Shane Black, Fred Dekker, Jim Herzfeld, & David Silverman of “The Pad O’ Guys”, explains why I’m not “Pad O Guys” Material

Shane Black (Lethal Weapon, The Nice Guys)  Jim Herzfeld (Meet The Parents/Fockers), Fred Dekker (Preditor), & David Silverman (The Simpsons) reminisce about their college hangout that became the social group that supported their life and art for the rest of their lives.  They describe a house full of UCLA film nerds with a 24 hour open house policy.  It was young guys finding themselves and their drive and their fun by making a scene in the early 1980’s. Movie watching, game playing, movie making, and joking around led to a group of people that has made some of the biggest films of the last 30 years.  

Bio: JIM HERZFELD is an American film and television screenwriter who has also done work as a television producer. Herzfeld graduated from UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television (TFT) and his earliest TV credit – on the ground breaking “It's Garry Shandling's Show” -- was followed by almost 10 years of writing and producing episodes on dozens of sitcom staffs, including the Fox TV classic "Married... With Children." Herzfeld's earliest feature film work was a writing credit on the cult comedy “Tapeheads“ in 1988. His most successful work was writing the screenplay for the 2000 film” Meet the Parents” as well as writing the story and screenplay for its 2004 sequel “Meet the Fockers.” To date, both those films remain on the list of the 20 Highest Grossest Comedies. More recently, in 2015 his screenplay for “Meet the Parents” was selected by the Writer’s Guild of America’s as one of the “101 Funniest Screenplays” of all time. Herzfeld was also the writer of the canceled Circle 7 Animation version of Toy Story 3 and has done countless punch-up and rewrites on dozens of big budget comedies and animated films for virtually every major studio.  Herzfeld has also guest lectured about screenwriting at several major universities, including NYU, UCLA and AFI along with appearing on writer panels at various film festivals, most notably the Austin Film Festival where Jim was a judge for their Comedy Screenplay Competition. Currently, Herzfeld continues to write and develop comedy screenplays and recently became an advisor for Scripthop, a software startup focused on revolutionizing how screenplays are both presented and circulated throughout the entertainment industry. 
FRED DEKKER - Pursuing a movie career, he moved to Los Angeles where his fledgling screenwriting efforts led to a Hollywood agent and a job writing Godzilla: King of the Monsters for director Steve Miner. Although the film went unproduced, Dekker provided the story for Miner’s 1985 horror-comedy House, starring William Katt (screenplay by Ethan Wiley). The film was recognized by the Fantasporto and the Avoriaz Film Festivals, and spawned several sequels. Dekker made his directorial debut with Night of the Creeps, an homage to B-movies that eventually developed a devoted cult following. He went on to direct another cult favorite, The Monster Squad, co-written with his UCLA friend Shane Black. He subsequently wrote five episodes of Tales From The Crypt, including the first episode, directed by Robert Zemeckis. In 1991, Dekker conceived the Denzel Washington starrer Ricochet and the spy spoof If Looks Could Kill, both for Warner Bros. He then returned to the director’s chair for the third RoboCop film, co-written with comic book legend Frank Miller. As a script doctor, Dekker made uncredited contributions to films including Titan A.E. and Lethal Weapon 4. He then served as Consulting Producer and wrote three episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise. In 2015, he reteamed with Shane Black on a western TV pilot for Amazon Studios, entitled Edge. The two went on to co-write the 2018 release The Predator, which Black also directed. Dekker’s international awards include the Silver Raven from the Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film; the Estrella de Fantastico Award from the 2019 Bilbao Fantasy Film Festival; and the 2024 Honorary Time Machine Award (Premi Màquina del Temps) at the Sitges Film Festival for his contributions to horror and fantasy cinema. He is currently developing a true crime limited series for Amazon based on a murder which occurred in his hometown.
SHANE BLACK is a writer/director whose writing credits include such films as Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight and The Monster Squad.  He began as a director in 2005 with Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and receives increasingly strident sequel requests for 2016's The Nice Guys.  He is currently writing a spec original and trying to lose some weight by New Years'.  Not that he's fat -- he's just old, and being careful.
DAVID SILVERMAN After graduating from UCLA in 1983, David Silverman worked as a freelance illustrator and animator until, in 1987, he landed a job animating on The Tracey Ullman Show — where The Simpsons began. Animating on all 48 shorts led to David directing the first shows of The Simpsons. Starting with the Christmas Special in Dec

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Strawt Media.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Hi, I'm David Silverman and I'm Jim Hurstfeldt, Fred Decker,
Shane Black. We're the Pad of Guys and we're alone
with it j Cogan.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
Don't be alone with jj Cogan.

Speaker 4 (00:22):
Hey, friends, welcome to Don't be Alone with Jake Cogan.
I am your lovable host, Jake Cogan, and I'm asking
you once again, as always, subscribe to the damn Show.
Just subscribe to it, press like or subscribe whatever you're
listening to. Wherever you're listening to it, subscribe. I need subscribers,
That's all I'm asking. Is it so hard?

Speaker 1 (00:39):
No?

Speaker 4 (00:40):
Also share the show if you want, go to the
substack Jake Cogan a substack and read about the show.
I do appreciate that you're here, and I really think
we've got a great show for you.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Today.

Speaker 4 (00:50):
We have a show about friendship and about growing up
with a group of people and keeping in touch with
that group of people. I think it's so important to
find your people. This is a show about a group
of guys called the Pad of Guys, who found their
people early in college and then used that friendship to
develop their lives and are still friends today. They're all

(01:12):
big wigs, entertainment, people who have made incredible movies, Knight
of Creeps, Monster Squad, RoboCop, Predator, It's Gary Shanling's show,
Married with Children, Tape Heads Meet The Parents, Meet, the Fokkers,
Toy Story three, Sale of the Century, The Lethal Weapon, Movies,
Last Boy, Scout, Long Kiss, good Night, Iron Man three,
you know, incredible amounts of movies. And then David Silverman,

(01:36):
who is responsible for everything great about The Simpsons, plus Monsters, Inc.
Plus The Road to El Diablo, The Longest Daycare, played
eight with Destiny, which is these theatrical shorts. So Silverman's
a great animator. These guys are writer, directors and writers.
It's incredible that they met each other so early, and
they connected over entertainment, they connected over movies, and they

(02:00):
lifted each other up. It was the rising tide lifts
all boats. You think they would be competitive, you think
they'd be fighting with one another, you think they'd be jealous,
but no, they've leaned on each other for over thirty
years and it's really helped them. And I think it's
a great example of what you can do when you
find your scene, when you find your group. They're an
interesting group of guys. It's Fred Decker, Shane Black, Jim Hersfeld,

(02:24):
and David Silverman, and we're gonna hear from them right
after this.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
Don't be alone.

Speaker 4 (02:35):
I want to thank you guys for being here. I
really appreciate it. I know that you're all four of
you giant fans of the show. Clearly, I know you're.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
All giant fans.

Speaker 4 (02:48):
I guess you got that wrong.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah, I am a big fan of the show, Jay,
and I want you to know. I told you I've
been listening to this for you amost six months straight now,
since I got my Infra red sauna. If I start
to sweat profusely, I think it's just a lowering response
to your voice.

Speaker 4 (03:05):
I understand it's all good. I'm a fan of all
of yours separately. I know two of you well, I
would say, but I don't know either of you well.
But I've heard good things, that's all true. But I
have been hearing about the Paddle guys for at least
thirty years because I worked on It's Gary Shanling Show

(03:26):
with this guy, Yeah, and with Ed Solomon, and they
would talk about the Paddle guys, and I would say, like,
what the hell is that? And they would say, this
is just a group of young men who got together
and sort of hung out, and somehow it seems like
most of you became very successful in your industry.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
So I think we can say true, so.

Speaker 4 (03:46):
You're here because I have a question how the fuck
did that happen? So that's really the main question, is like,
what is it about having a group of like minded
people at a certain age that sort of propels you forward.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
I think there's an important thing too to add to that,
which is that we were friends in school with common
interests before we were successful or before, and so in
other words, we were friends first. And then it was
about hey, I have a script. Can you read it?
You know, it wasn't like and I would say to
Fred Fren, say, you know that bit you had, can

(04:24):
I use that? And one of my saying, oh yah,
take it. It was very collegials, So I'll sue you
if you say it was nothing like that.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
We were very supportive of each other and we're all
kind of starting out right. And then I mean, the
interesting thing about the pad of guys. I'm sure there's
guys that went to n y U or USC or
other industry kind of film schools or whatever, not industry,
but ones that tend to feed the industry, and they'll
have a small group of friends and they go, well, well,
how did you get your start? Well, my friend this
that you know, got a script to an agent, then

(04:52):
got my script to their agent or whatever. And so
the pad of guys isn't that different, except there was
a lot of us.

Speaker 4 (04:59):
So we were all together, yes, and in a place.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yes, what we were all theater arts or film students
almost for Solomon and fred Oh, Freddie, but Freddie was hanging.

Speaker 4 (05:11):
Around, doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
He was an English major he had, that's true, he was.
He was more of a writer that host of us.

Speaker 5 (05:17):
Let's call let's call spade. The film school didn't. This
film school rejected me.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
All right, I mean, and we have Fred's very talented
and was more ambitious and talented than any of us
at the same age. And that's probably why you, Seela went, oh,
he's he's trying to get jobs.

Speaker 4 (05:33):
He seems different. We don't want that.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
I want he kind of overshot right in a way.
That's my theory and probably FREDI we would agree. But anyways, Uh,
A big part of it was also stand up comedy
at that time.

Speaker 4 (05:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
I mean the reason that I know you and got
onto Shandling was because I met Shanling doing comedy u
c l A.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
Shaneh We we have a friend Jim Burge, Yes, well now,
but he started this local u c l A comedy group,
and that's how Ed Solomon connected with Gary Shandling. That's
how Ed got eventually an agent in the job on
Laverne and Shirley and was able to say, hey, I

(06:14):
think this, you know, Fred Decker, guy's pretty good. Let
me show my So we sort of reached down the
ladder and helped each other leap popscotch, you know.

Speaker 4 (06:22):
But don't you think that's unusual. Isn't a lot of
people who are very quick once they get up a
few rungs, or quick to stamp their foot down as
the other people are trying to crawl up.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
I mean, I'm going to I don't think any of
us there was There was not a lot of it was.
It was always a little bit competitive, yes, but nobody
went I can't believe they bought Shane's script.

Speaker 5 (06:42):
What the hell like?

Speaker 2 (06:43):
There was no weird animosity were I was trying to
We were always trying to very supportive.

Speaker 4 (06:48):
Somebody sold the script and then everybody else was like,
I haven't sold something, And well, I think.

Speaker 6 (06:53):
It was more like like when Shane your soldier sold
your script, are like, hooray, that's awesome, right, terrific, and.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
Let's let's get Bob Renault's action Jackson made.

Speaker 4 (07:01):
Yeah, that kind of thing, you know.

Speaker 6 (07:03):
And it was also that that was actually how I
met David green Black, my my agent manager. He was thought, al,
you should see David's work, you know.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
He's also a feeling back then that for some reason,
we it felt like it was just in other words,
because no one told us it was impossible. It just
seemed like a group of friends doing things. Green BLAT's great,
let's call him. It was so easy in a sense
because we're in this bubble where no one.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
Told us this is highly unusual.

Speaker 4 (07:30):
Right.

Speaker 5 (07:31):
The other thing, Jay, is that we all had a
different voice. I couldn't do what David Silverman does.

Speaker 4 (07:37):
No one can.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
I tried.

Speaker 5 (07:39):
I tried desperately to do what Shane Black does, and
you know it came close. And same with Jim. I mean,
we all we all have different a different voice and
a different you know, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
By the way, David green Blatch just came up and
he still represents all of us.

Speaker 4 (07:52):
Is that right?

Speaker 2 (07:53):
Crazy?

Speaker 4 (07:53):
Fantastic?

Speaker 1 (07:54):
And I wouldn't have tried to write if I hadn't
read Fred's script for Godzilla, the old long since forgotten
Steve Minor attempt to revive Godzilla. He wrote this brilliant script,
and that's what convinced me to start writing.

Speaker 4 (08:10):
Ah So, but it seemed like you, you guys were
all very well versed in if we're going to film school,
already well versed in movies before you even show up
day one at UCLA and figuring out what so you like,
I spent, like me, probably spent your childhood watching every
TV show and movie that you can get your hands on.

Speaker 2 (08:29):
I assume, Yeah, is that what brought you?

Speaker 1 (08:31):
That?

Speaker 4 (08:32):
Was that the social glue at the beginning?

Speaker 1 (08:34):
I mean you For me, it was I studied theater, right,
so I wanted it was an actor. I was, Yeah,
I thought for some reason that I could express myself
as an actor. The problem was I was okay, but
not very not exceptional. Yeah, you know, I'd be in
a room. You know how an addition is you sit

(08:54):
in the room waiting to go in, and there's other
actors come in for the same role, and i'd see
a guy come in the doors.

Speaker 4 (09:00):
Oh my, he's on TV.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
I know that guy. He'd be great for this part.
It's just the attitude, right.

Speaker 4 (09:07):
They shouldn't have said to the casting people though, that's
the problem, the feeling, but don't say it out. Yeah,
I'm also a terrible actor or not good enough. Let
let's put it that way. I love acting and I
will act anytime, anywhere when anybody gives me apart. But
I know it's fun for me. I don't think I'm good,
but it's all right, you know.

Speaker 2 (09:23):
And then we did that's we had to do stand up.
We to do five new minutes every we had a
show every month, so that forced a lot of us to,
oh my gosh, I got to write. I gotta be
you know. And you know Shane. Hallmark of Shane is
that he's you know, his action stuff is great, but
there's a lot of comedy.

Speaker 5 (09:38):
In there too.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
So yeah, that's never.

Speaker 4 (09:40):
Really I've never seen any of Shane's movies, but I'll
take your word for it. Yeah. Yeah, So I read
in the Daily Bruin it's the Algonquin roundtable.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
Wow. I think Dave Arnott said that and regretted it.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
Instead, we didn't really have a door at the Parker.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
No no, no, no, no no.

Speaker 4 (09:56):
But I'm always interested at that moment when you know
the are are are just forming or other people are
just like I'm not. Yeah no, but just like there's
a camaraderie, there's a there. You know. They talk about
John and Paul meeting on a bus and then fighting
each other and sort of having like mindedness and that
spirit helps transport them forward. It sounds like that was

(10:20):
going on with you guys.

Speaker 6 (10:21):
Some ways up just thinking when you and I met,
because I was starting my first year at UCLA and
I was doing my live action project one and Fred came.

Speaker 5 (10:29):
We met. I'll tell you where I think we met,
which is anecdotal. Was you know, I really wanted to
be a filmmaker and film school rejected me, so but
I would go to what was then called Melnitz Hall
and just hang out, look in the screening rooms and
look in the editing bays and just sort of like
try to absorb it, you know, by osmosis, like well,
I'm not a film major, but this is where I

(10:50):
want to be and I would go up to the
animation room and nine times out of ten there would
be this guy in the corner drawing, and I saw
him there so often that I kind of went hey,
and I just struck up a conversation.

Speaker 4 (11:03):
Left.

Speaker 5 (11:04):
Yeah, And that's how David and I met.

Speaker 6 (11:06):
Yeah, And when you just started chatting, we just felt
very like mine and I really enjoyed talking with him.
And one of the first things he did, you were
like my cameraman for my project one basically for a lot.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
And then there was two pad of guys. There was
one on Rochester started as an apartment and that was
Fred lived there, Bob lived there, Brian.

Speaker 5 (11:26):
Don Renel, Ryan Rowe, and a guy named James Cappy
Jay we call him, Yeah, And Jay was my best
friend in high school. And when I went to UCLA,
he got into USC Cinema, so he was actually studying
film at US.

Speaker 4 (11:39):
See the other guys, Uh, yeah, any jealous, any rivalry there?

Speaker 5 (11:43):
Not for me because Jay was, you know, my best
friend in high school.

Speaker 2 (11:45):
It's like, yeah, you go.

Speaker 5 (11:46):
So I worked on all of his projects for USC,
and eventually he met all these guys too, so he
became a part of the path.

Speaker 4 (11:54):
So now it's been many, many years since you were
in the Pad of guys, but you're still friends. You
hang out with each other, Do you support each other's work,
Do you support each other's because people show each other
what happens.

Speaker 1 (12:06):
We snipe each other relentless.

Speaker 4 (12:10):
That I don't show my screenplays too and stuff like,
I don't know that.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
I think that what we especially, we're not getting any younger,
any of us, and so the degree to which we
could one of us stays relevant and continues to thrive
is just more ammunition for the rest of.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
Us to succeed. So, yeah, it's.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
I'm thrilled when someone in our generation is still at it.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah yeah, I mean, this guy's emeritis, so he'll work
for He can choose to work or not work on
Simpsons until the Simpsons, even after Simpsons.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
Well, I mean that's a very rare situation, very very strange,
rare situation never stops.

Speaker 4 (12:46):
It's like we're got GM it's just ever, it's just
going and going and going.

Speaker 6 (12:50):
There's no way I would have expected. It's interesting though,
that I started working on the Simpsons Tracy Ollman Show
when I moved into the Pad of Guys because I
moved in the padd of Guys and second location at
Parnell in eighty six. But I moved in and the
first thing I was able to do was convert this dilapidated,
unused garage and I converted that into a studio. I

(13:14):
had a friend who was a successful contractor, and he
gave me a deal and did.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
It very This is a rental home by the way. Yeah,
imagine that.

Speaker 4 (13:22):
I don't think we even asked.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
I think we took the magic with this.

Speaker 2 (13:27):
When we departed.

Speaker 6 (13:28):
Yeah, but the point is that's where I started doing.
You know, we worked at the very tiny glassy Chubo.
But I was doing I was I was doing it,
which was you know, nearby here on Melrose and Seward.
But I did a lot of work at the pad
in that studio because we were working West Arch and

(13:49):
I working always working late at night.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
Notch a bang on the door now and say can
we put a little plaque on the back of eund
it says that you know, the first time the for
Simpson characters were drawn for anim had happened here.

Speaker 4 (14:01):
The garage that that birth billions of dollars for other people.

Speaker 5 (14:05):
Yeah, and so you know, Jay, the pet of Guys
has been kind of a musical the actual place where
we lived, and he's become kind of a musical chairs.
It's like, you know, there be four of us there
and then one would move out, another would move in,
and that formed the nucleus of the group. Everybody who
moved in was sort of in the club. I don't
think we would have let them move in if they
weren't sort of one of us.

Speaker 4 (14:25):
Right, And so what's the test? The test creatively, Oh,
we think this person is also good guy, funny, pleasant
to be all that loves to get high. What's the thing?

Speaker 2 (14:35):
Family values?

Speaker 1 (14:35):
Conservative about it?

Speaker 2 (14:38):
But you know what's interesting is people, you know, we
would get people that wanted to hover and kind of
and we weren't ever dicks about it there. It is
never like it wasn't like a country club. We had
to decide if somebody could to the padd of Guys.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
But you know, something that I bear saying is like
there were on occasion women at the padd of Guys
who would you know, hang out with us, and some
of them were pretty sccess for themselves.

Speaker 5 (15:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
I spoke to one of these women and she said yeah,
I like to go to the PAD. You know, I said, well,
you had you we were all the nerds. You had
all these other options. You were an actress in Hollywood.
You could have gone to any put. She goes, yeah, but
at the PAD I could fall asleep on the couch
and feel safe.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
Yeah. We were never there's never a crazy weirdo in
the bunch.

Speaker 4 (15:18):
Right, Okay, so let's talk about that. How you guys
are all successful in your careers. How does the pad
of guys stack up with relationships.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
And what do you mean like within our personal relationship.

Speaker 4 (15:29):
Personal relationships, did you grow as people and become stable
enough to have relationships consistent, happy relationships.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
And well none of us there are bat in a
thousand here.

Speaker 4 (15:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
I also think that part of the promise of the Pad.
And we used to have a neon sign that's had
opened twenty four hours and it was in the window
and if someone turned on the sign, you could be
going by it four in the morning and you know, oh, look,
something's not watching bad movies on you watching yeah movie.
I was making a little video project arguing over Stanley
Kubrick doing something. But it was open to go in
and put and I think that speaks to little bit

(16:00):
of Peter Pan syndrome, that the pack was a place
that people were very intelligent. It wasn't like we're just
like bro passes the other beer, you know. But we
were also kids who didn't grow up. We were still
captured by that playfulness and the ability at four in
the morning to just keep wanting to play.

Speaker 2 (16:20):
Nerdy film school l call, I think is a way
to put it. Like there was you if you had
nothing to do, and then we're in our twenties, by
the way, where there's always seemingly something to do. If
there's an odd night, whe're like, I got nothing going,
you know, you can go to the pad and make
a night of it.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
Yeah, And other people were big meeting theirs, you know,
mate or intended Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
I mean, I mean we were more interested in doing
that than going to a bar, right right.

Speaker 1 (16:43):
Although the worst was one of us went to a
party one time and the guys were like, I don't
want to good look, just take a video camera show
me the party.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
It's good enough, I'll go is charged.

Speaker 4 (16:55):
How was the party?

Speaker 5 (16:56):
Well, Ben Stiller was there? Really? Yes, there were a
couple of like big names that were there. Yeah, it
was like it was two blocks away. In fact, I
ended up going to the bath so I saw the video.
I said, Okay, this passes much.

Speaker 2 (17:07):
When I went to the party, I think Big Saylor
did like a month or two at UCLA of something.
I think he has a little moment there that the
only party he went to.

Speaker 4 (17:17):
That's I mean, that's that's good that you. I had
a similar grouping of people. We didn't we weren't famous,
but we had you know, film nerds hang out watching
movies all the time. My apartment near UCLA was also
anybody could knock twenty four hours a day. And I
still miss that, Like I wish I told my my
wife the other day, I wish that people would just

(17:39):
knock on our door and show up where I could
just knock and have other people's doors and just show up.
And my wife gated community. She was, I mean, kids,
you should be able to knock on somebody's door, e
whatever's in there, refrigerator, hang out. That's what I grew up,
That's how I grew up in That's true similar, but
I just I missed that. I'm that do you still

(18:00):
have that doody show up at each other's houses.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
We have a virtual thing every Friday. That's say that
is a zoom. It's a standing zoom.

Speaker 4 (18:09):
Okay, and it's like the same thing. You just show up,
show up.

Speaker 1 (18:13):
And some of us are over in Europe or one
time it was what was it, like Alaska or something,
but they just I don't know.

Speaker 2 (18:20):
But Shane the whole time he was shooting. He played
dirty in Australia almost every Friday somehow, even though it
was two in the afternoon for or whatever, it was
ten in the morning for him. He would jump on
he had to go shoot or whatever.

Speaker 3 (18:30):
Yeah, don't be alone.

Speaker 4 (18:49):
Speaking of things, what's the gauntlet? The gauntlet is something
that you bringing that up. You've got you all of
you were involved in.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
Or Shane you are.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
And then gauntlet is part of maori uh uh basically
a sociological sort of breeding ground where you get beat
and he's doing a bit.

Speaker 2 (19:10):
Yes, I understand Yama does not involve people running through
and getting you know, ducking under swinging medieval maces.

Speaker 1 (19:18):
No yet, but we plan to strand there's always room
for that. I mean, if you're really trying to get
people ready for Hollywood, that's a good idea.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
Yes, we're getting able to beat the crap out of
you and then if you can survive it's it's a
it's a script. It is a assessment service, Yes it is.
It was born of a conversation that I had with
these guys who called script Hoop, whould come up with
a way for writers to turn their PDFs into something
more interactive, more you know, half pitch deck, half screen whatever.

(19:47):
And I was like, that's not the worst idea, because
you know, the the attention of the executives is shorter
than you know, so how to use your script stand
out and a stack all that. But to be honest,
I liked that I idea, but I didn't see how
it was going to take off as much as the
idea that I then casually pitch. I said, how come
there's not like a way for people to get a

(20:09):
script the same you know, point value if you will,
of a Costco wine or whatever. I don't know anything
about wine, but I go into Costco and I go
where it's the ninety point wines, and then I go
and sure enough, if it says it's a decent wine
at Costco, and I drink and I go, you know,
that was a good bottle of wine. So so I
was like, how come there's not a way to give
your you know, where a bunch of people can aggregate
a score for a screenplay.

Speaker 4 (20:32):
So you're the wine spectator of screenplays.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
Sort of, Yeah, because because what we've done is and
it and its since morphed into something that's not just
a simple you know point if you will like, oh
my my script scored ninety four on the Gauntlet, it's
you do have to go through three levels of readers.

Speaker 1 (20:51):
But of course, and to that point, as such, a
service that he's talking about only succeeds or fails on
the on the metric of how good.

Speaker 4 (20:59):
Or the wine takes.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
Yes, the readers that we hire, readers that we hire,
and that would be that that was what the goal was,
was to elevate the service by providing you with people
who are a little more thorough. You get a little
more of a day in court. There's no AI involved
where they sort of feed your script and get notes
and it's more of a it's to the The idea
was even if you didn't succeed in advancing yeah, along

(21:22):
those paths that you say, wow, my script really got
looked at.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
Really valuable feedback and not itees because every reader in
the Gauntlet is already working somewhere for an agency, studio
or production company as a reader. So this is kind
of a side gig for them.

Speaker 4 (21:35):
And as AI replaces those people, will you get AI
to replace people.

Speaker 2 (21:39):
In your gent We've we've we've gone out of our
way to make AI the enemy. It should be for
the creative process. So no, it's and there's a turnaround time.
It takes a little while. Sometimes people submit their scripts
of the Gauntlet, and you know it's not cheap either,
because we're paying humans to read your scripts. So but yeah,
it take, it can take. It can take up to
six or eight weeks for you to get you know, hey, feedback.

Speaker 4 (22:03):
And then if you fixed, if you take the notes
and redo it, do you resubmit it and get.

Speaker 2 (22:07):
A lot of people? Do it points a lot of people?
Do you get to maybe do I think some people
get a discoulendar you submit. Don't quote me on that
because I don't know the nuts and bolts like the
guys that do it. But but the thing that made
me happy about it was that we were very worried about, Oh,
here's a bunch of you know, big shots screenwriters, if
you will, asking people to pay them money to put
the same thing through their system. And then you know,

(22:29):
and then these people think their script's amazing, of course,
and they submit it and expect everyone to go, it's amazing.
And if it's not, are they going to go and
Reddit and go? Those boasters didn't love my brilliant script,
and they took my we're not getting that. We're getting
people going, wow, I only made it to level one,
which is only the first twenty They only read the
twenty thirty first pages. But they got feedback from seven
writers who get in. They're like, I'm excited to do

(22:51):
a rewrite, right, you know. They pointed things out that
I didn't realize this that because it's a consensus thing.
You get a note from one executive in your career,
I'm not taking that note, right, But if three executives go,
we all had a problem with this thing on page six,
you got to shoot. I gotta not get to look
at page six, right, right. So that's that's the gist
of it.

Speaker 6 (23:07):
That sounds like that the people who are excited to
get positive, you know, constructive criticism.

Speaker 1 (23:14):
I think people like to feel like they've been heard.
And you know, you submit a script and you know,
too often one guy says, yeah, well I kind of
like the writing, and they'll tout that, but it's they
deep down they know they're touting to some guy who
just kind of threw off a comment and it's not
really that good. And they but this is really, Hey,
there's some strengths and there's some weaknesses, and here they

(23:37):
are and here's why. And also my friends right in
the way, and I may be wrong, listen to them too.

Speaker 4 (23:41):
In a weird way. It's a little bit like what
you say the pet of guys is, which is you're
giving people who you trust something to talk about and
maybe you get positive feedback.

Speaker 5 (23:51):
Well, what's interesting about this conversation, this part of the
conversation is that you know, we all as writers, directors,
whatever we're doing. My experience with my friends here and
the extended group of friends is that we've never been
particularly critical. You know, we don't go and see one
of our nobody's come to Shane and I said the
predator sucked.

Speaker 4 (24:13):
I wasn't invited to the screening, so that's why.

Speaker 5 (24:15):
But but you know, you do nor do you have
a lot of really fawning like that's fantastically. That's been
my experience that we just we do what we do.

Speaker 4 (24:24):
We're not impressed by some of the things. I know,
you don't love it, but there's got to be somebody
coming along saying, oh my god, the fuckers me the
Parents is awesome.

Speaker 5 (24:32):
Well, clearly, and it's very successful. But my point is
that there isn't a lot of that kind of you know,
back padding with us.

Speaker 2 (24:40):
We're also a little inside baseball and on our movies.
Like I remember with the first of my soft Predator,
they invited me to the twentieth Lot to for like
a you know, like let's have our friends and whatever
watch it. And it's because they may have to do
some cut cutting, reshoots or whatever, and we kind of
give them notes and things. So, you know, I thought
the Predator was was was great, It was a great

(25:00):
but I also know the troubles and the tribulations that
they went through on it, and so I know what
didn't turn out exactly is they hoped because if there's
all the compromises right, nothing does So you know, there's
that Tell.

Speaker 4 (25:12):
Me about your first breakout success and who was first
in amongst the padd of guy.

Speaker 2 (25:19):
That guy, that guy. He wasn't the first to work.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
I would argue that Solomon was the first one to have.

Speaker 4 (25:27):
Yes. And at the time, you know, he.

Speaker 1 (25:30):
He had written one of the fourth season or fifteen
episodes of Laverne Shure.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
No, it was like tenth season or like that.

Speaker 5 (25:37):
Surely weren't even on the show, right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:39):
It's just squeaky and apparently and were not getting along
that time.

Speaker 4 (25:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
Yeah, So the point is we all, you know, time
an episode vern Shirley, my guy, this guy has transcended,
he has become He's become a god of a man.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
We're talking about eight eighty three, okay.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yeah, And so at that time friend was working on
Godzilla and got an agent, and then Fred got me
my agent. But it was the sale of Lead the
Weapon that and subsequently The Monster Squad, which both sold
the roughly same time, that put.

Speaker 2 (26:14):
The pad on the industry map.

Speaker 1 (26:16):
Okay, and also the next year, surely by accident, I
walked into the movie Predator and like danced around for
like ten minutes, and then so I was attached and
associated with that movie.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
As well actor and he did a lot of rewriting. Okay,
but that Shane is the first guy to get killed.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
So so in one year, we had lethal Weapon, the
Monster Squad Predator, and it was Joel Silver, it was me,
it was Fred Decker, it was and I think at
that point people started to say, hm, that's interesting. A
lot of product for one year from a bunch of
Beck's college aged students.

Speaker 4 (26:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
Now I never heard this character before. That's a new voice.
Ryan Rowe and I went to high school together. I
went to high school Shane too. It's a weird story.

Speaker 5 (26:59):
I moved in the.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
Middle of high school and I wound up leaving Shane's
high school to go to a Bay Area high school
where Ryan Roe was. Ryan Rod goes down to He's
a year ahead of me. He goes to UCLA, He
gets in the comedy club. He comes back to visit
at Thanksgiving and starts raving about UCLA, the comedy club,
blah blah blah, my friend Shane blah blah blah. But
my friend Shane and I went Shane Black And he goes,
how did you know that I went? Because I knew

(27:21):
I got named Shane in southern California, And that's Sharons,
that same guy Ryan and I when I was still
at UCLA, we wrote a movie called tape Heads right,
which which was made, which got made. And by the way,
the weird thing was the UCLA colleague Tim Robbins. We
went to school with Tim and so you know, it
was it was one of those things where we were

(27:41):
getting tape Heads made. We have a friend of Ethan
Wiley who is Pad Jason as well. I want to say,
he got a movie named House made. I mean it
was everybody was just kind of getting something and the
House was off of a Fred's script. Yes, Fred's Yes,
Fred wrote it, and then that's right, and Ethan did
House too, right the second story. So all of a sudden,
and then Greg Wyden was also a friend of everybody,

(28:04):
and he was getting Highlander was the Sean Connery thing, and.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
So everyone who and there was a big sam Rafell
quotion to this, and then there was a big quotion
of when Fred moved to la and lived with people.
Then they all were six.

Speaker 4 (28:17):
It's like, so you're like the magic guy, the lightning Rod.
Can I move into your house?

Speaker 5 (28:22):
Well?

Speaker 6 (28:22):
I was doing things that were kind of related but
unrelated because I was already doing drawings for the La
Times or the Music Critic at the same time that
this was happening, and then and then that led to
me doing illustrations for piano books, so I was it
wasn't film business per se, but I was working as
a cartoonist, right, so that was things were happening.

Speaker 4 (28:43):
But you've always I mean, your you love movies. You
do love movies, so it's sort of like that's you
wouldn't assume that somebody who's like loves is an animator
or an artist is as into movies as.

Speaker 6 (28:56):
You are, but you are not necessarily, but there are
there are people, but you're right, not not nearly every
animator may have the same passions.

Speaker 4 (29:04):
Right because on The Simpsons, if we had a filmic reference,
you knew it already, right and said, there's.

Speaker 5 (29:09):
Never any filmic references on the symtema.

Speaker 3 (29:13):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (29:13):
And then other days before, like everything was so readily available,
so you had to like either know it or take
a very long time to get it to see it.

Speaker 1 (29:21):
So yeah, I appreciate it well as a side, there
is something to be said for a certain longevity in
the business because I remember back at the Pad and
say it was with like nineteen eighty two or something.
Maybe there was something at that time that was so
new that we actually commented upon it.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
It was a.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
Horror film we'd seen where someone goes up to a
shower and the guys behind the shower I know it.
And she holds her breath and goes shit and pulls
it aside. Oh nothing there, and then she turns and.

Speaker 4 (29:52):
Oh my god, that's so new.

Speaker 1 (29:54):
Right, that's amazing. That was at that moment, and now
it's like there was tired trope. Ever, so staying relevant
is something that we've also tried to do because as
we get older, Yeah, we have to contend with you know,
we grew up in the Spielberg Lucas era. Yeah, so
now it's a different world and we have to still
try to find what it is about a story that's

(30:18):
timeless and what happens next that doesn't you know, necessarily
depend on the five year window in which your films
are being made, right.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
And then comedy is another level of that.

Speaker 4 (30:28):
Well, yeah, comedy is in a bit of adultrums these.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
Yeah people keep saying, how come they don't make movies
like you used to make. I'm like, you know, I
love no hard feelings, no hard feelings.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
Oh yeah, straight comedy, Jennifer Lawrence.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
Yea, yeah, that was that was pretty straightforward as far
as the old school.

Speaker 4 (30:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (30:45):
So you have all this wonderful experience about show business.
What are some of the dangers that you guys have
faced in your career that think, oh, you know, shitty
things that happened, are th sheat things you've avoided.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
Car accident. I mean that's not specific, but yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 (31:02):
The first thing that jumps to mind for me is,
you know, success is real important to keeping your career alive. Yeah,
and these three have all been extremely successful. I've directed
three movies and you know they have cult followings, but
nobody's you know, knocking down my door asking me to
direct anything, right, So, you know, that's something that I

(31:25):
would caution anybody who wants to get into the business
to pay attention to. Now, what's the solution. There is
no solution, because you can't magically go, well, this time,
I'm going to make a successful picture.

Speaker 7 (31:34):
Right right, everybody's trying to make a successful picture every time.
But by the way, Shane's hired me twice to help
to help him write things. Here's the issue. Sometimes it's
okay that it's not. I remember Joel Silver, we did
Kisskiss Bang Bang in the two thousand and five It
came out the exact same month as The Dukes of
Hazzard with Jessica Simpson, and that one made like two

(31:58):
hundred and fifty.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
Million dollars or whatever it was, and we just went off.
No one saw it, and he came to me afterwards
he said, look, you have to understand.

Speaker 4 (32:05):
I get it. You made a good movie.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
They made a successful movie, right, And it wasn't like
it wasn't for Jordan If he was just saying this.

Speaker 4 (32:15):
Is the way it goes, I'm willing to be Bio.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
Remembers The Dukes of Hazzard's right, and people still go
to midnight shows. It's not the money, but it's there's
an element of longevity that I can mention that and
people understand that I'm still speaking English.

Speaker 4 (32:32):
Some movies last longer in the you know, in the
in the world of people who love movies.

Speaker 6 (32:37):
Yes, but also cases Bang Bang helped put Robert Downey
Junior back on.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
So everything is interconnected. And sometimes the things I'm most
proud of are not the things that have made money.

Speaker 4 (32:50):
What's the thing you're most proud of?

Speaker 1 (32:51):
Well, Nice Guys, giscuss Bang Bang To some extent, I
think The Long Kiss good Night was really that bombed.

Speaker 4 (32:58):
That was a great movie. I love The Nice Guys.
I also love the Lunks good Night. But tell me
about why you think The Nice Guys is one of
your better.

Speaker 1 (33:05):
Movies, because it's chock full like and it's not just me,
it's my co writer on that one was Anthony Bagerosi
and my cinematographer and everything, and of course those two
stars you get made those two guys. But we did
a retrospective recently that where we showed clips and then
talked about the clips, and afterwards the people said it

(33:28):
was a great I liked the seminar, but when you
showed the clips, you would stop them to talk about it,
and I just wanted to I wanted to keep going.

Speaker 4 (33:35):
It's special in a lot of different ways. I grew
up in Los Angeles at the kind of time and
sort of the the yellow that you put in the air,
like you captured this moment in a way that I don't.
It felt specifically, Oh this is for me, this is
I like detective movies. I cat grew up in la
It felt very personal to me, so I was I

(33:56):
love that movie.

Speaker 1 (33:56):
But to Fred's point, his success is very important to
continuing your career, but also finding people who pop magic people,
whether it's a cinematographer, whether it's an actor. But the actor,
I think is what we all we all realize if
you get a certain actor, you can breathe easy. Sure,
for the most part, if you write a good script

(34:18):
and you get a good actor, you can't have an
actor turned you know, shit into goal.

Speaker 4 (34:22):
But it's not a lock. You can get a very
popular actor who you think is good and suddenly you think, oh,
this is it's an alchemy.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
It's like you know, art is never quantifiable. It's just it.

Speaker 5 (34:31):
Either it works or a doesn't.

Speaker 2 (34:32):
So if it's your business, so it is quantifiable.

Speaker 4 (34:36):
But if it's your business and you're all wanting to
continue to work in it, the remedy to not knowing
what will be successful is to just keep working, just
to keep writing, just to keep putting SOMEU I'll they'll
go on.

Speaker 5 (34:48):
So further, I think you need to follow your heart.
You need to do what you think is right.

Speaker 4 (34:52):
I have to follow my heart. Sorry, sorry, yeah, but
you don't have to get in touch with my feelings.

Speaker 5 (34:58):
Or your whim or whatever it is. The key is
super emotional feeling.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
But I think it's what friend's saying. Yeah, you got
to lean into your weirdness and not be obsessed with
you know, like people who think being a good writer
is being hip and finger on the pulse. And you know,
I look around Hollywood and I figure what's a good
log line, what's a good high concept for now? It's like, well,
sometimes that works and you can make a little money
at it. But leaning into your weirdness and not being

(35:27):
a creature of how can I meet this moment by
conforming most fluidly to what people are expecting me?

Speaker 2 (35:35):
Right?

Speaker 4 (35:35):
But yeah, don't you have to then consider as you're
selling it or trying to sell it, whether you if
you write it first, then that's the thing. But if
you have a pitch that you're selling, you kind of
have to fall in love with it, love the movie,
but then figure out how can I sell it to
these people who don't have the same feeling And you
have to kind of mach it to things that have
been successful.

Speaker 7 (35:55):
You do want to be in business with somebody who
doesn't get what you do. Yeah, oh I do anybody who.

Speaker 1 (36:02):
That's fine if you can sneak it past them. But yeah,
the trick is sometimes not everyone's going to be entirely
aligned with your sense of humor whatever. But you have
to be able to express yourself, you know, Like writers
will come to me and say, how can you do it? Look,
you can write a script, but the studio has all
the money they're paying. They can do anything, they can
change anything. I say, yes, So does that mean you
don't do it? No, it means you're a writer, your persuasive,

(36:24):
use your skill, go in and talk to them and
convince them that this is an interesting story that people
want to know what comes next. And oftentimes they love
the excuse of someone taking the reins and saying, I
get what you're saying, and here's I think what's even
better what you're pointing at and you tell them from
a professional standpoint, storytelling standpoint, and in other words, I

(36:47):
think sometimes studios just need to be reminded of what
a good story is. And even if they don't initially align,
you can use your persuasiveness as a writer.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
That's shame and made a reputation of being able to
write scripts that popped and we're so visual in filmic
that it's like that Steve Martin quo would be so
good they can't ignore you, right. That was Shane in
the in the period of the specs script, you know,
spec script sales and stuff. Everybody who read his stuff
wanted it. They're getting the bidding wars and stuff. So
Shane was just like, I'm going to write a script

(37:15):
that's going to leave make it really easy for people
to greenlight it, which is not the hardest thing in
the world. You can't and you didn't go in thinking that,
but that's just how he thinks and writes, and he
would the product was so but let's let's be honest.

Speaker 1 (37:28):
You sell something, uh script, spec script, then come the
notes and so it's not like they go, wow, this
is so well written, let's just film it.

Speaker 2 (37:38):
Yeah no, they never do that. Yeah no. Then of
course casting is also the biggest thing after that.

Speaker 4 (37:42):
Of course, you know No, I mean, like you said, alchemy,
it's it's it is unknowable. You don't know what's going
to work, and you just sort of roll the dice
and you go with it, and then you keep building.
You're writing the next one, just in case this one
isn't working.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
Actually, if you and scripts about alchemy, the actual process
of transferring, right.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
Let's go back to Greg White and The Lion on
this foulc.

Speaker 4 (38:04):
I literally turned my scripts into gold. I don't need
the filming process at all anymore.

Speaker 2 (38:09):
Yeah, you don't even need to have an agent.

Speaker 6 (38:11):
No, it's true. I remember something you're talking about. Like,
it's not exactly it helped me, like when I was
in the dold Ones per se, but I remember it
was Fred You told me about an upcoming film that
I hadn't heard about, called Who Framed Roger Rabbit? And
you maybe you hadn't heard about it.

Speaker 4 (38:27):
At the time.

Speaker 6 (38:28):
Maybe I heard a little bit about it because my
friends were working on but I hadn't heard much about
it at all. But uh, but I think, weren't you
doing work with some mechas?

Speaker 5 (38:36):
I Yeah, I was lucky enough to work with with
bobb Zy a couple of times.

Speaker 4 (38:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (38:39):
And then I think, is that how you saw some
of the preliminary anime? Yeah, because you told he told
me about how amazing this looks like the animation was
as good as it was back in the Golden Age.
Golden Age of animation, and I got very excited about that,
and when it came out, I thought, wow, this changes
everything that was very encouraged.

Speaker 4 (38:59):
Basically, I get the wing to sell the script to
Bob's and mecchas. You have to say, here's a technical
problem that you can overcome in your movie.

Speaker 5 (39:05):
I think you're right.

Speaker 4 (39:06):
I think so, and it's like, okay, great, how can
I start.

Speaker 2 (39:09):
I never worked with bob Z.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
I worked with two guys that looked just like him,
the bob Zy Twins.

Speaker 8 (39:15):
Oh yes, that's a.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
Don't be alone, you know what I mean. I feel
like we're short. We're giving the pad a little bit
of short strip, and I want to give you a
little inside. We were so nerdy that we would get
bored and we would we had a well maybe once
or twice a year we would do a tournament of
pad O Jeopardy, and it was all the questions were

(39:53):
inside jokes and all the stuff about ourselves.

Speaker 4 (39:55):
Well, who did it?

Speaker 2 (39:56):
Who drave?

Speaker 5 (39:57):
Are?

Speaker 6 (39:57):
Not?

Speaker 2 (39:57):
Would host it?

Speaker 4 (39:58):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (39:58):
If it was an actor? Who's done? Had multiple credits
back in the eighties and nineties.

Speaker 2 (40:02):
Yes, as an actor, but he also wrote Last Action
Here with Me yeah, but yeah, he would host it
and I think we did the Jay shot video of it.
Is there somehow? God, that would be amazing if there's
some video of it. I was in charge of the prizes.

Speaker 1 (40:19):
Some of these things should just sink prizes.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
We also went a newsletter, right.

Speaker 4 (40:24):
Oh wow, yeah, so here's the same thing.

Speaker 2 (40:27):
Quick sand Yeah. No, we're not going to talk about
the specifics of all of it. We had better. He
did the animation, I mean the cartoon streights.

Speaker 4 (40:35):
Yeah, and also videos.

Speaker 6 (40:38):
You and they would shoot videos from time to time.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
And yeah, we did a lot of those. The point
is anytime we were bored, there was a camera waiting.

Speaker 4 (40:46):
Yeah right, okay, And you had, you know, endless amounts
of time, effort, and energy to.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
Spend coookie spooky specials every year.

Speaker 5 (40:54):
Here's so much time and we had This is a sidebar,
but we were obsessed with things not being easy. It
was always about oh that's so cheesy. And we would
actually get individual cheese slices while we're watching television. If
I mean it was particularly cheesy, we would throw them
at the TV screen.

Speaker 4 (41:11):
Are you still obsessed with things not being cheesy?

Speaker 5 (41:13):
I think so?

Speaker 2 (41:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (41:14):
I think it's kind of the Yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
Mean, Shane just made that joke the boy to it.

Speaker 7 (41:18):
Right, Yeah, right, No, that's intentionally cheesy, right, you know,
because we've moved into dad joke.

Speaker 2 (41:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (41:26):
Age, Well, I mean, here's the reason don't be alone
with Jake Cogan my podcast. I have this because it's
usually here to answer a question I have, And one
of the questions of my life is wondering do I
have a big enough group? Is like, is my group
supportive and fulfilling as much as paddle guys? And I
don't really know quite yet because I'm I'm I have

(41:47):
a lot of people who I work.

Speaker 2 (41:49):
You have an amazing roller decks, as I call it.

Speaker 1 (41:51):
But it's not like they come over every night exactly
exactly what would be pissed.

Speaker 5 (41:59):
Like that stuff?

Speaker 4 (42:00):
Now she doesn't like that stuff, But if I got
divorced night, it would be a party.

Speaker 1 (42:04):
Yeah yeah, But in the paras you're trying to say something.

Speaker 4 (42:07):
I know it's been going on thirty years so far,
so big about gratulations.

Speaker 2 (42:12):
Yes, a woman.

Speaker 4 (42:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:15):
The thing about the weird thing about that, not the weird,
but the thing about the vibe of the pad in
its heyday, which is I guess the mid eighties was
that it wasn't exactly a party. It was kind of
a drop in and see what happens. Right there is
maybe a bottle of something on the table if you
wanted to while we're playing Liars Dice or watching it.

Speaker 1 (42:32):
Yeah, party implies like that, the reason you get together
is because you're gonna get trashed or something.

Speaker 2 (42:39):
No, that's the other thing. Nobody in the Pad developed
any bad, really bad habits.

Speaker 3 (42:42):
No, not quite true.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
Well, eventually became an alcoholic.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
And a drug addict, but it wasn't that bad. It's yes,
so but.

Speaker 4 (42:57):
Yeah, I mean, is burning Man as good a hang silver?

Speaker 6 (43:00):
It's a different it's a different sort of hang. The
thing I was going to say, the thing was about
greater the Pad before I actually lived there, because I
know if I came over there, I would have some
hilarious times. I would have some good, solid belly laughs.
I mean, you literally came there and whatever happened, you
just found yourself.

Speaker 4 (43:17):
Laughing, right, And people were just.

Speaker 6 (43:20):
Just saying witty things and being trying to be smart
and trying to kind of friendly competitively upstage each other
with another joke or something.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
Now they got their feelings to hurt, and there is
ever a little feuds or anything.

Speaker 4 (43:32):
This dynamic of hanging out with people, making jokes, have
a good time, it seems like a very traditional dynamic
for anybody in their twenties kind of thing. It's just
the kind of things you're talking about, the kind of
things you're doing seems slightly different, but the same kind
of like you know, Bubba's a dick kind of jokes
in certain places, it might be the same sense of camaraderie.

Speaker 5 (43:53):
I'm not sure trying to do that's probably Can I
take a stab of answering your question? Yeah, and you
guys correct me if I'm wrong. But you know, there's
this you got this group which is sort of, you know,
a scoop of the pad. I don't think it extends
if we did a little fen diagram or where it is.
I don't think it extends that far out. I think
there's enough another ten or fifteen people.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
That's a but.

Speaker 5 (44:18):
Then but if that amount right, and that's it, It's
not like anybody could walk into the pad and just
be wondering.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
And I don't think you could go to the most
joyful kind of you know, chick lit spitting, you know, woop,
bass dealing, beer swilling, right party and then just say
let's let's take those people and they'll enjoy the pad
Nor right now.

Speaker 4 (44:39):
It's a different hang for that.

Speaker 2 (44:41):
Yeah. Yeah. And it was always we always had our projects.
I mean from the time we were out of school,
everybody was hustling to writing something, something he was animating.

Speaker 4 (44:52):
There was no slacker. Wasn't somebody who said, no, why
that guy's so brilliant. They just get to work.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
No, And you know what's interesting, some of them are
a little later to bloom than others. Right, People who have.

Speaker 4 (45:02):
A desire to make things like TV and movies, if
they hang in and really do it long enough, they're
going to get some success. They're going to make some head.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
To hang around the barbershop long enough, you're going to
get a haircut.

Speaker 3 (45:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (45:15):
So, I mean I think it's I think it's true.
I think it's just a matter of time.

Speaker 1 (45:18):
I mean, I was in the back and talent to
some expense. Our friend Peter Hyams used to say to me,
you'd say, here's the thing I tell people. You'd say say,
here's the thing. There's ninety three percent unemployment in any
given time. In any of the trade deals, like writer, producer, actor, director,
there's ninety three ninety four percent unemployed. You're crazy, You're
fucking idiot to want to be a part of that. Right,

(45:38):
those are stupid odds. Here's the problem. There's something that
that's talking about, the hoy ploy, that's talking to everything
wants in. Then there's a billion X factor that you're
not considering his talent. Talent changes everything. Oh okay, talent, Well,
in that case, you're not part of everything anymore. Now
you're sort of skipping the line. It obviates those odds.
It puts you in the front of the line and suddenly,
like the guy in the club walks up and just

(45:59):
oh yeah.

Speaker 4 (45:59):
Go right in.

Speaker 1 (46:00):
You're the talent guy. So that's the X factor that
just takes you on a magic carpet away from that
ninety three percent.

Speaker 4 (46:07):
It's and that's difficult to know whether you have the
talent or not.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
Well, that's what Peter would finish with. He'd say, now
that's the good news. That's the bad news is most
of you don't have talent. And he said, I can
say that because that guy over there is going, yeah,
he's right, that that person doesn't have talent. This never
thinking it's.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
Me occasionally he said it to us. Yeah, if you'd
never give.

Speaker 4 (46:27):
Up, though, and you're talentless, if you never give up,
I still think there's a shot you still get you know,
you still get somewhere.

Speaker 1 (46:33):
Well, that's the other thing is if someone once came
to me this is a tangent, but they said, you know,
I saw that show on TV, this thing called Small
Wonder with Vicky the Robot, that it was terrible. The
writing was terrible. Look, I can write at least that good,
So I should have a career. In other words, Hollywood
owes you a career because your shit writing is slightly

(46:53):
better than this other mediocrity pollutes the airwaves as though
somehow aspiring to mediocrity. It's like, I just want to
get in.

Speaker 4 (47:00):
And this was about making.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
Something that's ama wanted.

Speaker 4 (47:02):
People probably try to make it really good.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
You know, remember Shandley was above the Mister Belvedere offices, yes,
and so you know they kind of thought, Wow, they're
running really cool, innovated stuff and then we're mister Belvidere.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
Right.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
But you know, the best thing about that whole thing
was that I swear it was you and maybe Wally
who went down and was talking to them shooting hoops,
because why are they not working this week? They're shooting
hoops And I'm going to give you the punchline, Jay,
The answer was there, they're on hiatus. Because why mister
Belvedere sat on his ball, sat on his wall? He did.

Speaker 4 (47:35):
He wore this jumpsuit all the time, and I guess
he was going commando and one time at a table
reading he sort of stood up and then sit down
and ah, and he had crushed his own brush.

Speaker 2 (47:46):
Was because of that the entire staff went the production
went dark for a week. Yeah, we didn't know. Yeah,
so we heard that, Yes, and now we're talking about
it thirty five years later.

Speaker 4 (47:57):
It's so funny to come out to the public. It's
so funny.

Speaker 2 (47:59):
You had to make a call every morning get six balls. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (48:03):
Yeah, I love to tell you that they put a
sign in the writer's room, don't sit on your ball.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
They should have.

Speaker 4 (48:11):
Okay, So now I've got some questions that were sent
in from the internet. Is question, what was the biggest
mistake anybody here is made? Like creatively.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
I have a funny little story about that. It's not
a mistake. It's a sliding doors kind of thing. But
we talked about how I knew Sam Simon of course
on Shanley, and then I talked about how I felt
a little overwhelmed and felt as I walked. I left
when they were even talking about the next season. I
said I have to write a movie, and they said, oh,
you don't want to come back, and but yeah, maybe
I'm going to write this movie. Part of it was
just because I didn't feel like I was, you know,

(48:48):
ready maybe to be at the level I wanted to
be in TV. And that turned out to be a
good move because I got I wrote movies and that
didn't get made. But then I got into TV again
and had a short five six year running sitcoms. But
I kind of looked back and went, oh, man, you know,
I just that was not the timon. I don't know
how I feel about my Shandling season. But then I

(49:09):
remembered that why I was writing that movie. I got
a call from Sam Simon who said, hey, you know,
we're doing this thing with you know, the Olemen characters
this or that, and they need some people to staff.
You want to do it? And I went oh man,
that sounds fun. But I'm writing the movie like I'm
stuck so and then I went, oh shit, I couldn't
have stunked the room up that bad. Sam asked me

(49:30):
to be on this. Now people go, you didn't say
yes to The Simpsons, and I'm like, no, one knews
that a run twenty frecond year.

Speaker 4 (49:36):
Nobody I was.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
I was actually trying to call John Hurts filmy twist
just in the Valley.

Speaker 4 (49:41):
Yeah. Second question from the internet, what was the what
was the best accident that you the thing that you
fell into. This is something that happened that that you
couldn't have predicted.

Speaker 1 (49:51):
But here thank of chemicals came out the joker.

Speaker 6 (49:53):
Well, here's here's my Simpsons story. I was going to
spend nineteen eighty seven just working on my own material.
We have a good friend we all know, Gary Baseman
right us went to UCLA. He's one of my close friends.
When I first got to UCLA austin the animation workshop.
He spent a year. Actually he's living with our friend
Seth Curlin. Yeah, and Seth Curson was very inspirational to him.

(50:19):
He spent a year he worked like kind of doing
art direction, or something like that. He spent a year
just working on a style, and he encouraged me to
do the same thing, and he became a breakout illustrator.
And I thought, you know, I know about animation. I've
just done animation for one Crazy Summer and I was like,
I don't know, maybe it's illustration. I'm not sure, but
I want to spend a year just working on my style.
And that was going to be nineteen eighty seven. I

(50:40):
get a call from one of my friends I met
on One Crazy Summer, West Archer. I worked for this
company Classicytoper. Do this animation for something called The Tracy
Owen Show. But it's with Matt Granny. Are you interested?
I said, well, that might be fun for a couple
of weeks.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (50:54):
So that's that is a lucky accident.

Speaker 1 (50:57):
I'll tell you it wasn't an accident. But I was
driven to my knees by a combination of alcoholic cocaine
and had to go get help. Okay, and I previously
worked with Robert Downey, so he's famously sober, and he
suggested I go to some recovery and helped me. I'll
get started, and then I stayed sober for about three

(51:18):
years and he noticed, so a call comes in, Hey,
do you want to maybe do this Iron Man movie.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
He wouldn't have made that call.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
If I'd stayed out there drinking or using. And I
think the fact that I was lucky enough to hit
bottom and get sober was what propelled everything.

Speaker 2 (51:37):
And there's by the.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
Way, if anyone's listening and you feel like you may
have a problem, I'm here to say there is a
solution and you don't have to live this way. You
never have to have another drink or drug if you
don't want to get help.

Speaker 4 (51:49):
Yeah, it's hard.

Speaker 1 (51:50):
It's hard, right, Well, surrendering is hard, bey thing you
have a problem, and then like doing it someone else's
way is hard because we're all arrogant, prideful.

Speaker 2 (51:59):
I think that's struck me when you said that, Shane
is because we you know, I've I didn't know that
he asked. I mean, I knew that you had a
relationship with Robert obviously because a kisskiss, bang bang. But
I always looked at like, oh, Shane is the first
guy that got Robert after he had his issues back
into the limelight and gave him a great movie role,

(52:20):
and all that, so it seemed like, you know, you
helped Robert, and then Robert returned the favor. I just
hit my microphone, sorry with iron Man three. So it
was a nice well.

Speaker 1 (52:30):
He trusted enough to that it wasn't just a favor. Yeah,
And that was the result of having gutt sober.

Speaker 4 (52:36):
Yeah. All right, so now it's time for listener mail.
Now it's time for listener mail. This is a question
that was sent in to me from my listeners. There's
nothing to do with you, guys, but I'm going to
give you the question anyway, because that's what we do
on the show. Okay, this is dear Jay and guest.

(52:57):
If we're all dead in the end anyway, what's the
point of all this? Do we owe anything to anyone
but ourselves? Do we owe it to ourselves to foster
these debts with others? I don't know what the debts are,
but like you know, I guess the main question is
what is the point? And are we living just for
ourselves or are we living for others?

Speaker 6 (53:17):
I say, well, as long as we're here anyhow, try
to have a good time, try to be nice to people.

Speaker 4 (53:22):
What does it cost you?

Speaker 2 (53:23):
Right?

Speaker 4 (53:24):
But do we owe the future anything do we know
the people around us?

Speaker 1 (53:27):
I think it's I think it's so it's circular in
the sense that we enjoy our lives when we have
self esteem. A lot of us, you know, famously, I
suffered from imposter syndrome, still do. How do we get
self esteem when we may steep down feel that we're
somehow undeserving, We do esteemable acts and then we feel

(53:49):
better and like we're worth something. And it's symbiotic. So
being of service makes us have the self esteem to
feel that we deserve the good things we get, and
that's how we enjoy life, be feeling like when something
comes along, we deserve it.

Speaker 4 (54:04):
So the work you're you're you're saying, the work towards
others is the thing that makes life worthwhile, I.

Speaker 1 (54:11):
Guess, And even if you're narcissistic or selfish, eventually you
start to enjoy seeing the reactions of others and feeling
like I didn't have such a great day, but I
did call this guy when I was feeling down and
he feels a little better.

Speaker 4 (54:23):
That's a plus. Call him day, right, And from the
opposite point of view, Fred, I can't tell.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
Him I do agree with what Chane said, is that
especially as you as you get older and supposedly mellow
with age or get well that stuff. The joys come from,
you know, helping somebody else, and you know that's.

Speaker 1 (54:43):
Just minimizing suffering and prioritizing the way of the good.
In other words, if you're attached to, if you, if
you walk. I'll give you an example. John Cassavetti's been
whether I think I think it's a true story. He
was walking the park with his friends, maybe Becauzarra, maybe
folk a guy that came out of the bushes with
a gun, and so give me your money, because right,

(55:04):
whoa pally, We're just going to get some ice cream. Man, seriously,
I got a few blocks, but because no, no, no, no, no,
you're an actor. I seen you on TV. Give me
your money. And finally, Cassavetti's reportedly looked at the guy
and said, holy shit, guy, you got a gun in
your hand. Your hear just jumping out of the bushes.
What did what did you didn't wake up this morning
to grab a gun? What happened? You must have had

(55:24):
a terrible he says, look you you know what you're fascinating.
I want to hear this, you want to get some
ice cream with They went and got ice cream, put
the gun away. I'm not saying someone goes up with
a knife and hey, let's go to the movies and think.
You know, it's not always gonna work. But the idea
of curiosity trumping fear, that's a big deal.

Speaker 4 (55:43):
Plus, I'd rather hang out with the gunman than Ben
Gazar if I had the choice, Yes, yes, to answer
this question for Grayson Grayson, Thank you for the question.
I really appreciate its pretty deep. Grayce Grayson is deep.
I don't know if they were all dead in me
in anyway, I guess nothing matters, but take things moment
by moment and try to get the most out of

(56:03):
whatever moments there are. I mean, that's all there is, right,
I mean, some some that's giving back, and some of
it's not giving back, and some of it's selfish pleasures,
and some of it's watching The Godfather for the million time.
I mean, it's just.

Speaker 1 (56:14):
But doing the counterintuitive thing that goes against the knee
jerk instinct of someone's not like me, I don't like you,
or this piss me off? What the fuck are you
looking at?

Speaker 4 (56:23):
You're looking at it?

Speaker 1 (56:23):
What you got a problem with the you're looking at it?
Does anyone really like going through life going where there
you looking at?

Speaker 4 (56:29):
You know? I have the opposite problem. I am very
I guess I see things from everybody else's point of view.
I need to spend spend more time fighting with people.

Speaker 2 (56:39):
I think, Yeah, you're ways know what you're looking looking
at me? Yeah, I will say this. And this is
also something that they say that people value. They talk
to old people that have lived in what's what do
you value the most? And they say old people, Well,
they interview old people what was what's the great joy
with wing on the internet and knowing a lot of
it is? And this is on theme with what we're

(56:59):
doing right here in the show is relationships.

Speaker 5 (57:01):
Yes, relationships.

Speaker 4 (57:03):
So I mean this is the fact that you have
a Friday gathering on a weekly basis. We'll probably extend
your life by ten years.

Speaker 2 (57:10):
They say, look at Carl Reiner, who we brought up
in mel Brooks. I mean those guys, you know, they
had this great bond and they're both you know, ninety
five years old.

Speaker 1 (57:18):
Yes.

Speaker 4 (57:19):
So this is the next section, which is called the
Moment of Joy.

Speaker 5 (57:22):
A moment of joy, I have two kittens that have
been living with us for about a month and a half,
and I highly recommend having a pet.

Speaker 1 (57:37):
I entirely agree. I was last summer. There was a
lightning storm and I woke up and my dog was
patting at the side of the bed right and I
reached it as she jumped up and curled up next
to me, and I pulled the covers up, and she
just wanted to be safe from the lightning and we
slept with her curled up against my head.

Speaker 2 (57:56):
That was joy.

Speaker 4 (57:57):
Yeah, for sure, that's nice.

Speaker 2 (58:00):
I will say this. I started playing tennis when I
was ten years old, and I play about three times
a week now, and I'm just grateful that I have
that community of tennis players. That's my fitness. It's you know,
it's nice to win some time, but it's the point
as you go out and you know, yeah, you play
and you feel like you're part of something and you know,
and it's also just any kind of are you pro

(58:21):
pickleball or now I'm a tennis snob? Okay, all right,
if you enjoy pickleball and don't come around the hell,
don't come around to look like tennis and fitness? Will
we were running out of town silverman.

Speaker 6 (58:32):
Oh, I like playing pickleball. Yeah, I like playing the tuba,
probably some of you know, and that does bring me joy.
And I gotta say, if you pick up an instrument
that can tell you it bring you a lot of joy.
If you're playing one now in high school, I recommend
sticking with it because it can bring you a lot
of fun as you go through life. Yes, maybe not
bring the pick of the largest instrument in the world,

(58:55):
you know.

Speaker 2 (58:55):
Or one that has a flame that emanates from the bell.

Speaker 4 (58:58):
So I'm gonna say yes, the pads, Yes, the lightning storms.
Okay to tennis, No to tuba. I'm just gonna say,
right now to tuba.

Speaker 1 (59:06):
This show, he said instrument his show is is a
spark of Jordan. Otherwise potentially, thank you for saying that.

Speaker 4 (59:14):
I was waiting for you guys as sponsoring where We're
out of time, So thank you for wrapping it up perfectly.
Thanks for being here guys, and for absolute pleasure showing
me what true friendship looks like because I've never seen
it before. So thank you for that and thank you
for being here. Viewers, Please tune in to Don't Be
Alone With Jankogan next time. But in the meantime, find

(59:36):
your group of friends, hang out with them and continue
to let them lift you up and you lift them up. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:42):
Yeah time, Thank you.

Speaker 4 (59:45):
Give him your number.

Speaker 3 (59:47):
Don't be alone.