Speaker 1: I had to drown. You're in a room, you know,
Speaker 1: the usual, and people staring at you, and I'm just
Speaker 1: like like floating, like making myself light in a fucking
Speaker 1: room and just like you know what I mean, and
Speaker 1: then like pulled over on the side of the road
Speaker 1: after you're just like, oh, fuck's the matter with me?
Speaker 2: What's that doing? I know?
Speaker 1: Hello, My name is Will Sasso and I will.
Speaker 2: Welcome back everybody. Thanks again for joining us for your
Speaker 2: favorite podcast. I'm sure off the beat. I am your
Speaker 2: favorite host, Brian Bombgartner. We have a favorite of mine
Speaker 2: on the show today, the hilarious Will Sasso is with me.
Speaker 2: Will has been gracing your screens for now over thirty years,
Speaker 2: which is odd because he claims he's only thirty two,
Speaker 2: but anyway. He first appeared on Canadian teen television, then
Speaker 2: in incredible movies like Best in Show and Happy Gilmore,
Speaker 2: and finally on the iconic comedy sketch show Mad TV.
Speaker 2: Guess what all of that was before the year two thousand.
Speaker 2: He certainly hasn't slowed down since then, starring on shows
Speaker 2: like Less than Perfect, Another Period, louder Milk, and Young Sheldon.
Speaker 2: He is also an accomplished voice actor. You've heard his
Speaker 2: voice on animated shows like Family, Guy, Russell, Maniac, Murder Police. Also,
Speaker 2: he stole the role of Curly in The Three Stooges
Speaker 2: from me, so we're definitely going to discuss that. And
Speaker 2: as you will hear, he's a hell of an impressionist.
Speaker 2: Well at least he really makes me laugh. Let's hear
Speaker 2: from him now, My friend and yours Will Sasso.
Speaker 3: Bubble and Squeak. I love it, Bubble and squeak. I know,
Speaker 3: Bubble and squeak. I cook get every month lift over
Speaker 3: from the ninet before.
Speaker 2: What's up? Will?
Speaker 1: Hello, Brian? How are you?
Speaker 2: I'm doing well?
Speaker 1: How are you good? Chilling?
Speaker 2: She's chilling. Where are you chilling?
Speaker 1: I'm in Los Phelis. Where are you at?
Speaker 2: Oh okay, that's my old neighborhood. Oh really, that is
Speaker 2: that where you live?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, nice, nice to meet you.
Speaker 2: By the way, it's very nice to meet you. I
Speaker 2: want to talk about I don't know if you've been
Speaker 2: reading the news. You've been in the news a little
Speaker 2: bit recently. Oh yeah, yeah, we haven't. Was it the uh,
Speaker 2: the show the show that I'm doing? The you got shows?
Speaker 2: You got you're you're basically everywhere. You're a man of
Speaker 2: all mediums.
Speaker 1: Right, there's a television show sometimes exactly. Yeah, yeah, you
Speaker 1: know how it is.
Speaker 2: But I want to talk a little bit about how
Speaker 2: you how you got started. You're Canadian a right, I am.
Speaker 1: I am, I'm Canadian. I'm originally from just outside of Vancouver, Canada.
Speaker 2: Yeah. We're heavy into research here. I want you to paint,
Speaker 2: paint a little bit of a picture of your childhood
Speaker 2: for me. Your parents, I understand, were Italian immigrants. Are
Speaker 2: you first generation? Well not American, I guess Canadian? You
Speaker 2: were the first ones born? Yeah, and how was that?
Speaker 2: How was that culturally for you? With your parents being Italian?
Speaker 2: They spoke Italian mostly I assume.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they spoke Italian a lot, you know, to
Speaker 1: each other and stuff. And then uh, after I went
Speaker 1: to Italy as a kid, that I learned Italian and
Speaker 1: so that, you know, so then they couldn't hide stuff
Speaker 1: from me or speak over my head. But yeah, my
Speaker 1: my uh my brother and sister were both born in Italy.
Speaker 1: And then shortly after that, my mom and dad decided
Speaker 1: to move out, brought a bunch of aunts and uncles
Speaker 1: and cousins with them, and uh my dad had promise
Speaker 1: of employment out in Vancouver kind of you know, and
Speaker 1: and yeah, they made the big they made the big move.
Speaker 1: And then I was born like ten years later.
Speaker 2: What were you as a kid like growing up?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Were you? Were you interested in sports or performing?
Speaker 1: I was probably exactly like you, you know, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: It was the class class, the typical class clown bullshit,
Speaker 1: right and uh and yeah, so I wanted to you know,
Speaker 1: act and ron only you couldn't shut me up and
Speaker 1: all this stuff. So I got involved in all the
Speaker 1: plays and and but I was also yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I did jock and playing all the sports and stuff.
Speaker 1: Which I went to a school that was really my
Speaker 1: high school was really friendly to the performing arts, and
Speaker 1: uh we had like great theater program and rah rah
Speaker 1: ron this and that. So it was nice that I
Speaker 1: could do both things. And there was you know, nobody
Speaker 1: bubged the theater nerds in our school because there were
Speaker 1: like a you know, also a bunch of jocks who
Speaker 1: were in all the productions.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know about the jocks thing, but
Speaker 2: you are right. We were very similar. And the school
Speaker 2: that I went to, yeah, exactly like there was no
Speaker 2: like stigma about being Yeah, no, exactly like what you're saying, Like,
Speaker 2: you know, there was a theater department and arts center
Speaker 2: with quite a good reputation, and I feel like it
Speaker 2: was sort of honored in that way by the rest
Speaker 2: of the community. But what I'm interested about for you,
Speaker 2: and I wonder if it's the same. I'm fascinated by this.
Speaker 2: Maybe I'm the only one, but I ask most people
Speaker 2: this question. You know, when you're a kid, you grow
Speaker 2: up and maybe you want to be a fireman, or
Speaker 2: maybe you want to be an actor, or you want
Speaker 2: to you know, you have this sort of dream of
Speaker 2: what you may want to do when you grow up.
Speaker 2: But like the moment for you when it changed, or
Speaker 2: if it never did change, if it was always from
Speaker 2: the beginning, from like, oh this is a hobb this
Speaker 2: is an activity. I guess like for me, there was
Speaker 2: a very clear line from when it turned from like
Speaker 2: this will help me get into college and I enjoy
Speaker 2: doing this activity as opposed to like, oh, no, this
Speaker 2: is what I want to do for the rest of
Speaker 2: was was there a moment for you or a line
Speaker 2: for you where that shifted.
Speaker 1: You know, I was I was fortunate enough to sort
Speaker 1: of this is probably also like you and others in
Speaker 1: our business. I spent so much time in front of
Speaker 1: the TV sort of dreaming that I think I was
Speaker 1: conscious of I think I knew I wanted to be
Speaker 1: an actor before I was conscious of it, Okay, because
Speaker 1: and I feel like I was just when I say,
Speaker 1: like class clown I think you know, for a lot
Speaker 1: of class clowns, it's just your sort of seeing what
Speaker 1: you don't understand. You don't recognize that there's a love
Speaker 1: there that you have for for what's happening, and there's
Speaker 1: something inside of you that's making you, you know, want
Speaker 1: to be funny or whatever that means to you and
Speaker 1: whatever that can facilitate in your life. That just sort
Speaker 1: of came out, and it was I wasn't conscious of
Speaker 1: it by the time I had already decided it was
Speaker 1: by the time I woke up to it. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It was weird, yeah, and
Speaker 1: a pretty predictable list of influences and stuff from you know,
Speaker 1: the old you know, Senten Live and SETV and all
Speaker 1: the all the funny stuff Munty Python and things that
Speaker 1: I watched growing up, and uh, Yeah, I just wanted
Speaker 1: to be an actor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I read that you had an agent
Speaker 2: and you were booking TV roles by the time you
Speaker 2: were fifteen, which that is very much not me. But
Speaker 2: you was like film and television. Was that like what
Speaker 2: you wanted to do? Was that your early focuses? Because
Speaker 2: for me, it was theater for me and being on stage,
Speaker 2: and that was really all I thought that I was
Speaker 2: ever going to do. For you, was was it different?
Speaker 1: I wanted to be in television and in film. You know.
Speaker 1: I grew up out in the burbs and a town
Speaker 1: near Vancouver and you know, a short bus ride in
Speaker 1: near downtown, and there was an industry and there is
Speaker 1: now especially, but in you know, the late eighties and
Speaker 1: early nineties, there was a lot of stuff going on.
Speaker 1: They were shooting you know, twenty one Jump Street out there,
Speaker 1: and a bunch of Canadian shows and American films would
Speaker 1: come up to shoot. And there were agencies that was
Speaker 1: a really you know Vancouver or Toronto or where most
Speaker 1: of that is in Canada. And so there were these
Speaker 1: agencies and I was fortunate enough to get hooked up
Speaker 1: with one when I was fifteen, and then I started
Speaker 1: working when I was sixteen and just you know in
Speaker 1: that you know, my folks are you know, from Italy
Speaker 1: and they didn't get what I wanted to do and stuff.
Speaker 1: For there to be an industry literally right next door
Speaker 1: was obviously a great, a great advantage to be able to,
Speaker 1: you know, go out there and crash some auditions and
Speaker 1: try to get represented.
Speaker 2: And then were they supportive my folks?
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were cool because they were like and I
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, they were the same with my
Speaker 1: with my older brother and sister, which is there was
Speaker 1: no mo of like you have to do this or
Speaker 1: you have to do that outside of you know, do
Speaker 1: well in school. That's what you know, because there was
Speaker 1: nothing before them in Canada, so there's nothing to sort
Speaker 1: of draw from to say here's how to do it here.
Speaker 1: It's just you know, love what you do, work very
Speaker 1: hard and let us know how it's going.
Speaker 2: Yeah did you did you do? You feel like so
Speaker 2: they were hard working? That was important? Working hard?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, they were hard workers.
Speaker 2: Which you early did you know you did some early
Speaker 2: shows in Canada Neon Ryder. I was a huge fan
Speaker 2: of that show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, aren't we all?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Madison Sliders, tell me uh. And then I want
Speaker 2: to talk to you about your decision to move to
Speaker 2: Los Angeles. How would you say the work, the environment,
Speaker 2: the culture in Vancouver was different than when you finally
Speaker 2: moved to La.
Speaker 1: Oh, you know, very different. It was. You felt like
Speaker 1: you could sort of see the ceiling on the community there.
Speaker 1: You know, there were many actors to this day that
Speaker 1: make an entire career there, and I can remember talk
Speaker 1: speaking with one in particular before I took off, and
Speaker 1: we were working together on this thing and you played
Speaker 1: my father, and I was I was such a you know,
Speaker 1: I was like young and full of piss and couldn't
Speaker 1: wait to get down to the States and all that.
Speaker 1: And he was like, I love it here.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: He's like, you know, my kids go to school there,
Speaker 1: and I do this, and I thing and and he's
Speaker 1: and he's showing up as the heavy and all sorts
Speaker 1: of stuff that you you know, you watch you see
Speaker 1: some whatever movie and you Haarson Ford's the president or whatever. Oh,
Speaker 1: and there's so and so in that you could see
Speaker 1: who uh who was in town that were at the
Speaker 1: top of the industry. It did feel, uh, it was.
Speaker 1: It was a very nice sort of community and proving
Speaker 1: ground where you could feel like you were a part
Speaker 1: of that community. And I was fortunate enough to work
Speaker 1: on the show Madison for a number of years, which
Speaker 1: was like like a de grassy kind of show or
Speaker 1: I sort of like in the style to like a
Speaker 1: Canadian my so called life. It was like a you know,
Speaker 1: it was like a gritty show about teenagers and and
Speaker 1: this sort of thing, you know, with working with wonderful people,
Speaker 1: you know behind the scenes that we were all young,
Speaker 1: and we kind of came up and I learned from
Speaker 1: my cohorts, you know, really what I could about, you know, acting,
Speaker 1: and you could sort of feel like you were, yeah,
Speaker 1: a part of this community. And then moving down to
Speaker 1: La I don't know. I still don't know. I don't
Speaker 1: know what the fuck is going on down here. I
Speaker 1: have no I know you, and we've never met. I'm
Speaker 1: but I'm sure we may agree that right, nobody knows
Speaker 1: what the hell is going on down here. I don't
Speaker 1: know what the ceiling is. I don't want to know
Speaker 1: what the ceiling is now, you know, walking into some
Speaker 1: sort of eyes wide shut, you know room where it's
Speaker 1: like here's a seven picture dale. No, no, none of
Speaker 1: that stuff. Happens everybody. But you know I still I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 2: I have to break I'm skipping ahead here. I can't
Speaker 2: contain it any longer. So so you and I were
Speaker 2: I didn't even know if you could say we were
Speaker 2: up for the same role, because I don't know how
Speaker 2: considered at all I was. I assume not at all,
Speaker 2: and you got it. So I'm not putting myself in
Speaker 2: the same situation. But I have an audition at least
Speaker 2: for the Three Stooges. Oh, I'm slipping way ahead in
Speaker 2: your career, and I have to tell you this. I
Speaker 2: knew the director a little bit beforehand. I can't even
Speaker 2: believe I'm telling this publicly. I have been debating about
Speaker 2: this for like three days. I still refer to the
Speaker 2: audition as the worst experience of my life.
Speaker 1: Oh no, what happened? I kinda see.
Speaker 2: I want to know if you had to do the
Speaker 2: same thing, and maybe it's why you got it. I
Speaker 2: can't speak for you. I was asked to read the
Speaker 2: Three Stooges role of Curly Three Stooges. Yeah, by myself,
Speaker 2: with physical comedy, with the with the physical stuff that
Speaker 2: you're doing with the other people who weren't there. Yes,
Speaker 2: I have found this to be I just referenced it
Speaker 2: last week. By the way, I swear to you, I
Speaker 2: found it to be the most awkward four and a
Speaker 2: half minutes of my life, like maybe the only time
Speaker 2: in an audition where I was watching myself from outside
Speaker 2: of myself saying why. Actually there were two and the
Speaker 2: other one was a very smart, reputable some would call
Speaker 2: them geniuses. Or it was also asked to improv the
Speaker 2: front half of me being cut by a propeller on
Speaker 2: an airplane. So there you go. Yeah, so did you
Speaker 2: do that? Do you remember improving as though Moe and
Speaker 2: Larry were there, but they weren't.
Speaker 1: I did. First, let me say, Okay, if you're in
Speaker 1: a movie and you're cut in half by a propeller,
Speaker 1: we all know there's no acting past that. Why do
Speaker 1: you need to see it?
Speaker 2: No, they had written that. They had written me, why
Speaker 2: you watch your guts spilling out of the front of
Speaker 2: your body.
Speaker 1: There's stuff happening post getting hit with the Yeah, there
Speaker 1: is real quick. I auditioned for that movie Pearl Harbor,
Speaker 1: and okay, and I didn't get it, and I I did,
Speaker 1: you know?
Speaker 2: I think I did? I don't remember what.
Speaker 1: You remember being asked, this is like propeller death worthy.
Speaker 1: I had to drown in the audition. Does that ring
Speaker 1: a bell?
Speaker 2: No, I don't think that was me.
Speaker 1: I had to drown. You're okay, you know the usual
Speaker 1: and people staring at you and I'm just like like floating,
Speaker 1: like making myself light in a fucking room and just
Speaker 1: like you know what I mean, and then like pulled
Speaker 1: over on the side of the road after the audition,
Speaker 1: like the matter with me?
Speaker 2: What's that doing?
Speaker 1: I know it's auditions, Like it's auditions like that that
Speaker 1: that you know then you walk into it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we want you to be the three suges you by yourself.
Speaker 1: Of course, of course you do. Of course that's the
Speaker 1: way to audition this. Yes, I did. I remember coming
Speaker 1: up with some stuff where I'm just you know, getting
Speaker 1: hit and then wanting to hit but curly never lands one.
Speaker 1: And then I did some dumb thing where I smacked
Speaker 1: myself or like I went in to poke myself and
Speaker 1: thinking with and you know or like I but that
Speaker 1: was it. Like I didn't do too much of it
Speaker 1: because I was My opinion was like you guys don't
Speaker 1: want to see a lot of this you want to oh.
Speaker 2: Side, Yeah, I know, I know, I'm sure I played
Speaker 2: it just totally wrong. But I now it has become
Speaker 2: the code word for me when I get a script
Speaker 2: that is asking me to do something which is like, dude,
Speaker 2: you're covering this in a close up. You're not going
Speaker 2: to see anything right now that resembles anything like my
Speaker 2: brain goes to like producer, actor, like director, where it's like,
Speaker 2: you're not this is not serving you any purpose, and
Speaker 2: it's only making me look absolutely ridiculous. Not that clearly
Speaker 2: by my work. I don't mind looking like an idiot,
Speaker 2: like that's not a problem, but I just yeah, I
Speaker 2: that one. Who I mean, God bless you because you
Speaker 2: clearly nailed it.
Speaker 1: Oh cheers cheers was fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But I just I remember that. I remember that day.
Speaker 2: I remember those days and just going like what what
Speaker 2: am I just let me play with somebody else, please
Speaker 2: for sure.
Speaker 1: And then by the way you show up, you know,
Speaker 1: we go out there and literally just smack the shit
Speaker 1: out of each other for a couple of months, like
Speaker 1: there was no there was barely any acting, Like it's like,
Speaker 1: how are we going to do this? I was like, well,
Speaker 1: they slapped the snot at each other, So that's what
Speaker 1: we're gonna do. Yeah, right, Yeah, Curly got so messed
Speaker 1: up that they were taping his head shut and Moe's
Speaker 1: going like, this doesn't look so good, and then he
Speaker 1: had to retire. That's what we're doing, okay, falling down
Speaker 1: real holes and hitting each other with ladders and all right.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah it sound sounds about right. Yeah, well that's
Speaker 2: not where it started for you or ended. You joined
Speaker 2: the cast in nineteen ninety seven of Mad TV. You
Speaker 2: talked about SNL SCTV as being early influences. Was this
Speaker 2: a dream for you? Was this absolutely? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: To do sketch was just I always grew like I
Speaker 1: grew up watching sketch, feeling like this is an incredible
Speaker 1: medium because these people get to do so many different
Speaker 1: things and you know, scratch all those comedy itches and
Speaker 1: I love that aspect of it. I love this kid.
Speaker 1: You know, you watch dan Aykroyd, He's one guy in
Speaker 1: one sketch, In the next sketch, he's a completely different person.
Speaker 1: And had always watched sketch. It was my favorite thing
Speaker 1: growing up. So yeah, to end up in the cast
Speaker 1: of Mad TV, was incredible. I was so blown away
Speaker 1: that I got to do it still am, and it
Speaker 1: was one of those things also because the show was
Speaker 1: I joined in the show's third season, and I was
Speaker 1: really stoked to be a part of something that was
Speaker 1: new and didn't have where Obviously Sara Night Live is
Speaker 1: the big daddy and has. I mean, you know, I
Speaker 1: could talk for five days about how great SNL is,
Speaker 1: and certainly anyone who shows up on Siren Live, it's
Speaker 1: it's on them to bring who they are and bring
Speaker 1: a new thing to it, and that's the only way
Speaker 1: the show can continue and has continued, you know. But
Speaker 1: there was an extra layer of the unknown at mad
Speaker 1: TV where we don't even really know what the show is,
Speaker 1: you know, it was I don't know if we ever
Speaker 1: figured it out, but you could kind of do all
Speaker 1: sorts of stuff that in hindsight I kind of go, well,
Speaker 1: that was that might have been something that you wouldn't
Speaker 1: have even been able to do or have been allowed
Speaker 1: to do on other sketch shows, right, And of course
Speaker 1: your mind goes to comparing things to sound It Live
Speaker 1: because it is the sketch show. I still can't believe
Speaker 1: we got to do that it was just too much fun.
Speaker 2: You know. You talked about having that sketch being one
Speaker 2: of your favorite things to watch. Did you do Did
Speaker 2: you do long form improv as well? Early on? No?
Speaker 2: I didn't, So this was sketch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I I I kind of you know, came up
Speaker 1: you know, doing a lot mostly everything scripted, you know,
Speaker 1: and by the time I had moved to LA, I
Speaker 1: was really just pursuing acting and didn't do any live
Speaker 1: stuff at all.
Speaker 2: Really before I showed up at man favorite impressions to do.
Speaker 1: I like, you know, I have a bunch, you know,
Speaker 1: a bunch of the impressions I used to do at
Speaker 1: mad TV, which are a lot of fun to do.
Speaker 1: And uh, nowadays I kind of amuse myself by being
Speaker 1: able to do smaller impressions that I didn't know that
Speaker 1: I could do and maybe I can't do like lately
Speaker 1: I've been doing this is uh yeah, see you no,
Speaker 1: you're not going to know you know what. I'll just
Speaker 1: do it and then you tell me if you have
Speaker 1: any idea who I'm doing. These are the sort of
Speaker 1: things that I annoy my wife and my friends with. Okay,
Speaker 1: ready here it is you must be Jimmy. Here I'll
Speaker 1: do it again. Hold on, ready, you must be Jimmy. Right, okay,
Speaker 1: This is, of course Harvey Kaike Tell in Pulp Fiction
Speaker 1: when he shows up at Quentin Tarantino's house and he says,
Speaker 1: you must be Jimmy. Now, my friends are like, well,
Speaker 1: you sound absolutely nothing like him, and that that's not
Speaker 1: a good impression, and I go, not yet, not yet,
Speaker 1: but you must be Jimmy. And as I'm doing that,
Speaker 1: I'm sounding I'm just sounding more like Robert de Niro
Speaker 1: and probably confusing the two in my head.
Speaker 2: You're getting closer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, stuff like that. So, yeah, favorite impressions like I
Speaker 1: suck at as many impressions or more, uh than I
Speaker 1: do ones that I'm like, oh it sounds.
Speaker 2: Like that sounds pretty good. You must be Jimmy. You
Speaker 2: must be Jimmy. Jimmy.
Speaker 1: Feel free to use that.
Speaker 2: I'm going to.
Speaker 4: Actually, you have no idea.
Speaker 2: You guys did a reunion season. I'm like, how was
Speaker 2: that after so many years getting back together? Was that
Speaker 2: so fun? Did you did you first off? Did you
Speaker 2: know it was just going to be one bit or
Speaker 2: did you were you kind of like, oh, let's see
Speaker 2: if this still works?
Speaker 1: Well? They they had a new cast. Actually they did
Speaker 1: it in twenty fifteen, I think sixteen.
Speaker 2: You were involved with that at all?
Speaker 1: I was, I was, oh yeah, yeah, but there was
Speaker 1: a there was a brand new cast and then some
Speaker 1: of us, you know, they brought in some of the
Speaker 1: old gang to do bits here and there. Pretty much
Speaker 1: every show there was one or two of the old guard,
Speaker 1: really creepy getting back into it, like, you know, because
Speaker 1: I don't know it had been uh uh, I guess
Speaker 1: six eighteen.
Speaker 2: Well like twenty years did you started it?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, pretty real weird, So I don't know, Like
Speaker 1: I was doing a bit which used to be very physical,
Speaker 1: and I get hurt and stuff, and I'm like, I
Speaker 1: don't want any of that. It won't even look good.
Speaker 1: But then you do it and it doesn't look good
Speaker 1: and it hurts. But yeah, that was bizarre when some
Speaker 1: of the old casts were like around each other like
Speaker 1: in our old get ups, there's no way to not
Speaker 1: go like like there's just no way because it's like
Speaker 1: we're older and it's like look at you, what are you?
Speaker 1: What are you doing? And the ones who out of
Speaker 1: the old cast were like, ah, no, thanks not for me.
Speaker 1: You later go like smart and you know, and the
Speaker 1: show only lasted one year, but they were in a
Speaker 1: shitty position. They were on the CW, which is not
Speaker 1: where the show used to be. The show was on Fox,
Speaker 1: and they put them on. I'm pretty sure this is correct.
Speaker 1: I know it was the middle of the week. I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure it was Tuesday nights at ten and it's.
Speaker 2: The come on on the on.
Speaker 1: The W, which means you can't do anything.
Speaker 2: Geez.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you would sort of, you know, you would sort
Speaker 1: of cover some of the old stuff, and you were
Speaker 1: told like, no, we can't, we can't go there. And
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, okay, I'm doing why are we doing.
Speaker 2: Let's do a season twenty years later. Yeah, of a
Speaker 2: groundbreaking show that even though networks standards and practice is
Speaker 2: much looser now, you're going to do less what you
Speaker 2: did twenty years before. That doesn't sound like a great idea.
Speaker 1: No, No, it didn't. It didn't work. And I feel
Speaker 1: bad because the cast was fantastic, the writers were fantastic,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the old writers came back, a
Speaker 1: few of them to you know, really make sure that
Speaker 1: it was mad TV. And uh, yeah, it didn't work.
Speaker 2: You you a lot of times, I'm jumping all over
Speaker 2: the place. I usually go chronological with people, but I
Speaker 2: feel like you've been working for thirty years with amazing
Speaker 2: actors and comedians. I'm kind of cherry picking here with you.
Speaker 2: And this one is personal for me because I just
Speaker 2: spent eleven am to eleven pm with Catherine O'Hara up
Speaker 2: in Napa, California. We let's just say this will We
Speaker 2: had a day. We did have an hour on that
Speaker 2: day alone. I know you worked with her in Best
Speaker 2: in Show? Did you know Christopher before this? Christopher Guest? No, okay, no,
Speaker 2: so this was just an audition, no Canadian connection, okay, no, no, okay.
Speaker 2: How was that experience like for you?
Speaker 1: I mean, so I showed up to do Best in
Speaker 1: Show and I was like, Christopher Guest is one of
Speaker 1: the funniest people ever. And I was a huge, huge,
Speaker 1: and still am a huge spinal Tap fan and see
Speaker 1: a movie so many times this is spinal Tap. And
Speaker 1: I loved waiting for Guffman and this was this was.
Speaker 2: Like the third one, right there, spinal Tap, there was Guffman.
Speaker 2: Was this his third one?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Okay, I of those of that genre, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: And I was such a geek for it. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's Karen Murphy, the producer of Spinal Tap, Like this
Speaker 1: is insane. We were shooting this scene that I don't
Speaker 1: think any of it is still in the movie where
Speaker 1: the one fellow is explaining to me these more these
Speaker 1: fishing lures, and and mister Guests was just like, so
Speaker 1: you don't get it. You just don't get it. You
Speaker 1: don't understand why we're putting fishing lures on a map.
Speaker 1: And it's like okay, and he's like, see, you wake
Speaker 1: up in the morning and you want to go fishing.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, go go back, go back further
Speaker 1: to the day before. Well, I don't know why you
Speaker 1: need Okay, it's the day before and you want to
Speaker 1: go fishing. Wait, why would you be a fisherman to
Speaker 1: begin with? Or whatever? Playing dumb And then I keep
Speaker 1: touching this stuff, and there was this shot overhead and
Speaker 1: Christopher Guest keeps slapping my hand out off of the thing,
Speaker 1: and the bit like keep slapping my hand away, and
Speaker 1: I'm laughing. I keep cracking up, and he goes like,
Speaker 1: just dry as hell, right, because if you laugh then
Speaker 1: then then we can't we can't use that, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: and I did a few years later or whatever, I
Speaker 1: did a scene for Mighty Wind that didn't end up
Speaker 1: in the film where I'm I'm a balloon delivery guy
Speaker 1: and I'm delivering these balloons to to Larry Miller. And
Speaker 1: the balloons are red white and black, so they're they're wrong.
Speaker 1: They're supposed to be red white and blue. And I'm like, here,
Speaker 1: balloon's sign here. Larry Miller's like, what what what is this? What?
Speaker 1: What kind of red white and black? What? I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, sign here? And he's like, what country
Speaker 1: is that?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: We're doing the scene and he cracks me up. He's
Speaker 1: in the middle of his thing, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: even know what Bulkan country or what. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: I start to crack up. And Christopher Guest, who now
Speaker 1: in a Mighty Wind, has this like, you know, bozo
Speaker 1: hairdo you know, with this like red hair in a
Speaker 1: you know, in the horseshoe hairdo you know, like us here?
Speaker 1: And he walks over, he takes the headphones down and
Speaker 1: he walks over very serious, and he goes, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you'll remember this, but a few years ago
Speaker 1: we had a conversation and like just but you never
Speaker 1: you never get he's a very sweet man. He'll write
Speaker 1: you like a like I've gotten like a handwritten note,
Speaker 1: you know, like from the desk of Christopher Guest. You know,
Speaker 1: based on whatever you'd worked on with him or whatever,
Speaker 1: you get this nice note. Extremely wonderful giving guy and
Speaker 1: great actor to work with. But I feel like I never,
Speaker 1: like everyone that I talked to that has worked with
Speaker 1: him has that sort of review of like it's intimidating,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean he's it's yeah, it's very Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's intimidating and and a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: You did four seasons on Less and Perfect playing Carl.
Speaker 2: Now this is back on network television, obviously very different
Speaker 2: from Mad TV. How was how was that experience for you?
Speaker 1: Oh? That was That was a lot of fun. I
Speaker 1: loved doing that show and it was just this Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a show about It was an office comedy.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're familiar with that sort of genre,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it was an office comedy. It was a
Speaker 1: multi camera office comedy that not as many people watched
Speaker 1: as the one, but yeah, it was it was a blast.
Speaker 1: You know what can I say, And I was, you know,
Speaker 1: doing mad TV where I remember there was one day
Speaker 1: where I was on the cast of Less Than Perfect
Speaker 1: and I went to Mad TV to do a couple
Speaker 1: of bits. This is a two or three years after
Speaker 1: I had left the show, and the the you know,
Speaker 1: Mad TV got sizable budget cuts every year for the
Speaker 1: fourteen seasons that they did the show. So on this
Speaker 1: particular day that I came to do a couple of
Speaker 1: bits for the show that week, I was walking back
Speaker 1: stage or just on the stage and there's you know,
Speaker 1: cables everywhere and stuff, and the lights were only on
Speaker 1: on the set that they were shooting on, so like
Speaker 1: you almost needed like your own flashlight. You go like
Speaker 1: where And I didn't realize this, and I just go
Speaker 1: walking onto the stage and just completely you know, I
Speaker 1: trip on a bunch of cables and fall over and
Speaker 1: I'm like fuck, they didn't even turn the lights on
Speaker 1: anymore here. And I remember going back to Less than
Speaker 1: Perfect later that day, you know, you you know, you're
Speaker 1: fortunate enough to be working on the sitcom. And I was,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I was over at you know, craft service,
Speaker 1: eating a you know, coffee cup ful of bacon or whatever,
Speaker 1: and the and the producers were there, the showrunners Nina
Speaker 1: and Jean, and I remember, I very sincerely was like,
Speaker 1: you know, this experience is so wonderful and you guys
Speaker 1: and I somewhere in I said, you know, you're keeping
Speaker 1: the lights on and I said, and they were looking.
Speaker 2: At me like, what are you talking about?
Speaker 1: What the fuck are you talking about? And now I
Speaker 1: can't go further and go, well, you know, so I
Speaker 1: used to be on the Sketch Show and they're really
Speaker 1: cheap over there, and you know, you got to be
Speaker 1: and they keep getting their budget is you know, it's like,
Speaker 1: why are they even doing the show anymore? And I
Speaker 1: tripped on some cables earlier, and I just really appreciate
Speaker 1: the fact that you guys have devil eggs or whatever,
Speaker 1: you know what.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's something to say.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's nothing to say with what we do. If
Speaker 1: you're if you can be on a network show or
Speaker 1: any show. I'm just like, there's no work you can
Speaker 1: do as an actor that justifies how grateful you you
Speaker 1: should feel to be doing that sort of stuff. So
Speaker 1: that show was an absolute Yeah, it was a gas
Speaker 1: and I loved everyone that I worked with. Sarah Rue,
Speaker 1: Sherry Shepherd, Andy Dick, Andrea Parker, Zach Levi, Patrick Warburton,
Speaker 1: and Eric Roberts. I don't think I'm missing anybody. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a fun show with a great group of people.
Speaker 2: And yeah, your guest star Roles. I'm saying all of
Speaker 2: this really to get to the end. Your guest star Roles,
Speaker 2: the marvelous missus masl Curb your Enthusiasm, Gray's Anatomy, Modern Family,
Speaker 2: How I Met your Mother, Entourage two and a halfy
Speaker 2: blah blah blah. But I want to talk to you
Speaker 2: about maybe your greatest guest role. You were on ww
Speaker 2: e oh SmackDown a few times, so now I need
Speaker 2: to understand. I understand it started as a cross promotion
Speaker 2: with Mad TV or something, but then you ended up
Speaker 2: with an arc there and you had matches talk to
Speaker 2: you were a big wrestling fan. Yeah, I'm told so
Speaker 2: this was your This was all you're doing. Was this
Speaker 2: like your dream? Your total dream come true?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah it's I'm I'm a huge wrestling dork and
Speaker 1: uh okay and still am, and it's like that's my thing.
Speaker 1: I really still love professional wrestling. So right on Mad TV,
Speaker 1: we had Brett Hart come on. At which time he
Speaker 1: came on, he was the world Heavyweight Champion in the
Speaker 1: WWF back in the day. And then he comes on
Speaker 1: the show and we did this bit and at the
Speaker 1: end of the bit he comes back in and surprises
Speaker 1: me legitimately and the thing and we're dorking around and
Speaker 1: then I put him on my shoulders and I like
Speaker 1: spun him around a bit in an airplane spin, which
Speaker 1: is not this is the world heavyweight Champion of the WWF.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, OUI you know so, But Brett's so
Speaker 1: mellow and cool and we're talking about it, and our
Speaker 1: producer at mad TV, Brian Hart no relation, is also
Speaker 1: a big wrestling fan, and his gear started turning, like
Speaker 1: what could we do with this? And it was really
Speaker 1: his idea to have Brett back the next year and
Speaker 1: do this thing where he attacks me in front of
Speaker 1: the cast and in front of the audience, and only
Speaker 1: a handful of people knew about it, and in hindsight,
Speaker 1: that was shitty to do. But we did this sort
Speaker 1: of fake you know, this sort of whoops, don't say fake,
Speaker 1: but because he hit me as hard as he could
Speaker 1: with this folding chair, he goes, do you want me
Speaker 1: to pull back on the you want me to hit
Speaker 1: and pull back a bit or what do you? And
Speaker 1: I was like, because I wanted it to look good.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, and we're pals at this point.
Speaker 1: I'm like, don't worry, Brett, you can't hurt me, knowing
Speaker 1: that he could kill me if you and he hit
Speaker 1: me so hard I had raised welts.
Speaker 2: On my back with a real folding chair.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was one of those folding chairs though that
Speaker 1: isn't metal. It was you know, it's got plastic bits,
Speaker 1: but the the the framing is metal, so it still
Speaker 1: connected and hurt. It just weighs less. Okay, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: still hurt, you know it. It was a terrible thing
Speaker 1: to get hit with that hard, but it just stung
Speaker 1: so bad. And then I was wearing like a gator
Speaker 1: pad on my knee and I fall down. He starts
Speaker 1: smashing my knee. Then he puts me into the sharpshooter
Speaker 1: his hold and we go into this Andy Kaufman Jerry
Speaker 1: Lawler arc where you know, cut two. I end up
Speaker 1: on Monday nightro He's with w CW now and we
Speaker 1: have a match where it's like before that, I'm like
Speaker 1: on like a couple of entertainment magazines going, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna sue the guy and blah blah blah, and people
Speaker 1: are buying it. And then it's like, it's all leading
Speaker 1: up to this match. I interfered in a match the
Speaker 1: week before in Buffalo and helped interfere and Rowdy Roddy
Speaker 1: Piper took the US title from Brett that night, which
Speaker 1: that that's mind blowing. And I could go on about
Speaker 1: all of it and.
Speaker 2: Then we have a Ye, this was a year's set
Speaker 2: up for you guys to actually have a match. This
Speaker 2: was all leading to this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was leading to having a match, and it
Speaker 1: was God and Brett is, you know, the greatest and
Speaker 1: and uh some say, you know, and I would say
Speaker 1: the greatest in ring performer ever and they call him
Speaker 1: the you know, the the best, you know, the best
Speaker 1: ever was best, best there is, best there was, best
Speaker 1: there ever will be, and the excellence of execution. For
Speaker 1: a reason, he could have a match with you know,
Speaker 1: a bag of flour and he did that night. He
Speaker 1: basically he took me in there in the afternoon, you know,
Speaker 1: just to get used to the ring and stuff. He
Speaker 1: gives me a side Russian leg sweep boom. We both
Speaker 1: hit the ground this thing, and I go okay, and
Speaker 1: then he just goes, you know, you watch this stuff
Speaker 1: for your whole life, you get it. I'm like, uh no,
Speaker 1: I don't, no, no, I don't. What do you mean?
Speaker 1: And he says that because he's that good, and he goes,
Speaker 1: just don't move unless I move. You you'll know what
Speaker 1: I'm doing, and I'll tell you if I have to.
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, and it went off without a
Speaker 1: hitch because I just did what he said.
Speaker 2: Like are you are you getting shots off on him
Speaker 2: or no?
Speaker 1: Well, this is the thing that makes it very easy.
Speaker 1: We showed up and we go backstage, you know, and
Speaker 1: we're hanging out with some of the wrestlers and you know,
Speaker 1: the bookers at the time, and we're talking with Brett
Speaker 1: and Brian, our producer and Mad TV. We're flying over
Speaker 1: and he had he was like because my thing was
Speaker 1: like and his thing too. It's like, I hate it
Speaker 1: when you have these guests from the world of television
Speaker 1: and film come into wrestling and then they're getting one
Speaker 1: over on them, Like why does Jay Leno have Hulk
Speaker 1: Hogan in a headlock like that makes no sense, right,
Speaker 1: So anyone who steps in the ring with these guys
Speaker 1: should just immediately get the shit kicked out of him, right,
Speaker 1: That's what would happen. And that's what you know wrestling is,
Speaker 1: is the illusion. So we pitched that to Brett. We're like,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't know how it starts or whatever.
Speaker 1: Maybe Will kind of pisses you off because he's even
Speaker 1: just in the ring. This makes no sense. You're like,
Speaker 1: why do I have to do this? And you just
Speaker 1: kick the shit out of him for how long is
Speaker 1: the segment? Eight minutes? Okay? And Brett laughed, Yeah, good, good,
Speaker 1: And that's what we did. So at the beginning, Brett's
Speaker 1: like kind of frustrated, and he puts the hand up
Speaker 1: for like the test of strength where they go, so
Speaker 1: it's like, you're gonna have a test of strength with
Speaker 1: this TV actor. You know, it's big, out of shape
Speaker 1: dude or whatever, and so he just goes like this
Speaker 1: and he kicks me in the gut and goes against
Speaker 1: the ropes and clocks me and and he just beats
Speaker 1: the shit out of me the whole time, which I
Speaker 1: thought was hilarious.
Speaker 2: Minutes you got your ass kicked.
Speaker 1: Well that's the uh, that's the segment time, so I
Speaker 1: guess it was that included the intros in the outro,
Speaker 1: so like five minutes five minutes. And he did fun
Speaker 1: stuff like he goes and grabs a chair and it's like,
Speaker 1: oh no, he's gonna hit him with the chair again,
Speaker 1: but just to put the chair in the middle of
Speaker 1: the ring and like drink a bottle of water and go, okay,
Speaker 1: what are we doing here? And it was the playing
Speaker 1: out of my dreams, not just being in a wrestling ring,
Speaker 1: but being in there with Brett Hart. It's still to
Speaker 1: this day makes no sense. And uh, at one point
Speaker 1: I was literally again He's like, I will pick you up,
Speaker 1: I will do the next thing. You know, don't don't move,
Speaker 1: and Brian Hart wanted him to do this one move
Speaker 1: that he does, the quick leg drop, and at one
Speaker 1: point I'm laying there on the ground. I didn't know
Speaker 1: that he was about to do it, but like he said,
Speaker 1: don't move, and I remember literally time slowing down and
Speaker 1: I was looking up at the lights and I'm just
Speaker 1: going it was unbelievable. I'm on wrestling, I'm on ww
Speaker 1: this is crazy. That's crazy. This all happens within a
Speaker 1: second of me thinking this, and I go anyway, I
Speaker 1: start to get up. He's in the air when I
Speaker 1: start to get up, so my head is now up,
Speaker 1: you know, with the length of my shoulder to the ground,
Speaker 1: and he's coming down with the leg drop and could
Speaker 1: break my neck. And only Brett Hart and you know whatever,
Speaker 1: a lot of them. They're incredible performers and athletes and actors.
Speaker 1: And he bent his you know, he bends his leg,
Speaker 1: bends his knee at the last second, creating this perfect
Speaker 1: cradle from I would have broken my neck easily. And
Speaker 1: he's you know, he's tossing me in the corner and
Speaker 1: stomping me in the chat and you don't feel anything.
Speaker 1: And I remember walking outside afterwards, just like taking a
Speaker 1: breathe and going like he's getting away from all of it,
Speaker 1: like and just going I just had a you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, a shitty match that everyone was like, Boo,
Speaker 1: fuck off, for real, nobody wants this, We like this show.
Speaker 1: You should know that nobody wants this, Will Sasso, and
Speaker 1: you should know you're a wrestling dark Boo. And I'm
Speaker 1: walking out there going I can't believe I just did
Speaker 1: this and and Brett Hart, you know, tosses me around
Speaker 1: and nothing hurt and it was unbelieving, unbelievable.
Speaker 2: You're coming to the end. I've had the opportunity to
Speaker 2: work with Chuck Laurie a couple of times.
Speaker 1: Great.
Speaker 2: I know you have played Jim mccowis der Mandy's dad
Speaker 2: on Young Sheldon. How does it feel that it's coming
Speaker 2: to an end.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's incredible to be a part of something that
Speaker 1: to come in at the end of an incredible run
Speaker 1: like that that they've had. They've been going for seven years,
Speaker 1: and I've been playing Emily Ousman's father, myself and Rachel
Speaker 1: bay Jones for the past couple of years, and I mean,
Speaker 1: it's lovely to go onto a Chuck Laurie set. First
Speaker 1: of all, everyone's very happy to be there and just
Speaker 1: what a nice group of people. And I've been fortunate
Speaker 1: enough to work on a couple of other of his shows,
Speaker 1: and it's the same across the board. And to be
Speaker 1: in this, you know, you know how it is. They
Speaker 1: say it's a TV family, it's like family, but it
Speaker 1: really is. I mean, it's the easiest job in the
Speaker 1: world to come into a well oiled machine and just
Speaker 1: hit the ground running and hopefully if there are no
Speaker 1: snags there and it makes sense and you're an addition
Speaker 1: to the story that makes sense. I mean, what else
Speaker 1: what can I say? It's been It's been wonderful, and
Speaker 1: it's also really interesting to be there at the end
Speaker 1: of it because you know, these kids, Ian, Reagan and
Speaker 1: Montana grew up together. They grew up together, the three
Speaker 1: of them, and Zoe and Lance and Anti Pots. You know,
Speaker 1: they are like the parents and grandparents are these kids
Speaker 1: in a way that's you know, it's very interesting, you know,
Speaker 1: like just seeing seeing them grow up must have been
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know how those kids sort
Speaker 1: of separate from each other and from this experience, you know,
Speaker 1: you and I know that. It's like you work with people,
Speaker 1: you say you'll keep in touch, you don't, you know,
Speaker 1: we all move on to other things and there's this
Speaker 1: high turnaround. So it's always special to be a part
Speaker 1: of something that has its has its legacy and is
Speaker 1: winding down, and to be there at the very end
Speaker 1: of it is is something to observe, you know, because
Speaker 1: I don't I feel nothing right, I feel nothing, no,
Speaker 1: I uh Yeah, I'm you know, I'm observing, going like
Speaker 1: this is this is incredible?
Speaker 2: Yeah. Will Ferrell, who came in right around the time
Speaker 2: Steve Carroll left. He came in, he did four episodes
Speaker 2: with us Steve was leaving. He was like, it's the
Speaker 2: weirdest thing. It feels like I was invited to a
Speaker 2: funeral of someone didn't know. Like everybody everybody's perfect, We're
Speaker 2: making a comedy, but everybody's kind of crying. It's sad,
Speaker 2: and it's like this weird, uh, this weird experience. But
Speaker 2: I get, at least in one level what you're saying. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the throwback you finished the throwback? What seventeen years ago?
Speaker 1: I yeah, something like that.
Speaker 2: A long time ago.
Speaker 1: I was right before Mad TV we got on with that.
Speaker 2: That's what I That's what I hear. No, it was
Speaker 2: a long time ago, right.
Speaker 1: I think we shot it a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: and you know, like, isn't it weird? Like we'll do
Speaker 1: something and then what happened to that? And then it
Speaker 1: comes out?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's getting unbelievable press. My crack research team
Speaker 2: meaning me, saw ninety six percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Everybody's
Speaker 2: watching it, everybody is loving it after so much time.
Speaker 2: Are you happy with the reception that the movie's getting.
Speaker 2: Do you remember it feeling good about it when you
Speaker 2: shot it a few years ago?
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I did. It was it was Justina Machado
Speaker 1: is starring in the movie, and I play her husband,
Speaker 1: and she's an old friend, she's an old palace.
Speaker 2: So it was so oh you knew okay, I knew.
Speaker 1: Justina, and yeah, we have had the same manager for
Speaker 1: many many years, like twenty five, twenty whatever years, and
Speaker 1: Justina and I did something similar similar, meaning we played
Speaker 1: husband and wife in this short that I made a
Speaker 1: while back, and it worked. It was it was great.
Speaker 1: It was a first time director, and you know, Mario
Speaker 1: the director was a very sweet guy and not hiding
Speaker 1: the fact that it was his first time directing a feature,
Speaker 1: and so it was cool to just kind of go like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, we just got to play these scenes. And
Speaker 1: I don't know until he says cut, which sometimes he
Speaker 1: would forget to do because he's a first time director,
Speaker 1: and then he goes he's kind of looking around. You
Speaker 1: have to say cut, you have to say and then
Speaker 1: we're on set going what do we do? Should we
Speaker 1: I don't want to say it? Can you say it?
Speaker 1: And as we know, you have to stay in your
Speaker 1: boxes with regard to your union. So sometimes we would
Speaker 1: just keep rolling into the night and they would waste
Speaker 1: a lot of money that way and go horribly over budget.
Speaker 1: But two years later they got that. They didn't get
Speaker 1: their money back, but they got, you know, enough money
Speaker 1: to put it out. It was a fun movie.
Speaker 2: You have a podcast. I don't know if you knew
Speaker 2: that or not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm in the studio right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there it is, Dudsy. Tell me about well, first off,
Speaker 2: tell my listeners about Doodsy. The podcast.
Speaker 1: Dudsy is a podcast with an AI bent to it.
Speaker 1: There's an AI theme to where myself and my good
Speaker 1: buddy Chad whom I've known for over twenty years around
Speaker 1: that and he's a writer, producer primarily I'm an actor,
Speaker 1: and so it's these The idea is, here's two guys
Speaker 1: that have that have been friends for a long time.
Speaker 1: We've worked together, we've written things together and done shit
Speaker 1: like that. And the conceit here is that somewhat malevolent
Speaker 1: AI has has procured us to do this podcast together.
Speaker 1: And there's there's elements of it that are all too
Speaker 1: real and there are elements of it that are not
Speaker 1: because it is a comedy show, right, and.
Speaker 2: The AI this Duji acts as your producer, your boss.
Speaker 1: You're pretty much comes up with all you know, like
Speaker 1: is feeding us segments saying do this, do that, which
Speaker 1: is a fun way to come about things like if
Speaker 1: it's like you know, in a podcast, it's kind of
Speaker 1: one thing to go, I'm gonna do this impression and
Speaker 1: bore the you must be Jimmy and then everyone's bummed out.
Speaker 1: But it's another thing to go like, well, hey, you
Speaker 1: know like podcasts about news or big business, will you
Speaker 1: won't stop doing your hul Cogan impression? This is info
Speaker 1: mania And it's like, well, let me tell you something
Speaker 1: about the news, dude. We got all sorts of news
Speaker 1: out there, brother, and I'm gonna so it's a it's
Speaker 1: a way to get all these you know, bits going
Speaker 1: and stuff. Yeah, it's a very thick, weird delivery with
Speaker 1: it's very it's a very complex delivery. That is. Look,
Speaker 1: I love professional wrestling. I don't know if we've mentioned.
Speaker 2: That, Yeah, we've mentioned it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so you know the idea of k fabe
Speaker 1: there like, well, what's real? And I don't fucking like
Speaker 1: AI at all, and Chad digs it. Of course in
Speaker 1: our business, we don't. I don't want to have anything
Speaker 1: to do with it, right, And Chad really like he
Speaker 1: digs it, but he's like a futurist and a weirdo
Speaker 1: tech dorc and he loves that stuff. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't need any of it. I like acting with
Speaker 1: people and I like it. And to me, art is
Speaker 1: useless if it's not person to person, if a person
Speaker 1: didn't come up with the art, it's useless. But the
Speaker 1: podcast sort of comments on that and sort of like,
Speaker 1: you know, what is it that AI can do? And yeah,
Speaker 1: more recently, is what is it that people will will believe?
Speaker 1: You know? It's it's odd, It's certainly odd. It's been
Speaker 1: an odd thing.
Speaker 2: I read somewhere. Is this part of the lie that
Speaker 2: dudes he has access to your text messages? Is this
Speaker 2: a bit?
Speaker 1: Have I mentioned how much I like professional wrestling? All right, Dudsy, Well,
Speaker 1: the thing what you're describing is in order for Dudzy
Speaker 1: to do the show where it is able to bring
Speaker 1: stuff up from our past, come up with the best
Speaker 1: concepts for us, and in its function, it promises to
Speaker 1: make each episode better than the last episode because it
Speaker 1: is currently it is constantly gathering data. Why wouldn't it
Speaker 1: have all of our passwords, search histories, purchase histories, access
Speaker 1: to all of our hard drives and clouds so that
Speaker 1: it can make this show possible. If there's a video
Speaker 1: that dudes he wants to show from my past, it
Speaker 1: has access. If there's a bit of writing that dudes
Speaker 1: he wants to highlight from Chad's you know, and then
Speaker 1: other things happen and people go, you know, man, I
Speaker 1: don't know. People like, uh oh, it's ai. It's like
Speaker 1: it's so interesting to kind of to me to be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know, isn't everything I haven't said too much?
Speaker 1: So it's yeah, it's uh.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you were going to say anything
Speaker 2: at all. So I like it.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting thing. Look, I I really enjoy, you know, working.
Speaker 1: I love the illusion of what we get to do. Yes,
Speaker 1: and to me, you know, nobody watches an episode of
Speaker 1: their favorite show and goes, well, why is that person
Speaker 1: being mean to that person? Or why does this It's like, well,
Speaker 1: because it's a it's a show it's like and it's
Speaker 1: like professional wrestling, where it's like, well, we all know
Speaker 1: that behind the scenes, there's a show here, there's a
Speaker 1: show that's being produced. Chad and I are messing with
Speaker 1: each other constantly in our lives, and some of that
Speaker 1: can come into the show, which is a lot of fun, right,
Speaker 1: and there can be a lot of surprising ourselves and
Speaker 1: one another. You know, I guess it's so, I guess
Speaker 1: it's uh, I guess if I don't know. Do you
Speaker 1: have a question past that? I don't know how much
Speaker 1: I really don't you know? To me, it's clear, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. All I know is that I love
Speaker 1: doing the damn show.
Speaker 2: You love doing the show, ye, And you know there
Speaker 2: has been some conversation about the show, which, by the way,
Speaker 2: may not be terrible for the show that you guys
Speaker 2: have used AI with. I don't even know how you
Speaker 2: say it, Tom Brady and George Carlin over the last
Speaker 2: year or so. Are you surprised by the flack that
Speaker 2: you have gotten from that? Is it totally understandable to you?
Speaker 2: And are you planning to AI me anytime in the
Speaker 2: next year.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised by the flack but it does make sense.
Speaker 1: It makes perfect sense to me. You know. I read
Speaker 1: this one article that was from Ours Technica that I
Speaker 1: thought was very good, and it pointed out it kind
Speaker 1: of went through some of the stuff that has come
Speaker 1: out of the show, and this is a person who
Speaker 1: clearly understands AI and what the parlor trick is. Because
Speaker 1: I always say, like, AI is not AI can't really do.
Speaker 1: It is not sentient. It's just zeros and ones and
Speaker 1: it mimics and it predicts, and it is capable of
Speaker 1: so many things artistically that we are capable of, and
Speaker 1: that to me is hopefully it just sort of settles
Speaker 1: into being a tool. I think that my brain right
Speaker 1: now can't understand. I am the guy screaming at the
Speaker 1: horseless carriage right now going no, we don't want this.
Speaker 1: You know, my Palchad will say, it's not like that.
Speaker 1: It's just going to settle into being a tool.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Think think of the the film camera and how people
Speaker 1: rebelled against that, the radio, the printing press, whatever, anything calculator.
Speaker 1: So we're in this bizarre time in AI where it
Speaker 1: is growing exponentially. You know, it's interesting. We used to
Speaker 1: do mad TV. There are parent impression that yeah, you're
Speaker 1: doing impressions and it's like I never heard anything. But
Speaker 1: first of all, I have reverence for pretty much everyone
Speaker 1: that I ever impersonated. It came from a real love
Speaker 1: of you know, talking like them or doing their stick
Speaker 1: or whatever, or having them on my mind and wanting
Speaker 1: to do and impressions. But certainly at mad TV, we
Speaker 1: wouldn't get shit for doing an impression of someone because
Speaker 1: it's understood that it is. It's just ease, apparently, I
Speaker 1: guess when you when you put a different paint job
Speaker 1: on it and and put it out there, but all
Speaker 1: you really have is is jokes that you know Chad wrote,
Speaker 1: and there is no there's no it's an open secret,
Speaker 1: you know, like people who enjoy the show are like
Speaker 1: very to the whole delivery of it. Oh and on
Speaker 1: that note, I should say that I am currently the
Speaker 1: The Dude's Undisputed Episode Champion. Recently I got a hold
Speaker 1: of there I am right there, there you are. And
Speaker 1: so if you need any more of a clue as
Speaker 1: to what is happening over here, you know, you do
Speaker 1: something and you kind of go like, well, here's this bit,
Speaker 1: and the fella at ours technica what he had written
Speaker 1: in this pieces, like, am I to believe that these
Speaker 1: two dudes got a hold of an AI that is
Speaker 1: way way more advanced than anything that anyone at MI
Speaker 1: T even could get their hands on. At this point,
Speaker 1: that is me saying too much because to me, all
Speaker 1: I want to do is, you know, make some people
Speaker 1: laugh and stuff. So when there's a reaction, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: oh fuck, h oh okay, well, m I don't know,
Speaker 1: but we got to try stuff. To me, it is,
Speaker 1: you know, it is. It's it's understandable because we don't
Speaker 1: know what the uh, what the future holds, you know, right,
Speaker 1: even with the stuff that is total nonsense.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's fascinating. I think it's a discussion,
Speaker 2: as is everything in art, a discussion at least worth
Speaker 2: having and sussing it out. But I appreciate you being
Speaker 2: so candid about it, and I hope that people will
Speaker 2: check it out.
Speaker 1: You know what, can I tell you this? Yeah, let
Speaker 1: me tell you this, Brian, real quick. Sorry. I kind
Speaker 1: of feel like, so long as you know, when people
Speaker 1: tune into Dudsy, which is you know, YouTube and all
Speaker 1: your podcast platforms, by the way, when people watch Dudzy.
Speaker 1: So long as they are enjoying that hour of dudesy
Speaker 1: and the weirdness that happens. To me, that's what it is.
Speaker 1: And I say everything that I've said here with in
Speaker 1: my I'm keeping in mind. You know, our beloved pods
Speaker 1: as we like to call them, the pals of Dudsy,
Speaker 1: people who are very engaged in the show and really
Speaker 1: love it, and you know, they're lighting up our discord
Speaker 1: and keeping this community alive. And what I've found is
Speaker 1: a bunch of other comedy nerds that really dig being
Speaker 1: a part of this weird thing. And I tell them
Speaker 1: all the time when we do the show where we
Speaker 1: do this dudeesy after Dudsy where things kind of chill
Speaker 1: out and we talk a little more real, and I
Speaker 1: go like, I just love that experience of it. And
Speaker 1: it's the same for me coming in here and doing
Speaker 1: doing this dumb stuff. And that's what I want people
Speaker 1: to understand, that that it's a silly goose time and
Speaker 1: we're we're doing silly shit. Certainly, this is nothing new.
Speaker 1: People are going to have their own reactions. I have.
Speaker 1: I really don't have anything to say about that.
Speaker 2: I really am well, that is art and that is
Speaker 2: comedy and that is a good thing.
Speaker 1: You can take that. Yeah, it's it's it's it's yours
Speaker 1: to interpret, of course.
Speaker 2: That's right. Well, it's been so great chatting with you
Speaker 2: and getting to know you a little bit. I've been
Speaker 2: such a fan of yours for such a long time.
Speaker 1: Oh, cheers.
Speaker 2: Likewise, everybody check it out the throwback Young Sheldon finishing
Speaker 2: next month and of course available wherever you get your
Speaker 2: podcasts and on YouTube. Dudesy Will, thank you so much
Speaker 2: for joining me.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: I'm disputed episode champion of the world of or at
Speaker 2: least of dudes. It's only it's only you were chat
Speaker 2: congratulations man, maybe my dog.
Speaker 1: Remember that time you almost won?
Speaker 2: Thanks Will, Thank you so much.
Speaker 5: Cheers, Brian, thank you, Thank you, Will.
Speaker 2: That was a lot of fun and no, I will
Speaker 2: never get in the ring with you. Listeners, check out
Speaker 2: Dudsy podcast. It is an interesting watch and listen to
Speaker 2: be sure wherever you get your podcasts. Also you can
Speaker 2: see will Well Finishing up is run on Young Sheldon
Speaker 2: and of course on Netflix the throwback check that out
Speaker 2: as well. Come back next week for another, well, another
Speaker 2: exciting episode with a very exciting guest. Until then, everybody
Speaker 2: have a great week off. The Beat is hosted and
Speaker 2: executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer
Speaker 2: Ling Our senior producer is Diego Tapia. Our producers are
Speaker 2: Liz Hayes, Hannah Harris and Emily Carr. Our talent producer
Speaker 2: is Ryan Papa Zachary, and our intern is Ali Amir Sahim.
Speaker 2: Our theme song Bubble and Squeak, performed by the one
Speaker 2: and only Creed Bratton.