November 12, 2024 • 50 mins
Is self-help real or nonsense? Jason and Peter have always been skeptical of the ability for self-help books and seminars to impact and improve a person’s life…they even delved into the comedic aspects of the self-help world with their 2001 ABC sitcom “Bob Patterson.”
So, when they discovered that Judd Apatow…uber successful screenwriter, producer, noted comedian, author and director of a myriad of cultural-defining comedies such as The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, This is 40, Funny People, Trainwreck and The King of Staten Island was a bit obsessed with the self-help genre… they needed to find out why!
They discuss Judd’s journey to self-help, his unique Ayahuasca experience, and why he writes his comedies as dramas! Really,no Really!!!
***
IN THIS EPISODE:
- Is self-help real or nonsense?
- How Judd’s parent’s constant fighting enabled him to become a good producer & comedian.
- That one-time Judd took the hallucinogen Ayahuasca in exotic Studio City, CA…
- His comedic choices have become more geriatric as he’s grown older.
- Was he afraid of being cancelled when returning to stand-up?
- The time high-school aged Judd asked Seinfeld to do a SECOND interview!
- Jason and Judd explore how they both came to the entertainment world.
- GoogleHEIM: David shares his Cable Guy faux pas!
***
FOLLOW JUDD:
Website: juddapatow.com
Instagram: @JuddApatow
Buy Tickets: www.juddapatow.com/events
***
FOLLOW REALLY, NO REALLY:
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Now really, really, now really lo and welcome to Really
Know Really with Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden remind you
that you'll only be helping yourself by subscribing to our
show and speaking of self help, is it real?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Jason and Peter have.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Always been skeptical of the ability for self help books
and seminars to impact and improve a person's life. They
even delved into the comedic aspects of the self help
world with their two thousand and one ABC sitcom Bob Patterson.
So when they discovered the Judd Appetah, super successful screenwriter, producer,
noted comedian, author and director of a myriad of cultural
(00:43):
defining comedies such as Freaks and Geeks, The Forty year
Old Virgin, Knocked Up, train Wreck, and The King of
Staten Island, was quite obsessed with the self help genre.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
They needed to find out why, and.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
As a result, they also got to discuss Jud's journey
to self help, his unique Iowa experience, and why he
writes his comedies as dramas. Really, No, really, and now
here are two guys who could use any kind of
help they can get.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Jason and Peter, everybody knows Judd Apatow Is from fourty
year Old Virgin and Knocked Up and Funny People and
train Wrecking King of Ston Island.
Speaker 5 (01:18):
And on and on and on.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
I'm fascinated that somebody who's as successful as he is
was moved by self help. And I know that Carry
Shandling was one of the first people to give him
turn him onto self help. So right, that's what I
want to find out about.
Speaker 6 (01:30):
If you have a Tony Robbins, you go to a
Tony Robbins seminar, are.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
You doing self help? Well, you're you're doing Tony.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Help, but you drove there, so it's you're actually doing
self self help.
Speaker 6 (01:44):
Is never self help? Self help to me is I
have a problem. I'm gonna go out and sit on
a rock under the stars and with fingers in a circle,
cross leg until I come up with an answer. But
there this is I'm gonna go I have a problem.
I'm gonna go to Noble and get a book from
a guy who's going to try and help me.
Speaker 5 (02:03):
That's not so much, but that's I'm getting an opinion.
Speaker 6 (02:07):
So we're going to go to a man who is
known for comedy, known for making us laugh, who's going
to inform us about why a man as successful as
he with everything he's got, and it's a lot, it's
disproportionately a lot, it's too much much, and it feels
that he needs to improve himself by reading a book
(02:29):
by somebody he's never met.
Speaker 5 (02:32):
Well, you're diminishing the cell phone thing in a big way.
It's not self help. All right, let's find it. Well,
let's find let's find them, saying let's find out. Let's
find out.
Speaker 6 (02:39):
Ladies and gentlemen, would you please welcome a man who
needs no introduction, but Peter introduce him.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
Shot Appetizer a producer, director, screenwriter, comedian known for his
work in comedy films, the founder of Appetitle Productions.
Speaker 5 (02:52):
Can you hear us?
Speaker 4 (02:53):
Jed?
Speaker 7 (02:54):
I hear you very well?
Speaker 5 (02:55):
We see you? Can you? I'm afraid to say, can
you see us?
Speaker 8 (03:00):
You? Sorry?
Speaker 5 (03:04):
We looked well, thank.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
You for coming on, really excited to have you. We
already did an amazing introduction to you and talked.
Speaker 7 (03:13):
I could have heard it and felt good about myself.
Speaker 6 (03:15):
Well you could have heard it. I don't know if
you felt. I always take the oppositional point of view.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Yeah, so the reason exactly the reason we wanted to
have you on, among other things, not only because your
body of work.
Speaker 5 (03:27):
Was it fascinating to me.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
The TV shows that I've done with Jason have all
been about self help, because I'm fascinated with that whirl.
And I saw you in an interview with Larry King
and you said, kind of jokingly, but not behind this
is terror.
Speaker 8 (03:42):
Oh yeah, And then.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
You talked about self help, and I thought, I got
to find out what that. How does somebody so successful
still have the terror, the terror behind the eyes, And
what tapes are playing in your head? And how that
self help help you?
Speaker 8 (03:56):
You're going right in. You're going right in.
Speaker 5 (04:00):
Frankly, we've been here all day.
Speaker 8 (04:03):
The eighth interview you did today, in the entire cast
of How I Met your Mother.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
It has been hold on, hold on. We're very specific
about who we have. We don't just do. We don't
do so.
Speaker 5 (04:15):
We didn't want to do celebrities.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
We got the guy who brought the willing matins, bringing
the willly mammoths back. We've got the top professors in
space drunk this and that. But it is fascinating watching
you like getting quiet and watching you talk about that
and go that. It's amazing. It's amazing that that would
be what's inside you know, so if you can talk
about that alone, no Shandler give you a self help book.
And it started kind of them sure.
Speaker 8 (04:38):
I mean I didn't have any religion as a kid.
My parents never mentioned it. There was just no It
was just pure black hole. There was no we believe,
we don't believe.
Speaker 5 (04:53):
It's just no hanikah, no high holidays, know nothing.
Speaker 7 (04:57):
We were the Jews with the Christmas tree because it
was right, okay.
Speaker 8 (05:01):
And I never even knew if any of the family
had rejected the idea of it for a reason. You know,
we were a family that had people in the Holocaust.
But no one ever said we don't believe it because
of the Holocaust. That There was none of that talk either.
It was just like a sliding disinterest.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
But you did have a phrase that resonated with me
growing up in the same kind of household. You're one.
You're the one line which informed you of a bigger
issue was nobody said that life was fair.
Speaker 8 (05:32):
That's it.
Speaker 7 (05:33):
That's our whole religion.
Speaker 8 (05:34):
Nobody said life was there. The other aspect of our
religion was next year will be our year.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Yeah, So I know also your parents separated and you
went through a lot of stuff growing up.
Speaker 8 (05:45):
Yeah, and I think that the lack of any faith
or even discussion to see where you stand with it is.
It's just it's a weird hole to leave a kid.
And I and I remember as a I was always
afraid of nuclear war. I was always afraid of Brezhnev,
you know. So I had this like quiet terror for
(06:06):
some reason. I don't know it was from the movie
The Day After something, but it did feel weird to
have nothing, to have any of it make any sense.
So when I met Gary Shandling, he was the first
person that gave me Buddhist books, Pima Chodron books and
you know uh tiknn han people like that. And then
(06:27):
ram das and and told me that there were ways
to organize your life other than just the immediate pain
of workoholism and panic and you know, hypervigilance. You know,
I just became hyper vigil like, I better get a job.
(06:48):
No one is going to take care of me. I
need to be organized.
Speaker 6 (06:53):
So and was that gesture from Gary did it come
out of conversations you had with you or did he
just look at you and go this kid needs help.
I'm going to give him a book. Was it Did
it come out of your relationship with him that he said,
I think that this would be meaningful to you.
Speaker 8 (07:09):
Well, I'm not sure exactly. It's funny because when I
look back in my relationship with Gary, which is very close,
I almost felt like a starter kit for a son.
Speaker 7 (07:20):
You know.
Speaker 8 (07:21):
Gary at the time was in the relationship with Linda
just said I wrote the Grammys, you know, with him
back in the late eighties or maybe ninety or ninety one.
It was the first day of it was. I met
him like the weekend the Gulf War started, So you
check your calendar. Yeah, okay, wow.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
But we just became very close and.
Speaker 8 (07:45):
Just hung out all the time. And I don't even
remember whining about my life in any way. He was
just introducing me to some ideas that interested him. I'm
sure I said I needed them at some point. But
the first one was gave me a book that was
called Turning Problems into Happiness, and it was written by
some Buddhist monk, and the premise was that you should
(08:07):
be happy every time you have a problem, because it
will force you to evolve in some way. You'll learn
patience or compassion or something like that. And I had
never heard a thought like that my entire life, Like, wait,
so when bad things happen, I learn and then so
it's not so bad. I mean, I had never heard
any ideas that helps me in my new adult life.
(08:32):
And I remember when my mom died, he just dropped
me off a box of books and it was all
very profound for me. And I think I'm still on
that journey, and lately I feel like I'm only now
beginning to really get it, you know, thirty years later.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
But is that just because you're so You're so now
you have time. I mean, you were on the treadmill
to obliving, you were doing so many things. But the
other thing that I found that really reson about you
in my life, my family always laughs because when we
go on vacation, we going anywhere, I prepare for every eventuality.
And you said, I'm probably a good producer because I
(09:10):
look at everything that can possibly go wrong and prepare
for that. And that's how I live my life. And
is that a big responsibility? And you just can't help
yourself that that's where your mind goes.
Speaker 8 (09:22):
I think that you know, when I was a kid,
my parents really fought and never worked out an agreement
of you know what the alimony would be like, They
never worked it out, and they just fought, paid a
lot of lawyers and kind of both went broke from
a never ending fight. And it made me think, you've
(09:44):
got to get organized.
Speaker 7 (09:47):
And so part of that is how do you do
a good job?
Speaker 8 (09:51):
You know. I interviewed comedians when I was a kid.
I interviewed Erry Seinfeld when I was sixteen years old
from my high school radio station, and a lot of
comedians said, you know, it takes like seven years to
find your voice.
Speaker 7 (10:03):
So I learned from these comedians to be patient with
my evolution as a as a writer or a comedian.
Speaker 8 (10:11):
And and then I could really plan, like I was
doing long range planning, like I'm seventeen years old, I'm
doing stand up. That means I'll be great when I'm
twenty four. Okay, good. And then I was terrible for
the first year or so, but I was like, I'm
supposed to be bad. This is good. This is all
part of the plan. And it gave me a weird
(10:31):
kind of patience about it. And then as I turned
into a producer, I think every time you suffer as
a producer, you figure out, like, how can I.
Speaker 7 (10:41):
Prevent this next time?
Speaker 8 (10:43):
Right? Like I did made a movie and it went
over budget and the studio was so mean to me
and it was like getting kicked in the face every day.
It was like we were two hundred million dollars over
budget based on how they were treating me. When we
did The Cable Guy, we were like, I think we're
was be forty it was forty two. But I just
got my ass whoops from all people there. And then
(11:07):
for the rest of my career, never been under budge, overbudget,
never been overbudget ever, because I'm like, yeah, that sucks.
Be realistic, be organized, know your stuff, and I think
you learn hundreds of those, Like Okay, if I like,
for instance, Shandling, the scripts were always done like the
night before, and Gary was always exhausted and in a
(11:28):
bad mood. What if we wrote them several months before,
maybe we'd be happier and maybe the creative process would
be less intense. And it's not always possible, but that's
how my mind works, Like, how can I prevent the
pain that this organization will cause? Ye?
Speaker 6 (11:48):
I want to pursue that for saying I want to
get into so many things to do. But just you know,
while we're playing around in this area of self help,
someone said to it. I think Peter said to me
in when he said, hey, let's talk to John that
you haven't you know a substantial collection of reading in
the self help world. Is that because you have some
(12:10):
doubt about your ability to learn from your experientials or
I'm trying to get a handle on not because I
don't believe in self help. I guess most of the
learning that I've had through what you're describing is both
experiential and therapy where I talk about my travails and
this person sits there and goes, you know, I see
(12:31):
a trend or I see an arc, or I have
a question.
Speaker 5 (12:36):
Do you do that as well? Or has that all
been provided from your reading?
Speaker 8 (12:40):
No?
Speaker 7 (12:40):
I do that as well, Okay, and have for a
long long time. But yeah, recently I looked in.
Speaker 8 (12:48):
My journals and I realized that what I wrote yesterday
was the same as thirty years ago in terms of
my complaints and my shrining and my pam and you know,
bracing thoughts.
Speaker 7 (12:58):
Yeah, hypervisually, it was all the same.
Speaker 6 (13:00):
Yeah, still for me still is along with gott to
drop that twenty pounds. That seems to be my big.
Speaker 8 (13:05):
Exercise that readmilk tomorrow, I would listen, don't forget to meditate.
You don't have sugar, you know. And it's the same
from nineteen ninety two. So this year I took ayahuasca.
Speaker 5 (13:19):
Oh no, you know you did not? Oh, come on,
you go down to South America and there's a whole No.
Speaker 8 (13:25):
I did it in the very exotic land of Studio City,
that's where all the best shaman.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
Wait a minute, how did you?
Speaker 3 (13:31):
How do you?
Speaker 5 (13:32):
How do you vet that it wasn't like camel testicles
and whatever? How do you know what it was?
Speaker 8 (13:37):
I did? It was someone that had been to the
person before, and I just thought I need something to
like kick me out of a certain kind of mental roots.
Speaker 7 (13:46):
And it definitely did. I'll say that I don't recommend it.
Speaker 8 (13:51):
What did you do? Did you throw up?
Speaker 5 (13:52):
What was the process? Did you throw up?
Speaker 8 (13:55):
Yes, that's part of it.
Speaker 5 (13:56):
You throw up.
Speaker 8 (13:57):
You're not familiar what.
Speaker 5 (13:58):
He tells me you you're going to throw up? I go,
how is that good? What you don't throw up?
Speaker 4 (14:03):
That's not a selling point usually, but Okay, your soul
leaves three, you're not diarrhea?
Speaker 5 (14:08):
Can I get diarrhea two with this? Or you have
to pay extra? So what was the process? What did
what did you go through? What did you or more importantly,
what did you discover that that? From where do you
do in studio city arts wors? What wasn't like well,
(14:37):
what did you or more importantly, what did you discover
that that? From where do you do in studio city
arts worship? What wasn't like Well?
Speaker 8 (14:48):
It's funny because I talk about it on stage when
I do stand up and I tell this story like
a twenty five minute version of the story now, and
I always asked the crowd has anyone done it? And
the funny thing is at Largo where I play, it's
two hundred and fifty seats, it's usually one person, which
is really funny because it's like, wow, this drug is
so insane that only one two fifty two, you know,
(15:11):
in la which is like the experience stage. But when
I asked people what did you get out of it?
Everyone has a crazy story, but a similar kind of lesson.
There's a lot of people who one.
Speaker 9 (15:24):
Guy said, I opened a box and inside was my name,
and I was like, well, what does that mean? And
he goes, you know, to just be, just be, which
is also like stop your rasing thoughts, right, And then
the other night someone said I realized that I was
part of the fabric of the universe.
Speaker 7 (15:45):
And then someone else, you know, like it's like it's always.
Speaker 8 (15:48):
The same thing, which is some version of either be
kind to each other in the way you want to
be kind or it's, uh, we're all in this together,
you know, and to some people there's aliens involved to
get there, right, like right, they're having and I had that,
you know, crazy like visions of things, but it lands
(16:09):
at you be nice, you know, like we all have
to take care of each other, but in a profound way,
not in like a simple bull play where like you
really feel it, like oh yeah, do you forget that
that's the whole thing.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
So let me do and be honest. I know you'll
be honest.
Speaker 6 (16:26):
So let's say you did the aahuasca and you had
this revelation on Tuesday, Yeah, on Sunday. Do you go, yeah,
I think I did ayahuasca?
Speaker 5 (16:33):
Or does it stay with you? How long does it?
Was my question? How long does it last?
Speaker 8 (16:38):
Well, here's the funny thing is, And people had told
me about things like this For months afterwards. I would
wake up in the middle of the night. I would
feel like I had been having a conversation and I
had just woken up into the middle of my mind
having a conversation, and then an idea would be presented
(16:59):
to me.
Speaker 7 (17:00):
So it was like I had been thinking about something.
I woke up and then I would hear something.
Speaker 8 (17:05):
It would be like you don't do any of the
things you ask your wife to do, but like you'd
wake up with that as like a power thought, you know.
And it happened for months and interesting insights as is
like some part of my mind is still working on
aspects of it. And I think they people, you know,
some people see it as a mystical I know, if
(17:26):
it's chemical. I don't even know what it is. I
try not to think about it. But it definitely felt
like it helped me let go a little bit. That's
what I felt during the whole trip, was let go.
What are you holding on to?
Speaker 4 (17:40):
Just like, well, you're in the job, will you control
everything you do? The casting you did, the writing you did.
I mean, that's a big control thing.
Speaker 5 (17:46):
I at length.
Speaker 6 (17:47):
Can you tell them go back to the casting thing,
because god, oh, I would never say it to him,
but I will say that.
Speaker 5 (17:56):
Some people think I would do comment I.
Speaker 8 (17:59):
Need to sell tape and.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
Hold on. I think you need Jason.
Speaker 7 (18:07):
Yeah, I consider what I saw you in those Neil
Simon plays.
Speaker 8 (18:11):
The self page.
Speaker 5 (18:12):
Oh that's very sweet. Thanks.
Speaker 7 (18:14):
How great were those?
Speaker 8 (18:15):
We've talked about that before?
Speaker 6 (18:16):
Oh my god.
Speaker 5 (18:17):
Yeah, it was working with Neil.
Speaker 6 (18:21):
You know, when I was in my twenties, I was
I was living the dream I had as a teenager
that then took a left turn and became something I
never imagined, which was the film and television stuff. But
I fantasized, oh boy, if I could get over the
river and just you know, work in New York and
what And then it was it went from Hal Prince,
Stephen Sondheim to Candor and have Terrence mcnanly to Neil Simon,
(18:42):
and I went, I I don't know what's happening, and
and Neil was so unbelievably kind to me and nurturing
to me that it just it was. It was an
incredibly special thing.
Speaker 7 (18:54):
Which was the first Neil Simon when you did with him, I.
Speaker 6 (18:57):
Only did Broadway Bound with him, then did a revival
of Prisoner or Second Avenue here in La that he
came and saw. And then I directed Broadway Bound and
he came and saw that, and he was already, you know,
deeply into Alzheimer's or whatever dimension he had. And it
was it was that was a really tough night because
(19:19):
he kinda he kind of knew he was connected to it,
and he was having all the feelings about that, but
he couldn't understand why he was connected to it.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
Wow, and it that that was hard.
Speaker 8 (19:31):
But he.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
Next to Neil Simon got to be a bit friendly
and I said, you're so straight laced when you got
out to Hollywood.
Speaker 5 (19:39):
Did you do drugs? And he said, Peter.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
First party I went to, they gave me pot that
was so strong its laced was something it would kill
River Phoenix again.
Speaker 5 (19:49):
First conversation with you, guys are so much.
Speaker 7 (19:52):
Darker than you expect.
Speaker 8 (19:53):
Oh my god, I emailed Mike Nichols. I was shooting
a scene for train Wreck where the it was like
a helicopter shot of the Staten Island ferry and it
was a little bit of a nod to working girl
right right opening Working girl, and so I emailed Mike
Nichols like, hey, we're shooting this thing today, and he goes, well,
this time, I hope the helicopter crashes into the ferry.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
Nice. Yeah, wow, wow, you think those guys are all
light and such?
Speaker 8 (20:21):
You were so rough?
Speaker 6 (20:22):
Do you know what that we're so off talking about.
I'm going to share a story with you. I do
not know if it's true.
Speaker 5 (20:27):
It was told me.
Speaker 6 (20:27):
It sounds true, but Patti Chaievsky very famously wrote one
of my favorite movies of all time.
Speaker 5 (20:33):
Network. Yes, I think, either for the Golden Globes or
some other award.
Speaker 6 (20:38):
That year it tied with Rocky for the award, and
they said accepting for a Network Patty chifc accepting for
Rocky producer Erwin Winkler. And the story goes that as
they were coming up the aisle to go to the podium,
Erwin Winkler got right next to Patty Chaievsky and said
to him, Patty, I am so so honored to share
(20:59):
this award with you.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
Patty Saevsky said to him, I hope you die.
Speaker 7 (21:08):
What year was that Broadway Bound production?
Speaker 6 (21:10):
Broadway Bound was either eighty six or eighties. The one
that I was in was either eighty six or eighty seven.
I was twenty six or twenty seven years old down, So.
Speaker 8 (21:18):
I went to see that when I was eighteen years old. Wow,
So you know, coming from a place where I had
been injuring these comedians for the last two years. I
started doing stand up the year before, and I had
comedy on the brain, and then to see that.
Speaker 6 (21:34):
Well, also because he discusses it that, you know in
the play, about how how comedy is written and done?
Speaker 8 (21:40):
And yeah, I mean that really because I went to
all those plays in that era neo ciber place, but
for me as someone who dreamed of doing what he
did in that Yeah, and also the you know, the
idea of what is this about? That I mean, because
those Neil Simon plays would be so hilarious and then
they would get so real. We would land in a
(22:02):
very profound place. And I think it was what I
was just realizing, Oh, everything isn't supposed to be like
meatballs or caddy shack, right, there's another way to do that.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
Sure, Yeah, but you were just go somewhere I read
either you said or somebody said about your comedies that
you write him as dramas the story has to be Yes,
it's character driven, but the story has to make sense
on its own.
Speaker 8 (22:24):
That I tried to. I mean I tried to. Yeah,
I mean I worked at the Critic this Cartoon James producer. Yeah,
Mike recon al Jean did so. I had a year
where I was able to just hear him talk about stories.
And obviously he's been one of the guiding lights. But
(22:44):
that's how I looked at it, because he always talked
about honoring the characters, and he would say, we have
to do right by the characters in our work as
if they existed, and if the writing was bad, we
were screwing them over. Wow. I had never heard anyone
speak like that about film and storytelling, and it had
a big effect on it.
Speaker 5 (23:04):
Where are you?
Speaker 4 (23:04):
I'm curious where you are now because so much of
your comedy is about growth, which is funny because I'm
sitting next to a guy who's sitcom lasted what nine years.
Speaker 5 (23:11):
And it was no growth, none of those characters, one
one iota.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
Are you at a different place at this age and
where you are in your life as far as what
you want to writer you feel compelled to put out
there on screen stories you want to tell I.
Speaker 8 (23:26):
You know, I it's it's a funny age because when
you get older, you realize, like, I talk about this
and stand up, but you know an older comedian that
someone is only talking about decay. You know they're only
going like, don't you hate diverticulitis? I hate when all
(23:46):
your girlfriends from high school start dying of natural causes.
And so I struggle with that a little bit because
I had projects about high school and college and getting
someone pregnant and being married in middle age. And then
at some point you're like, do I just have to
do this stuff right now to high school again?
Speaker 4 (24:10):
I said to Jason, it's so sad in our relationship.
We know each other thirty five years. The gifts went
from really great gifts to orthopedic devices.
Speaker 5 (24:18):
I swear to God, I had a birthday three days ago.
Speaker 6 (24:21):
The best gift I got so far is a pair
of socks that have acupressure, a diagram of where on
the foot, and a little thing.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
I swear to God, I have it right here on
my bag, A thing that you use to press on. Second,
I'm gonna show you this.
Speaker 6 (24:39):
This is this is this is the acupressure tool that
you use to press into your foot to make you
look I'm telling you it's a it's a Jimmy Duranty profile.
Speaker 7 (24:50):
But other than that, it's on Amazon right now.
Speaker 5 (24:53):
Oh my god, it's the greatest thing. I had the
socks on the other day. My god. So it's what
are the next product? What are you working on now?
So I from stand up? But yeah, why did you
you took a long Yeah?
Speaker 7 (25:07):
I took a long break, like fifteen years.
Speaker 5 (25:10):
And what was the thing that said I gotta what
called you to go back to that?
Speaker 8 (25:15):
Yeah? I don't know. I mean I just missed.
Speaker 7 (25:19):
I missed being around people.
Speaker 8 (25:20):
You know, when you make movies, you do the shoot,
but when you write, you're kind of mainly alone. When
you edit, you're with one guy in a room for
six months. And I thought, I think I'm far away
from the fun part of it. And then I was
working with Amy Schumer and she was, you know, skyrocketing
in her stand up career when we were working on
train Wreck, right, And one night at the Comedy Seller,
(25:40):
I said, I'm gonna go on just to show you
what it was like when I did it, and she
thought I would bomb. And then I actually had an
okay set, yeah, just telling some stories, and then at
the comedy seller sd who Books, it was like, you
can come in whatever you want. So then every night
when we wrapped train Wreck, I would just go to
the comedy seller and go on and I just think
(26:02):
it's fun and I feel it helps me tune into
what people are laughing at and thinking about. And I
don't think the issue of like what can you say
or not say affects most people that much. It depends
on how you want to talk about things. You know,
if you have a good point of view and a
kind heart, you can get away with a lot. There
are people who have a really dark sense of humors
(26:23):
and they want to just say the thing you're not
allowed to say as a release for you know, for
certain people, that's fun to go. I love a comedy
where you say the thing that should end your career,
and I think there is a place for that. What's
wrong with the culture is everyone else hears about it.
(26:44):
You know, in the old day, you might be able
to go see someone and they would be shocking, but
their act wouldn't be on the internet because there was
no internet, so you could just like it's like if
you love like a punk band or Norwegian death metal,
you know, it's not like everyone has to like it.
You might like urban, so don't listen to Norwegian death metal.
But I think people think everything is supposed to work
(27:07):
for everybody, which isn't the case. It's funny because I
was at the Gotham Comic Club in New York two
weeks ago. Right I'm about to go on, They're like,
Jerry's gonna come in? Is that okay? If Jerry comes
in seinfilm And I'm like yeah, and I'm friends to Jerry,
and I go, how long does he want to do?
And they go twenty five minutes? And then you're like, oh,
(27:28):
Jerry's gonna.
Speaker 7 (27:29):
Murder for twenty five minutes. I got to try to
do an hour after that.
Speaker 8 (27:34):
And then he comes in and of course couldn't be better,
and the crowd is so happy and he is the best,
and then the crowd was so good for me, they
were fain they were just ye put them in the
best comedy food, because you know, he's one of the
reasons why I went into all of this, became very
(27:55):
obsessed with Jerry's work right when he came on the
scene in like the early eighties. Yeah, and then he
was so nice to me when I interviewed him, shockingly
nice to like a sixteen year old interviewed with fro
my high school radio station. Then six months later I
called him and I asked to interview him again, and
he said, well, I just did it. Why would I
do it again?
Speaker 7 (28:15):
And I said, I don't know, you'd do the Tonight
show more than once?
Speaker 5 (28:19):
And then he did do another.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Are you serious?
Speaker 4 (28:23):
Wow?
Speaker 5 (28:24):
Wow?
Speaker 8 (28:25):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (28:26):
Ye did you try that with Larry David?
Speaker 5 (28:29):
I'd be interested in saying how that.
Speaker 4 (28:31):
Let me take it back to that at age seventeen.
Were you a kid who on some level was secure
enough to figure I can do this, because when I
read what you did, that you did and hurt the
stories before that you called these comedians was part of it. Also,
I'll interview them, but they'll also embrace me, and I'll
be in that group and somehow that will get me.
Somebody will say, hey, jud you're that good open for
me or whatever. Was there a whole method to the
(28:52):
madness or was it just the interviews? And why did
you feel you could do it and that they would respond?
Because most kids, like my son, he asked, do you
should do that? Yeah, I don't know, He's going to
be mad. I goes, who cares if they're mad? Cares
if they hang up? What's the downside?
Speaker 5 (29:05):
So I get a lot of that.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
When you ment your young people, they go, well, I
can't just call Joe app Okay, yes you can, so
he either call back or he won't. So where was
your seventeen year old head when you were doing that stuff.
Speaker 8 (29:17):
Well, my grandfather is a jazz producer, and he produced
Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie and Diyona Washington, and he
was just a hustler.
Speaker 7 (29:25):
And I always knew that there was some hustle to this.
Speaker 8 (29:28):
And so when I worked at this high school radio station,
my friend Josh Rosendal would go interview the new bands.
So he went and he interviewed Rim and Susie in
the Banshees, and then he said to me, you should
try to interview comics. And I didn't think it would
help me stand up because I hadn't started stand up yet.
Although I dreamed of it, I just thought I just
(29:50):
wanted to touch that world I was so obsessed with,
like the Mike Douglas Show, and Merv Griffin, like he
was like peeking your you know, peeking your head into
the TV. Were those people real? And so the first
person I inted it was Steve Allen, and it was
incredible that he existed because the only sorry I had
ever met was Toty Fields.
Speaker 5 (30:11):
Toty Fields, Oh man.
Speaker 8 (30:14):
She was buddies with my grandma. So they talked about
her all the time, like she was the coolest person
in the world. So I think, as a little kid
on some level, as like a weird kid, I thought,
Tody Fields is the coolest person in the world. That
means I can be cool. I'm weird like Tony Fields.
Speaker 7 (30:31):
And so it just gave me some courage.
Speaker 8 (30:35):
But also, no one liked comedy back then, Like kids
weren't talking about it, you know, in the early eighties
the way they do now. And so it was like
I had my own hobby that no one had any
interest in at all.
Speaker 6 (30:48):
But wasn't that I'm trying, you know, as I've gotten
older time in my sense of time, So but what
the early eighties, wasn't that still sort of the real
height of Carlin? Then Steve Martin and yeah, so you know,
they seem like they were so much in the zeitgeist.
I'm surprised that people weren't talking and sounding it live,
(31:10):
weren't talking about comedy.
Speaker 10 (31:12):
I think, you know, people would watch it all, but
no one really cared, you know what I mean, Like
we would all go see Ghostbusters, but it wasn't like
there was like comedy obsessives, uh huh.
Speaker 8 (31:23):
And so I just took it to some.
Speaker 7 (31:26):
Other weird level, like my friends did go to c
Spinal Tap with me.
Speaker 8 (31:30):
I went. I took a friend of the Spinal Tap,
and when it came out, maybe it was like in
eleventh grade or something, and when it ended.
Speaker 7 (31:38):
He still thought it was a real band.
Speaker 8 (31:41):
You know. Sure she didn't really know their comedy that yeah, yeah,
yeah yeah.
Speaker 5 (31:46):
Because what I'm noticing and getting is what brings me
back to what we started with.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
You.
Speaker 6 (31:54):
You seem to me, and everything I've read about you,
and even the fact that you loved stand up doing
to me. I went into performing because I couldn't be
with myself. So if I and I didn't want myself
to be seen. So if I was a character, that
was good. If I was in an ensemble, that was good.
Because I didn't have a tribe, and I couldn't and
(32:16):
I couldn't stand being alone. I did not think of
myself as a self motivator. I did not think of
myself as a go getter.
Speaker 5 (32:25):
Here you are.
Speaker 6 (32:25):
Everything I've seen you accomplish has been because you said,
I am going to go do this. I'll figure it
out when I get there, but I'm gonna go do
this thing. And yet at the very same time, you're
the guy going to the books to go I'm not
good yet. I'm not good. I'm gonna I'm gonna throw
up in studio city and find out what I don't know.
(32:47):
And those two, the two they seem like opposite sides
of something, as opposed to two sides of the same coin.
Speaker 5 (32:55):
Do you know what I'm saying That makes sense?
Speaker 8 (32:56):
I mean, I think that maybe it's just that I
so insecure that I like I was looking for like
my way to escape. And at a very early age,
like weirdly early, like almost like you know, ten or eleven,
I thought, Okay, it's comedy. It's comedy, that's the thing.
(33:17):
And then no one had any interest. So it was
like this little secret dream and I kept thinking to myself,
no one people don't really get me, but I think
this thing I like is gonna save me. Like I
had a sense that I'm going to go to a
place where they get it, Like there's a world where
George Goebel lives, you know, there's a world where Paul
(33:40):
end is, and I think I might have a spot
to do something there. I didn't even know what it was,
but that drive to do it was also probably like
mental health condition, which was why do you need to
do it? Because you're insecure, You're not comfortable with who
you are, trying to succeed, to feel good at yourself,
(34:02):
You're trying to have a thing, and the you know,
the madness of the pursuit allowed me to avoid figuring
out who I was.
Speaker 6 (34:12):
So in some ways, it's not so much to be metaphorical.
It's not so much a call to the light as
a flee from the darkness.
Speaker 8 (34:18):
In a way, part of it was, I mean, I
loved it, but I also thought I would get safety
in it, and as opposed to just having safety because
I just liked myself.
Speaker 5 (34:28):
But that so I get it.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
So the big questions for you, mister successful producer, director, writer,
can you be one hundred percent present at any given time,
or do you vacillate back and forth and it's a
constant battle.
Speaker 8 (34:38):
I think it's a constant bout. But I'm way better
than I used to be. I understand the path to
get there. It doesn't happen as often as I like,
but I have whatever mental things from reading Ramdas and
breathing things. I feel like I still get a little crazy.
But you're a jasonalmmer More. I'm Comadjason, Tom Jason.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
By the way, we weren't able to do I was
so excited about doing that TV show we came up
with Bob Patterson about a motivational guy who couldn't motivate
his own family, and I wanted the mentor to be
secretly a mess.
Speaker 5 (35:14):
But I still love that. I love that world so much.
Speaker 6 (35:16):
We've had more fun exploring slash lampooning the guys who
get up and go I can help you be a
better you.
Speaker 5 (35:27):
I've got and what we found in it was so interesting.
Speaker 6 (35:31):
We would we would do a live show where I
played a character named Donnie Clay who's going to show
you the way.
Speaker 5 (35:36):
Donnie Clay shows you the way. America's fourth leading motivation
and we would.
Speaker 6 (35:41):
We would espouse things that were so silly and so nonsense,
and and the audience would laugh, they'd have a great time.
They knew it was a comedy show. And at the
meet and greets at the end, they'd go, you know what,
I actually I learned a lot to them.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
But to be fair about what we love him like,
he had to Donnie Clay Forwards to guarantee your success
financial financially.
Speaker 6 (36:04):
Free your income. I'll increase youring and we would do it.
It's not a book, it's not a program. It's not
a thing you have to do for Forwards. And you'll
go out tomorrow and you'll increase your income fifty and
we build it up for you know, the whole big
thing and eventually go here you go, folks, take to
get out your Recordersfans of Forwards, get a second job
and and okay, big laugh.
Speaker 5 (36:25):
And then people would come up and go, you know right, right,
you're right, you're right, But.
Speaker 8 (36:30):
Do we get job?
Speaker 5 (36:31):
Well, thanks for spending time with us, man, and thanks.
Speaker 6 (36:33):
For everything's good at home, Leslie's good, everything's fine. Your
daughter is becoming a huge star.
Speaker 7 (36:39):
The kids are both working, they have jobs.
Speaker 5 (36:42):
God bless.
Speaker 7 (36:44):
And uh, you know learning what that is.
Speaker 5 (36:48):
Excellent? Now do you are you annoying to them at
this point or not annoying to them?
Speaker 8 (36:53):
Well, once they move out, you realize that your job
is to figure out how to feel like it would
be painful to be around you, right like you because
like a consultant a parent, you're a consultant. And then
you kind of want to hang out with them and
their friends, Like would they ever allow me to dinner
with their friends? Like I would never when I was
(37:16):
young with my parents, Like go on vacation with them
as a young adult was so neurotic weird, and uh,
I regret that, but that's what you want. I love it,
Like would would they ever call me and go let's
get breakfast? And that has happened, so I feel like
I'm succeeding just.
Speaker 5 (37:35):
Breakfast to hang well, clearly free breakfast.
Speaker 6 (37:39):
Okay, that's the beginning of that. Yeah, my kids have
never whipped out the card to pay for a minute.
Speaker 5 (37:44):
And my kids never said let's have no, we have
we have a meal.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
We do that.
Speaker 7 (37:48):
My daughter's on a TV series, she still expects me
to cover the uber.
Speaker 5 (37:53):
Oh my god, it's never gonna end.
Speaker 4 (37:57):
So we have something to talk about. That's hus be safe, man,
and thank you for all the comedies. Thanks for taking the.
Speaker 5 (38:02):
Time, Judd all the best. Thank you friends.
Speaker 8 (38:05):
Yes, thanks that so funny.
Speaker 5 (38:07):
Thank you brother.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
Well look at that.
Speaker 6 (38:18):
We got a big, big Hollywood producer, writer, director, multi
award winner, came on our show, had a fabulous conversation
and left without offering me a goddamn thing. Not a hey,
I got something in mind for you, not a I
should have used you in, not a hey, I'm a
big fan talk about a show I was in the
nineteen eighties.
Speaker 4 (38:37):
Talking about self help. I need let me give you
some help. Let me give you some help here, let
me let me offer some help you. The gift was
having him on, not an offerer, just be here now, barbarandas.
Speaker 5 (38:49):
Don't you think that that we did hit on this?
Speaker 6 (38:54):
I think I hit a fascinating thought when I said,
he is a guy who's basically carved of all his
own stuff. Yes, he worked with a couple of wonderful
mentors along the way, but he had to carve his
way to get to them.
Speaker 5 (39:07):
It was not like, you know, being in.
Speaker 6 (39:09):
A play that somebody else wrote and somebody else directed,
and you get seen by a thing, and so you
get your next big opportunity. He had to create every
opportunity from scratch. He's writing his own stand up, he's
writing his own films. He says, I'm going to be
a producer. And yet so he's got that ability to
say I am worthy of doing this. People will be there,
(39:31):
And at the same time he's going, I'm not worthy.
I'm not worthy of it. But I don't know enough,
or I don't feel like I'm not color.
Speaker 4 (39:38):
In Philly, so I didn't know well to do people,
and I didn't know people in entertainment. And I came
out to LA and I never network. Being a raider,
I never networked. It was a job for me, so
I didn't network, but I got to interview a lot
of people, and I got to know people of different
different stages in their life, from billionaires the most successful actors,
the movie stars. And there's shocking how many of them unhappy,
(40:01):
crying in the car, feel unfulfilled. And you said it
to an extent, Jay, and we've been closed a long time.
When you won the Tony, which is a huge thing,
and even though the phone calls came, you said it's
not what I thought you think it's going to be.
Something is going to come down and it's going to
change your life and forever more. You're going to feel
good about yourself and no insecurities and no problems. And
(40:23):
it does none of that other than get you some
more work. And here's Judd Apatow who's saying, yeah, he's
as big as can be in the studios, clubbing him
for being two million dollars over. Yeah, So you still
have to prove yourself constantly. Absolutely, you have a movie,
your third movie, you have a billion dollars in the bank,
(40:45):
and third movie fails, and the critics just savage it
because it's their time to turn on you because they
were so good to you for three or you got
it wrong, or you got it wrong whatever. Those things
are still tough for human beings to deal with. You know,
the top guys on Broadway that you just talked about them,
look at what happened to a lot of those guys.
Speaker 8 (41:02):
They disintegrate.
Speaker 4 (41:03):
The biggest stars, the biggest rock stars are doing heroin.
They're doing drugs. Their medic is self medicating because it's
never what they felt it was gonna be.
Speaker 5 (41:13):
Right, You know, so it's a different.
Speaker 8 (41:15):
War it is.
Speaker 6 (41:17):
There's the other side of it is also how many
people and I had my own version of this for
a while, are now put in that place of extraordinary
success or attention or whatever you might be, and you
can't make it fit.
Speaker 5 (41:32):
You can't imposter yourself in it. It's impostered.
Speaker 6 (41:35):
So you get lost, you know, and and and you
have to find First you have to know you're lost,
and then you have to find your way, and.
Speaker 4 (41:42):
Then you genuinely have to be happy with the gratitude
thing and I know is that you have to really
be present and go with what I got is pretty
damn good, whatever that is, because if you're still racing
for that other thing, then you're not really present. My
horrible thing is with the ADHD and with the mesophonia.
Here you know that I'm always my mind tends to
(42:05):
want to be somewhere else, and I really want to
be like when with you, one hundred percent present, when
I'm with my kid family present. And that's hard battle.
Except the older you get, the more is a clock
keeps sticking. You realize less time to get it right,
so there's more pressure to get that right.
Speaker 5 (42:23):
And by the way.
Speaker 4 (42:23):
Also look at how much of the world is medicated
because so so depression.
Speaker 5 (42:32):
Can you imagine? No, no, I cannot listen.
Speaker 6 (42:37):
I know people who have had the most extraordinary experiences,
and I go, yeah, if you swallow arsenic, you're going
to have an experience.
Speaker 4 (42:44):
Could be again, you're going to I just think it's
very dangerous. Love producer, Why I want to go to
another country to do it? And I said, do me
your favor.
Speaker 5 (42:51):
I'm all for that. I hope you have growth, get
us a backup before you're going to be dead in
a foreign three months where with the guy throwing up.
Speaker 4 (43:00):
And he's in your Maybe so it is, but it's
the search. We're all searching to try and be happier,
and part of that is being present. And it's really
hard being one hundred percent present because people.
Speaker 5 (43:13):
I was going to say that the present isn't always
so pleasant, so that makes it even crazier. Feel good
about yourself.
Speaker 6 (43:19):
I read a thing the other day not too long
ago that I thought was, so, you know, we're looking
for the mysteries of the universe beyond what we know,
and we're looking for the existence of miracles. And the
guy said and you can do this. I'm going to
tell you right now to do something. Just do it,
don't think about just do it. Touch the top of
your head. Why does that happen?
Speaker 5 (43:38):
You think it. I'm going to touch the top of
my head and it happens.
Speaker 6 (43:43):
First of all, go explain that, because that's you want
the mysteries of the universe.
Speaker 5 (43:48):
How does that happen?
Speaker 6 (43:49):
And then second of all, when you're looking for miracles,
not everybody can make that happen.
Speaker 5 (43:55):
Yeah, no kidding.
Speaker 6 (43:56):
So the fact that you today can think my nose
itches and you scratch your nose without thinking about it,
that is a miraculous thing. That is a When I
do my Q and A show and sometimes we talk
about magic and my love for magic, and I talk
about how my wife is not a fan of magic
because she thinks it's a power trip on the part
of the magician, and I go, no, to me, it's
(44:17):
about I know it's not real. I know it's not real,
but the idea that somebody figure out how to make
it feel real. It's like a great story. That's my
story is not real, but you get a feeling from it.
And to me, I talk about in that section I
talk about you walked out, you put on clothes today.
(44:38):
Somebody made you close. They got it to your house.
Speaker 5 (44:40):
You bought it.
Speaker 6 (44:40):
You have a house that didn't just appear. It's not
a mud hut. Somebody built that. You live in it
with what paper? You exchanged one thing? And you gotta
I say, it's all magic. It's all miraculous if you
just slow down enough to go, somebody made this and
what's what it does.
Speaker 4 (44:58):
By the way, one of the most suppressing things I
did is I recorded behind the scenes and manager reveals
all the tricks. I watched about six I got so
depressed because even the biggest tricks, you go, oh, it
just ruined that for me.
Speaker 8 (45:12):
So I never watched.
Speaker 5 (45:14):
Here's here's how you know. Why do not do that?
A magician not because it's a brotherhood of anything.
Speaker 6 (45:21):
A magician will never ask another magician how something was done.
Speaker 5 (45:27):
A true magician will go that was beautiful. Isn't pendent
teller writing a book revealing how they did all the tricks?
Speaker 4 (45:34):
Though?
Speaker 6 (45:34):
But I'm not saying magicians won't share their secrets. There's
a there's a huge legacy of magicians as they retire
their career, retire there.
Speaker 5 (45:41):
They will do that. That's say, here's how I achieved
all I care about.
Speaker 4 (45:45):
All I care about. Are they going to reveal how
they do the bullet catch where he shoots the blue.
I think they are revealing that's one of the most
amazing tricks ever.
Speaker 5 (45:51):
You know what else is amazing?
Speaker 6 (45:53):
David, He's a miracle. He's proof of miracles on God's
Green play you look at your David. Sure it's true
today you got to meet from the confines of your
home Judd appetite.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
Yes, I did, very thankful, very thankful.
Speaker 6 (46:10):
It's really was there a single lesson take away you
got from it?
Speaker 3 (46:16):
You know?
Speaker 11 (46:16):
I was able to say because I had. He is
the first person I've been close to since Jim Carrey
where I was trying to not say, God, I really
enjoyed the cable guy.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
And to see what the reaction was because I truly did.
Speaker 11 (46:30):
I love that that picture and Jim Carrey did not
not appreciate it when I when I mentioned that to him.
Speaker 6 (46:38):
Yeah, yeah, really did he think you were making that
you were being facetious?
Speaker 5 (46:43):
I think it was.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
It was within six.
Speaker 11 (46:47):
Months to a year that it had come out and
he was we were at a benefit together. He was
dating somebody that I was I worked with, and yeah,
I think he did. I did think that he couldn't
hear the fact that I'm like, I think this was
actually a brilliant comedy that actually with some of the
Menenda stuff that people are now watching on Netflix, if
(47:08):
you want to go back and watch it, just the
parody of that was really brilliant.
Speaker 5 (47:12):
And you know, there you go.
Speaker 2 (47:14):
Not a good first impression with this.
Speaker 5 (47:17):
I just must say I've been watching the Menenda thing.
Speaker 4 (47:19):
Not a comedy, just for people who need to know,
not a comedy, really, not a com really. Yeah, it's
kind of an interesting series, though really interesting series. I
started it was felt campy the first episode and then
there's some really good acting in that. But wow, if
a third of that stuff is even close to accurate,
hokey smoke, what a story?
Speaker 6 (47:39):
Well yea, as they say, there's some things happening. H
Thank you, jud Apto, Thank you ladies and gentlemen. We
will see you next time on this little show.
Speaker 5 (47:48):
That we call really No really.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
As another episode if really no really it comes to
a close. I know you're wondering, what is the best
selling self help book ever? Well, you can help yourself
to that answer in a moment. But first let's thank
our guest, judappataw. You can follow Jud on his website
judapptou dot com or on Instagram where he is unsurprisingly
at judappatow No. Find all pertinent links in our show notes,
(48:14):
our little show hangs out on Instagram, TikTok YouTube, and
threads at really No Really podcast, And of course you
can share your thoughts and feedback with us online at
reallynoreally dot com. If you have a really some amazing
factor story that boggles your mind, share it with us
and if we use it, we will send you a
little gift.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Nothing life changing, obviously, but it's the thought that counts.
Speaker 8 (48:37):
No.
Speaker 3 (48:38):
Check out our full episodes on YouTube, hit that subscribe
button and take that bell so you're updated when we
release new videos and episodes, which we do each Tuesday.
So listen and follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And now the
answer to the question what is the best selling self
help book ever? Well, Included among the top titles is
(48:59):
nineteen nine four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, How to
Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, originally published
in nineteen thirty six, Chicken Soup for the Soul, which
has sold over eleven million copies. Nineteen fifty two, is
big seller The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent
Peel and Stephen Kobe's Seven Habits of Highly Successful People,
(49:21):
but the biggest seller to date is Think and Grow
Rich by Napoleon Hill. Hill interviewed highly successful business magnates
to identify key laws and habits that drive success. Key
among them was faith, desire, persistence, and the suppression of doubt,
and that has led to over eighty million copies being sold. Well,
it's good enough for me. I'm gonna wrap this up
(49:42):
and go Think and Grow Rich. Okay, I'm thinking. Okay,
nothing's happening yet, but I'll let you know when it does. Really,
it really is a production of iHeartRadio and Blase Entertainment.
Now really, really, now really lo and welcome to Really
Know Really with Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden remind you
that you'll only be helping yourself by subscribing to our
show and speaking of self help, is it real?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Jason and Peter have.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Always been skeptical of the ability for self help books
and seminars to impact and improve a person's life. They
even delved into the comedic aspects of the self help
world with their two thousand and one ABC sitcom Bob Patterson.
So when they discovered the Judd Appetah, super successful screenwriter, producer,
noted comedian, author and director of a myriad of cultural
(00:43):
defining comedies such as Freaks and Geeks, The Forty year
Old Virgin, Knocked Up, train Wreck, and The King of
Staten Island, was quite obsessed with the self help genre.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
They needed to find out why, and.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
As a result, they also got to discuss Jud's journey
to self help, his unique Iowa experience, and why he
writes his comedies as dramas. Really, No, really, and now
here are two guys who could use any kind of
help they can get.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Jason and Peter, everybody knows Judd Apatow Is from fourty
year Old Virgin and Knocked Up and Funny People and
train Wrecking King of Ston Island.
Speaker 5 (01:18):
And on and on and on.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
I'm fascinated that somebody who's as successful as he is
was moved by self help. And I know that Carry
Shandling was one of the first people to give him
turn him onto self help. So right, that's what I
want to find out about.
Speaker 6 (01:30):
If you have a Tony Robbins, you go to a
Tony Robbins seminar, are.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
You doing self help? Well, you're you're doing Tony.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Help, but you drove there, so it's you're actually doing
self self help.
Speaker 6 (01:44):
Is never self help? Self help to me is I
have a problem. I'm gonna go out and sit on
a rock under the stars and with fingers in a circle,
cross leg until I come up with an answer. But
there this is I'm gonna go I have a problem.
I'm gonna go to Noble and get a book from
a guy who's going to try and help me.
Speaker 5 (02:03):
That's not so much, but that's I'm getting an opinion.
Speaker 6 (02:07):
So we're going to go to a man who is
known for comedy, known for making us laugh, who's going
to inform us about why a man as successful as
he with everything he's got, and it's a lot, it's
disproportionately a lot, it's too much much, and it feels
that he needs to improve himself by reading a book
(02:29):
by somebody he's never met.
Speaker 5 (02:32):
Well, you're diminishing the cell phone thing in a big way.
It's not self help. All right, let's find it. Well,
let's find let's find them, saying let's find out. Let's
find out.
Speaker 6 (02:39):
Ladies and gentlemen, would you please welcome a man who
needs no introduction, but Peter introduce him.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
Shot Appetizer a producer, director, screenwriter, comedian known for his
work in comedy films, the founder of Appetitle Productions.
Speaker 5 (02:52):
Can you hear us?
Speaker 4 (02:53):
Jed?
Speaker 7 (02:54):
I hear you very well?
Speaker 5 (02:55):
We see you? Can you? I'm afraid to say, can
you see us?
Speaker 8 (03:00):
You? Sorry?
Speaker 5 (03:04):
We looked well, thank.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
You for coming on, really excited to have you. We
already did an amazing introduction to you and talked.
Speaker 7 (03:13):
I could have heard it and felt good about myself.
Speaker 6 (03:15):
Well you could have heard it. I don't know if
you felt. I always take the oppositional point of view.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Yeah, so the reason exactly the reason we wanted to
have you on, among other things, not only because your
body of work.
Speaker 5 (03:27):
Was it fascinating to me.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
The TV shows that I've done with Jason have all
been about self help, because I'm fascinated with that whirl.
And I saw you in an interview with Larry King
and you said, kind of jokingly, but not behind this
is terror.
Speaker 8 (03:42):
Oh yeah, And then.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
You talked about self help, and I thought, I got
to find out what that. How does somebody so successful
still have the terror, the terror behind the eyes, And
what tapes are playing in your head? And how that
self help help you?
Speaker 8 (03:56):
You're going right in. You're going right in.
Speaker 5 (04:00):
Frankly, we've been here all day.
Speaker 8 (04:03):
The eighth interview you did today, in the entire cast
of How I Met your Mother.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
It has been hold on, hold on. We're very specific
about who we have. We don't just do. We don't
do so.
Speaker 5 (04:15):
We didn't want to do celebrities.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
We got the guy who brought the willing matins, bringing
the willly mammoths back. We've got the top professors in
space drunk this and that. But it is fascinating watching
you like getting quiet and watching you talk about that
and go that. It's amazing. It's amazing that that would
be what's inside you know, so if you can talk
about that alone, no Shandler give you a self help book.
And it started kind of them sure.
Speaker 8 (04:38):
I mean I didn't have any religion as a kid.
My parents never mentioned it. There was just no It
was just pure black hole. There was no we believe,
we don't believe.
Speaker 5 (04:53):
It's just no hanikah, no high holidays, know nothing.
Speaker 7 (04:57):
We were the Jews with the Christmas tree because it
was right, okay.
Speaker 8 (05:01):
And I never even knew if any of the family
had rejected the idea of it for a reason. You know,
we were a family that had people in the Holocaust.
But no one ever said we don't believe it because
of the Holocaust. That There was none of that talk either.
It was just like a sliding disinterest.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
But you did have a phrase that resonated with me
growing up in the same kind of household. You're one.
You're the one line which informed you of a bigger
issue was nobody said that life was fair.
Speaker 8 (05:32):
That's it.
Speaker 7 (05:33):
That's our whole religion.
Speaker 8 (05:34):
Nobody said life was there. The other aspect of our
religion was next year will be our year.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Yeah, So I know also your parents separated and you
went through a lot of stuff growing up.
Speaker 8 (05:45):
Yeah, and I think that the lack of any faith
or even discussion to see where you stand with it is.
It's just it's a weird hole to leave a kid.
And I and I remember as a I was always
afraid of nuclear war. I was always afraid of Brezhnev,
you know. So I had this like quiet terror for
(06:06):
some reason. I don't know it was from the movie
The Day After something, but it did feel weird to
have nothing, to have any of it make any sense.
So when I met Gary Shandling, he was the first
person that gave me Buddhist books, Pima Chodron books and
you know uh tiknn han people like that. And then
(06:27):
ram das and and told me that there were ways
to organize your life other than just the immediate pain
of workoholism and panic and you know, hypervigilance. You know,
I just became hyper vigil like, I better get a job.
(06:48):
No one is going to take care of me. I
need to be organized.
Speaker 6 (06:53):
So and was that gesture from Gary did it come
out of conversations you had with you or did he
just look at you and go this kid needs help.
I'm going to give him a book. Was it Did
it come out of your relationship with him that he said,
I think that this would be meaningful to you.
Speaker 8 (07:09):
Well, I'm not sure exactly. It's funny because when I
look back in my relationship with Gary, which is very close,
I almost felt like a starter kit for a son.
Speaker 7 (07:20):
You know.
Speaker 8 (07:21):
Gary at the time was in the relationship with Linda
just said I wrote the Grammys, you know, with him
back in the late eighties or maybe ninety or ninety one.
It was the first day of it was. I met
him like the weekend the Gulf War started, So you
check your calendar. Yeah, okay, wow.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
But we just became very close and.
Speaker 8 (07:45):
Just hung out all the time. And I don't even
remember whining about my life in any way. He was
just introducing me to some ideas that interested him. I'm
sure I said I needed them at some point. But
the first one was gave me a book that was
called Turning Problems into Happiness, and it was written by
some Buddhist monk, and the premise was that you should
(08:07):
be happy every time you have a problem, because it
will force you to evolve in some way. You'll learn
patience or compassion or something like that. And I had
never heard a thought like that my entire life, Like, wait,
so when bad things happen, I learn and then so
it's not so bad. I mean, I had never heard
any ideas that helps me in my new adult life.
(08:32):
And I remember when my mom died, he just dropped
me off a box of books and it was all
very profound for me. And I think I'm still on
that journey, and lately I feel like I'm only now
beginning to really get it, you know, thirty years later.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
But is that just because you're so You're so now
you have time. I mean, you were on the treadmill
to obliving, you were doing so many things. But the
other thing that I found that really reson about you
in my life, my family always laughs because when we
go on vacation, we going anywhere, I prepare for every eventuality.
And you said, I'm probably a good producer because I
(09:10):
look at everything that can possibly go wrong and prepare
for that. And that's how I live my life. And
is that a big responsibility? And you just can't help
yourself that that's where your mind goes.
Speaker 8 (09:22):
I think that you know, when I was a kid,
my parents really fought and never worked out an agreement
of you know what the alimony would be like, They
never worked it out, and they just fought, paid a
lot of lawyers and kind of both went broke from
a never ending fight. And it made me think, you've
(09:44):
got to get organized.
Speaker 7 (09:47):
And so part of that is how do you do
a good job?
Speaker 8 (09:51):
You know. I interviewed comedians when I was a kid.
I interviewed Erry Seinfeld when I was sixteen years old
from my high school radio station, and a lot of
comedians said, you know, it takes like seven years to
find your voice.
Speaker 7 (10:03):
So I learned from these comedians to be patient with
my evolution as a as a writer or a comedian.
Speaker 8 (10:11):
And and then I could really plan, like I was
doing long range planning, like I'm seventeen years old, I'm
doing stand up. That means I'll be great when I'm
twenty four. Okay, good. And then I was terrible for
the first year or so, but I was like, I'm
supposed to be bad. This is good. This is all
part of the plan. And it gave me a weird
(10:31):
kind of patience about it. And then as I turned
into a producer, I think every time you suffer as
a producer, you figure out, like, how can I.
Speaker 7 (10:41):
Prevent this next time?
Speaker 8 (10:43):
Right? Like I did made a movie and it went
over budget and the studio was so mean to me
and it was like getting kicked in the face every day.
It was like we were two hundred million dollars over
budget based on how they were treating me. When we
did The Cable Guy, we were like, I think we're
was be forty it was forty two. But I just
got my ass whoops from all people there. And then
(11:07):
for the rest of my career, never been under budge, overbudget,
never been overbudget ever, because I'm like, yeah, that sucks.
Be realistic, be organized, know your stuff, and I think
you learn hundreds of those, Like Okay, if I like,
for instance, Shandling, the scripts were always done like the
night before, and Gary was always exhausted and in a
(11:28):
bad mood. What if we wrote them several months before,
maybe we'd be happier and maybe the creative process would
be less intense. And it's not always possible, but that's
how my mind works, Like, how can I prevent the
pain that this organization will cause? Ye?
Speaker 6 (11:48):
I want to pursue that for saying I want to
get into so many things to do. But just you know,
while we're playing around in this area of self help,
someone said to it. I think Peter said to me
in when he said, hey, let's talk to John that
you haven't you know a substantial collection of reading in
the self help world. Is that because you have some
(12:10):
doubt about your ability to learn from your experientials or
I'm trying to get a handle on not because I
don't believe in self help. I guess most of the
learning that I've had through what you're describing is both
experiential and therapy where I talk about my travails and
this person sits there and goes, you know, I see
(12:31):
a trend or I see an arc, or I have
a question.
Speaker 5 (12:36):
Do you do that as well? Or has that all
been provided from your reading?
Speaker 8 (12:40):
No?
Speaker 7 (12:40):
I do that as well, Okay, and have for a
long long time. But yeah, recently I looked in.
Speaker 8 (12:48):
My journals and I realized that what I wrote yesterday
was the same as thirty years ago in terms of
my complaints and my shrining and my pam and you know,
bracing thoughts.
Speaker 7 (12:58):
Yeah, hypervisually, it was all the same.
Speaker 6 (13:00):
Yeah, still for me still is along with gott to
drop that twenty pounds. That seems to be my big.
Speaker 8 (13:05):
Exercise that readmilk tomorrow, I would listen, don't forget to meditate.
You don't have sugar, you know. And it's the same
from nineteen ninety two. So this year I took ayahuasca.
Speaker 5 (13:19):
Oh no, you know you did not? Oh, come on,
you go down to South America and there's a whole No.
Speaker 8 (13:25):
I did it in the very exotic land of Studio City,
that's where all the best shaman.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
Wait a minute, how did you?
Speaker 3 (13:31):
How do you?
Speaker 5 (13:32):
How do you vet that it wasn't like camel testicles
and whatever? How do you know what it was?
Speaker 8 (13:37):
I did? It was someone that had been to the
person before, and I just thought I need something to
like kick me out of a certain kind of mental roots.
Speaker 7 (13:46):
And it definitely did. I'll say that I don't recommend it.
Speaker 8 (13:51):
What did you do? Did you throw up?
Speaker 5 (13:52):
What was the process? Did you throw up?
Speaker 8 (13:55):
Yes, that's part of it.
Speaker 5 (13:56):
You throw up.
Speaker 8 (13:57):
You're not familiar what.
Speaker 5 (13:58):
He tells me you you're going to throw up? I go,
how is that good? What you don't throw up?
Speaker 4 (14:03):
That's not a selling point usually, but Okay, your soul
leaves three, you're not diarrhea?
Speaker 5 (14:08):
Can I get diarrhea two with this? Or you have
to pay extra? So what was the process? What did
what did you go through? What did you or more importantly,
what did you discover that that? From where do you
do in studio city arts wors? What wasn't like well,
(14:37):
what did you or more importantly, what did you discover
that that? From where do you do in studio city
arts worship? What wasn't like Well?
Speaker 8 (14:48):
It's funny because I talk about it on stage when
I do stand up and I tell this story like
a twenty five minute version of the story now, and
I always asked the crowd has anyone done it? And
the funny thing is at Largo where I play, it's
two hundred and fifty seats, it's usually one person, which
is really funny because it's like, wow, this drug is
so insane that only one two fifty two, you know,
(15:11):
in la which is like the experience stage. But when
I asked people what did you get out of it?
Everyone has a crazy story, but a similar kind of lesson.
There's a lot of people who one.
Speaker 9 (15:24):
Guy said, I opened a box and inside was my name,
and I was like, well, what does that mean? And
he goes, you know, to just be, just be, which
is also like stop your rasing thoughts, right, And then
the other night someone said I realized that I was
part of the fabric of the universe.
Speaker 7 (15:45):
And then someone else, you know, like it's like it's always.
Speaker 8 (15:48):
The same thing, which is some version of either be
kind to each other in the way you want to
be kind or it's, uh, we're all in this together,
you know, and to some people there's aliens involved to
get there, right, like right, they're having and I had that,
you know, crazy like visions of things, but it lands
(16:09):
at you be nice, you know, like we all have
to take care of each other, but in a profound way,
not in like a simple bull play where like you
really feel it, like oh yeah, do you forget that
that's the whole thing.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
So let me do and be honest. I know you'll
be honest.
Speaker 6 (16:26):
So let's say you did the aahuasca and you had
this revelation on Tuesday, Yeah, on Sunday. Do you go, yeah,
I think I did ayahuasca?
Speaker 5 (16:33):
Or does it stay with you? How long does it?
Was my question? How long does it last?
Speaker 8 (16:38):
Well, here's the funny thing is, And people had told
me about things like this For months afterwards. I would
wake up in the middle of the night. I would
feel like I had been having a conversation and I
had just woken up into the middle of my mind
having a conversation, and then an idea would be presented
(16:59):
to me.
Speaker 7 (17:00):
So it was like I had been thinking about something.
I woke up and then I would hear something.
Speaker 8 (17:05):
It would be like you don't do any of the
things you ask your wife to do, but like you'd
wake up with that as like a power thought, you know.
And it happened for months and interesting insights as is
like some part of my mind is still working on
aspects of it. And I think they people, you know,
some people see it as a mystical I know, if
(17:26):
it's chemical. I don't even know what it is. I
try not to think about it. But it definitely felt
like it helped me let go a little bit. That's
what I felt during the whole trip, was let go.
What are you holding on to?
Speaker 4 (17:40):
Just like, well, you're in the job, will you control
everything you do? The casting you did, the writing you did.
I mean, that's a big control thing.
Speaker 5 (17:46):
I at length.
Speaker 6 (17:47):
Can you tell them go back to the casting thing,
because god, oh, I would never say it to him,
but I will say that.
Speaker 5 (17:56):
Some people think I would do comment I.
Speaker 8 (17:59):
Need to sell tape and.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
Hold on. I think you need Jason.
Speaker 7 (18:07):
Yeah, I consider what I saw you in those Neil
Simon plays.
Speaker 8 (18:11):
The self page.
Speaker 5 (18:12):
Oh that's very sweet. Thanks.
Speaker 7 (18:14):
How great were those?
Speaker 8 (18:15):
We've talked about that before?
Speaker 6 (18:16):
Oh my god.
Speaker 5 (18:17):
Yeah, it was working with Neil.
Speaker 6 (18:21):
You know, when I was in my twenties, I was
I was living the dream I had as a teenager
that then took a left turn and became something I
never imagined, which was the film and television stuff. But
I fantasized, oh boy, if I could get over the
river and just you know, work in New York and
what And then it was it went from Hal Prince,
Stephen Sondheim to Candor and have Terrence mcnanly to Neil Simon,
(18:42):
and I went, I I don't know what's happening, and
and Neil was so unbelievably kind to me and nurturing
to me that it just it was. It was an
incredibly special thing.
Speaker 7 (18:54):
Which was the first Neil Simon when you did with him, I.
Speaker 6 (18:57):
Only did Broadway Bound with him, then did a revival
of Prisoner or Second Avenue here in La that he
came and saw. And then I directed Broadway Bound and
he came and saw that, and he was already, you know,
deeply into Alzheimer's or whatever dimension he had. And it
was it was that was a really tough night because
(19:19):
he kinda he kind of knew he was connected to it,
and he was having all the feelings about that, but
he couldn't understand why he was connected to it.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
Wow, and it that that was hard.
Speaker 8 (19:31):
But he.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
Next to Neil Simon got to be a bit friendly
and I said, you're so straight laced when you got
out to Hollywood.
Speaker 5 (19:39):
Did you do drugs? And he said, Peter.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
First party I went to, they gave me pot that
was so strong its laced was something it would kill
River Phoenix again.
Speaker 5 (19:49):
First conversation with you, guys are so much.
Speaker 7 (19:52):
Darker than you expect.
Speaker 8 (19:53):
Oh my god, I emailed Mike Nichols. I was shooting
a scene for train Wreck where the it was like
a helicopter shot of the Staten Island ferry and it
was a little bit of a nod to working girl
right right opening Working girl, and so I emailed Mike
Nichols like, hey, we're shooting this thing today, and he goes, well,
this time, I hope the helicopter crashes into the ferry.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
Nice. Yeah, wow, wow, you think those guys are all
light and such?
Speaker 8 (20:21):
You were so rough?
Speaker 6 (20:22):
Do you know what that we're so off talking about.
I'm going to share a story with you. I do
not know if it's true.
Speaker 5 (20:27):
It was told me.
Speaker 6 (20:27):
It sounds true, but Patti Chaievsky very famously wrote one
of my favorite movies of all time.
Speaker 5 (20:33):
Network. Yes, I think, either for the Golden Globes or
some other award.
Speaker 6 (20:38):
That year it tied with Rocky for the award, and
they said accepting for a Network Patty chifc accepting for
Rocky producer Erwin Winkler. And the story goes that as
they were coming up the aisle to go to the podium,
Erwin Winkler got right next to Patty Chaievsky and said
to him, Patty, I am so so honored to share
(20:59):
this award with you.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
Patty Saevsky said to him, I hope you die.
Speaker 7 (21:08):
What year was that Broadway Bound production?
Speaker 6 (21:10):
Broadway Bound was either eighty six or eighties. The one
that I was in was either eighty six or eighty seven.
I was twenty six or twenty seven years old down, So.
Speaker 8 (21:18):
I went to see that when I was eighteen years old. Wow,
So you know, coming from a place where I had
been injuring these comedians for the last two years. I
started doing stand up the year before, and I had
comedy on the brain, and then to see that.
Speaker 6 (21:34):
Well, also because he discusses it that, you know in
the play, about how how comedy is written and done?
Speaker 8 (21:40):
And yeah, I mean that really because I went to
all those plays in that era neo ciber place, but
for me as someone who dreamed of doing what he
did in that Yeah, and also the you know, the
idea of what is this about? That I mean, because
those Neil Simon plays would be so hilarious and then
they would get so real. We would land in a
(22:02):
very profound place. And I think it was what I
was just realizing, Oh, everything isn't supposed to be like
meatballs or caddy shack, right, there's another way to do that.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
Sure, Yeah, but you were just go somewhere I read
either you said or somebody said about your comedies that
you write him as dramas the story has to be Yes,
it's character driven, but the story has to make sense
on its own.
Speaker 8 (22:24):
That I tried to. I mean I tried to. Yeah,
I mean I worked at the Critic this Cartoon James producer. Yeah,
Mike recon al Jean did so. I had a year
where I was able to just hear him talk about stories.
And obviously he's been one of the guiding lights. But
(22:44):
that's how I looked at it, because he always talked
about honoring the characters, and he would say, we have
to do right by the characters in our work as
if they existed, and if the writing was bad, we
were screwing them over. Wow. I had never heard anyone
speak like that about film and storytelling, and it had
a big effect on it.
Speaker 5 (23:04):
Where are you?
Speaker 4 (23:04):
I'm curious where you are now because so much of
your comedy is about growth, which is funny because I'm
sitting next to a guy who's sitcom lasted what nine years.
Speaker 5 (23:11):
And it was no growth, none of those characters, one
one iota.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
Are you at a different place at this age and
where you are in your life as far as what
you want to writer you feel compelled to put out
there on screen stories you want to tell I.
Speaker 8 (23:26):
You know, I it's it's a funny age because when
you get older, you realize, like, I talk about this
and stand up, but you know an older comedian that
someone is only talking about decay. You know they're only
going like, don't you hate diverticulitis? I hate when all
(23:46):
your girlfriends from high school start dying of natural causes.
And so I struggle with that a little bit because
I had projects about high school and college and getting
someone pregnant and being married in middle age. And then
at some point you're like, do I just have to
do this stuff right now to high school again?
Speaker 4 (24:10):
I said to Jason, it's so sad in our relationship.
We know each other thirty five years. The gifts went
from really great gifts to orthopedic devices.
Speaker 5 (24:18):
I swear to God, I had a birthday three days ago.
Speaker 6 (24:21):
The best gift I got so far is a pair
of socks that have acupressure, a diagram of where on
the foot, and a little thing.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
I swear to God, I have it right here on
my bag, A thing that you use to press on. Second,
I'm gonna show you this.
Speaker 6 (24:39):
This is this is this is the acupressure tool that
you use to press into your foot to make you
look I'm telling you it's a it's a Jimmy Duranty profile.
Speaker 7 (24:50):
But other than that, it's on Amazon right now.
Speaker 5 (24:53):
Oh my god, it's the greatest thing. I had the
socks on the other day. My god. So it's what
are the next product? What are you working on now?
So I from stand up? But yeah, why did you
you took a long Yeah?
Speaker 7 (25:07):
I took a long break, like fifteen years.
Speaker 5 (25:10):
And what was the thing that said I gotta what
called you to go back to that?
Speaker 8 (25:15):
Yeah? I don't know. I mean I just missed.
Speaker 7 (25:19):
I missed being around people.
Speaker 8 (25:20):
You know, when you make movies, you do the shoot,
but when you write, you're kind of mainly alone. When
you edit, you're with one guy in a room for
six months. And I thought, I think I'm far away
from the fun part of it. And then I was
working with Amy Schumer and she was, you know, skyrocketing
in her stand up career when we were working on
train Wreck, right, And one night at the Comedy Seller,
(25:40):
I said, I'm gonna go on just to show you
what it was like when I did it, and she
thought I would bomb. And then I actually had an
okay set, yeah, just telling some stories, and then at
the comedy seller sd who Books, it was like, you
can come in whatever you want. So then every night
when we wrapped train Wreck, I would just go to
the comedy seller and go on and I just think
(26:02):
it's fun and I feel it helps me tune into
what people are laughing at and thinking about. And I
don't think the issue of like what can you say
or not say affects most people that much. It depends
on how you want to talk about things. You know,
if you have a good point of view and a
kind heart, you can get away with a lot. There
are people who have a really dark sense of humors
(26:23):
and they want to just say the thing you're not
allowed to say as a release for you know, for
certain people, that's fun to go. I love a comedy
where you say the thing that should end your career,
and I think there is a place for that. What's
wrong with the culture is everyone else hears about it.
(26:44):
You know, in the old day, you might be able
to go see someone and they would be shocking, but
their act wouldn't be on the internet because there was
no internet, so you could just like it's like if
you love like a punk band or Norwegian death metal,
you know, it's not like everyone has to like it.
You might like urban, so don't listen to Norwegian death metal.
But I think people think everything is supposed to work
(27:07):
for everybody, which isn't the case. It's funny because I
was at the Gotham Comic Club in New York two
weeks ago. Right I'm about to go on, They're like,
Jerry's gonna come in? Is that okay? If Jerry comes
in seinfilm And I'm like yeah, and I'm friends to Jerry,
and I go, how long does he want to do?
And they go twenty five minutes? And then you're like, oh,
(27:28):
Jerry's gonna.
Speaker 7 (27:29):
Murder for twenty five minutes. I got to try to
do an hour after that.
Speaker 8 (27:34):
And then he comes in and of course couldn't be better,
and the crowd is so happy and he is the best,
and then the crowd was so good for me, they
were fain they were just ye put them in the
best comedy food, because you know, he's one of the
reasons why I went into all of this, became very
(27:55):
obsessed with Jerry's work right when he came on the
scene in like the early eighties. Yeah, and then he
was so nice to me when I interviewed him, shockingly
nice to like a sixteen year old interviewed with fro
my high school radio station. Then six months later I
called him and I asked to interview him again, and
he said, well, I just did it. Why would I
do it again?
Speaker 7 (28:15):
And I said, I don't know, you'd do the Tonight
show more than once?
Speaker 5 (28:19):
And then he did do another.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Are you serious?
Speaker 4 (28:23):
Wow?
Speaker 5 (28:24):
Wow?
Speaker 8 (28:25):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (28:26):
Ye did you try that with Larry David?
Speaker 5 (28:29):
I'd be interested in saying how that.
Speaker 4 (28:31):
Let me take it back to that at age seventeen.
Were you a kid who on some level was secure
enough to figure I can do this, because when I
read what you did, that you did and hurt the
stories before that you called these comedians was part of it. Also,
I'll interview them, but they'll also embrace me, and I'll
be in that group and somehow that will get me.
Somebody will say, hey, jud you're that good open for
me or whatever. Was there a whole method to the
(28:52):
madness or was it just the interviews? And why did
you feel you could do it and that they would respond?
Because most kids, like my son, he asked, do you
should do that? Yeah, I don't know, He's going to
be mad. I goes, who cares if they're mad? Cares
if they hang up? What's the downside?
Speaker 5 (29:05):
So I get a lot of that.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
When you ment your young people, they go, well, I
can't just call Joe app Okay, yes you can, so
he either call back or he won't. So where was
your seventeen year old head when you were doing that stuff.
Speaker 8 (29:17):
Well, my grandfather is a jazz producer, and he produced
Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie and Diyona Washington, and he
was just a hustler.
Speaker 7 (29:25):
And I always knew that there was some hustle to this.
Speaker 8 (29:28):
And so when I worked at this high school radio station,
my friend Josh Rosendal would go interview the new bands.
So he went and he interviewed Rim and Susie in
the Banshees, and then he said to me, you should
try to interview comics. And I didn't think it would
help me stand up because I hadn't started stand up yet.
Although I dreamed of it, I just thought I just
(29:50):
wanted to touch that world I was so obsessed with,
like the Mike Douglas Show, and Merv Griffin, like he
was like peeking your you know, peeking your head into
the TV. Were those people real? And so the first
person I inted it was Steve Allen, and it was
incredible that he existed because the only sorry I had
ever met was Toty Fields.
Speaker 5 (30:11):
Toty Fields, Oh man.
Speaker 8 (30:14):
She was buddies with my grandma. So they talked about
her all the time, like she was the coolest person
in the world. So I think, as a little kid
on some level, as like a weird kid, I thought,
Tody Fields is the coolest person in the world. That
means I can be cool. I'm weird like Tony Fields.
Speaker 7 (30:31):
And so it just gave me some courage.
Speaker 8 (30:35):
But also, no one liked comedy back then, Like kids
weren't talking about it, you know, in the early eighties
the way they do now. And so it was like
I had my own hobby that no one had any
interest in at all.
Speaker 6 (30:48):
But wasn't that I'm trying, you know, as I've gotten
older time in my sense of time, So but what
the early eighties, wasn't that still sort of the real
height of Carlin? Then Steve Martin and yeah, so you know,
they seem like they were so much in the zeitgeist.
I'm surprised that people weren't talking and sounding it live,
(31:10):
weren't talking about comedy.
Speaker 10 (31:12):
I think, you know, people would watch it all, but
no one really cared, you know what I mean, Like
we would all go see Ghostbusters, but it wasn't like
there was like comedy obsessives, uh huh.
Speaker 8 (31:23):
And so I just took it to some.
Speaker 7 (31:26):
Other weird level, like my friends did go to c
Spinal Tap with me.
Speaker 8 (31:30):
I went. I took a friend of the Spinal Tap,
and when it came out, maybe it was like in
eleventh grade or something, and when it ended.
Speaker 7 (31:38):
He still thought it was a real band.
Speaker 8 (31:41):
You know. Sure she didn't really know their comedy that yeah, yeah,
yeah yeah.
Speaker 5 (31:46):
Because what I'm noticing and getting is what brings me
back to what we started with.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
You.
Speaker 6 (31:54):
You seem to me, and everything I've read about you,
and even the fact that you loved stand up doing
to me. I went into performing because I couldn't be
with myself. So if I and I didn't want myself
to be seen. So if I was a character, that
was good. If I was in an ensemble, that was good.
Because I didn't have a tribe, and I couldn't and
(32:16):
I couldn't stand being alone. I did not think of
myself as a self motivator. I did not think of
myself as a go getter.
Speaker 5 (32:25):
Here you are.
Speaker 6 (32:25):
Everything I've seen you accomplish has been because you said,
I am going to go do this. I'll figure it
out when I get there, but I'm gonna go do
this thing. And yet at the very same time, you're
the guy going to the books to go I'm not
good yet. I'm not good. I'm gonna I'm gonna throw
up in studio city and find out what I don't know.
(32:47):
And those two, the two they seem like opposite sides
of something, as opposed to two sides of the same coin.
Speaker 5 (32:55):
Do you know what I'm saying That makes sense?
Speaker 8 (32:56):
I mean, I think that maybe it's just that I
so insecure that I like I was looking for like
my way to escape. And at a very early age,
like weirdly early, like almost like you know, ten or eleven,
I thought, Okay, it's comedy. It's comedy, that's the thing.
(33:17):
And then no one had any interest. So it was
like this little secret dream and I kept thinking to myself,
no one people don't really get me, but I think
this thing I like is gonna save me. Like I
had a sense that I'm going to go to a
place where they get it, Like there's a world where
George Goebel lives, you know, there's a world where Paul
(33:40):
end is, and I think I might have a spot
to do something there. I didn't even know what it was,
but that drive to do it was also probably like
mental health condition, which was why do you need to
do it? Because you're insecure, You're not comfortable with who
you are, trying to succeed, to feel good at yourself,
(34:02):
You're trying to have a thing, and the you know,
the madness of the pursuit allowed me to avoid figuring
out who I was.
Speaker 6 (34:12):
So in some ways, it's not so much to be metaphorical.
It's not so much a call to the light as
a flee from the darkness.
Speaker 8 (34:18):
In a way, part of it was, I mean, I
loved it, but I also thought I would get safety
in it, and as opposed to just having safety because
I just liked myself.
Speaker 5 (34:28):
But that so I get it.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
So the big questions for you, mister successful producer, director, writer,
can you be one hundred percent present at any given time,
or do you vacillate back and forth and it's a
constant battle.
Speaker 8 (34:38):
I think it's a constant bout. But I'm way better
than I used to be. I understand the path to
get there. It doesn't happen as often as I like,
but I have whatever mental things from reading Ramdas and
breathing things. I feel like I still get a little crazy.
But you're a jasonalmmer More. I'm Comadjason, Tom Jason.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
By the way, we weren't able to do I was
so excited about doing that TV show we came up
with Bob Patterson about a motivational guy who couldn't motivate
his own family, and I wanted the mentor to be
secretly a mess.
Speaker 5 (35:14):
But I still love that. I love that world so much.
Speaker 6 (35:16):
We've had more fun exploring slash lampooning the guys who
get up and go I can help you be a
better you.
Speaker 5 (35:27):
I've got and what we found in it was so interesting.
Speaker 6 (35:31):
We would we would do a live show where I
played a character named Donnie Clay who's going to show
you the way.
Speaker 5 (35:36):
Donnie Clay shows you the way. America's fourth leading motivation
and we would.
Speaker 6 (35:41):
We would espouse things that were so silly and so nonsense,
and and the audience would laugh, they'd have a great time.
They knew it was a comedy show. And at the
meet and greets at the end, they'd go, you know what,
I actually I learned a lot to them.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
But to be fair about what we love him like,
he had to Donnie Clay Forwards to guarantee your success
financial financially.
Speaker 6 (36:04):
Free your income. I'll increase youring and we would do it.
It's not a book, it's not a program. It's not
a thing you have to do for Forwards. And you'll
go out tomorrow and you'll increase your income fifty and
we build it up for you know, the whole big
thing and eventually go here you go, folks, take to
get out your Recordersfans of Forwards, get a second job
and and okay, big laugh.
Speaker 5 (36:25):
And then people would come up and go, you know right, right,
you're right, you're right, But.
Speaker 8 (36:30):
Do we get job?
Speaker 5 (36:31):
Well, thanks for spending time with us, man, and thanks.
Speaker 6 (36:33):
For everything's good at home, Leslie's good, everything's fine. Your
daughter is becoming a huge star.
Speaker 7 (36:39):
The kids are both working, they have jobs.
Speaker 5 (36:42):
God bless.
Speaker 7 (36:44):
And uh, you know learning what that is.
Speaker 5 (36:48):
Excellent? Now do you are you annoying to them at
this point or not annoying to them?
Speaker 8 (36:53):
Well, once they move out, you realize that your job
is to figure out how to feel like it would
be painful to be around you, right like you because
like a consultant a parent, you're a consultant. And then
you kind of want to hang out with them and
their friends, Like would they ever allow me to dinner
with their friends? Like I would never when I was
(37:16):
young with my parents, Like go on vacation with them
as a young adult was so neurotic weird, and uh,
I regret that, but that's what you want. I love it,
Like would would they ever call me and go let's
get breakfast? And that has happened, so I feel like
I'm succeeding just.
Speaker 5 (37:35):
Breakfast to hang well, clearly free breakfast.
Speaker 6 (37:39):
Okay, that's the beginning of that. Yeah, my kids have
never whipped out the card to pay for a minute.
Speaker 5 (37:44):
And my kids never said let's have no, we have
we have a meal.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
We do that.
Speaker 7 (37:48):
My daughter's on a TV series, she still expects me
to cover the uber.
Speaker 5 (37:53):
Oh my god, it's never gonna end.
Speaker 4 (37:57):
So we have something to talk about. That's hus be safe, man,
and thank you for all the comedies. Thanks for taking the.
Speaker 5 (38:02):
Time, Judd all the best. Thank you friends.
Speaker 8 (38:05):
Yes, thanks that so funny.
Speaker 5 (38:07):
Thank you brother.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
Well look at that.
Speaker 6 (38:18):
We got a big, big Hollywood producer, writer, director, multi
award winner, came on our show, had a fabulous conversation
and left without offering me a goddamn thing. Not a hey,
I got something in mind for you, not a I
should have used you in, not a hey, I'm a
big fan talk about a show I was in the
nineteen eighties.
Speaker 4 (38:37):
Talking about self help. I need let me give you
some help. Let me give you some help here, let
me let me offer some help you. The gift was
having him on, not an offerer, just be here now, barbarandas.
Speaker 5 (38:49):
Don't you think that that we did hit on this?
Speaker 6 (38:54):
I think I hit a fascinating thought when I said,
he is a guy who's basically carved of all his
own stuff. Yes, he worked with a couple of wonderful
mentors along the way, but he had to carve his
way to get to them.
Speaker 5 (39:07):
It was not like, you know, being in.
Speaker 6 (39:09):
A play that somebody else wrote and somebody else directed,
and you get seen by a thing, and so you
get your next big opportunity. He had to create every
opportunity from scratch. He's writing his own stand up, he's
writing his own films. He says, I'm going to be
a producer. And yet so he's got that ability to
say I am worthy of doing this. People will be there,
(39:31):
And at the same time he's going, I'm not worthy.
I'm not worthy of it. But I don't know enough,
or I don't feel like I'm not color.
Speaker 4 (39:38):
In Philly, so I didn't know well to do people,
and I didn't know people in entertainment. And I came
out to LA and I never network. Being a raider,
I never networked. It was a job for me, so
I didn't network, but I got to interview a lot
of people, and I got to know people of different
different stages in their life, from billionaires the most successful actors,
the movie stars. And there's shocking how many of them unhappy,
(40:01):
crying in the car, feel unfulfilled. And you said it
to an extent, Jay, and we've been closed a long time.
When you won the Tony, which is a huge thing,
and even though the phone calls came, you said it's
not what I thought you think it's going to be.
Something is going to come down and it's going to
change your life and forever more. You're going to feel
good about yourself and no insecurities and no problems. And
(40:23):
it does none of that other than get you some
more work. And here's Judd Apatow who's saying, yeah, he's
as big as can be in the studios, clubbing him
for being two million dollars over. Yeah, So you still
have to prove yourself constantly. Absolutely, you have a movie,
your third movie, you have a billion dollars in the bank,
(40:45):
and third movie fails, and the critics just savage it
because it's their time to turn on you because they
were so good to you for three or you got
it wrong, or you got it wrong whatever. Those things
are still tough for human beings to deal with. You know,
the top guys on Broadway that you just talked about them,
look at what happened to a lot of those guys.
Speaker 8 (41:02):
They disintegrate.
Speaker 4 (41:03):
The biggest stars, the biggest rock stars are doing heroin.
They're doing drugs. Their medic is self medicating because it's
never what they felt it was gonna be.
Speaker 5 (41:13):
Right, You know, so it's a different.
Speaker 8 (41:15):
War it is.
Speaker 6 (41:17):
There's the other side of it is also how many
people and I had my own version of this for
a while, are now put in that place of extraordinary
success or attention or whatever you might be, and you
can't make it fit.
Speaker 5 (41:32):
You can't imposter yourself in it. It's impostered.
Speaker 6 (41:35):
So you get lost, you know, and and and you
have to find First you have to know you're lost,
and then you have to find your way, and.
Speaker 4 (41:42):
Then you genuinely have to be happy with the gratitude
thing and I know is that you have to really
be present and go with what I got is pretty
damn good, whatever that is, because if you're still racing
for that other thing, then you're not really present. My
horrible thing is with the ADHD and with the mesophonia.
Here you know that I'm always my mind tends to
(42:05):
want to be somewhere else, and I really want to
be like when with you, one hundred percent present, when
I'm with my kid family present. And that's hard battle.
Except the older you get, the more is a clock
keeps sticking. You realize less time to get it right,
so there's more pressure to get that right.
Speaker 5 (42:23):
And by the way.
Speaker 4 (42:23):
Also look at how much of the world is medicated
because so so depression.
Speaker 5 (42:32):
Can you imagine? No, no, I cannot listen.
Speaker 6 (42:37):
I know people who have had the most extraordinary experiences,
and I go, yeah, if you swallow arsenic, you're going
to have an experience.
Speaker 4 (42:44):
Could be again, you're going to I just think it's
very dangerous. Love producer, Why I want to go to
another country to do it? And I said, do me
your favor.
Speaker 5 (42:51):
I'm all for that. I hope you have growth, get
us a backup before you're going to be dead in
a foreign three months where with the guy throwing up.
Speaker 4 (43:00):
And he's in your Maybe so it is, but it's
the search. We're all searching to try and be happier,
and part of that is being present. And it's really
hard being one hundred percent present because people.
Speaker 5 (43:13):
I was going to say that the present isn't always
so pleasant, so that makes it even crazier. Feel good
about yourself.
Speaker 6 (43:19):
I read a thing the other day not too long
ago that I thought was, so, you know, we're looking
for the mysteries of the universe beyond what we know,
and we're looking for the existence of miracles. And the
guy said and you can do this. I'm going to
tell you right now to do something. Just do it,
don't think about just do it. Touch the top of
your head. Why does that happen?
Speaker 5 (43:38):
You think it. I'm going to touch the top of
my head and it happens.
Speaker 6 (43:43):
First of all, go explain that, because that's you want
the mysteries of the universe.
Speaker 5 (43:48):
How does that happen?
Speaker 6 (43:49):
And then second of all, when you're looking for miracles,
not everybody can make that happen.
Speaker 5 (43:55):
Yeah, no kidding.
Speaker 6 (43:56):
So the fact that you today can think my nose
itches and you scratch your nose without thinking about it,
that is a miraculous thing. That is a When I
do my Q and A show and sometimes we talk
about magic and my love for magic, and I talk
about how my wife is not a fan of magic
because she thinks it's a power trip on the part
of the magician, and I go, no, to me, it's
(44:17):
about I know it's not real. I know it's not real,
but the idea that somebody figure out how to make
it feel real. It's like a great story. That's my
story is not real, but you get a feeling from it.
And to me, I talk about in that section I
talk about you walked out, you put on clothes today.
(44:38):
Somebody made you close. They got it to your house.
Speaker 5 (44:40):
You bought it.
Speaker 6 (44:40):
You have a house that didn't just appear. It's not
a mud hut. Somebody built that. You live in it
with what paper? You exchanged one thing? And you gotta
I say, it's all magic. It's all miraculous if you
just slow down enough to go, somebody made this and
what's what it does.
Speaker 4 (44:58):
By the way, one of the most suppressing things I
did is I recorded behind the scenes and manager reveals
all the tricks. I watched about six I got so
depressed because even the biggest tricks, you go, oh, it
just ruined that for me.
Speaker 8 (45:12):
So I never watched.
Speaker 5 (45:14):
Here's here's how you know. Why do not do that?
A magician not because it's a brotherhood of anything.
Speaker 6 (45:21):
A magician will never ask another magician how something was done.
Speaker 5 (45:27):
A true magician will go that was beautiful. Isn't pendent
teller writing a book revealing how they did all the tricks?
Speaker 4 (45:34):
Though?
Speaker 6 (45:34):
But I'm not saying magicians won't share their secrets. There's
a there's a huge legacy of magicians as they retire
their career, retire there.
Speaker 5 (45:41):
They will do that. That's say, here's how I achieved
all I care about.
Speaker 4 (45:45):
All I care about. Are they going to reveal how
they do the bullet catch where he shoots the blue.
I think they are revealing that's one of the most
amazing tricks ever.
Speaker 5 (45:51):
You know what else is amazing?
Speaker 6 (45:53):
David, He's a miracle. He's proof of miracles on God's
Green play you look at your David. Sure it's true
today you got to meet from the confines of your
home Judd appetite.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
Yes, I did, very thankful, very thankful.
Speaker 6 (46:10):
It's really was there a single lesson take away you
got from it?
Speaker 3 (46:16):
You know?
Speaker 11 (46:16):
I was able to say because I had. He is
the first person I've been close to since Jim Carrey
where I was trying to not say, God, I really
enjoyed the cable guy.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
And to see what the reaction was because I truly did.
Speaker 11 (46:30):
I love that that picture and Jim Carrey did not
not appreciate it when I when I mentioned that to him.
Speaker 6 (46:38):
Yeah, yeah, really did he think you were making that
you were being facetious?
Speaker 5 (46:43):
I think it was.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
It was within six.
Speaker 11 (46:47):
Months to a year that it had come out and
he was we were at a benefit together. He was
dating somebody that I was I worked with, and yeah,
I think he did. I did think that he couldn't
hear the fact that I'm like, I think this was
actually a brilliant comedy that actually with some of the
Menenda stuff that people are now watching on Netflix, if
(47:08):
you want to go back and watch it, just the
parody of that was really brilliant.
Speaker 5 (47:12):
And you know, there you go.
Speaker 2 (47:14):
Not a good first impression with this.
Speaker 5 (47:17):
I just must say I've been watching the Menenda thing.
Speaker 4 (47:19):
Not a comedy, just for people who need to know,
not a comedy, really, not a com really. Yeah, it's
kind of an interesting series, though really interesting series. I
started it was felt campy the first episode and then
there's some really good acting in that. But wow, if
a third of that stuff is even close to accurate,
hokey smoke, what a story?
Speaker 6 (47:39):
Well yea, as they say, there's some things happening. H
Thank you, jud Apto, Thank you ladies and gentlemen. We
will see you next time on this little show.
Speaker 5 (47:48):
That we call really No really.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
As another episode if really no really it comes to
a close. I know you're wondering, what is the best
selling self help book ever? Well, you can help yourself
to that answer in a moment. But first let's thank
our guest, judappataw. You can follow Jud on his website
judapptou dot com or on Instagram where he is unsurprisingly
at judappatow No. Find all pertinent links in our show notes,
(48:14):
our little show hangs out on Instagram, TikTok YouTube, and
threads at really No Really podcast, And of course you
can share your thoughts and feedback with us online at
reallynoreally dot com. If you have a really some amazing
factor story that boggles your mind, share it with us
and if we use it, we will send you a
little gift.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Nothing life changing, obviously, but it's the thought that counts.
Speaker 8 (48:37):
No.
Speaker 3 (48:38):
Check out our full episodes on YouTube, hit that subscribe
button and take that bell so you're updated when we
release new videos and episodes, which we do each Tuesday.
So listen and follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And now the
answer to the question what is the best selling self
help book ever? Well, Included among the top titles is
(48:59):
nineteen nine four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, How to
Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, originally published
in nineteen thirty six, Chicken Soup for the Soul, which
has sold over eleven million copies. Nineteen fifty two, is
big seller The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent
Peel and Stephen Kobe's Seven Habits of Highly Successful People,
(49:21):
but the biggest seller to date is Think and Grow
Rich by Napoleon Hill. Hill interviewed highly successful business magnates
to identify key laws and habits that drive success. Key
among them was faith, desire, persistence, and the suppression of doubt,
and that has led to over eighty million copies being sold. Well,
it's good enough for me. I'm gonna wrap this up
(49:42):
and go Think and Grow Rich. Okay, I'm thinking. Okay,
nothing's happening yet, but I'll let you know when it does. Really,
it really is a production of iHeartRadio and Blase Entertainment.
Hosts And Creators
Peter Tilden
Jason Alexander
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