Judd Apatow

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey Phil, Hello Dad. We have a very big important
guest who I have wanted on. I think I asked
him the first week if you would do the podcast
and it only took about one hundred and eighty episodes.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
When you say yes, comedy Legend, Comedy Nerd, Comedy Nerd.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
See the book, Listen to shut out.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
That, Let's build the beans to the fat, Food for
thought and jokes on tap, talking with our mouthsfull, having fun,
the beast Cake and Humble Pies, serving up Slice Lively,

(00:44):
the dressing Homicide, It's naked.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Lunch clothing optional, Walk Hard, are.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Down Lives Rock Row.

Speaker 4 (01:03):
Walk, Oh.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
Are speaking of great things? This book I have read,
I've read The Talmut, and I've read Comedy Nerd by
Judd Apatow. This is not quite as big as the Town's.
Oh yes, guys, we need to do it right. Yes,
but your comedy nerd a lifelong obsession in stories and pictures.

(01:30):
The Talmud has almost no pictures. This has hundreds of
amazing pictures. This book is I think you've been talking
about this for a while. Is this this is not like, uh,
sometimes the scrap book isn't important, but I know that
like the Marx Brothers. There was a book in your
life that and this is I think this for a
young person right now will be their Mars Brothers book.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Are you going to die soon? Is this why you
put this out?

Speaker 4 (01:56):
It's not I'm gonna die soon. It's just it would
be okay if I do.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
It's like that your opinion or the consensus ever.

Speaker 4 (02:03):
You know, people are really into life extension right now.
I'm into life reduction. You know it's too long. I
don't nothing that's coming. I want to be a part
of you know what I mean. When I see a
way mo, I just want to like drive my car
straight at and just test it. Like what does it
do when I go right at it? If you put
a dog here and a cat there and the and
the car has to choose one to hit? Which one

(02:26):
is a program to hit? I want to know it programming.
So yeah, I'm happy to miss the next wave.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
It may be a statement about the entertainment industry right now.
But I was driving up Fairfax I think yesterday and noticed,
why am I seeing five thousand way mos. They've taken
over the parking lot of CBS Television City.

Speaker 4 (02:45):
That's where they all live.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
They hang out there. That's the hundreds and unders talk
about the not wanting to see what's next. I'm reminded
of a person you introduced me to, Larry Gelbart, who
we were we were talking to and he was with
Norman and he was asking what it's like to pitch
a show now, So I started talking. He goes to

(03:07):
Normany interrupts, he just goes, we're dying just in time.

Speaker 4 (03:12):
And that's that's how you feel that at some point.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Well, when you watch the news, Yeah, that was a
great thing. We're done, but I feel bad for the kids.

Speaker 4 (03:22):
Yeah. I mean, maybe they'll reinvent it in something else.
You never know, but that was a great moment. So,
Larry Geilbart, we used to do these dinners at the
Pailey Museum for television. I don't know whose idea it
was to get, probably them to get the showrunners and
a legend to have dinner once a month and so on.

(03:46):
One week it was James Brooks, and one week it
was Carl Reiner, and one week it was Sid Caesar Caesar,
which was incredible, and I don't think they taped any
of it. I hate when people don't tape things. And
then it was Larry Gilbart and I worked up the
courage to ask him to lunch, and we took him
to lunch. We had to pick him up, he didn't drive,
and I had the funniest notes from him just around

(04:09):
that and he he was the one that melt At
his memorial, mel Brooks got up and he said, people
always ask who's the funniest of everyone? And I always
say Larry, and I have a very high opinion of myself.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
Which, by the way, you're how far along are you
in your mel Brooks documentary because we've locked.

Speaker 4 (04:30):
We're sound mixing today. We were sound mixing today. It's
going to be on in January. It's called mel Brooks
the ninety nine year old Man, Phenomenal.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
What will it be on HBO?

Speaker 4 (04:40):
HBO two parts beautiful and a deep Bob Dylanesque dive
like a very He dive into his life and as
a man, you know, the comedy, but also he really
talks about what he experienced over this century because he
was in World War Two. He was in the Army
Corps of Engineers. You know, part of his job was being, uh,

(05:02):
the person that looks for like landmines and booby traps
and dealing with them.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
I could have gone the other way when you have Brooks.

Speaker 4 (05:11):
I mean, I said, Michael, did you worry about dying?
He's like every second, every day.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
That's so great. But we got to have these dinners
with these guys and you I think you know now
I am a little jealous. You got to spend this
much time with mel Oh, it's so great.

Speaker 4 (05:31):
I mean, just the idea that I was able to
spend ten hours grilling him. Wow, you know we would
we would sit down a few hours at a time, Yes,
and then you could just go all right, today, we're
going to do the Producers and just just go as
deep as possible and how he felt, because it is interesting,
like why did you make these movies? And what were
you trying to say? He's very hesitant to admit that

(05:52):
there's any moral or ethical reason why he picks these subjects,
but clearly that is what he cares most about, and
that's why he does things like Saddles And is.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
There a better comic premise for a movie than The Producers?

Speaker 4 (06:09):
It is the perfect idea. And it's funny because someone
was saying, you know, when you watch it, they perform
it like it's a play to a packed house, like
they're playing to the back of the room. But yet
it works perfectly and almost no one can do that
where people are kind of big. The best big performance
ever in a movie, I think, and Gene Wilder it's

(06:31):
just it's just its own magic vibe. Yeah. And then
they talk about that when it came out, they went
to the theater and there was no one there and
they were in a panic. And then Peter Sellers bought
an ad in Variety or maybe Yes and just said
this is the best comedy of the century.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
And then it was revived. Yeah, and then he won
the Oscar And who do you beat Kubrick? I mean
I think he'd beat screenplay. Yeah, one spaced as a director.
This is feeling, this is blocking. I feel like I'm
seeing the anglers. Yeah, right, you're right. No, thank god
you're here tools with a podcast.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
Yeah, your your book is front and center. We also
I noticed Phil has this in this room at all times.
This is Can you explain the importance of the Box
of Cox.

Speaker 4 (07:19):
This is the Dewey Cox Box. This is from walk Hart.
It's the deluxe edition of the soundtrack with an enormous
liner notes package written by you.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
Which I got to read an audio thanks to Judd
and Jay Kasson, directed by two of the greatest directors
of all time. And I think I found it like
a couple months ago. I found the actual audio in
my on my computer, so maybe I'll sneak a little in.
I'm David Wilde, contributing editor for Rolling Stone Magazine, and
welcome to A Long Day's Journey into Cox. An excerpt

(07:55):
from a fans notes for a box of Cox. This
was a big thrill, and I do remember your book.
I was able to live the weekend the movie opened
because you had had me. You were kind enough to
let me like interview Brad Paisley and all sorts of
people in Nashville. We did these little extras or whatever.
But when you got the box office report, I got
the box office report. I was in Palm Springs with

(08:15):
my family, and I remember thinking, is there a decimal
missing exactly? But cut to a year ago. I was
watching My kids wanted to watch it my you know,
college graduate sons, and they think it's bigger in their generation.
This is like bigger than Citizen Kane. This is one
of the great movies. It's it's become a classic.

Speaker 4 (08:35):
It's a I mean, I think that's also part of
what I was exploring in the book is you know,
if you're young and you read the book and it's
really talking about a career. So I put in all
the pilots that didn't get picked up and explained why
and you know what went wrong that There's also these
projects that you'd love that bomb and then you know,

(08:56):
almost you know, twenty years later, you go, oh, they're
still watching that one like that one didn't go away,
and then other ones that did. Okay, you go, I
don't think anyone ever talks about that.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
This one ages beautifully. It maybe plays even better now
because there's movies that have come after it that it
seems to be making fun of before they happen, right
it was agreed.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
Or the Springsteen movie.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
I mean, it's the Elton John bio that that that's
made fun of here before he made.

Speaker 4 (09:25):
That, right, Well, I think it's just you know, I
wrote it with Jake Hazard, and Jakes directing was ridiculous.
It's I mean, everything looks so perfect. It looks like,
you know, walk. One of the things that.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
Looks perfect is can you talk about a certain rabbi
in that movie, Oh, Harold.

Speaker 4 (09:41):
Raimis what if I feel phil and and I forget
there was it was a minion.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
That was so much fun. I just I'm so happy
to be in that in any way. It was so
fun and it's so funny. I'm just so the movie
really is great. And I ran into John c Riley
the other day. He's doing his nightclubbacks, you know, because
he can really sing, and how about how great he is.

(10:10):
I mean, if that came out today, I swear to god,
he'd be up for an Oscar.

Speaker 4 (10:13):
This is so good singing. So that he was nominated
for a Golden Globe. Yeah, for performing in the year
of a strike or something where there weren't any golden clothes.
Get moment to walk in that room with Walk Hard.

Speaker 1 (10:27):
It was not the door.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
To people who haven't seen Walk Hard, you've got to
see that's super funny and really great and one of
the great comic performances. I mean, all the genres that
he's able to tackle.

Speaker 4 (10:39):
Yeah, yeah, there's and so many great songwriters. Yeah, you know,
helped to write the song for the movie. Dan Byrne
and Mike Viola and Marshall Crenshaw wrote the theme.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
Song Thanks to You. I had a tape of every
song from like this, and so my kids are when
I was driving carpools in high school, that was always
on and they think that's bigger than like the anthology
by the Beatles because.

Speaker 4 (11:02):
They grew up and all the stuff that's not in
the movie. And Mike Andrews also, you know, scored it
and wrote the songs and produced all of it. What
was funny about the songs is if you don't listen
to the words, which are so stupid, the songs are amazing, right,
If you just gotta tune out, you can.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
Yes, it's great. Drud you you you oversaw the golden
age of comedy, maybe the last one. So what happened?

Speaker 4 (11:29):
What went wrong? Well, yeah, I think to the world.
I think the world is the world is struggling a
little bit right now from.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
What happened to comedy? And when did because you were
you were comedy, what did was there a moment where
you said, oh, oh, I mean.

Speaker 4 (11:48):
I guess when I look back at it, there was
a transition where DVD went away And the economics of
comedy are pretty simple, which is, you know, say a
comedy costs thirty million dollars. Yeah, if it made forty
million dollars back in the day or fifty million dollars,

(12:08):
it would always make pretty much the same amount on DVD,
And so you made a thirty million dollar movie if
it grows fifty, which is really like one hundred. And
then the math worked that it was worth taking the
risk to make those movies. But when you cut off
the DVD half, that really didn't get replaced by the
streaming money and other things. And so as a result,

(12:31):
the bet became a much trickier beat, so it was
a more of a long shot. And comedies don't usually
play gigantic like in Bulgaria, you know, they don't get
the giant international release. And then other genres are cheaper,
like you can make a horror movie for five million
dollars and it might be big in Bulgaria. And so

(12:52):
I think they stopped betting as often on comedies, and
then as a result, the comedy writers started going, maybe
I'll just make funny YouTube videos, or maybe I'll just
try to get on staff at a streaming show. And
I feel like the young comedy writers don't think I'm
gonna get rich writing feature length comedies. But in the

(13:13):
old day, there was like a market for it where
someone would come up with like a cool idea and
they would pitch as all the studios and they would
get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to write a script.
But that spec market kind of disappeared. So in a
couple of ways, the support beams disappeared, and then everyone's
just looking at jokes all day long on TikTok and

(13:33):
Instagram and so on the weekend, they're not like, oh,
finally some comedy. They've been looking at the funniest shit
in the world, people pooping in a hot tub and
falling off the stairs. You know, like literally, why go
to a comedy when you can just look at your
ring camera? And so, you know, for me, I just
keep going, well, I'm gonna keep you know, taking my

(13:55):
swings at bat and I when I see a great comedy,
I'm always in heaven. And there's nothing better than getting
laughs in a theater. So I think it's cyclical. You
know it will return, you think, yeah, but for the
most but you need good people to do it well
and break new ground the way Monty Python did and
James Brooks did, just like, remember the worst thing you

(14:17):
could ever want to do and show business was make
a pirate movie like that was Death a pirate movie.

Speaker 5 (14:24):
And then Caribbean comes out that we love. I feel
like it all can change in a second. You know,
someone made The Hangover. Now we would make a billion dollars.
There's no great movies being made that are bombing. It's
just they're not making that many and they're not keeping
people in the Habit is the.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
Other half of this disaster, the fact that streaming exists
at all and takes away from the movie theater experience
for for all genres.

Speaker 4 (14:51):
Well, people just don't go to the movies just to
go to the movies. When we were kids, would we
would go every time. We're just gonna go movies.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
Every week, a couple of movies and you could see
an action, a drama, a comedy.

Speaker 4 (15:02):
And we wouldn't have done that if we had a
big screen TV in Netflix. We did it because we
didn't have anything. We were home, there was nothing on.
We had to go to that building to do it.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
And so so the taking away of DVDs, yeah, which
was also part of streaming, and streaming just existing at
all to take away from the theater going audience and
the phone. It's almost like it conspired to kill it.

Speaker 4 (15:28):
All because people think I need to go to the
theater for something wild. Where it used to be like, oh,
I go see like the Firm. Right now I just
go see like a cool drama or a little thriller,
And now it's like, no, it needs to be something
like that's like a wild choice, not just oh, like
a sweet romantic comedy that makes you happy. But I
do think when they're done well, suddenly like movies blow up,

(15:51):
you know where, Suddenly, like Ladybird, it makes a fortune
because it's just great. And so I still have a
hope for that to happen. I think people probably need
to figure out how to make movies a little cheaper.
It's very expensive.

Speaker 2 (16:03):
Well, we love one battle after another, but you'd like that.

Speaker 4 (16:06):
I haven't seen it yet.

Speaker 2 (16:07):
Oh it's really good. But even that, as good as
it is maybe the best movie to come out this year,
it's not really doing great.

Speaker 4 (16:14):
Yeah. Well, maybe it'll just keep going and going and
going because it's great. I hope.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
And this book reminded me of a million things that
I love, including streaming. I will say, here's the upside
of streaming. I think it was during the pandemic my
younger son said, I love this show, Love you will
love it, and I don't know that got me through
like a week of just saving every moment of that
show was so beautiful. And I think Crashing with Pete Holmes,

(16:39):
who has been on the podcast, I think, but so
there is an upside to those that streams.

Speaker 4 (16:45):
Yeah. I mean when we did Love, you know, they
picked it up in the beginning of Netflix and gave
us two years to start, and so we got to
really be experimental and try a lot of stuff. And
you know, Crashing we got to do for three years
at HBO. And but it's still, you know, it's hard
because I think what's slowly happening is I have a

(17:07):
theory about this thing about uh what do they call it?
Completion rates? Like everything, everyone's obsessed with everyone watching it
not shutting it off. So I think when you do
shows for the streamers, like a lot of the notes
sometimes can be like, you know, it has to start
with an explosion. You need to stab someone in the
face the first second of the of the show and

(17:29):
then keep.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
Your attention going then, and I think you could feel
that there's these notes that are all about the fact
that they're terrified you're going to change the channel? Or
do you know why that completion rate is such a thing?

Speaker 4 (17:43):
Why do you know?

Speaker 2 (17:44):
I'm asking?

Speaker 4 (17:45):
I'm not sure, because I guess some people might just
watch four minutes of nine hundred shows, Like does mean
you're going to leave that streamer? You know, because they
want you to stay on there.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
But it's because they're tracking us there and you're home
and they're taking our data, and so the completion rate
allows you to track and I heard this, no.

Speaker 4 (18:07):
Which data like your whole computer or the.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
Data of you watching. They know your age already, they
know where you live, they know everything about you. They
know when you started, when you stopped, the line that
you stopped on. They know everything, and they're selling that data.

Speaker 4 (18:23):
To just know who you are so that someone else
can sell you baconed.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
And the completion rate means you're we're chain smoking, which
is how you're addicted to the service.

Speaker 4 (18:33):
I see, right, So.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
What how do you fight that? And what how do
you sell stuff?

Speaker 4 (18:42):
Now? Well, you know, one of the issues is that
it demands a certain type of storytelling, right. So that's
why you see so many shows about like the nicole
kidman having sex with a twenty year old kid it,
you know, because who shuts that? By the way, your

(19:07):
wife did it.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
She wouldn't even turn it off.

Speaker 4 (19:10):
I mean we have a very different household. Yeah, but
you know what I mean. It's like it's like, you know,
it's like the Menenda's brothers, Like it's not everything and
they kill people and they might suck each other, you know,
and so everything is just so salacious. It is pretty
much like it bleeds, it leads. If it bleeds, it leads.
Is all of television other than Great British Bake Off.

(19:34):
How do we explain that it's or somebody or somebody feed.

Speaker 2 (19:40):
Fill alternate programming. But there's only a couple.

Speaker 4 (19:43):
But also, you know, people will watch your show or
any kind of baking show. And it's also makes you
just so happy. It puts you in a different state
of like I'll put on those shows. We will always
put on like a Gardner or something, and we're so
happy we don't shut it off. I like to watch
the food you eat in your reactions and when you're
disgusted and I said, what's the secret to Phil? The

(20:07):
secret to Phill is he will tell you when he
doesn't like it. What goes up must come down. Spinning

(20:29):
wheel got to go around top about your trouble. It's
a cry and sam a painted poning at the spinding wheels.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
How do you sell in that market? How do you
get because time's are different and you've seen it.

Speaker 4 (20:50):
Yeah, I don't know. You're just gonna keep taking your swings,
and I mean it's definitely hard because I mean myself,
I'm like you, I like human comedy. I'm a Norman
Leer James Brooks like yo, bar guy, here's the here's
the worst part of my career. Yeah, I like things
slow and long. Yeah, you know, I'm the opposite of
this is in my gut. So when people go, oh,
your stuff is long, I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna make

(21:12):
it long and gonna make you suffer through it because
you've lost your attentionce man, I'm gonna make you suffer,
you know, Like that's where my my it's like, yeah,
well it's like if people can't read a book anymore,
should we not write books? So I really feel like,
you know the thing that I do, which is just
there are no villains, there are no superheroes. Uh, it's

(21:32):
just like someone got pregnant and that's enough. That's like
every episode of Raymond is like it's like just the stuff,
and in this at this time, it's not that there
is none of it, because there things slip through and succeed.
But it's a harder pitch to go, what's the show
about family? Parents?

Speaker 2 (21:52):
Nobody's jumping up and down idea.

Speaker 4 (21:55):
Yeah, and then they don't know, like, well why would
people like it would Leo DiCaprio play the parents exactly?
Is there any way we.

Speaker 2 (22:04):
Could get parents parents who are younger than the kids,
that would be great.

Speaker 4 (22:09):
But yeah, it's a challenge. But I just think you
just have to keep trying to make things, you know,
whatever it is like in fact, on some level, I'm like, oh,
it's fun to try to have a more difficult environment,
like how can I slip in? It makes you feel
like an independent rock band, like now you're the replacements
and you're just going, all right, well, maybe I'll make
something you do do some a lower budget or and

(22:30):
you just keep trying to get in.

Speaker 2 (22:33):
Well you're getting in, but you still love what you do.
You're not cynical and saying I'm doing this just to
get in. You have to love what you're doing, even
if it's not the ultimate for you. The Norman Lear show,
it's you're doing something else to get in. And then

(22:54):
is that just in the selling of it?

Speaker 4 (22:57):
Well?

Speaker 2 (22:59):
And then did you make it the way you want
to make it?

Speaker 4 (23:01):
I mean, if things are like hilarious and arresting in youman,
I always think like that can be just as much
as uh, you know, inappropriate age sex like like like
like if someone makes, you know, an incredible show, let's
say all the family right now that that's that's still amazing.
It still starts like a rocket, it's still funny, it

(23:24):
still pulls you. Uh yeah. I mean if someone could
do something that good, I don't think it would be unrecognized.

Speaker 6 (23:34):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (23:34):
And those things do happen, you know, in weird ways.
Baby Reindeer, like the things you know, flee Bag, they have.
Succession is one of the best TV shows of all time.
But it's also it's fun and there are steaks, and
it's dark, and it's it's not selling out in any way.
It wouldn't be smarter.

Speaker 1 (23:54):
But John Law John Landaus Stars and it is.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
Did you see that yet?

Speaker 4 (24:01):
I haven't seen it yet. I'm excited to see the
Bruce Wings movie.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
I'm nervous speaking of rock stars, I listened to you.
I'm going to put it at the top of this
episode so people have already heard it. I think your
version of Spinning Wheel with Dave Grohl and Greg Kursten,
which I think is for like a Hanukkah celebration at Largo,
perhaps what you're I've known your passion for music, and

(24:25):
I've felt it in all your movies, and we've discussed
meant a lot of it. But you're a pretty good singer.
You're you're, you do a pretty excellent David Clayton Thomas.

Speaker 4 (24:34):
That's my only move. I cannot sing. I can't really
do you know Pirates of Penzance. I don't have a voice,
but I do.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
I was hoping we'd get a little.

Speaker 4 (24:46):
I only have Pirates are hot right now. You only
have kind of a slight you know, blood, sweat and tears,
gravel I can get and so, but that was scary
because I really get nervous singing. I'm not a singer
all so, you know, to have like a full band
with horns and Greg Curson and growing spinning wheel, and

(25:06):
I just tried to commit hard because I was scared,
and I thought, I'm just gonna have to go twice
as hard to not be scared. Although one of the
great things that's ever happened to me. I was hosting
a benefit for teen cancer Trusts the day yeah that
Roger Daltrey was there with the Roger Daltry Man and
they said, we're going to auction off that you can

(25:26):
sing one song with Roger Daltrey and his band. So
I'm the auctioneer, and then at some point I realized
I think I can win this thing, and so I
outbid everyone and I win it, and then I go
backstage and for some reason Roger.

Speaker 2 (25:41):
People cheering or.

Speaker 4 (25:44):
People are not sure what it even means. What's coming?
Are you die before you?

Speaker 2 (25:48):
Auctioneer wins the auction.

Speaker 4 (25:51):
And back say Roger Dalty, who's the nicest guy ever
and has raised zillions of dollars for his charity, is
not thrilled about the concepts that he has to perform
with someone from the audience, and the fact that it's
me does not make him any happy. He's just like
this is gonna be a disaster. Why are we doing this?

Speaker 1 (26:09):
Oh God, not since he fired Bringo Son twice in
a week has he been so fissed off.

Speaker 4 (26:14):
He was like not happy. And then I'm like, you know,
we don't have to do it.

Speaker 2 (26:17):
He's like, we'll do it, We'll do it.

Speaker 4 (26:20):
And so then it's time and it's gonna be My Generation,
which I have sung in my basement since I was
nine years old, and the night now I have to
look at the lyrics and go do I actually.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
Know the lyrics are?

Speaker 4 (26:32):
There's a piece of paper with the lyrics, and I'm
studying him and studying. I'm like, could you memorize this?
Would you know this? And then Roger Altry comes out
on stage and he's like, well, we're gonna do this
auction singing thing. This is gonna be this is gonna
be a nightmare. All right, bring out jud Thanks for

(26:52):
the intro that I come out of the lyrics and
I tear them up and toss them and I just
go for it so hard and I know it so
well that when I started stuttering, as you're supposed to, yes,
he started laughing so hard and got the biggest smile
on his face and then we sag it together and
it was one of the I have a video of

(27:16):
it and it's hysterical. There's photos of it where like
we're both swinging. Oh my god, lewis doing it.

Speaker 1 (27:26):
I killed three people.

Speaker 4 (27:27):
I'm in cargo shorts. It's not as cool as but
you know, I hosted it again this year and it
was the who, the whole who were there def Leopard,
John Fogerty, Eddie vedder Uh and Cheap Trick. We're all
there and they were incredible, like every one of them.

Speaker 1 (27:52):
I mean, it didn't matter you were there, you were
with John Fogerty that night or whatever I did. I
interviewed him at the Grammy Museum the next night, and
he does that, He braks into six songs, and you go,
how at eighty years old do you not just do it?

Speaker 4 (28:04):
Not just stand? But he's great. People are great, and
his guitar playing is perfect and his sons. Yeah, well
he's having a blast. He's so happy. See. We have
to be good like that at eighty, you know, because
you know, we meet all these people and they do say, like,
you only live that long and stay that sharp because

(28:25):
you're engaged in your social and you're passionate about your work,
but you really see it with them that they become ageless,
you know, the cheap trick guys are wailing they're so good.
And Mary Gelbart was like that.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
Yes, and when you watch Mick Jagger run around, I
can't run I could never run around that twenty five.
I couldn't run around like he runs around the Yeah,
it's amazing.

Speaker 1 (28:46):
Yeah, you're Do you know about Judge's grandfather and his
musical huge musical history. No, can you just tell Phil
who your grandfather was and how he he was a
major figure in music. Who I In all my different
things I've done, occasionally that name comes up where his label.

Speaker 4 (29:03):
His name was Bobby Shad, guy from the Bronx, from Brownsville,
and he started, like I guess he worked on an
airplane factory during World War Two and I saved up
some money and he would like go and find like
jazz musicians and had his own pocket, like pay them
to go into a studio to play a bunch of songs.

(29:24):
He would get them printed up, go to the record
stores and sell them like himself. And that was like
kind of the beginning of the record business, and then
eventually got hired by labels and became an A and
R guy at these places like you know, Mercury Emercy Records,
but worked with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie and Jerry

(29:45):
Mulligan and Cannonball latterly, and then later had his own
label Mainstream and produced the first Janis Joplin record, signed
her in nineteen sixty six, and did all the first
Ted Nuten and the Andmboy Duke's record.

Speaker 1 (29:58):
And almost signed which reading this book, there's what's funny
is for a book with a lot of photos, it's
a lot of depth, there's a lot, it's a lot
of heart, and you put a lot of your heart
and soul into it.

Speaker 4 (30:08):
But can you say who?

Speaker 1 (30:09):
We almost signed a pretty a decent figure in Rocket office.

Speaker 4 (30:12):
So he goes down south and he sees Elvis and
not Costello, the Presley one. He and he says to
Mercury Records like that we should sign him. They want,
you know, twenty five thousand dollars, and they didn't know
what division would pay for it, like is he country?

(30:32):
Is he a blues guy? Is it a jazz thing?
And so as they're thinking about it. RCA steps in
and they give him the money and a Cadillac. And
so I found an article that's in there which is
all about my grandfather's jazz signings and how the label
Emercy is going. Where he's working, you know, with Quincy

(30:55):
Jones and they're doing Dinad Washington. And in the corner
is a little article. It's literally that big that just
says Elvis Presley signs with RCA Records when no one
knew who he was. It was like it was like
the teeny article. Yes, amazing.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
Were you exposed to all this stuff at the time.

Speaker 4 (31:12):
I was as a little kid. He was still running
the label and we would go visit him at the label.
And the funny thing one says that kid, you don't
know what jazz is because it's so weird, but you
do know Grandpa's cool, like he's a cool and.

Speaker 1 (31:27):
Nancy Jones tells you he's cool. What's funny is I
find generations may not know jazz, but they know cool.
I remember doing a I did a show in Vegas
at one charitable event with Quincy Jones and my son,
who was like twelve, Like, Quincy goes, bring your son
up on stage.

Speaker 4 (31:44):
And he talked to him and he goes, Wow, that's
the coolest guy I've ever met. And I'm like, that
is literally the coolest whoever lived.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
And Quincy Jones thought your grandfather was.

Speaker 4 (31:54):
Yeah, well they did you know Dinah Washington together when
he was really really young, and yeah, and that was
always a name in our house, like, oh, Bobby worked
with with Quincy, And so I think as a kid,
I thought, oh, you have to be a hustler, like
my grandfather is a hustler, Like you can do things.
You don't have to follow the normal path. Be it's
nothing he did was the normal path. And he knew comics.

(32:16):
They knew like Bob Newhart and Steven Neady and Tony
Fields was their best friend. And so that made me
interested that she.

Speaker 1 (32:24):
Bathed you, I think, is that, yes, part of the shocking.

Speaker 4 (32:29):
I saw her perform when I was about ten, and
she had her leg amputated because she had diabetes. And
I went to see her at Westburany Music Fair and
they take her out on a golf cart and she
sits in this chair and just tears the house down.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
She was hilarious.

Speaker 4 (32:46):
It's genuinely, it's worth like looking it up on YouTube
how funny she was. And I think at some level
I just thought, wow, because she's, you know, like a
she was like a classically beautiful woman. She was like
a self deprecating female comic in the Joan Rivers form.
She was a great singer. And I just thought, look
how these people love her or giving her standing ovations,

(33:06):
and it's a look And I thought, Oh, you can
be weird and have people like you.

Speaker 2 (33:10):
Funny? Is funny? You? You might know the answer to this.
HBO has and I know you know this. They tape everybody. Yeah,
they they have that total feel.

Speaker 4 (33:24):
Bought it on DVD ones, It might be on YouTube.
Shelley Burn, Yeah, Steve Martin, there's a was an HBO
on locations Best Sammy.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
Davis Junior in Vegas, all the great Shecky Green everybody.

Speaker 4 (33:37):
Yeah. Well that was the beginning of HBO's.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
One Night Only or whatever it was called. Where are
those tapes? Isn't there a fortune to be made in
releasing those or just putting them on the service?

Speaker 4 (33:50):
They own them?

Speaker 2 (33:50):
I mean, is it a right set?

Speaker 4 (33:51):
It's always who owns those? I think because I've had
things where you go, who owns this? And people like,
we don't know, and anyone's afraid to do anything, and
it's just there's no paperwork.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
But this stuff exists and is an amazing historical treasure
trove that's really entertaining and fun.

Speaker 4 (34:06):
All those are on eBay, like all the DVDs. At
one point they put out DVDs of a lot of them,
and they're all considering exactly yeah, right, yeah, they were.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
They were great, And it's gonna wait. We'll all wait
until Judd does the documentary about every one of these people.

Speaker 4 (34:22):
And then we'll see it.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
Like you're doing Is it true? You're doing Norm McDonald,
who I loved, Yeah, I think I don't know. Have
you how far into that process are you?

Speaker 4 (34:31):
We're just finishing up. I mean I met Norm right
when he moved to town in the early nineties. Maybe
it was before then, it could have been eighty nine ninety.
And we both got hired at the same time with
John Regi to write jokes for Roseanne Bar's acts.

Speaker 2 (34:46):
Oh my God.

Speaker 4 (34:47):
And so we would go to her house on Sunday
and sit at her kitchen table, and Roseanne would bring
out all these stacks of yellow legal pants where she
had ideas for jokes, and we'd write jokes for her.
But then very quickly Roseanne put him on Roseanne. So
then I was left alone to write Roseanne's act for

(35:11):
a year because he and then he went to SML
like six months after that, Like the whole thing took
off very quickly. But I always remember being at Roseannees
with him and let's try to figure out how to
write jokes from a forty year old woman's point of view,
Like why would you hire us to you know, for her? Now? Yeah, exactly,

(35:31):
It's it's it's a complicated point of view. So I
listen to her podcast. I mean, like Roseanne, whatever it is,
it's always entertaining her talk show. Do you remember when
she had the talk show? Absolutely?

Speaker 1 (35:44):
But last week she was had such trouble booking guests.
She had me on twice and the first time she
loved me, and the second time she hated me. I
think one of her personalities.

Speaker 4 (35:53):
But you really listening to her now, oh yeah, yeah,
trump uh she well, I don't even know how you
would describe it. Really, she's uh in that world. I
don't know exactly how everything breaks down. I haven't listened
to the last few months to see if anything has changed.

Speaker 2 (36:07):
Okay, uh, let's talk about this doc One of my

(36:42):
favorites also, he was a much better friend of yours,
but I got to become really nice friends with him
towards the end was Gary. Gary Shandling, How great was
that documentary?

Speaker 1 (36:54):
Unbelievable And reading this book, you'll.

Speaker 2 (36:56):
You're the keeper of the flame doing these things important
at the comedy the Ken. But talk about that, what
that making that was like for you?

Speaker 4 (37:09):
Well, you know Gary, you know, Gary died just very sudden, suddenly,
you know, I just got like all one day, like
go to the hospital. We think Gary had a heart attack,
and we're a bunch of us are like in front
of the hospital and someone looks on their phone and
on t m Z it said that he had That's awful.

(37:30):
Before we were the whole thing was very you know,
it's very like traumatic. And and Gary didn't have a
lot of family. He had has, you know, his cousin,
Mike's best guy. But I would get so many emails
and calls because people didn't know who to call. And

(37:50):
so very soon we were talking about doing a memorial
service and and I said I'll put that together and
we did this giant thing at the Bullsuer Email and
a thousand people there. Yeah, and Johnny Depp played guitars
and we did sketches like it.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
Was a really Remember I was working with your friend,
our friend Wayne Fetterman like that week and he goes,
you can come, and I'm like, I can't go to that,
Like I worked with Gary Once, with Mel Gibson and
Jamie Fox for yeah, two days, but I didn't feel
And then when I saw what the show was, I
was like, fuck, I should have thought.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
And Kevin Nealan gave maybe the best eulogy of all time.

Speaker 4 (38:27):
Oh my god. His eulogy which I put in the documentary.
It's one of the great comic moments I've ever seen.

Speaker 2 (38:34):
And he was able somehow to shift from tears to laugh.

Speaker 4 (38:40):
It was, Yeah, it was really really special. Then. Yeah,
I mean I look back now and I just think
I was in such a fever dream of grief. I like,
like almost like a nanic phase because I put together
this memorial and I started cutting little I have ten

(39:00):
minute collages of his work, little dock pieces, which is
when I realized, oh, I could maybe do a royal doc.
But then I worked on a sketch where Hank is
talking to Larry's assistant about when he speaks at the
memorial and he wants to know the order because he

(39:22):
doesn't want to have to follow Billy Crystal and he
doesn't want to be on too late or too early.
But now I look back and go, Wow, you were
out of your mind. The fact that you would take
the risk to put on a sketch at a memorial
just shows that you were out of your head. I
mean it went well when Sandler came out and saying

(39:45):
the George Harrison song gave me love and y Ryan
Adams performed with Johnny Depp and yeah, it God, Sarah
Silverman was so funny, Sarah Silverman doing dirty jokes, and
there was all these monks there. Monks did some like
masturbation joke. Just apologize all the monks. But and I

(40:07):
think that energy went into the documentary because it really
felt Gary guided like it's a very special thing. But
when I look at it, I think, well, Gary was
just on our shoulder for the whole thing because he
was a very private person. And then we made this
choice to use his journals to tell the story of
his life because I thought, well, Gary would want people

(40:31):
to learn from whatever that was, Like, I don't think
in death Gary would think keep it all a secret
because he was into Buddhism. And in that Comedians and Cars,
there's this amazing moment where they were talking about David
Brenner dying and Seinfeld goes, I always think, what's gonna
happen all those jokes and Gary says something like it

(40:54):
doesn't matter. There was just an expression, you know, you know,
of his humanity, and I thought, oh, that's really what
Gary thought, you know? And was that said? Was that said?

Speaker 1 (41:06):
Is fascinating in place. I was there for one day
interviewing Rip Torn for Rolling Stone.

Speaker 4 (41:11):
Wow, well that's a day. Well what I remember.

Speaker 1 (41:13):
The amazing thing was I saw Gary coming around acting.
I thought it was just a bit for me, acting
jealous and like teasing Rip Torn and Riptron getting angry
with him for doing and then I realized seeing the
doc and all that, I don't know how much of
it was act.

Speaker 4 (41:29):
Think anyone knows you know what you know what what
it all was, because the show would take whatever was
happening at the office and put it in the show,
like it was just like layering on itself, so if
someone got into a fight in Gary's life. Gary, I
remember the one we always talk about is I guess
Smigel wrote a sketch where Dana Carvey played Gary and

(41:53):
the impression was really funny but really mean and just like, eh,
my ass. It wasn't a very deep vision of Gary,
and he had this terrible fake teeth and wig. And
then Carvey called him Gary to apologize and Gary said,
you know what, We'll just we'll just do something on

(42:14):
the show about it. And then they did an episode
where Dana was the guest host and kept doing this
Larry impression.

Speaker 2 (42:22):
And that's what great sense of humor that he had
about himself. I mean, that's really fantastic. My favorite episode
I think is Hank's Night in the Sun.

Speaker 4 (42:30):
Oh yeah, Peter Tolan wrote that, and it's.

Speaker 2 (42:32):
Just the first episodes of television ever.

Speaker 4 (42:34):
I mean, Peter Tolan's writing was crazy, you know, because
there's like a staff, and you know, there were different
show runners who were all great. A lot of them
got fired just because Gary was so exhausted and fried
and he just couldn't handle how much work he had
to do, and so the place could get really unpleasant.
But through it all Toland, which was right, these scripts,

(42:56):
and every time you got one you were like, this
is unbelievable, like how well he wrote that show. And
then Gary and Peter wrote the last episode, which really
was a beautiful with Sean penn On talking to Larry
about what a jerk Gary Shandling.

Speaker 1 (43:15):
Is, which would now be called meta. Yeah, exactly, the
one I went back to again, I think once during
the pandemic and again I just watched the pilot again
the other night.

Speaker 2 (43:27):
Because we were so excited.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
You're because I asked you on by the way the
first week and been waiting I needed to finish the book, Yes, exactly,
But in any case, I went back to Freaks and
Geeks and I, you know, we both know Jake and
all that, but that show when you think how that
sort of a how special it is, like you talk
about all in the family like that was for my

(43:49):
kids generation. Yeah, that's one of the most special shows
of all time. And you see the reverberations in these
careers like Seth Rogen, it's like you've literally found him,
Like was he like kid who self taped something on.

Speaker 4 (44:01):
He did an audition when he was sixteen in Vancouver,
and it was just so funny. I mean, whatever happened
to him. He won a lot of Emmys this year's
clearly he's he's storing them right now. No, he was incredible.
He was so funny, and you know, it was really
important to Paul Fie, the creator, to you know, have
the cast be super real, because it was all kind

(44:24):
of a reaction to shows like Dawson's Creek, and he
was like, let's, you know, let's make sure this feels
very authentic. And so we really looked everywhere for the cast,
and we would do open calls where like a thousand
people would show up and from that, yeah, yeah, well
Lee Shepherd, who played like the guru geek, was someone
who just showed up at one of those. But we

(44:45):
were like, oh, it doesn't even have to be someone
that thinks they're an actor, just an interesting person. And
then when we casted, then Paul tailored it to the
you know, he had ideas for all of it, and
then he made the adjustments based on what Jason Siegel
was like and Linda and Busy was like. And you know,
Seth revealed himself very quickly to be an incredible writer
because what would happen is sometimes a scene wouldn't be working,

(45:08):
and we'd go, let's go in the office and let's
just riff on it. Let's just do an improv version
of it to see how it should really be. And
then seth would be three times funnier than the scene.
And so it became very clear, Oh, he has a
real writer's mind. And then he admitted that he was
writing a movie with his friend Evan called super Bad
since he was thirteen or fourteen years old. And then

(45:32):
you know, when we did Undeclared, we said, well, let's
put him on the show and make him a staff
writer on the show. And then he just, you know,
just gets better and better.

Speaker 1 (45:40):
I mean, Undeclared, you managed to weaven Loud and Wayne
Wright and another one of your musical favorites. Yeah, you've
got Graham Parker at the heart of this is forty,
which allowed me to have my nine words, which I
still get a check every few months.

Speaker 4 (45:53):
Thank you for that.

Speaker 1 (45:55):
But how the music sign of what your passion for
music is. It been a great thing that you've been
able to weave that into the tapestry of Like, going
through this book, I'm just seeing like and I have.
I'm gonna weave songs that mean a lot to me
from your movies and TV shows and your version of
Spinning Wheel into this episode. But what's it meant to you?

Speaker 6 (46:14):
Like?

Speaker 1 (46:14):
Even we're both but Phil probably even a bigger James
Taylor fan, and I think like, okay, and funny people,
you managed to get him, You make the corporate gig.
You managed to get James Taylor in the corporate gig.

Speaker 4 (46:27):
Yeah, I you know, obviously I wish I could play
music or write other than writing kind of silly songs
for the movie. Sometimes there's nothing that makes me sader
than I can't actually play an instrument and I can't draw.
But I do like being around it and conceptualizing it
and meeting those people. You know, James Taylor, you know,

(46:49):
agreed to do this bit where he's performing at the
MySpace corporate event. Yeh. And then we were trying to
get him to sing a song and at the end
go fu Facebook. And then he was like, I want
to say fuck Facebook. I'm James Taylor, right, that's like
a little a little much for me. And then he
did two or three takes where he said like screw Facebook,
and it didn't get a laugh, and then he's like,

(47:11):
I'm gonna try fuck Facebook this one.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
Then he did it and how everyone becomes a comedy whore, and.

Speaker 4 (47:19):
It was just a great moment with Seth where Seth goes,
you ever get tired or playing Fire and Rain, and
James Kelly goes you ever get tired of talking about
your dick? James Taylor and Graham Parker, you know, was
in This Is forty and you know, I needed someone

(47:39):
to play a brilliant rock star who at this moment
later in their career is not doing as well. And
so I took him out to lunch and I was
explaining to him and he's like, oh, so you wanted
me to play like the guy who's not telling any records?
Is it doing well? Oh yeah, I could do that. Yeah,
I know what that is. And he'd loved the joke.

(48:00):
And so, you know, he had this band, you know,
Graham Parker and the Rumor, and they hadn't been together
for like twenty years, and in the movie we said,
maybe that's the hook, is that they're going to get
back together, and then he called them. They all agreed
to reunite for the movie and then they did their

(48:21):
first live performance in the movie, then they did the Roxy,
then they went on tour, then they were got out
the record.

Speaker 1 (48:29):
One of them just died and thank god you got
them back together. Test And I remember at the reunion show,
which was shot downtown, and next year the you invited
me because I was going to be in a scene
interview him in Yamka like two days later, but I
got to watch it with you and Paul right and
it was like magical, And I just think, like it
is in addition to everything else, the fact that you've

(48:51):
been able to weave.

Speaker 4 (48:52):
Yeah, I think to me, that's better than everything. Like
they got back together and had the best time because
of this like funny idea we needed for the movie.
And Graham is the nicest man and so funny. It
was that run in the movie where he was saying
to Paul Rudn, you know the keda life is you
gotta have a small nut, you Everything's fine, And he
got small nuts. Yeah. He came up with so many

(49:13):
funny things. That's great. But yeah, I mean, like Eddie
Vedder was in Walk Hard, and you know, we asked
him to do like kind of a parody of rock
rock the same speech, and so I sent him like
a little paragraph like would you do this? And he
said yes, And then when he showed up, we were like,
let's get a longer one just in case we want

(49:34):
to decide what we would use. Maybe we'll use it
over a montage. So then we turned it into like
two pages and he shows up and he goes, what
the fun and then we put it on like a telepropter.
Eddie did the whole thing in one take and just
crushed it. And then when he was done, he said,
They're never gonna let me go back on that show again.

Speaker 2 (49:57):
That I love that you get to see people who
you wouldn't think could be funny, and he surprised all
of us, not just you, everyone.

Speaker 4 (50:07):
It's so funny when people like that. I mean when
I think of like like the music highlights, Yeah one
Mariah Carey and you don't mess with like that was
my favorite. And then we were shooting pop Star and
a Kiva and Yourma were busy shooting, they said, will
you interview Ringo Star for the movie. So he's like

(50:31):
one of the talking heads in the documentary about Andy's
character and their their group. And so I'm doing the interview,
and everyone's like, you know, he doesn't want to talk
about the Beatles, so just don't get into that stuff.
And then every question I ask he somehow mentioned no
matter what it is, and so and so. None of
this is scripted. It's just like a riff on, you know,

(50:52):
talk about them like they're as important as you. And
he's hysterical and the nicest man. But at one point
I said, you ever think like it's good that the
Beatles broke up because if the Beatles didn't break up,
we wouldn't have gotten photograph and imagine and paying on
the run. And he looked at me as if it
wasn't a movie, and he just goes, no, of course

(51:16):
the Beatles shouldn't have broken up. What are you talking about?

Speaker 1 (51:21):
Because he brought up pop Star never stopped, never stopping.

Speaker 4 (51:24):
I will tell you.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
I will share my story of that movie, which was
I think after they did the initial production, I got
a call from someone in your office saying, okay, the
lonely on the guys are already shooting something. They're already
doing something else, but they wanted to interview me as
me talking about the pop Star Yeah, And I thought
it went pretty well. But I got a call from
your office going they loved it, they want you to

(51:46):
come back. And then I got a call saying, don't
come back. And then it's like you're in the movie.
You're not in the movie, you're in the X DVD experts.
And then it was like you're not in the DVD excerpt.
So my perform minutes went and then so I didn't
actually go to the movie the first few weeks, and
you're curious. My son finally said, let's go see it.

(52:08):
I went to it and I said, oh my god,
I love the movie and I'm so.

Speaker 4 (52:11):
Glad why I cut myself out? It was so so funny.
It's so funny. You got you know, you got a
little bit ambitious after this is for Yeah, I.

Speaker 1 (52:21):
Still get the three dollars and sixty three cents checked,
even though I'm not in any of it.

Speaker 2 (52:25):
So okay. So mel Brook's coming out January Anuary. Yes,
the book is out now.

Speaker 4 (52:30):
Book it comes out like October twenty seven. But you
could pre order it, yeah right now, yeah, Amazon or
somewhere you should.

Speaker 2 (52:38):
So entertaining, it's fun. What you're always doing a million things?
What else?

Speaker 4 (52:43):
What else I have a documentary about Maria Bamford.

Speaker 2 (52:48):
Oh she's great.

Speaker 4 (52:50):
Wow, So that's another documentary.

Speaker 2 (52:52):
And you're directing all of these, not just when I'm.

Speaker 4 (52:55):
Co directing my friend Neil Berkeley and Michael Bonfigliou and
I did meld together great. And then we're also making
a documentary about the incredible bluegrass musician Billy Strings. Oh,
he's amazing him around. And that's that's like this year's work.
We're like kind of beginning the names thing process now.
But yeah, it's funny because I I feel like when

(53:17):
we're when we're doing the work, like Shannon always said,
like you're just trying to dig to the truth. Can
you get to the core? And there's something about documentaries
which is the same thing, right, It's just you're doing
all these interviews and you're looking for all this archive
and you're like, can I get across what this story was,
who this person was? Like can someone who didn't know
Gary watched this and understand and get it? And to

(53:39):
me it feels similar, but it's also way less stressful
because when you write jokes, you don't know if they're
gonna work, and so you're always stressed because until you
show it to someone. Yeah, you may have humiliated yourself,
but with a documentary you don't feel oncoming humiliation, which I.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
Like, so always work in documentaries.

Speaker 1 (54:30):
Uh, with music and your passion for it, I wanted
to ask you, it's actually come up. A couple of
things have come up on the podcast. We had Michael
McDonald in Paul Riser. Can you talk a little bit
about your choice?

Speaker 2 (54:41):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (54:42):
In the forty year Old Virgin, Like how that was
one of the most important music cues of all time.

Speaker 4 (54:49):
Well, first continent to Doobie Brothers, great and where it
was at Nasal Coliseum minute by Minute tour in the
early eighties. And and I just always loved the Doobie Brothers,
always love Michael McDonald's a kid, had all the solo albums,
knew the solo albums inside and out. And then you know,
I used to work at El Teredo as a busboy

(55:09):
and they would always play the same, like ninety minutes
of music all day. It was just on a loop.
So if you worked there for a few months, you
would know the words even though they were not in
your language. And so when we were writing the movie,
Steve and I I thought, oh, they should play the
same DVD on the TVs in the TV stereo store

(55:32):
and driving and that they're going insane and it should
be Michael McDonald live. And then this friend of ours, Harry,
who worked at Universal, was friends with Michael, and Michael
thought was hilarious. I loved the joke, and that's why
you have the pull red line. If I hear Yamo
be there one more time, I'm gonna Yamo burn this
place down. David, what do you suggest we played?

Speaker 2 (55:54):
I don't care anything.

Speaker 4 (55:56):
I would rather watch a Beautician and the Beast. I
would rather listen to Fran Drescher for eight hours, and
I have to listen to Michael McDonald.

Speaker 2 (56:03):
Nothing against him, but.

Speaker 4 (56:04):
If I hear Yamo be there one more time, I'm
going to Yamo burn this place to the ground. And
that was before yacht Rock. Yeah, And so that now
you know, I got. I was able to do a
largo with Michael McDonald. And when his book came out,
they came and Michael played, and Paul Reiser, who wrote
his memoir with him, talk to me. And then the

(56:26):
other night of the Teen Cancer Trust the benefit, Michael
McDonald was there and I was talking to Eddie Vedder
and I'm like, you ever meet back with that? I
was like, no, I never met Michael McDonald, Like you
want to meet Michael McDonald. That's why I got to
introduce Eddie Vedder to Michael McDonald's. That's a historic that's
in my life.

Speaker 1 (56:43):
What's when there's reading your book, which again everyone should do,
there's moments where I go, like an alternate version of
a successful version of my wife, my life had been
well lived. No, but like literally from grant work, writing,
from the Grammys and all this stuff. But like, yeah,
I remember point at the Beatles Grammy tribute Peter Frampton

(57:04):
like put me, you know, I'd just gotten to know him,
and he put me in the arm and he goes,
can you introduce.

Speaker 4 (57:08):
Me to Eric Idol?

Speaker 1 (57:09):
And I'm like if you had told me as a kid,
a teenager, like yeah, that's like the epicenter of my life. Yeah,
And I couldn't believe that would ever happen.

Speaker 4 (57:19):
I know. It's it's funny the situations you get into,
especially when you've been around a lot, like a long time,
and then like just like oh there's there's a Pete Townsend.
Then you just go I was ten years old in
a room in my underwear, a tennis racket, like playing
Quadrophenia for three and a half hours straight, jumping up
and down like he has no idea how much he

(57:40):
like shaped my consciousness.

Speaker 1 (57:43):
How grateful are you the book you dedicated to I
want to get it right to my I think it's
to my parents Maury and Tammy, Yes, yeah, who believed
in me into Leslie, Maud and Iris who also believed
in me, but still refuse to watch.

Speaker 4 (57:56):
Some of the things I've made.

Speaker 1 (57:58):
So I wonder with your parents was it. Did you
have the perfect amount of love and also inattention to
become who you became? I mean you were not despite
Bobby Shad, you were not like the NEPO baby pushed
into the business.

Speaker 4 (58:15):
Right Well, I feel like, you know your parents, it's
really about like they exposed you to something that you
care about. It's like my dad would just laugh at Taxi.
We would just watch it and I always remember the
like the yellow Light slow Down, and I just remember
watching with my dad and just how hard we laughed.

(58:36):
And we would watch all the family together and they
you know, my mom and dad loved these comedy albums.
They were just like Bill Cosby Records and now was
and George Carlin and and Lenny Bruce, And when I
wanted to do comedy clubs, they would you drive me.
You know, my mom was a was a hostess at
a comedy club after they got divorced, and I always
see east Side Comedy the East End in Southampton, and

(58:58):
I always thought, I think she only took that job
for me, Like how much would they pay her to
be a hostess to seek people at a comedy club.
She must have taken that for me, right, Like why
else would she do something like that? That's so great?
And so there were there were a big reason. But
also in addition to their divorce kind of warping my

(59:19):
brain in many ways because it was like a nineteen
seventies early eighties divorce, but before we knew how to
consciously uncouple, we would just brawl. And but I always
think about my kids and I go, I feel like
we fuck them up just enough for them to be
able to get a job, you know, like you do
need it to not work perfectly to like because you

(59:41):
person deal with other people.

Speaker 1 (59:43):
Yes, exactly, hurt your kids, see that's the thing. Well,
as a child of divorce. I sometimes film that might
be the secret to why your touring act is so
loving and well, you may be your Max and Helen
stayed together.

Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
But there were times growing up when you go, they
should really get divorced. Yeah, that happens too. I mean
it's not without fights.

Speaker 4 (01:00:10):
We all fight.

Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
Everybody fights, that's but I don't know. Staying together, I
don't know, was just like not not even a consideration
to you don't do that, And so I feel like
that's been passed down. Yeah, because I drive her nuts
exactly and she she she could do much better.

Speaker 4 (01:00:31):
But the other day I realized that I've been wrong
about everything the whole time. I just have I been
wrong about it, And I think now I just take
her side whenever we're talking about like something that happened,
I'm like, yeah, as if I'm not me, I'm just like,
what the fuck is he doing?

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
But you realize how cool your parents were.

Speaker 4 (01:00:51):
Yeah, they definitely were, and they were funny.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
And did they drive you like you know that you
have these famous stories where you went to interview your idols.

Speaker 4 (01:01:01):
Yeah they would, you were h oh, yeah, they would
drive you to They drive me to the city to
meet Steve Allen, and they crazy would drop me off
at a comedy club to do ten minutes it chuckles
at eleven thirty at night. And yeah, I mean literally
the middle of the night, like taking me to a
comedy club and I'm like seventeen years old. Yes, and
just always thought it would work out, which sanely talked
about that on the Mark Twain Awards. Yes, just that

(01:01:24):
thing where like just the look in their eyes is
like you're gonna do well. Because we're all so insecure
that to just plant that in you separate from all
the other stuff. But somewhere I was like, oh, I
think I'm gonna be able to get a job. Gives
you the courage to risk because you have to fail
so much and withstand so much rejection that them thinking

(01:01:45):
like it's all gonna work out gave me a lot
of the back.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
But you did something that people are afraid to do,
which is to follow the passion. You had a real
interest in it. Yeah, we all did, but you actually
said I'm gonna go talk to these people. Yeah, and
most people, I'm guessing we're very happy to talk to
an interested kid.

Speaker 4 (01:02:08):
Yeah, everyone was. Everybody was very nice. I mean yes,
and I have the tape, so like I could hear it,
you know, like yes, like me talking to Harold Ramis
for forty five minutes. Well, he's prepping vacation. He han't
even made vacation yet, and just asking him, like, how
do you how do you learn how to write a screenplay?
Every question was something I just wanted to know. Yes,

(01:02:28):
how do you write a joke? You know? Seinfeld explained
how to write a joke.

Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
But everyone comes from somewhere.

Speaker 4 (01:02:32):
They were you.

Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
Yeah, they had idols they had so they recognize they
see people. This is the lesson take an interest, pursue
your interest. Yeah, it's not coming to you. They're not
coming to They don't know to call you, and no one.

Speaker 4 (01:02:47):
Tells you that, like when you first have kids that Yeah.
The big thing is can you want your kids to
have an interest and have drive and ambition? Yeah, And
that's the thing you never think about.

Speaker 6 (01:02:58):
You.

Speaker 4 (01:02:58):
It was like, oh, I got to keep him safe,
but everything I need to implant the energy to pursue
something exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:03:03):
And which, by the way, is counter The phone is
a great energy sapper.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
So yes, it's because it's so much easier to just
look at the phone.

Speaker 4 (01:03:11):
But I think when my kids saw how sad I
was when Walkhart made one point nine million dollars opening weekend,
they they knew that they don't understand lets do that,
they'd have to work hard in life, Like I don't
want to look like dad looks right.

Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
But now now it's a classic.

Speaker 4 (01:03:31):
Now it's great and gets better with the Yeah, but
that is the thing.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
Can take an interest, take an interest and act on it.

Speaker 4 (01:03:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:38):
My dad told me always that he realized who I
was when I was nine or whatever in Miami and
he looked over at the Fountain Blue Hotel or wherever
we were, and I was talking to these five people, uh,
and they were the fifth dimension.

Speaker 4 (01:03:53):
And he walked over and talked about Marilyn mccoob.

Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
Marilyn mccoob and Billy Davis, who you had dinner with,
uh and Ron. But my dad walked over and said,
I'm sorry if my son is bothering you, And they said,
bothering us. That's the best interview we've had in years.

Speaker 4 (01:04:06):
And I thought, and he.

Speaker 1 (01:04:07):
Goes, oh, I guess that this is a passion that
I will support, and so they encourage that. Yes, my
dad kept every article, like in this briefcase, they supported it.
My dad went to the record store in ten to
find New Jersey and said, because it was it was
a bookstore primarily, but they had a few records. He goes,
my kid can charge any record he wants here.

Speaker 4 (01:04:26):
And I took that great advantage of oh, that's incredible, wow,
because I only had like fifty records when I graduated
from high school. How many now? I mean, I'm so
I'm switching back to vinyl, so I have to I
have to reacquire. But I had all my records from
Long Island sent here and I and they sent me
the Doobie Brother's Greatest Hits and it was signed and

(01:04:49):
it was like because we had an auction in our
high school radio station. It was signed by Patrick Simmons.
And then I did the concert and I met Patrick Simmons.
How cool.

Speaker 1 (01:04:57):
Well, by the way, we were talking just in our
previous podcast with Tom Poppo today about movies, and he
asked if I cry a lot? I said, in movies
on planes, I cry a lot. Here's an example you
made him. There's a movie mentioned in here called Flip Side,
which is a documentary about you think it's about a
record store near where I grew up in New Jersey.

(01:05:18):
But in fact it's about careers and why and the
things that don't come to pass. And it's beautiful and
I think I wept during it.

Speaker 4 (01:05:27):
I'm like, why am I weeping up? I love that movie.
Chris Wilcha directed it, and he wanted to make a
movie about the fact that he made this incredible movie
when he was young, and he thought he would make
all these documentaries, but he wound up directing a lot
of commercials, and he had a bunch of featured documentary

(01:05:47):
projects that all didn't get finished or released. He later
was a director on the TV series This American Life
and did brilliant work, and so he wanted to do
almost like an essay type document about creativity and your
hopes and your dreams and art versus commerce. And so
it's called Flip Side and you can get it on Apple.

(01:06:09):
You could buy it on Apple. But there's a whole
section about David Milch, because I know David Milch created
Deadwood and co created NYPD Blue with Stephen Botchko, and
I was taking Chris to meet him, and David Milch said,
I'd like you to do a documentary about my friend

(01:06:29):
Herman Leonard, this jazz photographer. He's sick, he has cancer,
but I'd like to do a piece about him. And
my grandparents actually gave him his big break and made
him like the staff photographer for like Mercury Jazz or Emercy.
So he was always a family friend of my grandparents.
So Milk just takes out cash and just gives him

(01:06:54):
some money to start and he starts shooting and very
quickly in Herman Leonard died. Oh, and he cuts it together,
but it's just like ten minutes. He's like, I'm sorry,
I couldn't do more, and David said, no, it's okay.
I just wanted you to be around him so he
would feel important at the end of his life.

Speaker 6 (01:07:13):
Oh, but this movie is beautiful because he takes so
you used me, but it was like a Truman show thing,
and it was so beautiful and so weird that he
did that.

Speaker 4 (01:07:25):
And then but Chris takes all that footage and all
that and now so he repurposes all the interviews and
they're all about mortality and art and it fits into
a collage.

Speaker 2 (01:07:35):
Yeah, it's beautiful.

Speaker 1 (01:07:36):
Yeah, Well, this is one of the great things about
this book is it's other books people just talk about
all the big successes and you have literally you'll hear
about knocked Up. There's a great like pictures and photos,
but you also hear about things that didn't happen, like
there's is it North Hollywood? Nor tell Phil who was
in the cast of North Hollywood.

Speaker 4 (01:07:54):
So right after Curb Your Enthusiasm started, I thought, oh,
we should do something with this idea of working very improvisationally.
And you were on Curve your Enthusiasm couple times, and
so I went and visited the show and Larry was
about to shoot and I said, has there anyone ever

(01:08:17):
locked up and not been able to do it? And
he goes, no, no, no, no, it's happened so far.
And then uh right, then they started shooting and the
guy locked up. You jinxed it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:31):
Up, he goes.

Speaker 4 (01:08:34):
He goes, you've got a five episode arc. Oh no,
and then and then I bumped at it. Later, I'm like,
what happened with that? He's like, he loosened up, But
you must have done the show. I never did the show.
There was one moment where I got a call and
I think they were considering me for something and then
they said they needed someone who was more of a

(01:08:55):
clear asshole. So anyway, so we came up with this
idea about a group of people trying to break into
show business as comedians and actors. And so the cast
was Jason Siegeal January Jones, Amy Poehler, Kevin Hart, and

(01:09:16):
then Amy Poehler played Judge Reinhold's assistant, and Judge Reinold
was on the show.

Speaker 1 (01:09:21):
And you could book a whole comedy festival for next
year just based on the stars.

Speaker 4 (01:09:27):
This is two thousand and two Wow. And we shot
it and in the middle of shooting it's someone showed
me an article in Varieting. It said that ABC wants
to return to the half hour style of la Vernon,
Shirley and Mark and Midney and Happy Days. And we
just went, oh, we're dead. They've just decided not to
do whatever this new attempt is. And so I handed

(01:09:50):
it in and no one showed any interest either in
the pilot or even like, oh you found some good people.
Like there was no talk of like, we won't do it,
but maybe we should do something with one of them.
But there was a funny thing that happened when we
were shooting, which is Jason Siel was about to audition
for a part and he's really nervous and he's dry
heaving in the toilet and Kevin Hart is like, you know,

(01:10:14):
telling him, you know, to suck it up and uh.
And while Jason shooting it, his nose starts bleeding, and
so his nose is bleeding. I'm like, let's just go
with it. Let's just go with it. And so blood
is pouring out of his nose all over the toilet seat.
And then Kevin's just like, that's disgusting. That's disgusting, and
he's like, stop making me feel more stress. He's like,

(01:10:34):
I don't know, man, and and so he just kept
it all and then I just always imagine, you know,
you know, I forgot Bob I or someone going what
the fuck is?

Speaker 1 (01:10:48):
But you felt you were dead before you shot him?

Speaker 4 (01:10:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:51):
Yeah, I've been in that position. It's a horrible feeling.

Speaker 4 (01:10:54):
Yeah, all this work and you know it's dead anyway. Yeah,
it's it's dispiriting.

Speaker 1 (01:10:59):
Did I miss I had to read this book. I'm
excited to see it in book form. I had a
reader on my computer, which is a different experience. But
am I correct and remembering that after the Ben Stiller Show,
which famously won the Emmy, as it was being canceled.

Speaker 4 (01:11:13):
Or rights later six months.

Speaker 1 (01:11:15):
Later, did you go back to let the same people
not like cancel undeclared?

Speaker 4 (01:11:20):
And oh no, what happened. What happened was we get
canceled for the bens Steller Show. We did thirteen episodes.
I think the only aired twelve, and the person who
canceled it was still the head of Fox when I
pitched this new show and declared about college and I said,

(01:11:43):
just give me a whole season. Just promise me, you'll
give you a whole season to find an audience. Okay,
So of course they canceled us after seventeen episodes. Thanks,
And so I was so mad, and I don't think
people should do this. I there was a Time magazine
list of the ten best shows of the year, and
it was like The Sopranos and US and we were

(01:12:04):
really highlighted. I frame it and I put a note
on it and I just wrote to blankety blank, I
don't know if you just fucked me in the ass
again or your penis was just still inside me from
last time.

Speaker 2 (01:12:23):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (01:12:25):
And so I send it to his office, assuming he
got it maybe like four years ago. The head the
heads of Dream dream Works, Justin Falvey, told me that
he had the frame that that day. The assistant sent
it right back and said, we can't show this, and

(01:12:46):
so he had to fame it and it's in the
book like you could see my notes.

Speaker 2 (01:12:50):
And God bless that's fantastic snaps.

Speaker 4 (01:12:54):
Sometimes. I'm sure you've snapped on some people I have.
It's never good and you're embarrassed for the rest of
your life if.

Speaker 2 (01:13:00):
That you did it because these people they have to cancel.
You cancel people every day and they don't want you
to yell at them. It's nothing personal, but it is.
I always take it personally because it's happening to me.

Speaker 4 (01:13:14):
Yeah, it's but it's like your family. To me. I
would always project all of my divorce issues onto it
because it was like, oh, you're destroying my family, yes,
and so I do use the level of that. What
it is like we won't be together anymore, that's right. Yeah,
after this call we never talk again.

Speaker 2 (01:13:32):
Yes, Yes, and we're great.

Speaker 4 (01:13:35):
You've ruined everything exactly. Know, It's really like it really
brings you to your most primal place. I remember when
we were getting canceled for Freaks and Geeks, And as
I was talking to the person.

Speaker 2 (01:13:50):
To cancel Freaks and Geeks, it seems obscene.

Speaker 4 (01:13:54):
As they were doing it. I just am I'm like
half crying as I'm complaining, and and I just imagine
that there's like five other people listening on a speakerphone
laughing as I'm full of half crying, half yelling, just
falling apart. And then so someone you did a great
documentary about freaking eggs. It's got Brent Hodge, and he

(01:14:16):
interviewed the person that canceled us, and you would think
he would be like, yeah, looking back, there was a mistake,
and in the doc he's like, yeah, no, I'm I'm
happy with that decision.

Speaker 1 (01:14:27):
It's like the guy I didn't sign the Beatles, No,
I didn't see any promise.

Speaker 2 (01:14:31):
But you insult them as they're canceling you.

Speaker 4 (01:14:34):
Yeah. I wrote an article for Ellie Times about it.
I literally wrote a cover story for the calendar. Was
like a diary. It's in here like the hospital. You're like,
I didn't just go down, I went down swing And
so are naming names?

Speaker 2 (01:14:47):
Yes, yes, right, because we take it personally. Yeah, you
can't expect us to be sensitive when we're writing the
nice thing that makes the show, and then turn the
sensitivity off as you kill us.

Speaker 4 (01:15:00):
It took me a long time to figure out other
ways to channel that energy.

Speaker 1 (01:15:06):
How this book seems to be indicate that the your
horder instinct, there's an upside that you had so much
great stuff. Was there anything you tried to search for
and couldn't find?

Speaker 4 (01:15:18):
You know that I couldn't find was a picture of
me with chicken pox. I really wanted this one photo
when I was a kid in seventh grade to make
like these girls laugh. I put poison ivy up my nose.
Oh no, and I don't know what I was thinking.
And so then I get poison ivy all over my face.
And so I'm putting like calamine lotion and all this stuff, yeah,

(01:15:39):
poison ivy. And then suddenly my faces explodes and it
turns out I have chicken pox and poison ivy, and
the poison ivy medicine has made the chicken pox like
ten times no bigger and angrier. I sell the scars
all over my face from it, and I had a
picture of what I looked like, and it was the
only photo that was not funny.

Speaker 2 (01:16:01):
This might be a very good use of aid for
this exactly.

Speaker 4 (01:16:05):
I could create it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:06):
Maybe the only good thing that could come out of it.

Speaker 4 (01:16:08):
All.

Speaker 2 (01:16:08):
Right, before we let you go, tell us one Springsteen thing. Okay,
something he won't mind.

Speaker 4 (01:16:15):
It's something that you won't mind. We were talking about
getting to meet Bruce Springsteen, who we idolize it. It's
always been a great inspiration, you know, even that the
music cares. I thought, you know, Tom Zimney makes all
these documentaries about Springsteen. There were these roll ins where
Springsteen talks about art and the reason to expect yourself
and I always like ask for copies and I transcribed

(01:16:36):
them because he speaks so beautifully, Yes about creativity writer.
And I was seated next to him at a dinner. Yeah,
And I said, why weren't you ever on TV in
the seventies, Like you weren't on TV? There were always
these bands that you never saw perform. You didn't even
know what they look like like. Yes, I never saw
anywhere Zepplin. You kind of couldn't see certain people. Floyd

(01:17:00):
didn't exist to go And so I said, how come
you run on TV? And he said, he's like, yeah,
we just didn't think it was cool to do that,
and I went, yeah, but your first two records didn't
sell well at all, so why wouldn't you do like,
you know, Don Kirshner's Rock Concert or the Midnight Special. Yeah,
and he goes, well, there's a lot of ways to

(01:17:22):
make it when you got the goods. It's good to
be the boss, that's all right.

Speaker 2 (01:17:30):
I mean it was cult like to get a bootleg
a set and dream about what that show must be
like and then really have to work hard to get
a seat.

Speaker 4 (01:17:44):
Yeah. Well you didn't see it till the nut that's
the first time I saw him, and that's like early
eighty two, eighty three, and that was only in art houses.
That was not like, but is there some hidden film,
because films have been coming out, like him at the
Odeon in England and that around Born to Run, which
you're pretty one of the more amazing things.

Speaker 2 (01:18:04):
You want more seventies early eighties we need that.

Speaker 4 (01:18:07):
Yeah, I mean, like, did you see the documentary about
the making of Born to Run? And then they reveal
that someone shot some video and there's this weird black
and white video, Like, so, I mean that's my favorite
thing in the world when someone unearths yes, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:18:22):
Like talking around as electric Nebraska becomes becomes.

Speaker 4 (01:18:26):
Real for us, Like, oh, someone videotap that that exists.
Like how about that clip of Elton John showing himself
writing tiny Dancer you ever seen? And he's like, and
then I thought, and you're like, it's like the best
song of all time.

Speaker 2 (01:18:41):
Amazing, it's like off the top of his head or
in get back when you see Paul will that song
into being because he needs it right now. Yeah, and
that it's just the phenomenal.

Speaker 4 (01:18:53):
Yeah. But there's nothing more fun than meeting your idols
because I find that they're all kind of what you
hope they would be. It's very rare. Everyone is pretty great.
Like Paul McCartney is the greatest, nicest person.

Speaker 1 (01:19:08):
He's on my phone still with my two kids because
he ordered he and his wife when to order me
to marry my wife. So so I yes, absolutely. Bob Dylan,
who was my greatest hero of growing up. When I
finally got to spend time with him, I just thought,
anyone who tells you don't meet your heroes, fuck then yeah,
because it's it's amazing, Like I'll never My happiest moment

(01:19:32):
was Bob Dylan wrapping ordering black and white cookies down
from a deli to his hotel room so that he
could bring I could bring them to my kids. And
I thought, these kids, no matter what happens to them,
they had Bob Dylan wrap them up.

Speaker 2 (01:19:44):
I do wish Woody Allen enjoyed meeting people. He doesn't.

Speaker 4 (01:19:51):
Have you met him, no, but he's not a giver.

Speaker 2 (01:19:53):
I've met I've met him now a couple of times,
and it's it's it's just it's okay.

Speaker 4 (01:20:01):
Yeah, but he did.

Speaker 2 (01:20:02):
He's so uncomfortable in his skin that he doesn't really
It's not that he's not nice, it's just he you
can tell he's uncomfortable.

Speaker 4 (01:20:11):
It's different than Carl Reiner.

Speaker 2 (01:20:13):
Carl Reiner, you have lunch at his house and he
opens the freezer. You want an ice cream pop?

Speaker 4 (01:20:19):
Yeah, you know it's your grandpa.

Speaker 1 (01:20:21):
I always wish that that he would he liked meeting
age appropriate people more, but when I did, when he
when Diane Keaton passed away recently, I went and rented
I paid fully four ninety nine rental to watch Love
and Death with my son.

Speaker 2 (01:20:38):
So funny and you.

Speaker 1 (01:20:40):
Cannot believe how great so far that movie is. It's
almost it's almost unbelievable.

Speaker 2 (01:20:46):
We started watching, Uh uh, what is it? Something tragedy
in six scenes? What is that thing he did for
Amazon with Miley Cyrus? No, with Miley Cyrus and Elaine May.

Speaker 4 (01:20:58):
Yes, and you're doing deep, You're going deep.

Speaker 2 (01:21:01):
Have you seen this?

Speaker 4 (01:21:02):
I haven't.

Speaker 1 (01:21:02):
Oh that's when you search on Amazon Prime and you
just put what you allen and.

Speaker 2 (01:21:07):
Me, it's fun to see him old with Elaine who
was also old, and they're playing this couple and it's
like watching your your relatives in.

Speaker 4 (01:21:16):
A really warm and fun way.

Speaker 2 (01:21:18):
I mean it's I got to enjoy it at the
time because it's not as good as his other stuff,
But now ten years later, you're just happy to see them.

Speaker 4 (01:21:27):
I mean, I saw Elaine May on Broadway and it
was one of the great things ever. And then me
and Michael Sarah went out to lunch.

Speaker 1 (01:21:35):
With her and you got her in Vanity Fair, Right,
Is that right?

Speaker 4 (01:21:39):
Yes? One of the great moments of my career was
I was a guest editing Vanity Fair comedy issue and
they were open to me coming up with the ideas
for the articles, And I said, what about an interview
with Nichols and May? And they hadn't done one together
in decades, and they did it and it's a great,
great article legends.

Speaker 1 (01:22:00):
Well do you know our greatest moment of the podcast?

Speaker 4 (01:22:02):
This accepted? Of course? Phil? Who did you ask to
do the podcast? And what did she say? What did
she say? Well?

Speaker 2 (01:22:09):
We knew she We knew this was an exclusive because
I said, would you do the podcast? She said, what's
a podcast?

Speaker 4 (01:22:16):
That's like the Norm McDonald interview with the Bob Einstein
where he says, what what is this? What are we
doing here? You didn't understand the whole Oh no, that's
the Gilbert Godfried. No, it was Gilbert Godfried's podcast. Had
no idea what it was. Why are we talking? Can

(01:22:40):
I go? Now?

Speaker 2 (01:22:41):
Yea so funny. We love you Judd, thank you coming,
and we love the book and and all.

Speaker 4 (01:22:49):
The money goes to the fires Fire Aids for Altaden
and Palisades and eight two six, which is Ta Bagger's
tutoring and literacy charity. So I don't get any money.
Just know, no money for Judd. That's the key.

Speaker 1 (01:23:04):
I feel better about that.

Speaker 4 (01:23:05):
Some people give like ten percent. They make a big
deal like and some of the.

Speaker 2 (01:23:09):
All, all of it, all of it well that the
publisher's not doing.

Speaker 4 (01:23:14):
That they keep They keep a massive, massive amount so
we can say your protra proceeds Judd would have gotten.

Speaker 2 (01:23:21):
Yes, thank you for this.

Speaker 4 (01:23:24):
This is a good sandwich. By the way, was this
from this is from Corner.

Speaker 2 (01:23:28):
Market in Glendale?

Speaker 4 (01:23:30):
Okay, it was for them. That was good.

Speaker 2 (01:23:32):
Uh, keep comedy alive please.

Speaker 4 (01:23:34):
Yes, we need it.

Speaker 2 (01:23:35):
We need you, We need David.

Speaker 4 (01:23:38):
Keep you. When's this run going to two years?

Speaker 1 (01:23:43):
We're gonna rush this one out for the book release. Yes,
and we're putting out Larson. We're going re Larsen to
Judd Appata.

Speaker 4 (01:23:51):
We feel that that's a good run. I'm doing a
couple of live things for the book. Went in l
a when in New York and Elle with Mark Maron
and in New York with a Bamfred You can go
to my instagram. By the way, you were the second
not with Maria Bamford in New York with Ronnie Chang.

Speaker 1 (01:24:06):
Oh nice, and you were the second to last guest
that Mark Maron had and you were better than Obama.
I will say your episode funnier funnier.

Speaker 4 (01:24:15):
That's a that's a blurb. I said, let me pull
the greatest hits. You know, I love a clip You
just did a clip show, didn't you just do Raymond.

Speaker 2 (01:24:23):
Clip show just filmed. The thirtieth annivers Reading comes out
November twenty fourth.

Speaker 4 (01:24:28):
Everybody, Yes, I was excited to hear that. That was amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:24:32):
It was nice, really nice, perfect for Thanks dude and
the whole family.

Speaker 4 (01:24:37):
Thank you.

Speaker 7 (01:24:39):
Naked Lunch is a podcast by Phil Rosenthal and David Wilde.
Theme song and music by Brad Paisley, produced by Will
Sterling and Ryan Tillotson, with video editing by Daniel Ferrara
and motion graphics by Ali Ahmed. Executive produced by Phil Rosenthal,
David Wilde, and our consulting journalist is Pamela Chellan.

Speaker 4 (01:24:56):
If you enjoyed the show, share it with a friend.

Speaker 1 (01:24:58):
But if you can't take my word for it, take pills.

Speaker 2 (01:25:01):
And don't forget to leave a good rating and review.
We like five stars.

Speaker 4 (01:25:04):
You know, thanks for listening to Naked Lunch. A Lucky
Bastard's production.

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