Ep 258: Judd Apatow

what it's good to see you hey it's been a minute it's been so long it's gonna be back in america i know we were we were gone for a while yeah yeah did uh you know what did oslo dublin geez whereas finland the only place we overlapped was i think dublin yeah i missed you by a day yeah how crazy is that it was like jordan jensen me than you in dublin crazy and then um you can do paris now paris was great this time i'm saving it yeah paris is like not always my favorite for comedy but this time it was great all right but yeah how was athens it looked gorgeous those pictures did you go there i've been there ruins i've been oh that was rome oh okay got it got it uh rome was great i saw francesco di carlo wow he took us out to dinner did the sneak he did the sneak credit card pay behind my back i tried to do it and they were he's famous over there oh yeah francesco you know so we're walking around italy and people are like mama mia francesco like the way they're so emotional when they see him and then i got recognized some guys like dude it's just a little different but uh no he was he took us all around he was he's an incredible tour guide isn't it funny when you see another comic overseas you're like oh you come on to him it's like it's like seeing an ambassador well i saw seinfeld in paris wow yeah there you go that was incredible that's the biggest yeah you're just like what not who you expect to run into and have a night out with but and he reached out to you his wife did it felt like his wife set us up on a blind date was she on raya she uh she set us up we're all hanging out and uh great hang but then it's like you know we all are doing like the the fun group talk yeah but then it turns into comedy nerd yeah mode and we're just like see you sister we gotta talk comedy there it is wow yeah we had a good time seinfeld hang in paris sounds like one of these uh like vision board things you know we had a great night yeah talking comedy for hours loved it man just uh awesome wow that's great look what is it hotel is that his place no they picked the cool hotel bar that this is this is such a smooth move on their end first off they pay before we could even find the bill that's the other move uh i told her where i was staying and she picked the place walking distance oh just a classy move all around pro move pro move man did you did you discuss zoran the talk of the town we had we had a great night man it was it was fantastic it was uh incredible a lot a lot of like old school comedy talk like robert klein fucking carlin prior then we did like the new age giraldo talking like all over the map loved it wow so cool i'm hanging out with sean murphy boo come on no murphy's great well we take you know and they i brought my friend chase with me and uh they they love it i'm hanging out with sean murphy and they love it i'm hanging out with them they love chase you know chase's mom mom's a social worker seinfeld uh jessica seinfeld's mom's a social worker they're talking about so we do all these group pictures after yeah you know i take one with jerry then all three then me uh chase and jerry then at the end chase goes all right now uh now mom's with social workers got a big laugh out of them i was like all right he's fucking he's cooking thank god when you have the side friend who gets a laugh you're like all right he's accepted too i wouldn't bring him if i didn't believe in him yes yes well uh how do you offer the photo how do you how does that work i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't come up do you go i think chase brought it up which is nice because i don't want to bring up of i don't want to do that i had to get a photo with him once i said i'm only doing this to help sell the beacon he was like all right so he got that you should have said because i value you as a friend that's so much worse to say i'm using you for tickets well i guess you're right well we're friends i wouldn't go hey i value as a friend let's get a photo you know you would just say let's take a photo yeah that's true or you could just say yeah let's get a photo yeah now did you get any blowback you hanging out with the zionist here i don't fucking know good who cares who cares it's all over hamas you can't reduce people to one word who have contributed this much to comedy come on i've been saying that about michael richards i know i've been saying about cosby yeah that was more of an action but yeah wow so cool what lives we have we're sitting here going oh oh i was in rome oh sorry i was in athens dude milan crazy yeah well i got to oh wow milan i want to hear about that oh my god so i get to riyadh i do the show i'm there seven hours i fly out yeah through the night literally it's the movie the town you just exactly you have a mask on you have a duffel bag yeah i hit one woman i got a child bride i got out of there and then i landed in athens on no sleep i'm on like an hour of sleep i get a uber and then my wife and baby are at the hotel and i'm like i felt like the last i got out of the last chopper of vietnam and i made it to the family it's indiana jones yes yeah i really did feel like it was that meme where you're just like you say the wrong thing they're all chasing you you're like start the plane yes exactly it's that curly swords i had the same thing but with barcelona but i dude i got so sick in barcelona i did the show but i was sick as a fucking dog and did the show then had to go to the hospital oh in barcelona and they're and it's some shitty hospital they're like not speaking english i know i should know better spanish but sure but i'm like damn what happened why i was like i think this is a flu so let me just get tamiflu so i can knock it out so you got to go to the hospital get that oh i didn't know that yeah and then or urgent care or something but it was like late night i didn't want to cancel the show how often am i in barcelona sure but uh yeah i had to fight through that one had to stay an extra day in barcelona because i was so fucking sick banging out movies in the hotel room did you see the city at all because it's a great city a little bit but that was the one i had to kind of sacrifice because i was just so fucking ill yeah and then and then i'm like trying to get better while also drinking every night and traveling every couple days and it's that thing where i'd be like chugging a beer then i'd be in the bathroom and i'd be like and i cough out green phlegm into the sink just a pig yeah but i you know start putting a little bodega in the tamiflu you know mix it all up i was really not but it turned out wasn't the flu but it was just like a fucking nasty viral thing and i was like i was better in a few days but it stuck with me for probably like a week damn what about the booze we'll keep it on you the booze man but yeah athens is incredible the ruins saint all the crowds were great sweden was the best crowd so stockholm gets it man they get it they get a beautiful city my god chicks too oh the women are all six foot eight and blonde and oh my god blue-eyed pure white snow unbelievable have to take it there but yes they're very attractive women yeah i get the ikea thing no they're very hot and uh and the crowds are great scandinavian crowds man they just get it they're great well finland was a little they're tough i've never done helsinki helsinki is a cool city it's very pretty and organized and and clean but the crowds are very like efficient they're like we like that one that's the funny part it's like milan they laugh but then you do like three holocaust jokes in a row and they're like they all applaud as a group yes this is such a strange form of comedy like i feel like i'm doing like a ted talk kind of it's not like it's not yes but uh but they were very nice yeah amsterdam's kind of like that amsterdam's kind of tough they're kind of tough i can't you know here's a little peeve amsterdam yeah what happened i got expressive people yes so exactly you know it's like you sell a lot of tickets there so you're excited right and then because they're big comedy fans but then you do the show and you're like that's it what the fuck i know i'm like that's my best stuff and then you get off and they're like it was amazing you're like tell your face i i'm dying up here i always say it's like the girl you bang and you're like oh i'm kind of not doing well then later she was like that was awesome give me a moan give me something you gotta give me something not to mention these people are on bikes the whole time right don't go to a booty call at 2 a.m like i'll get on the bike everything's on a bike there and it's right and the roads are literally two feet i know so you're like you know it's like a mini cooper whizzing by then a bike then you're like you're like i gotta i gotta like walk like sideways yeah i know it's a tight town and the weather's tough yeah weather can kill they really had legalized weed and now that other places have it they've lost a little bit of it's still a fun city yeah it's still pretty but the problem is like i'm not a planner and and there are two big attractions the van gogh museum and the anne frank house yep you did the same thing i got to van gogh they're like you crazy this is two months booked yeah i've been there before it's sick it's amazing really but yeah i wish i the national institute the national art institute in berlin was insane they got the warhol the elvis one they got uh they got like they got picasso's they've got like uh gerard richter's this huge german artist and he's like 94 and he's still going wow and his shit's incredible and then they had they i mean the berlin art institutes it's legit yeah but then but they're glossing over some here they're like in 1945 and 42 to 45 some weird stuff happened anyway in 46 there was a big boom and you're like huh i know i went to the history museum in berlin and i got there right at the wire and they were like pushing me out they're like hey get out of here you got to go the train schedule and i'm like you're kind of being real nazi about it yeah this museum here you guys have a history of pushing people on trains yeah exactly so uh yeah loved it loved the trip now at what point do you go because you're seeing beautiful things you're seeing great art yeah crowds history but at what point do you go i kind of i'm ready to get back i think literally right at the end all right that's good i was actually having so much fun and the bars in every city were so i mean it is funny though because i'm more of like a like i'm more of a new york dublin liverpool type drinker than i am like milan like i like the communal thing of a bar yeah we're all just hanging at a bar together you can kind of with people you have your friend but you can kind of have a chat yeah whereas like milan it's just you're like at a table outside you're with your own group and i don't like that i kind of like that i like the idea i can meet someone at a bar yeah of course of course so uh yeah dublin's great that's always fun uh but then liverpool was like that was like on another level that was like the best that i had on the tour the hot water comedy club that's that was the only club i did and it was like on fire wow you don't hear about liverpool ever you hear about the beatles and that's it dude the women in liverpool are gorgeous what and they they're like the opposite of london women we're like they're hotter but they think they're not hot oh that's great and it's like it's insane what so is it like a blue collar yeah i think it is okay but they but they have the soccer team and they're dude it was like i met this woman there we had this like amazing night she was so cool and it was to the point we're both hammered at like 4 a.m and i was like you should come to london with me whoa and she was like all right i'm coming i was like okay wow all right so she goes i'm gonna come with you and then there was like it died down for a second she goes are you gonna human traffic me and i was like no and my friend chase goes no he's got like a good career back in america and i was like hey that's not why we're not trafficking women you can't say so i was like i think i could do a bit about this because what happened next was um you trafficked her i trafficked her all right but uh no but the next morning like she's like i'm gonna come and then the next morning she didn't meet me at the train station she goes i'm not coming and i wrote back the trafficking she goes yeah i'm just i'm too scared and i was like i said that's the problem with women in their 20s they're still scared of getting trafficked i need a woman my age because they know their trafficking years are long behind you know they're like because if you're trafficking women you're bringing home like a 40 year old i think that the head trafficker is like can i see you in my office for a sec we're letting you go this damage good yeah this fruit is old but uh no yeah but then she's messaging me all week she's like my grandma said i should have come i'm like she told your grandma what's happening oh weird and then she like went to see a tarot card reader and he was like yeah i was like well i don't know what's happened but she was still messaging me the whole trip but it was we had a fun night it was still fun very romantic that's fun shit we just like impulsive like that i love to be impulsive i do too you're in europe what are you gonna do yeah the uk is fun and uh you know a lot of people are like oh my god i'm gonna go to london london did you go to london this time or no i went in like may oh yeah and i had a blast i went to wales london and all that shit where else did you hit this time besides finland finland sweden oslo oslo is pretty cool do you eat anything weird in oslo i had reindeer and i had some uh i had i just ate a ton of fish yeah it's all great fish is their thing any whale sashimi they do weird shit over there i know they love whale they love reindeer doesn't taste good though no more saunas than cars wow in scandinavia funny fun fact i mean saunas are great yeah i love a song i love a sauna culture i know a lot of my hotel a lot of a lot of my hotels had saunas and i was like man this is saving me from the hangover oh totally i would just force the gym every day even if it was like 30 minutes because i was like yeah i had i had 12 beers last night i should probably right do the rower for 15 minutes like that's like that's breaking even yeah yeah no it's better than nothing something yeah so did you did you have a little bit of relief because everybody's all impulsive at the at the 13th drink and the four o'clock in the morning but if she was like i'm not coming on the train i'd be like that's probably for the best i was fine it wasn't like relief and i was like it's fine i don't care it's like i mean it would have been fun but i was also like we're going a new adventure like yeah it's almost like a video game and it's a game over and you're like all right we'll start a new life you just have to keep you just have to keep the energy up because i think like you know i'm traveling with a good friend of mine and it's like for me it's like just keep morale high the whole time no right no no sulky no bad moods just keep the energy good and i think we did i think it was it was a good trip what else was killer uh any missed flights no all right but we did a canceled train which was pretty annoying uh it was actually the one she bailed on so i got my money back whoa that was actually i was like hey maybe this was meant to be yeah but you and me is really coming out i'm like i could have met the love of my life i'm like free train ticket all right trying to think what else happened yeah if i had any crazy moments uh a lot of crazy flights you miss anything what how long was uh may and the baby with you uh just athens and then they flew back because just a few days later i was like oh my god i'm gonna miss it i'm gonna miss it just bopping around uh six nights that hotel's sick great hotel see the acropolis yes from the fucking breakfast the roof yeah i stayed there once it's insane insane and that neighborhood's great we hit all the cafes and hit wolf wolf nights what's it called wolf yeah we did i took the mother-in-law there uh wolf fish wolf face wolf something in wall street i can't remember yeah seawolf seawolf seawolf that place is like off the beaten path but it's incredible right yeah we walked there then walked home that neighborhood was awesome yeah uh athens has got some stank on it too i love it it's kind of dirty it's fun yeah it's gritty um yeah we had a blast so i went down to the train station to catch the train and not one piece of garbage no graffiti not one rat it's crazy you know it's weird there's no garbage but also i feel like there's no garbage cans in any of these places are they just holding their shit i looked this up you actually have less litter with less cans it's one of these weird human nature psychological things so i don't know what that's about i don't know what that's about but yeah there's no littering no littering it's crazy they do have graffiti over there yeah but uh a lot about my people yeah yeah but they uh yeah i'll tell you you know i gotta pee for the uh in europe there's a lot of the atms they suck up the card oh that's scary i don't let the card suck because i'm traveling with an atm i'm like i need it i need access to cash yeah you gotta have cash and and i hate the suck up i'm always like fuck are they gonna give it back it's like the opposite of a blow job when when they swallow it's bad right right right you know yeah spit it out spit it out i because one time it sucked it up and i was on a tour and i lost my car whoa but it's like you gotta know i'm booking i'm booking all the shit here i should be here you're looking at my other of course of course yeah i gotta pee for you no drip coffee i'm sick of an americano i'm sick of the flat white i'm sick of the the latte give me a drip where you can just pour it out of a pitcher the americano sucks it sucks it's just lazy i know at least a cappuccino there's like okay it's like you get the milk i get it but but just water and espresso i know water oh and then i would ask for milk they'd be like oh milk look at this pussy yeah all right you don't know what you're doing now you get excited too because you get to like a pret at a train station like they'll have it like they don't even fucking have it no they don't have give me a fucking drip coffee yeah and then when you're at a restaurant you want the repour like at a breakfast but they can't do a repour they gotta make a whole new bullshit i'm dude i'm with you this is like see they look down upon us right like we're like this trash because i like a but that's what i like and the coffee's a little weaker but you're just like it's the ritual of it exactly exactly so i'm making keurigs and and hotels i can't do that i'll take a keurig because at least it's drip it's just fucking nasty though yeah it's like shit got one right here yeah it's not great but but uh yeah no i it bums me out that the no but you know they look down upon us in these other countries like some other countries are fine with us but we were in a bar in berlin and the second he says american they're like and it's like hey uh germany you've made a few mistakes in your day too maybe i know forgiveness and i love when they ask me like what's up with the tariffs i'm like i didn't do it i know i didn't vote for the guy i didn't set the policy what do you want from me no they uh they love to let us have it and then but then you have like that weird kind of like american pride you know you're gone you're like no fuck you we got a lot of cool shit going on america too it's the big brother syndrome i can make fun of it but you can't make exactly yeah so you want to throw it away what's up with the big brother syndrome that guy sucked you know fuck you fritz yeah you guys that guy looks like shit have you seen gerard de pardue lately no claims he drinks 12 bottles of wine a day wow and and i'm like no and then you see a picture like oh he might drink 15 yeah this guy looks horrible look at him look at that nose wow that's an alcohol you ever see an alcoholic's nose yeah i mean geez talk about reindeer yeah it looks like rudolph that red fucking nose i hate this is they're already lying holy shit the hair it's weird to look like shit but then still have like kind of nice hair i know it's got like a velvet blazer on look at a young de pardue yeah he was a honk he was like their de niro man wow what uh what where else did you hit uh let's see finland was cool oslo was cool some of these cities you you land and you're like i need a i need a minute so you like sit in the hotel room and jerk off and look at your phone and you kind of missed the whole thing um so finland i didn't see too much uh but i had a fish soup there that was unbelievable i asked the hotel guy like what's your thing and he goes we got a fish soup it's great i go fish soup you're a soup guy though love soup i went to the first place across the street i got a fish soup it was unbelievable they put a dollop of mustard on top and it's like salmon with a good gooey lemon broth it's incredible that's like that greek suit with the uh the chicken the lemon and the egg yes it's very similar to that there it is oh my god it's incredible that's so so because you're such a soup guy do you have a higher bar for what it's a good soup or are you kind of just like no i'm just happy to have a soup no i think i'm i got a bar i got a bar and this was a well-made soup and it was like their delicacy also the crowd was a little tough in finland i think i didn't i don't think i bomb but they just don't give a lot and a guy yelled out why don't more comics come here and i go you heard the reaction this is why you guys don't laugh at shit yeah i got that and i think uh in amsterdam and i was like they're like you played riyadh and i'm like they laughed harder than you fuckers yeah i'm not gonna say any names but last time i did amsterdam the booker or the owner of the theater whatever was like gotta tell you we had three very major prominent comedians here and they all had a meltdown on on the audience in which place in amsterdam amsterdam's like it's fine but you want it's funny because like my closure was killing everywhere and it did like fine and it sucks to get off on fine yes they were fine it wasn't awful but i got off like yeah i was not because it's funny i was dreading that paris was going to be that and paris hadn't turned up being yeah yeah paris kicked it up a notch i think 10 years ago that was a tough audience yeah now they're cool yeah no Everything else was great, but I'm trying to think where else I hit. Yeah, I mean, Berlin is like Williamsburg, basically, but in a good way. Like, they laugh hard. I met all these cool Polish comedians. Like, so many Polish comedians came out to the show, so I was, you know, chopping it up with them after the show. They were all really cool. They got a scene in Poland, so I'm going to go to Poland. Oh, I would love to go to Warsaw. And Krakow, I hear, is amazing. Oh, easy. That's a lot of history there. And then I want to go to, I should have hit Munich while I was in Germany. Oh, yeah, I hear that's pretty. Look, we got a whole world ahead of us. We got all these new plays to hit. Yeah, I was talking to Louis last night, and he gave me, like, a long list of all these other, he's like, you've never been to, you know, Budapest? You've never been to Sofia? I'm like, I don't even know where Sofia is, but I'll go. But he gave me a long list of all these places. He's like, these will be great. And I'm like, all right. All right, great. I took them down. And we've never done South America. I know. Actually, I did San, what's that place called? What's the big one? In Brazil. Oh. No, not Brazil. Is this Sao Paulo? No, not Brazil. Car, car, ca, gosh, shit. It's two words. I don't know why I'm blanking on this. Oh, geez, you sound like Drew Lynch for a second there. I'm like Mitch McConnell in here. What the hell is that place called? Carlo, huh? San Carlo. No, is that a place? I'll think of it. Did you do Argentina? No, no. I feel like Buenos Aires we could probably do all right. That's true. They say it's the New York of. South America. They say everything's in New York. Everything's in New York. You're just like, this is not. Yeah. San Jose? No, that's in California. Sounds like that, though. You did Rooster Teeth Feathers in South America? Yeah. It was at a bar. My friend set the whole thing up, and we just flew down there and stayed in a house on the water. Sometimes that's like you have a better time. That's another thing Louie was saying. They offered me these huge venues in Japan. He's like, I just want to have a good show, do 800 seats. I was like, yeah, I kind of get you. Look. Money is cool and all, but you want to love the trip, and you want to love the show, and you want to feel good about the show. Yes. I completely agree. Sometimes they put you in these 1,500 seaters, and you're sweating the tickets the whole time. You're like, you're ruining my trip. I know. Just put me in an 800, and we'd sell two. Great. Yeah. It does suck to walk into a huge cavernous venue that is undersold. I know. I know. Especially in a random faraway place, because you already feel. We feel like a failure. Yeah, exactly. And you're like, I flew here for this? Yeah, but I would definitely hit back all these places, I think, for sure. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Comedy's popping, baby. It's all over the world, thanks to the internet. It's fun. It's just like, man, I ended up at a bar in Amsterdam that was all natural wine. I just got fucking hammered on natural wine. Woo! You know what the thing is? I've convinced myself you don't get a hangover from natural wine, so I think I have an extra six glasses. Yeah. And then I'm like, wow, I'm really fucking hungover. Turns out if you drink enough alcohol, you will still have a bad hangover. A thousand percent. Every elixir, pill, hey, try this. When you're done drinking, it'll save you. None of that shit works. And I tried, hey, clear tequila. You're safe. I'm like, no, I get a hangover on everything. Is that your go-to when you travel? A lot of beer, too. A lot of beer. I don't love all the beer. I like beer, but it's like pint after pint after pint. And I'm like, give me a martini. I had the worst martini I've ever had in Athens. And I just guzzled it down. It tasted like fucking vinegar. That's a good, great start to a story. The worst martini of my life. Dude, I'll tell you, I had so many beers. And I was fighting this cold, too, the whole trip. So, you know, my body's rebelling against me. I woke up two mornings. So, you know, when you're like, okay, I got five hours. I can get five hours of sleep. I'm on the flight. I'll be okay. I'm going to be hungover. But five hours I can do. I wake up an hour before I'm supposed to wake up with the worst fucking cramp right here. I'm like, ah! You're just screaming. Just like, ah! Alone in my room screaming. I get out of bed. I finally stop it here. Then it picks up here. I'm like, ah! My body. I feel like I'm fucking morphing. I'm morphing into something. Just like, ah! Wolfman. And there's the one guy, have a banana! Yeah, I got a banana next to the bed. It was in my ass. And by the way, I did have a banana the next day. And the next night, guess what happened? Same shit. I woke up two straight nights with the worst fucking leg cramps for like 30 minutes. Damn. It was hell. And I was just like, oh, if I just got that extra hour, I would have been okay. Yeah. At least when you have a cramp, it like gets you up. Like you kind of wake up. I hate it. Yeah, that sucks. I had it once. I had a girl over and I got one. And it was our first night. We had a good night together after we had talked on the phone a bunch. Oh, boy. And she slept over. And it's like that thing where she's like, wow, this is like a good night. And then at 4 a.m. I wake up like, ah! And she's like, he's going to kill me. What the fuck? She was screaming. She's like, ah! I was like, no, my fucking leg. I'm getting trafficked. She does. It's happening. Yeah, man. That's you. Oh, dude, I was the wolfman. It was like fucking brutal. Yeah, that cramp is it. The only way to get rid of it is walk around. Oh, dude. But, hey, it's good to be back. Boy, when you land back on American soil, you're like, whew, I'm home, baby. Yeah, because you did a lot. I was gone for like a month. I left. My routing was brutal. I started in like, I threw a couple nights in Chicago. And then it was like three nights in Chicago. Then Winnipeg. And then it's like coming back here. Then, and it's like, fuck, all these connect flights. You're just like, by the end, you're just like, no wonder you get sick. Yeah, the connections. I had to connect to go to Riyadh. I had to connect to Istanbul. I was on the wrong side of the airport. I had to run. I'm sweating. I had a jacket on, jeans. I had a horrible BO. I take my jacket off, and I was all embarrassed. And then I realized, if you're going to have BO, Middle Eastern flight, pretty good. Then I tried to get an Uber when I landed, and they don't have Uber there, which blew my mind. Yeah. Every Uber driver here is Middle Eastern, you know? But over there, they don't even have it. I was like, this is your thing. But they sent a guy to pick me up. But, yeah, good times. Good times. Glad to be back. But my agent wanted me to do all these European dates for like two months. I was like, break it up. I have a child. Yeah, you have a baby. You have a baby, dude. I mean, for me, I'm kind of like, eh, I got nothing at home. Part of me is like, I kind of want to go back out. I arrived kind of energized. I was like, I feel fucking good. All right. I mean, it's weird to drink for 16 nights straight and be like, I feel great. Yeah. But I kind of do. But then you start wondering, is there food healthier? Maybe your body was like, eh, this is nice. We're having real bread, real vegetables. The amount of bread I ate. Like, every meal was a fucking sandwich. Like, you get a sandwich on a Parisian train, and it's like ham and cheese with butter. And you're like, this is better than like a gourmet sandwich. Totally. Their fucking train station is better. I know. You put butter on anything. It's fucking, butter and bread is just like. Yeah, and they do real butter there. You picture that guy in Glorious Bastards, you know, that little dairy he had up there on the mountain. Woo. The Irish butter is incredible, too. Good. Butter is fucking good, man. Mm-hmm. That's why French food is so good, the butter. It's all butter, baby. A ton of food. Yeah. I mean, it was insane, dude. It was so much. And it's the best. It's the best when you can just get on a train, too. I know. I love a train. I had a few trains in a row. I'm like, this is fucking nice. It's very nice. You get the view. There's no security. You don't have to get there an hour early. Train's the best. Yeah. It's crazy. Like, if you live in London, you can just train to Paris for a weekend. You know? Isn't that crazy? It's crazy. Or Amsterdam, whatever. Wherever. But also, I don't think London has, like in America, we can go to Malibu. We can just go to Malibu or Hawaii. We have our cool shit in the country. I think they have to leave to have cool shit. Yeah, but they're closer. That's true. I mean, you could train versus, you're not taking a train to Malibu from here. No, that's true. I've never even been to Hawaii. I would love to. What? I should go, man. Oh, you turned down to Hawaii. It was routed with Australia, and it was a year I'd done so many fucking cities. I was like, I don't want to chill. I was also single. I was like, I don't want to chill in fucking, I don't want to chill in Hawaii for five nights alone. That's true. There's something sad about that. Definitely. That's true. You'd think you're going to have some spiritual awakening on some mountain, but really you're just jerking off in a room and just like, ah, fucking, I'm lonely. I'm going to kill myself. You still have your brain in Hawaii. It's still you. It's still your sadness. They did a sketch like that on SNL, Sandler. Did you see that? No. He does a travel infomercial, and he's like, I just want you to know, you're still going to be you over here. That's the whole thing. It's a great sketch. That's hilarious. I got some other fucking things I wrote down. What else? Everybody's quiet everywhere, too. Have you noticed that? You go to any city in Europe, it's like everywhere, the restaurants are quiet. Even the bars are kind of quiet. Not Germany. Oh, really? They're chatterboxes. I got a lot of people just started chatting me up in bars in Hawaii. I was like, these people are fucking nuts. Oh, interesting. There was a woman just chatting us up, and I was like, she is fucking wasted, this chick. My friend was like, you think she's wasted? I'm like, yes, she's screaming at us. Yeah, yeah. But I'll tell you, here's a P for traveling. The slow hotel check-in. Been saying it for years. You know if someone's checking into a hotel, they've been traveling. Yes. Why are you torturing us? I know. Would you like us to explain the benefits here? I just want to fucking sleep. I want to take my pants off. Give me the key. I'm taking my pants off here if you don't pick it up. Yeah, this shit. Okay, so you're like, why isn't this ready? Get it going. Get it going. Just have the key ready. Yeah, I would say the same for a rental car place. Just, I show up, I made the reservation, just give me the key. You know what I watched on the plane ride back, which was like, God, how about those fucking, the movie selection on the flight to Saudi Arabia. Those were fucking awesome. Those were fucking rough. It was like one anti-Semitic documentary and Mission Impossible 5. I'm like, this is it? And then you got, flying back though, damn, planes, trains, and automobiles. Oh, so good. This time of year, I can't not watch that movie. It's the ultimate Thanksgiving movie. Incredible movie, yeah. And you tear up. I just watched the John Candy doc. I got to watch it. It's all over the doc. Another thing about the Saudi Arabia flight, they pray. So I'm getting, look, I'm an American. If you pray on a flight, we're fucked. But they pray normally. They're like, hello. I'm like what the hell's going on? But that's just normal. They have to pray every ten minutes So yeah, that was scary So yeah movie. Oh, we might have our guest here Yeah, planes trains so good. The doc the doc game is unbelievable. It's a great movie. It's good. It's not great I'd say it's good. Yeah, but it's like we got the Scorsese five-part that yet is a great already finished it incredible We lost ten hours damn Charlie Sheen doc was fun. The Billy Joel doc was fun. I got a peeve. Why isn't sheen been on here yet? I know he's been on everything. I know we've been gunning for him since before he did this shit I know I'm in Rex. We know you listen to the pod. Just fucking text him for us. Will you text him? We're fun We're fun. He'd like us. Yeah, we'll do crack or whatever. He wants. We'll give him how he's trying not to do crap Okay, we'll drink your non-alcoholic beer Charlie. Does he have a non-alcoholic? Yeah. Oh, well, I'll drink it to get him on I mean, I'll drink it but non-alcoholic beers a bummer Though that is a big bummer. It's a bummer. Especially from the guy who's winning tiger blood. I know what a what a shift Yeah, just let's get bloated. Is that it? It's like fucking uh, you know, Dan St. Germain our buddy. I will be out with him and he'll order like a Heineken zero I'm like, I know I don't drink just don't get it. Just get a Diet Coke or something, please By the way, I posted my tour date today the amount of queefs hitting me up to open. I'll take Buffalo. I'll take this It's crazy. These guys are like sharks in the water Yeah, by the way, don't you have people you bring already? I do but everybody's like, oh, yeah You got anybody for a Des Moines like, all right, you can do Des Moines You can you can by the way, if we end up shooting the movie you can move these days, right? Yeah, of course. These are all club dates. Oh good. Yeah, I gotta get back in the clubs, too I want I want to build up for the for when I tape but yeah, I feel like it's getting there It's funny. You feel like you're like after Liverpool I'm like I could fucking tape here and then you have a show in Amsterdam and you're like I need a few months Yeah You always judge it by the badge? Not the good that's how you have to that's so true. It was so bad at the cellar last night Like so really so comically bad. Interesting. That's funny. Louie and Judd were actually on the show and It's funny getting seen Louie get brought up to know he gets no applause. Whoa They're so shitty at one point. I was like man this crowd fucking sucks and some late. I just said it I was like man that you guys are terrible and this woman just goes it's your material. Oh And I was like, wow. All right, and I was my head I was like these are getting applause breaks in fucking Europe. These are working Yeah, I mean, yeah, I was just like whatever damn, you know, it's weird I had a horrible set at New York Comedy Club on 24th Street last night. I'm bombing. Yeah. Hey And then I go come on in whenever you're ready in All right, he's gotta be oh the audience is titillating. They're like, who could it be? Don't know. Okay, but That's true. It's probably on the thumbnail, but I had a horrible on five minutes in six minutes in I'm like struggling and I go What's going on? Did something happen? You guys suck. Fuck you You're gay you're fat you're ugly and then I'm killing yeah Then I once I did that and they respected me or something I had a couple I had a couple hit but I still didn't get what I wanted and I saw Louie after me I saw Louie laughing at me bombing which is funny to see a comic you respect just watch you eat it Sure, and I handle it like such a little bitch And when I got off he goes he goes you couldn't get back after that I said I really couldn't I was too annoyed that she said that right, right? Yeah, of course. That's mean But they were they were bad. I mean it's funny Matt cough got offstage and I go how were they goes awful? Whoa, so my head I was like, okay He's a writer Louie a mascot good stuff and Louie on stage was like, you know, Sam really hated you Yeah, he's done that to me before. Yeah, but Yeah, whatever. I saw Louie. Oh, this is years ago It's like they're tough and he goes up he goes I heard you guys are a nightmare and that got a laugh and then he started Killing yeah, I've done that before I make I've heard I've heard not to try for me I'll say something. Yeah, I heard you guys aren't worth giving in any effort for right? You just trash them out of the gate and that yeah, you like it's like a hot chick. You just neg them Yes, and they're like, I'm like like I think you're hot but other guys were saying you're weird-looking and they're like, well, who is this guy? Yeah, yeah, they build some they build you build like a oh, he doesn't need us to laugh. Totally. So now they're laughing totally You under the weather your flies down sweating and dripping here for you right now Dude, the books awesome. Oh, thanks guys. Yeah, I love the book is great, too, right? It's fancy Yeah, like I like the feeling the pages right? It's got a texture. It's very heavy Yeah, yes I'm thick books are light and other Books are so heavy that you don't even know if you want to read them and I'm just jealous of anyone who took photos I have six photos of me as a child you say we're talking about this last night like the amount of photos you have Pre iPhone. Yes But that's really scraping like when I lived with Sandler I think there's like eight photos of that era sure that exists So it seems like we covered it, but it's literally like one like instant camera, you know, they're like a throwaway one and then one comedian Took pictures one night at the improv. So we had that group shot with spade and covert and Sandler That's a but no, I mean in high school. I like no photos of anything. I pulled ears. I have old girlfriends There's not a photo same said nobody believes you you're like, no, I swear I had a girlfriend. She lives in Canada By the way, would you hit the gap you got a real earthy tone here, you know, I went really a tan I went really kind of banana Republic All right, you know, I was just doing the Today Show and you know, you got to play to the demographic You got a yeah a to your audience and know that this feels friendly. It's called marketing guys, dude you I love that. Yeah, the parts were Sandler. It's great And then I have a question because there's a story of you Sandler Tarantino and all these guys see a danger field. Yeah in Vegas that's right, yeah, and uh, You have one line where you say danger field had like the darkest insult. I know what was the line? Well Basically, they were doing you know, they had done a little Nicky Yeah, I knew danger field was in it and Tarantino was in it and like Harvey Keitel It was a crazy cast and then one day sailors like let's go to Vegas and just pay respects To Rodney and go see his act. So it was like a crazy crew of like me and Adam and Rob Schneider Tarantino Carl Weathers You know, I'll tell you I don't can you respect you're vaccinated. That's why So we go see the show and he's kind of great He's in his 80s murders someone heckled him and he kind of went off and it's like really fun to see him I had full strength and then we went after to his hotel room to hang out with him, you know And it's a classic Rodney in the white robe. Yes moment smoking a lot of weed Everyone's smoking weed and you know, I'm trying to talk to him and he's so He's so odd. He's just like we're like an odd guy like we all worshipped him, but he's pitching us movies He wants to make I want to do a movie with her. I got 11 wives a Mormon. I got 11 wives, you know I think he made that. Yeah We can't afford the other six and then I said, you know, my grandmother was best friends with Toadie Fields the comedian and She was like a Joan Rivers type of self-deprecating comedian who was really really genuinely hilarious And I said, what do you think of her? And he goes she was what she was And I was like, yeah, what does that mean he goes she was what she was. Oh my god Oh, it was the meanest thing. I think I've ever heard anybody say I have a question about that story because because Adam told me this once with a when he went to I'm assuming this was the same trip because he said it was him and Tarantino talking to Dangerfield danger was like, oh I'm a fucking hack I'm the worst, you know, I don't think no you're the best. Yeah, I think you're the best He's like no, I'm a fucking square And Adams told Tarantino. He's like he thinks he's a square and he said Tarantino was high out of his mind And he was like, he's like, yeah, you're a fucking square And he's like what and he goes what and and he just went away like pissed and and I was like, what the fuck are you doing? He's like, no, he's the best. He's like he's a square like he didn't realize what he was saying, but it offended Rodney sure I do easily offended. He wasn't he always thought he wasn't getting respect The most respect of everybody. I know right the weird thing that that was his hook We got over the documentary and they and they're doing like describe Rodney in one word at the end and Bill Murray goes Respectable Perfect. I mean people loved him so much. He was kind of he's the king but I went to see him I don't maybe early 80s at the height of Caddyshack here at the Westbury music fair. I've been there and he murdered as hard as you can murder talking so fast Wow, I don't know what drugs he was on, you know Like was he on coke or but he literally had such a mastery of the one-liners and he was just ripping him And then he would get a laugh and then you would miss the next two jokes, right? Because he was talking so fast that that might be why we watch back to school so many times because there's so many one-liners Yeah, you just go back. Yeah, you know, what's cool about Rodney if you listen to his album He doesn't say I don't get no respect to like 28 minutes in he saves it, but you think hey It's a catchphrase. He uses it every 10 seconds, but he saves it and it gets like a huge applause Which I think is a that's a pro move. Yeah Well before that, you know, he used to talk slower Like if you look at if you ever heard the earliest Rodney record, it's like it's like listen to Simpson season one Homer's voice it's weird. It would talk like this and you know, I was out with my wife the other day Completely different thing but kind of hilarious and also would record comedy Albums at his club and it's amazing because he wouldn't even do great on his comedy album, right? like it would feel like a late-night set at a club where there's like half a house and yeah and that would be the comedy i have no sweetening just this is what it's exactly like yeah you can hear the clinking of the glasses yeah all that stuff yeah uh i've just realized dave attell is now our rodney well he's like kind of he's like almost like with hipper references i feel like yeah sure tell he'll like know who the kids are talking about right but yeah he's kind of got a rodney type thing well also just the you're the best he's like i'm a hack i suck you go no you're great everybody loves you and he's like i can't stand myself my act is weak whatever but what do you think dave thinks when his head hits the pillow i think he's thinking what's the new bitcoin you know the gaza whatever when his head hits the pillow he's had like 16 coffees right before it's true yeah i don't think he's sleeping that much yeah and it's like 8 a.m probably yeah well i remember leaving diners with attell at like 4 a.m and he'd order a large ice coffee to go and i know what are you doing yeah he's like i got a new porn store to check out yeah well dude and when i open your book one of the coolest pages is like because and this is like maybe just because you're a nice guy i forget how much shit you've done because you're not talking about it but like it's like larry sanders on one page and the other page is the critic yeah so these are your two the two sides of your comedy yeah well i work there both at the same time that's two days and two days yeah since ben social got canceled and i had tried to get a job on the sims after the first season i wrote a spec i had no career whatsoever and i didn't get hired but they liked it and so then when the show got canceled to the people uh you know al jean and mike reese were starting a new show called the critic and they asked me to write for it a couple of days a week and then gary knew i was unemployed and he's like come come work for me he's like you'll learn a lot whoa and uh and he didn't say like you'll be helpful to me right right he said you'll learn a lot and uh and i would go in there two days a week and he'd be like i'm gonna do this two days a week and he'd be like i'm gonna do this so we could just pitch jokes and then go to so we could just pitch jokes and then go to the critic and and pitch jokes but i was the only the critic and and pitch jokes but i was the only non-ivy league person in the critic room and they non-ivy league person in the critic room and they were all like the legendary the harvard writers of were all like the legendary the harvard writers of the time and the harvard guys and i would make the time and the harvard guys and i would make some dumb dirty joke and they would just look at some dumb dirty joke and they would just look at me and go oh judd you've outwitted us again me and go oh judd you've outwitted us again elitist guns and they would be like trying to elitist guns and they would be like trying to figure out like fermat's theorem in between figure out like fermat's theorem in between jokes like they were all like math geniuses jokes like they were all like math geniuses and like to talk about math well dude you it's like and like to talk about math well dude you it's like the two most different shows tonally i love the two most different shows tonally i love both of the shows if you and i'm sure a lot of people both of the shows if you and i'm sure a lot of people listen haven't seen the critic i think listen haven't seen the critic i think they're all on youtube yeah you should watch it it's it's they're all on youtube yeah you should watch it it's it's incredible like i feel like it's almost incredible like i feel like it's almost like the predecessor to family guy and a lot oh it's like like the predecessor to family guy and a lot oh it's like a lot of funny flashbacks it's so funny it's a little dated because it's so many movie references and a lot of fat jokes and all that yeah the 90s was like all fat jokes yeah it was just a guy would like stand on a on a trampoline it would break and be like i guess that's the joke it was it was open season at that time oh yeah i was remembering there was like a parody of uh some sort of movie where arnold schwarzenegger is an actor rabbi and he like breaks into the supreme court he's like tonight we're going to make some laws yeah i'd love that show as a critic pilot is one of the best pilots ever yeah it's perfect i love that show the mom was amazing uh the easter island kid everything was great the the drunk drunk dad the funny thing that happened is so i wrote this this spec like you know because that's what you used to do you would write an episode of a show to prove to another show that you were a good writer you would never get a job with the show like if you wrote like a murphy brown or something you would never get hired by murphy brown but maybe someone at seinfeld would like it sure and so they didn't make my simpsons episode and then literally 22 years later i'm doing a q a somewhere and i i go you know all my stuff it's all about like people who don't want to grow up and you know in fact the first thing i ever wrote was a simpsons episode where homer takes his family to see some sort of hypnotist he makes him think he's 10 and then the hypnotist has a heart attack and now homer is 10 and he becomes best friends and he doesn't want to be brought back to 40 right and they and they run away so that he won't be brought back to his real age and there was an article about it and they like printed the q a and then the guys at the simpsons who ran the critic and had been there since day one called me and said oh we'll make it now and then you know they rewrote you know basically every word of it sure uh and made it like the dream of what it you know what i always would have hoped it could be yeah and they made this hilarious episode they let me go to the table read and the records so i got to like sit in the homer which was like watching jackie gleason do you know ralph cramp i really like thought like oh this is one of the greatest things that's ever happened in comedy could they throw you a bone and let you do a voice like let you be judd why wasn't another episode there was an episode about a dvd uh piracy that i had i had a line or two that's pretty legendary yeah yeah your kids like hey look here's me on the simpsons i'm yellow yeah that's a big one dude in the book uh you didn't get credit writing for that right yeah i did it like but you wrote it a big well there was a script and you know we wrote a lot of it yeah enough that i thought i would get credit of some sort but the guy who wrote it was a lawyer and you have to write like a literally a legal paper to try to explain why you think you deserve credit and i was just so young and dumb that my letter was bad so i wound up getting zero credit and then the movie didn't do well in the box office and i was so upset and complaining publicly and people are like i can't believe he's trying to get his name on the cable guy uh but uh so that hurt but i produced it as well and it was really but then great but then you had lunch with warren baity i did so like it bombs yeah it bombs here's the funny thing it made a hundred million dollars but they expected it to just make whatever was it rated r uh it was rated r i mean it ends with jim committing suicide you know it was a little darker than people expected yeah and uh so i was really bummed and shanley's talked to warren about it warren warren baity and they because they were friends at the time okay and i said okay so he set up for me to go out to lunch with him and uh he said you know you never know if something is good for like 10 years he's like movies you know sometimes they open sometimes they don't sometimes they get good reviews sometimes they don't but in like 10 years you know if anyone cares if it if it survived in the culture yeah and that really has turned out to be true because we've had tons of movies that were below expectations in reception and then you go oh 15 17 years later people are still talking about walk hard right or idiocracy idiocracy is a perfect example i saw walk hard with it's the only time i saw a movie with my biological father who i was not close with yeah and he was like he's like trying to have a relation with me he's like we should see a movie and i'm like what's something i can see that will have no weird parental theme in it i was like walk hard then it's like the whole thing about him and his dad what the fuck and it's literally the whole what the fuck am i watching next to him like this is the most uncomfortable uh yeah and then it brought you back together no i don't think we talked after that i think was like let's not deal with any of this i saw uh 12 years of sleep with my black friend similar damn that sucks yeah it's like when i saw a national ambulance animal house with my mom oh and i'm like 10 years old there's like hand jobs in it yeah yeah it was uncomfortable with tammy that day you mind if we dance with you on dates yeah that movie's got some shit where you're like whoa oh yeah i you know i'm putting together a comedy exhibit for the uh motion picture academy museum and it'll be in like two years so they're letting me like pick all the objects it's like to put in the museum and i was looking through things to consider and i i was shown the script of animal house and and there i opened the page and it says do you mind if we dance and then there was the notes from john landis the director of like what music and how he wanted to shoot it what do you study primitive species wild joke but yeah great movie though yeah great time they got together i was obsessed with animal house as a kid and they got together and just traded frat stories and just wrote them all down yeah that's how they got that movie yeah some of those movies it is funny like i loved revenge of the nerds growing up a few of these are definitely rape scenes it's kind of oh yeah you're like i think that was a thing right like in animal house like the girl is passed out and then the joke is deciding whether or not to attack her exactly and i'm like oh my god it's literally an svu plot line now like oh that was that was funny back then though right i know you wondered just like what was happening like in the culture that like i mean you know hundreds of people approve that oh it's like one entire studios and marketing departments and you know but that's how you watch you watch it through a time capture and you're like oh this is like kind of it's interesting you know it's not like good or bad it just is you know it just was yeah i mean it's like honeymooners to the moon the whole joke i'm gonna hit my wife yeah yeah goes to the moon yeah we all loved it but you'd have to be hit hard yeah exactly yeah have we not gotten to the moon by then yeah that was pre-moon landing right damn uh yeah that probably was that was pre-moon like a whole it might have inspired yeah russia heard it like we got to get there first we gotta hit our wives harder now i gotta ask so when you're in the thick of it i'm talking ben stiller's show then the critic then fucking larry sanders which is such an iconic comedy iconic did you know like i'm a little i'm a young kid from long island who's now in la i'm writing on 17 shows i'm in the throws did you go i'm doing it or was it a constant fight for survival well both i mean i was lucky because larry sanders my job was just to pitch jokes i didn't have to i didn't have to approve the jokes and really the more stressful job is which joke to put in the script. It's fun to just sit there eating a sandwich, just babbling all day, what about this, what about that? - We've turned it into a career. - Yeah, exactly, and that's all it really was, was just trying to get a joke in. You'd get maybe one script a year to write, and then slowly I rose up where the very last season I co-ran the show with Adam Resnick, and that's stressful. - Yeah, of course. - Because now you could let Gary down. - How did he pitch that to you, that he wanted you to run the show? - There's just like a moment where he was unhappy with how it was set up, and then he just said, "Will you please come in and help me?" And I had seen him go through a lot of writers, and some of the best writers in the world that he just didn't connect with. - Scary. - And I had seen that go dark a bunch of times. - Well, the last season's dark. I mean, the last season is like, it's beautiful. It's kind of sad. The idea that you don't realize how much they love each other till the last season, the characters. When Hank is such a weasel the whole show, but the last season he's kind of like, "No, fuck Jon Stewart. I'm taking over. I got your back." That was kind of where you're like, "Oh, whoa, this show kind of like, it's got heart." - Oh yeah, it was real. - I mean, that's what he wanted to be about was like, he would always say, "It's about people who love each other, but show business gets in the way." - Right. - And so like your ego gets in the way. He also said that no one ever tells the truth to each other. And if they ever look someone in the eye and tell the truth, it's a huge deal. - Right. - So that was the conversation in the office. Like people just have a mask, and they want to be seen a certain way. And that was what the whole metaphor of the show was, like being behind the curtain, and how we all have our own private world in our head, and this way we want people to see us. Like, Hank Kingsley wants you to think he's the shit. - Right. - But to everyone he's like, "He's so clearly not the shit." - Yes, yes. - And also he wants to know if Larry loves him. - Yeah. - There's one episode where it's all about him just wanting a raise, and saying, "I'm gonna quit if I don't get a raise." But he just kind of wants to see if Larry would back him. - Right. - And that's the thing that Gary was most interested in. - It's all relationships. - Yeah, it's all about how people connect, and if you think about any job you've ever had, it's all the same stuff for any office. I mean, that's why I think it's an inspirational show to a lot of other shows. 'Cause it just went very deep into those relationships. But so when Gary asked me to run it, I was so nervous, so I just said to him, I go, "I know what usually happens "to the person in this job." - Yeah. - And I really don't want to lose my-- - It's like working for Trump. - It is, it is. It's like, yeah, like you're Scaramucci or something. And so I said, "How can we do this "where at the end of this, you don't hate me?" - Yeah. - And we talked about it. And I don't think anyone had ever done that with him, to just really sit him down and go, what is the process that makes this easier for you? And I think the reason why it worked was, I think he just liked writing with me. Not that I was doing anything so great, but I think he felt, he felt comfortable being funny with me. - That's huge. - And so he would loosen up, and I could kind of get him going and take notes and manipulate him into figuring out all the problems. Where other people would try to fix everything for him, which you do have to do, but I was like, "How do I get Gary to tell us?" Because it's all in his head. - Right. - And if I can make that fun, maybe he'll give us more of the show and it won't land on us as much. - Sure, wow, there he is. - Yeah. - There he is, yeah. - Yeah, yeah. I always think that show is like the opposite of "Seinfeld." They were on at the same time, but "Seinfeld" was like no relationships, selfish, show about nothing, and that show was like just emotion, love, fighting, jealousy, and all showbiz, where "Seinfeld" had very little showbiz. Very different show. - There's also like some of the callbacks, I mean, one of my favorite episodes is "Hank's Night in the Sun," where he takes, Larry's sick and Hank takes over, and the first night he takes over the show he kills, 'cause he's charming, and then it all goes to his head, and he becomes a piece of shit. And it's just a great episode. I mean, it's a great episode if you're like, oh, am I gonna like this show? You just watch that one, then you're like, all right, watch that, then start from the beginning. - Yeah, Peter Toland wrote that episode. - It's a great one. - He wrote a lot of the best ones, but it is the one we all point to. There's also a funny one with Colin Quinn as Rip Torn's son. - Dude. - It's pretty great. - Apparently, that was what made Mike Myers want Colin Quinn to be Scott Evil. - Whoa. - He saw that, 'cause Colin, Colin is like his spoiled son. - Yeah, yeah. - And he's like, this will be great, and Colin turned down Austin Powers. - Yeah, what an idiot. - He didn't see it. - Yeah. - I have a, you know, Jake Hasen had a funny story where he was up to direct American Pie, and he read the script, and he went in for the meeting, and he said, you know, I think it's really good, but like, I don't think you should have this kid fuck a pie. And then he did not get that job. - Wow, good. - He also, he read Star Wars, he's like, Darth Vader? - Yeah, sometimes you're just proven completely wrong. - Yeah, I mean, that's the scene, man. I mean, I feel like you see Jason Biggs now, that's the first thing you think of. - Of course, of course. I saw that in a, I always say, I saw that movie in a black neighborhood, and the, you know, black commentary is always hilarious, and right when they showed the pie mangled, some guy goes, he tore that shit up. Popcorn in the air, great. So I gotta ask you, we got you here. So the doc world is exploding right now, I feel like. John Candy, Ben Stiller just put one in. Ben Stiller just put one out. He got Charlie Sheen, he got Billy Joel. They're doing one on, is it Downey, the writer? - Jim Downey. - Jim Downey? - That was a good one, that's on Peacock. That's a funny one. - Is that out? - Yeah, yeah, it's good. - Oh, jeez, okay. - It's really good, because it talks about how he writes, and he was the best writer of all time on the show. And when you see what he wrote, or what he was part of writing, it's insane. - Yes. - It's every sketch that you remember. - But you, I think, are doing a Norm doc. - Yes, yes. - Is that out there, is that public? - Yeah, that's public, that's gonna be next year. - Ooh! - Wow. - We've been lucky enough to just watch everything. - Yeah. - Are you directing it as well, or no? - Yeah, I'm directing it. - Oh, that's exciting! - Yeah, I mean, so you did the Shanley one, you did the Carlin one, they were both, I loved them both. - Both great. - Both great. - Yeah, well, people love Norm, so it's, I think people are gonna really enjoy it, because also, it's fun to dig up the stuff that is hard to find, or just things that he's talking about that, unless you were the most hardcore fan, you would never find. - Yes. - This conversation, and his opinions about these things. 'Cause you know, I used to write with Norm, for Roseanne, we were hired to write her act, like her stand-up act, and we would go to her house-- - Out of the window tweets, I think. - On the weekend, what's the answer? We would go to her house on the weekends and write jokes for her. She'd bring out a big stack of legal pads, and then she would tell us thoughts she had, and he quickly left, 'cause he got hired on the TV show. She was so impressed with him, she's like, "You're gonna write on my TV show." And then I had to work for another year, writing this HBO special with her, that she did. Like she would have, there was one funny one where she said, "I wanna do a joke about how it's better to suck dick "than kiss ass, because when you suck dick, "it's like an agreement, I'll suck your dick, "and then you'll give me this, but when you kiss ass, "it's just for the hope that you might do it." - Oh, yeah, that's good. - It's like Dirty Seinfeld. - What's the deal with sucking dick? - Yeah. - It's a blow job, but you don't get paid. But yeah, wow, so Norm was, he's my guy. He's my number one, and there's so much content, like that's the, I feel like I've seen all of it, 'cause I'm a psycho, but there's so much, he gave so much for a guy who died young. - Yes. - Like the Conans, and the podcasts, and the TV show on Netflix, and the YouTube show, and all the standup, it's like never ending. And SNL. - Yeah, that's what I thought was most impressive about it, because when you really look at it, like how many comedy-defining moments did Norm have that are like world-class, memorable? - Risky, too. Very risky. - You know, him doing the Espy monologue, or him doing the Bob Saget roast. - Yes. - He said all nice things from a joke book. - Yeah. - And you start listing it, and there's so many times, that he did a shockingly insanely original take on something. - Yeah. - And I think that's fun, to just see how his mind works. - The Conan Carrot Top moment, where Conan falls out of his chair, and there's so many iconic comedy moments. - Oh, and when he brings Conan the gift bag for getting the Tonight Show. - Yeah. - And then he's just leaving like that next week. I mean, it was just, he always had a, yeah, on panel, it was like, it was always gold, man. - Yeah. - I mean, the heartbreaking part is you can't show all of it, you know? - Sure. - But you have limited time. There's one that I couldn't get in that maybe you know, maybe you could tell, which is the Bill Cosby story. About his dad. - Yes, about calling him. - Yeah. - Yeah. - And he forgot his dad was dead? - Yeah, exactly. But he didn't want to say that to Bill Cosby. He's like, "We called you, Dad. "He didn't answer the phone." He's like, "Ah, I don't know what to tell you." Or whatever. - What, yeah. - And the firing, him getting fired, and him going on Letterman to talk about getting fired. I mean, that was amazing TV for that time. - They had a special thing. - Yeah. - Letterman, Letterman, really got Norm. And I don't know, I mean, so did Conan, for sure. But he's a guy that like, if you don't have the right interviewer, it's not gonna be as good. - Yeah. - Yeah, the Letterman interviews when you re-watch 'em carefully. Because I think for a lot of years when you would watch Letterman, you wondered how much he liked people. Like that was part of the fun of the show, is like, is he enjoying talking to people? And when he talks to Norm, he literally looks like he's in heaven. - Yes. - Like he's so excited to see what he's gonna do. - Yeah. - And Norm would push it and be edgier or, grosser than most people. 'Cause people were always like warned off, like Letterman doesn't like when you get kinda, - Right. - You know, weird in that way. And Letterman was just like, just tickled and i think you know what came out is that norm was really uh influenced by him yes because i think on one of his last uh appearances he did one of letterman's bits totally and when he did one of letterman's old pleasures yeah right yeah and you go oh that was the beginning of him figuring out his style yeah and then he did uh i mean what was that the last routine he did the world war ii yeah the identification joke yeah and then he it was rare to see him get emotional and and you could see dave fighting off getting emotional because that's not his thing and he could be like you could tell it was hard for him for both of them i was like wow this was like that was a heavy tv moment yeah and a big deal because norm was going through something that people didn't know about yeah and he wanted to take the opportunity to tell letterman that you know he loved him and how important he was him and letterman didn't see that coming that someone would be so vulnerable yeah and caring at that time and i'd love a comic who he's clearly such a smart guy he's like well-read on dostoevsky and all this and he's like brilliant dude you know he had his problems but his jokes were so silly like he had a great joke where he would do on his tv show where he'd read the cue cards or the blue cards he was like yeah donnie walberg and jenny mccarthy are are getting married they're doing it on island you know and like that joke kills me but that's the dumbest joke on the planet it's funny because you know how good he is exactly and you don't see that bad a joke coming from him and that's funny well i'm a doctor he definitely liked doing really bad jokes yeah that threw you like wait is that even a joke or or or would be like edgy in a way like you didn't see coming yeah i mean he really has some jokes like when you watch all of them like from that ear or update where you're like wow that joke would really get you in trouble oh do you know what i'm saying i'm not gonna tell you he's walking a tightrope there was like this this there was a danger there was an air of discomfort where you're just like what's gonna happen like what like one misstep you're like this could go really south yeah in a bad comedian's hands but he was just so good yeah i have one this prized possession i have i have like 150 old film noirs that adam egott gave me and he's like this was meant for norm because he's the only guy i know who loves noir as much as you so he gave me this hard drive i have like 150 old movies wow he's like oh norm like this i was like norm love noir i didn't even know that oh yeah well the holidays are here parties every weekend travel chaos and sometimes you just need to unwind that's where seoul comes in seoul is a wellness brand that makes delicious hemp derived thc and cbd products that help you relax boost your mood and actually feel good the best-selling out-of-office gummies deliver a mild relaxing buzz and come in five 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a man of taste he was a man of taste he was a man of taste yeah yeah no it's uh i mean and that's what i like about documentaries is you know we love norm so much but i'm just so fascinated by like like who who was norm i know you know and how we did this was like a it's like a found footage documentary so we didn't interview people yeah we didn't get people like dissecting them it's just norm great great you know and and because like you know when norm passed and i went down the rabbit hole um they were incredible interviews like you know morning radio in hawaii and he doesn't like two hours and and he's so funny but they can't tell when he means it but he doesn't mean it you know and that stuff is pretty priceless some of his i'm a nerd but some of his best stuff he did chris hardwick's pod a couple times and those are incredible like treasures because he opens up and he stops being trying to be funny and he's just on and uh going and he goes uh you know what i hate is all these comics now doing one-man shows about having cancer like everybody gets cancer shut up you're not special getting cancer is not in the town accomplishment not knowing the whole time he had cancer yeah and he was like shitting on them like i could come out and say it and i would get a bunch of clicks and yeah you know victim points but i'm just gonna keep being funny yeah he was a the the purist and also you know he had cancer when he was really young yeah 20s and he got over it and then he got it again later in life so you know when you think about his personality and just that like i don't give a shit energy yeah you know it is like through the prism of someone who's seeing life in a in a much deeper way well you wrote about this in your book about funny people and was it your mom someone got really sick yeah and then uh and she was like she had like no worries when she was really sick and then she got better and yeah and it's it like came back it's like you did that with the character and funny people right because yeah every time she thought she would survive all of her neuroses and crazy would come back and every time she thought she had no chance the medicine's not working she would get really like serene and and mellow and pleasant and well i'd see that with other people too where like you get sick and you suddenly like you could just see everything clearly and what's important and how you should treat people but when you get better it is like a weird thing that you were it's hard to hold on to that feeling yeah and i wonder if that's why he could gamble away 400 grand and just be like man what are you gonna do because he's like i'm still alive you know i have cancer but that's a bad that's i think he was a must have been a gambling oh he had a problem and that's like that's insane to do that yeah yeah that's insane to piss away that kind of money on chance but also we don't even know if that's true because like i've talked to people and they're like like he's exaggerating the losses or like it's very bob dylan-esque in the sense that he's not a reliable narrative and we're talking about it and it makes him the mystique i guess yeah we just don't really know i mean right clearly he was gambling yes and had some problems with that but like the stories i mean that he lost everything yeah i mean i'm sure he took some hits and maybe he did lose everything but i don't think he lost that much in one day like but but who knows it's like you know i'm doing a documentary about mel brooks oh nice and i said to him mel are any of these stories true that you tell all these like funny stories and he's like no i make them up they're all apocryphal he's like he's like i change him i punch him yeah you know so that's also part of everyone's a story teller right you know so you have to work to try to figure out okay where where is the truth in this god it doesn't matter where the truth is sure like do we care if the stories are well i remember there was like a movement of like honesty like one man show type comedy where like that was valued over funny but to me like who gives a fuck if you're laughing you're laughing right as long as the joke isn't isn't the truth i mean i assume in all and everything nothing is a joke it's a joke it's a joke it's a joke it's a joke it's a joke it's a joke it's a joke it's a joke it's a joke it's a joke it's a joke it's a joke it's a joke it's a joke it's a joke it's a joke and so i can you know have a different point of view uh from someone else who was there it's like the vibe i put into it you know yeah like some people might go oh i think that person was happier than that and you kind of made him seem sad or right or you made him seem you know just like a different vibe than he was based on what you choose to put in it yeah yeah and so that's the interesting part about it well i'm just glad you're documenting all this stuff because like sometimes i'll just watch comedians in cars and you're like oh man we have brooks and carl reiner having soup together or we have jerry lewis we have an hour with jerry lewis an hour with don rickles and they're all gone now exactly and you're like we got this now thank god and the rickles doc is good i mean it's cool you know joan had that cool doc oh yeah it's it's nice to uh you know to see these people's lives they were groundbreaking like rickles was it's insane i know crazy well if you don't have these docs i think in the future people won't know what these people were about at all right so yeah so if there's a norm mcdonald doc you know in 30 years someone might watch the documentary and that's your path into going down the rabbit hole to look at everything yeah like with george carlin you know people didn't really know much about his journey and his life but they probably will start with an interesting doc first but and some people don't have them and you go oh did we never really you know learn about them in the way we should totally i mean we had so little i mean you're you're older than us so like when i started there was on comedy yeah remember that cd or whatever it was that was it it was like the car son interview yes yeah carson they had seinfeld one and i'll do the terry gross ones yeah it'd be like terry gross and like jackie mason henny youngman they're good interviews they're cool sure but then you had a special and then like five minutes on carson or letterman or whatever that's all you had of stand-up it was like this weird uh elusive thing and now this podcast and documentaries and now there's like too much it's great i know that was a lot but like i love the bill hicks documentary that was fun is a really good one american scream yeah something like that yeah that was great when he said uh i showed up to the improv and i couldn't believe there was a building built for this thing i love i think about that all the time yeah you need to show up at like comedy works in denver you're like wow this is a cool room i get to this is for me bill hicks doing like the weirdest most random cities that flying saucer oh yeah where he's bombing with these brilliant jokes i know it's incredible it's actually like listening to those you're like holy and he's such a dick to the crowd i know when he says stuff like don't worry guys there's a purple veiny dick joke around the corner i'm like oh my god he's so condescending these people it's so funny though but you know it was such a different time than like late 80s stand-up because a guy like bill hicks he wasn't that famous and so we look at him as legend sure but at the time he is a road dog oh yeah and he's running around and he's playing these like funny bones and small cities and you know crowds are coming but not to see him probably a fair amount of the time right and so he is at war with the crowd and he's like oh my god i'm gonna do this now oh yeah and if they're not smart and they're not good like it becomes a different dynamic and something explosive happens in the room as he's like battling to teach them something or yell at them for not getting it because he's also doing a lot of stuff you know deep in the south yeah and he he actually went to these places all these kind of like you know political comics now who only play to people of their own ideology whereas bill was actually in the sticks telling them shit they didn't hear yeah and that's the difference with bill and a lot of these comics is that he's like oh my god i'm gonna do this and he's like oh my god i'm gonna do this yeah and he he actually went to these places all these kind of like you know political comics now who are like political comics but uh which is which is brave i think but then also bill dying at what 32 or 33 whenever he died and not being known and then being known after death is almost like an artist but you're like a you're like a you know the met or something and you're like this guy died in poverty at 28 yeah and now he's huge yeah i mean he you know it was a big deal to be the guy out there saying like the uh you know the war uh in iraq is uh wrong right you know in the 80s yeah you know like he he it was early 90s it was like more shocking like for him to go on stage and talk about why drugs are good yes you know so many of those ideas had never been covered in that totally totally before and didn't he get he got kicked off letterman well the last time he did letterman he did a really edgy sad and i guess there was some abortion material in it and they didn't air it and then like after he died like you know not soon like years later uh he had his letterman had his mom on yeah and um he played the yeah right and it was it was kind of an amazing moment yeah damn and then you see the set and you're like it doesn't seem i know that level edgy now like you try to i mean late nights obviously dead in terms especially with stand-up now it's like you put together a set no it's not really worth the work for anyone now which is a shame because i think there's something cool about the the rush of doing a course yeah even if it's a horrible it's not you're doing you know it's a nightmare but there is something cool about it still like throwing a suit on you're like oh this isn't normal this is yes well it's a sprint yeah right like everyone is so used to the long stats and back then you were designing everything in your act for the six minute hunks yeah and you had to like get the crowd to figure out who you are in like a minute yep and then try to get some kind of momentum and and really strong yeah and have a bunch of them ready to go yeah it was a different kind of terror but that first joke on the late night said it's usually just like a throw away yeah because it never it's you throw it a good joke and it never gets what it deserves and you're like fuck i like that joke i know it's like riding a bike where you have to get that momentum now i'm rolling with that first couple pedals it's getting into the rhythm yeah i mean but you talk about doing the young comedian special in the book with ray romano and i think the paulo is on yeah yes and and you said how you just like you never cursed but you were on hbo so you're like you just kept throwing in fucks yeah for no reason yeah the fuck wasn't part of the punch lines and and then they would play it on comedy central all the time that special and they would beep all the fucks and i it's like a richard pryor routine but they're not for any good reason right or any good joke but when we when we taped that it was in arizona and ray romano was just so funny like we were taping the special and they would do interstitials or they would interview each of us for promos or things to put between the comics and ray was just smoking everything was just killing and it was a moment where we all went oh my god it's ray yeah ray's gonna be the big guy god i saw him like a month ago at the cellar and he had great new stuff and i go that one joke about the texting your wife is brilliant he goes that's just what happened i didn't even write anything like he's still killing he was murdering yeah he's good man he's good he's good and squeaky yeah squeaky clean yeah looks good too he looks great yeah what so it's amazing going through like the book where you have like you know you're talking about like you have a 40 year old virgin knocked up and then all this stuff you're just involved in where it's like pineapple express yeah bridesmaids uh all these movies are like it does bum me out that we don't see movies like this i know i know we're working on one we'll see what happens there but you know it'll be done we gotta bang the door down yes you know i mean it's a weird moment i mean are you optimistic about it i don't know i mean i feel like everything is changing in a way that is so weird there's gonna be so much like ai slop and crazy coming at us so obviously thank god for live because that is what people are going to want because they're going to their eyes are going to be blood red from watching just terrible stuff on their computers and phones all day and they're just going to want to see real stuff with real people but for comedy movies i think that uh you know when dvd went away yeah that was half the money a comedy movie would make so when there were no dvds suddenly it was a bigger bet to make a comedy where you could make a horror movie for five million dollars but a comedy might need 20 25 million dollars to do a good one and that's and so they just started betting elsewhere and then writers go oh there's no money in writing these screenplays and then they just go i'll just learn how to write a horror movie or something else and next thing you know it kind of doom loops in a way but you know it's always one giant hit away from becoming a market but all the hits aren't comedies it's not I guess Barbie's technically a comedy but like it's like Oppenheimer it's a movie like Weapons it's like horror movies are like big budget I'm sure The Odyssey will be a hit but then we both saw One Battle After Another and you're like this movie's amazing oh my god cinema's back and then you hear it's made it's lost millions and you're like god if this can't be a hit did you see that I haven't seen it yet it's great but it's losing money in his book Judd talks about needing help editing funny people and he brings in Paul Thomas Anderson to edit it's hilarious I'll just call him one of the best directors ever well he had just done Punch Drunk Love which is one of my favorite movies of all time and so he came to see the movie at one of the previews and he's so nice and obviously the best and so I said you want to come in help me because he's like you know the movie's too long and you know when you hear that from me you should take it seriously so I go why don't you just come in and just like show me where the cuts are because you know I really fall in love with the story and if I lay it out and it just feels like this is the story if it's 15-20 minutes longer I personally don't care at all I'm like well that's just how long it takes to tell this and so he went through it with me and then I couldn't quite figure out how to time the ending and I said you want to like to just take a pop in the ending I'll just go get something to eat what does that mean when you say that is he just like in a room yeah with the editor and I said like you know because there's that scene it's in the supermarket and at the end of the movie Sandler pulls out these notes that he wrote some jokes for Seth which we all know if an older comedian wrote you a joke when you're a young comedian that's crazy it's very rare that they're gonna do something and that was like a sign that he was apologizing and that he wanted to be friends with him but I couldn't figure out the song or when to cut to the credits and there was a song we were thinking about Comedy Tonight you know that song something familiar Comedy Tonight it's from the old Larry Gilbart play with Zero Mostel in it people will know but anyway so I left and then he cut it and it's it looked exactly like a Paul Thomas Anderson movie oh no I mean it literally was like oh I could just give you my footage yeah and your point of view was so clear and strong I would love to see the Paul Thomas Anderson 40 year old version yeah I mean it kind of blew my mind I'm like wait this feels like him just like you know he edited to the music on an offbeat right and then cut to black and like earlier than I would have and it was a real lesson in the power of those choices it's like when a comic gives you a tag but it's entirely in their voice exactly I can't use that and that's risky giving your movie to him that's like leaving your wife with Idris Elba you might not come back I know but did you kind of go back and tweak it and make it your own well what's funny is I tested it in a version similar to that and the movie was really long it got longer maybe it was like two hours and like maybe like seven like 22 minutes yeah so when you're doing that you're like oh my god you're like I gotta get this under two or you're like whatever well I'm always like I'm okay at like 210 like I know people want it to be 145, 150 and I'm like you know what relax where are you going what do you gotta get home to do you ever regret it or are you always like nah fuck it it was right I never regret it only in the sense that I never have people like 10 years later say that it was too long I think it's like a movie theater experience because like when you're in a theater you're kind of antsy but most people watch it at home anyway and they pause and take a piss and have a sandwich and so it's not the ongoing debate it's just what what does it take to get to know the characters and so I tested and it tested the highest it ever tested so you ask the crowd how many people out of 300 people think this movie is excellent or very good and that's like the number and if you can be in like the 80s or above you're pretty good and it was it tested really high but then I still cut like 10, 12 minutes out of it and sometimes I regret that sure there was a scene where he goes back to work at the end of the movie and you see Sandler on a movie set and he's making a hot dog eating competition movie and you kind of see him kind of hating his life making this movie that he doesn't like and I'm the director and I'm trying to get him to eat six hot dogs in one take I'm like I just want to do a one-er where you eat where we could see you eat six hot dogs we just have to get it once and it's just him going I just had leukemia I ate six hot dogs and it's me trying to trick him into giving me one take and it was a pretty funny scene but the movie was just it was just too long so funny all that's gone that's just on a cutting room floor wow well we wrote a movie and we were close to getting this thing made and they keep saying cut it cut it down shorten it shorten it so we had to get but the problem was we fucking they wanted it longer originally so we're at like 120 and we're like this is too fucking long for what this movie is right and then they're like it needs to be 100 and we're like you made us write 120 so we we cut it down I think we're in a good place yeah but it these queefs with their notes you gotta keep applying their notes and you're like you're making us cut jokes we fought that's true we were pretty good about keeping the jokes I mean that's part of what the book is about because you know I wanted the book to also be about all of the failures and everything that went wrong and why it went wrong so I put in all the pilots that didn't get picked up all the shows that were cancelled right and just talked about where I handled it wrong because you know there's an art to getting notes and having them conversation and not wanting to be upset with the people giving you the notes because you know usually some of them are good some of them aren't and so can you have that conversation without losing your mind without losing your temper right and it what's the worst you lost do you think I mean I was I started out really bad because I got advice that I misinterpreted as a kid where this friend of mine was running in Living Color and I was doing the Ben Stiller show and he just said to me he goes like don't change anything for them because if they screw up your pilot and it's bad because of their notes they'll never apologize to you they'll never say we screwed up your pilot so don't change anything for them that you don't want to change because you only get one shot at it and I really took that in for years and was very resistant and so sometimes when we were doing the Ben Stiller show you know the executive who's usually like a mid-level guy and he's getting notes from his boss and he's like he gets in trouble if I don't do them and he'll have all this laundry list of notes a lot of which will ruin everything we're trying to do and I just remember once I'm like well I'm doing nothing I said I'm doing none of them what happens now ooh and we got cancelled you know because there's nothing worse with the people you're working with like dude what the fuck are you doing well they were private conversations but yeah we did have that feeling like did Judd just screw all this up because right when the Ben Stiller show started the head of the network changed so it went from someone who loved it to someone who didn't and then I was like well why would you take notes for someone who doesn't like it at all so he's gonna tweak it but he doesn't like it and so I was very resistant why do these execs ever get fired you always hear the guys they do they get fired constantly do they I took a show out the people we pitched to were different like six months later oh okay they're getting fired constantly that's probably why they're living in such fear yeah that's why there's a panic yeah you know I've been lucky like in movies the people I've worked with I've worked with for like 18 years and so we know each other and they're really smart and the notes are really good and I realize oh you have to find the people that get you yeah because that's most of it like if you wind up selling something to someone that doesn't get the joke it's very painful and if you find people who are really smart like the people in Universal have been so smart like they've given me tough notes that have been correct and so we like we're like we get each other and we can have an honest conversation got it it's very difficult to break into that world now I think I mean not that it was easy back then but like I think right now it's like we're finding like wow this is pretty crazy oh yeah I mean you know I wrote a show that we got Brian Cox attached to we struck out everywhere with him on the fucking pitches yeah and now it's like we have to go you know independent financing which we're going to which is gonna be fine but it's like like this fucking Brian Cox yeah I know but uh it's always been that way like it's always been intense that way where you feel like you're in this environment where you're trying to be creative everything's an experiment yeah I think it works but how do I know I'm only going on like a gut instinct but if you challenge me too much I might lose touch with the part of me that gets why it works sure and so like as it shifts I might lose it yes and so I'm trying to figure out like when should I listen when should I not listen because I might lose the thread at some point and that's the dance and some people understand that yeah but if you're really nervous about your gig and your boss is mad at you and your last TV show got cancelled right you might get different kinds of notes that's true and none of us have had like the the therapy or you know the training to know that that's such a delicate conversation like if someone went through your act and just said I'm gonna tell you which of your jokes are good and which aren't like you wanna throttle them like your instant thing is like to be a protector right and uh - Especially when it's a comic you don't respect. - Yeah. like that one yeah have you seen your act i know i know that's always weird but at least now we have the advantage of because tom segura was in here and he's pitched he sold some show what's it called bad bad thing bad things something like that bad thoughts it's a wild show it's dark it's gory it's sexy gross and he goes i pitched this they hated it they never gave me the time of day then i shot it i spent all the money and then i brought it back and they sold it or they bought it in the room it's literally what we had to do with our comedy specials but yes shows and movies now but you know there's people that want to get it it's it's fun to make stuff and there's people that want to get into this game as investors i mean it's not not doable yeah you just got to prove it a little bit now you have to find new paths and use the technology because it's cheaper to make things yeah i mean it's hard with movies because there's all sorts of costs that you would never assume are there but you if you're scrappy you can make cool comedy things when you know when i started out what were you going to do get like a super eight right camera but you know with a canon camera you can make a movie lena dunham's first movie she made for 50 grand i'm just a canon like a the camera anyone would have and it looked great she just had an amazing cinematographer jody lee lipes who went on to do girls and it launched her career so i feel like now we need people to have the energy to just make stuff down and dirty the way like swingers was made yes yes it's a great example too i mean because it's so dialogue driven yeah right and you talk about horror movie it's like okay well if it's psychological it's gonna be a lot of dialogue right so get back to writing good dialogue i think that's really the thing i think a lot of our movies it's very it's very dialogue heavy it's all joke a couple big things in where they're like do we need a yacht for this scene we're like yes non-negotiable yeah well you know we did that with pineapple express because we knew we had a limited amount of money we wanted it to feel like an action movie but we didn't have an action movie budget right and so it's you know if you watch it the opening scene is seth and franco getting high for like 11 minutes you know and then you know you know there's a little like you know someone gets shot and then they get scared and they run in the woods and they're just like alone in the woods high yeah like for another 10 minutes and so and then that saved us enough money to do like one big kind of car chase right but the last part is pretty damn action heavy yeah it's like we're saving all the money to blow up the underground you know marijuana grow lab now speaking of docs and movies have you seen the scorsese doc yet i just you know i leaped to the king of comedy episode oh that's that's my favorite movie and that's your number one yeah i mean i know it's my number one scorsese's goodfellas i think is sure is uh the one that i'd probably go back to the most taxi drivers yeah but king of comedy i remember when it came out i literally can remember seeing in hicksville he was right after like reagan got shot so people got really weirded out by the whole kidnapping thing and uh but i always loved it like i just was out of my mind for that movie and it's funny to hear him talk about it because he was kind of pushed into it by de niro but yet he still worked his ass off on it and went deep with it and it's held up kind of like what warren beatty was saying like these movies that at the time were completely uh forgotten and people didn't get it and then suddenly you're like yeah king of comedy is top five right scorsese yeah that's interesting but didn't people because he said that it's not always true though because it wasn't bonnie and clyde critically acclaimed out of the gate it was that one was yeah that was a big movie and that kind of changed cinema at the time yeah but uh scorsese i didn't realize they cover the backlash he got a ton of backlash for that he got a ton of backlash for taxi driver a ton of backlash for the last temptation of christ that was real i mean i remember that when that movie came out a guy died yeah they blew they bombed the theater a guy died damn yeah i mean there were protests around the world yeah and then they said so what'd you do how'd you get out of he goes i made good fellas so he just moved on but he said the most back backlash he got was wolf of wall street because it was 2013 so it was like toxic male problematic massage by the way that's the fucking point i know it's like it was also the birth of social media and like you know yeah cancel shit so he was like this is new like i got more shit for this than the passion of the christ or not passion temptation of the christ so you're like oh yeah this is a new world you're living in now and he didn't realize that so that was really interesting to see because people are like are you celebrating this yeah and so clearly not i know but yeah that's part of it is like you see why people are seduced by that lifestyle you know a lot of those people if people don't take the right message from it i know he can't you know he can't hammer them by the way this guy's not cool at the end right you know good fellas he ends up at witness protection like is it fun on the rise yeah that's the point it's supposed to be fun a bunch of guys from my high school were part of that oh jordan belfort uh wall street that place yeah yeah yeah a lot of kids in our high school got in trouble for stuff like that oh cool yeah yeah but it reminded me as a comedian of like when people you do the joke about the racist guy and they're like hey that's racist you're like i know i'm making fun of the the hillbilly that's he's the punch of the joke but so it was really cool to see scorsese just go like yeah people get mad and moving on that's what you got to do you got to keep going focus on your on your work you know just yeah like is my act getting better exactly is this is this moving in the right direction yeah you can't you can't worry about right right but really really great doc and uh he's got like seven wives he's got 28 kids it's fascinating i know i forgot how intense he oh my god is he so mellow now i mean mellow comparatively to what he was then but just that that he's literally gonna kill himself because he feels uninspired yeah to make a movie i know right no and uh he had goodfellas and temptation like i just want to make those two movies that's all i want to do and everybody's like why do you want to make this shit and then he doesn't it's great but the fact that he had asthma in granted village or little italy and his dad took him to the movies because it had air conditioning wow that's then he's like this is it so just uh the stars aligning i mean so cool and that he the fact that he meets paul schrader i mean that guy's like perfect for his writing's perfect it's like sometimes you just meet the right person like keith richards met mick jagger right people sometimes you just the stars align and de niro lived down the street on grand street just the same air i mean the whole thing's bananas that's like what i was you know doing the book and laying out and thinking about all the stories you do go yeah it's weird like adam mckay and will ferrell yeah connected i forgot you did anchorman yeah i produced anchorman and talladega nights yeah that's crazy but just that day they couldn't they wouldn't make it right well they wouldn't make anchorman for years they just didn't get it at all and we would just pitch it well you know will and adam you know they wrote one version of it that was like the movie alive oh really where it was like a plane of anchor people and they were like oh my god it's like a plane of anchor people and people going to an anchorman convention so everyone on the plane is uh is an anchor person yeah ron burgundy wants to fly the plane and they get in this like accident where they hit a crash got into a fedex plane that's filled with uh chimpanzees and chinese throwing stars is what they're transporting in the fedex wow right and then so now they're stuck on the side of a mountain in winter trying to survive and every once in a while they get attacked by the monkeys throwing stars at them and they wrote the the funniest thing you've ever read and no one would make that for a while and then they just started over right another one well he tapped in it's funny but up the toxic masculinity because that's like what that movie is you're tapping into a dude who's just like doesn't like under but that's why it's funny because he's like i'm the shit yeah yeah i'm the greatest no woman's gonna tell me i'm not great and that's and then of course you get the love story it's it's perfect well they were just so ahead of their time in thinking that was a good target and they were like oh my god i'm not great i'm not great i'm not great i'm not great i'm not something that's bubbling under in this country people like that because they loved making fun of the arrogant idiot man yeah blissfully unaware is funny of course that's what kramer is he comes in he thinks he's the coolest guy but he's a doofus he's a hipster doofus but yeah yeah that movie changed i saw it once with a couple friends in college we didn't really get it and then we saw it again and we loved it it was the weirdest movie but i still quote it yeah it's some it's i mean just to watch them shoot it like i think part of like the comedy nerd thing is i sometimes feel like i only did things to have access like yeah only by making decent movies can i get to the places where i want to just watch them make the movie sure so as a kid i would just my dream would be i want to watch the marx brothers or somebody make a movie so anchorman to me is like the childhood dream come true just sitting on set watching them shoot afternoon delight right but i have to be good enough to to get the credibility yeah to be there right right you know it's like going to home ec for the girls exactly wow man yeah seeing it seeing that's will ferrell really in his element i guess all those movies talladega nights is amazing he's locked in sasha baron cohen is great in that oh man wow right right in there right in the thick of it yeah i mean bridesmaids too is like yes i mean so many good jokes i re-watched that recently on a flight and i was like holy shit i i remember liking this a lot but it's even funnier than i remember yeah john hamm is such a piece of shit oh yeah uh kristen wig roseburn or so far melissa mccarthy they're so funny all of them it's like yeah it's great and it was one of those like this is a funny women but it was just a funny movie you know and everybody had to put this women label on it it was just good well that's why it's like when they're like let's do lady ghostbusters how about a fucking make an original script like that just make original movies yeah well no one was thinking that it even was a female driven comedy it was just yeah i saw i saw kristen wig like literally the first episode of SNL that she was on and she scored so much. on the first episode. Whoa. And I just thought, oh, she's one of the greats. Yep. And so she was in Knocked Up. She played Katherine Heigl's boss, like one of the bosses in that scene where they tell her to like tighten it up. Yeah, yeah. With Alan Tudyk. And so we were always like, what can we do with her? And then her and Annie Mumolo, they kept talking about how they're invited to all of these weddings and they're sometimes in other cities and they don't have enough money to be a part of it because they're getting more and more expensive. And then they grinded for like four years on the script. And that's why it's good. Yeah. It's because the two of them and then later when Paul Feig came on to direct, they just did not stop trying to make it better. It wasn't tossed off. They really obsessed. And then also, you know, when I think about like when did I have a good instinct, every once in a while it's a very simple thing that, you know, Kristen Wiig really feels like she knows her world of comedy and which of her friends are great. And I think that Paul and I just got behind that in like a big way. And so when you watch it, it feels like a troupe. Yeah. Because it's everyone that Kristen loves, you know. Right. And she was just completely right when she would bring in people like, you know, Melissa McCarthy. She was great. Yeah. It was also funny because at the time I remember I knew, I think Rose Byrne from that show Damages on FX. Yeah. I was like, oh, she's a good actress. I didn't know she could do comedy that well. I know. She played it so straight. And it's like, you need that in a movie. Sometimes like when it's all comedians, no, you need the one non-comic in there sometimes. Yeah. But we used to watch her on Damages and loved her on Damages. That was a cool show. I don't know. Glenn Close. Yeah. She's a badass on that show. And then she played Russell Brand's ex-wife in Get Him to the Greek. Oh, really? It was so funny. Yeah. I don't know if I saw that one. Yeah. Oh, that was big. Is that Jonah Hill's story true that he was discovered by Dustin Hoffman? I think so. I think the first thing he did was I Heart Huckabees, maybe? Ah. Wow. All right. Yeah, the rumor is he was in an open mic and Dustin Hoffman was there watching his daughter. Oh. I don't know. Maybe give that a gook. I don't know. I heard that. That's a whisper network bullshit. It sounds familiar. Okay. And now he's great. Yep. All right. Sorry. I'm locked in on this Jonah Hill thing. Pick up Judd's new book. It's awesome. Oh, it's true. What does it say? He says he didn't discover but his son, Oh, shit. Damn it. Jake did. I thought it said did. Okay. My fault. Glad we, uh, thank God for AI. Yeah. You're using the AI. Oh, he's dating his daughter. Oh, that's 2012. We're bad at the news on this show. AI is very behind. It's scraping old information. Get Judd's new book, Comedy Nerd. It's awesome. It's great. You see his body of work really, really cool and it's cool pictures and cool stories. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And you got your first time doing stand-up in there. I mean, you got so much great archival stuff. You know, one thing I found in there that I was so excited to find that Rick Messina, the great manager, I found was just an incredible picture of Eddie Murphy doing stand-up when he's 20 years old on Long Island at Eastside. Wow. Like, that's the thing when you start reaching out, like, who's got cool stuff? Yeah. And there was all these pictures from Eastside which was the great comedy club in Huntington where I was a dishwasher as a kid in high school. They had a theater there too in Huntington. Paramount. That's a sick one. Sick theater. Yeah, I haven't played that. Oh, it's sick. It's great. It's gorgeous. Huntington's kind of like this weird hidden gem. It's got that strip of bars on it. Yeah, it's cool. I think Walt Whitman's from there. That's true. I went to Walt Whitman Elementary School. Hey, I'm back. Yep. All right. There you go. Long Island. What's going on in the water at Long Island? Long Island's gotten so weird. It's just the. Well, I'm not saying I'm talking about the comedy. It's like Howard Stern, Jerry Seinfeld, you, Eddie Murphy. Oh, I thought you were talking about all the serial killers. Oh. It's got a little Billy Joel. It's got a little everything. Well, when I was a kid, I thought like, oh, maybe I could be in comedy because so many people were from Long Island. Yeah. And so you would see, you know, Seinfeld and people like that and just go like, oh, I feel like I'm kind of like that a little bit. Yeah. Remember when Seinfeld gets off stage at Governors and Comedian? He's like, it's like another country. I'm like, holy shit, I've never related to a quote more. Yeah. I've taken some fucking L's. That's really Alabama. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's really like Governors is like. Governors is where I started. It can be. And back then, the open mic night a lot of times was hosted by this hilarious comedian, John Mulrooney. I've heard of him. And John, you know, it was like a Rickles-esque act but with like a tough, you know, I don't know if he was from Brooklyn, but he had that kind of like energy. And he would really mix it up with the crowd. It would get like hilariously ugly. Yeah. But he was hosting an open mic, so then he would kill and he would kill and destroy the crowd, humiliate them, and then you would get up and the crowd thought, oh, we're supposed to yell at the comedian. And then we couldn't handle it and then the crowd would take us down. We have that now with the crowd work comics. Everybody's trying to get a clip, so they go, hey, where are you from, homo? Look at this douche. And then you go up there and you're like, so Uber's weird. And they're like, boo, that's boring. Yeah, just do it on your own show. I know. We've been away, so we do have to mention this. Diane Keaton. Ah, the best. The best. All right, Pete. Did you work with her? I didn't, but I was telling someone that I went to a party once and I got there really early and me and her were the only people there. And so I got like a great half hour chatting with her. That was sick. We talked a lot about it. She was talking about like architecture or something. But she was so funny and kind of like what you think she would be. Yeah. She really was just unique and hilarious and very cool. And when you watch the stuff, you know, because there's all these things online of her, she's just, it's so interesting. Yeah. Like there's a great clip going around of her on the Colbert Report. And it's just so funny and charming. Her with him and they're like flirting and you know, check it out. See what you think. Yeah. Woody Allen said, I didn't care what the critics say. I just would try to get her approval. It was all about Diane Keaton. Yeah. I mean, Annie Hall, even played against Sam is so good. And then all those Woody Allen, Love and Death. Yeah. Sleeper. Baby Boom. And had Murder Mystery. Oh yeah. She was all, Shoot the Moon. Godfather. The Godfather. I mean, that's crazy to be an Annie Hall and a Godfather. That's a big. The two most different. Right. Well, she said you couldn't really get work. Everyone else was getting work and because she was considered more of kind of an odd bird and then they put her in the Godfather and that's what changed everything. But before that, they thought she wasn't traditional enough. Right, right. But that's why she was great. But also, you know, apparently the costume designer in Annie Hall, like hated her. She's like, I don't want her to wear this shit. It makes me look bad. But then it becomes iconic. Right. I never heard that. Yeah. And it's, you look at that and you're like, it's funny, I'd see a girl out in like a hat like that and outfit and I'd be like, that's hot. And you're like, oh yeah, because I probably got my first boner to Annie Hall when I was like 12. You know, because she was like weird and she was like the hot but like kind of cool. Quirky. Yeah. And like clever. I mean, the banter in Annie Hall is insane. Oh, great. They're so good together. I mean, in a way, there's really no precedent for that before her. No. Not that type of character. Sure. Maybe Shirley MacLaine in something like The Apartment. Oh, that's a great one too. Fun fact, Shirley MacLaine said she couldn't keep up with Warren Beatty's needs. Wait, no, were they sisters? It's a sister. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm thinking of a. Mark's really, he's really roughing it on the news this episode. Joan Collins? Who did he date? I think Joan Collins. All right, that's the one. He dated Diane Keaton too. Is that right? Yeah. Wow, good for her. I went to go see Diane Keaton shoot something with Warren Beatty. It was this movie called Town and Country. And it was, it just, everything was going wrong. It was supposed to be like a 45, 50 day shoot. It's like day 95. Oh shit. Everyone's getting crazy. Gary Shandling was in it and he's like going to come and so I go to this house and they're shooting in this like small room in a house and they're like, oh, go by the monitor and you know when like you're in a space and like they're working and you shouldn't be watching at their monitor. That's why I'm really like uncomfortable and Warren Beatty's doing this scene with Diane Keaton and then you know they yell cut and I like try to slip out of the room and as I'm like exiting the room, Warren Beatty just goes, that bad? You say, you won't know for 10 years. Yeah. Damn. Damn, dude. Yeah. There it is, Town and Country. Warren Beatty, what a hunk. Yeah, so was he a cool guy, Warren? So nice. Yeah, he was very nice and I remember he did the very last episode of the Larry Sanders show. That's right. The joke was that Larry bumps into him in a parking lot and asks him if he'll be a guest on the very, like the final episode of the Larry Sanders show and the joke is that he's pitching it like, can you do it? It really would mean a lot to me. It's a big deal. We've been on for so long and this is the last one and your career means so much to me and that Warren Beatty just goes, no. And then just drives away and so like it's all set up. Everyone thinks he's going to be late. He's not late. Yeah. Everyone thinks he's going to want a zillion takes. He doesn't. But then he just pulls me aside and he goes, explain this joke to me. Why is this funny? And I go, I don't know. You're Warren Beatty and like you're so much better than this dumb talk show and why would this guy ever think that you would do it? Right. And then you're just like, yeah, no, I'm not doing this and he's like, okay, I get it. But also like, he, but he's doing it. So that's funny. That's a good meta thing about it. But he is fucking Warren Beatty and he is doing it. I don't know. I get it, but it is funny that you're like, yeah, he should like Larry Sanders in that world, I think. I don't know. Yeah, no, it's also cool to see. Oh, there it is. I feel like he never never really did a comedy really he did bullworth oh bull yeah bullworth and and you know heaven can wait now heaven can wait is uh one of the great comedies um and then you know ishtar which doesn't totally work but the first half is pretty funny is it there is some funny stuff elaine may like kind of like not give her a shot for a while i guess it was very expensive and they shot in the desert and right right but it definitely has way more great stuff than okay i would think in the first half that was the go-to punch line for a while yes that and shampoo yeah and shampoo kind of a dark comedy yeah yeah yeah it's not great i know people love it i it's many things are of their moment yeah i think you're right i think you're right but uh if you grew up during the nixon administration you would really mccabe and miss miller holds up that's incredible all right well get the book folks get the book get the comedy nerd book but r.i.p i know we're late on it because we were in europe but uh r.i.p diane keaton the best we loved her all right and much like an apatow movie this is going long i'm gonna show you how it's done right now we're gonna linger let me call paul thomas great to see you dude yeah see you guys good stuff thanks for coming in comedy you're gonna plug this soon oh yeah good idea hey uh i'll be in san diego california two shows at the observatory in north park then prior lake in minneapolis minneapolis minnesota that's a casino that's a casino that's a casino then we got kansas city going back to the clubs to build a new hour des moines funny bone uh brea at the brand prov and uh boy oh boy spirit mountain casino making a cash grab there oregon i guess new brunswick back at the stress factory san antonio tulsa and uh arizona and india indianapolis buffalo you you the list goes on go to my website it's all there what do you got fanny uh i got i'm at wise guys november 14th through 16th my second time at the club this year i love that club and i'm in uh reno nevada at the atlantis casino two shows november 29th uh i'm not there for money i'm excited to be in reno thanksgiving weekend uh and then uh december 4th carnegie hall i'm gonna add a bunch whoa yeah i'll see you there i'm gonna add a bunch more stuff early next year i gotta get on it i'm gonna figure that out but uh yeah a lot of cities this year i saw him at carnegie hall oh that's right jimmy car jimmy car show i should have gone to that yeah it was a fucking bail it was a fun time um all right well thanks gang thank you you got any dates you'll be on the road when's this run this runs november 16th i have no dates all right no brooks dark in january there we go that'll be good that's huge bodega cat whiskey guys where they get whiskey.com get a bottle perfect for the holidays all right see you soon guys in hell comedy sunday's the day for my next bender a bit of fever wreck you know the beer juice close i've had a little too much bourbon and norman's talking shit about the fucking pope and i get down in the same way up on the roof like a cop's coming and naked samuel is feeling dangerous i'm out to lunch here in new orleans this woman doesn't look like i remember her and i get down in the same way we might be true