May 12, 2023 • 12 mins
Desi Lydic chats with actor and producer Catherine Reitman about jump-starting her career with Desi on "The Real Wedding Crashers," shares what it was like working with her husband on "Workin' Moms," and how the success of the show still surprises her in its seventh and final season. And Desi Lydic also reveals how the Mother’s Day holiday came to be.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
My guest tonight is the creator and star of the
hit Netflix comedy series Working Moms. Please welcome my good
friend Katherine Wrightman.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Oh my gosh, I.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Look at this. So Catherine and I met how many
years ago?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Just a few two.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
We're so young and lee fresh and young. We met
doing a hidden camera prank show. That's right that I
believe NBC called their worst primetime ratings in history something
like that. I think they might have said that. Yeah, yeah,
but you know what.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
We say that about all the shows. We were very special.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
We really were.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we really were. And this was my
first big break, the real wedding crashers, and I think
it was yours too. We cut our teeth together.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
We did for ten weeks in Vegas, and we somehow
made it out alive. I don't know how.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I mean, by the skin of her teeth. I slapped
a bitch slapped me, true Tristorian, true tried bride who
was in on it, just five fingered me right across
the front.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Yeah, yeah, that was a rough day. We didn't we
couldn't even afford a medic The budget was so low.
You just had to like granted and held a coke
can to my cheek. And now has that ever happened
on Working Moms?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
God slapped?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah right.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Danny Kind, who plays and on the show, loves to
slap a bit. She'll get in there. She's very physical.
I love her for it. I love it.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Oh my god? So you, I mean, you're you're one
of those actors who has always been the total standout
and everything that you've been in, you're so damn funny.
You're constantly working steal every scene. But now suddenly there's
this baby of your seven seasons.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Of Working Moms?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Oh my?
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Eighty three episodes.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yep dropping on Netflix this Wednesday, April.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
You created it, you star in it, you direct it,
you executive produce it. What is it like seeing your
baby all grown.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Up like that? It's wild? You know. I mean, I
entered the show thinking it'll probably get one season and
I'll just try to be as authentic as I can
tell all my stories, cram it into one season, and
each season that we got picked up for another one,
I was in disbelief. I still am.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
It's so good, it's so funny and genuinely I know you.
You're a friend like it feels like you. You can
tell that you put so much of yourself into it.
You cover just in this. I may have snuck a
few episodes of this last season because I got a friend,
got a hook I got a hook up.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Don't be asking me.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
And just in just in this season, you explore so
many themes and issues that are so important. You have
an entire storyline on the male birth control pill.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Yeah, you explore uh, destigmatizing in female sexuality, marriage ruts,
the complexities of female friendships. How do you get ideas
for these stories?
Speaker 2 (03:07):
I guess I just live, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, just a day in the life of a woman.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
I mean, and I'm sure your audience can speak to this.
It's like having a kid, And I mean just watching
this incredible show tonight and seeing all the horrifying statistics
of what it means to go back to work, knowing
that you're going to be looked at differently for being
a mother was so paralyzingly terrifying to me. I didn't
even know I had postpartum depression when I started the show,
(03:32):
and getting through it out a three month old when
we started shooting, and when we wrapped the show and
I all of a sudden realized, like I feel like
I white knuckled through it, Like I don't think I
took a breath until they said cut the last time.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Yeah, and that was part of the inspiration for the show,
right you having gone through that and thinking like there
aren't shows out there that really dive into these topics.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
There sure are more now. Seven years ago it was
a wasteland. I mean I couldn't find any a storyline,
meaning the main plot point of the show about a
woman who happened to be a mother and work. I mean,
look on Work and Moms. The actual amount of time
where you see the female characters with their kids is
like five percent. This is about women being something outside
(04:15):
of the nursery. It's a woman in the workplace show.
And yeah, they've got to juggle it all and try
to have it all, whether that's possible or not.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Do you think it's possible?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yeah? Right, at all?
Speaker 1 (04:38):
You can have it all, but not all At the
same time, I said, what's wise said, it's a different.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
For each person, right, we all have our ways of
sort of working it out of making sacrifices. The guilt
is real.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Guilt is real. Guilt is really said something about mom
guilt that really stuck with me.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
You you sounds like, yeah, very profound.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
You said something in regards to the way that you
talk to your children about going to work.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Yeah, I don't say I have to go to work.
I get to go to work. And I just flip
that tone. I go, like, before I flew to New
York to do this lovely thing with you, I told
my kids, I'm so excited you guys. I've never gotten
to do this sort of thing. I'm so happy with it.
And they feel the joy rating off of me. And
then tonight they were like, we're so excited for you.
(05:23):
And that shift's great.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
That's so beautiful because you are following your passion and
you're clearly meant to do this, and you bring so
much joy to so many people, and you're teaching them
that they can one day do that too, and that's
really important. That's really powerful.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Or marry a woman that takes care of them.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Yes, yes, yeah, also wonderful, so very powerful. You work
with your husband I do show. He plays your actual husband.
He also is an executive producer. And directs on the show.
How how does this work? Because there was a very
brief time during the pandemic when we were filming from
home and I one time asked my husband to hold
(06:06):
the camera and we almost got divorced.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
How do you navigate that it's triggy? I mean, we've
definitely had some serious fights. There's a but then you
also find ways. I mean, look for those of us
who work in separate places on our husbands or wives.
You get to come home and try to share what happened,
and there's sort of like a lack of connection because
(06:29):
you can't talk about what you've done. When I get home,
Phil knows exactly what I've done, right, He witnessed all
my wins, but he also witnesses when I fail, so
that makes it really complicated. Lucky for me, I got
a guy who's a serious cheerleader, you know, he's yeah,
he's had my back. It was his idea to push
me into writing this thing in the first place.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
So thanks Phil, You're lucky to have each other. You're
lucky to have each other. I am. I am so
grateful for you making this show because I finally feel
like there's a show where Working Moms are seen, and
it means a great deal to me. And it's such
a joy to see you do your thing and shine
(07:09):
your light because you are just You're a total inspiration.
So I'm really happy for you and I'm proud of
that I get to be your friend.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Can I return the favor real quick? That? Oh? How
amazing is it that we broke our teeth on the
first Real Wed and Crasher show, which was a hit.
Maybe not, but it was really real critical darling, Yeah, totally,
we were doing some really cool stuff. They're actually but yeah,
I get to now witness your first night hosting the
Daily Show.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Thank you, Thank you for being. I love you to be,
I really do. Thank you. You can watch the seven
season and the final season of Working Moms on April
twenty six on Netflix. If you're wondering why I'm in
(08:16):
bed having cold eggs, burnt bacon, and a pancake filled
with jelly beans, then you've never celebrated Mother's Day. It's
that special day each year when your husband gives you
flowers he bought in a panic at the gas station,
and a CARDI wrote with his feet so it looks
like your dumbest kid did it, But societies have been
honoring mothers since ancient times, including all the way back
in ancient Egypt, where an annual festival honored the mother
(08:39):
of all pharaohs. Isis, No, not the one that you're thinking.
Isis was an Egyptian goddess and style and spo for
every white girl at Coachella. The Greeks and Romans also
had spring festivals celebrating the Great Mother. The Greeks called
her Rehea, who's usually depicted with a mural crown seated
in a chariot pulled by two lions, which is badass
(09:01):
and carbon neutral. We should bring that back. But what
we know to me Mother's Day really traces back to
eighteen fifty two and a woman named Anne Reeves Jarvis.
She started something called Mother's Day Work Clubs, where women
in the community would help needy families buy medicine, get
clean water, and practice safe sewage disposal, which is pretty
intense as far as mom groups go. The one I'm
(09:22):
in mostly just swaps hand me down Elmo Onesie's for weed.
After Anne Reeves Jarvis died, her daughter Anna Jarvis, decided
to honor her. In nineteen oh eight, she organized the
first official Mother's Day celebration in Philadelphia, with the help
of department store owner John Wannamaker handing out hundreds of
white carnations because her mother loved them, even though, let's
(09:44):
be honest, they're kind of the basic bitch of flowers.
And because the day was so successful, Jarvis lobby to
have the holiday honoring mothers added to the national calendar.
She led a letter writing campaign to newspapers, politicians, and
the governors of every state. Now this was before two,
so she couldn't do that thing where you just tag
a bunch of important people and retweet yourself. It didn't work,
(10:06):
by the way. After years of pushing and fighting and writing,
Jarvis's dream was realized when President Woodrow Wilson finally made
Mother's Day a national holiday in nineteen fourteen. It was
the best thing to happen to mothers until the invention
of white zinfidel. But guess what. Once Mother's Day became
an official holiday, Anna Jarvis hated it. She thought her
(10:29):
sincere holiday had become a commercialized racket and called the
florist and greeting card manufacturers Charlatan's bandits, pirates, racketeers, kidnappers
and termites that would undermine with their greed one of
the finest, noblest, and truest movements and celebrations, which basically
sounds like how William Shakespeare would give a one star
Yelp review. Jarvis hated the holidays so much that it
(10:52):
soon became her life's work. To undo her life's work,
she went door to door collecting petitions to take Mother's
Day off the calendar. She threatened people who use the
phrase Mother's Day with copyright infringement. She got in a
fight with Eleanor Roosevelt for using Mother's Day to raise
money for charity, and one time, when a waitress told
her to enjoy her Mother's Day salad, Jarvis threw the
(11:14):
salad on the ground. It's true. You can google it,
although don't search for mother Tass's salad. Those are not
the results you want. I'm trying to get it off
the dark web. Oh you saw it, Yeah, thank you.
But basically, Anna Jarvis brought Mother's Day into this world
and ever since it was an endless source of disappointment
(11:35):
and frustration in her life, which ironically is a pretty
perfect metaphor for motherhood anyway. That is why we celebrate
Mother's Day. Now, if you don't mind, I'm gonna try
to enjoy this abomination of a breakfast hm, HM Licorice, Jellybean.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by
searching The Daily Show wherever you.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Get your podcasts. Watch The Daily Show weeknights at eleven
ten Central on Comedy Central, and stream full episodes anytime
on fairmounth plus.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
This has been a Comedy Central podcast
You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
My guest tonight is the creator and star of the
hit Netflix comedy series Working Moms. Please welcome my good
friend Katherine Wrightman.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Oh my gosh, I.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Look at this. So Catherine and I met how many
years ago?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Just a few two.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
We're so young and lee fresh and young. We met
doing a hidden camera prank show. That's right that I
believe NBC called their worst primetime ratings in history something
like that. I think they might have said that. Yeah, yeah,
but you know what.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
We say that about all the shows. We were very special.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
We really were.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we really were. And this was my
first big break, the real wedding crashers, and I think
it was yours too. We cut our teeth together.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
We did for ten weeks in Vegas, and we somehow
made it out alive. I don't know how.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I mean, by the skin of her teeth. I slapped
a bitch slapped me, true Tristorian, true tried bride who
was in on it, just five fingered me right across
the front.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Yeah, yeah, that was a rough day. We didn't we
couldn't even afford a medic The budget was so low.
You just had to like granted and held a coke
can to my cheek. And now has that ever happened
on Working Moms?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
God slapped?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah right.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Danny Kind, who plays and on the show, loves to
slap a bit. She'll get in there. She's very physical.
I love her for it. I love it.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Oh my god? So you, I mean, you're you're one
of those actors who has always been the total standout
and everything that you've been in, you're so damn funny.
You're constantly working steal every scene. But now suddenly there's
this baby of your seven seasons.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Of Working Moms?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Oh my?
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Eighty three episodes.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yep dropping on Netflix this Wednesday, April.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
You created it, you star in it, you direct it,
you executive produce it. What is it like seeing your
baby all grown.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Up like that? It's wild? You know. I mean, I
entered the show thinking it'll probably get one season and
I'll just try to be as authentic as I can
tell all my stories, cram it into one season, and
each season that we got picked up for another one,
I was in disbelief. I still am.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
It's so good, it's so funny and genuinely I know you.
You're a friend like it feels like you. You can
tell that you put so much of yourself into it.
You cover just in this. I may have snuck a
few episodes of this last season because I got a friend,
got a hook I got a hook up.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Don't be asking me.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
And just in just in this season, you explore so
many themes and issues that are so important. You have
an entire storyline on the male birth control pill.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Yeah, you explore uh, destigmatizing in female sexuality, marriage ruts,
the complexities of female friendships. How do you get ideas
for these stories?
Speaker 2 (03:07):
I guess I just live, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, just a day in the life of a woman.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
I mean, and I'm sure your audience can speak to this.
It's like having a kid, And I mean just watching
this incredible show tonight and seeing all the horrifying statistics
of what it means to go back to work, knowing
that you're going to be looked at differently for being
a mother was so paralyzingly terrifying to me. I didn't
even know I had postpartum depression when I started the show,
(03:32):
and getting through it out a three month old when
we started shooting, and when we wrapped the show and
I all of a sudden realized, like I feel like
I white knuckled through it, Like I don't think I
took a breath until they said cut the last time.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Yeah, and that was part of the inspiration for the show,
right you having gone through that and thinking like there
aren't shows out there that really dive into these topics.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
There sure are more now. Seven years ago it was
a wasteland. I mean I couldn't find any a storyline,
meaning the main plot point of the show about a
woman who happened to be a mother and work. I mean,
look on Work and Moms. The actual amount of time
where you see the female characters with their kids is
like five percent. This is about women being something outside
(04:15):
of the nursery. It's a woman in the workplace show.
And yeah, they've got to juggle it all and try
to have it all, whether that's possible or not.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Do you think it's possible?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yeah? Right, at all?
Speaker 1 (04:38):
You can have it all, but not all At the
same time, I said, what's wise said, it's a different.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
For each person, right, we all have our ways of
sort of working it out of making sacrifices. The guilt
is real.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Guilt is real. Guilt is really said something about mom
guilt that really stuck with me.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
You you sounds like, yeah, very profound.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
You said something in regards to the way that you
talk to your children about going to work.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Yeah, I don't say I have to go to work.
I get to go to work. And I just flip
that tone. I go, like, before I flew to New
York to do this lovely thing with you, I told
my kids, I'm so excited you guys. I've never gotten
to do this sort of thing. I'm so happy with it.
And they feel the joy rating off of me. And
then tonight they were like, we're so excited for you.
(05:23):
And that shift's great.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
That's so beautiful because you are following your passion and
you're clearly meant to do this, and you bring so
much joy to so many people, and you're teaching them
that they can one day do that too, and that's
really important. That's really powerful.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Or marry a woman that takes care of them.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Yes, yes, yeah, also wonderful, so very powerful. You work
with your husband I do show. He plays your actual husband.
He also is an executive producer. And directs on the show.
How how does this work? Because there was a very
brief time during the pandemic when we were filming from
home and I one time asked my husband to hold
(06:06):
the camera and we almost got divorced.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
How do you navigate that it's triggy? I mean, we've
definitely had some serious fights. There's a but then you
also find ways. I mean, look for those of us
who work in separate places on our husbands or wives.
You get to come home and try to share what happened,
and there's sort of like a lack of connection because
(06:29):
you can't talk about what you've done. When I get home,
Phil knows exactly what I've done, right, He witnessed all
my wins, but he also witnesses when I fail, so
that makes it really complicated. Lucky for me, I got
a guy who's a serious cheerleader, you know, he's yeah,
he's had my back. It was his idea to push
me into writing this thing in the first place.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
So thanks Phil, You're lucky to have each other. You're
lucky to have each other. I am. I am so
grateful for you making this show because I finally feel
like there's a show where Working Moms are seen, and
it means a great deal to me. And it's such
a joy to see you do your thing and shine
(07:09):
your light because you are just You're a total inspiration.
So I'm really happy for you and I'm proud of
that I get to be your friend.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Can I return the favor real quick? That? Oh? How
amazing is it that we broke our teeth on the
first Real Wed and Crasher show, which was a hit.
Maybe not, but it was really real critical darling, Yeah, totally,
we were doing some really cool stuff. They're actually but yeah,
I get to now witness your first night hosting the
Daily Show.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Thank you, Thank you for being. I love you to be,
I really do. Thank you. You can watch the seven
season and the final season of Working Moms on April
twenty six on Netflix. If you're wondering why I'm in
(08:16):
bed having cold eggs, burnt bacon, and a pancake filled
with jelly beans, then you've never celebrated Mother's Day. It's
that special day each year when your husband gives you
flowers he bought in a panic at the gas station,
and a CARDI wrote with his feet so it looks
like your dumbest kid did it, But societies have been
honoring mothers since ancient times, including all the way back
in ancient Egypt, where an annual festival honored the mother
(08:39):
of all pharaohs. Isis, No, not the one that you're thinking.
Isis was an Egyptian goddess and style and spo for
every white girl at Coachella. The Greeks and Romans also
had spring festivals celebrating the Great Mother. The Greeks called
her Rehea, who's usually depicted with a mural crown seated
in a chariot pulled by two lions, which is badass
(09:01):
and carbon neutral. We should bring that back. But what
we know to me Mother's Day really traces back to
eighteen fifty two and a woman named Anne Reeves Jarvis.
She started something called Mother's Day Work Clubs, where women
in the community would help needy families buy medicine, get
clean water, and practice safe sewage disposal, which is pretty
intense as far as mom groups go. The one I'm
(09:22):
in mostly just swaps hand me down Elmo Onesie's for weed.
After Anne Reeves Jarvis died, her daughter Anna Jarvis, decided
to honor her. In nineteen oh eight, she organized the
first official Mother's Day celebration in Philadelphia, with the help
of department store owner John Wannamaker handing out hundreds of
white carnations because her mother loved them, even though, let's
(09:44):
be honest, they're kind of the basic bitch of flowers.
And because the day was so successful, Jarvis lobby to
have the holiday honoring mothers added to the national calendar.
She led a letter writing campaign to newspapers, politicians, and
the governors of every state. Now this was before two,
so she couldn't do that thing where you just tag
a bunch of important people and retweet yourself. It didn't work,
(10:06):
by the way. After years of pushing and fighting and writing,
Jarvis's dream was realized when President Woodrow Wilson finally made
Mother's Day a national holiday in nineteen fourteen. It was
the best thing to happen to mothers until the invention
of white zinfidel. But guess what. Once Mother's Day became
an official holiday, Anna Jarvis hated it. She thought her
(10:29):
sincere holiday had become a commercialized racket and called the
florist and greeting card manufacturers Charlatan's bandits, pirates, racketeers, kidnappers
and termites that would undermine with their greed one of
the finest, noblest, and truest movements and celebrations, which basically
sounds like how William Shakespeare would give a one star
Yelp review. Jarvis hated the holidays so much that it
(10:52):
soon became her life's work. To undo her life's work,
she went door to door collecting petitions to take Mother's
Day off the calendar. She threatened people who use the
phrase Mother's Day with copyright infringement. She got in a
fight with Eleanor Roosevelt for using Mother's Day to raise
money for charity, and one time, when a waitress told
her to enjoy her Mother's Day salad, Jarvis threw the
(11:14):
salad on the ground. It's true. You can google it,
although don't search for mother Tass's salad. Those are not
the results you want. I'm trying to get it off
the dark web. Oh you saw it, Yeah, thank you.
But basically, Anna Jarvis brought Mother's Day into this world
and ever since it was an endless source of disappointment
(11:35):
and frustration in her life, which ironically is a pretty
perfect metaphor for motherhood anyway. That is why we celebrate
Mother's Day. Now, if you don't mind, I'm gonna try
to enjoy this abomination of a breakfast hm, HM Licorice, Jellybean.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by
searching The Daily Show wherever you.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Get your podcasts. Watch The Daily Show weeknights at eleven
ten Central on Comedy Central, and stream full episodes anytime
on fairmounth plus.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
This has been a Comedy Central podcast
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