April 21, 2026 • 44 mins
Short form video is everywhere today. But if you rewind back to 2005, comedy trio The Lonely Island had only just released Saturday Night Live's first digital short: "Lazy Sunday." It went viral, transforming the lives of its members Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer. The Lonely Island would go on to produce hit after hit for SNL, from "I'm On A Boat," to "Dick in a Box." Kal and Jorma sit down to talk about digital shorts, now and then. Plus, hear more about Jorma's new film, Over Your Dead Body.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you asked me back in college I went to
UCLA undergrad, what I thought that my college friend Yorma
Toconi would be doing in the future. I mean, it
would definitely be something creative, right. I would probably were
We were both started as theater majors, so I'd probably
tell you something in theater or comedy. Very talented writer
and musician that was just Yorma, right, so he'd be
doing something awesome. I don't, however, think that I could
(00:23):
have predicted that he would co create a group called
The Lonely Island, which includes the incredible and hilarious Andy
Samberg and Keiv Schaeffer, both Yorm's childhood friends. I couldn't
have told you that they would all get hired by SNL.
I couldn't have told you that in two thousand and
five they would release SNL's first digital short called Lazy Sunday.
(00:46):
And I definitely couldn't have told you that that week
would suddenly make it completely impossible to walk down the
streets of New York City with them.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
The bubble of the three of us being friends since.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
We were twelve.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
It was so helpful because we're just trying to continue
to make each other laugh in a room like there
was no there's no real different. I think that was
just the weirdest thing was that now we have this platform.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Yorma went on to write and create one hundred more
of SML's digital shorts, including I'm on a Boat with
t Paine, Dick in a Box with Justin Timberlake. I
still can't believe they got away with that, and shy
Ronnie with Rihanna. Today's shorts or short form video are
everywhere from YouTube to Instagram to TikTok, and like so
(01:34):
many of the Lonely Islands videos, they're still going just
as viral as ever. My guest today is writer, director,
actor and musician Yorma. To Cody, we talk about digital
shorts now and then Here we Go ag Agon Agon Hey,
I'm Cal Penn and this is Here we Go Again,
(01:55):
a show that takes today's trends and headlines and asks
why does history keep repeating itself?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Here we so okay you talked for a.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Second a head of a sound tist.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Oh yeah, good.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Yeah, real good, j orm thanks for joining me.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
I'm so happy to be here, Cal.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
I think we have I think all of our listeners
stick around for the full episode and don't pause or
come back later. But in case that's not the case,
I am very excited for you this week for your
new movie, and I'm hoping you can tell us a
little bit about it.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
I have a new movie coming out which I directed,
called Over Your Dead Body, which stars Jason Siegel, Tomorrow Weaving,
Timothy Oliphant, which I learned how to pronounce correctly recently,
and Juliette Lewis, Keith Jardine, and Paul Gilfoyle. Dark Dark,
Oh my god, the best, all of them, the best,
(03:03):
uh dark comedy about a couple that go up to
a cabin for the weekend to kill each other and
then high jinks and zeup from there. There's so many
twists and turns and smoke, so it's hard for me
to talk about without like spoiling a lot of stuff running.
It moves in ways that you do not expect. Yeah,
So I'm on the promotional tour and then we get
(03:25):
to talk to each other as friends and pals because
that's part of this promotional.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Tour, which is crazy because we don't live that far
away from each other. We're in the jacent neighborhoods in Brooklyn.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
We live embarrassingly close. For guys who don't see each other.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Who don't see each other often enough, you at least
are like on the road more than me. You have children.
I have no excuse tonight.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
I have children. That's the big, the big difference between
the two of them.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, I should have kids, just so that I have
an excuse.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
There are great excuses there.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
There are enough here.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Now it explains it.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
So we we met freshman year at UCLA. Did we
meet at orientation, which at UCLA is like months before
school actually starts, right.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
I think we did. I think we did. Yeah, And
because I would say, we became fast friends, you know,
like you were the East Coast dude. I was the
West Coast dude. You know, that's right.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
The other memory I have of freshman year is that
we went together on my first off campus outing. We
like went vintage shopping and record hunting on Melrose and
we had to take the bus from UCLA.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Oh my gosh, kids at UCLA did not want to
leave Westwood, And so it was always like a real
like nice reprieve to be like, oh my god, let's
get out of here. This is the big city. Let's
see it.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yes, When you guys when we graduated, did you take
four or five years? I took five.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
I took I took four, but I took a year off,
like I did a junior year abroad in England, and
then and then I took a year off to work
in my dad's theater up in Berkeley. My dad is
a theater director artistic director of the Berkeley Repertore Theater
at the time. And I almost got fired like three times.
And then I came back to UCLA, seriously almost got
(05:12):
fired my death theater and then uh, and then yeah,
I came back and so I it sort of took
me five years. But you know, why did you take
five years? Because you were like double majoringer.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
I was double majoring. And then I took I took
two quarters off. I booked a pilot for ABC that
didn't go anywhere, but I had to take a quarter
off for that, and then I took another quarter off
to do a small indie film that was shooting in
New York.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
My two most successful friends out of UCLA theater because
we were both like I was in the theater department
with my low vent Amilia oh yeah, and you were
a history major. Mylow bailed early and you were a
history major and you were the most successful actor.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
No I well, I started as a theater major and then.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Yeah, that's right, and you were like enough of this.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
And the question that that was when did you guys
move to the apartment that was then known as the
Lonely Island, which is one of my favorite places you've lived.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
It was off Pico right first of lo only Island
was Annie and Kiev. We all ended up graduating the
same time, and it was a year below me and Kiev,
but we all end up graduating the same time. From college,
we actually decide to move to La all together, or
I was still there, but those guys decided to move down.
Actually the decision was made in front of this house
about thirty feet this way from me and my mom
(06:30):
took a picture of the three of us leaning on
our my mom's front gate, deciding to move to those
guys moving into La together, And so we moved down
to my crappy apartment on Stoner Avenue first, and very
quickly we started just making little films together. We bought
up computer together and that was the one purchase we made.
(06:51):
Then we would borrow video cameras and start making little films.
It was always a Kiva's kind of dream too. He
was always the smart one, but like but he he
was like, Yeah, this is our goal. We're gonna we're
gonna make little videos. We're going to try to make
a TV show. That was like the goal at the time.
We wanted to make TV shows and movies together. So
(07:12):
we would make things whenever we could in between like
temp jobs. Me and Andy ended up working at Spin
City television show with it was Michael J. Fox, and
then it was and then it was Charlie Sheen. When
we were working on it, I was just getting people
lunch every day and he was like a really really
terrible assistant. It's really beyond terrible assistant. And yes, we
(07:35):
were working for Gary David Goldberg Legend TV legend, but yeah,
and then and so we made stuff for many years
basically on any time we had downtime, you know, sometimes
that would be making songs at like four o'clock in
the morning. And then eventually we worked on the MTV
Movie Awards, and then that led to Jimmy Fallon hosting,
(07:56):
and then we met all the producers and writers and
people of S and L and then that got us
auditions and then we worked on got the show, and
he was on the show, and me and kie we
writer directors on the show for five years. Me and
Keith tried to quit after five years, which is it's
hard show to quit and so but we sort of
(08:17):
quit after five years, and then I did five episodes
my sixth year and seven my seventh year. We had
quite a run. We made it like over one hundred
shorts and now we do a podcast talking about our
short films with Seth Myers.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
When you started Lonely Island, right, I remember this not
just because obviously the like competing ship pa jobs that
we all had, but is it's exactly what you talked about,
Like you guys would come home and then then do
your actual work. And my equivalent of that was I
would come home and like place an order for head
shots because I finally had money to Like back in
(08:51):
those days, you had an analog headshot that you had
to mail with stamps, right, And so my money would
go towards stamps and headshots, and I brought them off
from like backstage West or with I think I might
have just gotten an agent around that time, and her
office was in the far end of the valley, so
like saving up for gas money to actually go and
bring her the pictures all that kind of stuff. But
(09:11):
I was really impressed. I was like, Wow, these guys
are actually like you're taking the end of like kind
of a shit day getting coffee for people and then
wiping your mind and being creative. And I just remember
that being the coolest thing because you kindly allowed like
me and a bunch of our other friends to like
dip in for like a part here and there. Those
were always super fun. Did you know, like this was
(09:35):
early Internet, right, So how did you guys figure that
this was a platform that you could make something for
and that people might watch it or did you not know?
Speaker 2 (09:45):
No, No, this this was super early Internet. The only
real website for like short form content was like heavy
dot com, Adam Film, I Film, and those were like
you would send in a VHS cop be of your
stuff and then they would review it, decide whether it
was like worthy of their platform, and then put it
(10:06):
put it up. So we had a couple of things
on each of those those platforms, and then because of
keep it being so tech savvy and his brother being
so tech savvy. We had an early website like leland
dot com, which we still have, and we were hosting
it on a much bigger website that like it was
in like the guts of I'll just say it. It
was in rotten dot com, which is mad. It was
(10:28):
really dark, like you could see like zivered heads and
like horror, horrible stuff.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Rotten dot com. I had forgotten. Maybe I didn't know
fully that that's that was hosting you guys, but I
obviously had uh selectively forgotten that website.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Yeah, so I hope it doesn't still exist. No shades
of rotten Okay, so right dot com was sort of
like you could see like photos and videos of like
really grewsome staff. It almost felt like it was like
faces of death the website, so you could see like
real you know, like a beheading or like some really
(11:07):
gross stuff. And it was only that like Micah Keeper's
brother was friends with the guy who owned it, and
it was a successful website, as you know, as a
pre precursor to like where the Internet was going.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
I guess, yeah, this was super early Internet day.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Super early. Yeah, this is ninety nine or something. Like that,
So it was just in the we were just using
their server space and so and and then occasionally we
would actually have like a viral thing pop off and
one of our videos would actually be downloaded a whole
bunch of times, and then and then they would call
us and be like, hey, it went over budget this month.
Like you guys actually like broke the like you go
(11:43):
as a bout dollers, So it would it actually cost
us money if something was popular, but no, like so.
And actually this was so early days that all of
our stuff was going up there you could watch it
on computers that were fast enough. So like the writer's
assistant and the writers of It's beIN City, we're seeing
our stuff. But to get it to like UTA, to
(12:06):
get agents, we their bandwidth wasn't fast enough to download ourselves.
So we physically bring a VHS copy over to UTA.
So this is very very early days. And obviously you
know this changed so fast because five years later YouTube,
like our first thing on SNL that popped off, Lazy Sunday,
(12:28):
was the first time I ever heard of YouTube. So
within that span from like VHS copies to like that, yeah,
I mean, it was just it was I mean, it's
been an astronomically fast, but yeah, like that thing that
you're talking about of the being creative on off hours
and having our own little platform and honestly me being
in a group helped so much with sanity in Los
(12:50):
Angeles because all this stuff that we're like the desperation of,
Like because I did the headshots thing, I like made
my own voiceover real recorders to like give to voice over,
like you just wanted to do anything and everything, like
driving all over Los Angeles to be in cattle call
auditions for like Papa John's commercial auditions. It's so depressing
(13:12):
even like when you're desperately wanting a job that you
don't even really want at the end of the day.
And so but it gave us this little bubble of
creativity of being like, look, I'm doing it with these
two other guys. I'm beholden to them. You know, I
got to get up early on a on a Saturday
morning to like shoot because we're all making it together
and like and then having also the platform part of
(13:33):
like it going on our website gave you this feeling
that something you know, this obviously then became ubiquitous for
a lot of people that, like, you know, the barrier
of entry just went lower and lower and lower. But
it was it was so helpful to feel sane and
feel like you were like, Okay, I'm I'm, I'm making
things even though and hopefully I think I think people
were saying it and liking it.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah, I was. I was laughing at your Papa John's
reference because my version of that was I got every
actor lies on your resume, right obviously, so under under
special skills, I wrote like Spanish, French, and like a
bunch of other languages that I don't speak. And I
had a commercial agent who called and was like, you
have an audition for McDonald's commercial, and she like, they
(14:15):
would fax you the sides in those days. And I
got the facts and it was in Spanish, and I
was like, and I didn't want to tell her obviously
that I lied and I don't speak Spanish. I go
to the Spanish speaking McDonald's audition and it was super
weird because there were two rooms that they were auditioning
people in, and one was for the Spanish language version
(14:35):
and one was for the English version of the same commercial.
And I was like, can I read for both? And
They're like, no, you're here for the Spanish version. And
then I also was like, but everybody who's reading for
the Spanish version also speaks English. Why can't they just
read for the fucking English version? And I was trying
so hard. I mean, I obviously just destroyed any credibility
(14:57):
I had in that audition. It was very clear that
I didn't speak Spanis. Even when I phenetically, it was
like trying to do it. Yeah, I was trying to
read it phonetically, you know, with an accent, like just
trying to be trying to be as you know, whatever
they thought I was as possible. But that desperation is
fucking that's I wanted to set that stage because I
think that contrast is so important, is like you you
(15:19):
do all that shit and then for you guys to
actually then go home from that kind of demoralizing stuff
and actually, you're right, you guys moved to New York.
I think it was like the year before I did,
or maybe six months.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Before two thousand and four, turning in two thousand and five.
That was the two four two thousand and five season investment.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Yeah, so I probably moved five into six, I think.
But what was the what was the full story of
how you ended up submitting for SNL Because I thought
it was crazy that, like, you're all you're all writing
on it, right and Andy's in the cast.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
The way to like, so if you're cast as a
cast member, you're also writing on the show and they're
writing a ton but like, but so, but I don't
think they're paid us writers though, w G. I get
on that. But so we wrote for Jimmy Fallon on
the MTV Movie Awards, got to be friends with. He
had a whole bunch of producers. He like had his
(16:14):
whole team out, a lot of really funny writers, like
producers who are still there, Eric ken Orton, Steve Higgins
who's he's you know, Jimmy's the right hand guy on
the show. And so we met them. They really liked us.
Jimmy really liked us. Jimmy really went to bat for us.
And so when it came time to audition to this show,
they asked, like, which one of us want wanted to
do an audition, and he obviously did. I did as well.
(16:37):
I auditioned this the show. I got it, but I
turned it down. I'm just kidding, but like, but uh,
but you know, like we came from this this background
of us making short films together. We weren't like on
stage every week doing improv Olympic or like or you know,
any of the improv UCP or anything like that, which
most people kind of come from that background. Or you know,
(16:57):
Andy had been doing stand up. When it came to
time to auditioning, you have like a week and we're like,
we got to write a whole audition, which is like
I think it's five five characters, three impressions or something
like that. Like, but it was like, so you have
to do this incredibly fast, and so we basically just
helped each other out writing our audition super quickly, and
then we flew out to New York. He flew out
(17:18):
as well. He was just applying to it like a writer,
and he get to actually meet with Lauren because of that.
It's the most nerve wrecking. Did you audition for his Noel?
Speaker 1 (17:28):
I did not audition for us and l And what's
weird is I've thought about auditioning now like they ever
had like a like fortiesky on Lease do that. It
was one of those bucket list things that I just
never did because I was on a show for the
like peak years of when you're supposed to audition for
(17:49):
us now, So I literally just never did it. In
the last couple of years. I was like, I wonder
if that's the thing that I'm allowed to do at
this age, probably not just.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Being a really popular movie and then you can you
can host.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
That's also been the bucket list as I wanted to
host forever. Also, when you were just talking about your auditions,
I have a vivid memory of Andy calling me just
to talk through characters for his audition, and I don't
know if he ended up doing it, but obviously one
of my favorite characters that he did back in the
day was Chad.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Oh, Chad, I think he did Chad. I'm pretty sure
he had auditioned twice too. They asked him back a
second time, so he had to new characters, which is
even worse. I think he had like two days to
do that. It was like a day and he had
to do it again.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Chad. Chad is a frat boy who grew up in Chad,
the country in Africa.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yeah. His other one that I always loved was his
impression of a lazy cannibal and it was just him going, hey,
come Minu, comerement it just kmerement.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Was there ever a fear that one or two of
you may get the gig and one or two would
not and then what was going to happen?
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yes? No, No, it was sort of terrifying. I mean,
you know, like we were obviously saying to auditions, it's
hard to even get an audition that I was actually
talk to somebody recently who got an agent off of
getting an audition for us. Wow. Yeah, it's like it's crazy.
So it's super nerve wracking. Like both I threw up
twice before you know your year, I was auditioning for
(19:16):
Lour Michaels and Tina Fey. I got one laugh from
Tina and that was like, well I did it. I
can die happy. And then you know, me and Kiev
made a because Andy was basically had gotten the show
and it was like five days when we didn't know
if we were going to get it, and me and
Keeve made a pack to each other that if one
of us got it, that they would turn it down
(19:37):
so that we can continue to work in La because
the other guy was already Andy was sort of set
from being a and then we just got really lucky
that that they hired us, and then they put us
all in one room together. It was like basically a
whole other college experience, or it was a kind of
being in a crappy dorm room altogether. Made all of
our songs recording in that room. It was covered in
(19:59):
shitty posters. But it was like basically being back in
comedy college. Like it's, uh, you visit the show. It's
like I visited you guys.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Actually, I think that's probably the last time I've been.
Is when when did you come up to like the writers?
Did you gave me a beer and let me sit
there like during the show. It was such a cool thing,
just like a cool a cool thing when three of
your friends are on.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Sm so wild, like we're like, what's happening.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
It was insane also because of the It's not like
it's not like I hadn't seen you for six years
and you're like, come to the show. It was like, yeah, no,
nine months ago. Yeah, I was like holding a cable
for you in your in your apartment for this awesome,
funny short. And then the next thing you know, I'm
like having a beer out of a fridge in the
writer's room.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Well, and we're making the same shit too, like there's
no right.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
That was the thing about the show though, is that
it was so exhausting that there was so many times
that people would visit and I'd be like, what's happening,
Like I don't remember any of it.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
It's a show that's notorious for no right, like most
sketches don't make it on and all that. Did you
guys experience that or how did you keep your voice?
Because you're right, like the shorts that you made. The
only real difference was like suddenly dicking a boxes with
Justin Timberlake instead of like a friend of yours.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
I mean again, the bubble of the three of us
being friends since we were twelve. It was so helpful
because we're just trying to continue to make each other
laugh in a room like there's no real difference. I
think that was just the weirdest thing was that now
we have this platform to have the things that we were.
(21:46):
You know, Lazy Sunday had references to a song that
we did called the Heights. It was like we were
literally making very similar things that we and now there's
this explosion of like the rest of the world sort
of paying attention. But it helped so much to have
that insular feel within this bigger because it's it's so
scary to be there. There's so much pressure, you feel
(22:08):
so much anxiety at all times. You feel like you're
gonna get fired any minute. And that didn't change no
matter how I was like, that's what we got on
the show. We just always you always felt like you
were in and get you're on the chopping block.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Was that the case with everybody?
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yeah, there was. There was a moment that I had
my second year where I was I was walking up
to like we'd already made Suddenly, we'd made it like
a bunch of successful shorts. I think we've made Dick
in a box by that point. But I was, I
was walking up to the ninety second Street subway station.
I was literally having a panic attack. I was like
breathing and like, if I can just breathe through this
(22:39):
one block, I'll be okay. Got to Snel meet Emily Spivey,
who was like a veteran writer, just like it's just
always killing it, getting three things on every every show,
like just like so funny, and I get it in
the elevator and I'm like, when does the anxiety stop?
And she was like, oh, never, I'm about to have
a panic attack right now. I was like, okay, but
it's it's the the show. It's like and you know,
(23:01):
we got incredibly lucky. But to go back to your
to your question about like, yeah, it was it was
so wild to have that insular kind of feel of
the three of us making stuff and then yeah, then
you know, justin Timberlake walking in and then you get
to like fuck around with him, and honestly, it feels
very similar where you're just like, oh, he's just like no,
now the fourth guy, right, it's very funny and like
(23:24):
and happens to be wildly more talented than that.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
What was the process of making Lazy Sunday?
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Okay, so well, that's that's a good one. I really
wish that we had actually done a documentary while we
were there, to like walk through an actual short because
it was so crazy. Lazy Senate was like done at
a at a really leisurely paced by comparison to all
this stuff we made later because it started to become
like forty eight hour film fast basically every single week.
(23:52):
So we made this song this is the third short
wave ever made. It was for the December the Christmas Show,
and I made the beat in like an hour on
a program called Reason on the work computers that they
gave us for writing. But it was the first time,
like the computers are like fast enough to be able
to like do so I'm working on like an iMac
(24:15):
make the beat in like half an hour. Chris comes in.
We were a huge fan of Chris Burnell and his
He did these wraps on Update which were like hyper
aggressive and he's like, you know, just the most mild
manner dude, So like that, the premise being he's just
off the rails talking about it, how he has this
Mac ten lit and like it just like it's just hilarious.
So we knew we wanted Chris. And then and then
(24:36):
the premise, uh was pretty free flowing with like you know,
Chronicles of Narnia had just come out and so we
we and we'd done this kind of like style of
song before where it's two guys, very very mundane premise
of like just this one was going to see the movies,
but they're super agro about it and so like, so
we had the like the premise we wrote it I
(24:57):
think pretty quickly on like a Monday, Tuesday, it might
even been a Monday, get the song done, and then
it was I think it was Thursday that the show
was kind of enough to be just like let us
out for the morning. I don't think we went to
table that Thursday shot at the way we had been
shooting things in LA. We didn't have a video camera,
(25:20):
so we went and met Bill Hayter's Meggie Carey, his
wife at the time. She worked for I think AFI
Film Students, So we met her at a train station,
picked up a camera that she had taken from lock
of of their camera department, so we'd sort of borrowed
this camera without their knowledge. I bought a crappy speaker
(25:40):
that I had for years that was like for fifteen
bucks at radio Shack when Radio Shack existed, and plugged
the this for playback. So it's me Akiba, he was
holding the camera. I'm doing playback and running out off
an iPod at the time, and so we go around
for like three hours or whatever it was. But we
shot listed everything the way we always had and Ke
(26:00):
was great at that, and then shot it all on
like a Thursday. I don't think we even did pickups.
We may have, but like, but we shot at UCB Theater.
It was all just like favors and we would literally
go to like a movie theater and be like talk
to the girl there and be like, hey, we need
them to buy tickets. Can you just be in this?
And then you know, Mari's my wife's sister, Emily Heller
was in town sheep. We went to a bodega and
(26:21):
we were like, hey, can we just jukee bind the counter?
Just put this girl behind there, you know, and so
it was done. Magnolia Bakery kicked us out because we
were just like doing this Magnolia reference. He've got up
in arms because the guy tried to take our tape
and he was like no, like legally in New York
you knew all the new legal things that you could
(26:42):
shoot on something. So it was like total DIY vibes
the way it always had been, you know. And we
it basically cost us like that fifteen dollars for a speaker,
a couple mini DV tapes, and then edited it, you know,
up until show airs. And this is early days, so
like when we were editing stuff and he would just
stay there overnight nobody's even in the building. Really, there
(27:04):
just was no infrastructure for any of the shorts in
that way presented it on at the show like it
was literally like you know, Lauren saw it at dress
at dress rehearsal. It felt very different in the best
possible way because SNL had it was the first year
SNL went HD, so it was like super high quality
now the show. The show was and then this thing
(27:25):
comes on which is very not it's like SD shitty.
You know. It has this like grimy kind of edge
to it and and the beats kind of grimy and
like it like it, you know, it felt other because
it kind of was like it was all just done
with in our and that continued to help us so
much because I like, I don't know, you know, when
you first watch Snell as a kid, when you're like
(27:45):
twelve fourteen, like like like that age range. I just
remember loving the commercial parodies, like the thing that felt
like it was like, oh, this is a special part
of the show that like pops on and like and
you know, it's a different vibe. And that was us,
Like we got so lucky on every level. Auditioning for
the show is lucky to like all of these things
to be able to work with your best friends, Yeah,
(28:07):
and then have this like platform. Was it was wild?
It was It was totally well.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
I mean, I'll do the disclaimer, which is like, yes,
we all rely on luck, but it's the three of
you have immense talent and business sense to be able
to pull that off.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Did That's the first time I've heard business since business Savvy?
But aekiva does? I think.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
So? Lazy Sunday was the third short? Did they expect
you to spend fifteen dollars of your own money and
borrow cameras to deliver this or was it still experimental
where there was no guarantee? Like did they know you
were doing it? Were you getting paid for it technically?
Speaker 2 (28:41):
No? Like, like you know, I once it aired, I
think that they had to, like, you know, probably jump
a kiva into the DGA, I would think for the
first one that we did, which was called Lettuce, which
was a wool Forte and Andy having a conversation, a
dramatic conversation while eating heads of lettuce, and uh so, no,
(29:03):
it was all kind of just happening while it happened,
you know, like we basically made things the way we
had always made them and brought them to the show
and then they aired them and then starting on Lazy Sunday.
It became such a story because it was the first
time we'd ever heard of YouTube. It had this second
life with YouTube. Then it became a big story because
anytime anybody mentioned, oh, there's this new site called YouTube,
(29:25):
like New York Times, like we had to do all
these interviews over that Christmas break, and it that snowball
of like, oh people like this and it's and it's
being watched all the time on YouTube, and it got
like five million views on YouTube. And at the time
you were like, that's amazing, and so no, it just
it's just sort of happened as we did it. It
(29:46):
was it was sort of making it up as we
went along, like and you know, there got to a
point where because I was a little bit of the
third guy, like any and he was the star of this.
Ikiva was at least the director. I'm working on every
any of these things with those guys, but like, but
I was kind of a little bit the third wheel
in terms of crad at and so so you know,
(30:09):
I eventually had to join a union just to be
paid for my music that was on the show at least.
But yeah, so like you know, we had to figure
that out too. Like it's like like all of the
difficulties of like you know, we're a group and then
but your egos in the way and you're like, oh,
like you know, you're so happy to be there, but
there's also that aspect and I mean we've gone through
everything together, like every one of those ups and downs
(30:29):
and the difficulties and all that sort of stuff. How
it was the best.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
How did those early shorts compare to some of the
later ones, because it sounds like you still had a
forty eight hour turnaround, but like I mean now they
they have whole team. Obviously technology has changed too, But
at what point did you have support from the show
to make these It's.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
So different now, Like it's so wild to see the
show now. Like Dina Moles, who was our producer and
she basically learned how to really be a producer working
on the shorts and now she like runs the short Superman.
They have a whole standing studio basically now that like
has standing sets and like and they build things for
them all the time, like they shoot everything there. So
(31:10):
it's it's wildly different now. Everything that we did was
like it was truly learning on the job and honestly
the show changing around what we were making. So it's
crazy to see the show now, Like the shorts costs
a lot more money now, like are one of our
most expensive was like the one hundredth digital short, which
(31:30):
I directed my seventh year, and that was I think
we spent two hundred and forty thousand dollars or something
like that. And they routinely like blow away Way. I mean,
it's great, the quality is amazing. Like the stuff they're
making now is like it was really cool, but I was.
I was. It's definitely hard not to be a little
jealous when you sing.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
You created the whole thing. And then now all these
kids they get to spend a quarter million dollars every
week and I had to spend fifteen dollars of my
own money.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Well, there's it's also just the workload. I mean, it's
so nice because because there was moments that I had
this show. There's these memorable moments that you have, like
where you're like there's two little stories, me and Keeve
go down to they have a nurse's like doctor Wing
below eight h and me and Kiev went to see
(32:19):
the doctor together because we didn't have time to like
do separate appointments, so we went together to get kalanapin
prescriptions and they were like you both need this, and
we're like yeah one, so like and then and then
there was a moment where I was editing where it's
like four o'clock in the morning and my body starts
shaking from tiredness and I fell on the floor and
(32:43):
fell asleep and so like, So to go from that
like that level of like holy fuck, like I'm like,
we are burning ourselves out to then seeing that like
they were like there's teams of editors that they're just like,
oh my god, I'm so jealous.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
You were alluding to wanting to leave SNL after five years.
You stayed technically stayed for seven. What what was that process?
Like why did you stay? Why did you want to
leave it first? And then why did you what did
you stay?
Speaker 2 (33:16):
We were just so exhausted. There was a moment our
fake our fourth or or fifth year where they were
doing a documentary about our time on SNL because it
was like the end of you know, the you know
ats or whatever, like like and so I was like, well,
if we're doing documentaries about this already, like I guess
(33:36):
I can leave, right. We already did it, and we'd
made so many good things at that point and things
I was really proud of, and so I sort of
felt like, you know, I'd kind of done the short
form thing. I wanted to do other things, and I
was just honestly exhausted. So I actually had a meeting
with Louren. He takes these long walks around Beverly Hills
area and uh and so I on a walk and
(33:59):
sort of peeled back and was like, hey, Lauren, I
want to I want to leave the show. And he
was like it felt like the goodwill hunting thing of
like your American good things, and I support you no
matter what. And then he said and this really helped
me to I obviously want to cry thinking about it.
But he was like, he was like, you'll always have
(34:20):
a job here if you ever want to come back.
And I was like, great, okay, so I can go
out and try things and hopefully not follow my faith.
And and he'd you know, allowed me to direct a movie.
At that point, i'd done uh mcgroover, and so he
gave me, he'd gave me all the tools to be
able to go on and have a career. And I've
(34:40):
also had really funny moments with him where there was
a movie that his company wanted me to do and I,
for whatever reason, I couldn't do it. And I but
I called him and was like, hey, Lauren, Like, I
just love having these interactions with Lauren Michaels because it's
so funny. He's such an icon. And I was like, well,
I just I want you to know, like, I so
(35:01):
appreciate everything you've done for me. You've like been like
such a mentor. I wouldn't have a career without you.
I absolutely love you, and i'd so appreciate you. Long pause,
and he's just goes, well, you know you are. With
the money I was going to make for mc grouper,
I was going to buy myself a ticket on the
Costa Concordia, which is the Italian cruise ship that crashed.
(35:25):
He's like, so in a way, you saved my life.
He couldn't afford a ticket because it was such a flop,
but like, oh my god, Like I will love that
dude be forever hysterical human being. Yeah, but yeah, and
then and then honestly, I came back my sixth year
(35:45):
to just help out with Andy Van's on some shorts.
And then and then my seventh year, I wanted to
close it out and Kiva had left by that point,
and so I because he was working on a movie,
and it felt like this this moment to like share
with my my friend when the last short we made,
the second last short was the hundred digital short and
the very last short directed was Lazy Sunday two, which
(36:06):
was like felt like a real mic drop, like we
did it. Yeah, you know, and by the way, Lazy's
only two one hundred digital short costs that you know,
it was at the time astronomical two hundred and forty
thousand dollars. Oh my god, like like we're breaking the bank.
And then for the last one for Lazy Sunday two,
they were like, you got ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Bank borrow steel.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
It was so nice to go like we're bookending this
shit with the total DIY, like we're back to me
holding a video camera.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
It was great.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
It was like, honestly, it was such a nice last
last one.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
What's your guys relationship to digital short content now? And
I'll preface it by saying, like, obviously the YouTube did
wasn't even there when you first started making these Rotten
dot com was.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
My god, that's the first time might have admitted that
in public.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
But now there's like, I mean, entire platforms are based
on chort form content, TikTok, insta, everything else. What do
you what's your relationship to that stuff? Now? I mean.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
I'll go to straight to like the social media stuff,
you know, Like for promoting this film, I was making
little Instagram kind of videos, and it's very that that
chronological like this leads to this, leads to this leads
And I will say, I love it makes me feel
like I'm twelve again to be like, oh, like because
we started with that stop start kind of editing where
(37:31):
you're literally like, you know, tapping back and then you're
shooting the next scene and then you're like and so
I do like for your brain to be able to
like just be like, Okay, what's the next part of
the story. You may not even know what that is.
And I think that is a really fun way to
do things. Obviously, I sort of regret that it's making
us a super bird brain, Like I think it does
(37:53):
follow even the way that we made shorts in the beginning,
Like our shorts are noticeably longer at SNL in the
beginning they were at the end, we were just like,
and that's you're literally following people's attention span. So I
do regret that what it's doing to our brains, Yeah, certainly,
But I will say that that kind of storytelling of
(38:13):
like chronologically like getting it up and shooting it, I
think is really fun. And I like we always had
that when we would promote things and do like snapchats.
That was the only time that we really like would
delve into.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
That world for comedy too. I mean, it's it's such
a fun medium. I'm with you on the attention span thing,
and I always feel like it makes me sound old
when I say it, but like, oh, the narrative arc
of one hundred and twenty two page script, and now
it's like, oh, the script is eighty nine pages, and
that's a long script. How much shorter do you want
to make it? But then the ability of comedy to
(38:45):
be on sort of social on shorter reels can be fun.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Well, And it's so it's both right, like that like
that format is that format and I do like that
that format of like TikTok and snapchaty kind of kind
of vibe of it's really fun to like tell a
dumb story. And to your point, like the editing of that,
Like it's always fun to figure out comedy editing because
you sit there and you're like, and it's always shorter, right,
it's always a surprise, and that that kind of thing
(39:11):
where you're smacking to another part of the story in
another clip is such an easy way to It's kind
of a cheat code for comedy honestly, of just like
this next thing is going to be the surprise, So
it's smacking you in the face for that. But I
will say on the other tip, I've been doing so
much like television short and short of you know, like
twenty one what is television now? Like twenty and a
(39:32):
half minutes, it's gotten the less and less. And I
was doing a Knuckles show that I spin off of
Sonic the Hedgehog, and I was doing this crazy musical
It's really fun to do. But it was the moment
that I was like, oh, I want to get back
into the features, and I consciously made an effort to
It'll be like, oh, next thing. Oh nice, I want
to be a feature because that longer form telling of stories,
(39:53):
I think is such a different way to use your brain.
And I love that in the beginning, like something you
do in the first ten minutes is going to affect
something that happens in the second act, and building out
those arcs and figuring out how to like wrap everything
up or like it's it's such a fun way to think.
We did a ton of that kind of thinking on Popstar,
(40:14):
in particular because we had four hundred hours of footage
for that, which is like basically what you actually have
for an actual documentary, So we had so much content
and then you're figuring so much out in the edit,
and then we also had the advantage of, you know,
Andy can do a fake snapchat or like talking to
his followers on the phone, and then what he says
(40:34):
in that will then affect how you feel in the
next few scenes or the next like the end of
the movie. And I love that kind of thing. It's
such a brain teaser puzzle to figure out that was
it was really hard to do that for seven and
a half months. But they're great, like they're all you know,
each each platform, so to speak, is it has its own,
(40:57):
its own set of rules, and it's a it's sort
of fun to do both.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
I mean, that's a good segue to I wanted to
wrap up by asking you again about Over your Dead Body,
because it's it's sort of like a genre blending film
very much a way that you have now talked about
your journey to something like that, And does that sort
of like define all of the things that you already
love more clearly, Like I feel like these not to
(41:24):
put it in a categorygory, but when you're blending genres
of films, I don't think we grew up with movies
like that, Like it was either the Goonies or it
was Jaws, or it was like there was specificity in
what you were getting. And I love that that's not
the case anymore. That you can get away with a
lot more. Was that a challenge or was it like, oh,
hell yeah, we finally get to do this.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
No, that was a big part of why I wanted
to do the movie because it is as a filmmaker,
I always want to put that in quotes, but as
a filmmaker, you are looking for something that's going to
challenge you, and this movie is like almost like a
suspense thriller into like a home invasion into like an
action movie, and so that genre thing is like you're like,
(42:08):
I get to show off that I have different tones.
So just on a purely selfish level, I liked it
for that, but it's like, but it is such a
challenge because you're like, you know, you're following this couple
and the tone changes. There's so many surprises in it.
In addition to it being like genre bending, it's it's
based on a Norwegian film. Original film is a Norwegian
(42:30):
film called The Trip, and the structure of it is
so much weirder than you expect it to be. And
I think that because we're all so used to watching
things and ingesting media and ingesting films, everyone has a
deep understanding of how they assume something should move where
(42:51):
they assume, like, you know, a story is going to go,
and so to watch something that, like the original that
just goes way different than you expected to it was
just this challenge of like, can I tell this oddly moving,
structured story with all these different tones and have it
feel like it's this cohesive thing, And to me, like
(43:11):
the humor sort of blends it all together. Obviously the
performances is I think are stellar, you know. And then
it was also that I wanted to see if I
could make a remake that I liked as much as
the original. So like, so the things that I'm particularly
proud of is like Tommy the original director, writer, co writer,
loves it like it's rid of it and so like
(43:31):
so to have like, you know, that stamp of approval
and you know, but yeah, it's those are all the
reasons that I wanted to get into it.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
Joram, thank you for thank you for joining me.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Oh Cal, it's just great to see your face and
that this is just encouraging us to have a double
date later.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
That was my guest. Yorman Taconi, one of the founding
fathers of digital shorts. You can watch the feature film
he directed Over Your Dead Body in theaters. Here we
Go Again as a production of iHeart Podcasts and Snaffoo
Media in association with New Metric Media. Our executive producers
(44:09):
are me kalpen Ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Alissa Martino, Andy Kim,
Pat Kelly, Chris Kelly, and Dylan Fagan. Meghan tan Is.
Our producer and writer Dave Shumka is our producer and editor.
Our consulting producer is rom And Borsolino. Tory Smith is
our associate producer. Theme music by Chris Kelly, logo by
Matt Gosson. Legal review from Daniel Welsh, Caroline Johnson and
(44:32):
Meghan Halson. Special thanks to Glenn Bassner, Isaac Dunham, Adam Horn,
Lane Klein and everyone at iHeart Podcasts, but especially Will Pearson,
Carrie Lieberman and Nikki Etour. Thanks for listening. Everybody, tell
your friends write a review. All of this helps. I
appreciate you listening, and until we go again, I'm Kelpen
If you asked me back in college I went to
UCLA undergrad, what I thought that my college friend Yorma
Toconi would be doing in the future. I mean, it
would definitely be something creative, right. I would probably were
We were both started as theater majors, so I'd probably
tell you something in theater or comedy. Very talented writer
and musician that was just Yorma, right, so he'd be
doing something awesome. I don't, however, think that I could
(00:23):
have predicted that he would co create a group called
The Lonely Island, which includes the incredible and hilarious Andy
Samberg and Keiv Schaeffer, both Yorm's childhood friends. I couldn't
have told you that they would all get hired by SNL.
I couldn't have told you that in two thousand and
five they would release SNL's first digital short called Lazy Sunday.
(00:46):
And I definitely couldn't have told you that that week
would suddenly make it completely impossible to walk down the
streets of New York City with them.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
The bubble of the three of us being friends since.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
We were twelve.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
It was so helpful because we're just trying to continue
to make each other laugh in a room like there
was no there's no real different. I think that was
just the weirdest thing was that now we have this platform.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Yorma went on to write and create one hundred more
of SML's digital shorts, including I'm on a Boat with
t Paine, Dick in a Box with Justin Timberlake. I
still can't believe they got away with that, and shy
Ronnie with Rihanna. Today's shorts or short form video are
everywhere from YouTube to Instagram to TikTok, and like so
(01:34):
many of the Lonely Islands videos, they're still going just
as viral as ever. My guest today is writer, director,
actor and musician Yorma. To Cody, we talk about digital
shorts now and then Here we Go ag Agon Agon Hey,
I'm Cal Penn and this is Here we Go Again,
(01:55):
a show that takes today's trends and headlines and asks
why does history keep repeating itself?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Here we so okay you talked for a.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Second a head of a sound tist.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Oh yeah, good.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Yeah, real good, j orm thanks for joining me.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
I'm so happy to be here, Cal.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
I think we have I think all of our listeners
stick around for the full episode and don't pause or
come back later. But in case that's not the case,
I am very excited for you this week for your
new movie, and I'm hoping you can tell us a
little bit about it.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
I have a new movie coming out which I directed,
called Over Your Dead Body, which stars Jason Siegel, Tomorrow Weaving,
Timothy Oliphant, which I learned how to pronounce correctly recently,
and Juliette Lewis, Keith Jardine, and Paul Gilfoyle. Dark Dark,
Oh my god, the best, all of them, the best,
(03:03):
uh dark comedy about a couple that go up to
a cabin for the weekend to kill each other and
then high jinks and zeup from there. There's so many
twists and turns and smoke, so it's hard for me
to talk about without like spoiling a lot of stuff running.
It moves in ways that you do not expect. Yeah,
So I'm on the promotional tour and then we get
(03:25):
to talk to each other as friends and pals because
that's part of this promotional.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Tour, which is crazy because we don't live that far
away from each other. We're in the jacent neighborhoods in Brooklyn.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
We live embarrassingly close. For guys who don't see each other.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Who don't see each other often enough, you at least
are like on the road more than me. You have children.
I have no excuse tonight.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
I have children. That's the big, the big difference between
the two of them.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, I should have kids, just so that I have
an excuse.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
There are great excuses there.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
There are enough here.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Now it explains it.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
So we we met freshman year at UCLA. Did we
meet at orientation, which at UCLA is like months before
school actually starts, right.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
I think we did. I think we did. Yeah, And
because I would say, we became fast friends, you know,
like you were the East Coast dude. I was the
West Coast dude. You know, that's right.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
The other memory I have of freshman year is that
we went together on my first off campus outing. We
like went vintage shopping and record hunting on Melrose and
we had to take the bus from UCLA.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Oh my gosh, kids at UCLA did not want to
leave Westwood, And so it was always like a real
like nice reprieve to be like, oh my god, let's
get out of here. This is the big city. Let's
see it.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yes, When you guys when we graduated, did you take
four or five years? I took five.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
I took I took four, but I took a year off,
like I did a junior year abroad in England, and
then and then I took a year off to work
in my dad's theater up in Berkeley. My dad is
a theater director artistic director of the Berkeley Repertore Theater
at the time. And I almost got fired like three times.
And then I came back to UCLA, seriously almost got
(05:12):
fired my death theater and then uh, and then yeah,
I came back and so I it sort of took
me five years. But you know, why did you take
five years? Because you were like double majoringer.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
I was double majoring. And then I took I took
two quarters off. I booked a pilot for ABC that
didn't go anywhere, but I had to take a quarter
off for that, and then I took another quarter off
to do a small indie film that was shooting in
New York.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
My two most successful friends out of UCLA theater because
we were both like I was in the theater department
with my low vent Amilia oh yeah, and you were
a history major. Mylow bailed early and you were a
history major and you were the most successful actor.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
No I well, I started as a theater major and then.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Yeah, that's right, and you were like enough of this.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
And the question that that was when did you guys
move to the apartment that was then known as the
Lonely Island, which is one of my favorite places you've lived.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
It was off Pico right first of lo only Island
was Annie and Kiev. We all ended up graduating the
same time, and it was a year below me and Kiev,
but we all end up graduating the same time. From college,
we actually decide to move to La all together, or
I was still there, but those guys decided to move down.
Actually the decision was made in front of this house
about thirty feet this way from me and my mom
(06:30):
took a picture of the three of us leaning on
our my mom's front gate, deciding to move to those
guys moving into La together, And so we moved down
to my crappy apartment on Stoner Avenue first, and very
quickly we started just making little films together. We bought
up computer together and that was the one purchase we made.
(06:51):
Then we would borrow video cameras and start making little films.
It was always a Kiva's kind of dream too. He
was always the smart one, but like but he he
was like, Yeah, this is our goal. We're gonna we're
gonna make little videos. We're going to try to make
a TV show. That was like the goal at the time.
We wanted to make TV shows and movies together. So
(07:12):
we would make things whenever we could in between like
temp jobs. Me and Andy ended up working at Spin
City television show with it was Michael J. Fox, and
then it was and then it was Charlie Sheen. When
we were working on it, I was just getting people
lunch every day and he was like a really really
terrible assistant. It's really beyond terrible assistant. And yes, we
(07:35):
were working for Gary David Goldberg Legend TV legend, but yeah,
and then and so we made stuff for many years
basically on any time we had downtime, you know, sometimes
that would be making songs at like four o'clock in
the morning. And then eventually we worked on the MTV
Movie Awards, and then that led to Jimmy Fallon hosting,
(07:56):
and then we met all the producers and writers and
people of S and L and then that got us
auditions and then we worked on got the show, and
he was on the show, and me and kie we
writer directors on the show for five years. Me and
Keith tried to quit after five years, which is it's
hard show to quit and so but we sort of
(08:17):
quit after five years, and then I did five episodes
my sixth year and seven my seventh year. We had
quite a run. We made it like over one hundred
shorts and now we do a podcast talking about our
short films with Seth Myers.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
When you started Lonely Island, right, I remember this not
just because obviously the like competing ship pa jobs that
we all had, but is it's exactly what you talked about,
Like you guys would come home and then then do
your actual work. And my equivalent of that was I
would come home and like place an order for head
shots because I finally had money to Like back in
(08:51):
those days, you had an analog headshot that you had
to mail with stamps, right, And so my money would
go towards stamps and headshots, and I brought them off
from like backstage West or with I think I might
have just gotten an agent around that time, and her
office was in the far end of the valley, so
like saving up for gas money to actually go and
bring her the pictures all that kind of stuff. But
(09:11):
I was really impressed. I was like, Wow, these guys
are actually like you're taking the end of like kind
of a shit day getting coffee for people and then
wiping your mind and being creative. And I just remember
that being the coolest thing because you kindly allowed like
me and a bunch of our other friends to like
dip in for like a part here and there. Those
were always super fun. Did you know, like this was
(09:35):
early Internet, right, So how did you guys figure that
this was a platform that you could make something for
and that people might watch it or did you not know?
Speaker 2 (09:45):
No, No, this this was super early Internet. The only
real website for like short form content was like heavy
dot com, Adam Film, I Film, and those were like
you would send in a VHS cop be of your
stuff and then they would review it, decide whether it
was like worthy of their platform, and then put it
(10:06):
put it up. So we had a couple of things
on each of those those platforms, and then because of
keep it being so tech savvy and his brother being
so tech savvy. We had an early website like leland
dot com, which we still have, and we were hosting
it on a much bigger website that like it was
in like the guts of I'll just say it. It
was in rotten dot com, which is mad. It was
(10:28):
really dark, like you could see like zivered heads and
like horror, horrible stuff.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Rotten dot com. I had forgotten. Maybe I didn't know
fully that that's that was hosting you guys, but I
obviously had uh selectively forgotten that website.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Yeah, so I hope it doesn't still exist. No shades
of rotten Okay, so right dot com was sort of
like you could see like photos and videos of like
really grewsome staff. It almost felt like it was like
faces of death the website, so you could see like
real you know, like a beheading or like some really
(11:07):
gross stuff. And it was only that like Micah Keeper's
brother was friends with the guy who owned it, and
it was a successful website, as you know, as a
pre precursor to like where the Internet was going.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
I guess, yeah, this was super early Internet day.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Super early. Yeah, this is ninety nine or something. Like that,
So it was just in the we were just using
their server space and so and and then occasionally we
would actually have like a viral thing pop off and
one of our videos would actually be downloaded a whole
bunch of times, and then and then they would call
us and be like, hey, it went over budget this month.
Like you guys actually like broke the like you go
(11:43):
as a bout dollers, So it would it actually cost
us money if something was popular, but no, like so.
And actually this was so early days that all of
our stuff was going up there you could watch it
on computers that were fast enough. So like the writer's
assistant and the writers of It's beIN City, we're seeing
our stuff. But to get it to like UTA, to
(12:06):
get agents, we their bandwidth wasn't fast enough to download ourselves.
So we physically bring a VHS copy over to UTA.
So this is very very early days. And obviously you
know this changed so fast because five years later YouTube,
like our first thing on SNL that popped off, Lazy Sunday,
(12:28):
was the first time I ever heard of YouTube. So
within that span from like VHS copies to like that, yeah,
I mean, it was just it was I mean, it's
been an astronomically fast, but yeah, like that thing that
you're talking about of the being creative on off hours
and having our own little platform and honestly me being
in a group helped so much with sanity in Los
(12:50):
Angeles because all this stuff that we're like the desperation of,
Like because I did the headshots thing, I like made
my own voiceover real recorders to like give to voice over,
like you just wanted to do anything and everything, like
driving all over Los Angeles to be in cattle call
auditions for like Papa John's commercial auditions. It's so depressing
(13:12):
even like when you're desperately wanting a job that you
don't even really want at the end of the day.
And so but it gave us this little bubble of
creativity of being like, look, I'm doing it with these
two other guys. I'm beholden to them. You know, I
got to get up early on a on a Saturday
morning to like shoot because we're all making it together
and like and then having also the platform part of
(13:33):
like it going on our website gave you this feeling
that something you know, this obviously then became ubiquitous for
a lot of people that, like, you know, the barrier
of entry just went lower and lower and lower. But
it was it was so helpful to feel sane and
feel like you were like, Okay, I'm I'm, I'm making
things even though and hopefully I think I think people
were saying it and liking it.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah, I was. I was laughing at your Papa John's
reference because my version of that was I got every
actor lies on your resume, right obviously, so under under
special skills, I wrote like Spanish, French, and like a
bunch of other languages that I don't speak. And I
had a commercial agent who called and was like, you
have an audition for McDonald's commercial, and she like, they
(14:15):
would fax you the sides in those days. And I
got the facts and it was in Spanish, and I
was like, and I didn't want to tell her obviously
that I lied and I don't speak Spanish. I go
to the Spanish speaking McDonald's audition and it was super
weird because there were two rooms that they were auditioning
people in, and one was for the Spanish language version
(14:35):
and one was for the English version of the same commercial.
And I was like, can I read for both? And
They're like, no, you're here for the Spanish version. And
then I also was like, but everybody who's reading for
the Spanish version also speaks English. Why can't they just
read for the fucking English version? And I was trying
so hard. I mean, I obviously just destroyed any credibility
(14:57):
I had in that audition. It was very clear that
I didn't speak Spanis. Even when I phenetically, it was
like trying to do it. Yeah, I was trying to
read it phonetically, you know, with an accent, like just
trying to be trying to be as you know, whatever
they thought I was as possible. But that desperation is
fucking that's I wanted to set that stage because I
think that contrast is so important, is like you you
(15:19):
do all that shit and then for you guys to
actually then go home from that kind of demoralizing stuff
and actually, you're right, you guys moved to New York.
I think it was like the year before I did,
or maybe six months.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Before two thousand and four, turning in two thousand and five.
That was the two four two thousand and five season investment.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Yeah, so I probably moved five into six, I think.
But what was the what was the full story of
how you ended up submitting for SNL Because I thought
it was crazy that, like, you're all you're all writing
on it, right and Andy's in the cast.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
The way to like, so if you're cast as a
cast member, you're also writing on the show and they're
writing a ton but like, but so, but I don't
think they're paid us writers though, w G. I get
on that. But so we wrote for Jimmy Fallon on
the MTV Movie Awards, got to be friends with. He
had a whole bunch of producers. He like had his
(16:14):
whole team out, a lot of really funny writers, like
producers who are still there, Eric ken Orton, Steve Higgins
who's he's you know, Jimmy's the right hand guy on
the show. And so we met them. They really liked us.
Jimmy really liked us. Jimmy really went to bat for us.
And so when it came time to audition to this show,
they asked, like, which one of us want wanted to
do an audition, and he obviously did. I did as well.
(16:37):
I auditioned this the show. I got it, but I
turned it down. I'm just kidding, but like, but uh,
but you know, like we came from this this background
of us making short films together. We weren't like on
stage every week doing improv Olympic or like or you know,
any of the improv UCP or anything like that, which
most people kind of come from that background. Or you know,
(16:57):
Andy had been doing stand up. When it came to
time to auditioning, you have like a week and we're like,
we got to write a whole audition, which is like
I think it's five five characters, three impressions or something
like that. Like, but it was like, so you have
to do this incredibly fast, and so we basically just
helped each other out writing our audition super quickly, and
then we flew out to New York. He flew out
(17:18):
as well. He was just applying to it like a writer,
and he get to actually meet with Lauren because of that.
It's the most nerve wrecking. Did you audition for his Noel?
Speaker 1 (17:28):
I did not audition for us and l And what's
weird is I've thought about auditioning now like they ever
had like a like fortiesky on Lease do that. It
was one of those bucket list things that I just
never did because I was on a show for the
like peak years of when you're supposed to audition for
(17:49):
us now, So I literally just never did it. In
the last couple of years. I was like, I wonder
if that's the thing that I'm allowed to do at
this age, probably not just.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Being a really popular movie and then you can you
can host.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
That's also been the bucket list as I wanted to
host forever. Also, when you were just talking about your auditions,
I have a vivid memory of Andy calling me just
to talk through characters for his audition, and I don't
know if he ended up doing it, but obviously one
of my favorite characters that he did back in the
day was Chad.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Oh, Chad, I think he did Chad. I'm pretty sure
he had auditioned twice too. They asked him back a
second time, so he had to new characters, which is
even worse. I think he had like two days to
do that. It was like a day and he had
to do it again.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Chad. Chad is a frat boy who grew up in Chad,
the country in Africa.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yeah. His other one that I always loved was his
impression of a lazy cannibal and it was just him going, hey,
come Minu, comerement it just kmerement.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Was there ever a fear that one or two of
you may get the gig and one or two would
not and then what was going to happen?
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yes? No, No, it was sort of terrifying. I mean,
you know, like we were obviously saying to auditions, it's
hard to even get an audition that I was actually
talk to somebody recently who got an agent off of
getting an audition for us. Wow. Yeah, it's like it's crazy.
So it's super nerve wracking. Like both I threw up
twice before you know your year, I was auditioning for
(19:16):
Lour Michaels and Tina Fey. I got one laugh from
Tina and that was like, well I did it. I
can die happy. And then you know, me and Kiev
made a because Andy was basically had gotten the show
and it was like five days when we didn't know
if we were going to get it, and me and
Keeve made a pack to each other that if one
of us got it, that they would turn it down
(19:37):
so that we can continue to work in La because
the other guy was already Andy was sort of set
from being a and then we just got really lucky
that that they hired us, and then they put us
all in one room together. It was like basically a
whole other college experience, or it was a kind of
being in a crappy dorm room altogether. Made all of
our songs recording in that room. It was covered in
(19:59):
shitty posters. But it was like basically being back in
comedy college. Like it's, uh, you visit the show. It's
like I visited you guys.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Actually, I think that's probably the last time I've been.
Is when when did you come up to like the writers?
Did you gave me a beer and let me sit
there like during the show. It was such a cool thing,
just like a cool a cool thing when three of
your friends are on.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Sm so wild, like we're like, what's happening.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
It was insane also because of the It's not like
it's not like I hadn't seen you for six years
and you're like, come to the show. It was like, yeah, no,
nine months ago. Yeah, I was like holding a cable
for you in your in your apartment for this awesome,
funny short. And then the next thing you know, I'm
like having a beer out of a fridge in the
writer's room.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Well, and we're making the same shit too, like there's
no right.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
That was the thing about the show though, is that
it was so exhausting that there was so many times
that people would visit and I'd be like, what's happening,
Like I don't remember any of it.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
It's a show that's notorious for no right, like most
sketches don't make it on and all that. Did you
guys experience that or how did you keep your voice?
Because you're right, like the shorts that you made. The
only real difference was like suddenly dicking a boxes with
Justin Timberlake instead of like a friend of yours.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
I mean again, the bubble of the three of us
being friends since we were twelve. It was so helpful
because we're just trying to continue to make each other
laugh in a room like there's no real difference. I
think that was just the weirdest thing was that now
we have this platform to have the things that we were.
(21:46):
You know, Lazy Sunday had references to a song that
we did called the Heights. It was like we were
literally making very similar things that we and now there's
this explosion of like the rest of the world sort
of paying attention. But it helped so much to have
that insular feel within this bigger because it's it's so
scary to be there. There's so much pressure, you feel
(22:08):
so much anxiety at all times. You feel like you're
gonna get fired any minute. And that didn't change no
matter how I was like, that's what we got on
the show. We just always you always felt like you
were in and get you're on the chopping block.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Was that the case with everybody?
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yeah, there was. There was a moment that I had
my second year where I was I was walking up
to like we'd already made Suddenly, we'd made it like
a bunch of successful shorts. I think we've made Dick
in a box by that point. But I was, I
was walking up to the ninety second Street subway station.
I was literally having a panic attack. I was like
breathing and like, if I can just breathe through this
(22:39):
one block, I'll be okay. Got to Snel meet Emily Spivey,
who was like a veteran writer, just like it's just
always killing it, getting three things on every every show,
like just like so funny, and I get it in
the elevator and I'm like, when does the anxiety stop?
And she was like, oh, never, I'm about to have
a panic attack right now. I was like, okay, but
it's it's the the show. It's like and you know,
(23:01):
we got incredibly lucky. But to go back to your
to your question about like, yeah, it was it was
so wild to have that insular kind of feel of
the three of us making stuff and then yeah, then
you know, justin Timberlake walking in and then you get
to like fuck around with him, and honestly, it feels
very similar where you're just like, oh, he's just like no,
now the fourth guy, right, it's very funny and like
(23:24):
and happens to be wildly more talented than that.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
What was the process of making Lazy Sunday?
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Okay, so well, that's that's a good one. I really
wish that we had actually done a documentary while we
were there, to like walk through an actual short because
it was so crazy. Lazy Senate was like done at
a at a really leisurely paced by comparison to all
this stuff we made later because it started to become
like forty eight hour film fast basically every single week.
(23:52):
So we made this song this is the third short
wave ever made. It was for the December the Christmas Show,
and I made the beat in like an hour on
a program called Reason on the work computers that they
gave us for writing. But it was the first time,
like the computers are like fast enough to be able
to like do so I'm working on like an iMac
(24:15):
make the beat in like half an hour. Chris comes in.
We were a huge fan of Chris Burnell and his
He did these wraps on Update which were like hyper
aggressive and he's like, you know, just the most mild
manner dude, So like that, the premise being he's just
off the rails talking about it, how he has this
Mac ten lit and like it just like it's just hilarious.
So we knew we wanted Chris. And then and then
(24:36):
the premise, uh was pretty free flowing with like you know,
Chronicles of Narnia had just come out and so we
we and we'd done this kind of like style of
song before where it's two guys, very very mundane premise
of like just this one was going to see the movies,
but they're super agro about it and so like, so
we had the like the premise we wrote it I
(24:57):
think pretty quickly on like a Monday, Tuesday, it might
even been a Monday, get the song done, and then
it was I think it was Thursday that the show
was kind of enough to be just like let us
out for the morning. I don't think we went to
table that Thursday shot at the way we had been
shooting things in LA. We didn't have a video camera,
(25:20):
so we went and met Bill Hayter's Meggie Carey, his
wife at the time. She worked for I think AFI
Film Students, So we met her at a train station,
picked up a camera that she had taken from lock
of of their camera department, so we'd sort of borrowed
this camera without their knowledge. I bought a crappy speaker
(25:40):
that I had for years that was like for fifteen
bucks at radio Shack when Radio Shack existed, and plugged
the this for playback. So it's me Akiba, he was
holding the camera. I'm doing playback and running out off
an iPod at the time, and so we go around
for like three hours or whatever it was. But we
shot listed everything the way we always had and Ke
(26:00):
was great at that, and then shot it all on
like a Thursday. I don't think we even did pickups.
We may have, but like, but we shot at UCB Theater.
It was all just like favors and we would literally
go to like a movie theater and be like talk
to the girl there and be like, hey, we need
them to buy tickets. Can you just be in this?
And then you know, Mari's my wife's sister, Emily Heller
was in town sheep. We went to a bodega and
(26:21):
we were like, hey, can we just jukee bind the counter?
Just put this girl behind there, you know, and so
it was done. Magnolia Bakery kicked us out because we
were just like doing this Magnolia reference. He've got up
in arms because the guy tried to take our tape
and he was like no, like legally in New York
you knew all the new legal things that you could
(26:42):
shoot on something. So it was like total DIY vibes
the way it always had been, you know. And we
it basically cost us like that fifteen dollars for a speaker,
a couple mini DV tapes, and then edited it, you know,
up until show airs. And this is early days, so
like when we were editing stuff and he would just
stay there overnight nobody's even in the building. Really, there
(27:04):
just was no infrastructure for any of the shorts in
that way presented it on at the show like it
was literally like you know, Lauren saw it at dress
at dress rehearsal. It felt very different in the best
possible way because SNL had it was the first year
SNL went HD, so it was like super high quality
now the show. The show was and then this thing
(27:25):
comes on which is very not it's like SD shitty.
You know. It has this like grimy kind of edge
to it and and the beats kind of grimy and
like it like it, you know, it felt other because
it kind of was like it was all just done
with in our and that continued to help us so
much because I like, I don't know, you know, when
you first watch Snell as a kid, when you're like
(27:45):
twelve fourteen, like like like that age range. I just
remember loving the commercial parodies, like the thing that felt
like it was like, oh, this is a special part
of the show that like pops on and like and
you know, it's a different vibe. And that was us,
Like we got so lucky on every level. Auditioning for
the show is lucky to like all of these things
to be able to work with your best friends, Yeah,
(28:07):
and then have this like platform. Was it was wild?
It was It was totally well.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
I mean, I'll do the disclaimer, which is like, yes,
we all rely on luck, but it's the three of
you have immense talent and business sense to be able
to pull that off.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Did That's the first time I've heard business since business Savvy?
But aekiva does? I think.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
So? Lazy Sunday was the third short? Did they expect
you to spend fifteen dollars of your own money and
borrow cameras to deliver this or was it still experimental
where there was no guarantee? Like did they know you
were doing it? Were you getting paid for it technically?
Speaker 2 (28:41):
No? Like, like you know, I once it aired, I
think that they had to, like, you know, probably jump
a kiva into the DGA, I would think for the
first one that we did, which was called Lettuce, which
was a wool Forte and Andy having a conversation, a
dramatic conversation while eating heads of lettuce, and uh so, no,
(29:03):
it was all kind of just happening while it happened,
you know, like we basically made things the way we
had always made them and brought them to the show
and then they aired them and then starting on Lazy Sunday.
It became such a story because it was the first
time we'd ever heard of YouTube. It had this second
life with YouTube. Then it became a big story because
anytime anybody mentioned, oh, there's this new site called YouTube,
(29:25):
like New York Times, like we had to do all
these interviews over that Christmas break, and it that snowball
of like, oh people like this and it's and it's
being watched all the time on YouTube, and it got
like five million views on YouTube. And at the time
you were like, that's amazing, and so no, it just
it's just sort of happened as we did it. It
(29:46):
was it was sort of making it up as we
went along, like and you know, there got to a
point where because I was a little bit of the
third guy, like any and he was the star of this.
Ikiva was at least the director. I'm working on every
any of these things with those guys, but like, but
I was kind of a little bit the third wheel
in terms of crad at and so so you know,
(30:09):
I eventually had to join a union just to be
paid for my music that was on the show at least.
But yeah, so like you know, we had to figure
that out too. Like it's like like all of the
difficulties of like you know, we're a group and then
but your egos in the way and you're like, oh,
like you know, you're so happy to be there, but
there's also that aspect and I mean we've gone through
everything together, like every one of those ups and downs
(30:29):
and the difficulties and all that sort of stuff. How
it was the best.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
How did those early shorts compare to some of the
later ones, because it sounds like you still had a
forty eight hour turnaround, but like I mean now they
they have whole team. Obviously technology has changed too, But
at what point did you have support from the show
to make these It's.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
So different now, Like it's so wild to see the
show now. Like Dina Moles, who was our producer and
she basically learned how to really be a producer working
on the shorts and now she like runs the short Superman.
They have a whole standing studio basically now that like
has standing sets and like and they build things for
them all the time, like they shoot everything there. So
(31:10):
it's it's wildly different now. Everything that we did was
like it was truly learning on the job and honestly
the show changing around what we were making. So it's
crazy to see the show now, Like the shorts costs
a lot more money now, like are one of our
most expensive was like the one hundredth digital short, which
(31:30):
I directed my seventh year, and that was I think
we spent two hundred and forty thousand dollars or something
like that. And they routinely like blow away Way. I mean,
it's great, the quality is amazing. Like the stuff they're
making now is like it was really cool, but I was.
I was. It's definitely hard not to be a little
jealous when you sing.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
You created the whole thing. And then now all these
kids they get to spend a quarter million dollars every
week and I had to spend fifteen dollars of my
own money.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Well, there's it's also just the workload. I mean, it's
so nice because because there was moments that I had
this show. There's these memorable moments that you have, like
where you're like there's two little stories, me and Keeve
go down to they have a nurse's like doctor Wing
below eight h and me and Kiev went to see
(32:19):
the doctor together because we didn't have time to like
do separate appointments, so we went together to get kalanapin
prescriptions and they were like you both need this, and
we're like yeah one, so like and then and then
there was a moment where I was editing where it's
like four o'clock in the morning and my body starts
shaking from tiredness and I fell on the floor and
(32:43):
fell asleep and so like, So to go from that
like that level of like holy fuck, like I'm like,
we are burning ourselves out to then seeing that like
they were like there's teams of editors that they're just like,
oh my god, I'm so jealous.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
You were alluding to wanting to leave SNL after five years.
You stayed technically stayed for seven. What what was that process?
Like why did you stay? Why did you want to
leave it first? And then why did you what did
you stay?
Speaker 2 (33:16):
We were just so exhausted. There was a moment our
fake our fourth or or fifth year where they were
doing a documentary about our time on SNL because it
was like the end of you know, the you know
ats or whatever, like like and so I was like, well,
if we're doing documentaries about this already, like I guess
(33:36):
I can leave, right. We already did it, and we'd
made so many good things at that point and things
I was really proud of, and so I sort of
felt like, you know, I'd kind of done the short
form thing. I wanted to do other things, and I
was just honestly exhausted. So I actually had a meeting
with Louren. He takes these long walks around Beverly Hills
area and uh and so I on a walk and
(33:59):
sort of peeled back and was like, hey, Lauren, I
want to I want to leave the show. And he
was like it felt like the goodwill hunting thing of
like your American good things, and I support you no
matter what. And then he said and this really helped
me to I obviously want to cry thinking about it.
But he was like, he was like, you'll always have
(34:20):
a job here if you ever want to come back.
And I was like, great, okay, so I can go
out and try things and hopefully not follow my faith.
And and he'd you know, allowed me to direct a movie.
At that point, i'd done uh mcgroover, and so he
gave me, he'd gave me all the tools to be
able to go on and have a career. And I've
(34:40):
also had really funny moments with him where there was
a movie that his company wanted me to do and I,
for whatever reason, I couldn't do it. And I but
I called him and was like, hey, Lauren, Like, I
just love having these interactions with Lauren Michaels because it's
so funny. He's such an icon. And I was like, well,
I just I want you to know, like, I so
(35:01):
appreciate everything you've done for me. You've like been like
such a mentor. I wouldn't have a career without you.
I absolutely love you, and i'd so appreciate you. Long pause,
and he's just goes, well, you know you are. With
the money I was going to make for mc grouper,
I was going to buy myself a ticket on the
Costa Concordia, which is the Italian cruise ship that crashed.
(35:25):
He's like, so in a way, you saved my life.
He couldn't afford a ticket because it was such a flop,
but like, oh my god, Like I will love that
dude be forever hysterical human being. Yeah, but yeah, and
then and then honestly, I came back my sixth year
(35:45):
to just help out with Andy Van's on some shorts.
And then and then my seventh year, I wanted to
close it out and Kiva had left by that point,
and so I because he was working on a movie,
and it felt like this this moment to like share
with my my friend when the last short we made,
the second last short was the hundred digital short and
the very last short directed was Lazy Sunday two, which
(36:06):
was like felt like a real mic drop, like we
did it. Yeah, you know, and by the way, Lazy's
only two one hundred digital short costs that you know,
it was at the time astronomical two hundred and forty
thousand dollars. Oh my god, like like we're breaking the bank.
And then for the last one for Lazy Sunday two,
they were like, you got ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Bank borrow steel.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
It was so nice to go like we're bookending this
shit with the total DIY, like we're back to me
holding a video camera.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
It was great.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
It was like, honestly, it was such a nice last
last one.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
What's your guys relationship to digital short content now? And
I'll preface it by saying, like, obviously the YouTube did
wasn't even there when you first started making these Rotten
dot com was.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
My god, that's the first time might have admitted that
in public.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
But now there's like, I mean, entire platforms are based
on chort form content, TikTok, insta, everything else. What do
you what's your relationship to that stuff? Now? I mean.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
I'll go to straight to like the social media stuff,
you know, Like for promoting this film, I was making
little Instagram kind of videos, and it's very that that
chronological like this leads to this, leads to this leads
And I will say, I love it makes me feel
like I'm twelve again to be like, oh, like because
we started with that stop start kind of editing where
(37:31):
you're literally like, you know, tapping back and then you're
shooting the next scene and then you're like and so
I do like for your brain to be able to
like just be like, Okay, what's the next part of
the story. You may not even know what that is.
And I think that is a really fun way to
do things. Obviously, I sort of regret that it's making
us a super bird brain, Like I think it does
(37:53):
follow even the way that we made shorts in the beginning,
Like our shorts are noticeably longer at SNL in the
beginning they were at the end, we were just like,
and that's you're literally following people's attention span. So I
do regret that what it's doing to our brains, Yeah, certainly,
But I will say that that kind of storytelling of
(38:13):
like chronologically like getting it up and shooting it, I
think is really fun. And I like we always had
that when we would promote things and do like snapchats.
That was the only time that we really like would
delve into.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
That world for comedy too. I mean, it's it's such
a fun medium. I'm with you on the attention span thing,
and I always feel like it makes me sound old
when I say it, but like, oh, the narrative arc
of one hundred and twenty two page script, and now
it's like, oh, the script is eighty nine pages, and
that's a long script. How much shorter do you want
to make it? But then the ability of comedy to
(38:45):
be on sort of social on shorter reels can be fun.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Well, And it's so it's both right, like that like
that format is that format and I do like that
that format of like TikTok and snapchaty kind of kind
of vibe of it's really fun to like tell a
dumb story. And to your point, like the editing of that,
Like it's always fun to figure out comedy editing because
you sit there and you're like, and it's always shorter, right,
it's always a surprise, and that that kind of thing
(39:11):
where you're smacking to another part of the story in
another clip is such an easy way to It's kind
of a cheat code for comedy honestly, of just like
this next thing is going to be the surprise, So
it's smacking you in the face for that. But I
will say on the other tip, I've been doing so
much like television short and short of you know, like
twenty one what is television now? Like twenty and a
(39:32):
half minutes, it's gotten the less and less. And I
was doing a Knuckles show that I spin off of
Sonic the Hedgehog, and I was doing this crazy musical
It's really fun to do. But it was the moment
that I was like, oh, I want to get back
into the features, and I consciously made an effort to
It'll be like, oh, next thing. Oh nice, I want
to be a feature because that longer form telling of stories,
(39:53):
I think is such a different way to use your brain.
And I love that in the beginning, like something you
do in the first ten minutes is going to affect
something that happens in the second act, and building out
those arcs and figuring out how to like wrap everything
up or like it's it's such a fun way to think.
We did a ton of that kind of thinking on Popstar,
(40:14):
in particular because we had four hundred hours of footage
for that, which is like basically what you actually have
for an actual documentary, So we had so much content
and then you're figuring so much out in the edit,
and then we also had the advantage of, you know,
Andy can do a fake snapchat or like talking to
his followers on the phone, and then what he says
(40:34):
in that will then affect how you feel in the
next few scenes or the next like the end of
the movie. And I love that kind of thing. It's
such a brain teaser puzzle to figure out that was
it was really hard to do that for seven and
a half months. But they're great, like they're all you know,
each each platform, so to speak, is it has its own,
(40:57):
its own set of rules, and it's a it's sort
of fun to do both.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
I mean, that's a good segue to I wanted to
wrap up by asking you again about Over your Dead Body,
because it's it's sort of like a genre blending film
very much a way that you have now talked about
your journey to something like that, And does that sort
of like define all of the things that you already
love more clearly, Like I feel like these not to
(41:24):
put it in a categorygory, but when you're blending genres
of films, I don't think we grew up with movies
like that, Like it was either the Goonies or it
was Jaws, or it was like there was specificity in
what you were getting. And I love that that's not
the case anymore. That you can get away with a
lot more. Was that a challenge or was it like, oh,
hell yeah, we finally get to do this.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
No, that was a big part of why I wanted
to do the movie because it is as a filmmaker,
I always want to put that in quotes, but as
a filmmaker, you are looking for something that's going to
challenge you, and this movie is like almost like a
suspense thriller into like a home invasion into like an
action movie, and so that genre thing is like you're like,
(42:08):
I get to show off that I have different tones.
So just on a purely selfish level, I liked it
for that, but it's like, but it is such a
challenge because you're like, you know, you're following this couple
and the tone changes. There's so many surprises in it.
In addition to it being like genre bending, it's it's
based on a Norwegian film. Original film is a Norwegian
(42:30):
film called The Trip, and the structure of it is
so much weirder than you expect it to be. And
I think that because we're all so used to watching
things and ingesting media and ingesting films, everyone has a
deep understanding of how they assume something should move where
(42:51):
they assume, like, you know, a story is going to go,
and so to watch something that, like the original that
just goes way different than you expected to it was
just this challenge of like, can I tell this oddly moving,
structured story with all these different tones and have it
feel like it's this cohesive thing, And to me, like
(43:11):
the humor sort of blends it all together. Obviously the
performances is I think are stellar, you know. And then
it was also that I wanted to see if I
could make a remake that I liked as much as
the original. So like, so the things that I'm particularly
proud of is like Tommy the original director, writer, co writer,
loves it like it's rid of it and so like
(43:31):
so to have like, you know, that stamp of approval
and you know, but yeah, it's those are all the
reasons that I wanted to get into it.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
Joram, thank you for thank you for joining me.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Oh Cal, it's just great to see your face and
that this is just encouraging us to have a double
date later.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
That was my guest. Yorman Taconi, one of the founding
fathers of digital shorts. You can watch the feature film
he directed Over Your Dead Body in theaters. Here we
Go Again as a production of iHeart Podcasts and Snaffoo
Media in association with New Metric Media. Our executive producers
(44:09):
are me kalpen Ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Alissa Martino, Andy Kim,
Pat Kelly, Chris Kelly, and Dylan Fagan. Meghan tan Is.
Our producer and writer Dave Shumka is our producer and editor.
Our consulting producer is rom And Borsolino. Tory Smith is
our associate producer. Theme music by Chris Kelly, logo by
Matt Gosson. Legal review from Daniel Welsh, Caroline Johnson and
(44:32):
Meghan Halson. Special thanks to Glenn Bassner, Isaac Dunham, Adam Horn,
Lane Klein and everyone at iHeart Podcasts, but especially Will Pearson,
Carrie Lieberman and Nikki Etour. Thanks for listening. Everybody, tell
your friends write a review. All of this helps. I
appreciate you listening, and until we go again, I'm Kelpen
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