Speaker 1: Yeah, I have a sourdough lady. Right, I have a
Speaker 1: new sourdough lady. Will you're gonna You're gonna freak out.
Speaker 2: People are jelly on sour dough or just white bread.
Speaker 1: Well, I yesterday just had white bread. I was in
Speaker 1: a real rush. Also, it's so the okay.
Speaker 3: Is the lady made of sour dough. I have so
Speaker 3: many things. I have so many questions.
Speaker 1: I have a sour.
Speaker 3: You take a little piece of her finger and you
Speaker 3: can make a piece of bread. Like, what is a
Speaker 3: sour dough lady?
Speaker 4: What is that?
Speaker 1: She's a woman who makes sour dough and it's divine.
Speaker 1: She has a couple of different flavors I to start with,
Speaker 1: or a loaf of hot honey, which is got spicy
Speaker 1: and honey in the sour dough loaf, and then also
Speaker 1: just a plain sourdough loaf. And then she also makes
Speaker 1: English muffins. Oh, so I ordered Cranny, a nook and Granny.
Speaker 1: I ordered a hot honey, a sour dough and some
Speaker 1: English muffins. Every single morning I open my eyeballs and
Speaker 1: the first thing I think is I can't wait to
Speaker 1: go down and eat some bread.
Speaker 3: So I mean, when you say you have does she
Speaker 3: give me the starter? Does she deliver it to your house?
Speaker 1: How does this order it? Via my phone? I send
Speaker 1: her a text. They go, Hi, I'd like to place
Speaker 1: an order for.
Speaker 4: I'm a special person.
Speaker 3: Do you have to.
Speaker 1: Send you I'll tell you. I mean you have to
Speaker 1: live locally because she lives near us. She lives in
Speaker 1: the San Fernando Valley. She does, yeah, and then she
Speaker 1: delivers it on Friday to your door.
Speaker 4: Wow, how big business is getting?
Speaker 1: Well, it's a pretty new business. She's doing it from
Speaker 1: her house. She wakes up super early because she has
Speaker 1: like a bunch of loaves now she's making. And she
Speaker 1: doesn't have like a you know, huge kitchen. She has
Speaker 1: just a house kitchen.
Speaker 3: And it's is she called the sour Lady?
Speaker 1: No, I just call her that.
Speaker 4: She is a name.
Speaker 1: I'm sure.
Speaker 3: Well no, but we got to give her a business,
Speaker 3: a name of something.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you. I'll find it right now. Give me
Speaker 1: give me a second. But will you have to place
Speaker 1: an order? And I know that writer you know all
Speaker 1: about making sour dough. If you lived closer and would
Speaker 1: deliver it to my house on Friday, you have.
Speaker 3: A sour dough guy, what about what about need for bread?
Speaker 3: Her for bread?
Speaker 1: God? I love that so her her. The name of
Speaker 1: her bakery is fresh Start Bakery. She's on Instagram at
Speaker 1: fresh Start Bakery, Underscore at the end uh In Home
Speaker 1: micro micro bakery located in with the Hills. Poor pick
Speaker 1: up or local drop off available. Here's some things on
Speaker 1: her menu. Her sour dough is classic cheddar, hallapeno, roasted garlet,
Speaker 1: hot honey, parmesan, and black pepper English muffins, and then
Speaker 1: she also has pastries. I haven't think.
Speaker 3: Muffins are cool.
Speaker 2: That's that guy, you know, because a lot of people,
Speaker 2: like a lot of bread places have kind of sprung
Speaker 2: up in the last couple of years, but I haven't
Speaker 2: heard of like a good English muffin.
Speaker 1: That's a great Are not going to try to make
Speaker 1: your own English muffins now?
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't know what's involved.
Speaker 2: Just was inspired because we had friends come for the
Speaker 2: holidays and one of them brought his own loaf of
Speaker 2: sour dough.
Speaker 4: And I was like, oh my god, this.
Speaker 2: I haven't done it for years because my wife doesn't
Speaker 2: eat sourdough. My son now, I think he'll like sourdough,
Speaker 2: but like he used to not like sourdough, so I
Speaker 2: like bread and nobody would eat it but me so,
Speaker 2: But I.
Speaker 1: Think, why doesn't Alex like sourdough.
Speaker 5: Likes you know? My son in law introduced me to
Speaker 5: the joy of the cheddar holopeno bagel, which I'd always
Speaker 5: walked away from.
Speaker 3: It seemed like it was too much going on. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and he's like, just try.
Speaker 5: He's like, just try, right, but both acts are delicious.
Speaker 6: It's a thing too.
Speaker 1: It was so good.
Speaker 3: I want to try that. I want to try that.
Speaker 3: That that her holopen you. I want to try that
Speaker 3: woman's lapeno loaf.
Speaker 1: It's really good. This is not an ad. I pay
Speaker 1: for it directly. She's wonderful. I'm very excited about it
Speaker 1: in Woodland Hills. She's in Woodland Hills.
Speaker 3: She's an extra hand because I'd love to go. I've
Speaker 3: wanted to learn how to bake and do the pastry like.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't charge her. I'd just go and be her.
Speaker 1: Soushi does it early early in the morning, so you'd
Speaker 1: probably have to be to her house at five am.
Speaker 1: I don't know if she'd like to welcome you into
Speaker 1: her house to be honest, but ill sure, I'll make
Speaker 1: I'll ask, I'll ask.
Speaker 3: I'll find out this morning at five am when I
Speaker 3: just show her. Just gave her a bunch of business
Speaker 3: hopefully so she kind of makes.
Speaker 1: If you live local, that's where you should be getting your.
Speaker 3: I can't please send me that Please send me that
Speaker 3: link because.
Speaker 1: I want there's I know you guys will place an order.
Speaker 1: You can place your order today for Fridayso come over.
Speaker 2: I'll teach you how to make sour dough brea.
Speaker 3: I know. No, Sue makes good bread. She makes good bread.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, well.
Speaker 4: Okay, well then I'll see you.
Speaker 5: Well, no, she doesn't make sourdough because she doesn't have
Speaker 5: a starter over.
Speaker 1: That was the weirdest thing. Writer offered something that you
Speaker 1: were saying you wanted to do with someone else, and
Speaker 1: then you were like, no, no.
Speaker 5: I doesn't have a sourdough starter.
Speaker 3: Writer, Yeah, she doesn't have a friendship. What's okay?
Speaker 1: Never mind? Anyway, what does that mean? There's a new
Speaker 1: movie coming out called I think it's called Friendship, and
Speaker 1: it's about like a grown man Tim Robinson who becomes
Speaker 1: obsessed with his new friend Paul Rudd and it is, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a funny story about how it kind
Speaker 1: of ruins both their lives when Tim Robinson becomes obsessed
Speaker 1: with Paul Red and Tim Robins Tim Robbins, No, Tim Robinson.
Speaker 5: Robinson, Okay, yeah, Tim Robins. Tim Robbins is the guy
Speaker 5: who broke out of Shawshank right right.
Speaker 1: Correct, different persons there are. There are totally different people
Speaker 1: with those.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, but I did just.
Speaker 1: Want does that happen?
Speaker 3: Robin's the novelist.
Speaker 5: Tony Robbins who is the self help guy a lot
Speaker 5: of Robins. Yeah, Robin Gibbons, totally different.
Speaker 1: Just save rob or just.
Speaker 4: Got a pal? It's this ward a palal.
Speaker 1: Come on, come on, Welcome to Pod Meets Robin.
Speaker 5: I'm Danielle Fischel, I'm right strong, and I'm wil Fredell.
Speaker 6: T G.
Speaker 1: I f had a handful of iconic faces over the years,
Speaker 1: Cory Matthews, Uncle Jesse cousin, Balky, mister Cooper, the Aliens
Speaker 1: from Aliens in the family. And yet there was one things,
Speaker 1: a furry one that reigned supreme for many, many years.
Speaker 1: And it's hilarious that the man who voiced this iconic
Speaker 1: feline is known to a majority of the world as
Speaker 1: Salem Saberhagen, the talking cat from the long running hit
Speaker 1: TV show Sabrina the Teenage Witch, because his resume is
Speaker 1: not only wildly impressive outside of that show, at times
Speaker 1: it's unbelievable. A one time contributor to the National Lampoon magazine,
Speaker 1: he was a young writer on Sabrina who then somehow
Speaker 1: became one of its stars. But before that, he was
Speaker 1: a writer and guest star on the Iconic in Living Color,
Speaker 1: while one of his first ever acting jobs was Somehow Seinfeld.
Speaker 1: Then after Sabrina, the hits just somehow kept coming. The
Speaker 1: King of Queen's till Death, two and a half Men Mom,
Speaker 1: Young Sheldon, Paul Blart, and his newest creation Bookie on Max,
Speaker 1: and he somehow finds time to be a sports expert
Speaker 1: on ESPN. This guy sure has a lot of somehow's
Speaker 1: in his career, and today we want to find out how.
Speaker 1: Let's put a face to this renaissance man of Hollywood
Speaker 1: who voiced the rascal of a cat that forced us
Speaker 1: to time travel back to World War Two. This week
Speaker 1: guest is Salem the Cat himself. Nick Backay, Hi, how
Speaker 1: you doing I'm great.
Speaker 4: How are you.
Speaker 3: It's so good to see you.
Speaker 4: Good to see you too.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us. In addition to
Speaker 1: reuniting with our Normal Boy Meets World cast and Crewe,
Speaker 1: we have been very excited to catch up with other
Speaker 1: TGIF legends and it would certainly be hard to remember
Speaker 1: the programming block without your contribution. So thank you for
Speaker 1: being here with.
Speaker 4: Us, my pleasure.
Speaker 1: Let's first get into how you got started in writing comedy.
Speaker 1: I was hoping you could tell our listeners a little
Speaker 1: bit about the National Lampoon magazine, which you were a
Speaker 1: contributing editor and has produced some of the biggest names
Speaker 1: in the history of comedy. So how did that happen?
Speaker 6: Well, you know, I was a young actor in New
Speaker 6: York back in that era, and you know, really really
Speaker 6: scratching my way through life. And I knew a guy
Speaker 6: who worked there, and they used to see him at
Speaker 6: parties and he thought I was funny, and he used
Speaker 6: to always say to me, you should try writing for us.
Speaker 6: And I grew up reading that magazine. I'm the generation
Speaker 6: that graduated from Mad to the Lampoon, and I revered it.
Speaker 4: It wasn't exactly.
Speaker 6: In its heyday, you know, And I'd be stumbling back
Speaker 6: down Broadway at three in the morning and I'd look
Speaker 6: at it on the newsstand and it was always somebody
Speaker 6: with huge jugs on the cover, and I'd be thinking, an,
Speaker 6: you know, you're so stupid when you're young. You know,
Speaker 6: I'm waiting tables at Ernie's. But I'm like, I don't know,
Speaker 6: he's so stupid, you know, But you know, I got
Speaker 6: a callback for you know, the Actors Theater of Louisville.
Speaker 6: It's so stupid. So I finally said, what am I doing?
Speaker 6: And I went and you'd start there by writing fake
Speaker 6: letters to the editor, okay, And I started doing that,
Speaker 6: and it's the weird thing. It's like I started to
Speaker 6: realize the world may not need another twenty three year
Speaker 6: old actor like me, who wasn't quite as pretty as
Speaker 6: you guys at that point. But if you can write
Speaker 6: a joke, it's kind of like being a left handed pitcher.
Speaker 4: There's a need.
Speaker 6: So there was a stunning contrast, and within a very
Speaker 6: short amount of time I was a contributing editor. I
Speaker 6: met wonderful people. I got to write lots of really
Speaker 6: interesting stuff there, and that's what led me to write
Speaker 6: for TV because I got out of that with an interesting, strange,
Speaker 6: unique portfolio that caught the eye of people when they
Speaker 6: were starting what is now Comedy Central. And that's a
Speaker 6: whole different story, but it got me my first TV
Speaker 6: writing job, and and and then and it was you know,
Speaker 6: your life takes little pivot points, and you know, that's
Speaker 6: the point when I realized, I think I'm done with
Speaker 6: theater because it had never really been interested in me
Speaker 6: to begin with. But you know, I thought we had
Speaker 6: a relationship.
Speaker 4: It was over. That's interesting.
Speaker 2: So you actually started acting, went into writing, and then
Speaker 2: came back to acting.
Speaker 3: You were acting just enough to keep you in writing.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I've always said my acting career I was just
Speaker 6: good enough to have my heart broken.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 6: It's like writing is the only thing that's actually let
Speaker 6: me have a decent life, you know, But there's always
Speaker 6: been great acting stuff along the way.
Speaker 5: You mentioned that it led you into your first television
Speaker 5: writing gig, which was what was that.
Speaker 6: It was the original late night talk show on Comedy Central,
Speaker 6: which was then the Comedy Channel.
Speaker 4: It was with the.
Speaker 6: Alan Havy, who you may know from mad Men and
Speaker 6: a lot of cool things. But he's a great stand
Speaker 6: up comedian to this day. And we did a strip
Speaker 6: show five shows a week at late night. He was
Speaker 6: the host. I was the writer sidekick. We had a
Speaker 6: producer and a PA and we had to do five
Speaker 6: shows a week.
Speaker 4: Jeez.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was great. It was like doing TV in
Speaker 6: the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 4: It was great.
Speaker 6: We had a studio on twenty third Street in New
Speaker 6: York and it was sort of collegiate. Everybody there was
Speaker 6: young and cutting their teeth and there was no nobody
Speaker 6: was jaded. Everybody was so thrilled to be there. And
Speaker 6: I met my wife Robin there. I made friendships for
Speaker 6: life there. So it was wonderful.
Speaker 1: Who were your crew? Like, who were you coming up
Speaker 1: with around that time?
Speaker 6: Well, it's interesting at the channel at that time, interesting
Speaker 6: people were there, Like that's where John Stewart got it start.
Speaker 6: He hosted this show called Short Attention.
Speaker 3: Span Theater Theater, Yeah.
Speaker 6: Which was comedy clips. The Higgins Boys and Gruber who
Speaker 6: are still like Steve Higgins, who is you know, produced
Speaker 6: SNL for years and is the Jimmy's He's Jimmy. Steve
Speaker 6: is one of my best friends. He was my best
Speaker 6: man when Robin and I got married Dave Higgins. You
Speaker 6: know Eddie Gordetski, who's a writer of great renown. There's
Speaker 6: so many people. Scott Carter was the producer of my
Speaker 6: shows who went on to produce Politically Incorrect forever. It
Speaker 6: was a hotbed of complete unn owns, and many many
Speaker 6: people from there. I'm no, I'm forgetting tons of them
Speaker 6: went on to do very interesting things. But at that point,
Speaker 6: it was this little fledgling cable network, very poor distribution,
Speaker 6: but they were fighting to get it on and there
Speaker 6: was a rival one called HA and it's back when
Speaker 6: Viacom and Time Warner were at battle for the soul
Speaker 6: of cable TV.
Speaker 3: I got.
Speaker 5: I remember how it was the beta max of the
Speaker 5: TV channels.
Speaker 6: So we and they were just like, if you guys,
Speaker 6: don't burn down the studio, keep doing what you're doing.
Speaker 6: We're trying to convert cable operators in Nebraska, and I
Speaker 6: was alan sidekick, and I did a show called sports
Speaker 6: Monster there as well, and that's what cut Dennis Miller's eye.
Speaker 6: So when Dennis left SNL to do his original talk
Speaker 6: show in la he hired me to write on it
Speaker 6: and be his sidekick.
Speaker 4: And that's what got me to La Geez.
Speaker 5: Was that was the first one? The first show that
Speaker 5: Dennis Miller did. Was it the one where Robin Williams
Speaker 5: was his first guest? Was that the was that the
Speaker 5: first one?
Speaker 6: You know, I was there. I should remember. I know
Speaker 6: I met you briefly in Tampa. Yeah, I know, you
Speaker 6: remember things better about me.
Speaker 3: I do, I do, I'll do.
Speaker 4: I think it. I think it was Tom Hanks.
Speaker 5: Was second show then that that he had It were
Speaker 5: they pulled out.
Speaker 6: The heavyweights to try and get us jump started, and
Speaker 6: we lasted a little less than a year. It was
Speaker 6: interesting timing. We concurred with Johnny's retirement and then Leno
Speaker 6: came in and it was a hole. It was fascinating though.
Speaker 6: It was fascinating experience. Dennis was with Bernie Berlstein and
Speaker 6: Brad Gray and it was interesting. You know, I came
Speaker 6: in the deep end, but it was good. It's a good,
Speaker 6: good way to come to l A And I'm grateful
Speaker 6: to Dennis and Allan those guys hiring me and shifting
Speaker 6: me away from the pretensions of my youth really led
Speaker 6: me to who I am.
Speaker 4: That's amazing.
Speaker 3: What kind of were you hoping to do?
Speaker 2: Were you hoping to be like a dramatic.
Speaker 1: He wasn't hoping to do anything.
Speaker 3: You say, the pretensions of my youth?
Speaker 4: What does that mean? Like me was like plays and yeah, no,
Speaker 4: I was going to be Hamlet, Pally.
Speaker 6: I trained. I'm a classically trained actor. I would get
Speaker 6: gigs like I would get you know, Shakespeare gigs in Syracuse.
Speaker 4: You know what I mean.
Speaker 6: It's like it was just brutal, but like theater for
Speaker 6: me is like that old girlfriend that you liked a
Speaker 6: lot better than she liked you, and she would bang
Speaker 6: people in front of you.
Speaker 4: It was just went off the rails.
Speaker 6: I don't really know the I don't understand the lanes
Speaker 6: of this podcast.
Speaker 5: There are not goodly.
Speaker 6: It was like the minute I realized I'm just a
Speaker 6: I am meant to be an anarchist in this comedy mode,
Speaker 6: it was you know, we all we got plans, we
Speaker 6: all have plans, but you know the world's going to
Speaker 6: say to you, nice, try it's over here, and if
Speaker 6: you're smart you listen.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, Wow. So how did so then you moved
Speaker 1: to la How did one of your first acting gigs
Speaker 1: end up being on Seinfeld? What was that like?
Speaker 6: Well, you know, at that point, I was still really
Speaker 6: going hard at trying to be on camera. And you know,
Speaker 6: I had auditioned for that show like two or three
Speaker 6: times and it always went well, and I knew they
Speaker 6: liked me. And then I got that part as a
Speaker 6: phone I got a phone call, you know, I just
Speaker 6: got it. And I had done a lot of stuff
Speaker 6: and that was on their radar from you know, I
Speaker 6: think Larry and Jerry knew I was well known in
Speaker 6: the stand up community, you know, and so I was
Speaker 6: a proven entity from a lot of things I've been doing.
Speaker 6: And so then I just got the call and they said,
Speaker 6: you know, you got cast. And that was funny because
Speaker 6: when I started in my relationship with my wife, she said,
Speaker 6: you know, what's it going to be like, I've done
Speaker 6: leadship with an actor when you have to kiss somebody,
Speaker 6: And I was like, I love you so much. That
Speaker 6: has not that's not a big.
Speaker 4: Part of my career.
Speaker 1: I mean you for thinking about that, but don't worry.
Speaker 6: You're fine, We're safe, you know. And then I had
Speaker 6: to kiss late, so I said, good news, bad news.
Speaker 4: I got the rent.
Speaker 5: But it's still one of my favorite episodes ever. It's
Speaker 5: an episode called the Smelly Car.
Speaker 1: Oh oh, I love that episode.
Speaker 3: It is great.
Speaker 5: I can do all your lines. My wife and I
Speaker 5: still to this day are one of our ongoing jokes.
Speaker 3: Wi hug each other and pull back and go. It
Speaker 3: still smells like we still we so we do.
Speaker 5: You're quoted often in our home just so you know
Speaker 5: it's rightful. But yeah, what a what a way to
Speaker 5: to jump onto the scene is to do one of
Speaker 5: the one of the well known episodes of Seinfeld, which
Speaker 5: is which is great.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was a great week.
Speaker 6: It was fun and you know, having written a lot
Speaker 6: of these things now I'm also looking back on it,
Speaker 6: and you know that script did not change a lot
Speaker 6: during the week. Well, we read at the table was
Speaker 6: really close to what we shot, which was great because
Speaker 6: you got to really work the material and you guys
Speaker 6: know how often things change overnight and you had new
Speaker 6: pages and then in between takes, right, I mean, I
Speaker 6: do go. It's such an elusive process and the rewriting
Speaker 6: never ends. But that one we got to really lock
Speaker 6: it down.
Speaker 1: That's so great. So then where does one of your
Speaker 1: next early jobs in Living Color, which is like one
Speaker 1: of the greatest shows of all time, Where does that
Speaker 1: job fall and what was that experience like that must
Speaker 1: have been pretty incredible. They were firing on all cylinders
Speaker 1: by the time you joined.
Speaker 6: It was wonderful and it came to my rescue. It was,
Speaker 6: I think, really my first main job after the Miller
Speaker 6: Show went down, as I recall, and I remember, it
Speaker 6: was one of those gigs that came in and I
Speaker 6: remember how little there was in the checking account, and
Speaker 6: I was, you know, it was one of those like,
Speaker 6: oh good, I have to tell Robin.
Speaker 1: Oh I got the job. I don't have to tell
Speaker 1: her we had eight cents.
Speaker 4: And that's a less fire.
Speaker 6: Stein brought me in on that unless had worked a
Speaker 6: lot at the Lampoon, Although I didn't really know him
Speaker 6: that well. That relationship really was essential to me getting
Speaker 6: hired there. And that was an incredible year I ended up,
Speaker 6: you know, and that was at the point where you know,
Speaker 6: writing was starting to really eclipse my camera stuff and
Speaker 6: then you know, but it's always happened. I ended up
Speaker 6: doing more than I thought I would, and I did
Speaker 6: the dirty dozen sketches and things like that. Things fell
Speaker 6: into my lap there that I didn't plan on, and
Speaker 6: it was a great year.
Speaker 1: Did you get to work with Jim Carrey I did.
Speaker 6: He was doing The Mask and ace Ventura that year. Oh, Jim,
Speaker 6: I know, it was like he was turning into a phenomena.
Speaker 6: So Jim was not around a lot, but when he
Speaker 6: was around had He and I shared a writing office,
Speaker 6: and so I had intense doses when he and when
Speaker 6: we would do it. But I don't think there's another kind.
Speaker 6: And and we would stockpile sketches. He'd come into town
Speaker 6: and we'd shoot as much as we could with him,
Speaker 6: and it was great. And I've got to be in
Speaker 6: some of them. It's really funny. I'm I'm, I'm, you know,
Speaker 6: it's that long ago. I'm digitizing some stuff and throwing
Speaker 6: some things on there, and I'm in sketches with him.
Speaker 6: He's in some of the dozens. We did one where
Speaker 6: he and I were the Menendez brothers and we're dancing
Speaker 6: to the Risky Business song with gun with shotguns and
Speaker 6: there's none of them. We're like the We're like the
Speaker 6: awful white cops in the wake of the riots in jail,
Speaker 6: getting you know, introduced to jail in the old classic way,
Speaker 6: you know. And and I remember there's another uh. We
Speaker 6: wrote a sketch that never made it, But I remember
Speaker 6: we were up a long time because then I watched
Speaker 6: him at his best and his most obsessive, and we
Speaker 6: wrote a really funny sketch about a late night used
Speaker 6: car salesman who did his own ads, but he had tourettes,
Speaker 6: and I'm you know, everything about it. I'm sure deeply
Speaker 6: cancelable now, but watching Jim try and sell you on
Speaker 6: a car and having these outbursts in the middle of
Speaker 6: it boil, you know, And I think I'm the only
Speaker 6: person on earth who actually saw him perform that sketch
Speaker 6: in our office, well, we were writing it, and I'll
Speaker 6: never get over it.
Speaker 4: It was amazing.
Speaker 5: That show to me was so I'm that guy where
Speaker 5: I always liked Future Ama more than The Simpsons, I
Speaker 5: always liked In Living Color more than SNL.
Speaker 3: It was just my it was my thing.
Speaker 5: And as amazing as Jim Carrey was and he got
Speaker 5: he's so good.
Speaker 3: He's just proven himself time and time again.
Speaker 5: David Allen Greer and Tommy Davidson to me were two
Speaker 5: guys to where every time they were on screen, David,
Speaker 5: I mean, they're both amazing. With David Allen Greer I
Speaker 5: couldn't stop laughing every time this I did anything, And
Speaker 5: then when I saw him then an Amazon Woman on
Speaker 5: the Moon, which is one of my favorite movies of
Speaker 5: all time. He's just that cast was incredible, I mean
Speaker 5: so amazing at everything they did. I'm curious, what was
Speaker 5: it like working because I know that Keenan Ivory WANs
Speaker 5: was really in charge of the show.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 6: Well, you know, here's the fun fact. He wasn't there.
Speaker 6: I was there one year, will and it was when
Speaker 6: the Wayans family had essentially recused themselves.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was a really strange deal.
Speaker 6: It was the final year, which is really interesting because
Speaker 6: they had Jim Carrey under contract, but I think Fox
Speaker 6: was like, let's not alienate this guy. But yeah, they
Speaker 6: could have gone forth. So it was a The show
Speaker 6: was run in sort of a three headed hydra of
Speaker 6: Greg Field's, Pan VSA and Laspierstein and they assumed that position.
Speaker 6: So I wasn't there. There were no Wayans. I didn't
Speaker 6: get to work with Damon, Keenan, anybody you know. So yeah,
Speaker 6: I can't fill you in on that, although I do
Speaker 6: know a lot. I worked with a lot of the
Speaker 6: guys who were there, and a lot of those guys
Speaker 6: remain friends of mine, and those and pitch sessions in
Speaker 6: that era.
Speaker 4: Were legendarily brutal.
Speaker 6: I do know that.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Man, Well, just two years after in Living Color, you
Speaker 1: get the job for a little show called Sabrina the
Speaker 1: Teenage Witch. How did that job come to you?
Speaker 6: Well, you know, it's interesting, you know, unlike every other
Speaker 6: show ever, there was no traditional pilot of Sabrina. They
Speaker 6: Paula and Melissa had done this movie for I think Showtime,
Speaker 6: and it was single cam and it's a very different animal.
Speaker 6: But I think on the premise of that they sold
Speaker 6: it to ABC and then they had to do the
Speaker 6: half hour version. And while all of that was kind
Speaker 6: of percolating, I worked on this very strange, interesting, great
Speaker 6: project called the TV Wheel with Joel Hodgson, who you
Speaker 6: probably know from Mystery.
Speaker 4: Science NST Hell. Yes, Joel was.
Speaker 6: One of the original comedy Channel that was the Lynch
Speaker 6: Pinch Show. When we started, that was the one everybody
Speaker 6: knew and loved, and he's the man, and he's, you know,
Speaker 6: the greatest on every level. And he did this very
Speaker 6: interesting project where he built this rotating set like an
Speaker 6: old viewfinder and the camera was locked down, and the
Speaker 6: set rotated and locked in, and there are all these
Speaker 6: weird perspective sets, and little sketches would play and then rotate,
Speaker 6: and I wrote on it for a couple of weeks,
Speaker 6: and then I'm in sketches in this strange thing was
Speaker 6: so I think for HBO ended up running on Comedy Central,
Speaker 6: and it was like a lot of interesting people with there.
Speaker 6: I know, David Cross and Paul Figue before he became
Speaker 6: the Oats, a lot of interesting people involved. And one
Speaker 6: of the people who was writing on it was Nell Scovell,
Speaker 6: who ended up writing the Sabrina show.
Speaker 4: And it was interesting because.
Speaker 6: I felt like Nell and I kind of locked horns
Speaker 6: creatively writing there.
Speaker 4: I had no idea who she was.
Speaker 6: I just you know, we were philosophically not exactly aligned.
Speaker 6: But then when she took over the Sabrina project, my
Speaker 6: manager's phone rang and I had just had one of
Speaker 6: those kitchen table talks with my wife and it was,
Speaker 6: you know, is every year going to be this terrifying
Speaker 6: one of those talks? You know, are you always going
Speaker 6: to be reaching for another vine? Because I had done
Speaker 6: so many things and none of them stuck to the wall,
Speaker 6: and I never wanted to write half hours. I was like, oh, no,
Speaker 6: you know, but I said, I think, just as a
Speaker 6: responsible human being, I got to open my mind to this.
Speaker 6: And then the phone rang. I talked to my manager
Speaker 6: at the time and I said, I think I got
Speaker 6: to open my mind to this, and then the phone rang,
Speaker 6: and I got hired to write on the show. I
Speaker 6: was already doing a lot of voice work. I was
Speaker 6: an angry Beaver already on Nickelodeon. I was doing a
Speaker 6: lot of that stuff. So I was writing on the show.
Speaker 6: They didn't have a pilot, they were casting it. I
Speaker 6: read for the cat a bit of an inside job,
Speaker 6: but I got it. And that's how that happened.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, you know, I've struggled a lot of
Speaker 6: good things in life. I've found I have wrestled with
Speaker 6: you know. You know, I have these beautiful kids. And
Speaker 6: my wife had to read me an ultimatum on that
Speaker 6: we adopted these beautiful boys, and you know, I was
Speaker 6: Dean Martin man. I was like, we're going out hard
Speaker 6: and we're gonna you know, and she just said we
Speaker 6: had enough, you know, And I fought and I and
Speaker 6: you know, but Robin's always been the architect of all
Speaker 6: the smart moves in our life. And and I listened,
Speaker 6: and it's been the best thing that ever happened to me.
Speaker 6: And I have wrestled a lot of good things, and
Speaker 6: I wrestled that one. But you know, I was mister
Speaker 6: in New York, mister late night, missed all these crap
Speaker 6: and and living and you know, I was like, oh
Speaker 6: my god, I'm writing a half hour and I'm on
Speaker 6: TGIF and Model and you know, and you know, but
Speaker 6: it just goes to show how stupid I am, because
Speaker 6: all of a sudden, I'm like, that's I worked with
Speaker 6: wonderful writers that they helped me learn how to write
Speaker 6: half hours, that bread and butter. I worked with great people.
Speaker 6: I got to be on a show that people love
Speaker 6: as opposed to these disposable.
Speaker 4: Things I'd been doing.
Speaker 6: You know, I'm happy to admit how wrong I was
Speaker 6: to be hesitant because it was a beautiful experience.
Speaker 4: That's great.
Speaker 2: How was it learning how to write half hour? Like,
Speaker 2: because this was the first time you were coming into yeah,
Speaker 2: real storytelling of that, you know, like extended storytelling, because
Speaker 2: it everything had been sketches up until then, everything.
Speaker 6: Had been sketches in character comedy and that's how I
Speaker 6: survived for years.
Speaker 4: You know, I was.
Speaker 6: I was always valuable because I can write in character,
Speaker 6: and I can pitch jokes that are in character. They're
Speaker 6: not those jokes, they're like, that's great, but it stops
Speaker 6: the scene dead. I can if you're playing a character,
Speaker 6: I'll give you gold, and it's on story, and it's
Speaker 6: on point. What I couldn't do is break story. What
Speaker 6: I couldn't do is you know this. I mean, I
Speaker 6: didn't run a show until I was in my fifties,
Speaker 6: and I felt like it took me every minute to
Speaker 6: learn how to do that.
Speaker 4: Some people, I.
Speaker 6: Guess are born with that gift. I wasn't one of them.
Speaker 6: I had to learn slow and hard, but there's a
Speaker 6: lot to it. And I also had to learn different
Speaker 6: ways of storytelling. I feel like in that era, storytelling
Speaker 6: was very plotty, very very much about clever turns. And
Speaker 6: I always joked like, back in that era when it
Speaker 6: was story breaking, I used to have to burn myself
Speaker 6: with cigarettes to stay awake.
Speaker 4: You know. It was like, you know, what are we
Speaker 4: going to do with these suitcases?
Speaker 6: And I'd be like, oh, I'd be like, I'm gonna
Speaker 6: kilm myself, you know, and I just hated it, and
Speaker 6: You'd be there at two in the morning and I'd be.
Speaker 4: Like, this is not why I got an showbiz. This
Speaker 4: is really not the plan, you know.
Speaker 6: But but then, uh, you know, I've been exposed to
Speaker 6: other approaches, and when I started to tract story from
Speaker 6: just a sincere place, it got good to me. Jeez.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk a little bit about you
Speaker 1: doing the voice. How did you do that then on
Speaker 1: tape night? How was what was the process for like
Speaker 1: you actually shooting the show and being the voice of Salem.
Speaker 6: Well, we didn't tape night because of all those old
Speaker 6: school special effects, you know, and and a live cat
Speaker 6: and a deeply unconvincing puppet cat.
Speaker 1: I want to know every detail about the animation.
Speaker 3: Sorry, oh, no world destroyed.
Speaker 6: A puppeteer was jammed inside that kitchen cabinet's.
Speaker 4: It was, you know. So we didn't do tape night.
Speaker 4: But the first four years I was also.
Speaker 6: Writing there and I would go down to set and
Speaker 6: be off camera with a boom mic and the script.
Speaker 6: Beautiful thing, as you guys know, voiceover you never have
Speaker 6: to learn a looney beautiful joy and it's glorious. But
Speaker 6: we were in the and there was a puppeteer who
Speaker 6: did the voice, and he would watch me like a
Speaker 6: piano accompanyist, and we had a great groove going. And
Speaker 6: then in the last three seasons I had moved over
Speaker 6: and was writing on King of Queen's so then he
Speaker 6: would lay down a track and I would come in
Speaker 6: and loop it, and so that was different.
Speaker 4: But in the early going, I go down there.
Speaker 6: There was one scene I remember where I think Salem,
Speaker 6: you know, had his head jammed in a.
Speaker 4: Fish bowl or something.
Speaker 6: So I'm like sitting there with a script and a
Speaker 6: boom mic and there's a you know, somebody holding a
Speaker 6: fish bowl, a big tank over my head for this.
Speaker 4: You know, it was deeply practical.
Speaker 3: Magic Hollywood, the magic of Hollywood.
Speaker 4: You gotta love.
Speaker 1: Are you a cat person at all?
Speaker 6: I am a cat person. I've always grew up with
Speaker 6: cats when never had dogs. I have two enormous main
Speaker 6: coon cats right now, beautiful, and the dogs have worked
Speaker 6: their way into the picture too. But yeah, I'm a
Speaker 6: cat person at heart, very much.
Speaker 4: So that was easy.
Speaker 1: When did you realize that this was becoming a phenomenon, Like,
Speaker 1: at what point did it hit you that like, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, this is mascot forever. Yeah, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be this cat for the rest of this episode.
Speaker 6: I think it was a slower reveal for me than
Speaker 6: for guys like you, because you're out with your faces.
Speaker 6: You guys could go to seven eleven for a pack
Speaker 6: of smokes and people would wet their pants. I'm sure,
Speaker 6: you know, but I don't look like a cat. Nobody
Speaker 6: vibes me that way, you know. I think, you know,
Speaker 6: it's pretty anonymous work, but people would hear my voice
Speaker 6: because I don't do it.
Speaker 4: It wasn't like I'm dealing one of those nickeloneon boys.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 6: It's pretty much me with more sauce on it, you know.
Speaker 6: And and you know what it would happen is I
Speaker 6: remember going, you know, it's funny because as much as
Speaker 6: our shows, I know, you guys know this one. It
Speaker 6: owned a generation of kids and girls, in particular Friday nights.
Speaker 6: But there was also a generation of girls who were
Speaker 6: getting dulled up on Friday to go out and they
Speaker 6: loved their TGIF too, right. Yeah, And I remember going
Speaker 6: to remember Billy Martin's on Sunset Plaza. Oh it was
Speaker 6: it was a really billy Martin. The oldi Achey manager
Speaker 6: had one in New York and one in LA and
Speaker 6: it was great elite western wear, really good boutique store
Speaker 6: right up at Sunset Plaza with all the eurotrash weirdos
Speaker 6: and all that.
Speaker 4: But there's like, it's only the cowboy boots.
Speaker 6: Anyway, I go in there and I bought something, and
Speaker 6: I put my credit card down, and the and and
Speaker 6: I got name recognition on the credit card from the
Speaker 6: sales person and she melted down. And that was for me,
Speaker 6: that moment where I went, oh, this is getting interesting.
Speaker 4: And when credit card bill that was exactly exactly and
Speaker 4: that's the one that pays you.
Speaker 6: It was like a silver one and it was really
Speaker 6: cool and that didn't bounce and I wasn't thrown out.
Speaker 6: But there were also bad moments so that like, you know,
Speaker 6: people would want to tell their young kids, much like
Speaker 6: the experience you just had, well that I you know,
Speaker 6: it was the cat and the cat wasn't real, and
Speaker 6: there'd be a kid who wasn't ready to handle that information,
Speaker 6: let alone look at me and associate, you know, and
Speaker 6: they go.
Speaker 4: No, he's the cat, Billy's don't. I don't need this.
Speaker 4: I don't need it. He really doesn't mean I'm good.
Speaker 4: Oh man, Did.
Speaker 1: You know Caroline Ray from the comedy scene before you
Speaker 1: worked on that show together?
Speaker 4: Not really.
Speaker 6: I remember she came in on a twenty or third
Speaker 6: Street one week. I think she hosted Sasty as we
Speaker 6: called Short Spent Theater, and I think I might have
Speaker 6: met her fleetingly there, but I didn't.
Speaker 4: I didn't.
Speaker 6: I didn't know anybody over there before that. But as
Speaker 6: you know, we got to know each other well.
Speaker 5: Yes, of course, did it change the dynamic on the
Speaker 5: set at all, or how you were with the cast
Speaker 5: and the writing crew when you left to go right
Speaker 5: for King of Queen's but we're still doing the Voice
Speaker 5: of the Cat.
Speaker 6: No, Because it was really isolated, you know. Honestly. I
Speaker 6: would go in on Friday mornings before my King of
Speaker 6: Queen's shoot day or tape night, and it was me
Speaker 6: and Jim Hilton, who was our post producer, and we'd
Speaker 6: go over to Paramount to a sound stage and we'd
Speaker 6: roll it and we'd be done so I could be
Speaker 6: at my other job by ten. So I was really isolated,
Speaker 6: other than you know, Christmas parties and things here and there,
Speaker 6: and I remember going to a party once when it
Speaker 6: moved over.
Speaker 4: To the WB.
Speaker 6: Okay, But honestly, you know, and and and you know,
Speaker 6: there's the writing gig on these shows is there's no time,
Speaker 6: you know, and doing like King Queen's like, you know,
Speaker 6: you're you're, you're there is no hiatus, there is no downtime,
Speaker 6: and you're there, you're lockdown. So it wasn't like I
Speaker 6: was avoiding people. It was that I was in a gulag.
Speaker 1: Yeah, was there ever any jealousy with the other writers
Speaker 1: that you were the voice of the cat?
Speaker 6: No, you know, everybody was thrilled. And it's nice when
Speaker 6: you can have the voice in the room.
Speaker 3: That's I was just gonna say.
Speaker 5: I mean, that must be so great when you're writing
Speaker 5: or pitching lines, actually have the voice there with You's
Speaker 5: got to be incredible.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm sure there are scenarios where that would be
Speaker 6: the case, but that that first the staff that first
Speaker 6: four years was wonderful and really into it. And the
Speaker 6: other thing is that you know, that character was a
Speaker 6: great get out of jail free card for the writers
Speaker 6: on so many levels. You know, you want exposition, tell
Speaker 6: it to the there's.
Speaker 1: A cat can do it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, you know that just got easy.
Speaker 6: And also you know it's that old like showbiz thing,
Speaker 6: like you know, puppets just get away with more ye.
Speaker 6: So you know, if you had a little edge, if
Speaker 6: you had a joke, that might not quite you know, right,
Speaker 6: give it to the cat. Cat gets away with murders.
Speaker 6: So the cat was quite popular with the writers for
Speaker 6: writerly reasons.
Speaker 3: Oh God's amazing.
Speaker 1: Not only then did Salem become a star on Friday
Speaker 1: Nights with Sabrina, but then you start doing TGIF commercials,
Speaker 1: and you even enter the world of Boy Meets World
Speaker 1: when you become the connective tissue for all of the
Speaker 1: shows who are doing time travel at theisodes? Do you
Speaker 1: remember anything specific about that?
Speaker 6: I had to watch a little this morning. I'll be
Speaker 6: honest with you. I was like, I remember, I didn't.
Speaker 6: I didn't remember the premise that well. I knew that
Speaker 6: he was running through the shows and there was a
Speaker 6: time element, but I had to brush up on my
Speaker 6: Shakespeare a little bit. And you know, again, especially in
Speaker 6: those cases, it was very disembodied. I think I recorded
Speaker 6: the you know, it's funny. I was watching, like, you know,
Speaker 6: when he's in the trash can, at the end of
Speaker 6: your episode. I was like, y wow, I you know,
Speaker 6: I think that is that paramount. I don't know where
Speaker 6: that is, but you know, it was fascinating. I love
Speaker 6: to seeing you.
Speaker 4: Guys in the old stuff.
Speaker 5: Though.
Speaker 4: It was great.
Speaker 6: I kept thinking about that original Star Trek Forties episode.
Speaker 6: It was like, you guys really did something cool with it.
Speaker 1: Oh man, it's not one of our favorites.
Speaker 4: That's why I told me everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, there were there were other eras people got
Speaker 1: to go back to that. You know, we got we
Speaker 1: had war.
Speaker 5: Let's go to the other tunnels of World War two
Speaker 5: where all the comedy takes place.
Speaker 1: Sure, there was a seventies and we now got World
Speaker 1: War two.
Speaker 4: Okay, true, Okay, you're right, I forgot. We got the
Speaker 4: swing in the sixties.
Speaker 5: We were told we got to pick last our show,
Speaker 5: so we literally got what was left.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we had.
Speaker 3: What was left was the nineteen forties.
Speaker 5: By the way, speaking of forties, neither of them understood
Speaker 5: your Star Trek forties reference.
Speaker 3: I got it.
Speaker 4: It was great.
Speaker 3: They you just blew right by bye bye.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's that's going back aways it is.
Speaker 5: It's not as good as a piece of the action
Speaker 5: where they're the uh, the actual gangsters.
Speaker 3: But it's still great.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Was there a for talk of a Salem spin off,
Speaker 1: like a you know, an Alf thing. Alf had that
Speaker 1: holiday special?
Speaker 6: Nothing serious, No, you know, it's it's interesting. I think
Speaker 6: there there was I think a little tension over the
Speaker 6: character's popularity. You know, it was always an interesting gig.
Speaker 6: I was very grateful for it, and it was nothing
Speaker 6: but good for me. And you know, we used to
Speaker 6: get two year pickups. You know, it's just you know,
Speaker 6: there's nothing, nothing to complain about. But it was always
Speaker 6: interesting because you know, the show was produced by a
Speaker 6: wing of Viacom at the time that was particularly ruthless
Speaker 6: and mercenary. And I always knew, you know, I better
Speaker 6: mind my p's and q's here because they'll get Billy
Speaker 6: West in here in a minute, you know.
Speaker 5: They yeah, they'll do something.
Speaker 6: They'll get you know, they ca the show's launched. They
Speaker 6: could they could have you know, a pig fart my voice. Now,
Speaker 6: they don't care. They are not about quality. Sole I
Speaker 6: had to, you know, pick my battles.
Speaker 5: Did they know it wasn't there at some point, I
Speaker 5: don't know if there was talk of or they actually did.
Speaker 5: Wasn't there an animated series or some sort that happened?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was the movies, video games, an animated show.
Speaker 6: There was tons of stuff, you know, looking back on it, No,
Speaker 6: they got glue out of the hoofs of that stuff,
Speaker 6: you know. And I did the animated series too, and
Speaker 6: that was surreal because I'd done a lot, done a
Speaker 6: lot of animated and that one I never got a script.
Speaker 6: It was they had the whole thing. It was like
Speaker 6: they're like sixties whatever, eight episodes. They were all written.
Speaker 6: I mean, this thing was done so on the cheap,
Speaker 6: and I would just get these sessions where they would
Speaker 6: give me wild lines. I would go there for three
Speaker 6: hours and just do wild lines with no context. And
Speaker 6: yet I knew the character enough that I was like.
Speaker 4: Ye, Blazer, confusing careful.
Speaker 6: I wouldn't if I were it just you know, I
Speaker 6: knew all the lines almost. It's like handicapping football without
Speaker 6: knowing that teams. Oh it's a divisional home game, I'll
Speaker 6: take the plus three. I don't even know who's playing.
Speaker 6: It's that kind of thing.
Speaker 4: I would do like forty lines and then.
Speaker 6: The director would go, oh, oh you're angry. Here I
Speaker 6: go oh okay. You know, I wouldn't know what or
Speaker 6: who would I just go, well, careful, all right, moving on,
Speaker 6: you know, we bang that whole thing out, surreal.
Speaker 5: Yeah, stuff, I mean, just just say words, just say words.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean exactly.
Speaker 6: And I watched them and you know, not the world's great,
Speaker 6: it's cartoon, but my character makes sense. And that is
Speaker 6: just as baffling as anything to me. It's like this,
Speaker 6: you know, this thinking and this acting. It's highly overrated.
Speaker 1: You were also on The Simpsons as Salem.
Speaker 6: Yes, yeah, that was in a brief moment where there
Speaker 6: was some scene where they're at the Smithsonian Institute and
Speaker 6: I can't remember what Simpson care aracter knocks over a
Speaker 6: domino effect display of things that were on TV shows
Speaker 6: that aren't supposed to talk, and you know, I can't
Speaker 6: know what that's Salem because there's a Salem doll as
Speaker 6: one of them, and I am like, hey, you know,
Speaker 6: that's the whole thing, you know, but it's like the
Speaker 6: robot from Lost in Space and Salem and something else.
Speaker 4: It's like things that I are supposed to talk.
Speaker 1: My gosh, Well, we have forced you to focus on
Speaker 1: very specific family shows. But as we have mentioned, You've
Speaker 1: had a wildly successful career in Hollywood as a true
Speaker 1: renaissance man. You went from Sabrina to writing and producing
Speaker 1: King of Queen's Till Death two and a half Men, Mom,
Speaker 1: Young Sheldon. You also like appeared in almost all of them.
Speaker 1: So you've consistently partnered with TV Dge and Chuck Lorie,
Speaker 1: most recently on a show you created with him, Bookie
Speaker 1: on Max, and you never gave up voice acting, most
Speaker 1: notably Norbert and Angry Beavers. How many of these people
Speaker 1: that you work with now and over the years have
Speaker 1: known you were also Salem the Cat all of them.
Speaker 6: It comes out eventually, you know, it's very interesting. I
Speaker 6: actually it's funny. I went down to I'm working right now.
Speaker 4: Thank you for plugging Bookie by the way, that I want.
Speaker 1: To talk about it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I went down the hall. There's a woman who
Speaker 6: works in our building who worked in PR for years,
Speaker 6: and I said, I have to pick your brain from
Speaker 6: my wife about this Baldoni situation. And we were talking
Speaker 6: and like that got her inside scoop and there are
Speaker 6: two younger women who work with her. She came up
Speaker 6: to me later and said, you know, I told them
Speaker 6: and there's a meltdown.
Speaker 4: So you know, it's like you know, it happens. I
Speaker 4: don't think about identity. You can't. I'll tell you I failed.
Speaker 6: I think I failed this country a little bit because
Speaker 6: I always said, you know, my voice has a subliminal effect.
Speaker 6: I should have run for office because people would have
Speaker 6: gone it's persuasive.
Speaker 4: And I don't know why. I don't agree with him
Speaker 4: on anything.
Speaker 1: I don't know why about.
Speaker 6: My soul.
Speaker 3: You're angry, You're angry, You're angry.
Speaker 4: There's an answer.
Speaker 5: No, You're gonna have to come back at some point
Speaker 5: because I'm dying to know what the PR person's take
Speaker 5: was on the whole Belton.
Speaker 2: Talk about that, brought it up right before before came out,
Speaker 2: and I'm talking about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll talk about it off the record. I want
Speaker 1: you to talk to us about Bookie on Max I.
Speaker 6: I'm thrilled to it's We just rolled out the final
Speaker 6: episode of season two stars Sebastian Maniscalco, one of my
Speaker 6: favorites the most people are aware of, and he's out
Speaker 6: on the road right now playing all the years. I
Speaker 6: call them hockey rinks and Omar Dorsey, but an amazing cast.
Speaker 6: You know Vanessa Forlido Horre Garcia, Andrea Anders and Rob Cordray.
Speaker 4: It's, you know, the kind of thing I've always wanted
Speaker 4: to write.
Speaker 6: You know, a lot of this job is I always say,
Speaker 6: you know, if you're on a show, it's a little
Speaker 6: bit like you have to be tofu. You got to
Speaker 6: absorb the flavor and make it work. And I love
Speaker 6: doing that. But this is kind of if I had
Speaker 6: been left to my own devices, what I would have
Speaker 6: come up with. And it's about a bookie in La
Speaker 6: and people who don't know gambling on sports is still
Speaker 6: illegal here, which is one of the rare places in
Speaker 6: America that's true. And it's about this guy in his
Speaker 6: part partner sort of struggling to get over in sort
Speaker 6: of crime gray light area and they have complicated families
Speaker 6: and they're just trying to get over and there's this
Speaker 6: looming specter of what's going to happen. Like Jorge plays
Speaker 6: a guy who used to be a very successful weed
Speaker 6: dealer and now is driving a lift car when he
Speaker 6: meets them and they hire him. You know, it's just it,
Speaker 6: and I think there's something relatable because I think all
Speaker 6: of us look, you know, as a writer. I just
Speaker 6: was on strike for a long time with the fear
Speaker 6: of AI. If you know, a viacom in Paramount had
Speaker 6: access to AI when I was doing the cat, they
Speaker 6: probably would have bounced me after two years because they
Speaker 6: would have been able.
Speaker 4: To you know what I'm saying. It doesn't matter what
Speaker 4: line of work you're in.
Speaker 6: You wake up one morning, there's an app, there's an algorithm,
Speaker 6: there's something that might make you obsolete. So this is
Speaker 6: but it's also it's a big it's a big, funny
Speaker 6: show with lots of delicious violence. I highly recommend. I
Speaker 6: think I'm very.
Speaker 4: Proud of it.
Speaker 1: Well, you've dropped quite a few references. People may have
Speaker 1: been able to pick up on it at this point.
Speaker 1: But you were also a sports expert. You've written for
Speaker 1: ESPN and the NFL, and you're an actual sports center commentator.
Speaker 1: Where do you find time for this? How do you
Speaker 1: keep up?
Speaker 4: You know, I no longer do.
Speaker 6: Once children entered my life, show running that fell a
Speaker 6: little bit by the wayside, although they still get me
Speaker 6: in certain fantasy magazines for the expert polls, which you
Speaker 6: know makes me catnip to the ladies. But you know,
Speaker 6: when I was that's right. Wait until you see my
Speaker 6: wide receiver rankings. It's all over. That's my closer question.
Speaker 6: What are you drinking? And what do you think about?
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 6: But when I would like I said, back in New York,
Speaker 6: I did this show Channel, I did the late night show,
Speaker 6: but we also did a show called Sports Monster that
Speaker 6: was a parody of Sports Center, and it caught the
Speaker 6: eye of ESPN at the time, and also Keith Oberman,
Speaker 6: believing me a man who was at that point in
Speaker 6: time on the road. He was working in la as
Speaker 6: an anchor, but he was on the road to becoming
Speaker 6: sort of the uber Sports Center anchor with Dan Patrick.
Speaker 6: And when they launched ESPN two, Keith and John Walsch,
Speaker 6: who they were really my mentors over there, they brought
Speaker 6: me in to do stuff and I used to do
Speaker 6: a department there a lot called the Tail the Tape,
Speaker 6: and I did a book for Hyperion that collected the
Speaker 6: ones I did over the years and some other ones.
Speaker 6: It was basically taking the tail the tape boxing thing
Speaker 6: of like who's got the advantage, reach height, weigh all
Speaker 6: this stuff, but doing absurdist categories. We could do one
Speaker 6: right now on Lively Baldoni. So it's an absurdist breakdown
Speaker 6: and you declare a winner at the end. And it
Speaker 6: was really good, and I would do a very clip
Speaker 6: driven so if you're watching Sports Center, you didn't hate
Speaker 6: my guts for just talking, you know. And through that,
Speaker 6: I started to do a ton of stuff on ESPN.
Speaker 6: I worked the Draft, I used to sit in for
Speaker 6: Jim Rome on Talk two. I mean it blossomed into
Speaker 6: this thing, and it was the thing that when I
Speaker 6: started to write a lot on half hours, it was
Speaker 6: sort of my sandist sanity pressure valve. I still got
Speaker 6: to go write and perform this stuff that I had
Speaker 6: control over, and I got to put this sort of funny, satirical,
Speaker 6: op ed voice out there, and I was very opinionated
Speaker 6: on the world of sports, and ultimately it led to
Speaker 6: the most popular thing I did. My wife, Robin and
Speaker 6: I did a segment on Sports Center about NFL bad beats.
Speaker 6: I mean, Ben Pelt's doing it all the time now,
Speaker 6: but I was the original bad beats guys on Sports Center,
Speaker 6: where I would show the game footage and say, if
Speaker 6: you had Carolina minus three, here's where a.
Speaker 4: Kicker destroyed your dreams.
Speaker 6: And Robin and I were sort of the sketch element
Speaker 6: where I was the degenerate and she was my wife,
Speaker 6: and it was wildly popular and the NFL eventually shut
Speaker 6: us down when their deal was up. They had a
Speaker 6: show on at the time called Playmakers that was set
Speaker 6: in a mythical NFL where guys are like smoking crack
Speaker 6: at act and when the game deal was up with
Speaker 6: the NFL, the commissioner said, look, you can get games back,
Speaker 6: but you're canceling Playmakers, and that the kai gambling segment's out.
Speaker 6: But for four years before that, and now of course
Speaker 6: everybody's you know, the ESPN has a gambling app, the
Speaker 6: NFL has an official gambling partner. It's hilarious now, but
Speaker 6: you know, back then it was very edgy stuff. But
Speaker 6: we were the only thing on Sports Center where it's like,
Speaker 6: if you bet this game, watch our segment Monday and
Speaker 6: if you get if you've got a bad beat at
Speaker 6: the end end of the game, I'm there.
Speaker 3: Now, are you? Are you a Bills fan? Is that
Speaker 3: what I see the helmet of that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the real reason he doesn't talk sports.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, sorry, no, it's not easy. Now, you know
Speaker 4: how tough.
Speaker 5: I am it's getting it'll be it's getting easier these
Speaker 5: last few years.
Speaker 3: It's getting easier.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 6: I've been around this planet a while, and I always
Speaker 6: say being a Buffalo sports fan is like being the
Speaker 6: hero in a film noir.
Speaker 4: You know, it's it's really exciting in act too. It's
Speaker 4: great fighting people and you're getting laid. It's amazing, but
Speaker 4: it doesn't end well for you.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, I guess you could the same thing, say
Speaker 5: the same thing about being a Buffalo Bills kicker. So
Speaker 5: it's kind of the same life, Isn't it Not easy?
Speaker 1: I have to ask you about Paul Blart because I
Speaker 1: think our listeners would be very bummed if I don't
Speaker 1: mention it at all. Did you where did that idea
Speaker 1: come from? Did you first meet him on King of Queens?
Speaker 1: Is that where You're relationship with Kevin started?
Speaker 6: That's where I met him, and we worked there for
Speaker 6: years together and we developed a really beautiful bond and
Speaker 6: a great comedic relationship. And you know that grew out
Speaker 6: of he had done really well in Hitch. Remember he
Speaker 6: was just great, And yeah, he was sort of poised
Speaker 6: at that point, and the idea was to do something
Speaker 6: to sort of before that momentum evaporated and we sat
Speaker 6: down and we were throwing things around. And I actually
Speaker 6: worked as a security guard in Buffalo. You know, I
Speaker 6: had lots of great jobs. They still help me write
Speaker 6: things to this day. And I spent And the way
Speaker 6: you made money on that job was you did your
Speaker 6: regular gig, and then you got time and a half
Speaker 6: if you worked nights and weekends and those gigs. I
Speaker 6: was always paired with other security guards, and you'd be
Speaker 6: like all night, I'm you know, like in the Hall
Speaker 6: of Records downtown with some crazy security guard and or all.
Speaker 6: I was all over the world with these guys, and
Speaker 6: they were all many of these guys took the job
Speaker 6: very seriously, and so I developed a profile and and
Speaker 6: so Kevin and I started talking and I said, you know,
Speaker 6: but and Kevin's bread and butter is sincerity, and so
Speaker 6: we just started talking and we got into this. And
Speaker 6: I have to say, Kevin's the one who said I
Speaker 6: should be on one of those you know vehicles, and
Speaker 6: because he's he's just funny, we did it. There's a
Speaker 6: king Queen's with a whole tag is just Kevin screwing
Speaker 6: up on a forklift it's the funniest thing. He's funny physically,
Speaker 6: he's funny on vehicles.
Speaker 4: We knew this.
Speaker 6: Put him on a golf cart, put him on a forklift.
Speaker 6: It's gold and uh. And we just quickly arrived at okay,
Speaker 6: it's a dreamer, delusional mall cop and let's just make
Speaker 6: it die hard on them all, you know. And and
Speaker 6: we sold that fast. We wrote that fast, and it
Speaker 6: was but we did not expect it to be as
Speaker 6: popular as it was. That was really kind of a
Speaker 6: deeply exciting moment, that opening weekend.
Speaker 4: That's cool.
Speaker 1: Well, finally, before I let you go, looking back now
Speaker 1: at specifically Sabrina the Teenage Witch TGAF Friday Nights, a
Speaker 1: job you could have never seen coming. It is obviously
Speaker 1: an iconic character for an entire generation and now, thanks
Speaker 1: to streaming, for generations to come. What are your emotions
Speaker 1: or thoughts when you look back at young Nick and
Speaker 1: you think about those opportunities and you voicing Salem so
Speaker 1: early in your career.
Speaker 6: You know, it's really interesting, you know, you start out
Speaker 6: with this career dream and you just you know, my
Speaker 6: original dream was, man, I just don't want to work
Speaker 6: a square job, you know, It's like, you know, if
Speaker 6: I get an equity card, you start in those small
Speaker 6: increments and in the milestones change on you.
Speaker 4: So much of.
Speaker 6: It was just I'd love to not have to spend
Speaker 6: as much of my energy doing things I don't care about,
Speaker 6: and that fruition is the best part always. But you know,
Speaker 6: and you know, it's funny. I met you guys down
Speaker 6: at that convention in Tampa. I don't have I don't
Speaker 6: get to go to those things. That's the only time
Speaker 6: I ever got to. And that was really interesting for
Speaker 6: me because that was my opportunity to see that the
Speaker 6: show has this. I mean, I've done so many into things,
Speaker 6: but you know, look, I'm so proud of Bookie and
Speaker 6: I loved every minute of doing it, but Sabrina is
Speaker 6: the thing that this lasting impact. You guys see this
Speaker 6: all the time.
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 6: When I met people who love the show and then
Speaker 6: they're introducing it to their kids, and the and the
Speaker 6: way they express their appreciation for it, and you see
Speaker 6: it manifest it that way, and you really, well, you know,
Speaker 6: I actually did something.
Speaker 4: With legs that's a whole other level.
Speaker 6: I never expected that and to come full circle, you know,
Speaker 6: it's the thing that I didn't expect it to be,
Speaker 6: you know that the one I went in going okay,
Speaker 6: you know, yeah, right, you know you're you're never going
Speaker 6: to get it right when you try to predict your outcomes,
Speaker 6: So try things right, try them, because this one's been
Speaker 6: just beautiful.
Speaker 1: Well, Nick, thank you so much for coming and spending
Speaker 1: so much time talking to us. A pleasure to talk
Speaker 1: to you. You've had such an interesting, fascinating career. It's
Speaker 1: great to great to hear you reminiscent it all, So
Speaker 1: thank you. Thanks for having me check out Booky on Max. Yeah,
Speaker 1: where else can we find you? Where else can we
Speaker 1: see you? That's on Max? Bookie? What else you know?
Speaker 4: I'm right now. We're shooting.
Speaker 6: I got a show coming up on Netflix. It's a
Speaker 6: half hour with the comedian Leanne Morgan and you guys
Speaker 6: will like this. It's an old school multi came with
Speaker 6: an audience.
Speaker 1: Oh thank god.
Speaker 6: We're just shooting I think our seventh or eighth episode
Speaker 6: next week. So we're back in the old uh, back
Speaker 6: in the belly of the beast. And it's been really
Speaker 6: fun and she's been delightful. It's on Netflix, so you
Speaker 6: know it'll take them three years to translate it into
Speaker 6: you know, every language under the sun. But it's coming
Speaker 6: at you in and it's really fun.
Speaker 4: Great.
Speaker 3: Thank you wonderful.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you again for being here with us. Nick.
Speaker 1: We'll look forward to seeing you next time.
Speaker 4: You guys are blast. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Thank you bye.
Speaker 5: Oh.
Speaker 1: I still do want to know what that PR person
Speaker 1: said about the Baldoni.
Speaker 3: I'm the same way.
Speaker 5: He's also one of those guys where I feel like
Speaker 5: he and I speak the same language. Oh yeah, guys
Speaker 5: like you meet somebody and you're like, it'll be like
Speaker 5: writer meeting another professor.
Speaker 1: So we picked up on that right and I just
Speaker 1: stayed pretty quiet.
Speaker 3: We speak the same language.
Speaker 5: I know this guy, okay, yeah yeah, just the old
Speaker 5: school kind of comedy and the really random references.
Speaker 3: Yeah, love love for sure.
Speaker 1: He's so interesting, so many interesting careers, and it's funny
Speaker 1: that how much what he said at the very beginning
Speaker 1: of the episode reminded me of what Rusty says. It's like,
Speaker 1: you can bang your head against door A, but eventually,
Speaker 1: if you know, DOORB opens and you don't walk through it,
Speaker 1: like yeah, you know, it's it's just it's.
Speaker 5: Funny you say that he said a couple things that
Speaker 5: reminded me of Rusty. The other thing Rusty used to
Speaker 5: always say to me was I knew when I was
Speaker 5: coming up, I just never wanted to wear a suit
Speaker 5: to work.
Speaker 3: Right, He's like, I.
Speaker 5: Just knew he would always say that to me. He's like,
Speaker 5: I didn't know what I wanted to do. I just
Speaker 5: knew I didn't want to wear a suit to work.
Speaker 5: And you got that same kind of vibe from Nick
Speaker 5: where it was just like, no, I don't.
Speaker 3: Know exactly what it is. Yeah, yeah, right, Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: like I just don't want to wear a suit to work,
Speaker 3: So the same kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, thank you all for joining us for this
Speaker 1: episode of Pod Meets World. As always, you can follow
Speaker 1: us on Instagram pod Meets World Show. You can send
Speaker 1: us your emails pod meets World Show at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: And we've got March.
Speaker 3: I still don't believe Salem was a puppet.
Speaker 1: March pod meets Worldshow dot com writer, send us out.
Speaker 4: We love you all, pod dismissed.
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