April 17, 2025 • 67 mins
Phil and David enjoy an animated conversation with the Emmy-winning TV writer and producer Mike Scully about his long and impressive career working on shows including "The Simpsons," "Parks and Recreation," and with Phil on "Everybody Loves Raymond." With great stories about Conan O'Brien, Yakov Smirnoff, Don Knotts and Keith Richards. To learn more about building community through food and "Somebody Feed the People," visit the Philanthropy page at philrosenthalworld.com.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
David Today is very special because we have one of
my favorite writers in the world, a very good friend
of mine, who worked on Raymond for how many years?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Was it?
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Two seasons?
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Two seasons? That's because he was busy. He was he
was getting out of his day job, which was working
on The Simpsons. Not familiar with that show which he
ran for how many years?
Speaker 3 (00:25):
I ran the show for four years?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Amazing and influenced Matt Selman and the people who came
after him, who really looked up to him. But no
one looks up to him more than me. This is
my favorite, Mike Scully.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
Let's build the beans to the fan food for thought,
jokes on Tim talking with our mouthsful, having fun with
the peas, the cake and humble pies, serving up class lively,
the dressing and it's naked lush.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Clothing option. Mike, is it true did you replace Conan
O'Brien at the show?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Uh? No, But what did happen? Here's what happened. When
I I had heard stories about Conan in the room,
like he was kind of legendary in the room for
his style of pitching, that he would climb on top
of table on the writer's room table.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
And never do that and ever stand up.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah, he would do all this was he the monkey
in the room.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Was the room monkey.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
What happened was the very first dad was there was
a table read, so I was introduced to Conan. We
shook hands across the table, and then the table read started.
Just before it started, somebody tapped him on the shoulder
and said to Conan, you have a phone call. And
it sounds urgent, and so he left and then we
did the table read and without him, without him, Yeah,
(02:07):
And later that day we're back up in the room
and he hasn't come back to the room at all,
and we're just kind of hoping that everything's okay in
his life with nothing went wrong, you know, like writers
were not actually doing anything to check on him. We're
just hoping.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Nobody feels like getting up.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
We've got jokes to right. Yeah, turned out and this
was news to me. The other stuff. And he had
done an audition show to replace Letterman and that twelve
thirty slot, and I think he had, and John Stewart
(02:49):
had and maybe Shandling, maybe Gary Shanling. And the call
was to tell Conan that NBC is going with him amazing.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Which was a shocker. Do you remember that?
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Of course? And I think ultimately our showrunner at the time,
David Murkin, was able to get a hold of him,
but Conan said, I've been told by NBC I can't
go outside, I can't talk to people, so please.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
And he's never gone outside.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Yeah, we forgot to call back his complexion says, So
he just had to lay low until they did the
on Jay Leno where Jay officially introduced him to America.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
It's unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah, how did that work out?
Speaker 3 (03:35):
So that was my first day. I was so excited
to work with Connan and that was it.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
That's a fantastic job. I'd say, you're a good luck truck.
Mike Scully comes in, everything starts going good for.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
You, guys. I have to go. I just got a
call take for the Joe Franklin show. I would be
a natural.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
That Joe Franklin. Joe Franklin quality, Yes, says by strikes
my friends.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
I'm sort of half arefa half Joe Franklin. That's what
I like. How I think of myself self identify when
you were a Simpson's legend, a legendary Simpsons writer like
yourself is that like when you are there geeks everywhere
who recognize you and have a million questions. Are you
barraged with Simpson's.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Fandom once in a while. Actually it happened over in London.
Some company had come to America and made a commercial,
but they wanted to feature the Simpsons writers in the commercials.
I don't even remember what it was for. Yeah, so,
and then we forgot about it. And then a year
(04:44):
or two later, we're over in London traveling with the show.
We got the cast and the writers and we're doing
panels and the cast was doing live table reads and
people started coming up to me on the street and
I saw people pointing at me, and I didn't get it.
And then finally somebody said, those you're in a commercial
(05:05):
on TV. Apparently it was still running and we didn't
see this. Yeah, yeah, I've never seen it. I've never
seen it.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Is it on YouTube? Can we look this up please?
Speaker 3 (05:14):
That's fantastic. I get recognized more, I think from Parks
and rec I'm in like four episodes. I think as
one of the idiots who asks questions at town meetings.
And I just had it happen a couple months ago
on a plane we landed. I had glasses on, which
(05:34):
I didn't have in the show. I had a hat
on jacket. I'm pulling my bag down from the overhead
and this guy says parks and rec right, Oh my god.
And this is ten years later. I've aged a little.
People were watching very close closely. Yeah, so I had
to do a picture with him in the aisle while
people were waiting to get Were you.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
On set at the famous Patton Oswald rant.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
I was not on set when that happened, but I've
watched every second.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Were you on the show at that time?
Speaker 3 (06:04):
I can't remember if I was. I came and went.
I was there like seasons one, two, and four, and
then appeared on the show like seasons three, five, and.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
But for people who don't know Spectacic, Patton did a
bit on the show where he was he was talking
about Star Wars in the courtroom right right, and they
said just do a take where you just go on
about it like a super fan, and he goes, I
can do that.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
He made he.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Made up a giant story on the spot.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
It's like nine minutes long, and I.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Think that's on YouTube. I think I see that.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
I think the full take is just nine minutes.
Speaker 5 (06:47):
After a beat, the gloved Mandalorian armor gauntlet of Bobaffect
grabs onto the sand outside the Charlac pit and the
feared bounty hunter pulls himself from the Mall of the
sand beasts is exactly, and we realized that he survived
his fall during the battle at Jaba's Palace ship. Then
(07:10):
do a hard cut to a repurposed Imperial Destroyer which
has now been taken over by the rebels. Commander Luke Skywalker,
now a full Jedi night training new Patawans is using
ironically his father Anakin's red lightsaber, which will be a symbolic,
(07:31):
i think visual for his battle.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
And somebody told me, I'm not a Star Wars officionado.
Somebody said in one of the movies they used a
big chunk of what he was pitching. That should be
the next Star Wars.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
That is a super nerdy Yeah, that's just great. But
back to you, how uh, how did you get the
job on the Simpsons?
Speaker 3 (07:58):
This was Let's see, I've been on some like multi
camp shows from like eighty six to ninety three.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Some multicamp shows, maybe the most illustrious don Knutts Yakov
Smirnoff a vehicle of all time. Right, What a country?
Am I?
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Right?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Yes, what a country? At the time I was, I
had I was writing jokes for Yakov's stand up act. Great,
he had just kind of blown up a little bit
with those Miller Lite commercials. He did one of those,
and so he needed more jokes. So I took my
very very surface knowledge of Russia and just wrote a
(08:40):
lot of those. In Russia we do this. But anyhow, so.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Do those jokes work now? I wonder?
Speaker 1 (08:49):
I can't imagine right now that Russia they do in
the White House.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Yeah. So then he got offered a sitcom and he
wanted to have somebody in the room who knew his voice,
and so he talked to the producers and they paired
me up with another writer who I didn't know. It's
a practice called paper teaming. They you half yes and yeah,
(09:16):
and by the way, it's frowned on by the w G.
But anyhow, they said, we only have enough money to
hire one writer. We've narrowed down to you two. So
why don't you go in that room and see if
you like each other, and then come out and tell
us and we'll make the deal and if you're.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Willing to work for half, yes, you're our man.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
So we did. We went in the room and I
said I like you. He said, yeah, I like you too.
Then we came out and made the deal. And that
was my first staff job.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
And is there a Yaka Smirnoff story that would surprise.
Speaker 6 (09:47):
Us that we've gone back? You've heard them all, but
I think I've heard them all, but.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Now just well, he's irish.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
This is the kind of Jurassic expos we do here.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
He's very good.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
The front of the show actually was once don Knots
was brought in part way through the season. He wasn't
in the original cast. They replaced an actor and then
we did one of those intros where the audience didn't
know he was in the show. Nobody told himbody. So
he's in the scene with his back to the audience,
and the audience isn't paying attention to who that is.
(10:32):
They just think it's an extra. So his first line,
he like spins the camera and I don't remember what
the line was, and we thought, well, the audience will
get a kick out of that, or you know, or
they might see maybe they'll know before it happens the
place when it was like beatle Mania. It's the closest
(10:55):
he is beloved.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yeah, by the way, is someone I always think there's
some people who were before they say a word, he's
face like Jerry Stiller. Was that for me? They just
made me laugh by being there.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
I have I have a list of guys, and he's one.
Tim Conway, yes, was one, Alice goosleepall like that, Tommy
Smothers another blows me away, yes, and Martin Short is undiable.
The guy now is the second.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
I've always said that if you put all the funniest
people in the world in one room, he might be
the funniest.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Yeah, But I heard you on a podcast talking about
Don Nuts and it sounds like he was a good guy.
I maybe because again he's sort of like, uh, you know,
like on not Rushmore of sitcoms to me. But was
he a good person?
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Oh? He was. He was wonderful and in between scenes
I would finally people were kind of afraid, I guess
to go over and talk to him or something, or
he was a little frail at that point. It was
nearing the end of his career. He had troubled with
his eyes and but I go talk to him about
like the Ghost and Mister Chickens, and I always talked
(12:04):
him about his movie. Yeah, and he would give show
business advice to me because he knew I was young
and starting out about never quit one job until you
have the next one lined up. Yes, yes, he was
my dad without the beatings.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Just didn't have the Yeah, it was a.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Blast working by them. But I still have hanging in
my house. I have a signed Ghost and Mister Chicken poster.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
And doing that got you to the Simpsons.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Not right away, Yeah, that's pretty much a direct line.
I did a show in between called Out of This
World starring Donna Pesco and Doug McClure from The Virgin A.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Very funny show.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Yes, a very funny show. It was one of I
grabbed it because, you know, it was a job and
it was all you know, I had only been on
one show and figure, all right, this could last, you know,
a season. I'll get a season here. And I had
my first kid on the way, so got there anyway.
I flipped to you know, we're cutting the up the
cake for thee hundredth episode and I'm still there.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Wow, that really was one hundred episodes.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Yeah, yes, there's one hundred episodes. And I wound up.
I wound up running the show accidentally, even though it
was only my second job, because the show runner, the
guy who was running it came to us one day,
came to the writing staff and just said apparently he
had been having a fight with this non writing executive
(13:48):
producer who actually owned the show, and said, listen, I'm
not going to be here tomorrow. But if anyone asks
you where I am, you don't know, but I'm coming
to say goodbye to you, because I've enjoyed working with
all of you, but I will never be back here.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Do you know what happened?
Speaker 3 (14:08):
So I don't know what the big falling out was.
But like the next day comes and the guy's gone.
The guy who is in charge of the whole show
comes to the writer's room. Anybody know where John is? Uh,
and like the worst acting in the world from writers,
(14:29):
just we're all just kind of no John, it's probably
just running like could be cart. It was just we're
just we're terrible at hiding this city.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
And then announced that he's the nice.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
And then sure they he pulled me aside into his
office and said, how'd you like to run the show?
And I said, I'm only like I was a staff
writer on the previous show. I was a story editor
here and and he said, I think you can do it,
and so what I didn't realize he could smell how
(15:07):
eager I was to learn like that. He changed my
title to supervising producer, but left my money as story
out of course.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Well did you not have an agent this time?
Speaker 3 (15:20):
I did, And she just said, you know, take the deal.
You want the experience.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Look not stupid. You go for someone you recognize the talent.
They're young and eager, and you don't have to pay
them as much because you know, punish for caring, right,
punished for caring.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
But I learned a lot. Yes, you did in relative
obscurity because people weren't really familiar with the show.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Listen, kids, if you're listening, it may seem like Mike
was taking advantage of but he did learn. He did,
he got You know, you can't be you can't get
the King's ransom on your first job. You can't expect
a lot of young people expect to be treated royally
(16:05):
at the beginning. You got to work your way up.
There is the taking advantage part which nobody tries to
to be taken advantage of it.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
But that's what I'm doing on this podcast.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Yes you're look at all the meals you get.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
They actually made me pay to be on this podcast.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
I'm not stupid.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
M Is it out of this world? Out of this
(17:06):
world enough to get you to the Simpsons? Or was
it one more?
Speaker 3 (17:09):
There was one more? There was a show called Top
of the Heap on the Fox Network.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
On Bigger than Adam, like he's making it up.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
It starred Joe Bologna, who I loved in My favorite year,
phenomenal and not hated.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
On top of it.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
He was can I say, roaring asshole, We're not.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
We're today, I'm burning Bay.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
By the way, the last person to say that was
Renee Taylor.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
I believe did he He's going say whatever you want.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
But playing his son on the show was a pre
Friends Matt LeBlanc, a nice guy, a very nice guy
who Joe just kind of screwed with his head endlessly.
Like if we if we cut a line from a show,
I mean sometimes you cut a script down just for
timing after a run through the show is too long.
(18:09):
We got to cut some stuff and Joe would tell Matt, uh,
you know why they cut that line right because you
did it wrong? Like he would just mess with his head. Yes.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
So after that show was uh cancer. It was one
very quick. So we were having so much trouble coming
up with stories, and it's a brand new show and
we can't come up with any stories. One day the
showrunner brings in the Sanford Son Story Bible because Top
of the Heap is about a father and son and
(18:42):
they're kind of like scamming to make money and making it.
He gets everybody go through this the Sanford Sun Story
Bible and see if you've got anything that we can
use the show. Yes, it's like I remember like looking
through her like, oh Fred rollam accident? Do we make
a porn movie?
Speaker 7 (19:03):
Well?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
And that you know.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
How we did? Raymond. We went through the I Dream
of Genies.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Because that's the show, isn't it where he literally said
Red Fox said bring me my juice back.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
I think it was his Variety show did that. Yeah,
it's okay, it's an excellent story.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
So who gets the how do you get the call
to even to go over and meet the Simpsons?
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Speaking spec Simpsons.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
I had written a spec. I had two specs scripts
at the time. Back before the trend of writing spec pilots,
you would just write specs of existing shows. So I
had a Seinfeld and I had what I believe was
the first spec Larry Sanders on the market because the
show had just been on one year, And those got
(19:53):
me the meeting with Gracie Films, and from there they
sent me over to David Murkin, who was running the
show at the time, and Dave hired me. Yeah, and
twenty years.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Better than writing aspect Simpsons is writing aspect something else,
because when you write a spec script for the show
you want to be on. They know the show better
than anyone and so they'd rather see something that they
don't know as well.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Yeah, and they also, I think when you're running the show,
you see the show differently, You view it through a
different lens than the audience does. True, So somebody could
write a great Simpsons specscript and we might read and
go it's way off. Yeah, Like the tone is just off.
It doesn't sound like it.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
And they don't know they to be fair, they don't
know which way the show is actually going. Yes, yeah,
they're not in the room with you. Yeah, so they
don't know how you're thinking or what you want for
the show now. Yeah, they only know what the show
has been.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
Yeah. I don't envy young writers now having to try
the spec pilot.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
I can't imagine.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
A good pilot is hard to write, no matter how
many years you've been doing this, and to expect people
to do it right out of the gate and they
want to.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, there's another point that makes it harder. There's no sitcoms. Well,
they're not coming back. I mean you you actually are
working on one.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Not right now?
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Done?
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Which one?
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Well, last time we met, you told me you were
working on something. I don't know what's the status of that.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Oh, the status is the show is still on. But
it was a show my wife and I created. But
we are not.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
There because you don't want to be there, or because
there's a crazy person who said.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
The second one.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Yeah, I understand, we don't have to get into it.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
But the crazy person could be anybody.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
How did you two become friends because it was a
It's unusual in the history of Raymond that you brought
in a superstar. It's like one of the only major
baseball trades you ever made is bringing Mike over to
be a part of your team for well.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
He was fantastic, I remember, and and uh, I think
you you were looking for I don't know, part time work.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
I actually remember the phone call from you. I had
just finished up like seven episodes of a show that
would be canceled in four.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
And by the way, the last three were the best.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Yeah that It was called The Pits. It was on Fox,
and I in my head, I was like, all right,
I'll you know, I'm probably going back to The Simpsons.
It's home, it's my comfort zone. And uh, you called
about would I ever be interested, because you know, I
was a fan of the show, and would ever be
(23:00):
interested in coming over there? And and it did. It
caught my eyes one of the few shows that I
genuinely loved as a fan. And and then you were
very honest with me, he said, because I got to
tell you. He goes, if you're serious about coming over here,
and you're trying to tell me think it over, you know,
(23:22):
because if you're serious about coming over here, I'm going
to have to fight for you. And I said why
and that you would already run my name by the
network and they called me. Oh, isn't he cartoon boy
because you worked.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
On The Simpsons? Yeah, I mean, that's idiocy.
Speaker 5 (23:39):
I was.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
I was the only reason I could actually say that
to you, because I was saying at the same time,
it's insanity that, yeah, this is what we're up against.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Yeah, And that was the first time. I didn't know
that writers could be typecast by the types of shows
you do.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
But that's insane. I mean the Simpsons is literally more
realistic than many live action shows. So we were thrilled
to have you. You were always a joy and a pleasure,
and I wish we could do more together.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
But can I ask what was your experience? Because I
wrote a book about showrunners and watched Phil at work
and was kind of amazed by it was the greatest
show in history that was also almost an efficiently run
gem factory. It's like they made these great episodes time
after time, but they did not. I was at the
same time hanging around friends and seeing them go till
(24:36):
three in the morning and kill themselves, and it seems
like they had Phil, or that those people in that
room figured something out.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
I'm very lazy.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
What was your perspective?
Speaker 3 (24:49):
No, well, it was it was at that time when
pretty much every show was there till at least midnight,
but it was very common to two, three, four in
the morning, cute hair show, and there were showrunners that
believed that's when the magic happens.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
And then I think it happened.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
I get to Raymond and it's the complete opposite, you know.
I think every day we were out normally four thirty
five o'clock in the afternoon, that's n and I had
a long drive home. So it kind of pissed me
off because right in the middle of traffic at least
at two in the morning, there's nobody else out there.
(25:30):
But you go in the opposite with yeah, that's true. No,
it was to me.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Dinner at home is where the stories were coming from.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Yeah. Also, and it just proved you can do a
quality show and have a normal life at the same time.
That it's not mutually exclusive. And that's you know, was
a big takeaway for me from that show, and I
would spread the word around other writers, it's happening at Rain.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
I've been I'm so glad that that that that's part
of the legacy is that you could first of all,
treat people nicely and second of all get your work
done in regular normal day hours.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
Yeah, and I think part of your your mindset was
like on other shows if you were there late at night,
you know the show when I would go, come on,
come on, it's one in the morning, let's get this thing.
You know, we gotta get out. On Raymond, it was
the same speech, but you were getting around three thirty
in the afternoon. Come on, it's three thirty.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
But we did procrastinate, just like every other show. Totally.
We'd fos around until lunch. Yeah, but you a lot
of times we would what were we doing? We were
seemingly wasting time by talking about what was happening to
us in our real life at home, and then usually
around lunch, one of us would hit ourselves in the
(27:01):
head and go, hey, wait a minute.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
He Phil would get if you were telling a story
of like something that had happened, say over the weekend
with your family, between you and your kids, or you
and your wife, or an argument or something like that,
there's a point. At a certain point most shows, you
would just be telling a funny story to the room
and then it would be all all right, let's get
to work. When you're doing it with Phil, what it
(27:26):
took me a while to learn. At a certain point
in the story, there's kind of a twinkle in his
eye that pops up, and then I realized, Oh, this
is going to wind up on the show.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
That's right, that's right, that's that's I think one of
the keys to that success of that show, yeah, was
that it was relatable to people.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Absolutely. That's what my wife and I loved about it
just watching it weekend week out. There were literal arguments
on there that we had had. And you think you're
the only one that has this argument, but.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
I always say, we get letters from Sri Lanka. That's
my Yeah. But the Simpsons, you know, does it so
masterfully as well. And they're working in the cartoon boy format,
which is absolutely amazing. They still after thirty five years,
(28:19):
can crank out absolutely stunning work.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
Yeah, it's and I think the show has gone through
a little bit of a renaissance the last few years
under Matt Salmon and Al Jean, and I think Salmon's
kind of doing it now where they're experimenting with the
form and telling you know some you know stories. They
did like a two parter a couple of years ago,
(28:45):
and they're just trying different things, and they're willing to
take that chance. It might work, it might not work.
And I always admire that.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
The Christmas one this year was an hour long. Yeah
did you see it?
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Yes? I did. Yeah, it was great.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
May you cry? Yeah, like that never happened? Yeah, and
that they allowed it because I know there's hard and
fast rules on that show. Yes, yeah, but that was incredible.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Yeah. Now, that was really well done.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Without sacrificing any of the tenets of the show.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Yeah. Yeah, No, it's it's a kick to watch. And
there's a whole new generation of writers on Shout and.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
It's it's well passed profitability in syndication, right, because the
syndication wants a certain number of episodes, but once you
have too many, it starts to literally lose value because
there's too many. Yeah, but they don't care. It's just
it seems like it might never end.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
It's possible, and I think I don't think there's a
president nobody wants to be the president of Fox who
canceled The Simpsons. I think they're hoping when it ends,
it just kind of goes away on its own somehow magically.
Maybe maybe Jim Brooks will do it like like what
he did with Mary Tyler Moore. He'll you'll say we're
(30:10):
done now. Yeah, that's enough.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
But it looks like no end in sight.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Yeah, not that I can see.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
It seems like because it's a cartoon that it could
run forever. Yeah, and uh, look at SNL. Yeah, and
the US cast changes, right, you can go forever. It's
the format, it's its own format.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Yeah. And when I got there, I got there near
the end of season four, and I remember thinking, God,
if I could just ride this out a couple of seasons,
I'd make it to the end. Because at that time,
if you ran five to seven years, you had a
good run for a network half hour episodes. Yeah, yeah, of.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Course, which is all you need for syndication.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Yeah. And we used to talk a lot about the
series finale. It was and this is I'm going, like
I said, I'm talking like season five six. I remember,
everybody should be thinking about a finale. It's going to come,
you know, we gotta be ready when it does. And
then the last time I remember hearing the conversation, we
(31:10):
got up to like around season ten, and then I
thought that was going to be the end. There were
conversations I think we're running on fumes now, and we
got to figure a way out of this. And then
we decided to do eleven and twelve and I can't
remember what the reason was to keep it going, but
we just decided to plunge on. And I don't recall
(31:33):
ever the conversation ever happening again of how do we
end this thing. I think the feeling is we'll figure
something out when the time comes, are they will, I
won't be there, But.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
It's still the simplest of premises, right, which gives you
the longevity. In other words, if they were aliens from
outer space, there's a limit to that premise because every
single episode is the neighbors can't find out we're from
out of space. But they are a regular family in
a real town that over time, you've gotten to populate
(32:06):
with other believable characters that you could do an episode
with any one of them. Yes, and you do.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
Yeah, And we know we've gotten to feature. There's probably
three hundred characters that have come through that show, maybe more.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Do you know how amazing that is to have hundreds
of characters that are not just stick drawings? Yeah, fantastic.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
The trick is always when we feature one of the
supporting characters and be about them is figuring out how
to get one or more of the Simpsons into their story, right,
That's always the tricky part for us. So it doesn't
feel like we didn't need the Simpsons in this episode. Sure,
but it definitely opens the show up creatively, and you
(32:49):
can take all kinds of wild swings, and because these
are characters that don't have elaborate backstories, so you can
suddenly make out them. Yeah, exactly, this must be so
much fun. It is, it is. It was terrifying at
first when you join as a writer. I'll never forget
like starting on the show.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
But you can draw from real life. You can say
I had this neighbor who was like this, this, this,
and then put it in.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
Oh yeah, yeah, I've done tons of stuff on the
show from my real life, like when Barka Caught shoplifting,
it was based on me getting caught shoplifting when I
was a kid, and we did one just a couple
of years ago. I wrote it as a freelance about
my brother and I getting our mother this horrible birthday
present because we had saved up money. Let's get mom
(33:34):
something really, really nice this year, you know. She and
we went into the store and we found something that
we liked better for ourselves. And then we rationalized, well,
we would still have enough money leftover to get her
a president, and we bought her first kid. Oh, I
(33:57):
would kill the I would be redeemed. It was a scarf.
We bought her an ironing board cover.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
Oh she's ironing all the time, you know, seems to
love it for us.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
What did bart by?
Speaker 3 (34:13):
That's what we did in the show.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
You did it.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
We did the ironing board cover. It was bart and Lisa,
Uh And what was Moreg's reaction? She tried to be
a good sport about it in front of them, and
then they overheard her telling Flanders. She was kind of
disappointed that that's how her kids see her.
Speaker 7 (34:31):
Oh my god, that great story.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Just a bunch of gas in the car.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
No mat.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Mats, Davis Bill is me.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
I know you was one of a very big music fan.
You know, you were on our Peter Wolfe episode. You
wrote a doc you made a documentary that that I think,
uh is bigger than the last Waltz about enter BQ
A band. Well, it's bigger. The celluloid the videotape was bigger,
(35:33):
but EDERBQ one of my favorite groups of all time.
How much did your There's been a lot of music,
love and musicians pushed onto uh the Simpsons, and you
know there's like a sort of love affair back and
forth there. Any did you have anything to do with
any of bringing any of the musicians into the world.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
Yeah. When I was there, we did one episode where
Homer goes to rock and roll Fantasy Camp and it
was we had well, I'll tell you how it started.
First of all, I was driving to work one day.
I always had the first act of the show laid
(36:12):
out on an index card on the board, and it
was Homer does the responsible thing after a night of
drinking at most, he takes a cab home. And while
he's taking the cab home, what he doesn't realize is
it's remember the HBO show Taxi Cab Confessions. He doesn't
(36:33):
know that's what he's not. So he's drunk and he's
talking to the cabby and how like, you know, marriage
can ruin your life and you give up your dreams
and you know all this stuff. And then the family
winds up watching the show because Homer was drunk. He's
(36:53):
watching it with him having no idea where it's going.
So he's doing he's saying this stuff about his family,
these horrible, horrible things, and they see it. And I
always had that first act.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
It's such a great way to get into it.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
I didn't know how to get out of it for
two years and the cards started to turn yellow on
the door because I didn't want the rest of the
show to be Homer apologizing. I think that's boring. And
then one day I'm driving to work, I'm listening to
Howard Stern. He has on Leslie West, the guitar player
(37:33):
for the band Mountain Big Hit Mississippi Queen Leslie West
is on there to promote this thing he's starting called
Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp, and he's got the guys
from a Cheap Trick and Alice Cooper, and he named
a few of the other people that were going to
be part of this, and just like Baseball Fantasy Camp,
but by the.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Way, started by a friend of mine who was the
same guy who promoted the Monkeys Come Back to where
Ringos beginning the all star band. David Fishoff, an Orthodox
Kosher jew who brought us rock and Roll Fantasy.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Yeah. Yeah, And I don't know if he was involved
with the Leslie West version, but I haven't believe he was. Yeah,
And it was like right then, instantly I had it.
I said, what if Homer had this dream of one
day being like a rock star and a band, but
because he got married and had kids and got a
(38:28):
job to take care of his family, he gave up
all of his dreams and that March March, Yeah, Marge
has the point. You know, It's like, you know, your
father did actually give up a lot for us, and
instead of them being mad, they turn it and want
to give him a surprise gift. They take their vacation
(38:52):
fund and book him for a week at Rock and
Roll Fantasy Camp. I had started writing the first draft
of the script, was actually writing a lot of the
people that were already doing Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp.
And then uh, and then I got a call one
day through Denise Surcott, who works for Gracie Films. She
(39:14):
comes out of the music business. She got a call saying, hey,
the Stones are going out on tour next year and
they're wondering if there's something they could do with the
show that COHENSI all of a sudden.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
That's a good call.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
Yeah, that's a good call. And it's all of a sudden,
like by Leslie was upgrade, okay, And we wound up
getting Mick and Keith, Tom Patty, Elvis Costello, Jesus all
in one episode, all in one episode. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
They all came to the studio to record, not.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
Not at the same time, but they all recorded in person.
What was that like? Oh man, it was fucking having it. Like,
first of all the geek that I am, I brought
a guitar with the try to get each one to sign,
not thinking the question that each one would ask when
you put a guitar, Oh you play? No, I don't.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
I like so?
Speaker 3 (40:18):
Oh And Lenny Kravitz was also and Bryan sets it.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
This is amazing.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
Yeah, it was a lot of fun. We had a great.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
Yes, I remember that. Yeah, so that's the episode.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
That's the episode. Yeah, And it made me totally understand
remember the years where he wanted he wanted to be
an actor. He was doing movies.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
And I saw free Jack.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
But you know, the riff between having Keith sometimes is
your head. You're not into the music anymore, you know,
And I kind of got it like he has real
comedy chops.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
He was great on the Oscars.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Yeah, great, by the way, great on Snlso yeah, hysterical,
hysterical and self effacing. And and you.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
Don't have to tell him how to say. You don't
have to direct him. He knows where the joke is about.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Trying to pitch jokes to Jagger funny not funny is
one of the greatest bits of all time.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
Yeah, how did Keith come at the same time they
came separate.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
I'm not surprised.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
I got a call from UH, one of their managers,
to set up that Keith would come like they had.
There had to be three weeks space what between them?
And she explained to me, she goes she was it's
not that they you know, they hate each other like that,
(41:43):
She was there. They're best friends for lives. They would
be the first one in a crisis, they'll be the
first one there to help the other one out. But
they liked their time apart. But they both liked the
same hotel in La so they didn't want to bump
into each other accident.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
And it has to be three weeks to be safe.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
That's what I was told.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
I got caught in the middle of their relationship. I
wrote winer notes for forty Licks, which is one of
their big anthologies, and I got I only I got
mixed notes. He was the one. He was my conduit,
and he would go, David, if you could take out
the knighthood reference, because he goes it will break up
the band. And also he goes like I think, he goes,
(42:27):
Keith counted lines and there's two more about me than
about him, so if you could balance that out for us. Also, David,
you I did one phrase of Yiddish. I think I
called myself the stones Schlepper or something, and he goes,
if you could remove the Yiddish as it's going to
fourteen Arab nations, which I wow.
Speaker 3 (42:48):
No, but they were. They were a blast and Mick
too quick, tell me if I'm going to long these Keith.
You know, when you have a guestar on the show,
we always like there's a contract rider of anything they want,
like to eat or anything like that, and we always
ask we want to make sure because they get paid
(43:09):
scale to do the show. You know, you don't do
the Simpsons to make money. So I asked, is there
anything you know Keith would like you know when he
comes to record, and the request was a bottle of
vodka and a bottle of orange crush.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
He didn't mix them, did he?
Speaker 3 (43:31):
Oh God, I'm nodding my head yet. Yes he did,
and I said, okay, any like food spread.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
Nope, that's like a teenager who's drinking for the first time.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
It helps when you're doing your blood transfusions.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
Mix of two things of everything I've learned today, that's you.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
You and Keith. Did you get to bring up I'm
trying to remember the his the timing of this, but
I always thought it was amazing when he made his
Chuck Berry movie.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
Oh yeah, that his base Ye.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
Rock and roll, a great movie. Har His bass player
is Joyce Spompanado from NRBQ, Your Your Your Blessed Band.
Did that ever? Did that come up at the time.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
Yeah, we talked about it then, and then later on
when I did the NRBQ thing, I was able to
get Keith to talk to talk about it. His his
manager called me up. She said, he's out in his
backyard in Connecticut. He's interviewing for one one thing right now,
he says. She said, if he said he'll do you'r
n RBQ thing if you're ready to go right after
(44:37):
he's done with this, he said, let's do it. So
I just interviewed him over the phone. I gave her
the questions and she fed the questions to him and
he was great, it's on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
You can find that's great.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
How did you get an NERBQ for people don't know
new originally the New Rhythm and Blues Quartet. I went
to a school in Connecticut and in the exact town
where Al Anderson, one of the great earlier in No
Longer but was the guitar guid when I was loving ENERBQ.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
How did you.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Manage to take this band famously obscure, never the biggest
of sellers, and you managed to get them. You did
something for TV about them, and I'm not sure it
went that well for in terms of the broadcast ratings.
But tell us the story of how you got ener
BQ on TV.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
For the documentary. I had been called over for a
meeting at VH one and they wanted me. They were
trying to do an animated show over at VH one
and they wanted me to direct Rob Reiner in a
voiceover session, and I said, I'll do it. On one condition,
(45:48):
and I instantly pitched this show about and I said
it was a pilot for a series called Hidden Treasures
of Rock and Roll and it's kind of the bands
that bands like and they said, we'll do that. Wow,
And so that's how I got the money time, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
It's never that simple of VH one. I worked some
at VH one. I'm sure it didn't go that easily.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
Well, it didn't initially, and it took me about a
year or more to get the whole thing done, maybe
about a year and a half. And at that time
when I pitched it, Bonnie Ray was kind of the
prototype VH one artist and she had recovered an RBQ
on some of her albums. And the Boys, yeah, Me
and the Boys and Green Lights. So anyhow, at that time,
(46:40):
so flashed through. A year and a half later, I
come back and I decide I'm going to deliver the
tape in person to finish. I go into the offices.
There is nobody there that I knew the year in
the first made it. Yeah, And I said, but there's
it's like that Bobcat golf thing about h I lost
(47:00):
my job, Like, well, I didn't lose it I know
where it is, it's just when I go there, now
other people are doing it. I walk in and I'm
going to all the same offices and there's new people
in each office. And I finally said, you know, I've
got this tape here. I was making a documentary and
we made a deal in this room. No idea what
(47:21):
I was talking about. And they just said, well, they go,
I guess it's yours. You can keep it.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Oh, so this might be the difficult part that you're
talking about.
Speaker 2 (47:29):
Yes, yes, that would be a difficult part.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
Until then, it was going well.
Speaker 3 (47:33):
It was going well. So then we ultimately wound up
selling it. I was trying to sell it.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
All over town and literally door to door.
Speaker 3 (47:41):
Yes, and we sold it to A and E, which
at that time I was still the Arts and Entertainment Network,
and they put it on a show. They put it
on at the prime rock and roll time of Sunday
morning at eight AM, on a show called Breakfast with
the Arts. Is where it ultimately wound out, and then
(48:02):
they brought the band in to fill out like another
hour afterward. So I don't know who saw it or not,
but it's in sections on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
I did see it. I got a cassette from somebody
maybe I bought one from you on the side of
the but I did get to see it, which I did.
I love that band.
Speaker 3 (48:19):
Yeah, and a lot of great people gave testimonials like
Peter Buck and Mike Mills, from Arim, Elvis Costello, Bonnie,
Drew Carrey who's a big fan of d Drew Bader,
just people you know, Penn and Teller, all people I
would see it shows and they all wanted to be
(48:41):
a part of it, and uh so, you know it was.
It was a lot of fun. And then getting Keith
and say it came so close to Paul McCartney, like
three different times we had sessions scheduled that wanted up
being canceled. But he apparently was a fan, and so
that would have been great to get Paul.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
That would have got you like a noontime yea.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
Do you have a favorite showbiz story in all your years?
Oh jeez, I don't want to put you on the spot.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
Something else while you're thinking about you work with a
comedian who I always think of when someone is not
your type of comedy and you think they're great, you
know they're great. And there was a guy named Robert
Schimmel who I was a big fan of. Can you
tell me the story of how you you? You worked
with Robert and nearly made him this. I kind of
(49:41):
think he could have been a massive almost of a
different error, kind of a little bit of that all
in the family, because he was an edgier kind.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
Of guy work on that too. No, No, was there
there a second show?
Speaker 3 (49:56):
Did there? Definitely wasn't a second one, I don't think,
and I don't think he had done.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
I think he died on the first one, so I
know there wasn't.
Speaker 3 (50:02):
Yeah, we I can't remember where I saw him first.
It might have been one of those like Comedy Central
half hour comedy things. And I just thought he was
hilarious and so different than everyone else out there, and
that he was older too and had kids, and and
I loved his voice. And so we wound up meeting
(50:24):
and we hit it off, and we sold a pilot
to Fox, wrote it and uh, and it was a
it was a tough shoot that we had, like the
run through the night before we're shooting the pilot and
(50:46):
the network president hates it, I mean really hates it
and says I hate it.
Speaker 2 (50:54):
How could you.
Speaker 3 (50:59):
So I'm trying to make the case of why I
think America will love this guy. Uh and and and
connect with you know, the show and the family and
and he he the president gets up and walks away.
He goes, what can I say? And he goes, I
guess we're just the Arabs and the Jews on this one.
(51:20):
And I said, which one am I? And he didn't
even turn his back. He said, anyone you wanted this
for Fox Fox. The show got ordered two series and
unfortunately Robert was diagnosed with cancer God and so ultimately
(51:42):
we never made it to air. He eventually went into remission.
But Robert was one of those guys he could find, like,
like we went to see him in Vegas while he
was going through chemo. He was still touring and like
under his suit he had the he's like the portal
or whatever put it and he had lost lot of way,
but he had like a twenty minute chunk of material
(52:03):
now about cancer, and he was excited about that. I
got twenty new minutes out of this, you know, which
is a real comics mentality. Yeah wow, But he was Ironically,
he ultimately beat the cancer, later had liver disease, beat that,
and then a couple years later, I got a phone
call telling me that he had died in a car
(52:25):
accident out in Arizona.
Speaker 1 (52:27):
I'm surprised that this is your favorite Tropis story.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
No, no, we're so letting him. Wait. Here's my second
pitch for your favorite Schopis story. I don't know what
your story is, but I had a story with this guy.
I got to ask Mel Gibson after the scandals to
drop some Yiddish, and he did, and he was I
quite enjoyed my experience with mister Gibson. He did. At
(52:55):
the height of the scandals, I was in his office
and there was a cutout of Jesus like a movie
like you would see in a movie theater lobby. There
was the his His, His Jesus movie. There was a
big cutout, and he sort of was backing me into
the door, telling me it was really wanted to bond
because he was under such like there was such bad
(53:15):
pr going for him, and he had always been really
well liked because he's actually quite could be very charming.
And I backed I knocked over Jesus in his office.
And I always just thought the only thing was to
be if they caught fire when the Jew knocked into Jesus.
Speaker 1 (53:30):
He put that in the movie.
Speaker 2 (53:32):
But how was your Complete Savages experience?
Speaker 3 (53:34):
For some reason, I'm pictriggy like like nervously picking the.
Speaker 2 (53:43):
I was tempted, you know, what was your experience.
Speaker 3 (53:52):
Uh? Working with UH on Complete Savages? We actually had
a lot of fun working together on that show. It
was fun. He directed the pilot. I hear this is
this actually is one of my favorite stories. It shows
you what an idiot I am. I had brought him
around because he hadn't really worked in TV at all,
(54:16):
so I brought him around to just show him like
the stages. I think I brought him once to the
Raymond stage, which do you remember Brad's line?
Speaker 2 (54:25):
What was it?
Speaker 3 (54:28):
Brad Garrett walks up behind Mel. Mel didn't see him coming.
Brad walks up behind him and looking down in that
booming voice of Brad says, I want to meet the
world's tallest juke. And he laughed at that, and I
(54:48):
took him around to a couple other sets. But anyway,
so I'm telling you Mel, like you know, so we're
going to have like, you know, four cameras on stage.
It's not like movies. You know, it's not you know,
like a single ca a a thing. It's they're all
going at the same time. And you're watching the split
on this day and I said, are you comfortable with that?
And he goes, you know how many cameras I had
(55:10):
for the battle scene in Brave Heart eighteen?
Speaker 1 (55:13):
Wow?
Speaker 3 (55:14):
I said, well, this will probably work. Then the problem
actually complete Savages. When we sold the show, ABC was
looking for They wanted to get back in their TGIF business,
which was family friendly Friday night shows, and then there
was a change of regime. Literally the night we shot
the pilot, we were waiting for the network president to
(55:36):
come down to the stage and we're like fifteen minutes
in and she hasn't come, and no one's calling, and
we finally called to see where she is and it
turned out she had been let go.
Speaker 1 (55:50):
You've had these incredible things happen to you, Yeah, these
wild ups and downs? Yeah, how do you surf this business?
Is it therapy?
Speaker 2 (56:02):
Is it? Is it stuff?
Speaker 1 (56:03):
I mean to me, it seems like this stuff you
shrug and you go on to the next thing. That's
what you look like to me. But is it harder
than that?
Speaker 3 (56:11):
For a while, but I mean when something doesn't make sense,
you know, because you in the end you want to believe. Yeah,
but if people like this show, they'll do it anyway.
And then you realize there's all these other things that
come into play. The new network president came in, Well,
now he felt no attachment to this show. Of course,
it wasn't his baby wasn't developed on his shift You're dead.
Speaker 1 (56:35):
That happens a lot.
Speaker 3 (56:37):
Yes, they just feel no ownership of it. You can
take credit for it, I don't care. And then it
was done by a rival studio. We were doing it
for ABC, but the studio was Universal, and at that time,
Jeff Zucker was running Universal and it was the ABC presidency.
You think I want to give Jeff Zucker a hit show,
(57:00):
I'm kind of hoping.
Speaker 2 (57:04):
Having that unique perspective, I always because I was writing
about him at the time. It was amazing when Phil
never like at the moment where Raymond, where you were
getting offered a lot of big deals and took maybe
a big deal, you ended up sticking with your show.
It's pretty uncommon in TV history that someone stays with
the show they love.
Speaker 3 (57:23):
Yes, Yes, and I think more so at that time too.
Speaker 5 (57:25):
Right.
Speaker 3 (57:26):
I mean it was unusual to not it was not.
Speaker 1 (57:29):
It was a different world now that people were offering
tons of money to do a deal somewhere else because
there was so much business. That business isn't there anymore,
It really isn't.
Speaker 3 (57:45):
No, it really absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (57:47):
I mean it could come back. I always think that
if somebody wrote a great sitcom, sitcoms would be back
because the nature of show businesses the hit is here, now,
let's run over there and started imitating that.
Speaker 3 (57:59):
Yeah, yeah, so it just takes one.
Speaker 2 (58:01):
Really, I'm watching a network show that is really good
now and my wife and I just keep watching it
because we were told to watch it. And how can
this be so good on network TV? Right now?
Speaker 3 (58:14):
Oh? High potential?
Speaker 2 (58:15):
Right, I don't know if it's it's really it splits
a sitcom and a drama. Yeah, because it's sort of
a crime show, but it's brilliantly funny.
Speaker 3 (58:22):
And no, it's a fun show. It's on ABC, and
then I guess on Hulu the next day it's Kaylin
Olsen from Sunny in Philadelphia. But the show it's a
French originally a French show I think called high intellectual
Potential or something hip and then Drew Goddard, the screenwriter writer,
(58:44):
adapted the property, brought the IP over here, and ABC
bought it and Drew's not running I forget who's running
it now, but yeah, it's I agree with you. It's
a fun show and she's terrific, she's amazing.
Speaker 1 (58:56):
Yeah, well, I'm gonna check it out.
Speaker 2 (58:58):
A network show that you Oh wow, this is.
Speaker 3 (59:01):
Now that I love Abbot Elementary and I think I
look at it like this is the business they used
to be in on a routine base. Just shows that
make you feel good. They're funny.
Speaker 1 (59:13):
But the four camera show, oh, the four camera shows.
Speaker 3 (59:17):
They seem to think the formula for doing them now
is to find somebody who had success previously in the
same format.
Speaker 1 (59:26):
That's dumb, Like Reba, that's dumb because it's not it.
I know the movie business has gone all ip that
that's the only thing that will bring someone to the
theater is knowing the brand. But the old adage TV
makes stars stars, don't make TV. People discover the people
(59:51):
they and they believe them as those characters. Why, because
there is no baggage from before. We're not seeing a
movie star, We're seeing someone who is this character and
that makes the show better.
Speaker 3 (01:00:04):
No, I agree completely. I think they're making big mistakes.
I think they underestimated the streamers, and I think the
broadcast networks thought, hey, that you know, you know, you know,
because I would say, change your viewing experience. That people
are getting used to this viewing experience of no ads,
(01:00:27):
And I know you can't do that, but you certainly
have more ads than you need. When you were the
only game in town, you kept pushing and taking more
and more, where a half an hour show is really
twenty minutes. I said, you're going to wind up going
out of business that way.
Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
But the streamers don't learn the lesson either now because
they've tried some sitcoms. Yeah, but made the mistake of
the same mistake that the networks make. Yeah, just get
a big star. That's all people care about. Yeah, it's
not the case. It's really they'd like to see something
that makes them last.
Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
Yeah. Yeah, and that's getting harder and harder to find.
I think with an exception, and this is I think Hacks.
There is a show I love that makes me laugh
out loud, and I think they've got the emotion too,
But the long gaps on a lot of the streaming shows,
in particular, I have to wait a year for eight
(01:01:21):
more of the like, oh, we'll just go back and
rewatch and it's a personal thing. I'm like, No, I
did watch it. I enjoyed it. I'm not watching it again,
but I'm up.
Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
I can go back and watch something from ten years
ago having not one memory. I'm going back and watching Fargo,
which I started from season one with the Billy Bob Right.
It's one of the best things ever on television. It's
just so good.
Speaker 3 (01:01:53):
Do you ever watch it when it was first on?
Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
But you remember it? No, here you go. I got
a new show for you, Mike.
Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
I'm going to I'm want to package you two to
do a new sitcom called mel Point, like the Comeback.
Speaker 1 (01:02:12):
How much should we love? Mike Scully? Thank you for
being here. Oh my pleasure man, come back any time.
I'm sure we have. We didn't cover half the things
on your paper there. David did well.
Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
He didn't even give us one real Parks and Rex story,
which my kids are going to be mad at me.
Speaker 1 (01:02:27):
So go ahead, please give us.
Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
But that cast is amazing, like the amount of talent,
like you know between Adam Scott if you think he
started with Severan's no. If you know Rashida, Rob Lowe,
who you you had the idea of Rob be pretty.
I think that was a great pitch.
Speaker 3 (01:02:49):
I actually remember when Rob came in the first day,
because he came in somewhere in season two. I think
Robin Adam both and Rob was coming in for the
end of You and a lot of the the women
and the office h randomly, we're extra stretched up that day,
so uh, and they were all talking about Rob lows
(01:03:11):
coming out around so the male you know, particularly the
writers like won't see how pretty is right once he's
up close and without all the filters on the camera
and the vasaline, all the tricks they do. And if
I he comes in for the meeting and the writers
are in there like, oh my god, he's beautiful, and
(01:03:36):
I think too for a show, I mean, it's a
similarity to Raymond with Parks in terms of the dynamic
that when when you have a nice person running the
show and a sane person and then on set you
have the same thing in the cast. You have an
Amy Poehler on set like you know, I'm on Parks
(01:03:59):
and like sure, and it makes it just kind of
a joyful place to be at work. Some shows you're escaping.
You might be escaping the writer's room and go down
to the stage or vice versa. I don't want to
be on the stage. I'm going to hide in the
writer's true that there was no bad place to be
on either of those shows.
Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
I remember my kids were early and loved Parks and
rec the first year, and then I was doing some
award show with Amy and I just said, my kids
love your show, and she's such a nice person, David,
please tell them to stick with it because the second
season's much better. Like she was like so like not
like a star, just like a nice human being.
Speaker 3 (01:04:40):
Yeah. No, it was a great lesson having been there.
I was there for half the first season, and they
didn't get to do a pilot for the show because
Amy was pregnant at the time, so they just went
right into doing six. And what they discovered was because
of Amy's kind of innate likability, and I think Greg
(01:05:03):
Daniels described it as this glow that follows her. She
was kind of the butt of the joke in the
first season, like everybody made fun of how much she
cared about things, and you know, that kind of stuff
and the adjustment. Now it just made so much sense.
We decided, let's not have people look at her that way.
(01:05:26):
Let's have people think these are admirable qualities and knowing
she'll be the one to go too far, but she's
the one who never forgets anybody's birthday instead of getting
mad at her for it, Just like, God, why I
wish I was more like Leslie No And then so
the audience could feel like, geez, I wish there was
(01:05:46):
a Leslie Nope in real government, somebody who cared that much.
Speaker 1 (01:05:51):
I remember her. One of her character traits was she
loved Joe Biden, Yes, the vice president.
Speaker 3 (01:05:59):
Yes, Yeah, Yeah, that was great. No, it was a
it was a fun show to do, and it was
a good, you know, working experiences. To work with a
whole different staff that I hadn't worked with before, So
that was fun, a very young staff. I became very
aware of my age on that show. Yeah, because there
was one night I was sitting there and I looked
(01:06:19):
across the table at two of the writers. I added
their ages together and I was still older.
Speaker 1 (01:06:25):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (01:06:28):
But it was cool because I was kind of like, wow,
this is the next generation of creators and stuff coming up.
Speaker 1 (01:06:35):
So and you were and you were impressed by them.
Oh yeah, yeah, that's well, that's great.
Speaker 2 (01:06:39):
Well, thank you for coming in like Rob Low and
dazzling us with your beauty.
Speaker 1 (01:06:44):
And your charm and your youth.
Speaker 3 (01:06:48):
It was a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:06:50):
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 farre
and motion graphics by Ali Ahmed. Executive produced by Phil Rosenthal,
David Wilde, and our consulting journalist is Pamela Chella. Thanks
for listening to Naked Lunch, a Lucky Bastard's production.
David Today is very special because we have one of
my favorite writers in the world, a very good friend
of mine, who worked on Raymond for how many years?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Was it?
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Two seasons?
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Two seasons? That's because he was busy. He was he
was getting out of his day job, which was working
on The Simpsons. Not familiar with that show which he
ran for how many years?
Speaker 3 (00:25):
I ran the show for four years?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Amazing and influenced Matt Selman and the people who came
after him, who really looked up to him. But no
one looks up to him more than me. This is
my favorite, Mike Scully.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
Let's build the beans to the fan food for thought,
jokes on Tim talking with our mouthsful, having fun with
the peas, the cake and humble pies, serving up class lively,
the dressing and it's naked lush.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Clothing option. Mike, is it true did you replace Conan
O'Brien at the show?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Uh? No, But what did happen? Here's what happened. When
I I had heard stories about Conan in the room,
like he was kind of legendary in the room for
his style of pitching, that he would climb on top
of table on the writer's room table.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
And never do that and ever stand up.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah, he would do all this was he the monkey
in the room.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Was the room monkey.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
What happened was the very first dad was there was
a table read, so I was introduced to Conan. We
shook hands across the table, and then the table read started.
Just before it started, somebody tapped him on the shoulder
and said to Conan, you have a phone call. And
it sounds urgent, and so he left and then we
did the table read and without him, without him, Yeah,
(02:07):
And later that day we're back up in the room
and he hasn't come back to the room at all,
and we're just kind of hoping that everything's okay in
his life with nothing went wrong, you know, like writers
were not actually doing anything to check on him. We're
just hoping.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Nobody feels like getting up.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
We've got jokes to right. Yeah, turned out and this
was news to me. The other stuff. And he had
done an audition show to replace Letterman and that twelve
thirty slot, and I think he had, and John Stewart
(02:49):
had and maybe Shandling, maybe Gary Shanling. And the call
was to tell Conan that NBC is going with him amazing.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Which was a shocker. Do you remember that?
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Of course? And I think ultimately our showrunner at the time,
David Murkin, was able to get a hold of him,
but Conan said, I've been told by NBC I can't
go outside, I can't talk to people, so please.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
And he's never gone outside.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Yeah, we forgot to call back his complexion says, So
he just had to lay low until they did the
on Jay Leno where Jay officially introduced him to America.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
It's unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah, how did that work out?
Speaker 3 (03:35):
So that was my first day. I was so excited
to work with Connan and that was it.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
That's a fantastic job. I'd say, you're a good luck truck.
Mike Scully comes in, everything starts going good for.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
You, guys. I have to go. I just got a
call take for the Joe Franklin show. I would be
a natural.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
That Joe Franklin. Joe Franklin quality, Yes, says by strikes
my friends.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
I'm sort of half arefa half Joe Franklin. That's what
I like. How I think of myself self identify when
you were a Simpson's legend, a legendary Simpsons writer like
yourself is that like when you are there geeks everywhere
who recognize you and have a million questions. Are you
barraged with Simpson's.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Fandom once in a while. Actually it happened over in London.
Some company had come to America and made a commercial,
but they wanted to feature the Simpsons writers in the commercials.
I don't even remember what it was for. Yeah, so,
and then we forgot about it. And then a year
(04:44):
or two later, we're over in London traveling with the show.
We got the cast and the writers and we're doing
panels and the cast was doing live table reads and
people started coming up to me on the street and
I saw people pointing at me, and I didn't get it.
And then finally somebody said, those you're in a commercial
(05:05):
on TV. Apparently it was still running and we didn't
see this. Yeah, yeah, I've never seen it. I've never
seen it.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Is it on YouTube? Can we look this up please?
Speaker 3 (05:14):
That's fantastic. I get recognized more, I think from Parks
and rec I'm in like four episodes. I think as
one of the idiots who asks questions at town meetings.
And I just had it happen a couple months ago
on a plane we landed. I had glasses on, which
(05:34):
I didn't have in the show. I had a hat
on jacket. I'm pulling my bag down from the overhead
and this guy says parks and rec right, Oh my god.
And this is ten years later. I've aged a little.
People were watching very close closely. Yeah, so I had
to do a picture with him in the aisle while
people were waiting to get Were you.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
On set at the famous Patton Oswald rant.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
I was not on set when that happened, but I've
watched every second.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Were you on the show at that time?
Speaker 3 (06:04):
I can't remember if I was. I came and went.
I was there like seasons one, two, and four, and
then appeared on the show like seasons three, five, and.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
But for people who don't know Spectacic, Patton did a
bit on the show where he was he was talking
about Star Wars in the courtroom right right, and they
said just do a take where you just go on
about it like a super fan, and he goes, I
can do that.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
He made he.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Made up a giant story on the spot.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
It's like nine minutes long, and I.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Think that's on YouTube. I think I see that.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
I think the full take is just nine minutes.
Speaker 5 (06:47):
After a beat, the gloved Mandalorian armor gauntlet of Bobaffect
grabs onto the sand outside the Charlac pit and the
feared bounty hunter pulls himself from the Mall of the
sand beasts is exactly, and we realized that he survived
his fall during the battle at Jaba's Palace ship. Then
(07:10):
do a hard cut to a repurposed Imperial Destroyer which
has now been taken over by the rebels. Commander Luke Skywalker,
now a full Jedi night training new Patawans is using
ironically his father Anakin's red lightsaber, which will be a symbolic,
(07:31):
i think visual for his battle.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
And somebody told me, I'm not a Star Wars officionado.
Somebody said in one of the movies they used a
big chunk of what he was pitching. That should be
the next Star Wars.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
That is a super nerdy Yeah, that's just great. But
back to you, how uh, how did you get the
job on the Simpsons?
Speaker 3 (07:58):
This was Let's see, I've been on some like multi
camp shows from like eighty six to ninety three.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Some multicamp shows, maybe the most illustrious don Knutts Yakov
Smirnoff a vehicle of all time. Right, What a country?
Am I?
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Right?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Yes, what a country? At the time I was, I
had I was writing jokes for Yakov's stand up act. Great,
he had just kind of blown up a little bit
with those Miller Lite commercials. He did one of those,
and so he needed more jokes. So I took my
very very surface knowledge of Russia and just wrote a
(08:40):
lot of those. In Russia we do this. But anyhow, so.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Do those jokes work now? I wonder?
Speaker 1 (08:49):
I can't imagine right now that Russia they do in
the White House.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Yeah. So then he got offered a sitcom and he
wanted to have somebody in the room who knew his voice,
and so he talked to the producers and they paired
me up with another writer who I didn't know. It's
a practice called paper teaming. They you half yes and yeah,
(09:16):
and by the way, it's frowned on by the w G.
But anyhow, they said, we only have enough money to
hire one writer. We've narrowed down to you two. So
why don't you go in that room and see if
you like each other, and then come out and tell
us and we'll make the deal and if you're.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Willing to work for half, yes, you're our man.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
So we did. We went in the room and I
said I like you. He said, yeah, I like you too.
Then we came out and made the deal. And that
was my first staff job.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
And is there a Yaka Smirnoff story that would surprise.
Speaker 6 (09:47):
Us that we've gone back? You've heard them all, but
I think I've heard them all, but.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Now just well, he's irish.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
This is the kind of Jurassic expos we do here.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
He's very good.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
The front of the show actually was once don Knots
was brought in part way through the season. He wasn't
in the original cast. They replaced an actor and then
we did one of those intros where the audience didn't
know he was in the show. Nobody told himbody. So
he's in the scene with his back to the audience,
and the audience isn't paying attention to who that is.
(10:32):
They just think it's an extra. So his first line,
he like spins the camera and I don't remember what
the line was, and we thought, well, the audience will
get a kick out of that, or you know, or
they might see maybe they'll know before it happens the
place when it was like beatle Mania. It's the closest
(10:55):
he is beloved.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yeah, by the way, is someone I always think there's
some people who were before they say a word, he's
face like Jerry Stiller. Was that for me? They just
made me laugh by being there.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
I have I have a list of guys, and he's one.
Tim Conway, yes, was one, Alice goosleepall like that, Tommy
Smothers another blows me away, yes, and Martin Short is undiable.
The guy now is the second.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
I've always said that if you put all the funniest
people in the world in one room, he might be
the funniest.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Yeah, But I heard you on a podcast talking about
Don Nuts and it sounds like he was a good guy.
I maybe because again he's sort of like, uh, you know,
like on not Rushmore of sitcoms to me. But was
he a good person?
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Oh? He was. He was wonderful and in between scenes
I would finally people were kind of afraid, I guess
to go over and talk to him or something, or
he was a little frail at that point. It was
nearing the end of his career. He had troubled with
his eyes and but I go talk to him about
like the Ghost and Mister Chickens, and I always talked
(12:04):
him about his movie. Yeah, and he would give show
business advice to me because he knew I was young
and starting out about never quit one job until you
have the next one lined up. Yes, yes, he was
my dad without the beatings.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Just didn't have the Yeah, it was a.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
Blast working by them. But I still have hanging in
my house. I have a signed Ghost and Mister Chicken poster.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
And doing that got you to the Simpsons.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Not right away, Yeah, that's pretty much a direct line.
I did a show in between called Out of This
World starring Donna Pesco and Doug McClure from The Virgin A.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Very funny show.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Yes, a very funny show. It was one of I
grabbed it because, you know, it was a job and
it was all you know, I had only been on
one show and figure, all right, this could last, you know,
a season. I'll get a season here. And I had
my first kid on the way, so got there anyway.
I flipped to you know, we're cutting the up the
cake for thee hundredth episode and I'm still there.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Wow, that really was one hundred episodes.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Yeah, yes, there's one hundred episodes. And I wound up.
I wound up running the show accidentally, even though it
was only my second job, because the show runner, the
guy who was running it came to us one day,
came to the writing staff and just said apparently he
had been having a fight with this non writing executive
(13:48):
producer who actually owned the show, and said, listen, I'm
not going to be here tomorrow. But if anyone asks
you where I am, you don't know, but I'm coming
to say goodbye to you, because I've enjoyed working with
all of you, but I will never be back here.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Do you know what happened?
Speaker 3 (14:08):
So I don't know what the big falling out was.
But like the next day comes and the guy's gone.
The guy who is in charge of the whole show
comes to the writer's room. Anybody know where John is? Uh,
and like the worst acting in the world from writers,
(14:29):
just we're all just kind of no John, it's probably
just running like could be cart. It was just we're
just we're terrible at hiding this city.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
And then announced that he's the nice.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
And then sure they he pulled me aside into his
office and said, how'd you like to run the show?
And I said, I'm only like I was a staff
writer on the previous show. I was a story editor
here and and he said, I think you can do it,
and so what I didn't realize he could smell how
(15:07):
eager I was to learn like that. He changed my
title to supervising producer, but left my money as story
out of course.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Well did you not have an agent this time?
Speaker 3 (15:20):
I did, And she just said, you know, take the deal.
You want the experience.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Look not stupid. You go for someone you recognize the talent.
They're young and eager, and you don't have to pay
them as much because you know, punish for caring, right,
punished for caring.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
But I learned a lot. Yes, you did in relative
obscurity because people weren't really familiar with the show.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Listen, kids, if you're listening, it may seem like Mike
was taking advantage of but he did learn. He did,
he got You know, you can't be you can't get
the King's ransom on your first job. You can't expect
a lot of young people expect to be treated royally
(16:05):
at the beginning. You got to work your way up.
There is the taking advantage part which nobody tries to
to be taken advantage of it.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
But that's what I'm doing on this podcast.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Yes you're look at all the meals you get.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
They actually made me pay to be on this podcast.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
I'm not stupid.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
M Is it out of this world? Out of this
(17:06):
world enough to get you to the Simpsons? Or was
it one more?
Speaker 3 (17:09):
There was one more? There was a show called Top
of the Heap on the Fox Network.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
On Bigger than Adam, like he's making it up.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
It starred Joe Bologna, who I loved in My favorite year,
phenomenal and not hated.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
On top of it.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
He was can I say, roaring asshole, We're not.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
We're today, I'm burning Bay.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
By the way, the last person to say that was
Renee Taylor.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
I believe did he He's going say whatever you want.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
But playing his son on the show was a pre
Friends Matt LeBlanc, a nice guy, a very nice guy
who Joe just kind of screwed with his head endlessly.
Like if we if we cut a line from a show,
I mean sometimes you cut a script down just for
timing after a run through the show is too long.
(18:09):
We got to cut some stuff and Joe would tell Matt, uh,
you know why they cut that line right because you
did it wrong? Like he would just mess with his head. Yes.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
So after that show was uh cancer. It was one
very quick. So we were having so much trouble coming
up with stories, and it's a brand new show and
we can't come up with any stories. One day the
showrunner brings in the Sanford Son Story Bible because Top
of the Heap is about a father and son and
(18:42):
they're kind of like scamming to make money and making it.
He gets everybody go through this the Sanford Sun Story
Bible and see if you've got anything that we can
use the show. Yes, it's like I remember like looking
through her like, oh Fred rollam accident? Do we make
a porn movie?
Speaker 7 (19:03):
Well?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
And that you know.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
How we did? Raymond. We went through the I Dream
of Genies.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Because that's the show, isn't it where he literally said
Red Fox said bring me my juice back.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
I think it was his Variety show did that. Yeah,
it's okay, it's an excellent story.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
So who gets the how do you get the call
to even to go over and meet the Simpsons?
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Speaking spec Simpsons.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
I had written a spec. I had two specs scripts
at the time. Back before the trend of writing spec pilots,
you would just write specs of existing shows. So I
had a Seinfeld and I had what I believe was
the first spec Larry Sanders on the market because the
show had just been on one year, And those got
(19:53):
me the meeting with Gracie Films, and from there they
sent me over to David Murkin, who was running the
show at the time, and Dave hired me. Yeah, and
twenty years.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Better than writing aspect Simpsons is writing aspect something else,
because when you write a spec script for the show
you want to be on. They know the show better
than anyone and so they'd rather see something that they
don't know as well.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Yeah, and they also, I think when you're running the show,
you see the show differently, You view it through a
different lens than the audience does. True, So somebody could
write a great Simpsons specscript and we might read and
go it's way off. Yeah, Like the tone is just off.
It doesn't sound like it.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
And they don't know they to be fair, they don't
know which way the show is actually going. Yes, yeah,
they're not in the room with you. Yeah, so they
don't know how you're thinking or what you want for
the show now. Yeah, they only know what the show
has been.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
Yeah. I don't envy young writers now having to try
the spec pilot.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
I can't imagine.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
A good pilot is hard to write, no matter how
many years you've been doing this, and to expect people
to do it right out of the gate and they
want to.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, there's another point that makes it harder. There's no sitcoms. Well,
they're not coming back. I mean you you actually are
working on one.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Not right now?
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Done?
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Which one?
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Well, last time we met, you told me you were
working on something. I don't know what's the status of that.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Oh, the status is the show is still on. But
it was a show my wife and I created. But
we are not.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
There because you don't want to be there, or because
there's a crazy person who said.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
The second one.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Yeah, I understand, we don't have to get into it.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
But the crazy person could be anybody.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
How did you two become friends because it was a
It's unusual in the history of Raymond that you brought
in a superstar. It's like one of the only major
baseball trades you ever made is bringing Mike over to
be a part of your team for well.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
He was fantastic, I remember, and and uh, I think
you you were looking for I don't know, part time work.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
I actually remember the phone call from you. I had
just finished up like seven episodes of a show that
would be canceled in four.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
And by the way, the last three were the best.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Yeah that It was called The Pits. It was on Fox,
and I in my head, I was like, all right,
I'll you know, I'm probably going back to The Simpsons.
It's home, it's my comfort zone. And uh, you called
about would I ever be interested, because you know, I
was a fan of the show, and would ever be
(23:00):
interested in coming over there? And and it did. It
caught my eyes one of the few shows that I
genuinely loved as a fan. And and then you were
very honest with me, he said, because I got to
tell you. He goes, if you're serious about coming over here,
and you're trying to tell me think it over, you know,
(23:22):
because if you're serious about coming over here, I'm going
to have to fight for you. And I said why
and that you would already run my name by the
network and they called me. Oh, isn't he cartoon boy
because you worked.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
On The Simpsons? Yeah, I mean, that's idiocy.
Speaker 5 (23:39):
I was.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
I was the only reason I could actually say that
to you, because I was saying at the same time,
it's insanity that, yeah, this is what we're up against.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Yeah, And that was the first time. I didn't know
that writers could be typecast by the types of shows
you do.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
But that's insane. I mean the Simpsons is literally more
realistic than many live action shows. So we were thrilled
to have you. You were always a joy and a pleasure,
and I wish we could do more together.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
But can I ask what was your experience? Because I
wrote a book about showrunners and watched Phil at work
and was kind of amazed by it was the greatest
show in history that was also almost an efficiently run
gem factory. It's like they made these great episodes time
after time, but they did not. I was at the
same time hanging around friends and seeing them go till
(24:36):
three in the morning and kill themselves, and it seems
like they had Phil, or that those people in that
room figured something out.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
I'm very lazy.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
What was your perspective?
Speaker 3 (24:49):
No, well, it was it was at that time when
pretty much every show was there till at least midnight,
but it was very common to two, three, four in
the morning, cute hair show, and there were showrunners that
believed that's when the magic happens.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
And then I think it happened.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
I get to Raymond and it's the complete opposite, you know.
I think every day we were out normally four thirty
five o'clock in the afternoon, that's n and I had
a long drive home. So it kind of pissed me
off because right in the middle of traffic at least
at two in the morning, there's nobody else out there.
(25:30):
But you go in the opposite with yeah, that's true. No,
it was to me.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Dinner at home is where the stories were coming from.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Yeah. Also, and it just proved you can do a
quality show and have a normal life at the same time.
That it's not mutually exclusive. And that's you know, was
a big takeaway for me from that show, and I
would spread the word around other writers, it's happening at Rain.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
I've been I'm so glad that that that that's part
of the legacy is that you could first of all,
treat people nicely and second of all get your work
done in regular normal day hours.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
Yeah, and I think part of your your mindset was
like on other shows if you were there late at night,
you know the show when I would go, come on,
come on, it's one in the morning, let's get this thing.
You know, we gotta get out. On Raymond, it was
the same speech, but you were getting around three thirty
in the afternoon. Come on, it's three thirty.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
But we did procrastinate, just like every other show. Totally.
We'd fos around until lunch. Yeah, but you a lot
of times we would what were we doing? We were
seemingly wasting time by talking about what was happening to
us in our real life at home, and then usually
around lunch, one of us would hit ourselves in the
(27:01):
head and go, hey, wait a minute.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
He Phil would get if you were telling a story
of like something that had happened, say over the weekend
with your family, between you and your kids, or you
and your wife, or an argument or something like that,
there's a point. At a certain point most shows, you
would just be telling a funny story to the room
and then it would be all all right, let's get
to work. When you're doing it with Phil, what it
(27:26):
took me a while to learn. At a certain point
in the story, there's kind of a twinkle in his
eye that pops up, and then I realized, Oh, this
is going to wind up on the show.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
That's right, that's right, that's that's I think one of
the keys to that success of that show, yeah, was
that it was relatable to people.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Absolutely. That's what my wife and I loved about it
just watching it weekend week out. There were literal arguments
on there that we had had. And you think you're
the only one that has this argument, but.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
I always say, we get letters from Sri Lanka. That's
my Yeah. But the Simpsons, you know, does it so
masterfully as well. And they're working in the cartoon boy format,
which is absolutely amazing. They still after thirty five years,
(28:19):
can crank out absolutely stunning work.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
Yeah, it's and I think the show has gone through
a little bit of a renaissance the last few years
under Matt Salmon and Al Jean, and I think Salmon's
kind of doing it now where they're experimenting with the
form and telling you know some you know stories. They
did like a two parter a couple of years ago,
(28:45):
and they're just trying different things, and they're willing to
take that chance. It might work, it might not work.
And I always admire that.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
The Christmas one this year was an hour long. Yeah
did you see it?
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Yes? I did. Yeah, it was great.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
May you cry? Yeah, like that never happened? Yeah, and
that they allowed it because I know there's hard and
fast rules on that show. Yes, yeah, but that was incredible.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Yeah. Now, that was really well done.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Without sacrificing any of the tenets of the show.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Yeah. Yeah, No, it's it's a kick to watch. And
there's a whole new generation of writers on Shout and.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
It's it's well passed profitability in syndication, right, because the
syndication wants a certain number of episodes, but once you
have too many, it starts to literally lose value because
there's too many. Yeah, but they don't care. It's just
it seems like it might never end.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
It's possible, and I think I don't think there's a
president nobody wants to be the president of Fox who
canceled The Simpsons. I think they're hoping when it ends,
it just kind of goes away on its own somehow magically.
Maybe maybe Jim Brooks will do it like like what
he did with Mary Tyler Moore. He'll you'll say we're
(30:10):
done now. Yeah, that's enough.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
But it looks like no end in sight.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Yeah, not that I can see.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
It seems like because it's a cartoon that it could
run forever. Yeah, and uh, look at SNL. Yeah, and
the US cast changes, right, you can go forever. It's
the format, it's its own format.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Yeah. And when I got there, I got there near
the end of season four, and I remember thinking, God,
if I could just ride this out a couple of seasons,
I'd make it to the end. Because at that time,
if you ran five to seven years, you had a
good run for a network half hour episodes. Yeah, yeah, of.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Course, which is all you need for syndication.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Yeah. And we used to talk a lot about the
series finale. It was and this is I'm going, like
I said, I'm talking like season five six. I remember,
everybody should be thinking about a finale. It's going to come,
you know, we gotta be ready when it does. And
then the last time I remember hearing the conversation, we
(31:10):
got up to like around season ten, and then I
thought that was going to be the end. There were
conversations I think we're running on fumes now, and we
got to figure a way out of this. And then
we decided to do eleven and twelve and I can't
remember what the reason was to keep it going, but
we just decided to plunge on. And I don't recall
(31:33):
ever the conversation ever happening again of how do we
end this thing. I think the feeling is we'll figure
something out when the time comes, are they will, I
won't be there, But.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
It's still the simplest of premises, right, which gives you
the longevity. In other words, if they were aliens from
outer space, there's a limit to that premise because every
single episode is the neighbors can't find out we're from
out of space. But they are a regular family in
a real town that over time, you've gotten to populate
(32:06):
with other believable characters that you could do an episode
with any one of them. Yes, and you do.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
Yeah, And we know we've gotten to feature. There's probably
three hundred characters that have come through that show, maybe more.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Do you know how amazing that is to have hundreds
of characters that are not just stick drawings? Yeah, fantastic.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
The trick is always when we feature one of the
supporting characters and be about them is figuring out how
to get one or more of the Simpsons into their story, right,
That's always the tricky part for us. So it doesn't
feel like we didn't need the Simpsons in this episode. Sure,
but it definitely opens the show up creatively, and you
(32:49):
can take all kinds of wild swings, and because these
are characters that don't have elaborate backstories, so you can
suddenly make out them. Yeah, exactly, this must be so
much fun. It is, it is. It was terrifying at
first when you join as a writer. I'll never forget
like starting on the show.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
But you can draw from real life. You can say
I had this neighbor who was like this, this, this,
and then put it in.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
Oh yeah, yeah, I've done tons of stuff on the
show from my real life, like when Barka Caught shoplifting,
it was based on me getting caught shoplifting when I
was a kid, and we did one just a couple
of years ago. I wrote it as a freelance about
my brother and I getting our mother this horrible birthday
present because we had saved up money. Let's get mom
(33:34):
something really, really nice this year, you know. She and
we went into the store and we found something that
we liked better for ourselves. And then we rationalized, well,
we would still have enough money leftover to get her
a president, and we bought her first kid. Oh, I
(33:57):
would kill the I would be redeemed. It was a scarf.
We bought her an ironing board cover.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
Oh she's ironing all the time, you know, seems to
love it for us.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
What did bart by?
Speaker 3 (34:13):
That's what we did in the show.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
You did it.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
We did the ironing board cover. It was bart and Lisa,
Uh And what was Moreg's reaction? She tried to be
a good sport about it in front of them, and
then they overheard her telling Flanders. She was kind of
disappointed that that's how her kids see her.
Speaker 7 (34:31):
Oh my god, that great story.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Just a bunch of gas in the car.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
No mat.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Mats, Davis Bill is me.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
I know you was one of a very big music fan.
You know, you were on our Peter Wolfe episode. You
wrote a doc you made a documentary that that I think,
uh is bigger than the last Waltz about enter BQ
A band. Well, it's bigger. The celluloid the videotape was bigger,
(35:33):
but EDERBQ one of my favorite groups of all time.
How much did your There's been a lot of music,
love and musicians pushed onto uh the Simpsons, and you
know there's like a sort of love affair back and
forth there. Any did you have anything to do with
any of bringing any of the musicians into the world.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
Yeah. When I was there, we did one episode where
Homer goes to rock and roll Fantasy Camp and it
was we had well, I'll tell you how it started.
First of all, I was driving to work one day.
I always had the first act of the show laid
(36:12):
out on an index card on the board, and it
was Homer does the responsible thing after a night of
drinking at most, he takes a cab home. And while
he's taking the cab home, what he doesn't realize is
it's remember the HBO show Taxi Cab Confessions. He doesn't
(36:33):
know that's what he's not. So he's drunk and he's
talking to the cabby and how like, you know, marriage
can ruin your life and you give up your dreams
and you know all this stuff. And then the family
winds up watching the show because Homer was drunk. He's
(36:53):
watching it with him having no idea where it's going.
So he's doing he's saying this stuff about his family,
these horrible, horrible things, and they see it. And I
always had that first act.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
It's such a great way to get into it.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
I didn't know how to get out of it for
two years and the cards started to turn yellow on
the door because I didn't want the rest of the
show to be Homer apologizing. I think that's boring. And
then one day I'm driving to work, I'm listening to
Howard Stern. He has on Leslie West, the guitar player
(37:33):
for the band Mountain Big Hit Mississippi Queen Leslie West
is on there to promote this thing he's starting called
Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp, and he's got the guys
from a Cheap Trick and Alice Cooper, and he named
a few of the other people that were going to
be part of this, and just like Baseball Fantasy Camp,
but by the.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Way, started by a friend of mine who was the
same guy who promoted the Monkeys Come Back to where
Ringos beginning the all star band. David Fishoff, an Orthodox
Kosher jew who brought us rock and Roll Fantasy.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Yeah. Yeah, And I don't know if he was involved
with the Leslie West version, but I haven't believe he was. Yeah,
And it was like right then, instantly I had it.
I said, what if Homer had this dream of one
day being like a rock star and a band, but
because he got married and had kids and got a
(38:28):
job to take care of his family, he gave up
all of his dreams and that March March, Yeah, Marge
has the point. You know, It's like, you know, your
father did actually give up a lot for us, and
instead of them being mad, they turn it and want
to give him a surprise gift. They take their vacation
(38:52):
fund and book him for a week at Rock and
Roll Fantasy Camp. I had started writing the first draft
of the script, was actually writing a lot of the
people that were already doing Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp.
And then uh, and then I got a call one
day through Denise Surcott, who works for Gracie Films. She
(39:14):
comes out of the music business. She got a call saying, hey,
the Stones are going out on tour next year and
they're wondering if there's something they could do with the
show that COHENSI all of a sudden.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
That's a good call.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
Yeah, that's a good call. And it's all of a sudden,
like by Leslie was upgrade, okay, And we wound up
getting Mick and Keith, Tom Patty, Elvis Costello, Jesus all
in one episode, all in one episode. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
They all came to the studio to record, not.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
Not at the same time, but they all recorded in person.
What was that like? Oh man, it was fucking having it. Like,
first of all the geek that I am, I brought
a guitar with the try to get each one to sign,
not thinking the question that each one would ask when
you put a guitar, Oh you play? No, I don't.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
I like so?
Speaker 3 (40:18):
Oh And Lenny Kravitz was also and Bryan sets it.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
This is amazing.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
Yeah, it was a lot of fun. We had a great.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
Yes, I remember that. Yeah, so that's the episode.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
That's the episode. Yeah, And it made me totally understand
remember the years where he wanted he wanted to be
an actor. He was doing movies.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
And I saw free Jack.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
But you know, the riff between having Keith sometimes is
your head. You're not into the music anymore, you know,
And I kind of got it like he has real
comedy chops.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
He was great on the Oscars.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Yeah, great, by the way, great on Snlso yeah, hysterical,
hysterical and self effacing. And and you.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
Don't have to tell him how to say. You don't
have to direct him. He knows where the joke is about.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Trying to pitch jokes to Jagger funny not funny is
one of the greatest bits of all time.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
Yeah, how did Keith come at the same time they
came separate.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
I'm not surprised.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
I got a call from UH, one of their managers,
to set up that Keith would come like they had.
There had to be three weeks space what between them?
And she explained to me, she goes she was it's
not that they you know, they hate each other like that,
(41:43):
She was there. They're best friends for lives. They would
be the first one in a crisis, they'll be the
first one there to help the other one out. But
they liked their time apart. But they both liked the
same hotel in La so they didn't want to bump
into each other accident.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
And it has to be three weeks to be safe.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
That's what I was told.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
I got caught in the middle of their relationship. I
wrote winer notes for forty Licks, which is one of
their big anthologies, and I got I only I got
mixed notes. He was the one. He was my conduit,
and he would go, David, if you could take out
the knighthood reference, because he goes it will break up
the band. And also he goes like I think, he goes,
(42:27):
Keith counted lines and there's two more about me than
about him, so if you could balance that out for us. Also, David,
you I did one phrase of Yiddish. I think I
called myself the stones Schlepper or something, and he goes,
if you could remove the Yiddish as it's going to
fourteen Arab nations, which I wow.
Speaker 3 (42:48):
No, but they were. They were a blast and Mick
too quick, tell me if I'm going to long these Keith.
You know, when you have a guestar on the show,
we always like there's a contract rider of anything they want,
like to eat or anything like that, and we always
ask we want to make sure because they get paid
(43:09):
scale to do the show. You know, you don't do
the Simpsons to make money. So I asked, is there
anything you know Keith would like you know when he
comes to record, and the request was a bottle of
vodka and a bottle of orange crush.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
He didn't mix them, did he?
Speaker 3 (43:31):
Oh God, I'm nodding my head yet. Yes he did,
and I said, okay, any like food spread.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
Nope, that's like a teenager who's drinking for the first time.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
It helps when you're doing your blood transfusions.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
Mix of two things of everything I've learned today, that's you.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
You and Keith. Did you get to bring up I'm
trying to remember the his the timing of this, but
I always thought it was amazing when he made his
Chuck Berry movie.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
Oh yeah, that his base Ye.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
Rock and roll, a great movie. Har His bass player
is Joyce Spompanado from NRBQ, Your Your Your Blessed Band.
Did that ever? Did that come up at the time.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
Yeah, we talked about it then, and then later on
when I did the NRBQ thing, I was able to
get Keith to talk to talk about it. His his
manager called me up. She said, he's out in his
backyard in Connecticut. He's interviewing for one one thing right now,
he says. She said, if he said he'll do you'r
n RBQ thing if you're ready to go right after
(44:37):
he's done with this, he said, let's do it. So
I just interviewed him over the phone. I gave her
the questions and she fed the questions to him and
he was great, it's on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
You can find that's great.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
How did you get an NERBQ for people don't know
new originally the New Rhythm and Blues Quartet. I went
to a school in Connecticut and in the exact town
where Al Anderson, one of the great earlier in No
Longer but was the guitar guid when I was loving ENERBQ.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
How did you.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Manage to take this band famously obscure, never the biggest
of sellers, and you managed to get them. You did
something for TV about them, and I'm not sure it
went that well for in terms of the broadcast ratings.
But tell us the story of how you got ener
BQ on TV.
Speaker 3 (45:24):
For the documentary. I had been called over for a
meeting at VH one and they wanted me. They were
trying to do an animated show over at VH one
and they wanted me to direct Rob Reiner in a
voiceover session, and I said, I'll do it. On one condition,
(45:48):
and I instantly pitched this show about and I said
it was a pilot for a series called Hidden Treasures
of Rock and Roll and it's kind of the bands
that bands like and they said, we'll do that. Wow,
And so that's how I got the money time, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
It's never that simple of VH one. I worked some
at VH one. I'm sure it didn't go that easily.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
Well, it didn't initially, and it took me about a
year or more to get the whole thing done, maybe
about a year and a half. And at that time
when I pitched it, Bonnie Ray was kind of the
prototype VH one artist and she had recovered an RBQ
on some of her albums. And the Boys, yeah, Me
and the Boys and Green Lights. So anyhow, at that time,
(46:40):
so flashed through. A year and a half later, I
come back and I decide I'm going to deliver the
tape in person to finish. I go into the offices.
There is nobody there that I knew the year in
the first made it. Yeah, And I said, but there's
it's like that Bobcat golf thing about h I lost
(47:00):
my job, Like, well, I didn't lose it I know
where it is, it's just when I go there, now
other people are doing it. I walk in and I'm
going to all the same offices and there's new people
in each office. And I finally said, you know, I've
got this tape here. I was making a documentary and
we made a deal in this room. No idea what
(47:21):
I was talking about. And they just said, well, they go,
I guess it's yours. You can keep it.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Oh, so this might be the difficult part that you're
talking about.
Speaker 2 (47:29):
Yes, yes, that would be a difficult part.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
Until then, it was going well.
Speaker 3 (47:33):
It was going well. So then we ultimately wound up
selling it. I was trying to sell it.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
All over town and literally door to door.
Speaker 3 (47:41):
Yes, and we sold it to A and E, which
at that time I was still the Arts and Entertainment Network,
and they put it on a show. They put it
on at the prime rock and roll time of Sunday
morning at eight AM, on a show called Breakfast with
the Arts. Is where it ultimately wound out, and then
(48:02):
they brought the band in to fill out like another
hour afterward. So I don't know who saw it or not,
but it's in sections on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
I did see it. I got a cassette from somebody
maybe I bought one from you on the side of
the but I did get to see it, which I did.
I love that band.
Speaker 3 (48:19):
Yeah, and a lot of great people gave testimonials like
Peter Buck and Mike Mills, from Arim, Elvis Costello, Bonnie,
Drew Carrey who's a big fan of d Drew Bader,
just people you know, Penn and Teller, all people I
would see it shows and they all wanted to be
(48:41):
a part of it, and uh so, you know it was.
It was a lot of fun. And then getting Keith
and say it came so close to Paul McCartney, like
three different times we had sessions scheduled that wanted up
being canceled. But he apparently was a fan, and so
that would have been great to get Paul.
Speaker 2 (49:03):
That would have got you like a noontime yea.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
Do you have a favorite showbiz story in all your years?
Oh jeez, I don't want to put you on the spot.
Speaker 2 (49:19):
Something else while you're thinking about you work with a
comedian who I always think of when someone is not
your type of comedy and you think they're great, you
know they're great. And there was a guy named Robert
Schimmel who I was a big fan of. Can you
tell me the story of how you you? You worked
with Robert and nearly made him this. I kind of
(49:41):
think he could have been a massive almost of a
different error, kind of a little bit of that all
in the family, because he was an edgier kind.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
Of guy work on that too. No, No, was there
there a second show?
Speaker 3 (49:56):
Did there? Definitely wasn't a second one, I don't think,
and I don't think he had done.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
I think he died on the first one, so I
know there wasn't.
Speaker 3 (50:02):
Yeah, we I can't remember where I saw him first.
It might have been one of those like Comedy Central
half hour comedy things. And I just thought he was
hilarious and so different than everyone else out there, and
that he was older too and had kids, and and
I loved his voice. And so we wound up meeting
(50:24):
and we hit it off, and we sold a pilot
to Fox, wrote it and uh, and it was a
it was a tough shoot that we had, like the
run through the night before we're shooting the pilot and
(50:46):
the network president hates it, I mean really hates it
and says I hate it.
Speaker 2 (50:54):
How could you.
Speaker 3 (50:59):
So I'm trying to make the case of why I
think America will love this guy. Uh and and and
connect with you know, the show and the family and
and he he the president gets up and walks away.
He goes, what can I say? And he goes, I
guess we're just the Arabs and the Jews on this one.
(51:20):
And I said, which one am I? And he didn't
even turn his back. He said, anyone you wanted this
for Fox Fox. The show got ordered two series and
unfortunately Robert was diagnosed with cancer God and so ultimately
(51:42):
we never made it to air. He eventually went into remission.
But Robert was one of those guys he could find, like,
like we went to see him in Vegas while he
was going through chemo. He was still touring and like
under his suit he had the he's like the portal
or whatever put it and he had lost lot of way,
but he had like a twenty minute chunk of material
(52:03):
now about cancer, and he was excited about that. I
got twenty new minutes out of this, you know, which
is a real comics mentality. Yeah wow, But he was Ironically,
he ultimately beat the cancer, later had liver disease, beat that,
and then a couple years later, I got a phone
call telling me that he had died in a car
(52:25):
accident out in Arizona.
Speaker 1 (52:27):
I'm surprised that this is your favorite Tropis story.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
No, no, we're so letting him. Wait. Here's my second
pitch for your favorite Schopis story. I don't know what
your story is, but I had a story with this guy.
I got to ask Mel Gibson after the scandals to
drop some Yiddish, and he did, and he was I
quite enjoyed my experience with mister Gibson. He did. At
(52:55):
the height of the scandals, I was in his office
and there was a cutout of Jesus like a movie
like you would see in a movie theater lobby. There
was the his His, His Jesus movie. There was a
big cutout, and he sort of was backing me into
the door, telling me it was really wanted to bond
because he was under such like there was such bad
(53:15):
pr going for him, and he had always been really
well liked because he's actually quite could be very charming.
And I backed I knocked over Jesus in his office.
And I always just thought the only thing was to
be if they caught fire when the Jew knocked into Jesus.
Speaker 1 (53:30):
He put that in the movie.
Speaker 2 (53:32):
But how was your Complete Savages experience?
Speaker 3 (53:34):
For some reason, I'm pictriggy like like nervously picking the.
Speaker 2 (53:43):
I was tempted, you know, what was your experience.
Speaker 3 (53:52):
Uh? Working with UH on Complete Savages? We actually had
a lot of fun working together on that show. It
was fun. He directed the pilot. I hear this is
this actually is one of my favorite stories. It shows
you what an idiot I am. I had brought him
around because he hadn't really worked in TV at all,
(54:16):
so I brought him around to just show him like
the stages. I think I brought him once to the
Raymond stage, which do you remember Brad's line?
Speaker 2 (54:25):
What was it?
Speaker 3 (54:28):
Brad Garrett walks up behind Mel. Mel didn't see him coming.
Brad walks up behind him and looking down in that
booming voice of Brad says, I want to meet the
world's tallest juke. And he laughed at that, and I
(54:48):
took him around to a couple other sets. But anyway,
so I'm telling you Mel, like you know, so we're
going to have like, you know, four cameras on stage.
It's not like movies. You know, it's not you know,
like a single ca a a thing. It's they're all
going at the same time. And you're watching the split
on this day and I said, are you comfortable with that?
And he goes, you know how many cameras I had
(55:10):
for the battle scene in Brave Heart eighteen?
Speaker 1 (55:13):
Wow?
Speaker 3 (55:14):
I said, well, this will probably work. Then the problem
actually complete Savages. When we sold the show, ABC was
looking for They wanted to get back in their TGIF business,
which was family friendly Friday night shows, and then there
was a change of regime. Literally the night we shot
the pilot, we were waiting for the network president to
(55:36):
come down to the stage and we're like fifteen minutes
in and she hasn't come, and no one's calling, and
we finally called to see where she is and it
turned out she had been let go.
Speaker 1 (55:50):
You've had these incredible things happen to you, Yeah, these
wild ups and downs? Yeah, how do you surf this business?
Is it therapy?
Speaker 2 (56:02):
Is it? Is it stuff?
Speaker 1 (56:03):
I mean to me, it seems like this stuff you
shrug and you go on to the next thing. That's
what you look like to me. But is it harder
than that?
Speaker 3 (56:11):
For a while, but I mean when something doesn't make sense,
you know, because you in the end you want to believe. Yeah,
but if people like this show, they'll do it anyway.
And then you realize there's all these other things that
come into play. The new network president came in, Well,
now he felt no attachment to this show. Of course,
it wasn't his baby wasn't developed on his shift You're dead.
Speaker 1 (56:35):
That happens a lot.
Speaker 3 (56:37):
Yes, they just feel no ownership of it. You can
take credit for it, I don't care. And then it
was done by a rival studio. We were doing it
for ABC, but the studio was Universal, and at that time,
Jeff Zucker was running Universal and it was the ABC presidency.
You think I want to give Jeff Zucker a hit show,
(57:00):
I'm kind of hoping.
Speaker 2 (57:04):
Having that unique perspective, I always because I was writing
about him at the time. It was amazing when Phil
never like at the moment where Raymond, where you were
getting offered a lot of big deals and took maybe
a big deal, you ended up sticking with your show.
It's pretty uncommon in TV history that someone stays with
the show they love.
Speaker 3 (57:23):
Yes, Yes, and I think more so at that time too.
Speaker 5 (57:25):
Right.
Speaker 3 (57:26):
I mean it was unusual to not it was not.
Speaker 1 (57:29):
It was a different world now that people were offering
tons of money to do a deal somewhere else because
there was so much business. That business isn't there anymore,
It really isn't.
Speaker 3 (57:45):
No, it really absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (57:47):
I mean it could come back. I always think that
if somebody wrote a great sitcom, sitcoms would be back
because the nature of show businesses the hit is here, now,
let's run over there and started imitating that.
Speaker 3 (57:59):
Yeah, yeah, so it just takes one.
Speaker 2 (58:01):
Really, I'm watching a network show that is really good
now and my wife and I just keep watching it
because we were told to watch it. And how can
this be so good on network TV? Right now?
Speaker 3 (58:14):
Oh? High potential?
Speaker 2 (58:15):
Right, I don't know if it's it's really it splits
a sitcom and a drama. Yeah, because it's sort of
a crime show, but it's brilliantly funny.
Speaker 3 (58:22):
And no, it's a fun show. It's on ABC, and
then I guess on Hulu the next day it's Kaylin
Olsen from Sunny in Philadelphia. But the show it's a
French originally a French show I think called high intellectual
Potential or something hip and then Drew Goddard, the screenwriter writer,
(58:44):
adapted the property, brought the IP over here, and ABC
bought it and Drew's not running I forget who's running
it now, but yeah, it's I agree with you. It's
a fun show and she's terrific, she's amazing.
Speaker 1 (58:56):
Yeah, well, I'm gonna check it out.
Speaker 2 (58:58):
A network show that you Oh wow, this is.
Speaker 3 (59:01):
Now that I love Abbot Elementary and I think I
look at it like this is the business they used
to be in on a routine base. Just shows that
make you feel good. They're funny.
Speaker 1 (59:13):
But the four camera show, oh, the four camera shows.
Speaker 3 (59:17):
They seem to think the formula for doing them now
is to find somebody who had success previously in the
same format.
Speaker 1 (59:26):
That's dumb, Like Reba, that's dumb because it's not it.
I know the movie business has gone all ip that
that's the only thing that will bring someone to the
theater is knowing the brand. But the old adage TV
makes stars stars, don't make TV. People discover the people
(59:51):
they and they believe them as those characters. Why, because
there is no baggage from before. We're not seeing a
movie star, We're seeing someone who is this character and
that makes the show better.
Speaker 3 (01:00:04):
No, I agree completely. I think they're making big mistakes.
I think they underestimated the streamers, and I think the
broadcast networks thought, hey, that you know, you know, you know,
because I would say, change your viewing experience. That people
are getting used to this viewing experience of no ads,
(01:00:27):
And I know you can't do that, but you certainly
have more ads than you need. When you were the
only game in town, you kept pushing and taking more
and more, where a half an hour show is really
twenty minutes. I said, you're going to wind up going
out of business that way.
Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
But the streamers don't learn the lesson either now because
they've tried some sitcoms. Yeah, but made the mistake of
the same mistake that the networks make. Yeah, just get
a big star. That's all people care about. Yeah, it's
not the case. It's really they'd like to see something
that makes them last.
Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
Yeah. Yeah, and that's getting harder and harder to find.
I think with an exception, and this is I think Hacks.
There is a show I love that makes me laugh
out loud, and I think they've got the emotion too,
But the long gaps on a lot of the streaming shows,
in particular, I have to wait a year for eight
(01:01:21):
more of the like, oh, we'll just go back and
rewatch and it's a personal thing. I'm like, No, I
did watch it. I enjoyed it. I'm not watching it again,
but I'm up.
Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
I can go back and watch something from ten years
ago having not one memory. I'm going back and watching Fargo,
which I started from season one with the Billy Bob Right.
It's one of the best things ever on television. It's
just so good.
Speaker 3 (01:01:53):
Do you ever watch it when it was first on?
Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
But you remember it? No, here you go. I got
a new show for you, Mike.
Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
I'm going to I'm want to package you two to
do a new sitcom called mel Point, like the Comeback.
Speaker 1 (01:02:12):
How much should we love? Mike Scully? Thank you for
being here. Oh my pleasure man, come back any time.
I'm sure we have. We didn't cover half the things
on your paper there. David did well.
Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
He didn't even give us one real Parks and Rex story,
which my kids are going to be mad at me.
Speaker 1 (01:02:27):
So go ahead, please give us.
Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
But that cast is amazing, like the amount of talent,
like you know between Adam Scott if you think he
started with Severan's no. If you know Rashida, Rob Lowe,
who you you had the idea of Rob be pretty.
I think that was a great pitch.
Speaker 3 (01:02:49):
I actually remember when Rob came in the first day,
because he came in somewhere in season two. I think
Robin Adam both and Rob was coming in for the
end of You and a lot of the the women
and the office h randomly, we're extra stretched up that day,
so uh, and they were all talking about Rob lows
(01:03:11):
coming out around so the male you know, particularly the
writers like won't see how pretty is right once he's
up close and without all the filters on the camera
and the vasaline, all the tricks they do. And if
I he comes in for the meeting and the writers
are in there like, oh my god, he's beautiful, and
(01:03:36):
I think too for a show, I mean, it's a
similarity to Raymond with Parks in terms of the dynamic
that when when you have a nice person running the
show and a sane person and then on set you
have the same thing in the cast. You have an
Amy Poehler on set like you know, I'm on Parks
(01:03:59):
and like sure, and it makes it just kind of
a joyful place to be at work. Some shows you're escaping.
You might be escaping the writer's room and go down
to the stage or vice versa. I don't want to
be on the stage. I'm going to hide in the
writer's true that there was no bad place to be
on either of those shows.
Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
I remember my kids were early and loved Parks and
rec the first year, and then I was doing some
award show with Amy and I just said, my kids
love your show, and she's such a nice person, David,
please tell them to stick with it because the second
season's much better. Like she was like so like not
like a star, just like a nice human being.
Speaker 3 (01:04:40):
Yeah. No, it was a great lesson having been there.
I was there for half the first season, and they
didn't get to do a pilot for the show because
Amy was pregnant at the time, so they just went
right into doing six. And what they discovered was because
of Amy's kind of innate likability, and I think Greg
(01:05:03):
Daniels described it as this glow that follows her. She
was kind of the butt of the joke in the
first season, like everybody made fun of how much she
cared about things, and you know, that kind of stuff
and the adjustment. Now it just made so much sense.
We decided, let's not have people look at her that way.
(01:05:26):
Let's have people think these are admirable qualities and knowing
she'll be the one to go too far, but she's
the one who never forgets anybody's birthday instead of getting
mad at her for it, Just like, God, why I
wish I was more like Leslie No And then so
the audience could feel like, geez, I wish there was
(01:05:46):
a Leslie Nope in real government, somebody who cared that much.
Speaker 1 (01:05:51):
I remember her. One of her character traits was she
loved Joe Biden, Yes, the vice president.
Speaker 3 (01:05:59):
Yes, Yeah, Yeah, that was great. No, it was a
it was a fun show to do, and it was
a good, you know, working experiences. To work with a
whole different staff that I hadn't worked with before, So
that was fun, a very young staff. I became very
aware of my age on that show. Yeah, because there
was one night I was sitting there and I looked
(01:06:19):
across the table at two of the writers. I added
their ages together and I was still older.
Speaker 1 (01:06:25):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (01:06:28):
But it was cool because I was kind of like, wow,
this is the next generation of creators and stuff coming up.
Speaker 1 (01:06:35):
So and you were and you were impressed by them.
Oh yeah, yeah, that's well, that's great.
Speaker 2 (01:06:39):
Well, thank you for coming in like Rob Low and
dazzling us with your beauty.
Speaker 1 (01:06:44):
And your charm and your youth.
Speaker 3 (01:06:48):
It was a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:06:50):
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 farre
and motion graphics by Ali Ahmed. Executive produced by Phil Rosenthal,
David Wilde, and our consulting journalist is Pamela Chella. Thanks
for listening to Naked Lunch, a Lucky Bastard's production.
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