My father passed away six months ago.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, I'm sorry. That's still very sore.
Speaker 3: No, it was all right, it was it was yeah,
Speaker 3: it was okay. It was obviously a sad time, but
Speaker 3: it was like kind of expected. He's been hanging on
Speaker 3: since nineteen eighty one. I feel like, so, what was
Speaker 3: if he had a strange operation to take care of
Speaker 3: something in his throat? Pardon me if I'm not using
Speaker 3: the correct medical terminology, but I think throats is correct, right,
Speaker 3: it is correct, and procedure procedure doctors something that I've heard.
Speaker 3: But it was supposed to be just a like minor thing.
Speaker 3: And my mom came to the hospital and they said, well,
Speaker 3: we think he's going to survive. What And she was
Speaker 3: like what, and like something with his throat had gone wrong,
Speaker 3: and so they used part of his in to be
Speaker 3: his throat. They like took part of his coalon to make.
Speaker 1: I don't they need permission to do that? Well, who knows?
Speaker 3: It's nineteen eighty one. Differently, yeah, I'm not sure who
Speaker 3: they would. I think they called his teachers at school. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but no, yeah, so they they had just to save
Speaker 3: his life. They had done this, and so he pulled through.
Speaker 3: It was like a weird summer. I think it was
Speaker 3: eighty two actually, but ever since then, he just had
Speaker 3: issues with his throat. He had to sleep like sort
Speaker 3: of sitting up at forty five degree angle, and he
Speaker 3: had trouble gaining weight because food wouldn't get down there.
Speaker 3: Agu when this happens, I'm twelve. Yeah, so you're destined
Speaker 3: for a career in comedy because the trauma now is like, right,
Speaker 3: it's real it. I mean, it never really felt incredibly.
Speaker 3: I mean I was shuveled around to parental friends that
Speaker 3: whole summer, sure, but they never really told me how
Speaker 3: serious it was, right, So I think I was just
Speaker 3: kind of in my like, yeah, everything's great, everything will
Speaker 3: be fine, you know. And it turned out it was
Speaker 3: relatively fine. But it was one of these things for
Speaker 3: forty years. It was like an issue.
Speaker 1: That's it's a long time to be dealing with whatever,
Speaker 1: the mysterious thing.
Speaker 3: This is right, But my mom? Why did you ask
Speaker 3: about my mom?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Was she because?
Speaker 3: Yeah, because of your your mom. Yeah, my mom had
Speaker 3: the classic line when I was I did musical theater
Speaker 3: when I was in my early twenties and I did
Speaker 3: Curly in Oklahoma, and she came to see it, and
Speaker 3: she'd been to all my shows and she said you
Speaker 3: were really good. I mean, for the first time I
Speaker 3: felt like you actually met what you were saying.
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, yeah, comedies for you. You know,
Speaker 1: it is the I mean, I've said this a million
Speaker 1: times in this podcast, but it's like there is a
Speaker 1: there is a resonance with humorists, whether they're male or female,
Speaker 1: with their mothers.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean my mother was very sort of sure,
Speaker 3: there's nothing to do with a lack of love or support,
Speaker 3: but also backhanded.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's there's a there's a weird I mean, I
Speaker 1: love my mom and she was supportive in the way
Speaker 1: that she understood. But she still with us. No, No,
Speaker 1: she died years ago. She but she did not understand
Speaker 1: show business at all. And I did my father. Did
Speaker 1: your family understand that we grew up.
Speaker 3: You know, just forty five minutes south of LA So
Speaker 3: I think that they, I mean they sort of. It
Speaker 3: just seemed very far away, even though it was only
Speaker 3: forty five minutes away Hollywood. But my dad, I think
Speaker 3: was very interested in it because he would sometimes like
Speaker 3: take me to lunch and pitch me like an idea
Speaker 3: for a show or a movie. I remember once he
Speaker 3: business his profession. He was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam,
Speaker 3: and then he flew privately for a little while, and
Speaker 3: then he went into the aerospace industry where he would
Speaker 3: make like the overhead compartments for planes and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: So he but he I feel like he was sort
Speaker 3: of a frustrated artist in a way, because he would
Speaker 3: like sometimes I would find he he had written like
Speaker 3: newspaper columns, like humorous newspaper columns, like like where he
Speaker 3: was trying to like, you know, work out something, some
Speaker 3: sort of you know, in the at his church, he
Speaker 3: would be in plays and he would sing and oh, clearly,
Speaker 3: you know, I feel like, yeah, I feel like there
Speaker 3: was an impulse, and so I feel like he was.
Speaker 3: I don't know that he ever was appreciative of any
Speaker 3: of the stuff I made necessarily, but like I think
Speaker 3: I worked on the movie Shark Tale for a couple
Speaker 3: of years kind of thinking like, you know, I've done
Speaker 3: all this adult humor. Here's something my parents can appreciate.
Speaker 3: I took him to the premiere and after the lights
Speaker 3: came up, my dad was like, well, that wasn't very good,
Speaker 3: was it.
Speaker 1: It was like, really, okay, that's funny.
Speaker 3: Is my Sharktail must be almost twenty years ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah too, Yeah, because I remember taking my oldest boy
Speaker 1: to see shark Tail when it come out, and he.
Speaker 3: Loved it so in the community thank him.
Speaker 1: Well, you know what I.
Speaker 3: Loved Sharktail too, as I remember it was that was
Speaker 3: that Will Smith? Will smithree pre slap Will Smith? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: o slap. He hasn't done a lot.
Speaker 1: Of It's hard to be the funny guy once you
Speaker 1: hit someone. I know. I always try to remember that
Speaker 1: when I'm frustrated.
Speaker 3: Have you ever been close to being physically assaulted on stage?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I have been, really really What happened when I
Speaker 1: was drinking. I played a town called Dunfermline the Scotland.
Speaker 3: And and this is stand up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I did some stand up that apparently didn't go
Speaker 1: down well with the locals.
Speaker 3: How did they?
Speaker 1: They came up and got me as I was trying
Speaker 1: to get out in a taxi. They threw a rock
Speaker 1: in at the back of the taxi, broke the window
Speaker 1: and I had to pay for the taxi drivers.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It was a very expensive evening for me. No, but
Speaker 1: I survived. Have you ever been assaulted on today?
Speaker 3: It was spit on once.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that I counted. I mean, I mean
Speaker 1: then yeah a lot, Yeah, just spit on.
Speaker 3: There was one guy stand up.
Speaker 1: You didn't stand up at this point that.
Speaker 3: Was like sketch stuff. Someone got it very offended at
Speaker 3: the subject matter. I think, and and like I asked
Speaker 3: what it was. I can't really remember. It was something.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is like doing stuff at the UCB
Speaker 3: Theater where like everything is kind of.
Speaker 1: Is that the one in Hollywood? Yeah, I love that
Speaker 1: little space. That's such a good theater.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I Benchwartz wrote me to start going to do.
Speaker 3: His show first snow snow Pants. Yeah and yeah Ben Swartz. Okay,
Speaker 3: so he asks me to do snow pants and he goes,
Speaker 3: I know you don't really do improv, but I'm going
Speaker 3: to take care of you.
Speaker 1: You know, he's not going to do that.
Speaker 3: So I do with jj Abrams and I get out
Speaker 3: there and no one else is like stepping forward to
Speaker 3: establish a scene with Ben. So I know someone asked you.
Speaker 3: So I walk out there and I go, so, hey, uh,
Speaker 3: and I said, I forget what I said, and Ben goes,
Speaker 3: that's what you're going to start the scene. I'm like,
Speaker 3: you're not doing it. And then j J abrams destroys
Speaker 3: and does like various scenes in different characters. He does
Speaker 3: a singing improv bitch stop it. It was that's crazy.
Speaker 3: It really made me feel bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when I was doing I did a couple of
Speaker 1: times with him. It felt like I loved it though,
Speaker 1: and I felt like I was with the cool kids
Speaker 1: for a while. Yeah, I was at UCB. I you're
Speaker 1: probably UCP, right, Yeah, I did.
Speaker 3: I produced a show there for about ten years.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was always very jealous of that because I
Speaker 1: I felt like that that's the cool people. It was fun.
Speaker 3: I mean, we obviously would have had you come do
Speaker 3: it if you know, we had no how to reach
Speaker 3: you who you were. No, we had people like Robin
Speaker 3: Williams hung out there for a long time and would
Speaker 3: come do shows with Robins.
Speaker 1: Robin.
Speaker 3: I became friendly with Robin after he was in the
Speaker 3: Late Night Show and he I mean, obviously he knows this,
Speaker 3: but he loved to just get up anytime. He was
Speaker 3: very supportive. He would sometimes watch shows that we were
Speaker 3: doing and I would say, like, do you want to
Speaker 3: come out and do it? He goes, No, one wants
Speaker 3: to see me you guys are doing fine by by yourself.
Speaker 3: You know, he would just want to watch.
Speaker 1: You know, he was lovely. Did you become friendly and
Speaker 1: anyways you spend any time with him?
Speaker 3: Friendly in a way of like I did a few
Speaker 3: shows with him. He would know who I was when
Speaker 3: you saw me, but you know, not not ever like
Speaker 3: hanging out other than backstage, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I suppose that was the extent of my hanging
Speaker 1: out with him as well, with backstage of theaters.
Speaker 3: But he uh, yeah, that was a tough one. Yeah,
Speaker 3: when Robin went so nice, Yeah, he was really nice.
Speaker 3: He was a guy like another info on you know. Yes,
Speaker 3: I told him about the day he did work from
Speaker 3: work on Happy Days and I was a huge, huge
Speaker 3: Happy Days fan. And I'm probably nine or ten or
Speaker 3: something like that. And I remember being on Errand's with
Speaker 3: my mother the next day and she hadn't seen it,
Speaker 3: and telling her the entire plot, with every joke of
Speaker 3: him on Happy Days. And we were going through like
Speaker 3: a checkout line and the checkout person goes like, sounds
Speaker 3: like someone's a Happy Days last night, and it made
Speaker 3: me feel kind of bad. Anyway, I told him that story.
Speaker 3: I told him that story on Sage. There's a funny
Speaker 3: picture of him, like with his hand on my knee
Speaker 3: saying like, oh, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Know, it's funny because he was one of the non
Speaker 1: demystifiers for me. The other one was at Carrie Fisher.
Speaker 1: That someone that you admire so much and then you
Speaker 1: meet them and they don't disappoint you. That I think
Speaker 1: is one of.
Speaker 3: The the dangers of being in show business, particularly if
Speaker 3: you're doing what you and I have done in kind
Speaker 3: of slightly different ways, which she's interacting with a lot
Speaker 3: of people that you've probably been aware of for a
Speaker 3: long time. Yeah, every once in a while, there will
Speaker 3: be someone that you work with that you've really grown
Speaker 3: up loving and it'll be kind of a bummer, you
Speaker 3: know what. No, of course not, but that Ferguson. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But you know what's weird now is I get people
Speaker 1: say to me, I grew up watching you and I'm
Speaker 1: like and they're like forty, I'm like, what the hell
Speaker 1: are you talking about? Yeah, it's like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: but I uh, I don't know. There was there was
Speaker 1: on Late Night. I would never allow the bookers to
Speaker 1: even approach David boy just really case, just in case,
Speaker 1: because what he said, yes, just in case, he said
Speaker 1: by all accounts apparently he was great, but I don't know.
Speaker 3: You hear so many stories of him, uh, like I
Speaker 3: just heard. I feel like Dave Wakeling of the English
Speaker 3: Bead just told the story last week of I haven't
Speaker 3: had no while I just saw him performing. He was like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I met David Bowie at whatever after doing a show,
Speaker 3: and he ran up to me and said, I want
Speaker 3: you to be my opening actor, the greatest opening act
Speaker 3: I've ever seen, or something.
Speaker 1: Like that, And it's kind of like sideways compliments.
Speaker 3: You're not one of headliner head I think he was
Speaker 3: over time man. But yeah, by all accounts great, But yeah,
Speaker 3: it's I've been disappointed a couple of times with people
Speaker 3: and it's like and it's it's hard not to watch them.
Speaker 3: They're old.
Speaker 1: I try.
Speaker 3: I'm good at compartmentalizing though, so I can still find stuff.
Speaker 3: People ask me like, why do you still can you
Speaker 3: still listen to Michael Jackson records? And it's like so
Speaker 3: much of art is a conversation I feel like, between
Speaker 3: not only the artist but also your your younger self
Speaker 3: when you first heard.
Speaker 1: It or watched it or something like that. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean it's a great topic and one that fascinates me
Speaker 1: is the art and the artist. So the idea of
Speaker 1: you know, like, uh, the Castle would probably be in
Speaker 1: jail for this relationship with Maritz, but you know it
Speaker 1: was what do you do with that? It's everyone's gone and.
Speaker 3: At this point, yeah, everyone's gone, Like Michael Jackson has gone.
Speaker 3: So I don't feel like me listening to his music
Speaker 3: is supporting him, yeah, financially or anything like that. Even
Speaker 3: like so R Kelly, he's in jail.
Speaker 1: He's in jail, so he's not making money.
Speaker 3: He's not making money.
Speaker 1: R Kelly fan I wasn't really aware of much.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, it's can you listen to me?
Speaker 3: You know anyone like that who was a monster?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: Is it still okay? And I think Nick Cave had pulp.
Speaker 1: Fiction Harvey Weinstein, you know what, I'm like, what are
Speaker 1: you gonna do?
Speaker 3: Nick Cave had an interesting thing to say about this,
Speaker 3: which because I think he was talking about Morrissey and
Speaker 3: how like right wing Morrissey is now and.
Speaker 1: He's gone to Phil Church show, He's made the Phil journey.
Speaker 3: And so and I think he was saying, like so
Speaker 3: much of music is just like thinking about how you
Speaker 3: felt when you first heard it and thinking about your
Speaker 3: younger self and stuff like that. So he was saying like,
Speaker 3: it's not.
Speaker 1: And also where the artist was at that time too.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, you've been doing this for long enough
Speaker 1: to surely have written something that you look at it
Speaker 1: now and go, oh fuck. I would not write that.
Speaker 3: When Mister Show went on HBO, Max, I got a
Speaker 3: lot of people going like, oh my god, I'd never
Speaker 3: seen Mister Show when I was catching up with it,
Speaker 3: and I'm always like.
Speaker 1: Nineties I Show I miss the show was was just
Speaker 1: coming on. I had moved to America in ninety five
Speaker 1: and Mister Show coming on and Bob and David. I
Speaker 1: felt like, I'll never be cool enough to even meet
Speaker 1: those guys.
Speaker 3: They did you ever actually then meet? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And that I met both.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: It's fine. I don't know how cool I am. I'm
Speaker 1: cool enough.
Speaker 3: They're not very cool.
Speaker 1: It's funny that I remember one of the last Bob
Speaker 1: Bob Bob oden Kirk. His son went to the same
Speaker 1: school as one of my boys went and he's a
Speaker 1: little bit older. So yes, And I was at the
Speaker 1: parking lot the first day of when my son started
Speaker 1: going to the school, and they were at the school
Speaker 1: bus and I got out with my son and got
Speaker 1: him onto the bus, and Bob was still in this
Speaker 1: car because he'd been doing it for a year, and
Speaker 1: I was walking back to McCarty wound down the window.
Speaker 1: He said, nobody gets out of the car. Craig characteristically
Speaker 1: aggressive for he was. There was humor in it, but
Speaker 1: like he's not really one of those aggressive so I
Speaker 1: kind of I'm so. I think it's an age thing
Speaker 1: maybe as well. Do you you find now that you
Speaker 1: think nobody fucking knows what is that old Bill Goldman thing.
Speaker 1: Nobody knows what's going on. Nobody knows what was going
Speaker 1: to be funny or what was going to be successful.
Speaker 3: I don't know. Yeah, I mean those those guys, Bob
Speaker 3: and David were definitely like huge. They're one of the
Speaker 3: reasons I started just doing comedy anyway, is because I
Speaker 3: saw one of their shows. Yeah, at the same time
Speaker 3: that like three things happen, I saw their show, I
Speaker 3: watched an Andy Kaufman special, and then my friend that
Speaker 3: week said, hey, I hate your latest script, but my
Speaker 3: my roommate's a comedian and I've always thought maybe you
Speaker 3: could do comedy. Do you want to do the comedy
Speaker 3: Store in the show that she's in. I was like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: like those three like yeah, those three things happening in
Speaker 3: the same week.
Speaker 1: Were it's a sign of a prime mover in your life.
Speaker 1: Do you have a Do you have a religious and
Speaker 1: you told me your dad going to church. I wondered
Speaker 1: if the Yeah, I grew up in the church. Which church,
Speaker 1: like Baptist Church? Okay, fairly joyful setup. Is it more
Speaker 1: than Scottish Presbyterians? Yeah, oh yeah, we're you.
Speaker 3: I mean, like the rituals and no, there's not that
Speaker 3: much was there, like liturgy of the Eucharist.
Speaker 1: Probably yeah, they they I mean there's the biscuit, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't tourn into Jesus. It just represents Jesus. That'd
Speaker 1: be the same with Baptists.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have the tiny, tiny like little way for like.
Speaker 1: Tiny little way. Well nobody nobody's getting a burger.
Speaker 3: See, maybe I would go to church if it was like, hey,
Speaker 3: everyone gets a burger when you're here.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm sure there are some. Do you do you
Speaker 1: have a religious connection that is it something that you.
Speaker 3: It was one of those things where I grew up
Speaker 3: and it was just accepted as like, this is true, right,
Speaker 3: And I always had this voice in the back of
Speaker 3: my head going like, yeah, but these are really weird
Speaker 3: stories that yeah, you know, like the whole okay, So
Speaker 3: God is perfect, so and humans chose to sin. So
Speaker 3: in order to make it cool for humans to go
Speaker 3: up to heaven after they die, God split himself into
Speaker 3: two and made himself also his son and then sent
Speaker 3: his son down and his son could have sinned, but
Speaker 3: he never did, and then they killed him and then
Speaker 3: he came back down for a spell, Like how well.
Speaker 1: When you say it like that, so silly, But it
Speaker 1: just always was.
Speaker 3: Kind of like I don't under that none of this
Speaker 3: is really making sense to me.
Speaker 1: Did you ever read Julian by Gorvi Dal? I highly
Speaker 1: recommend it.
Speaker 3: It's about Julian Lennon.
Speaker 1: Julian Lennon's about Julian Lennon, which is weird because I'm like,
Speaker 1: he was just a kid. But he wrote this, Gordon,
Speaker 1: let's do.
Speaker 3: The Jonlin, You're a good enough writer.
Speaker 1: He wrote it in nineteen sixty four, when Julie Lennon
Speaker 1: was maybe two years old. I mean I hadn't done
Speaker 1: a lot. Yeah, it's about Julian Augustus, Julian the Apostate,
Speaker 1: who after he was the Emperor Constantine's grandson. So there
Speaker 1: was Constantine and constant Titus and then Julian the Emperor,
Speaker 1: and he was the last Augustus of the whole before
Speaker 1: they split it, you know, one in the east, one
Speaker 1: in the west. And he tried to return the Roman
Speaker 1: Empire back to Hellenistic Hellenistic you know, pagan religions, Zeus
Speaker 1: and Apollo and all that stuff. And he was doing
Speaker 1: all that.
Speaker 3: His feeling was that had everything since everything was Christian,
Speaker 3: everything was because he was trying to go he was
Speaker 3: trying to get about enough about this christ guy. I
Speaker 3: remember all these great.
Speaker 1: What about the ones we used to have, you know,
Speaker 1: like Apollo, Zeus, all those guys, And he tried to
Speaker 1: bring that back, but also allowed Christianity because Rome, contrary
Speaker 1: to what you hear now, was like they had no
Speaker 1: problem with what religion you were. It's it was about
Speaker 1: if you paid tax, and it was the real problem,
Speaker 1: you know. But the way that Gorvi Dao writes it
Speaker 1: is a real I mean, it's scathing about Christianity, scathing
Speaker 1: about the birth of Christianity, not the birth of it,
Speaker 1: but the incorporation of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't have a I really don't have an
Speaker 3: issue with anything that makes a person feel peace or comfort.
Speaker 1: I agree.
Speaker 3: I get nothing against that, even stuff like scientology. I
Speaker 3: maybe have quibbles with some of their methods, but I
Speaker 3: can bibble with a lot of it any But in
Speaker 3: terms of a belief system, if anything makes someone feel better,
Speaker 3: I think I'm fine with it. What I just really
Speaker 3: don't like about everything is the trying to make everyone
Speaker 3: else exactly the same what they are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like you got to believe in what I believe, yes,
Speaker 1: or you are an impost and are the enemy. Yes.
Speaker 3: So America, as far as I'm concerned, is like supposed
Speaker 3: to be everyone believe whatever you want and we'll all
Speaker 3: get a right.
Speaker 1: That's the idea.
Speaker 3: That's the idea. And where you know, even if you
Speaker 3: have a neighbor who's like sort of cuckoo, You're like, hey,
Speaker 3: we still care for you. You're you're fine. Yeah, But
Speaker 3: what's the trouble is is like the people who who
Speaker 3: inform their religious beliefs on laws and stuff like that,
Speaker 3: is where it starts to be, like, look, I understand
Speaker 3: you don't believe in abortion. That's great, So don't get
Speaker 3: an abortion, right, you know what I mean? Like, but
Speaker 3: don't don't start to just impose your stuff on us.
Speaker 1: It's it's abortion is a really really tricky one because
Speaker 1: you're never going to change anyone's mind. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: that's where you go. It's a real goody.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: I don't know how you get through that.
Speaker 3: It's so weird because it wasn't even like really an
Speaker 3: issue until it was this, Yeah, until it was.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know. I mean, you know, do you
Speaker 1: remember the movie Dirty Dancing? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I do, as a matter of fact.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because then that they got a pretty big good
Speaker 1: story about abortion and dirty dancing. And in fact, everyone
Speaker 1: should see that movie again because it goes okay, but
Speaker 1: also you know, okay, you know that's what I loved
Speaker 1: that that should have been on the poster dirty Dad.
Speaker 1: So okay, okay, but this is why my movie sucked, because.
Speaker 3: Okay, but do you remember the tagline of your movie?
Speaker 1: Was there one?
Speaker 3: Do you have the poster somewhere?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: Fuck, I'm sure somebody mine was. There's nowhere he won't go.
Speaker 1: I did one for Warner Brothers. This is a movie
Speaker 1: that actually was quite proud. I didn't direct this movie.
Speaker 1: But then a movie called The Big Teas, which was
Speaker 1: about a Scottish hairdresser that comes to Los Angeles to
Speaker 1: take part in the World Hairdressing competition.
Speaker 3: I sort of remember this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I played it. Yeah, yeah, And I stand by
Speaker 1: the movie. It's funny movie. But because it was nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight and the character I was playing was gay
Speaker 1: and the sympathetic character, there was no yes other than
Speaker 1: he was a gay man. But it was an R.
Speaker 3: It was rated R just for the fact that it
Speaker 3: was for the fact content, the fact that it was
Speaker 3: still mature contact.
Speaker 1: It was just the fact that he was a gay character.
Speaker 1: This is before Will and Grace was on TV or
Speaker 1: anything like that. And the I wanted to put on
Speaker 1: the log line of the poster he came, he combed,
Speaker 1: he conquered right right. They wouldn't put it on because
Speaker 1: they said he came sounds like he came right sex
Speaker 1: and he's gay. I'm like what, so they on the
Speaker 1: log line that says he saw, he combed, he conquered.
Speaker 3: Like that, that doesn't make any sense at all. It's like,
Speaker 3: you know how you get pringles the lovely chips out
Speaker 3: of a can?
Speaker 1: Right? Well, you know in like the dollar stores they
Speaker 1: sell prongles, they do, and on prongles it doesn't say
Speaker 1: it speaking of the game, right, he doesn't say like it.
Speaker 1: On the pringles it says, once you pop, you can't
Speaker 1: start right broncles.
Speaker 3: It says, once you pop, that's great. Once you pop
Speaker 3: that hey, but you great, and that you came reminded
Speaker 3: me of Married to the Mob. I still remember that
Speaker 3: the headboard in that just as v DVDVD, which is
Speaker 3: because that's where he has sex with his guma. Very
Speaker 3: that's very clever, that's very funny.
Speaker 1: That's a good Latin joke. Well listen, so here's my
Speaker 1: pitch to you make a make a mini series of
Speaker 1: Julian the Apostate by gor Vidal. I think it could
Speaker 1: be hilarious and also a little bit game of thronesy interesting.
Speaker 3: I mean, you look at stuff like Game of Thrones
Speaker 3: and show guns and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: It could be very, very popular.
Speaker 3: I don't know why anyone would want me to do that,
Speaker 3: but because you're clever and what you make is good
Speaker 3: and that's why I haven't even read the book.
Speaker 1: Though this doesn't matter. I've read it, so I've read.
Speaker 3: There telling me what I'm doing, right, I'll be already
Speaker 3: page forty two it says this, and you go, all right,
Speaker 3: that will change, alright, we'll put yeah, yeah, we'll do that.
Speaker 1: It's been a joy talking to you. I wish you
Speaker 1: could go longer. Can we do it again? Yes?
Speaker 3: I would love that. Yes, And if you ever would
Speaker 3: want to do my show, and it's a lot dred
Speaker 3: percent ridiculousness, No, I one.
Speaker 1: Hundred percent would want to do your show. And actually
Speaker 1: this is kind of now legally you have to have
Speaker 1: me on because a podcast swap of course. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. It's like it's what they used to do,
Speaker 1: sitcom crossover episodes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, did you see the Two and a Half Men CSI?
Speaker 3: That's awesome. The writing staff from cs I wrote the
Speaker 3: two and a half Man and vice versa. Oh my god,
Speaker 3: it's insane.
Speaker 1: You know. I did one with the Big Bang Theory.
Speaker 3: Oh interesting? Where I with the Big Bank? Oh? Meaning
Speaker 3: your show and the Big Bank?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I went on the Big Bang Theory. Were
Speaker 1: they on me? I can't remember, but there was this.
Speaker 1: We were on their set and I had applied for
Speaker 1: the job to be Sheldon's friend and I didn't get it.
Speaker 1: It's like one and see, like, oh fuck.
Speaker 3: We were trying to do one with Mark Maron show
Speaker 3: on my show, Oh yeah, and he shut it down.
Speaker 3: But it was going to be, uh like because we
Speaker 3: were back to back and I would love that when
Speaker 3: I was young watching shows interact, you know, so like
Speaker 3: he was going to be on my show and then
Speaker 3: I was going to be on his show, and then
Speaker 3: eventually it all just like went away because he didn't
Speaker 3: want to do it.
Speaker 1: But it was. I did one with Drew Carrey on
Speaker 1: The Prices Right and myso as a special, really wacky thing.
Speaker 1: CBS let me host The Prices Right and let Drew
Speaker 1: host my show.
Speaker 3: That's fun.
Speaker 1: You know, it wasn't bad.
Speaker 3: Was it fun to host The Prices Right and do
Speaker 3: all those games and stuff?
Speaker 1: Really?
Speaker 3: Was?
Speaker 1: Was it? Really? Yeah? I felt like I was like
Speaker 1: I got to shore driving the Space Shuttle or so.
Speaker 1: It's amazing.
Speaker 3: I think when celebrities you see them on these game
Speaker 3: shows these days, and they all have to play for charities,
Speaker 3: it's like, let them keep them money, let.
Speaker 1: Them keep them money, I know what I mean. And
Speaker 1: then I'm in, yeah, yeah, like I give money, Jarny, sure, yeah.
Speaker 3: Make some you'll give ten percent of it maybe to charity.
Speaker 3: Like let's have a celebrities give, you know, ten percent
Speaker 3: to charity, and the other night he goes and another
Speaker 3: night goes to the celebrity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why you're warned. Yes, exactly. I think that's fine.
Speaker 1: All right, Well we got that sorted. You'll see me
Speaker 1: next on Comedy Backpack.
Speaker 3: You see it and see it