Jesse Thorn on A Thousand Clowns

Chuck's pal Jesse Thorn is a public radio broadcaster and heads up the Maximum Fun podcast network. He joins Chuck today to chat up the business and dive deep on his movie crush, A Thousand Clowns.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Movie Crush, a production of I Heart Radio.

(00:28):
Hey everybody, and welcome to Movie Crush Friday Interview edition.
And uh, you guys, this week is a very special episode.
I got to talk to my friend Jesse Thorne. Uh.
You probably know Jesse if you know podcasting. He runs
the Maximum Fun Network. Uh he bore that from his
own brain many many years ago, very early entry into podcasting,

(00:51):
trailblazer in a lot of ways. And he also hosts
the public radio show Bullseye, which you can also find
as a podcast. And Jordan Jesse oh with his good
friend Jordan Morris, who you might remember from the Point
Break episode. And h Jesse is kind of an old friend. Now,
we've known each other for about ten years. I met
through John Hodgeman when John took us to a live

(01:15):
bulls Eye that he was doing in New York. Took
Josh and I And Jesse has just been a really kind,
generous friend to me over the years in the in
the podcasting industry, and it's really meant a lot to me.
And I know his uh wonderful wife, Theresa. Now and uh,
he's got a great family. He's got three kids, and um,

(01:37):
he's just a really good dude. And we got to
talk um at length, which is what I wanted. This
is a super size when uh at length about the
industry and his background which is really interesting, and about
podcasting and about his great great interview he recently did
with David Letterman for Bull's Eye, which you have to
listen to right after you listen to this, And then

(01:59):
we got to zero in on his favorite film, a
movie I'd never really heard of much outside of Jesse
talking about it called A Thousand Clowns starring Jason Robards
from based on the Broadway show of the same name,
and it is a great, great movie, guys. It's I
think there's a version on YouTube that you can see.
Otherwise it's DVD only, but I highly recommend it, really

(02:22):
really great movie. And this was one of the best
conversations I've ever had on this show, and I'm very
proud of it, and big thanks to Jesse for that.
So he makes it easy on me. So here we
go with Jesse Thorne on A Thousand Clowns. How you
doing you ready for Thanksgiving? Oh? Yeah? Doing it big?

(02:44):
By big? I mean small? Yeah. We actually do one
couple coming over that's it no family that's living it up. Yeah,
we've got no one coming over and my children don't
need anything. Yeah, So I had to figure out what
constitutes Thanksgiving dinner for two people when also you have

(03:04):
to participate in childcare all day. That's what are you'll doing?
Turkey thighs all right? I don't know, maybe some green
beans or something. Yeah, we're kind of doing the thing.
And these are our two friends who have we I
know that getting a COVID test is a bit of

(03:26):
an effort, but everyone else is like, well unless you've
quarantined for two weeks before that and then took the test,
and it's worthless. But we're having it outside. It's gonna
be seventy degrees and it will just be the four
US plus Ruby. That's nice, who eats nothing as well? No,
I mean we're gonna have uh rice cakes with cream

(03:47):
cheese on them. If you're wondering, Oh, that's a good idea.
Might mix it up. We might have rice cakes with
peanut butter on them. Who knows? Who knows? Chuck? So
my friend, uh, you and I grew up in very
different uh situations, Like I grew up in on the
outskirts of Atlanta and Georgia, and you grew up as

(04:09):
a city kid in San Francisco. And I've always been
envious of people who get to grow up in places
like that and have that kind of life. Um, I
want to hear a little bit about the San Francisco
you grew up in compared to its everyone's stream to
grow up with a with a junkie breaking into their house. Well,

(04:31):
let'st I want to hear about that. Like, what was
San Francisco like back then where you grew up. Um?
I grew up in the Mission District of San Francisco,
which now in is literally where Mark Zuckerberg lives. He
he bought two houses, connected them together, and built a
car turntable. That's really true, really, he really did all

(04:56):
of those things. The hospital I was born in San
Francisco General is now called Mark and whatever her name is,
Zuckerberg General Hospital, named after he and his wife. Um,
but when I was a kid, it was um you know.
I mean the thing about San Francisco is it's a
small city and everything is on top of everything else.

(05:18):
So you walk five blocks and you're in an entirely
different kind of neighborhood. Um. So you know, it wasn't
like I lived in a desolate waste land, quite the opposite, Like, um,
it was it was a really beautiful, vibrant, exciting neighborhood

(05:40):
to live in. Like I can I can't imagine being
from anywhere else. I loved it then, Um, I love
it in retrospect. And also you know I did have
to like, like it's real that I had to like,
you know, know what colors of choose to wear. And um,

(06:02):
you know I got jumped probably five or six times
in my childhood, you know, like I wasn't ever going
to join a gang, you know what I mean. Like,
and I also you know, um, my family was you know,
my parents were divorced and both both my parents until
I was a teen, until I was in my mid teens,

(06:22):
were pretty broke. But like we didn't ever want for food,
you know. Um, and uh and yeah, I mean it
was it was just you know, there were times when
it was scary, but um, it was awesome, you know,
like the I knew the people at the corner store,

(06:46):
and I knew the guy at the news stand, and
I took the bus to school by myself starting in
second grade. The just like the regular bus, you know,
and I took the park train to school, and um,
you know, I walked around. I knew the people in theighborhood.
I knew the people at the thrift store. You know.
Like it was, Um, it was all the great parts

(07:06):
of living in a city, um, and some of the
tough parts. But um, and you went to a kind
of a fancy private school on scholarship though, right, Well,
I'm part of my part of my school years. So
I went to a not fancy private school in elementary school. Um,
but at that school, it was like, um, it was

(07:29):
like the gifted and talented programs were in their infancy.
And at that school, my gifted and talented program was
first they offered to skip me two grades. Um, when
I was going into first grade, they offered to put
me into third grade. Really because general smarts. Yeah, I guess.

(07:51):
I mean I was not emotionally smart enough to do that.
And I'm glad that my parents recognized that, you know,
like there's different kinds of development. Um. And so they
pretty much just would like let me hang out in
the library. So I read like every book in the library, um,
just because I was bored, you know. And and then

(08:13):
I in sixth grade, I went to this middle school
that was extraordinarily fancy and not like Blue Blazer fancy,
like um Tech Money, Polar Tech, vest um, you know,
Tiva Sandal uh fancy. It was a progressive school called
Nueva and Um, it was a very very mixed experience

(08:37):
where I was really excited to be surrounded by super
genius kids. Um, and that was really fun and cool
and I still have some really close friends from middle
school actually, um, but it was also a bunch of
rich kids that I could not relate to on that
and they were all suburban kids. Almost all suburban kids too.

(09:01):
Like I took a I took the bart train to
Daily City, which is the last stop south of San Francisco.
And then there was like a van that would pick
us up at the A City kids that would pick
us up at the Daily City part station. Um and
uh yeah, I mean, like you know, I mean I

(09:21):
could tell you a thousand weird, awkward stories about middle school.
Like you know, one year, for my birthday, a kid
felt bad that I didn't have any video game system,
so he gave me his used Atari links for my birthday.
You know. One time I remember my friend Cam, who
was a really sweet guy is still as a sweet guy.

(09:44):
We're Facebook friends. Um, he came to visit me in
my house and um, we were walking to get ice
cream at Mitchell's ice Cream in San Francisco, best ice
cream in the world. And we were walking down, Um,
we were walking down San Jose Avenue and this is

(10:05):
a very quiet I mean it's a wide street, but
a quiet residential neighborhood and a pretty chill, middle class street.
And he was so scared. And I wasn't mad that
he was scared. I was mad that he was scared
on the wrong street. I was like if we were
walking down South van Nets, like if we were you know, whatever,

(10:27):
whatever the like, Um, and I just and I would
go visit their houses in in Like the school was
in this town called Hillsborough and the Peninsula and San Francisco,
and you know, like literally, you know, one of the
kids parents was the founder of Jennet Tech, and you
know one of the kids parents was Robin Williams, and

(10:50):
like you know, like stuff like that, you know, and
it was so foreign, and most of them were like
lawyers or whatever. But they had giant suburban houses. Was
so foreign to me, and I hated it. I hated
that part of it, and I hated being expected to
achieve as well. Because I in middle school. I I
have migraine headaches, and I started getting migraines when I

(11:11):
was in fifth grade and they were really debilitating at
that time. And because the medication that I take now
didn't exist then. Um. And so you know, between being
a you know, between being a whatever, like a super
highly gifted kid who didn't ever do homework or like

(11:31):
I couldn't you know, had other developmental issues, and the
fact that I missed in in middle school, I missed
like fifteen percent of my school days because of migraines. Um.
You know, it was a really that was a really
tough experience. But then I did. I did not graduate
from middle school. I was socially promoted from middle school,

(11:53):
and um, so for that reason, I was couldn't know.
I like to be a white that is, the scholarship
kid at a fancy private school, you have to be
a perfect candidate, like I was poor. I was still
poor enough and still smart enough to go to a
fancy private school on scholarship. But unfortunately I have my

(12:15):
grades were not good anymore, so UMA or just didn't
care as much about trying. I I hated homework and
I missed a lot of time because of migrants. So
it was both of those things. I didn't mind. I
went to class, I learned this stuff. Um, I just

(12:37):
hated doing homework. I thought it was stupid because it
is Um. I wasn't wrong. Um. And so I actually
like there was two plans. One was because I wasn't
getting into any of the fancy private schools, you know,
and Glick Wilmerding is one of the big ones, and uh,

(12:58):
I wasn't getting into any of those. So the hands
were and my and my neighborhood school, you know, was
it was a you know, like I don't want to
overstate it, but it was a war zone. And being
a a fae white boy was not going to work
at mission high. So UM the choices where I auditioned

(13:21):
for School of the Arts, and if I got in,
I was going to go to School the Arts. And
if I didn't get in, I was going to take
the high school Proficiency exam and just hang out for
four years until it was time to go to college.
That was like get a job or something, you know,
I don't know, tick classes at City College, hang around whatever. Um,

(13:42):
and I got into school the arts and School of
the Arts was Um, that was an amazing experience. I
loved I loved soda. Um. I was in theater and
I'm not a good actor. Was not a good actor then,
but I was think I was just a you know,
I was a boy and I could do a cold
reading and I was willing to audition for theater school

(14:04):
at thirteen. You know. Um, and uh, you know, my
my classmates were all brilliantly talented. Some of them are
famous now right performers. Yeah, well, at least semi famous.
One of my classmates wanna one a Tony for um
being in head Vig and the Angry Inch on Broadway. Um.

(14:25):
One of my classmates is she was one of the
stars of You're the Worst on FX and she she's
on She's on The Boys now on Amazon Prime season.
Yeah she's great. Yeah, she's really she's really great. And UM,
you know, like I it's not even like I would
have picked her. It wasn't like she was always destined

(14:47):
for fame. Like she was one of many really talented
and and the kids that I went to school with
like many of the ones who are not professional actors
or whatever are are still doing those kinds of things
in life. You know, people are people are theater teachers,
and you know people are different kinds of community organizers,

(15:11):
and you know, like it was a very inspirational place.
Now academically it was nothing, but unlike like the arts
education was really world class. And then the school part,
the school school part was nothing, but um no one cared.
So that was fine. I was like, well, here, if

(15:32):
I don't do any homework, I can still have an
A minus average, you know, like counting a P s
or whatever. Like at one point, at one point, my
calculus teacher was like, Jesse, I'm gonna have to give
you an F because you have not done any homework
all year. But there was only six people in the
calculus class because it was you know, it's an art school.

(15:52):
There's not that many people. And he's like, and he's like,
but I want there to be a calculus next year,
so and if I fail, everybody won't be calculus. So
he's like, so he goes, if you pass the AP exam,
I'll give you a C. I'm like, cool, done, I
passed the AP exam. So you feel like if you
all you had to do was apply yourself and you

(16:14):
could do okay, it just wasn't that interesting to you. Yeah,
I mean, I just I mean I worked hard in theater, right,
and I went to class, you know, to the extent
I was able. My migraines were still a big problem,
but um, I went to class. I wasn't like skipping
class or you know. It's funny like I was in

(16:34):
Arts High school and I was not doing drugs. Yeah,
I mean, you've always been a clean liver, so you weren't.
You weren't getting drunk at parties and smoking weed behind
the dumpster. No, I mean my friends were doing those
things and I supported them in it. You know, I
wasn't opposed to it. Now. That was me too, because
I grew up at church kids, so I didn't I

(16:54):
didn't get involved in alcohol or pot or anything until
I was, you know, well into college. Yeah, I mean,
I uh, in Arts high school it was much more
interesting two uh too, I mean there was every there
was no pressure to be any kind of person. At
my high school. There was a girl who wore PVC

(17:16):
to class. How do you do that? Like Vinyl clothing,
you know, like and giant platform boots, like six inch
platform boots, all black. Um, you know there was every
any kind of subculture was represented, but not like, um,

(17:38):
not in a doctrinaire way. Like it's not like there
was like metal heads, and it was every kind of thing.
And there was like dancing in the hallways all the time.
Um it was. I mean, that's is what type of
school it was. You know, everybody was there because they
wanted to be there. You had to audition to go there. Um.
And most of the arts programs were like world class.

(18:00):
It's not all of them, so some of them had
bad teachers and uh, you know, like lots of lots
of my classmates went to Juilliard and went to Rhode
Island School of Design and so on and so forth,
and then the ones who didn't just went to City College.
You know, it just was not it was not an

(18:20):
academically oriented institution. What was your What were you into
movie wise? As a kid? Um, I always loved to
kind of dig into the early, um, early movie going
experiences of the guests. I mean as a kid kid, Well,
my dad really loved movies and um my mom did

(18:43):
not distinguish between children and adults. So um uh. And
you know, like my mom when I was a kid,
went to graduate school um and became when I was
in my late teens, she became a junior college professor.
And he added, so she's very serious about culture, um,

(19:03):
though she has weird taste. And my dad like loves
loved movies, um, just more than anything. And um and
and my dad, like my dad was the kind of
guy who could, like he would like come home from
seeing uh from seeing like the fourth Shrek movie with

(19:26):
my little brothers and tell me about how great it was.
And then he would tell me about how he saw
every Bergman film in repertory over the course of a month.
You know, Like he just loved going to the movies,
Like he understood what was great about great movies and
did not care about what was bad about bad movies.

(19:46):
He just liked to go into the movies. Yeah, and
my mom we would go a lot too. There was
a movie theater right by my mom's house that's still
there called the Roxy on six Street in San Francisco.
One screen, Super We're Dirty, Super Junkie. It's now I
think a nonprofit UM, but like a rep rep theater

(20:07):
that showed weird art movies. Um, and we went there
all the time, and I saw all kinds of stuff,
like every kind of stuff. And then mean that's like
also where I saw a Star Wars. I think it
got red. The all three of them got rereleased, maybe
an eight seven. When I was six. I saw all
three of them there with my mom and um, so
it just went to all kinds of movies. And then

(20:28):
when I was in high school, I was actually in
a program that was connected to my school, but not
a school program called Art and Film for High school Students,
which also still exists, and I send them some money
because because of the fact they had all my life.
But every Saturday, me and my art nerd friends would

(20:49):
go to a movie and then like go to some
galleries or a museum and the movie was usually paid for, um,
and you know, we'd go see the movie. There's like
a it's like a movie Gosh, I can't think of
what it was called, but it was it was where um,

(21:10):
Leonardo DiCaprio is like he's either Oscar Wild or Oscar
Wild boyfriend and there's just a really hot gay sex
scene and anyway, like we go see those movies and
they and also like I'm born in eighty one, so
when I was seventeen and eighteen, sixteen, seventeen eighteen, in

(21:32):
the late nineties was you know, one of the golden
ages of American cinema, you know, like it really is.
I got to see everything from that kind of like
great middle brow you know, your Shakespeare in Loves um

(21:52):
to uh, you know, the the best Colin Brothers movies,
to the best Steven Starterberg movies too. Yeah, like all
all of those amazing films. And then they would also
they had access to this these two theaters, um, one
at Dolby Headquarters and which is in San Francisco, and

(22:15):
one at this museum called the Random Museum, and they
would show old movies. So I got to see like
the Passion of Joan of Arc and um, you know,
and Berlin Alexander Platz, those kinds of things, right, And
like I didn't love every single one of them, to
be clear, but um, but I loved getting to see
all that stuff. And uh yeah, so it was it

(22:38):
was really um all kinds of everything, and um, you
know it ties into this movie we're going to talk
about today because I realized at some point in my twenties,
my early twenties, I was like, well, my favorite childhood
movie is pe was Big Adventure and always was my

(22:58):
favorite um like adolescent movie was Rushmore, and then my
favorite adult movie is A Thousand Clowns. What do these
all have in common? Oh? No, they're all about child men. Yeah,
man children is the theme of my film Passion. Oh

(23:20):
oh you're fine. Um. It was like, I also like
belind me a lot. I also like belid me a lot. Oh,
I love the line want a great movie. That movie
has one of the best lines ever in movies, which
is the scene where Terence Stamp goes into Bill Duke's
office and has that long sort of cockney uh diet

(23:41):
tribe and to exist. There's just one thing. I don't
understand every motherfucking word that just came out of your mouth.
I was singing. My favorite line from that movie is,
um is Terence Stamp and uh uh and uh Luis
Kuzman are at Peter Fonda's mansion standing standing out on

(24:05):
the infinity of the edge of the infinity pool, and
Terence Stamp, in his Terence Stamp voice, says like beautiful
view in it and and Luis Guzman says, yeah, you
could see the ocean. If you could see it, I
knew it. That's one of my favorites. Such a good movie.
And so under like criminally underseen anything too. Um. So

(24:27):
you eventually what wound up at you see Santa Cruz
where you're broadcasting career kind of got started in earnest uh,
and I'd love to know a little bit about those
years and when you first um started you know, djaying
for the radio station there and kind of how that, uh,
what led you to that and then if that was

(24:48):
definitely like the Colonel where you like, this is what
I want to do. Yeah, I mean I what I
knew was that I wanted to but like I never
thought I would have a regular job. I mean unless
it was a regular job that um that where I
was moonlighting doing something I really wanted to do. I

(25:10):
think that was very possible. But I never was like
I'm going to become a lawyer or like. It was
always just like I'll just be a secretary or something
until something works. Um. And uh, I knew that I
was not good enough at acting to be a professional actor.
Now now that I'm an adult man, so like when

(25:31):
you go to theater school, they're really into theater and
they act. Like to be a professional actor you have
to be super good at acting. It turns out you
just have to look like a thing. Yeah, that's kind
of true. If I like, if someone had explained that
to me, maybe I would have become pursued an acting
career because I did book. Yeah, because I did book
a couple of local commercials when I was just out

(25:54):
of college. And you know, like I got Scott Akackerman
put me on his TV show as like, you know, insufferable,
insufferable pinhead comedy writer. You know, like I could have
just been there. I could have just worn this Shetland
sweater that I'm wearing right now and played insufferable pinhead. Um,

(26:15):
but I was I knew like how much more talented
and how much And you know, in theater school, like
all they tell you was like if this isn't everything
you wanted the world, don't do it. You know, they're
constantly trying to scare you off. And so I was like, well,
I'm not going to be an actor actor. And I
was doing improv um uh as starting my freshman year

(26:37):
of college, and um I had two friends who were
really really funny. Um. Their named Gene and Jordan. And
Gene was my friend from freshman year and he was
on my improv team and Jean, I just had never
met somebody so funny. And it's like I had funny

(26:57):
friends in high school and school, but um, I think
I just had never met somebody who was my peer
who was definitely funnier than me. Like where I was like, oh,
I cannot compete with this. This person is more talented
than I am, no doubt about it in this specific
area of being funny. Um. And because like I'm like

(27:21):
funny for a normal person, but not compared to my
friends who are professional comedians. Um. And so my friend
Jeane was the first person I met like that. He
was so funny and he I remember he was in
We were in the first we were in there. There
was this core class, you know, like a common class
for people at our college, and we were in that
class together. You take it your first your first quarter

(27:42):
of your freshman year. And um, he later told me,
he later told me that he thought I was always
high or drunk. It's ironic took until like he knew
he had known me for like five months before or
he realized that I was just like this um, but

(28:05):
he was so so so funny and um a little
bit of a reluctant performer, uh you know it was
a little ambivalent about doing improv, but so so talented.
And then my second year to pay for college, I
wasn't I was an r A and I was the
r A of a performing arts hall and on my
hall was my friend Jordan's, and Jordan was so funny,

(28:28):
Like I was mad at him. He was so funny.
This is Jordan Morris for listeners, Yeah, this is Jordan Morris,
who is now my co host on Jordan Jessica exactly
and awesome. And I was like, this guy is so funny.
I can't even believe it. And so I just kind
of roped them. He Jordans came onto our improv team,

(28:50):
and I just kind of roped them into a college
radio show. And the really the reason I chose a
college radio show was not because I had always dreamed
of becoming a radio host. It was because it was
like three years before you could afford to buy a
camera if you were a normal person, and there was
no TV station on campus, so it was either that

(29:11):
or we right for the the the semi humorous campus newspaper,
The Fish Wrap Live. So while we had very little shame,
we had enough shame to not do that. We didn't
have enough shame to not be in a short form
improv group, but we had enough shame to not write
for The Fish Rap Live. So uh so, yeah, we like.

(29:35):
I very vividly remember taking a tour of the college
radio station, thinking this must be so complicated, and then
seeing somebody using the board and being like, oh so
it's just up is louder and down is quieter, with
like I can do that, you know, And uh, I
started a radio show. And that radio show, which was
then called The Sound of Young America. I love that name.

(29:57):
By the way, you're you're one of a very small group.
I know why you changed it, I guess, but I
just I really really thought that was a great name.
I just got sick of getting emails from people who said,
so you think you're the Sound of Young America, huh
forty seven years old, and I'd be like, well, actually,
I'm not just talk that way. And also the title

(30:19):
was intended to be ironic, but anyway, um, that show
is still my show, like that's that's Bull's I. My
NPR show is that show. Um. Eventually Jordan and Geen graduated,
and when they graduated, we we used to do more
comedy on the show. UM, but I wasn't. I didn't

(30:39):
want to be you know, Harry Shearer on the show,
like telling jokes to myself in a lonely room, like
doing doing solo humor on radio is very very hard,
as the quality of the show attests, um and uh,
and so I just moved to I had like guest

(31:01):
co hosts for a little while, um, including among others,
some friends from San Francisco comedy then w Comal Bell,
who chose three Emmys for his show on CNN. Yeah,
Al Al Madrigal, who whose sons correspondent on The Daily Show,
among other things. And uh, my friends from this sketch

(31:24):
comedy group called Casper Houser from San Francisco the greatest
greatest comedy geniuses I've ever known. Um. So I had
some had some co hosts, and then started doing it solo.
When I started doing it solo, I went to all interviews.
But you were a public radio kid, right like you
You know, he tell stories about listening to public radio

(31:45):
when you were in your teens. Yeah, I mean, you know,
let's be frank. I know that you worked for I
Heart Media, and I don't want to be too unkind,
but commercial radio blows and it pretty much always had.
Like the reason, you know, the reason Howard Stern is
a radio phenomenon is because he's like one of like

(32:08):
two people that don't totally suck, you know, like commercial
radio is the worst, um. And you know, like DJ's
do their DJ thing. Like I'm not saying that DJs
are are bad, but like talk radio is a is
a real cess pool, um. And no one was doing comedy.

(32:28):
I mean, like every comedy on the radio in you know,
or two thousand three was just you know, embarrassing clowns um.
You know, with a very few exceptions, but even those
people were trapped in you know, like Howard Stern before
he was on satellite was kind of was trapped and

(32:49):
doing modern rock morning show like player, having to play
records and stuff for forever, despite being you know, one
of the most talented broadcasters of his generation, and his
thing is not even you know, it's not even a
thing that's for me. But like I can see it,
and you know, and then other talented people were like,
you know, Russia lying BA is really talented wrestling balls

(33:11):
are really talented radio host. But you know that's a
very specific lane that I was not going to go into.
So um. So yeah, public radio was where I was at.
And like all the things that people say about public
radio are are mostly true except for the liberal biased thing.
I don't I don't buy that, um, but all the

(33:32):
all the things that people say about pretense or whatever,
you know, like, yeah, people are trying to make smart things.
That is pretentious, right, um, you know they do talk
more slowly whatever. Um. But there was no question that
that was the only place that I was going to find,
like before podcasting, if I was going to be a

(33:55):
broadcast there was no way that I was going to
be successful hosting a sports talk show, like I listened
to sports talk sometimes. Um. But like there was no
way that I was going to be JT the Brick.
Yeah yeah, pour him another brew you know, like I was.
That was never gonna be my thing, you know. Yeah,
although you do love a good T shirt canon, Oh god,

(34:18):
do I love a T shirt cannon. For a while,
Jordan's was hosting. Jordan worked for a long time for
an action sports TV network that doesn't exist anymore, called Fuel,
and sometimes he would have to host things at the
DO Tour on the on the Fuel stage at the
DO Tour, and he uh, he is uh, you know,
he's not totally unfamiliar with action sports stuff. He's not

(34:41):
like a skateboarder, but he's from Orange County. But like
he and our friend Chris Fairbanks is another very brilliant
stand up comics. Yeah, Chris is great, but like his
whole his whole Chris's whole act is just him mumbling
and saying words wrong. So he's not exactly a commanding
presence to a bunch of fifteen year old you know
that are about to throw their skateboards at you. And
I remember Jordan telling me just how grateful he was

(35:03):
for the T shirt canidate, just like, no matter what happens,
you can always just shoot T T shirts into the ground.
I feel like Jordan is very pliable though, um, I
feel like there aren't many situations that you could throw
him into where he would fail. Uh. He's a pretty
adaptable guy with his with his funnies, I think, oh

(35:24):
absolutely know he's so funny. I mean, he's so brilliantly funny.
And he's also always been immensely socially flexible, and I
think that comes for him from from you know, he
went to a really regular high school in Orange County,
and he also had some of that. Like, you know,

(35:45):
Orange County is not monolithic in terms of class. Um.
There are plenty of lower middle class and poor folks
in Orange County. But you know, Jordan's grew up with
his single mom and um in less than affluent circumstances,
and you know, a lot folks around him were really rich, um.
And I think between those things he like really uh,

(36:07):
he's always been very so. I mean he can deal
with me, you know what. I feel like I have
a pretty acquired taste. Well, uh, you went on to
found Max Fun Maximum Fun, and I remember when we

(36:29):
first met. It was at the Green Space in New
York City. You were doing uh, which is for those
of you listening it don't know it. It's a that's
kind of one of these cool performance recording spaces where
people can walk by on the street and see what's
going on inside. And it's pretty small. Probably there's one
at the station in Boston and what we were doing,

(36:50):
Jordan Jessica. Literally a guy in a Tom Brady Jersey
walked up to the big picture window where only the
performers on stage can see you, you know, all the
all the audiences back is to him. He walks up
to the big picture window, he looks at us and
as Tom Brady Jersey and then just flips us the
double Oh my god, like, thanks, Boston, thanks, you do

(37:11):
you Boston's about right. But I remember Hodgeman took Josh
and I and we met you and you were doing
it may have been sounded Young America Alive or just
some sort of variety of type was yeah, and you
had the guy from Wes Savvy fav and a couple
of other great guests, and um we met after and

(37:32):
I remember you told me and this is the first
I had kind of known of you and of Maximum Fun.
And when you were telling me about it and that
sort of the brief time we had to chat afterward,
what really spoke to me was this idea of um
sort of the ethos of rejecting cynicism and embracing earnestness,
and that really, like, from that moment on, I was

(37:53):
team Jesse all the way, And I kind of want
to know a little bit more about that back then
and what you think about that now? Well, I think that.
Um So, in college we invented this thing that my
friend Rebecca Worth named the New Sincerity. She named it

(38:14):
that because one day, at one day at lunch in
the dining hall, you know, I was there, probably with
Gane and Jordan's and she said, she's very sweet, she
became a school teacher, but very brilliant woment as well.
She goes, Jesse, I'm always uncomfortable eating lunch with your friends.

(38:35):
And I'm like, oh no, Rebecca, like why why is that?
She's like, I cannot tell if you are joking, and
and it's a fine line. Yeah, I think what what
happened is like, I'm a I'm an elder millennial, right,
I was born in one I'm kind of on the
on the line just on then, an old millennial. Yeah,

(38:59):
And but I grew up sort of in the shadow
of the pop culture of Generation X, right. And Generation
X was all about cynically rejecting the trappings of baby
boom or dumb quite reasonably, you know. Um and it

(39:19):
was also about, you know, engaging with irony and camp
in ways that you know, previous generations had not been
able to you know, like hippies. Hippies were not engaged
with camp, you know what I mean. Um, but Diva was,

(39:40):
uh and you know, and Ben Stiller or whatever was
engaged with irony right and um, and like I always
thought that was I mean, camp has its place, certainly,
but like that's sort of like reserved, removed, ironic stance.
It feels like such a hop out to me and

(40:01):
it always did. Um. And I also was just like
I don't want to just talk about what character on
Scooby Doo you'd want to fuck or whatever, you know,
Like I get it, you know, like it's not that
I would never want to talk about that, but just
just I wouldn't want that to be the center of

(40:22):
my world. But at this but at the same time,
like the alternative to that at the time was like
the Hallmark Channel type stuff, you know. And like I
was like, but I do I do love to laugh,
like and I do love art, you know, both high
and low. Um, And I don't just want to live

(40:42):
in a world of you know, uh, the big what's that?
What's the movie where Um, all the baby boomers get
together in their thirties and they listen to motown songs.
Ye off the Big Sleep, that's like a Raymond Chandler book, which,
by the way, Jenny had had Tompkins that was her

(41:04):
a movie crush pick was the Big Jill good for her.
Jenny's the best you can't you can't set up beef
between me and Jennie had that UM, nice try. I
know you're the I know you're the drama king. Um.
And so I was like, what is the world where?

(41:25):
What is the world where we can get past those
two opposing forces? And for us, and this was all
a goof like, I don't want people to think like
like it's part of the new sincerity is to enjoy
the fact that it's ridiculous, to embrace the fact that
there's a ridiculousness to it. And so the new sincerity

(41:46):
for us was just like stuff that is two big
to be taken directly literally, but that isn't being taken
ironically in the sense that you're taking in the opposite
it way in which it's intended. And you know, interestingly,

(42:06):
I think like late baby boomers or in between baby
boomers and um and gen xers maybe the best at this.
Like the perfect example is like parliament, not not the
not parliament that runs a parliamentary democracy, but the band parliament, right, Like,

(42:28):
like the guy in the diaper is fucking ridiculous but
also an actual genius. And also there's a reason he's
wearing the diaper, you know what I mean? Like, uh,
you know, Dolly Parton is an intentional self caricature, you
know what I mean, Like Dolly Parton created a cartoon

(42:50):
of herself, but it's not that it's an insincere cartoon.
It's genuinely reflective of who she is. And she's a
genuine genius. She's a genuine art genius who makes genuinely
amazing work, right, And so that is kind of the
spirit of this thing, and a lot of you know,

(43:13):
in comedy wise, you know, Um, I mean obviously Pee
Wee Herman is a big one. Um that it was
really life changing for me. Um. But like, you know,
I think the speaking of how it's not from gen x,
I think the guy's end lady from the state, especially

(43:37):
in their post state work, you know what, Hot American
Summer and Stella, Like, I think those are really reflective
of it, like this kind of like ridiculousness that is
really pointed. Um. And uh yeah, so we kind of
made up this thing as a goof and then like
part of what's fun about it is the more importance
you put into it, the more it becomes itself, you

(43:59):
know what I mean, because that is sort of the premise. Um.
And yeah, I mean it's like and then you know,
as a as a man, you know, as like an
adult adult, not a two year old or a twenty
year old. Um, I think just we've worked really hard

(44:20):
to make real comedy that is that like it takes
care of people to some extent, you know. And that's
not like it's like we don't just want to be
you know, late period Bob Hope or whatever, you know
what I mean. But um, you know we're not trying

(44:41):
to be Jay Leno. You know, I'm Jay Leno. Is
not without merit, to be clear, but like, but we
it's not just can we make comfort food, Like you
can challenge people and do something that at least aspires
to being artful, um without being an asshole. Um. And

(45:06):
that's what it's kind of turned into eventually, Like I'm
too old now to do anything actually ridiculous, you know,
but like one time we did buy Me and Jordan's
did buy a thousand people ice cream. Yeah, yeah, it
was great. What did you launch aside from Sound of
Young America? What did you launch Max Fun with? What

(45:27):
were the first few shows? The original shows were, um,
you know, it was like what could I do? It
was just me and I had a job, so like
a job not doing Max Fun, So it was what
was the sound of being? It was I worked at
a I was a receptionist at a nonprofit UM. So
the original launch was like I moved to l A

(45:50):
with my wife so she could go to law school.
And the guys from Casper Houser paid me a little
bit of money for a few months to make a
podcast of some of their sketches, and they were because
they had Their first book was out called Skymall Happy
Crap you Can Buy from a Plane UM, which is
one of the most brilliant works of comedy ever, one

(46:12):
of the only one of the only books ever to
be blurred by comedy comedy writings. Two greatest Daves, Dave
Barry and David Foster Wallace UM. And they paid me
to do some sketches, and then I had befriended this
man named mel Sharp, who in the sixties with a
guy named Jim Coyle, did these put ons for radio

(46:36):
station in San Francisco. These elaborate on man on the
street interviews where they would try to get someone to
rent out, Like they interviewed a woman to see if
she would be willing to rent other people's children because
she was childless, or like you know, uh. They they
did this interview with this guy who was in the

(46:57):
Navy and they tried to convince him to go to
his base, get a bunch of guns, bring them back,
and then they would all rob a bank together and
it was a real bank, but they were making a
movie and then one guy and the guy agreed to it,
and when they told him it was to put on,
he still wanted to do it. And then or like

(47:17):
there was one where they try and convince somebody to
do this thing where he grows, he grows ash trays
in his head and then they're surgically removed and it's
like a way to make money, like extra money. Um,
So they would do these insane things and this is
like the sixties, before it was the sixth this n

(47:40):
you know, this is not this is not hippie sixties.
This is you know, they were like cool guys. They
were probably kind of beat next you know, they were
North Beach guys, but like this was they said they
would look for the people in the heaviest long wing shoes.
And um, he had this big archive of their stuff
and he had been guest on my show and I

(48:01):
knew that he and his daughter had digitized all this stuff.
It was on c d s, you know, and I
just said, hey, could I make a podcast of it?
So it was, Um, it was coil and Sharp, Casper
Hauser and the Sound of Young America. And then not
long after I moved to l A, I I started
Jorge jesse Go with Jordan's because Jordan had been doing

(48:22):
the Sound of Young America with with our friend Jean
and me. Um. But he moved to l A to
work in show business, so he was he was paying
on a show called Living with Fran created by It
was a Fran dresser sitcom based on the life of
Jamie Kennedy. Wow. Um, if you're wondering whether it was

(48:43):
two thousand eight, um, and uh yeah, when in the
first show we added to the network that I wasn't
making was stop podcasting Yourself, which is still around and
still my favorite podcasts. Just listening to it this morning,
We're where did you hear the word podcast? For the
first time. I had a family friend who was the

(49:05):
kind of guy who read Wired magazine in the early
to mid nineties, you know, a real Mark Frownfelder from
blowing blowing type guy, and um, he just emailed me
in two thousand four. I was just out of college
and he said, um, hey, I know you do that

(49:25):
radio show. And I was fully like, just drive borrowing
my mom's car to drive to Santa Cruz to do
my college radio show. After having graduated from college, that's
where I was at. I thought about quitting, and my
my now wife and girlfriend said to me, She literally
said to me, I said, should I stop doing the
radio show? Like this is a ridiculous. I don't even
have the money for the gas, you know, And she said, well,

(49:49):
you don't do anything else. So I kept doing it.
So this family friend said there's this thing called podcasting.
You should look into it. So at first I couldn't
do it because I didn't know how to code an
RSS feed, But then someone made a thing where you
would ftp it into a folder. You would dropped this

(50:09):
little program into a folder, and then every time you
dropped a new MP three file into that folder via FTP,
it would add it to your RSS feed. And this
was before there was podcasts and iTunes. This was there
was this one app called I Potter and UH, and
you were truly one of the first. Yeah, I mean

(50:30):
like one of the first, you know, five hundred, certainly
one of the first three hundred, which is one of
the first, one of the doing an actual thing, one
of the first doing a real show for sure. Well,
it's interesting because we've had a lot of conversations over
the years. You know, we couldn't have UH come at

(50:51):
this job in more different ways. And you know, you've
always owned your own stuff, and you started your own
UM network and it's always been independently supported. And I,
you know, I was a writer for the web and
was assigned to do this for work and kind of
fell into a weird success that way. And it's funny

(51:11):
like over the years, I feel like every time we've
talked about each other's situation, like I'm kind of like
man Jesse, that's so cool, Like you get to own
your own ship, you get to run your own deal,
and you're an indie and you're like, man, you just
get to talk into a microphone and you've got other
people to do everything for you and that's it, and
you get to go home and go to bed every
night and not stress about it. And I feel like

(51:33):
we've always kind of envied each other's situation in weird ways.
Uh yeah, here, I mean for me, Like it's funny,
like I come from family circumstances where there was you know,
my mom, like I said, went to graduate school when
I was a kid, and um became a college teacher.
You know, she became an intellectual in her mid forties. UM.

(51:57):
And my dad was an organizer. He was a he
was very central in the veterans peace movement. And UM,
when I was a kid, he worked in the independent
living movement. His his best friend was a guy named
Ed Roberts, who basically invented rights for people with disabilities

(52:20):
in the United States. UM. And uh So there was
never any expectation that I would do something other than
what I believed in. UM. And that is different from
a lot of people who go into the arts. I know,
because I interview artists on Bullseye. You know, like a
lot of people have to fight their way to being

(52:40):
an artist. It was just the expectation for me. Um.
You know, my my mom was always disappointed that I
didn't do drugs. Um. But like, uh, I also and
with that, I never expected to even middle class like

(53:01):
I truly for the first ten or fifteen years of
my career, I made sixteen thousand dollars a year and
lived off that. And I just thought that was what
my life would be forever, because that's what my life
had been when I was a kid, you know. Um
and uh. I think being a business person, I've always
been an idealist because that's just how I was raised,

(53:24):
and I always worked so hard to make I've always
felt kind of weird and guilty about being a business person.
And um, at the same time, like I always felt
strongly like, if this happens to succeed, I would love
to be the one making money from it. So I
didn't want to be have a nonprofits. I knew what

(53:44):
that was because my dad had worked in nonprofits this
whole life, you know. And um, and I thought, and
you know, the one of the the two hardest parts
for me of being a business person. One is that
I'm not a great manager um of other people, because

(54:05):
I'm the kind of person who just wants to go
sit in a corner and handle his own business and
then have everyone else handled their own business and you
never have to talk to each other and um uh.
And then the other thing is like, you know, capitalism
requires access to capital, which I never had. And you know,
one of the things about having wealth which I have had,

(54:29):
which I had zero of, you know, lesson zero, I
had the expectation that I would have to support my parents,
um and possibly my siblings and and and and um.
But like one of the things about not having wealth,
you know, and wealth even including like not wealth could

(54:50):
be your parents own their own home, you know. Is
capitalism is about risk, right, And in order to make
my you have to take a risk. So you have
to have access to capital to risk, and then you
also have to be able to withstand the consequences of

(55:10):
failure in that risk. Right, Like when those business people
say the secret to businesses failure, Well, you get to
fail if you have access to capital. Again after you fail,
failing with other people's money is a whole different thing. Yeah,
And I didn't know anyone that had money to invest
in things I wouldn't. It never would have occurred to

(55:32):
me in a million billion years to ask someone to
invest in what I was doing. And so you know,
there's multiple results of that for our business. One is,
you know, we probably could have tried to expand aggressively
at the dawn of podcasting or the second dawn of podcasting,
or the third dawn of podcasting, and exactly, you know,

(55:53):
I would have I would have had a company I
could self for fifty million dollars, like my my friend
Jeff al Rick did with Earwolf. But and I'm constantly
live in terror that like something will go wrong with
the company and then I will have nothing and no skills,
you know, will be even be able to get a job. Um.

(56:14):
But also we have a relatively stable business, and you know,
me and the other hosting creators own their own stuff
and so on and so forth, because the way we
did it, you know, the unicorn these days. Yeah, and

(56:34):
it did kind of work, like I don't you know, certainly,
if you know, if I had created my NPR show
for NPR, a lot more people would listen to it. Yeah, um,
because NPR would be much more invested in helping me
make it successful. Um. Interesting. You know if I was

(56:58):
like and this is not a new saw to any
of these people who are my friends, who I like
and admire, my my valued colleagues. But you know, if
I was Guy Roz at NPR, like he created a
show for NPR and he got famous from it, you know, Um,
and I'm not famous. None of my shows are particularly successful,

(57:19):
you know. Um, so you define that like your the
best interviewer of your generation. That's very kind of you
to say, Um, but you know, like, uh, but but
I do, like nobody can tell me what to do. Yeah,

(57:39):
you know, nobody can cancel my shows. Like I've been
doing this show for twenty years because no one can
cancel it, and also because I'm scared to stop doing
it because then I would have to think of a
new idea. Well, recently, uh, you know, before we move
on to a thousand clowns that do want to talk
a little bit about, um, you've had a uh, some

(58:00):
great opportunities to interview a lot of amazing people like
Bill Withers and you know, some true heroes of yours.
But recently you got to sit down, uh with David Letterman,
and I listened to it the day it dropped, and Uh,
I had a lot of feelings about it, um immense
pride for my friend and excitement for you because it

(58:25):
was evident you held it together, but it was evident
on what he means to you. And he's someone who
has meant so much to me as the first sort
of comedy hero of mind growing up as well, my
brother and I sitting in the basement when I was,
you know, twelve years old watching Letterman, and it was
just an astounding interview. It was a great conversation. I

(58:47):
feel like you guys connected, uh in a way that
I don't often hear in an interview, and it was
just a joy to listen to. And I would love
to hear your perspective on that experience. I mean, he
was certainly the person, Like I said, I've been doing
this show twenty years, and many of the people who

(59:08):
are on the top of my list when you say, like,
who would you love to have on the show, most
of all I've had on the show, you know, Bill
Withers was one of those. Paul Rubens Petere Herman was, Yeah,
we're we're well, I can't say, but okay, we're lovers,

(59:32):
but I don't kiss and tell. Um. Uh we So
I had a lot of those people on, but there's
no question that David Letterman was always number one. Mike
Lee is another one. Michaele's movies are my favorite movies,
and he came on. But um, you know, I just
never thought it would really happen because when he was

(59:54):
hosting a daily show, he just doesn't do He just
didn't do press, you know, like he would do one
thing a year because as he was obliged to. But
it's an all consuming job, you know. And um, apparently
one of the producers of his show on Netflix. My
next Guest needs no Introduction is a fan of bullseym

(01:00:15):
my NPR show and and just we we would put
in I mean, you know, you put in a request
and then nothing happens. We've been doing that for twenty years.
And this time that person, that guy saw it and
was like, oh, this is a good show. We should
have Dave do this. Wow. Um, and you know we

(01:00:35):
managed to keep it secret from him that no one
listens to it. I mean, it was it went to
uh that email went to my producer Kevin. But I
just I just didn't believe it was real until I
was sitting there with David Letterman. Did you see his face? Yeah, Jesus,
how did you together? I didn't. I was crazy. Um

(01:01:00):
and UM. It was weird because on the one hand,
this is my greatest guests I've always wanted to have
on my show forever, and my greatest broadcasting hero without
a doubt, no offense to my you know, to Terry
Gross or Ira Glass or former San Francisco Giants played

(01:01:21):
by play man Hank Greenwald. But Letterman's number one, He's
He's occupies the first the first position on Mount Rushmore.
And but you know, I mean, like a lot of people,
my life has been you know, a nightmare the last
six months or nine months, and you know, better than some,

(01:01:45):
but worse than many. And and one of the results
of that has been that I have had very very
little control over my work life because of my time
has been dedicated to keeping my family safe and um.
And so I had like an hour before the interview

(01:02:05):
to prep for it. Really obviously, I when I when
I found out it was going to happen, you know,
six days before, like certainly it was on my mind,
Like it wasn't like I wasn't cooking dinner and thinking
about it, but like in terms of actual prep time,
I had like an hour. And so was it better No,
because if you're like looking back, it was probably better

(01:02:28):
that way. No, I mean it has its merits, right,
Like I did this show about interviewing called The Turnaround
where I interviewed fantastic famous interviewers and one and in
order to do that show that I was making no
money from and fitted into my seventy five other jobs,
was just like I was, just like, I'm not prepping
for any of these interviews, Like I know who these

(01:02:48):
people are and I know what I want to ask
them about. I'm not going to do put any extra
work in it besides sitting down and talking into the
microphone because I couldn't. And I learned a lot by
doing that about being present. And you know, in addition
to learning a lot from people telling me about being
present and so forth, you know, you can't. My inclination

(01:03:08):
is to want to control every piece of it. And
when you really can't, there are things that you gain.
But in the case of Letterman, you know, one of
the big concerns was, you know, Letterman did some really
awful stuff at work, you know, and I wanted to
ask him about that, but I also didn't only want

(01:03:29):
to ask him about that. I think he did a
great job addressing it, thank you. And so I was
that's something that like you can't just freestyle. And you know,
as I said, my my family life and emotional life
has been a real mess. So it was very hard
to enjoy as it was happening. Um. Also, Dave couldn't

(01:03:51):
figure out how to use his headphones. I'm sure it
was surreal at the same time, it was so surreal,
and but he carried the way to the interview. I mean,
he's so eloquent, Like he definitely doesn't he's definitely had
to work becoming reflective, but he is reflective now. And um,
you know, he's a genius. He's a broadcasting genius, you know,

(01:04:14):
like he talked in that interview about Regis phil then
and the kind of broadcasting genius that Regius is. But
and he said it to contrast with himself, but the
truth is that he is that Like if he wanted
to go be Howard Stern, he could go be Howard Stern.
If he wanted to go, if he wanted to host
Live with Regis and Kathie Lee, he could go host that.

(01:04:35):
I know that neither of those people host that show anyway. Um.
You know, like he is an actual broadcasting genius. Um
he can speak compelling lee for five minutes or twenty
minutes or four hours, and he can be hilarious as well.
You know, all the best Letterman bits are just bits

(01:04:56):
where they set him up to be funny. None of
them are where they wrote him a great joke. Right, Yeah,
of course, like the writers were completely incidental show, except
to the extent that like, you know, like why is
Merril Marco, the original head writer of that show, like
the greatest writer in the history of Letterman. It's because
she thought of Stupid Patricks. And it's like she now,
she's she's a brilliant person. She understands the layers of

(01:05:19):
irony embedded in Stupid Patricks and so forth, and she
understood exactly why it was perfect for Dave. Right, But
at the same time, it's basically an Ed Sullivan segment,
you know what I mean. It's not a joke. It's
like it's a thing for David Letterman. To do, and
if it wasn't David Letterman, it wouldn't be a good thing,
you know. Um, so I just kind of set him up.

(01:05:39):
It was great, man, I mean he was engaged. I
feel like you surprised him, which is probably very hard
to do. You made him laugh you. Uh. It was
just a really really great conversation. And I just sat
there smiling the whole time because not only is it
like my friend is doing this great thing and I'm

(01:06:00):
so happy for him, but I'm also getting to hear
the best interview I've ever heard with David Letterman, and
as a Letterman guy, I was just knocked out. I've
listened to it twice now, and I felt like you
you talked about things that he's never talked about before,
and the way you addressed his workplace behavior was respectful,
and he didn't shy away from it and owned up

(01:06:22):
to it, and it didn't feel like any sort of
a gotcha kind of thing. It was just really really great.
And I just if anyone is a fan of David
Letterman and you haven't listened to it, just stop now
and go listen to it. My my friend Lena Holmes,
who's a host of pop culture happy Hour for NPR
as well as a talented novelist, and she's she's one

(01:06:46):
of the smartest people I know, and certainly about popular culture,
one of the most insightful. She said something about David
Letterman that made perfect sense to me, that expressed something
that I couldn't that was ineffable to me previously, which was,
you know, a lot of people say, well, why is
Dave exempt from me too? And I you know, there's

(01:07:08):
basic reasons, you know, like being the boss at allows
you place to work where people are uncomfortable is different
from harassing people actively. Both are bad, to be clear,
but there is a difference in degree. You know, he
the things he did with subordinates were consensual even if
there wasn't imbalance of power. Um, you know, like he

(01:07:33):
did bad things that he didn't do the worst things
he could have done right, not to cop a plate
for him, but there there are some bits of degree.
But you know, like all that stuff I said could
be applied to like Garrison Keeler, you know, got fired
and you know, like he didn't do the worst things
of any of those people, but like he did bad
things and got what he earned. But what Linda said,

(01:07:55):
was Dave is the only one of those dudes who
both seems genuinely contrite and under seems to understand that
that doesn't fix it. Yeah, that's good, way is it?
And you know he so like in a like from

(01:08:15):
my to my mind, like he has not escaped me too.
He just is self aware that he did something bad
and he that he he will live with it, and
his public persona and his career will live with it
for the rest of his career. It's just that because
he at least has the self awareness to do the

(01:08:35):
things he can do and try and be different. Um.
And by all accounts he has done that. Um. I
mean I believe him. I believe that he's sincere. Um.
You know he can live with it. He can he
can live with it like it's it doesn't mean that
you're erased, um, if you are willing to live with it. Yeah. Yeah,

(01:08:57):
And that seemed to be his attitude is not like,
well we're all good now, right, It was like I
know that I have a stain on my record and
it is not going to go away. Yeah. I love
the bit. Whenever playing him as old uh, the earliest
for something called teen, he seemed genuinely delighted and thrilled

(01:09:19):
with that. I mean, wouldn't you be if you heard?
I mean you'd be embarrassed too. But um, one of
the funny things about Letterman is there's these clips on
the Internet archive of him doing his college radio stuff,
and he's really funny. Yeah, and it's really funny. Like

(01:09:40):
it's embarrassing, but it's good. You're like, God, she was
already good. It's like when you find out Eddie Murphy.
You realized Eddie Murphy was nineteen when he was on
Saturday Night Live, and you're like, ridiculous, how is it possible?
He was good? I know, how is how does that work? Yeah?
He was. I'm still bad. No, I'm gonna be forty

(01:10:03):
soon and I'm bad. Well, uh, we're gonna get into
a thousand clowns. But if you don't listen to Jesse's work, UM,
I definitely recommend Bull's Eye. Um. The Turnaround is something
that everyone should listen to. It was a short series,
like you said, where you interviewed some of the famous
interviewers about interviewing. It's fantastic. Um, if you want to
hear Jerry Springer explain that he does not know the

(01:10:25):
subject of an episode of his show until he reads
it from the Q card on stage. That was pretty funny,
really good stuff though. But Terry Gross and I were
glass and some of the legends, uh, and then Jordan
jesse Go, which is uh, complete silliness and fun and
it's still you and your buddy Jordan's having a good
time and that It always warms my heart to know

(01:10:45):
that you guys are still doing that me too. It's
been a great It's been a rock in a storm
for me. Or that's a bad the rock sink your boat.
It's been a ship harbor in a storm. It's I've
been very grateful to get to talk to once a
wait to my friend Jordan show. It's good stuff, all right.

(01:11:11):
So your movie pick was not Babe to Pig in
the City, another one of your favorites, but a movie
called A Thousand Clowns from directed by Fred co and
written for Broadway and then adapted to the screen by
Herb Gardner and starring Jason Robards, Barbara Harris, Martin Balsam,
and Barry Gordon. And this is a movie that I

(01:11:34):
had only known by your references over the years. This
is a movie that is very much under the radar,
I think, and criminally underseen, and I loved it. I'm
glad to hear that it was great. I got the
DVD because it's basically not streaming. Didn't you say it's
on YouTube? It was like so for years and years

(01:11:55):
it was on VHS briefly for years and years, the
only way you could see it was on I think
TCM has the rights to it, and so it would
air on I think it was. It might have been
a MC like once a year. Um, and then you
could buy bootleg VHS tapes of it and um. Yeah

(01:12:15):
it was just re released on DVD and Blu Ray
um and uh, that's the first time it's been on DVD. Um.
And yeah, it's if somebody has a put up a
high quality version of it on YouTube, if people just
want to watch it streaming for free, um uh, illegally.
But I don't think Almost everyone involved is dead, so

(01:12:36):
that's fine. I usually don't do a recap of the movie,
but since this is one that many people probably haven't seen,
it's a story of it's in black and white, even
though it's from and gorgeous black and white and it's
about a laid off comedy writer who has sort of
sold his soul to write for this very bad comedy show. Um.

(01:12:58):
I don't know if he's laid off three quits, but
he's not working and he has an a twelve year
old sort of precocious twelve year old nephew living with
him that was his sister's child that she just basically
left there. And the whole movie revolves around a handful
of days where Child Protective Services has entered his life

(01:13:19):
to make a decision on whether or not he should
be allowed to be the caretaker for this kid. Uh.
And that's kind of the movie. It's a very simple premise.
And um, Jason Robarts is so everyone in it is great. Um,
but Jason Robarts is so phenomenal. I know he played
the part on Broadway. Uh, how did you come about

(01:13:40):
this movie? Where did you hear about it? Well, my
parents divorced when I was three. My mom says four,
but my dad's had three. So this is a kind
of lack of shared reality that the two of them had.
And they used to the USA laugh that there's three
things that they agreed on which were me. They both

(01:14:02):
loved me, James Brown and A Thousand Clowns. That's great
and my dad, UM, I mentioned my dad was a
veteran's peace activist. When my dad was in the navy, UM,
this movie was in theaters and he was served on
an aircraft carrier, and he had two main jobs. One

(01:14:29):
was loading bombs, UM, which was one of the most
dangerous jobs on the carrier because if you dropped the bomb,
you died. UM. And one was running the projection booth.
And so you know, my dad had very severe post
traumatic stress disorder and UM. One of the reasons was

(01:14:53):
that in the production booth they would run the tail
movies from the planes, so he would load the bombs.
Then the next day he would watch the movie of
them killing people. But when they weren't airing tail movies
for the pilots, they were airing movie movies for the

(01:15:17):
people who the many many sailors who are required to
run a you know, to run an aircraft carrier. So
they only had a couple of movies on board. And
I don't know what the other movies were, but one
of them was A Thousand Clowns. So my dad had
seen A Thousand Clowns like a hundred and fifty times,

(01:15:39):
and it was his favorite movie. And I always thought,
based on the name that it sounded boring, like I
didn't know anything about it, so I wasn't sure what
to think. Yeah, and UM, you know the name made
it makes it sound like it's a you know, uh

(01:15:59):
by a melodrama, you know, UM. And I didn't see
it until I was a teenager. It was also very
hard to see for the reasons I explained. But there
was a video store by my house that had that
had bootleg tapes and they had that's the first time
I got to see UM. You know, they had tapes

(01:16:21):
of Larry Sanders, and they had tapes of UM Brass
Eye and the Day Today. UM is perfect British comedy shows, UM,
you know things that you couldn't get MR show before.
It was on DVD, UM and they had a thousand
clowns and I watched it and it is a favorite

(01:16:44):
of many comedy people. UM. And I bonded with many
comedy people over it because it is a beautiful expression
of what it is to be an artist in a
form that is irrelevant. You know, you can't claim to
be important because you're do comedy, right and it is

(01:17:09):
not to do comedy, is to commit yourself to not
being a responsible person. And it's about this self centered
man and his genuine love for his child, you know,
his nephew who's his child, and his genuine wish to

(01:17:29):
live his own life, and his dawning understanding that he
struggles with so deeply that he has to be selfless
to care for his child. And that is something that
I think any parent has faced. You know that like

(01:17:53):
when you have children. This is true when you have
a relationship in the movies also about that, you know,
a romantic relationship, but especially when you have children, that
you when you are responsible to others. And you know,
my dad was somebody who, as I said, he had
very severe PTSD. He was an alcoholic. Um and he

(01:18:15):
got and he was twice divorced by the time I
was four. And um, but he loved me and he
was not a perfect dead in any way. But one
of the things is that I could see that he
was fighting two care for me and my brothers when
my brothers came along, and um, you know, he I

(01:18:39):
used to go to a a meetings with him when
I was really little, you know, Um, and he he
fought his whole life to make the world a better
place because of the ways that he had contributed to
unjust killing. And um, you know, he fought for peace
and fought for the rights of people who needed it,

(01:19:02):
who needed help fighting for themselves, and fought to help
people fight for themselves, and um, you know, he never
made it to being a whole person in some ways,
you know. But um, but that is kind of the
struggle of this film. Right. It's actually based on the
life of Jean Shepherd. Yeah, I saw that afterward. Who

(01:19:25):
was famous, most famous probably for a Christmas story. The
voice was Yeah, but it was like a legendary UM
radio host and an ologist. And the play was written
by a friend of his about him. He saw it,
realized it was about him, and stopped being friends with

(01:19:46):
the play. Right. That's interesting because I feel like the
character of Murray, I mean, describe him asself centered, and
he is that, But it's not a skewing of an individual.
I mean he's a very lovable, um, engaging and lovable
and affable person. Uh. He's just wants to live by

(01:20:08):
his own rules and doesn't want to go have to
work for the man. And but he's he's silly and sweet.
Uh yeah, that's interesting. I mean he's that's that is
I mean you're right, like the the essential conflict of
the film, right, And it's it's kind of a dramatic irony.
It's something that you as the audience can see, but

(01:20:30):
he can't see. Is you see that he is the
most charming person you could ever meet. And it's not false,
you know, it's not that he's a con man. That's
usually the irony of a charming person in a dramatic story. Right,
they're like fake, they're fake. He's real, He's for real.
He is genuinely an amazing genius. And when you know

(01:20:55):
when Chuckles the clown, the chipmunk clown, who is his
employee employer, comes and begs him to come work for
him again, it's because he is a genius and Chuckles
knows that he's not a genius, but he's a fake artist.
And this, I think this guy is a real artist
that's seen is amazing. It's as good as it gets,
um and so like he is charming, Like when when

(01:21:23):
you know when he throws open his window and leans
out and says, rich people, I've been looking at your
garbage cans, and I want to see a better class
of trash or he says, everybody out on the street
for volleyball. Yeah, I mean that's how the movie opens
and closes, as he goes out to these almost surreally

(01:21:43):
empty New York streets in the mornings and yells up
at people to do these crazy things, which delights his nephew. Um.
But it does have these weird surreal like it. It
almost feels like a French New Way film at times.
It's unlike any movie I've seen before because we can talk.
We can talk about the structure, because there's things about

(01:22:03):
that that I think are really interesting, right because it
was a play. It was a play. But let me
finish saying about Jason Robarts character. And Jason Robarts, of
course was a very troubled man. Um an alcoholic himself. Um.
And you know, as you've seen any Jason Robarts you
know parent Hood, he's perfect, you know what I mean,

(01:22:24):
Like Parenthood one of the most pretty good movies of
all time, you know what I mean, Like Jason Robarts
is spectacularly perfect. Um. Quick Change is one of my
favorite Jason Robarts roles. Um uh and deeply underrated film.
But like um, but like Jason Robarts is so charming,

(01:22:47):
so brilliant, so obviously a great artist. He so obviously
loves his son and I call him his nephew, but
it's he's his son, and like all of those things
are true, right, yeah, So what makes it such a
moving film is how clear it is that he may
not have it inside of him to take care of

(01:23:10):
other people, even when he wants to. When he meets
someone that he loves, that he falls in love with,
who's raison too, atro is to take care of people.
You know, he falls in love with one of the
CPS workers, and she, you know, she's a she's a
social she you know, she's a social worker. She's dedicated
her life to taking care of children, right, and she

(01:23:32):
wants to take care of him. And he might not
even be able to hould up his end of that.
And so it is you know what it is is
it's not a dissection of him being ill willed. It's
his incapability. He does not have it to care for others,

(01:23:54):
not because he's a bad person, because he all the
things that make him so great are also reasons why
he is fundamentally broken. As a human being. And I
think that that's why it's so meaningful to comedy people.
Is like, you know, it's the sad clown stuff can
be well oversold, you know what I mean. But to

(01:24:19):
become an artist it's a you know, you have to
have a really good reason emotionally, otherwise it's not worth it,
you know what I mean. Otherwise it'll just quit. Um,
because there's easier ways to make a living. You just
go into advertising, right, But like, um, but but it

(01:24:40):
is that it is that like if he was just
a jerk. Uh, it's not if it's not anything. The
movie is not anything. The lesson isn't that he's a
bad person. It's that he's a broken person, that he's
missing something despite being a wonderful person. Yeah. And it's
a MOVI be where um and you know what, we

(01:25:02):
can jump all around, but it's a movie where when
it ends, he has made the decision to do the
responsible thing and take on a job so he can
keep his nephew son. Uh. And it ends in a
hopeful way, but certainly not Hollywood hopeful because the first
as a viewer, you're thinking, well, how long is this
going to last? Yeah? And it's not. It's entirely unclear

(01:25:25):
that he has really done it. Yeah, like it's not emotionally,
I mean, I'll tell you, every time I watched this movie,
I cry. And the reason I cry is not because
it's such a beautiful redemption. It's because I can see
that it may be that he never changes. I cried
during the scene where one of the sort of running

(01:25:49):
themes is that Nick has been using different names, and
he says, by the time you were I think thirteen,
you have to come up with your name, and Nick
ends up naming himself. There's a part where there's a
part where he just picks any name and then puts
Captain before to spruce it up a little. Also, one
of the names when he's going through all the names
he had was the and I knew, I knew the name.

(01:26:10):
It was a doctor and it was a guy who
like wrote the Journal of American Medicine for like twenty
five years or something. But he names himself after Murray
and makes a library card and Jason Robards and Murray
is a little confused at first and then gets it,
and man, I just there's something about that scene that
just the fucking tears just started flowing out of my

(01:26:32):
face this morning. I mean there is this um so
his relations kid. The kid is a child man, and
he's a man child and having been a child man myself,
like having had in some ways neglectful parents, but being
incredibly precocious in some ways, and having you know, like

(01:26:54):
a lot of incredibly precocious kids having other like major
developmental deficits. Um, I relate to both characters, right, I
relate to this kid. There's a part you know, we
talked about my fancy middle school, and there's a part
that I literally I literally wrote down the line because
I didn't want to forget it. Right, So there's a
part where there's a part where where Murray says to

(01:27:17):
Nick the kid, he says, would you concentrate on being
a child, because I find your imitation of an adult
hopelessly inadequate. I mean, that's there's but there's this part, uh,
And I guess I didn't I didn't write it down here,
but um there's a part where, um there's there's there's

(01:27:38):
a part where he describes going to his fancy school.
Where Nick describes going to his fancy school, and he since,
because because I go to this because of the School
for Big brains. These people watch and they take notes
and uh, gosh, I wish I don't want to give

(01:27:59):
the quote. I don't want to have give it so um.
But he has this incredible insight, which is that he
is he understands that his dad figure here is going
to lose him to CPS. That you know, Murray has
to get a job or else he'll lose the kid. Basically,

(01:28:21):
it's the story. And Murray won't get a job because
he can't do it emotionally. He can't sell out. And
Nick sees it. He sees this happening, you know, he
can and he comes in and he tries to fix
it by being an adult, but he can't. He's a

(01:28:43):
bad at being an adult. He's a kid. So every
time he comes in he does something that's like the
right thing to do, but wrong. You know. When he
comes in, he says he has an ex opt as
an executivest excellent opportunity as an executive assistant because he's
been reading the one or he you know, he they
asked him to bring in his favorite toy and he

(01:29:03):
brings in, uh, he brings in a nudy lamp. Where
the boobs blink. That seems so great, And and they
asked and the you know, the social worker asks if
it reminds him of his mother, and he explains, no,
my mother's boobs don't blink. Yeah, And she keeps digging
and digging. That also has one of my favorite lines too,
and he's he has a very sweet line about how
his mother's laugh is what he remembers most and was

(01:29:25):
most special. It's a very sweet moment. And then he goes,
of course she overdes that a lot, Yeah, because his
mom is an asshole. Yeah, and so and but you know,
he also, like you know, Murray sends him away to
the neighbor's house in the middle of this story so
he can funk the social worker. Well, the kid kind

(01:29:45):
of goes on his own because he knows that's how
it works, right, because he's been forced to take that
responsibility for himself. That's just the part that I reckon,
you know, as a guy who took the city bus
to school by myself as a segregator. Right. Um. And
so it's this hopeless, it's this hopeless and very tragic,
deeply tragic tension. Um. Because the kid can't be an

(01:30:08):
adult no matter what he no matter how smart he is,
and no matter how liberated he is, because he's with
this amazing dad figure. He can't just become an adult.
He has to grow over time. And the man is
missing this piece of adulthood that he can't generate within himself,

(01:30:32):
no matter what the stakes are. And it's clearly like
he it's not that he doesn't love the kid, it's
not that he doesn't love the woman. He's just maybe
has a hole there. Yeah, it's very uh, I mean,
it's a very sophistically sophisticated take on that kind of
character because it's a character we've seen before. Um. And

(01:30:54):
you know, when I was watching this, I mentioned Max
Fisher a second ago, like there's so much of the
DNA of this movie and us more. Uh even kind
of looks like Max Fisher. And I know that's no accident.
I tried to find online if Wes Anderson has ever
mentioned this movie, but um, in a little bit of
Royal Tannenbaumb's kind of royals relationship. Uh so he's clearly

(01:31:14):
influenced by it. But um, and also a little tidbit.
Willem Dafoe apparently played Nick on stage when he was thirteen.
I'm not surprised to hear that. It's been interesting. Barry
Gordon and Jason Robarts were both in the Broadway production,
which won many awards, and speaking of the aesthetics of
the film, right, like, so this is a play, yeah,

(01:31:37):
and it feels like a play. It's people talking to
each other. That's all that happens in the movie. Right.
So the director of this movie is named fred co
and he was basically a theater producer. Like, he's not
really a movie director, right, Yeah, he only did a
few I think. So he shot the whole movie, brought
it to editing, and the editor basically said, yeah, this

(01:32:00):
is not a movie. And to his credit, I think
fred Coe was a great producer. Even if he was
not wasn't fluent in the language of film, he was
a great producer. And one of the things that he did,
and this is according to the the editor of this
film wrote in one of the best books about film editing,

(01:32:21):
maybe the best book about film editing, there's a chapter
about a thousand clowns and basically they got, uh, they
got the movie, They got the studio to give them
money to reshoot, and what they did is they took
these scenes that had been static and they made them

(01:32:43):
into uh, non literal montages. So these dialogue scenes happen
over multiple places as they travel through New York City.
And then they built these montages around the themes of people,
you know, the and in the glade from gray flannel
suit sort of deal, right, because this is still the

(01:33:04):
pre hippie sixties, right, Um, so it's like it's people
going to work, and they built these montages of like
marching music, which people going to work. Yeah, and then
they built they built these dialogue scenes that take place
in many venues but are one string of dialogue, you know,
very non literal for for being a play, you're like

(01:33:25):
this is and for being ve and a studio film
spectacularly um you know, experimental to do this right like five,
It's like this must have felt like to to just
a regular person going to a regular movie theater. It's
like the you know, the narrative equivalent of the train

(01:33:48):
coming out of the movie screen. You know, you totally
like it feels like French New Wave a lot of times,
you know, ten years later, especially with the black and white,
but it is has a very unusual um, edit to it,
but it works in these in this sound that comes
blasting in at times and then goes away, and that
that weird montage of people eating, uh drinking to the

(01:34:11):
Hellelujah chorus. It's a really weird movie. Yeah, and in
every actor and it is perfect. Yeah. Um, Mr Feeney
is perfect. Yea right, uh no, the uh Martin Martin
Martin Balsom won an Oscar who's a totally brilliant, amazing actor. Um.

(01:34:36):
But like each one of these characters. One of the
interesting things is so the guy who played the guy
who played his old boss, um Chuckles, the chipmunk, Gene Sex,
Gene Sacks, was not available when they shot the film initially,
so they re shot that scene when he became available
for the reshoots. And that is a scene that could

(01:34:58):
just be funny, right, pathetic man's pathetic children's television hosts
trying to get the kid to like him, right, but
the kid doesn't care and he's just being polite, right, right,
But and it is really funny. But you also see that,
like you know, the film is about the pain of

(01:35:23):
being an artist, right, and for him, the pain is
that he's a success, but he knows that he's a hack. Yeah,
like he knows that, right, and he knows and he
knows that, and he knows that Murray is a real genius.

(01:35:44):
But he also knows that Murray is too good for him.
But he's mad because he's he he has the adult
nous to see the situation. Right. He even though he's pathetic,
even though he is truly pathetic, he is a sad
man with giant who goes to a friend's house wearing

(01:36:05):
chipmunk ears with a poster of cut out of himself
with a cut out of himself in a bag of
his self branded potato chips. Right, because he really is
like you know, he's like a more sad Krusty the clown.
He he also sees this situation that this real genius

(01:36:28):
is in and sees why it's sad because he knows
that he's taking care of himself. He's being an adult.
He has a job. Even though he's he will never
be the artist that Murray is. He at least knows
that he is doing something that takes care of his
family or whatever, right, and he's doing something to service

(01:36:49):
his the hole in his heart. You know, he needs
to be a performer too, even though he will never
be a great one. Yeah, And it's there's something about
watching that scene. It's such a This is one of
those movies where every scene and they are these really
long scenes because it was a play where every scene
came along and I think, man, that was my favorite

(01:37:09):
scene in the movie. And it's just built of my
favorite scenes. And that scene is so great because he
is a wreck. He's so insecure. He knows he's not
really funny. The kid knows he's not funny. He knows
the kid knows he's not funny, which is the biggest
uh like dagger in the heart of them all. And
there's that really funny bit at the end where where

(01:37:32):
Nick says, uh, you know, we we do this routine.
We do this bit where I do Alexander Hamilton's and
uh and Murray does Jefferson and they start to go
into it, and he's like, you can't do an imitation
of Alexander Hamilton's No one knows what he sounds like.
And Robarts goes, that's the funny part. You missed the
funny part, Leo, and then he just goes, I'm getting
a terrible rash on the back of my neck. It's like,

(01:37:55):
the writing is so fucking sharp in this movie. It's unbelievable. Yeah,
it's really beautiful. I mean every character that revolves around Murray,
you know, his brother played by Martin Baltom, is his agent,
is great. There's there's a scene that he won there's

(01:38:15):
a scene that he basically won an oscar for which
is it's it's him and Murray in an abandoned Chinese
restaurant underneath Murray's house, and you know it's It would
be one thing if it was just him telling Murray
to get his act together right. But it's the depth
of understanding that both he has and we as an

(01:38:38):
all knowing audience have of. You know, Martin Balsom's character,
the brother, like he knows that he's made his choices right,
and he is living with his choices. He's decided that
he's an agent. He's decided that he just loves fruit
and he loves to bring fruit to his friends on
his way to work. Right. And it's not that he

(01:39:03):
is right or like knows that's what everyone in the
world should be. It's that he has he has the
emotional capacity to live with his choices, that he has
expanded his heart to the point where he understands that
he can do what he does. And that is the

(01:39:23):
thing that like, as an almost forty year old, I
still strugg as you know, I was my mom's only
child and my dad's only child until I was eight,
and you know, I was a weird genius in elementary
school who went to the librarian instead of hanging out,
you know, like the all I am a I was

(01:39:46):
very independent slash neglected, you know what I mean. And
like for me, I always want to just take care
of myself, and you know, just I'll go take care
of myself. You know, I have this awful disability that
is invisible to people, and like I can't ever explain
to people what's impact on my life is really the

(01:40:08):
only thing that can as I just go take care
of myself. Right, But I have three kids that I love,
and I have a wife that I love, and so
and I theoretically I'm an artist too, right, and like
I want to obviously I'm doing the lowest form of
art that exists on earth, which is bush into a microphone.

(01:40:28):
But like, but uh, I struggle with reconciling, you know,
to become an adult is to reconcile with disappointment. Right,
to understand that every choice you make means you're leaving
choices behind that you won't get back, right, and resolving

(01:40:52):
yourself two the choices that you have made, even though
there is no perfect choice. Right, Murray can't get a job.
His choices are not between working for Chuckles the Chipmunk
and working on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour or whatever

(01:41:12):
the art of that's the art of, you know, like
your show of shows or something. You know. His choices
are between working on the Chuckles the Chipmunk show, keeping
his child, having romantic love, and what doing a funny

(01:41:35):
bit when he calls the you know five five weather
we called the weather recording and scolds it for always
repeating itself, like it's not. His choice isn't between making
perfect art and getting a job selling out. His choices
between losing everything and getting a job selling out. Yeah, Like,

(01:42:01):
one of the really tough parts of this movie is,
you know, you really believe this love that they have
with he has with the child services worker played by
Barbara Harris, who was just so endearing and so adorable
in this movie and such a great performance. Um but
you really buy into this kind of whirlwind romance, and
as an audience member, like you have hope that he uh,

(01:42:25):
that she can just sort of do that thing where
she shapes up this man who needs help. And the
very next day, you know, when she asked for the
key to the apartment, and you can already see that
look on his face, and it's just such a sinking
feeling as a viewer, like, no, man, like she's she's great, this,
this isn't your shot. You need to like she's still

(01:42:45):
in your lifeline here. Yeah, I feel that way completely.
And I also, you know, watching the movie this week, Um,
I have trying to think of how to say this,
but I have had experience. It's with child protective services,
and um, you know what, I think one of the

(01:43:07):
fundamental things about being in that line of work is
that it doesn't matter how much I love you have. Yeah,
you can't fix everything. You can't. And she is hoping
that by being there she can transform things, and that

(01:43:37):
isn't how it works. She admittedly cares too much, and
in that great scene she breaks down and talks about
that and sort of admits that she crosses the line
and her job she hates this one kid, she loves
these other kids. Uh. And the way this movie goes
back and forth between these moments of incredible pain and

(01:44:00):
really some of the best silly word play and comedy. Uh,
it's so deaf. And even you know, even Mr Finie
what's Mr Finie's real name? Now? Fine from Boy Meets
World plays former boyfriend William Daniels, who's her partner, Um,
her partner in the CPS. Like, you know, he's a

(01:44:22):
step you know, and he's uh, he's the opposite of Murray, right,
he's he's humorless, but like he's there because he really cares.
And the film is not about making fun of him
for caring or for being a stiff. Like it's funny
that he's a step, but like he's the one who

(01:44:44):
he's doing the work. He's the one who's showing up
in the ways that Murray camp and has to do
the worst part of the job, which is to potentially
take Nick away. Uh, because she wouldn't be able to
do that. Yeah, I mean it's a there's it is

(01:45:07):
not um, you know, we were talking about Letterman. In
a lot of ways, it's a film about learning to
live with insufficiency and pain, right Like it's about it's
about accepting the imperfection of your choice, is the imperfection

(01:45:31):
of your life, and trying to give trying to take
that opportunity to give to others when you have the
choice right to care for others right too, that ultimately,
that is what you have control over, is making an
effort to care for other people, um in your world.

(01:45:55):
And it's also super funny, Like I want to be clear,
this movie is super funny. Well, it is like will
be like a painful moment and then a line like
you know, I've been attacked by the Ladies home Journal
when she reades his apartment, or or William Daniels says
that great line where he's and this kind of sums
up as Murray's character too, where he says, You're not

(01:46:16):
a person, you are an experience. Yeah. The writing is
just so sharp, and I feel like you don't see
movies like this really ever, but especially these days that
balanced the pain and the comedy so well. It seems
like it has to be one or the other. Yeah,
And this is like, you know, this is the genre

(01:46:37):
of film that I most would like to see. It's
a genre of television show I most would like to see,
and it's the one that is the least well represented.
I mean, I mentioned Mike Lee. There's a lot of
Mike Lee movies that are really funny, that are moving
in this way and vane in this way. You know,
this is has a little bit of staginess to it
that Mike Lee movies resist. Um, that's the place you

(01:46:57):
think Happy Go Lucky or something you know is a
is a similar movie that's I find very moving and
very funny. But um, but you know, like reminds what
it reminds me. And one fan of this movie I've
talked to is Judd Apatow. Um, Like, it reminds me
of what Judd Apatow always says he learned from working

(01:47:19):
on Larry Sanders with Gary Shandling. You know, Larry Sanders is,
as far as I'm concerned, the best comedy show. Um.
You know, the Simpsons is as great in a different way,
but Larry Sanders is the best comedy show. And he
always said this, The show has to be moved by
by the fundamental feelings of the characters, the truth of

(01:47:43):
the characters. That has to be the engine that moves
the show, it can't be circumstances falling on them, and
they like most pitcoms are circumstances, a set of static
characteristics that each character has, you know, whatever Cliff is
a know at all, and uh, Norm is lazy or
what ever? Right, um and like, and then some outside

(01:48:03):
circumstance happens disturbs that order, and then it becomes reordered,
hopefully the course of the twenty minutes. Right on Larry Sanders,
every conflict is about the fundamental emotional qualities of the characters.
You know, It's about um uh, It's about Hank's neediness.
You know, Hank is a very very a thousand clowns

(01:48:26):
cank on Larry Sanders, a very very thousand clowns character.
It's Gary Shandling's Gary Shandling's fear and loneliness, you know,
all these all these deep emotional things that come into
conflict that drive the show. And there's not a lot
of comedy like that. Like it's because it's hard. I
think Judd Apatow aspires to it, and you know, different

(01:48:48):
people have different feelings about how successful he is at it.
I love his movies and have no complaints, um, including
the you know this is forty I loved, so I've
I'm not planning about it, right, Like Wes Anderson approaches
similar issues in in this way. He's very funny and
certainly you know, he has his own mannered manner um,

(01:49:11):
you know, and people you know with stillman or something,
you know, speaking of mannered manners um, but like there
is a m it is something that people don't try
for very often. It's one of the things I admire
about Judde is that he, you know, as much as

(01:49:33):
you can complain about the likes, everything feels like it's improvised, whatever, whatever, whatever, Like,
ultimately he did always he does always ask the writers
and directors on the films that he produces to should
try to have real emotions driving the film, right, driving
the story. You know. That's what's so great about super Bad.

(01:49:56):
You know, there's things that aren't great about super Bad,
but I'd say it's pretty great in general. And like
what's great about it is it really is about It's
not just attacked on story to a bunch of jokes,
which can be fun, you know, like I don't know,
Tommy Boys funny or whatever, right, Tommy Boy has some
emotional depth, but mostly not. Um. You know it has

(01:50:18):
a one line, one line's worth of emotional depth, right, um,
but not one line in the film, but you could
describe the emotional depth and in about one sentence. Uh,
and it's their true to it. But you know, um,
but like that is not something that much aspires to.
And even the golden age of television, there's so little
that aspires to that. You know, like maybe on a

(01:50:39):
systemic level, the Armando Iannucci shows, you know, Veep and
The Thick of It, Like they're some of the certainly
more TV shows that are doing things and maybe I
just consider it like, uh, funny shows with a lot
of heart, whether it's Better Things or Master of None
or One MISSISSIPI be like, I feel like there are

(01:51:01):
TV shows that are doing that much better than any
movies have been. Yeah, I don't. I Um, I liked
One Mississippi a lot. Um, And there's there's a lot
of good in the in Better Things and Master of Non.
Friend of mine said that his friend called Master of

(01:51:22):
Non Master's thesis of one. Um. There's a lot of
people just saying to each other the themes and Master
if not that I'm not nuts about um, just like
saying them out loud as though that makes your show deep,
Like did you know, man, I guess our immigrant for
fathers really struggled to make it in America in a

(01:51:43):
way that we don't have to. Isn't that right? My
friends that I say this too. I loved it though, Um,
but uh yeah, I don't think there's anything that is
as successful as Larry Sanders or a thousand clowns. Um. Uh.
You know, there's things that are have headed that direction,
and it's surprising how few have tried. From what I understand.

(01:52:08):
Maybe I've not seen Breaking Bad or the bab own
Kirk Breaking Bad, but I've heard those are very funny.
I mean, I think mad Men, Um. I also haven't
seen The Sopranos. I hears the Sopranos is really funny. Um.
I think mad Men, which I have seen, UM, has

(01:52:28):
that sometimes to the extent that it's funny, which it
can be very funny. Um, it's often because of real feelings.
And I mean, I want to be clear. My other
favorite TV show of all time is probably Police Squad.
Like I loved I love jokes for joke's sake too. Well,
I'm not putting those down you're the guy that does

(01:52:50):
Bull's Eye, and who does Jordan jesse Go. I mean,
I like yeah, uh, And you know, the movie ends
in such a sweet way, like I said earlier, but
it's not overly sentimental. It feels earned but temporary, and
again it's not. It doesn't wrap it up in a
way that you're like, well, he fixed himself inside two hours. Uh.

(01:53:15):
And then you know that just even that last shot
of him literally running sort of towards his future, I
think is uh, symbolic of what he's trying to do.
He's not he's not even walking. Everyone starts running, and
that's another kind of weird, sort of surreal French New
wavy kind of thing. And this movie is peppered with
so much of that stuff that, uh, again, it's just

(01:53:37):
not it's not like any other movie I've ever seen before.
He you know, he might just as well be running
away from his future. Well yeah, running away from his responsibilities.
It's it's true, he's s ambivalent, I would say to me,
it strikes it strikes me as ambivalent. I love the
bit where he keeps he's always uh left the room.
When people turn around, he's not there. And his brother

(01:53:59):
in that great seeing. He even kind of references it
in sort of a metaway. He's like, for the for once,
I want to be the first person to leave the room.
And I mean that's like, I mean, that's another thing
that I relate to very deeply. Like there's a part
of me that wants to get out of there. I know,
no matter where I am. I know you and you're
always liking for the exit, buddy, and and you know

(01:54:24):
you have to. It's him having to make himself be
responsible for himself with regard to others. Like he knows
that he can be responsible for himself within himself. Yeah,
but when you have a child or you have a
love romantic love, can't You can't just be responsible for

(01:54:46):
yourself within yourself. You're responsible for that system. Yeah, I
mean that's something I certainly identify with two as a
fairly selfish human being. Uh well, listen, man, I've taken
too much of your time. This is a movie I
can't recommend highly enough. Before we finish, though, I just
want to say thanks to you. Uh you have been

(01:55:08):
a very overly generous and kind person to me for
the past uh probably almost ten years now, and uh
inviting me to Max fun Con every year has been
a big part of my life and I've made um
professional connections there in context there that have been important
and long term friends that mean a lot to me.

(01:55:29):
And uh, I just I've always thought a lot of
what you do and of you as a person, and
I appreciate you as a as a human being. Thank you.
I don't know if you knowics, but I literally I
couldn't even not only could I not look into the webcam,
I couldn't look at the picture of you on my
zoom here while you were saying that. I'm very grateful.

(01:55:49):
Thank you for bringing me about barbecue hat. Yeah, man,
I love that barbecue hat. Till Teresa said high and
squeeze those kids for me, I will all right, see
budd alrighty everyone. That was great. I had so much
fun talking to Jesse and uh really getting into some

(01:56:13):
heavy stuff. He's he's one of the best, certainly. I think,
like I said in the show, the best interviewer of
his generation and also turns out one of the best
interview guests. Um, this is this is one of my
favorite episodes. So I hope you guys liked it. I
hope you see a thousand clowns. I hope you support
everything Jesse does. Listen to Bulls Eye, listen to that

(01:56:33):
Letterman interview. Check out Jordan Jesse go if you just
want pure silliness and support the Maximum Fun Network. Got
a bunch of great shows. Judge John Hodgman, Um one
of my long time favorite stop podcasting yourself, of course,
that mceil roy Brothers and every great thing that they
do for that network. Um, he's a good curator of

(01:56:54):
great shows. And I'm a long time donor and supporter
of Maximum Fun and you should be too. So I
hope you guys liked it. I certainly enjoyed myself, and
we will see you next time. Thanks for listening. Movie
Crash is produced and written by Charles Bryant and Meel Brown,
edited and engineered by Seth Nicholas Johnson, and scored by

(01:57:15):
Noel Brown here in our home studio at Pontsty Market, Atlanta, Georgia.
For I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.