Robert Smigel

Meet Robert Smigel, a writer, producer, actor and director known best for his Saturday Night Live “TV Funhouse” cartoon shorts and as the creator and voice of Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog, the foul-mouthed puppet who mercilessly mocks celebrities and others in the style of a Borscht Belt comedian. Triumph debuted on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, for which Robert served as the first Head Writer/Producer. Watch Robert’s latest live video from Triumph the Insult Comic Dog’s San Francisco performance of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog’s Let’s Make A Poop here. Robert is also starring in the film, Between The Temples, which will be out in theaters nationwide August 23rd. EnJOY! 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Craig Ferguson Pants on Fire Tour is on sale now.
It's a new show, it's new material, but I'm afraid
it's still only me, Craig Ferguson on my own, standing
on a stage telling comedy words. Come and see me,
buy tickets, bring your loved ones, or don't come and
see me. Don't buy tickets and don't bring your loved ones.

(00:21):
I'm not your dad. You come or don't come, but
you should at least know what's happening, and it is.
The tour kicks off late September and goes through the
end of the year and beyond. Tickets are available at
the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash tour. They are
available at the Craig Ferguson show dot com slash tour
or at your local outlet in your region. My name

(00:45):
is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy.
I talk to interest in people about what brings them happiness.
Every now and again you get to talk to a
genuine icon and a genuine genius, an absolute game changer

(01:05):
of a human being and artist.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Today is one of those days. Robert Smigel is here.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
When I was like the mission post read they take
the mask.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Of a face off with Nicholas Cage, and.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
I loved that movie, The Nicholas Cage movie. That second
in my Nicholas Cage movies.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Ghost Writer, I haven't seen that. What the fuck? I know?
I know and I hear. The one about the guy
who's in everyone's dreams is amazing. Just came out like
a year. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Have you seen witch Finder, the one he did with
Royland Farman?

Speaker 2 (01:48):
No, I haven't seen that either. A Vampire's Kiss? Have
you seen that? At least so funny from the early nineties.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Peak Nicholas Cage time.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, he's just screaming the entire movie, but i'd see.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
My feeling is he's never made a bad movie. I
haven't seen them all.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
I haven't either, But it's a theory and it doesn't
need to be proved. But I feel like ghost Writer.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Ghostwriter actually started me on the past to Jeff Peterson,
which was my counterweight to Triumph.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yes, and yeah, he's more Andy, He's just Andy and
he was No. I do want to talk about your
show because I really loved and I'll tell you part
of why it was because so I was the original
whatever they call him, producer on The Conan Show, and I,

(02:42):
you know, I'm very proud of everything we did with
a lot of crazy. Yeah, the Letterman really changed it,
and then we modified it and you continued to but
I mean, but I'm very proud of it. It's best
job I ever had. Love Cone and he's amazing, but
legend he had never been on television before, and so

(03:03):
it was never quite as crazy as I envisioned it
when we started. I wanted it to feel completely unpredictable
all the way through the hour, and like the if
you ever watched the first Conan Show, you'll see hints
of that where we you know, Conan would say stuff
like John Goodman's coming up, but first we'll be right

(03:26):
back after this special effects technician, and then we would
cut to like this bearded you know, redheaded bearded guy
in glasses and just dancing like this to you know,
I can't remember what the song was, but just dancing
for like fifteen seconds, and then Conan would just say
we're back, and we would do that kind of stuff.

(03:48):
But Conan had never been on television, and Conan was
like a young ambitious writer performer and this was his
dream and he didn't. He gave a lot of shits,
many many shits, right, and when you're that young, combining
that with inexperience made it very rocky for him. And

(04:09):
we pared down the show that kind of craziness. Like
we even had people interrupt interviews sometimes, Like we had
a character called Doug the neighbor who would like there'd
be a hedge in the back of the studio and
he'd just like, hey, Conzy, and who are you talking to?
And he's like gore Vidal, who who Like he was
just like a bad sitcom neighbor And it was funny conceptually,

(04:32):
but Conan did not have the confidence to own it.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
And also, given a shit is going to get in
your way?

Speaker 2 (04:39):
I know, But he was a young guy. He's like
thirty years old. This is a big shot you. When
I watched you, I felt like I was watching someone
unlike any other host in that it felt like. And
then I read about you and I was like, oh,
this makes sense. He's just gone through so much and
then this thing fall in his lap and he's like whatever.

(05:03):
That's how it felt to me.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
That's exactly what it was. But the thing was I
kind of I feel a little weird about it, even
to this day because when I ended up in late
night and I to me getting into late night, and
I've said this before, was kind of like getting a
job as a realtor. Like, no one really wants a
job as a realtor. You don't start out in life
thinking I'm going to be a realtor. No, but you know,

(05:25):
shit goes wrong. Yeah, maybe your father's Walter, but my
father was his father before. Yeah, but none of that
was in my life. My father wasn't even American. So
the the idea of doing a show like this, I
was like, fuck, sure, fine, whatever, and that really wants
to And my early show is I tried to hold

(05:46):
it together and be a late like I would walk
out like you see. The first couple of weeks, I'm like,
I'm fiddling with my time saying you guys watched the
playoffs and I'm reading it.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
And I couldn't do it right until you're just like it.
It was.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
It was a little bit by little bit, yeah, I mean,
because you know what it's like you every night, every night,
every time.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
I watch a new late night show, I see ambitious
things and I'm like, Okay, they're going to lose that. Yeah,
in about six weeks they dropped. Like Jimmy Kimmel had
a co host every week every year. Yeah, like Rasi
O'Donnell used to read letters from I don't know, there
were everybody had gimmicks. We had. Conan didn't do a
monologue at the beginning, He didn't do a topical model

(06:28):
are hard I know, well, they're always the worst part
of the ship.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
Yeah, And I was like, you're not doing a topical monologue.
You're too funny. You're just gonna talk about shit. And
then by the second week, I realized he's got nothing
to talk about anymore because his whole life, he's pouring
everything into this show. So be like, hey, folks, oh man,
last night I rolled in at eleven thirty at night
and I cried myself to sleep in bed.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
But anyway, but it's but it's a funny thing because
because of the relentless nature of it. Once, I think,
once you get past the idea of trying to be
good at it, because I wanted to be good at it,
and then I was like, I just want to I
just want to stay on the air now.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
I just I just want to stay on the air.
I don't.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
And then after about a couple of months, I was like,
I don't even care if I stay on the air.
Fuck these people. Nobody knows what they're talking about. Everybody's
a fucking liar, that the network are crazy, the publicists
are manipulative and evil, the stars are weird and shut down.
And then I thought, well, I don't. About six months

(07:35):
into doing Late Night, I don't think I've even told
anybody this, but six months in I had my past.
I wasn't an American citizen at the time. I used
to have my passport in my pocket. On stage, I
had my passport in my pocket. Is like, shit goes
fucking tits up.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
I am out of here.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
I'm going to the airport and get the fuck. I'll
go anywhere. I'll go anywhere on the earth.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
Oh my god. But I do were enjoying the show itself,
was loving the show, but I knew I did have
this chip on your shoulder from all these non believing people.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
Right, And I also I believed that anything that I
loved as much I wasn't going to get to keep,
which is you know, and because it belonged to someone else.
Eventually I found the antidote to it was this was
going out and performing stand up again, which I had
done when I was younger performer, but going out and

(08:29):
going back to doing stand up in theaters or in
comedy clubs, because then I felt a sense of autonomy,
because I knew that CBS or show business would cut
my throat and dump me in the East.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
River whenever they felt like it.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
Right, But if I had something else that belonged only
to me, like then I'd be all right.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
So that that was like you, you kind of built
on your audience from the show to you stand up
in America, and then you were like, well, fuck them.
If I get canceled, I still I'm gonna have. I've
built a career now right in the States and I
still do that. And He'll be in Albany. Yeah probably.
Well actually, but the I heard you, But I look.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
I used to look at Conan in particular, because I
loved Cornan, and I loved doing corner shows and and
and to the the nearest thing to what I wanted
to do was was early Dave or Conan. That's that was,
That's what I wanted to do. That's whatever vibe that
was I wanted, and what you were doing with Triumph
or with TV Funhouse, the vibe of all of that

(09:34):
mad ship, that that ramshackle fucking crazy.

Speaker 2 (09:38):
I wanted a piece of that.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
But when I looked to all of you guys, your
fucking Newisha there, you know you, and I was, I
felt so jealous and outside because even in late night,
you know, guys had gone to you know, Emerson or
Cornell or you know or or or in.

Speaker 2 (09:58):
My or Harvard or yet I was. I considered myself
a diversity hire by going to Cornell, but.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
I was so jealous of that. No, I didn't I
didn't wish any harm or I just I wished to
be part of it, but did totally get it to
be part of it, And I felt.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
No, And I'm sure you felt like I mean, to
be perfectly honest, I don't think a lot of those
people got you. No, I don't know. And I would
watch the show and I would be like, everybody's just
a fucking snob about this guy. Yeah, because he's from
Scotland and he doesn't have the exact same dry Yeah, Fridge,
I didn't have it. No, I know but you had

(10:36):
your own thing, and you were naturally funny. Your interviews
were amazing. But what hit me the most was you
had a fucking skeleton robot or a sidekick. You had
a horse, a shitty horse costume that you would come
out and you wouldn't make any big deal out of it,
because if you treated it like it was perfectly normal,
which was that was my dream to be that insane.

(10:59):
We never did out on the show because it was
just too it was just not the right time in
Conan's career. Now, Conan, it's so funny, like he's very well.
The podcast is like an amazing vehicle for you. And
and uh, that was always like the white whale, like
because we knew he's he's been that way since he
was three to five. We've always wanted to get that guy,

(11:21):
even though he was really funny and great on his show.
Always knew there was that guy. And then when he
did the Hot Ones thing with you know that, yeah,
and he was out of his mind. I just talked
to him about it the other day because now I'm
just talking about Conan. Sorry, but that's so he he wants.
So when we were just starting the show, he was
going to be on Letterman, and he had this fantasy

(11:43):
in his head. He said, what if I what if
I'm on Letterman and it's my first time on and
I'm just telling an anecdote and then my face freezes
in a weird position, you know. So he's just like,
so anyway, I'm making a right and uh just then
the light and then I just don't change. I just
commit to that face and Letterman doesn't know what to do,
and I just do this like I'm stuck and I

(12:06):
never give in. It would have been the funniest thing
I ever seen stones to do. He was like, there's
no way I can do this. I can get away
with it. But then when he did the Hot Ones,
that was basically the equivalent of that level of craziness.
And it was so funny to know that, Like people
see it and they're like, wow, Conan's really what He's

(12:28):
really changed. He's so out there now and Conan and
I know that he's just always it's always been that guy,
but he's just nobody could handle it back then. You
I think I was.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
I was lucky because of David Lariman though, because what
happened was during the late night Wars of l and
Laraman after Johning was yes, I've talked about this a
million times, I guess podcast. But but basically CBS and
the desire again larim and gave him, yeah, two hours,
gave him the time slowly, didn't just he owned the type.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
I so Carson did with right.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
So because of that, CBS couldn't really do anything to me,
because Dave owned the Times law, David sanctioned me being there,
and Dave was in New York and I was in
La So Dave didn't give a ship. David Roburnette were
making their show, they didn't give a ship. But me,
They're busy, they're doing their own They're making the big
show in the theater and I'm making the shitty, little

(13:25):
fucking show in a wardrobe in Los Angeles and they
don't care there. I mean, they're nice enough, but you
don't give a ship and CBS can't touch it. So
the anomally of what happened, that's why I don't think
I was under the same kind of pressure that you
guys would have been.

Speaker 2 (13:41):
For sure, nobody was coming to me. And also like
Conan replaced David Letterman, right, Yeah, that was like the
big story and then David Letterman moves to Lenos to
uh to CBS was such a huge thing. And then
who's going to replace Letterman? Whereas you replaced Craig Killboard
and he was but man. Yeah, but they didn't have

(14:01):
the impact of a Letterman show.

Speaker 1 (14:02):
Oh so I think, well, I was lucky in as
well as I didn't have the specter of Johnny Carson exactly.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
You know, I had grown up.

Speaker 1 (14:11):
With Johnny I had I didn't know the language. I
didn't I didn't speak.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
It, I know. And by now, yeah, there was less
pressure on this time slot with Snyder and then kill
Born and it's like, so it hadn't been like, oh,
we've got a you know, we got to match Snyder's
ratings or whatever. I'm sorry. I loved he was lovely. Yeah,
but so but he was doing a different thing. But yeah,
and you know, you so when you were part of

(14:35):
like I remember this so well, they had like different
hosts every week for months.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
Yeah, yeah, I had to. It was basically American idol
at And so the.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
Very first time you did it, when you were really auditioning, Yeah,
what was your attitude? Were you scared or did you
were you not give a ship? This is like the
first gift one does.

Speaker 1 (14:53):
I did it too nice because the reason they gave
me is because I've been on Conan. I've been on
Conan as a guest from the Drew Carey show, Yeah,
or a movie or something that Peter Losally had seen.
Peter la Sally, who was like the host whisper right,
he had seen me on Cone and then he said
we should try that guy. And they're like the eighth
banana from Drew Carrey show.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
We try this guy. And so he they gave me.

Speaker 1 (15:18):
They just put me in the mix with everybody else.
So the first two times I didn't give a ship
because I was I was making an independent movie in Canada,
in Winnipeg. Nothing against Winnipeg or in Canada, but you know,
I just I was just there doing my thing and
they said coming, Craig Calbourne's giving up.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
Do you want to come in?

Speaker 1 (15:35):
And I was like I fell in for a couple
and I said right now, and you.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
Don't see it was like, this is my show, this
is what I've been dreaming. I was like, it's come
to this, that's what And then what happened is I
did it.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
Yeah, and I loved it.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
Fucking They got me right away the first one free,
you know.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
So I did two nights and I spoke to La
Sally and I'm like, I fucking love this, Peter, I
gotta have this, and he said, well, it's not up
to me. There's also David Lherman and Lis moon Venza
and we got to and I was like, well, I
want to do this. What do I need to do?
And he said, let me work on it, and so
he gave me a week, d L. Hugley a week,

(16:16):
Mike Leean Black a week, and.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
I there was one other guy who did.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
It as well, but we gave us all a week
to host it for a week and then they made
the decision after h Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
But you did you feel you probably tightened up a
little bit that week compared to the first two. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
Yeah, I wasn't as good that week, but minus to
scrape because.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
I remember Conan his very first audition, Yeah, was like, okay,
what the fuck? He was in Burbank. There was no audience,
or there was like a tiny audience of just inside
network people, right, and he interviewed Mimi Rodgers and Jason Alexander.
It was like very informal, and he killed it. Yeah,
he killed it. And then like then we started doing

(16:55):
test shows and I was like, Okay, you seem a
little nervous compared to the do you think it is?
And he's like, I had nothing to lose then.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
But don't you think that the combat Like if you're
auditioned an actors for a movie or something that the
first time they came in they kill it. Then you say, oh,
we got to bring you back to let their network
see you or and then they get they want to
and they tense.

Speaker 2 (17:15):
Up, like that scene in Groundhog Day when Bill Murray
tries to recreate the date with Andy McDowell. Right, it's
such a heartbreaking scene. Yeah, I love that movie. Oh
that's amazing.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
That's an amazing But I have one of the first
movies I saw when I came out of rehab.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
Oh really yeah, it was run by that time, and
I went to that movie.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
I went, this feels like, this feels like it's like
I went through this, that's a good movie to see.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
Well, the first one I saw was Robin Hood Prince
of Themes with Kevin Costner, and I cried all the
way through it. And I'm like, I don't think it's
a normal human reaction to try to that. So I
knew that I was probably in a phone with the state.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
But I want to tell Day's amazing because he's like
working on himself. The whole movie ends up being about that. Yeah,
but that's what it is. How do you better? Be better?
Be better?

Speaker 1 (18:02):
Or until you learn something, you're gonna do the same
fucking thing every time. You're going to fuck up every
time as you learn. Yeah, So let me ask you
a little bit about the lead up to you being
in comedy, because I think of you as being Let

(18:26):
me spooll back a little bit on this.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
Here's what it is about. I don't know. Four or
five years in the Late Night.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
I interviewed Stephen King and Stephen King is I'm a
fan of Stephen King and he's written some of the
most horrific pieces of literature I've ever encountered in dark
fucking shit, and he he came on the show. I
was excited to talk to him, and he's one of
the most upbeat, pleasant, nice, well adjusted.

Speaker 2 (18:55):
People I've ever talked, right, And I thought, what the hell,
And it.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
Began a little thing in my head because a lot
of the people who I thought were going to be nice,
particularly people who wrote, performed, or were part of romantic comedies,
fucking assholes. And I was like, oh my god, what
the hell is this? And what it began to foster
in my mind that I'm kind of a little further

(19:19):
down in line with it now is that I think
people who do comedy are the impulse to get into
It doesn't necessarily stay that way, but the impulse to
get into comedy and to make people laugh, particularly with
stand ups, but really with anyone, is a reaction to
trauma or discomfort.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
Discomfort sure, at least discomfort on someone.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
What do you think you're discomfort? Because if you write
stuff like Triumph or TV Funhouse, you know, the ambiguously
gay you, this is some dark shit getting work through.
Where do you think that?

Speaker 2 (19:51):
I mean, I think it might have been. I mean
it's weird because, like I laugh about my childhood, it
was a pretty soft, happy child. I had, like you know,
Jewish parents that treated me like a god. Like I
could draw Charlie Brown and Fred Flintstone when I was five,
and they just like shoved it in every friend's face.
He's a genius. You know. It's like they were calling

(20:13):
me a genius when I was five years old, and
so you sort of feel like I didn't I didn't
lack for approofal and like I was joking to people
that like some of my most traumatic moments when I
was a kid, or just moments where I was trying
not to laugh at a in the middle of a
wedding or a bar Mitz or something that's very funny.

(20:36):
That's like the kind of thing. But I think I
had just I think I was just born with like
a slight sense of darkness, like I actually, I think
some people just come out that way. You know. I've
always been attracted to Like my dad gave me a
Peanuts book when I was six years old, and I
just became obsessed with Peanuts because it was the first

(21:00):
thing I'd ever read for kids that didn't act like
everything turns out okay, right, you know, everything before then,
I mean, I loved bugs bunny cartoons, but there's always
a winner and a loser and keynuts. Just everything was
just like kind of everyone lived in this middle ground
of you know, yeah, things are okay, and I understand that. Yeah,

(21:23):
And I definitely but even then I didn't really identify
with like Charlie Brown and all his anxieties, but I
just but I liked hearing about them. So something there
definitely connected with me.

Speaker 1 (21:36):
And what about around other kids, if your parents are
nice and stuff, what was like I.

Speaker 2 (21:40):
Was popular because I was funny, like, so I didn't
really have I mean, I was definitely I definitely had
anxiety when I got older with like girls and stuff. Right,
I was definitely had that. And I think I was
essentially a shy person who who got it out in
you know, different ways, like I would cartoons or I
would imitate people.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
Well, laughter from other people is a massive surge of approval,
isn't that.

Speaker 2 (22:07):
Approval? And it's also you know, you fool people into
liking you. Yeah, because I wasn't great at like talking
to people. I've always been kind of a shy person
on that level, a little bit inhibited. And I don't
know where that comes from, but I've always I've always
had a little of that growing up. So so yeah,

(22:30):
this was my outlet as a kid. It's sort of
how I skated by by being funny. I drew pictures
of my friends. I you know, I ended up during
cartoons of them imitating them, imitating teachers writing songs about
my friends.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
But that that's kind of I think that's that's kind
of normal.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
For you, you know.

Speaker 1 (22:53):
But I think that the idea of I don't think
the genius definition of you is inaccurate, by the way,
And I don't throw that word around because people do.

Speaker 2 (23:02):
It's like, oh, he's the genius.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
Yeah, yeah, he's the most genius soccer player. He's the
most genius swimmer. You go, what really, I mean? I
can swim, you know, he plays with the ball, you know,
I mean, come on, but.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
It's got to be another word for someone who's really.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
Good, good at one thing, yeah, you know, or I
think it's really good, but genius, but genius.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
Quite a genius. But that's sounds like it's not.

Speaker 1 (23:32):
Yeah, yes, but genius I think is quite an interesting
description of you because it because I think it's pretty accurate,
especially if you're doing it, especially if you're doing.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
It right away. Do you know what I mean? If
I wasn't a genius, I could just draw I was.

Speaker 1 (23:52):
Yeah, but like the ramshackle ship that and I'm using
the word ramshackle more than one because I really feel
it because I really connected with it, like years before
I was on Late Night, years before any of that stuff.
I would see, like I think it was like late nineties.
Triumph started on Coner because I used to watch Coding
every now, yeah, and and Triump started on CODA. I'm like,

(24:12):
whatever the fuck that is, that's it, that's what it is.
And Codon all the way through like when he would
have it used to have ted what's his name?

Speaker 2 (24:21):
The guy started CNN turner, Oh yeah, that was Will
Forte would come on and then he would bump the.

Speaker 1 (24:29):
That was Buffalo and oh yeah yeah, years down that line.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
Down and that's when he was on TVs right, yeah,
even then, it's still what the hell is going on now?

Speaker 1 (24:39):
But all of that stuff that that, and there was
another thing I liked. I know this wasn't your thing,
but it felt like the vibe of the same thing
was do you remember Space Ghost Coast to Coast?

Speaker 2 (24:52):
Sure? I loved that.

Speaker 1 (24:53):
Oh yeah, I loved I did an episode of that
and it was never air.

Speaker 2 (24:56):
Triumph did one too. Yeah, that's right, I saw it. Yeah.
I loved Space Ghost, but even more I loved Sea Lab.
Do you remember Sea Lab on Adult Swim. It's an
old Hanni Barbara show and they just used all this
shitty animation that existed and they just redubbed it and removed.
But they didn't just redub it. They also manipulated the animation,

(25:18):
made new stories, do you joke? Absolutely brilliant stuff. I'm
actually working on a reboot of a fun house kind
of show that's going to be more less topical, but
recurring characters that I'm developing for Peacock. Yeah, I am
doing something with my friend Dino, who a brilliant writer

(25:38):
that started with at Conan. I always get anybody who
ever uses a genius on me. I always feel like
you don't know the people I work with. Like That's
how as a comedy writer, I feel like I've gotten
a lot of attention because my name is on stuff
Saturday Night Live cartoons, and then people know me is
Triumph or whatever. I'm very proud of my work, but

(26:00):
I also know so many guys that I've worked with.
Sketch writing is a weird and talk show writing. It's
not like being a playwriter a screenwriter. You don't get
your name. Your name's on a list and you know
you might write the most you might have written the
most brilliant thing that night, and it's just you know,
And so I feel like I always feel uncomfortable because

(26:23):
I just know so many people that I consider brilliant
and they're just not famous because their names aren't.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
I think brilliance is essential. Like one of the mistakes
I think I made early on, and I see people
making this mistake is that they behave either badly or
arrogantly young performers because they think they're so talented. And
they're right, they are so talented. But that's like when
you get in a shoe business, talent is kind of

(26:50):
like your driver's license. You're going to need that. You're
going to need to be super fucking talented. Sure what
else you got, because super talented is not fucking rare,
and shoe business is plenty of true.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
It's true. I mean I run into people. It's on.

Speaker 1 (27:03):
You see kids doing ship on TikTok, and I'm like,
oh my god, that's great.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
You know, it bums me out more than having to
audition people for a movie or something, or when I
auditioned people for the Dana Carvey Show, because you're just
overwhelmed by how many people are good enough to do it,
and then you have to pick like six. I remember
literally being in tears after the callbacks and my wife's like,

(27:29):
what's wrong with you? And I'm like, because I can't.
It's just some of this is like their big shot
and I'm not going to be able to and that's
and then that's Originally the show got canceled in eight episodes,
so I was deluded.

Speaker 1 (27:41):
I don't understand why that was canceled. The Dana Carvey
show that you you you cast their own people except
except for Steve Carrell and Stephen Cole exactly. That's what
I was going to say, that show shouldn't ago canceled.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
Uh, it was in the wrong time slot. It was
we Dana and I were determined to bring late night
comedy to prime time. I remember it was a different era,
and I remember even when we were doing SNL in
the later part of my run there, I remember thinking
this show should be on at ten on Thursday night.

(28:15):
It shouldn't be eleven thirty because primetime was a bigger
deal back then. It was, and I felt like our
audiences aged with the show, like you know, in nineteen
seventy five, it was new and there was a young
audience for it, but now everybody's grown up. It should
be a primetime show. And Lauren. I brought it up
to Lauren. He was no fucking way, and he was smart.

(28:35):
He knew he had a good thing going and he
wanted to do it. Well. Now it's like it's more
than ever.

Speaker 1 (28:41):
It's a weird little it's a weird little kind of
corner of show business really because it seems like it's
college for young performers.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
It is like college for young performers in high school,
whatever you want to call it. It's definitely although more
and more people stay and stay and stay because jobs
are just hard to come by.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
Like she was kind of on fire right now anyway,
isn't it. It's kind of going through a change.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
It's like, you know, there was the streaming boom and
now everything now all you hear is like.

Speaker 1 (29:10):
Well, I think what happened with the streaming boom is
all the assholes awards of the networks all got jobs
and streaming and they start fucking that up now.

Speaker 2 (29:18):
Because it's You're right, I don't want to name names
or anything and be but but but yes, I can't know,
you can know you well, I know, but I don't
know it's fair. I want to work. But what I
did notice that some of these streaming places started off
very adventurous with their own people, and then it's like
we're bringing in this guy who used to work at

(29:39):
Sony and this person and this and that, and like,
you know, I I assume it's unavoidable at a certain
point because the business is so insular anyway. But I remember,
like the first when they were first doing it, I
was like, no, no, no, you have you're doing it
the right way. You're following your gut, don't follow rules.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
Well, the thing is about it, though, I kind of
understand it from their perspective because they there was a
friend of mine.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
You you know, John Feldheimer. He started and run John Feltheimer,
Yeah he did.

Speaker 1 (30:12):
He's the creator of Lionsgate.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
Sounds like a headline of the National Inquirer. No, John Feltheimer,
John Feldheimer. Sorry, I'll look see. Remember when I said.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
Genius, I'm gonna I'm going to dial it back a
little bit, you know. Somebody said to me there this
is a kind of a sight. They were talking about
how great David Kelly was, like his work genius, genius,
except this. This person was saying me, David Kelly, He's
never made anything bad.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
I went, sure, he has.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
No, No, I've never seen anything that has his that
that hasn't worked to go. That's because you don't get
to fucking see it.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
It's like he makes a violot junked. You know. I
guess some of my favorite things I've ever written nobody
has seen.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
The best thing I've ever done on TV is never
been seen. Really, Yeah, I did a pilot for after
I finished The Late and I had a pilot with
h David Frankel directed it mm HM called The King
of seven B.

Speaker 2 (31:10):
It's for ABC. It was a guy.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
I played, this guy who was an agrophobe. We can
live in New York City, would never go out, and
so everything just happened in his aparliament.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
People come to the part and it was great as
a great script and I loved it, amazed it even online.
Don't think so. I don't know where that is. You
don't even have a copy. No, oh man, that's why
I probably think it's so great. No, I bet it's great.
It's pretty good, honestly, Like I really feel that way.
Like some of my favorite things I've ever written are

(31:41):
things that were just rejected, and one of them, Conan
was nice enough to let us. So we wrote a
screenplay for Hans and Franz, the SNL characters Bodybuilders. Yeah,
Dana Carvey and I and Kevin Neil and and Conan
also worked on it right, and we wrote it in
nineteen ninety one and it was an insane, absolutely bonded script.

(32:01):
We all thought it was like the funniest thing we'd
ever written, and the studio was just like, this is shit.
And Arnold, originally he was he was the engine that
drove us to do it because he had been on
USNL a couple of times. It was like, yeah, this
is funny. It was a little movie about you guys,
want to make it Hollywood cousin, and so we wrote

(32:24):
this thing and it was absolutely insane. And then Arnold
ultimately like did the Last Action Hero and that didn't work.
So he didn't want to ever wink at the audience
and be himself and that's it. It was just done.
And then like a year ago, Conan was like, let's
read it. Let's just read it on the show. And
so Dana, Kevin and I and Conan. Conan narrated, I

(32:46):
played Arnold and we got such an amazing response, and
it was so gratifying because it's like these things, I'm
sure that this this is like just this nagging thing
in your brain, like, oh that fucking thing, you know,
And so it was such a great feeling to see
the response online, like people loved it.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
If you ever made a thing that you thought was
great and everybody else thought it sucked.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
Oh yeah, I mean at SNL, that would happen, like,
you know, I'd write a Tuesday Night and.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
Yeah, but I feel that's coached in politics.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
I thought, you know, oh no, I would like then
it would bomb. Some things are couched in politics, but
sometimes they would bomb. And I was like, okay, maybe
I maybe I was wrong. Yeah, maybe I. But it's
very hard to come to grips with something that you
once thought was hysterical and just something's in your brain forever.
It's just like, no, there's something I did something. There's

(33:43):
just a tiny little left turn and it would have
worked something. Yeah, it's really hard to let go. Yeah,
for me, it is. It is.

Speaker 1 (33:51):
I've made a couple of things I thought that that's great,
this is going to be a massive hit.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
Yeah it wasn't. It wasn't a massive Well a lot
of times that you don't get to, Oh yeah, I
had a show. Just watched an episode like or not
even I just watched five minutes and I got so
angry because I was like, what's happened? Why? Why didn't
this work? I don't get it. Well, you get it,

(34:15):
but I don't.

Speaker 1 (34:15):
Well, that's the thing I was going to tell you
about Pelheimer, whom sorry, so Philheimer, John Felheimer, who's a
nice guy and you'd like him. He was part of
the team that sold MGM to Sony okay, right, And
he said, this is what happened. To go in for
the big meeting. There's all the Japanese executives and all
the American team that are selling it over and they

(34:37):
say to him. They're going through a translator and they're
talking to this Japanese guy and he says, will you
please tell I can't remember the guy's name, he said,
please tell him. The movie business is basically, we make
about fifty movies a year.

Speaker 2 (34:49):
This is back then.

Speaker 1 (34:50):
We make about fifty movies a year. You know, twenty
of them will do okay, you know ten of them
will suck and the rest of the week right right,
or or a different set numbers, And again it goes
through the translator and the guy says a bunch of Jeopanese.
The translator go back and says, yeah. What he says
is only make the good ones. We don't know, that's it.

Speaker 2 (35:16):
We don't know what's gonna work. You don't know. But
I do feel like when people follow their gut got
a better chance. I think so. I mean, I always
look to Seinfeld that show as just a perfect example
of people following their gut doing because it's only when
you do something that hasn't been done that that you

(35:40):
get the big hit. But the problem is your work.

Speaker 1 (35:43):
I think what you're doing is you're working against the
people who are afraid of that. If you're doing something
that hasn't been done right, that's the that's the last
thing they want to do.

Speaker 2 (35:53):
No, I know. Well, the Dana Carvey Show is an
example exactly right. They said to us, I remember this
so clearly. It's so funny because you were on Drew Carrey.
So this is nineteen ninety five. ABC is a very
corny network at this point. I mean, not that these
shows are bad, but like you know, Grace, Underfire, Roseanne,
it was very like, yeah, family oriented sitcoms, and suddenly

(36:18):
we're bringing the Dana Carvey Show and we're like, I
don't know. ABC is like the least hip network, even
CBS has more. NBC was the hip network. They had
Seinshelder Want CTV and all those urban sitcoms, and so
they're like, no, no, no, this is exactly what we
want to be doing. And so I have now when

(36:39):
I tell people, I always tell people, if someone says
that to you, run for the hills, yeah, because they
are not going to be ready for what you want.
Wait let them, let them figure it out in a year,
because then the show gets canceled. And then the next
year there's Ellen and the Drew Carey Show on Wednesday nights,
and I'm like, where were these shows when mean perfect

(37:00):
the show?

Speaker 1 (37:01):
We ended up doing all that variety stuff and musical numbers.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
Yes, Data Carvey Show. Yes, I was like, where was
this when we were on? They weren't ready. There's personnel changes,
the energy were right, they did want to change their network,
and they did. They had more sophisticated quote unquote, I
don't want to disparage Roseanne because it's a great show obviously,
but you know, more shows that would be compatible with

(37:26):
the Dana Carvey Show. And you know, it was just
like literally a year late.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
How do you handle failure? Are you good at it?

Speaker 2 (37:35):
I desperately try to move on to something else so
that I don't dwell on it. So the Dana Carvey Show,
I was thank god I had The Ambiguously Gay Duo
was a cartoon within the Data Carvey Show, because I
wanted the Dana Carvey Show to look as different from
SNL as possible, and one of the things was the cartoons.
The only one we did was the Ambiguously Gay Duo,

(37:58):
but I loved it. It's one of my favorite ideas ever.
And then over that summer, I'm just in survival mode
and I'm thinking, Okay, what other cartoons? And then I
have this idea for something called fun with Real Audio,
which I did on SNL a lot. We took the
audio of celebrity interviews and things like that or political
debates and made crazy animation to those voices. And then

(38:21):
I got really excited and I just called Lauren Michaels,
who wanted me back at SNL anyway, I was like, well,
I figured out a way that where I'd be excited
to go back, and it was the easiest phone call.
He was like, good, let's do it. And that saved
me that time. And then after the Jack and Triumph show,
I it was like twenty sixteen now and we had

(38:44):
that show didn't work. But the election was coming up
and people were a couple of people that it was
in a Wall Street Journal article and Laurence o'donald, the
NBC commentator. They both called Trump Trump the insult comic
dog because of his behavior, and it made me think, oh,
I should cover the election. I should cover it. That's right, Triumph, Yeah,

(39:06):
so I covered it. So the whole gimmick was like
the bar has been lowered, and now Triumph is ready
to be a political you know, correspondent because the dialogue
has gotten so base and embarrassing thanks to Trump. So
Hulu was all in and I got to do like
six right after the right after the Triumph Show failed,

(39:28):
the Adult Swim Show, I got to do these political
specials on Hulu I did. I got to do six
of them, cover the whole election, got nominated for an
Emmy and it was just like, so that's the thing.

Speaker 1 (39:40):
I just like, so I just run to the next Riday.
So you deal with failure by succeeding down the line desperately, Yeah,
trying to. Yeah, Yeah, I understand it because I think
that the idea of it I come from a culture.
I think this is another reason I think why I
became an American. Yeah, is it boils down to the

(40:00):
failure in America is like, okay, next failure. Where I
grew up in the environment that I.

Speaker 2 (40:07):
Grew up, and it was like, you should never have te.

Speaker 1 (40:11):
Well you failed that any of us surprise, we fat
creak failed.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
Oh god.

Speaker 1 (40:19):
But in America, you swing, you mess, you go. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah,
you swing, you mess, you go again. It doesn't you fail.
Of course you fail. Everybody fails, and if you have.

Speaker 2 (40:29):
If you have adoring Jewish parents, it's even more so.
Well idiots, Those people are idiots.

Speaker 1 (40:36):
They don't understand see the genius you're drawing.

Speaker 2 (40:41):
My dad after a good SNL, after I had a
good sketch on SNL, he would always say to me,
always cracked me up. Did Lord Michaels, does he appreciate
how good that was? Did he tell you, does he does?
He know?

Speaker 1 (40:54):
This is the opposite of what I know, because because
I the first time I get nominated this an Amy,
I called my mother in schools you're still alive, and
I called my mother in Scotland. That was in California.
I said, oh, I've been nominated for an Amy.

Speaker 2 (41:07):
Yeah, and she been, oh, that's nice.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
Robert Carlile the Scottish Act has also been nominated.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
I was like, you knew, so you knew.

Speaker 1 (41:17):
You looked at the Emmy nominations, you knew I'd be
nominated for. Didn't say, yeah, Robert Kyle is a nice guy,
but I didn't need to be part of that conversation.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
And it kind of like it's a it's a different
way of coming at it.

Speaker 2 (41:33):
It's funny because like the other side of it to
have parents that are so into it and just like
he's nominated everybody, and it's like I almost it almost
makes me crazier in some way, because I like to
make you when you were a kid and they were
not angry, but like no, but when I was doing
SNL and things and my dad would say things like
that wouldn't make me angry. But it would subliminally sometimes

(41:57):
it would make me care too much much about Like
I try to keep an even keel about this and
not be that needy for but when my parents want
it as much.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
Or more than I do, you're going to let them down.

Speaker 2 (42:12):
It's like a whole other level. Yeah, no, I can
see that.

Speaker 1 (42:15):
Yeah, So what I think then is that here's what
I'm going to get. I feel that your trauma was
more manipulative than mine. Mine was just like stay up
a Tubby's a fat wee boy, and he's going to
feel you will let us down if you fail, even
if later.

Speaker 2 (42:34):
I don't think that. I don't think I picked up
on that when I was a little kid. Yeah, by
the way, I know, I know, maybe right though, maybe
there was a little part of me that like, just like,
oh my god, I love how happy they are. I
just want to make them happy all the time. I
mean I did when I but this was out of
appreciation of their support, like when I won my first Emmy.

(42:54):
Because I hate awards, I really do.

Speaker 1 (42:57):
I really like getting them. I hate when other people
win them, but when I know it's fun.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
To get him, but when you get them, Yeah, but
I just but here's what I did, because I actually
didn't want to feel that way when I won my
first Emmy, because I was like, no, the reward is
the job and the opportunity and that I get to
do this work. This is random. Jason Alexander's never won one,
the most ridiculous thing he still I never won for

(43:23):
cot Stanza. That's crazy, the funniest character in the history
of television. That's crazy. That's all you need to know
to keep you sane about award. It's like it's random.
You try to take it seriously. But I remember this
first time we won the Emmy for SNL. I would
look I saw recently a photograph of all the writers,
and I'm the only one not smiling. I'm trying to

(43:44):
be above it. And then I remember, and then I
I took it on the plane, got off the plane,
went straight to my parents' apartment, gave it to them.
Didn't want it, just wanted them to have it. That's interesting.
I didn't want to have it. I didn't want to
care about it, and I knew how much they cared
about it.

Speaker 1 (44:02):
Well, but I understand that don't want to care about it,
because if you care about something they can hurt you.

Speaker 2 (44:09):
It's a trap. This is like one more thing. I
had so much anxiety, and I'd already put so much
anxiety on myself just wanting to be good, wanting to
get my sketches on all of that. I didn't need
to win an Emmy at that point. It's fun.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
But the thing is kind of like how you change
when your kids are born. Suddenly suddenly there's a human
being in the world and you really care about them.

Speaker 2 (44:34):
Oh you know. I mean, of course you care about
other people you're in religiouships with when you're like, oh
my God.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
And then the level of fear that that jacked up
in me I can't even describe.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
Yes, you know, and still to this day without a doubt,
all parents, you know, have that, And then I have
this extra level. I had that when my first son
was born. Then when he was diagnosed with autism and
he had pretty he's pretty affected, then that became a
whole other thing where it's like, Okay, my life is his.
Everything I do is you know, through the prism of

(45:09):
making sure I can support him for the rest of
his life, right, you know, And you know, it's been challenging,
but it's also provided clarity for you know, one creative,
fucked up person who's you know, constantly riddled with these
kind of you know, conflicts in your head.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
You know, So it was kind of a gift in
I understand it.

Speaker 2 (45:33):
It's the weird kind of look.

Speaker 1 (45:37):
I don't want to say that your son being autistic
is a negative.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
It's not a negative.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
It's just that it's just a fact of life. But
when you get a piece of information that profound that
you weren't planning on, it alters your perspective.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
Absolutely. I get it. Well. At the time, I was
very scared for him because there was like twenty years ago,
and there weren't autism advocates. There weren't people were autistic
who were advocates. There was one woman, Temple grand And
who's brilliant, but that was it. And all the all
the charities, all the all everything was all about a
cure or cure, a cure, you know, and so you

(46:12):
get sucked into that like, Okay, we don't worry, we're
going to get a cure. This is horrible and we're
going to get a cure. And then my wife and I,
you know, went through various ways of trying to help them,
and we kind of realized through seeing other parents that
there's just not enough resources for kids who have autism,
who need who need help and need kind and effective therapy.

(46:35):
So that's when we started this Night of Too Many
Stars show, and we made it all about family services
and schools and nothing about research because nobody else was
doing it.

Speaker 1 (46:47):
You know, you go do that again, the Night of
Too Many Stars.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
We're going to do one, hopefully next spring with Netflix
on their festival. I'm hoping I did one. I did one.
I mean the time when this is two thousand and three,
and I'm like, I know everybody in show business. I
have so many friends at least that I've worked with.
They'll all come Sandler and Conan and everybody I know.

(47:12):
I'd be an asshole not to do this. That's what
I basically came to the conclusion of. So, so yeah,
we've done.

Speaker 1 (47:18):
Like Sandel's an interesting figure out. I'm glad you brought
him up.

Speaker 2 (47:22):
He's the greatest I think. So right, He's an interesting.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
One because there's someone who I don't think is ever.
He's extremely popular and he gets the money, but I
think I don't think he really gets the kudos for
what he's done, you know, the work he's done. Yeah,
because the Latin movie you did with him, the Zohan movie.
That's a great movie. That is a great movie. It's
a great man.

Speaker 2 (47:44):
I don't know how people would feel watching it now, but.

Speaker 1 (47:47):
I think it's kind of necessary now more than some ways,
as I remember, you know, the relationship Zohan was the
he was the Israeli hairdresser and his girlfriend was the Palestinian.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
Yes, and Johan really yes, he was a he was
a massad agent who was like almost a superhero, but
his dream was to become a hairstylist. Hairstylist. Yes, And
then uh yeah, I mean what what holds up I'm
sure is the notion that ultimately these people learn that

(48:22):
they live together and work together in the same neighborhood
in Brooklyn, and that it's only all these just how
similar they are. That was sort of the ultimate point.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
Yeah, And I remember the feeling of the movie because
the movie I thought, I'm watched I'm gonna watch one
of Adam Sandler's laugh out load kind of like guilty
pleasure movie, right right, And it had that sure, but
and then going oh okay, which I think is a
real gift when you see a movie when you think
it's going to be one thing, and it is that

(48:54):
thing that it also gives you gives you a little
more stuff as well, like like it's got got a
soul and a little.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
Bit you know. No, I was happy. Jokes are great,
but yeah, the choice to make the bad guy someone
I mean, it's a cliche. It was an American real
estate developer and who was going to raise their neighborhood.
But at the same time, the choice of just making
the point that they are the same in this country,

(49:21):
they could be the same anywhere. We could just let go. Well,
that's the enough.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
It's part of the maybe because it's the emmigrant experience.

Speaker 2 (49:31):
For me.

Speaker 1 (49:31):
I went back to Scotland five years ago and I
went back for five years and ultimately I'm like, no
from here any I need to get back to New York. Yeah,
I need to go back to America. And I have
come back and I'm back in America right And it

(49:52):
was nothing to do. I love Scotland. This is a
great place, but I belong here for whatever fucking reason.
I think what happens is when you become an emigrant,
when you get that when that thing gets in, it
doesn't go for me, it won't go.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
I hear you. I mean, this is a great country
in many ways, kind of it. Kind of.

Speaker 1 (50:22):
Gorvidal. Recently, I've been reading I was going to say rereading,
and I thought that's a lie, because I never read them.
I've been reading the Empire, the Novels of Empire series.
Gorvidal wrote seven books. I think it's seven books, five
or seven books about the birth of America.

Speaker 2 (50:38):
Right, it's like in the eighties. I think he wrote these.

Speaker 1 (50:41):
I think he wrote them across the whole thing. I mean,
they're interspersed, and he wrote them out of order. But
he starts with the biography of Aaron Burr, who.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
Was fucking crazy.

Speaker 1 (50:52):
Yeah, but what I love about people have gone, it's
never been this bad in America. You go, it's never
what Aaron Burr killed a guy and then rather a
raised an army to be the emperor of Mexico while
he's vice President of the United States.

Speaker 2 (51:11):
If you did that, you know how crazy social media
would go. And you know, people have no idea how insane.

Speaker 1 (51:18):
Plus the fact I don't know why, I really feel
is a skill that we've lost is raising an army,
like I wouldn't know where to begin raising an army,
Aaron Burr, like people were raising an all through history.
People are like, you raised an army.

Speaker 2 (51:30):
Right right? I then raised an army.

Speaker 1 (51:34):
I can't.

Speaker 2 (51:35):
I can't do that.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
I can't someone's attention in the store raised an army.

Speaker 2 (51:42):
He didn't have TikTok. Yeah, but he had something. He
had to do something, he had to raise an army's time.

Speaker 1 (51:47):
But here's what I like what these Gorvidal books says.
They actually I saw Chuck Todd the other night talking
about because someone was saying, do you you know because
he's a history buff, and he was saying, yeah, And
actually that's where I get my solace when the politics
is on fire. It has never been this bad, You go, yeah,
it's it's kind of always. There are times when it

(52:10):
hasn't been this bad, but you know, there was like
way worse. When McKinley was shot. That was Whover even
talks about that. You know, it's like, oh, Teddy Rouswald,
go yeah, Teddy Ruswald, you know why he became president
because they shot the other the guy who annexed the Philippies. Hell,
nobody told me about this, and I think the perspective

(52:31):
of America. I I my patriotism for America as an
immigrant was very jingoistic.

Speaker 2 (52:35):
At first.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
It was naiven jingoistic, and I think that's okay. I
think when you come in as a as an immigrant,
that's kind of appropriate. And as you get to know
the place, you go, well, it maybe isn't that.

Speaker 2 (52:46):
But Jesus Christ is interesting.

Speaker 1 (52:48):
It's a very interesting place historically and just every other way.

Speaker 2 (52:52):
Yeah, and I love that.

Speaker 1 (52:53):
Thing PG O'Rourke said about the American Wherever the American
embassy is in the world, there's always two crowds out
say that, two crowds outside, two crowds. Yeah, there's one
crowd of people protesting against evil America and another crowd
of people went for visas.

Speaker 2 (53:08):
And you see them crossing over, like they're burning the flag,
they're sighting the form. They're burning the flag, they're sighting
the form. You know, it's that's perfect.

Speaker 1 (53:18):
And it kind of feels like that a little bit
like sometimes I think the hyperabole of it's never been
this bad to go. It's kind of like, you know,
when it rains in la and people say it's never
been this bad every fucking year. It's this bad every year.

Speaker 2 (53:34):
Yeah, No, you're right. Other than global warming, that's the
only chicken little that's pretty badscrib that's pretty bad. That's
a pretty bad thing.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
But that was that thing George Carlin used to say,
Earth will be fine.

Speaker 2 (53:45):
We're fucked. I know. It is what it is now.
It's maddening. It's maddening how the ship that matters the
most is just boring to people.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
Well, it's kind of it's going to be. It's up
to people like maybe me too, to try and.

Speaker 2 (54:07):
Get an earworm in there. That's a little different. My
friend Adam McKay is basically devoted all his time to
making comedy and making having you know, mobilizing people just
for that cause alone, you know, And so I appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (54:23):
I kind of I kind of went the other way
because like when Stephen Colbert took over the Late Night
Yeah and he went deep politics. He was he went
running right at it, which, as I think, as it
turned out, was the right choice for the show and
for him.

Speaker 2 (54:36):
I think he was coming off of politically right exactly.

Speaker 1 (54:39):
Had I done it, I would have probably done it
the other way, and I think that would have been
a mistake.

Speaker 2 (54:44):
I think that show that.

Speaker 1 (54:45):
Timeslow needed that, and I told him that when I
was on the show.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
I mean, you know, especially when Trump came into power,
because it just people became obsessed with him. And you know,
CNN and all these news networks, as much as they
complained about him, they they loved it. They loved the
attention he draws. So they made him you know, every press,

(55:09):
every every rally, you know, it was was there, it
is and uh because it was just like musty TV
in their mind.

Speaker 1 (55:17):
I kind of what happens is with every show you
get the season fucking six and people go, it's no
what it was. It could be, It's no what it was.
You know, I liked it before the added scrappy Do
you know what I'm saying, vancrapy.

Speaker 2 (55:35):
He might be scrappy New, That's what I'm saying. He
might be scrappy New.

Speaker 1 (55:39):
Uh you know what I mean. It's like in the
Simpsons when the remember they added that character on the
skateboard to try to feel the kids was. Yes, I
can't remember what it was, but that's kind of I think.
And I do this thing what I'm doing stand up now.

Speaker 2 (55:55):
I mean it's.

Speaker 1 (55:55):
Absolute fucking real. I don't talk about politics at all.

Speaker 2 (55:58):
I do feel like it's it's really hard for me
to uh watch late night shows consistently because of that,
because I just want to escape from that. Well that's
you know, there's.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
Going to be at least some option for for that,
because I think that's the because I'm sick. No, even
people I agree with him, like, yeah, I agree with you,
shut the fuck up, you know.

Speaker 2 (56:17):
Yeah, I mean fall into some degree like he touches
on it, but it's not in.

Speaker 1 (56:22):
A more traditional way.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
In a more Tonight Show Johnny Carson kind of way
where you don't feel like, Okay, I really need to
be invested right now and be fired up and angry
and I can just kind of look at and I
think that's there's a real And I'm not disparaging anyone
else who does more politics, but it's nice to have
somebody doing that well, I think.

Speaker 1 (56:44):
I think also the idea of it is I was
fascinated that conversation I had with Jim gaffigin do you
know Jim.

Speaker 2 (56:51):
Yeah, a little bit. He's a great guy, great guy.

Speaker 1 (56:53):
Yeah, and he he was I was talking about because
he doesn't completely clean.

Speaker 2 (56:58):
Yeah, right, famously Jim cusses and in real life, yeah,
he just talked like everybody else, right, but his act
is clean. He does it.

Speaker 1 (57:09):
That's what I was asking him, and he said it
was and he used this phrase and I went, he said,
it's a stylistic choice. I set myself a task and
I went, okay. And so when I was like, this
was probably run about twenty sixteen, maybe a little after that,
if I'm honest, I started to go, I feel everybody

(57:32):
everybody says the name Trump, everybody says everybody's got a
fucking thing, and that's fine. Of course they must be
able to do that. But I'm going to make and
I used it, I'm going to make a stylistic choice
not to talk about any event. And so I started
to write stuff. It was only about family, it was
only about in personal experience. It was only about, Oh.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
People appreciate it. You would think that people you know,
a lot of comics think, oh, I got a panda.
I gotta give them what they want. But no, there's
there's real value in letting people escape.

Speaker 1 (58:03):
I think that, and I think also the idea of
you know, the only kind of was the pushbike I
got from. It was not from people who were right leaning,
right I know, was the interesting.

Speaker 2 (58:14):
You gotta be a part of it. Speak, there's too
much at stake.

Speaker 1 (58:19):
It's like everybody.

Speaker 2 (58:20):
Can't anybody just be a comedian, do you know when
you know, like a real comedian.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
Did you ever go to THEYS Correspondence?

Speaker 2 (58:26):
Then I have I performed there? Oh did you did
you do it with one? Okay, so nineteen ninety five,
back when I was doing and I will say this,
what I liked about our political humor on Conan was
how unique it was to our show and silly like
Conan would do very light and monologue and then he

(58:47):
would occasionally interview a famous person and it was a
photograph and that was ninety percent of the time. It
was me and I got to do it at the
White House course Spond's dinner. Bill Clinton was the president,
and that was our first real hit character was Bill Clinton,
probably him and Michael Jackson. I did that a lot

(59:08):
too back then, but when he was married to Lisa Marie.
But Bill Clinton knew about the bit and they invited
Conan to do the dinner and Conan was like, yeah,
you're gonna come and you're gonna do it, and I
couldn't believe it, but yeah, we go up there, I
get to meet Bill Clinton and Hillary and Conan says,

(59:31):
it's the guy who doesn't and he just gives me
that upside down smile that he had. I really enjoy it. Yeah,
didn't say a word. And then so we're doing it.
So he first first, Conan does like ten minutes on
his own, maybe fifteen even, and he kills, just jokes,
just what you're supposed to do, and he was fantastic,
one of the funniest ones I'd ever seen. And then

(59:52):
he brings me on and I'm like, oh shit, maybe
and then but I'm killing at first, and nobody's laughing
harder than Clinton. And I don't know if it's manufactured
to show he's a good sport, but he literally sounds
like a donkey. He's just like oh, and Hillary's smiling
because you know, there was no way she was going

(01:00:12):
to laugh at this nonsense, but she's smiling and enjoying it.
And then we get to a point where so this
is back when I was younger and I had a
chip on my shoulder. Creatively, I was like, we're not
just gonna go there and kiss their ass. You know.
We got to do some some jokes that are a
little edgy, you know, so we write this joke. So

(01:00:33):
the premise was Clinton finds out that he's on c SPAN,
that the show's on se SPAN. He's like, Oh, that's
like a tree in the forest. I can say anything
I want. I inhaled everybody, you know, all that kind
of stuff. And it's killing. And so he's making more
confessions and then there was this joke and Conan and
I remember right before we went on, Colin was like
should we do this? Is this too much? And I

(01:00:56):
was like, why don't you call an audible? Because I
was like, then this was the joke. It was like
Clinton saying like I got high with Will and Nelson
on the roof of the Kremlin. I don't even remember
what the context was, but it was one of his
confessions and it made sense comedically in nineteen ninety five.
So I was like, I think it'd be good to do,
you know, an edgy joke, but maybe you call an audible.

(01:01:18):
And he's like, I don't want to call an audible.
I don't want to deal with that. This is like
he's at the White House Correspondence dinner. Let's just commit
to it, Conan says, so we do it. And then
later Dick Cavott, who's in the audience, comes up to
Conan and he says, when you made that joke about
Willie Nelson and the Kremlin, Hillary's face went from doctor

(01:01:42):
jekyled mister Hyde and literally we bombed the rest of
the way. I could not recover from that moment. That's interesting,
and it's because of Hillary's face, I guarantee it, because everybody,
well then it's like you're watching this guy being imitated
to his face, and everybody's gonna be transfixed on their reaction.

(01:02:06):
And Bill was he hawing, and that was great. And
then but Hillary, I was told, she just did that,
just looked down, just like when's this gonna be over
kind of thing, and it killed the room. And and
the saddest thing is that, like, I was almost done,
but then it was like, and then we're gonna have
Jimmy Carter come on, and my friend tom Agna, another writer,

(01:02:28):
came on with Jimmy as Jimmy Carter with a gigantic
smile because he had big teeth and all that. And
it always killed at Conan, and we thought, oh, this
will be a great topper. But they wanted us, they
wanted us out of there, and it's like we still
have fucking Jimmy Carter to bring on. Yeah. Yeah, and
I just knew it. And but I knew Conan wasn't
gonna call an audible, and we just like labored through

(01:02:51):
it and they politely applauded. But yes, that was. That
was so I I got to experience this and this
was funny and I did minutes. Yeah, so I did it.
The last of George Bush. Wow. So as I go
into this year, the year after Colbert are two years after.

Speaker 1 (01:03:11):
Years after the year after Steven the rich little, I
think they overcorrected, you know what I mean. Yeah, so
Steven went hard one way.

Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
He went hard, and let me just tell you and
I'll he I helped him a little with that. He
read all the jokes to me. I gave him a couple,
and I was so excited. I was like, this is
gonna kill because no one's ever made these jokes at
their face while complimenting them. That was that was. He
was playing the bill O'Reilly sunk up Republican. So I thought, oh,
this is the smartest way to do this. But of

(01:03:46):
course George Bush gave him nothing, never smiled, and he
was just in a well from the moment he made
his first joke. But I was very proud of him anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:03:57):
He went from going for it, Yes, he admitted, so
the year I do it. So it's it's two years
after Steven has done that. Yeah, it's is still in power, right,
And they they had rich little the year before, and
that no one seemed to be bothered.

Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
With that at all.

Speaker 1 (01:04:15):
And then the before you know, whether everyone stands up
in the dais or sets up on the dais, right.
So there's that little reception room beforehand, and I'm standing
there talking to the president of the United that had
just become a citizen. And I'm talking to the President
of the United States, and I had in my head
stuff I was going to do, and I had one

(01:04:36):
joke that I was going to do at the top,
and we had I'd talked to Ted m'carran and Jonathan Morano,
where the writers I had been working with their end,
and they I said, should we do this joke? It's
just my writers, right, So I'm like, should we do this?
The joke was just like, it's great to be such

(01:04:58):
as steam company and the time this was a batter
joke than it is not, but it's good, nice to
be in such a steam company. These people will not
be seen together again until the trial.

Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
That was the joke.

Speaker 1 (01:05:08):
It was not a great joke, but it was a
good joke then. And I said, I'm not going to
do that joke. It's the first joke up. Joke was
the first joke up. Yeah, And I thought, I'm not
going to do that joke because if I do that joke,
they're going to think that. And I didn't do that joke,
and I'm glad I didn't. Yeah, but I was. I

(01:05:29):
remember thinking I.

Speaker 2 (01:05:30):
Wish you had been around when I started the Dana
Carvey Show with breastfeeding Bill Clinton. Don't start with that.
Don't start with that. All right, we gotta go. I
need to say one thing I just if you don't mind,
I really want to say how much I appreciate I've
already talked about how much I liked your show, but
something you did really struck me back when you did it,

(01:05:50):
which was in two thousand, I think right around then,
maybe when Britney Spears was having all those problems. So
you came out and and you, in a very humane way,
just explained why you can't make these kind of jokes.
And I just really it really struck me in a
in a huge way because I have very few lines

(01:06:12):
that I won't cross when I do comedy, obviously, but
one of them was always I never wanted to make
fun of addicts, and they never wanted to make fun
of people who were struggling with something that was beyond
their control. And I remember one time, Conan they wanted

(01:06:32):
me to play Nick Nolty after that mug shot. They
wanted me to do Nick Nolty's mugshots, and I said,
I don't. I really don't want to do this. I
just feel bad for the guy, and and Conan was like,
you don't want to do it. I was like, yeah,
there's certain things I really don't like to do. I've

(01:06:54):
broken the rule a few times.

Speaker 1 (01:06:55):
But I've broken my own rule and I regret having
done it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
But yeah, me too. But the Nick Nolty thing that
was so what was so funny about it was literally
like a week and a half later, the Oscars come
on and my comedy idol Steve Martin is the host,
and one of the punchlines was basically giant Nick Nolty
mug shot right behind him, the whole world laughing Nick

(01:07:24):
Nolty's mug shot with Steve Martin's approof line on. I just, uh,
it's just some things are just too big to pass up.
I guess that was. That was. It was a very
funny mug shot. It was a very funny mug shot.
So I don't blame Steve Martin, but it was like,
but anyway, Brittany was too big to pass up for

(01:07:44):
everybody except you, and I really really respected you for that.
That's thanks man.

Speaker 1 (01:07:50):
Well, I respect you for the body of work. But
I think, if I'm honest, maybe the.

Speaker 2 (01:07:59):
Thing for me has always been the dog. Yeah, the dog.
I mean, that's going to be on my tombstone. This
is the way, you know, this is a lovely this
is a lovely tombstone for me to poop on this. Yeah,
you'll probably say, I Mike.

Speaker 1 (01:08:14):
I mean it's like, you know, you go, you go, Cashmir,
you got you know, well and roll, but Stairway to Heaven.

Speaker 2 (01:08:20):
I know. Although I'm really proud of Leo, I don't
know if you've seen it. It's I've not seen Leo.
You should see it. You should see it. It's I'm
really proud of It's a different kind of thing. But
it's Sandler and Bill Burr on Netflix. It's a kid's
animated movie, but adults will like it. And and I
have it's a very popular movie. Uh, I have kids,
You have kids. I do, but my kids are older. Yeah,

(01:08:43):
my kids are older. Way is your kids? They're sixteen now, Well,
my younger ones are sixteen.

Speaker 1 (01:08:48):
My youngest one is thirteen and a half.

Speaker 2 (01:08:50):
Oh, he'll like it. Going on forty fifty. Yeah, no,
I get it. He might think he's too old Ford,
but he's not. It's about fifth grade class. It's about
a jad class pat who's been in the same classroom
for seventy years and he's just enters every season, every
new year with cynicism like, ah, here comes you know,

(01:09:10):
here comes the tween queens. They think they're better than everybody. Know.
This guy's this is the always sick and should have
stayed comb kid, you know. And it's him and Bill
burb just being very cynical. But over the course of
the movie, he finds out that he thinks he's going
to die, and then he wants to escape and you know,
go see the everglades and catch flies. And then he

(01:09:31):
gets caught at a kid's house and accidentally speaks, and
then they end up talking, and he ends up giving
the kid. The kid opens up to him because it's
just a lizard, and she feels comfortable talking to him.
And then he actually is capable of giving advice, he realizes,
because he's seen every kind of kid. And then he
becomes addicted to helping the kids. And it sounds kind

(01:09:54):
of serious, but it's very silly and funny, but I'm
just really really proud of it. I will watch it
in the next day or two. No, no rush, let
me and then then I'll call you with no let
me please see Abut thanks Bud, all right, yeah,