Greg Daniels

Speaker 1 Sebastian Maniscalco's new stand-up special, It Ain't Right, is now streaming on Hulu. Filmed live at the sold-out United Center Arena in Chicago.

Speaker 1 Sebastian's newest special features his larger-than-life presence, one-of-a-kind physical comedy, and hilarious everyday observations that will keep you laughing non-stop.

Speaker 1 Sebastian goes all in on family chaos, aging, non-existent manners, and life's most relatable and frustratingly funny moments.

Speaker 1 Watch Sebastian Maniscalco: It Ain't Right now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundled bundle subscribers.

Speaker 2 Back when my wife and I were shopping for a home, I remembered, it's exciting, it's fun, but also there's so much you got to worry about and think about.

Speaker 2 Homes.com is home shopping the way it should be.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's more than a website, it's your partner in finding the perfect home. Get to know potential neighborhoods with homes.com's comprehensive neighborhood details.
That's good to know.

Speaker 2 You don't want to buy a house and everyone sucks. No, it's the worst when you buy a house and everyone sucks.
Homes.com features the listing agent on each listing so you can easily connect.

Speaker 2 Plus, agent directory and profiles offer a detailed look at each agent's experience so you can find your perfect match. Sometimes someone's like, Yeah, sure, I'm a housing agent.

Speaker 2 And you're like, Really?

Speaker 2 You don't look like one. You know what I mean? You're just, you're, you're wearing like a towel.
What's going on? You're soaking wet. He'd live there.
Yeah, go to homes.com to learn more.

Speaker 2 You want the facts. That's not their slogan.
I just made it up. Homes.com.
We've done your homework.

Speaker 2 Hi, my name is Greg Daniels.

Speaker 2 And I feel outraged about being Conan O'Brien's friend. You should be.
Conan O'Brien needs a friend. Conan O'Brien doesn't have any friends.
Poor Conan has no friends. Help him find a friend.

Speaker 2 And how long have we been friends? I live two miles from you.

Speaker 2 I brought you

Speaker 2 food when you had shingles in your eye. Yeah, it's true.

Speaker 2 Fall is here, hear the yell. Back to school, ring the bell, brand new shoes, walk in blues, climb the fence, books and pens.
I can tell that we are gonna be friends.

Speaker 2 I can tell that we are gonna be friends.

Speaker 2 Hey there, welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. I'm sitting with my my good pals, my amigos, my chums for life.
That's the number four. Sonom Obsession, Matt Gorley.
Good to see you both.

Speaker 2 For Life, we're committing for life? Yes.

Speaker 2 You did. You've more or less.
We've been doing this together over five years.

Speaker 2 And that's a significant,

Speaker 2 I know, but doing it well for five.

Speaker 2 It's the number four? That was one of my favorite jokes we ever did.

Speaker 2 We did a 10th anniversary special for the late night with Conan O'Brien show, and we did it at the Beacon Theater, and it was this big show. It was so much fun and so much great stuff.

Speaker 2 But one of my favorite things is I'm standing out there

Speaker 2 and I'm saying it's such a wonderful night and Mr. T came out.
I remember and he put,

Speaker 2 he handed me a giant, he's Mr. T wearing fatigues and with his mohawk and jewelry.

Speaker 2 And I was just so delighted because he became a friend of the show and he was such a great guest and we did remotes together and I went to Chicago with him.

Speaker 2 He presented me with a gift and he put a big gold number seven over my neck. And he was like, happy, you know, happy anniversary, Conan.
And I said, Mr. T, this is the seven.

Speaker 2 I've been on the air for 10. And he said, You've only been funny for seven.

Speaker 2 And then he spun on his heel. He gave me a sharp salute, spun on his heel, and marched out, killed.
I thought that was a great joke. That is good.
And God bless you, Mr. T.
That's nice.

Speaker 2 We are having an exciting day because I walked in to the offices here at Larchmont, the sprawling

Speaker 2 corporate massive structure. It's like one building.
Shut up.

Speaker 2 I suddenly am set upon by two imps. Yeah.
Your kids are here today, and it's so much fun. Why don't you paint the picture?

Speaker 2 Because I immediately revert to a three-year-old when I'm around three and a half years.

Speaker 3 You really do become a child. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Become a child.

Speaker 3 Maybe it is who you are, and then this is like who you are.

Speaker 2 This is not the real one. There's layers of crud, like those dishes that are wrapped in bacon.
I'm a child, and then there's just layers and layers of high-fatty

Speaker 2 meat surrounding the inner child.

Speaker 3 I was, it's weird. The analogy I thought of was how Superman is Superman and then Clark Kent is who he pretends to be.
That's what I was thinking more along the way.

Speaker 2 I like that better than Bacon.

Speaker 3 No, I think Bacon's more.

Speaker 2 So what happened?

Speaker 3 You were there and they were lost their minds when they saw you.

Speaker 2 Because I'm like a parade float.

Speaker 3 You come in and you're immediately just like.

Speaker 3 going at like just going at it. You're going crazy.
And then they feed off that energy and then it just turns into a.

Speaker 2 We're both chasing each other around um yeah i'm running upstairs they're chasing me and then i'm they come running back downstairs and i'm chasing them yeah uh it was really fun to have them around and the only thing i couldn't do is i tried to get them to freeze like okay everybody freeze yeah and mikey won't do it mikey has a problem with authority I don't know where he gets it from.

Speaker 2 I really don't know where he gets it from. It was so funny because I'd say, no, guys, and then when I do this, we all freeze.
And I would freeze too. Yeah.
And he just won't freeze.

Speaker 3 No, he won't. He won't listen to you.
And then he'll like do it again and think it's funny. And then, like, it's not funny.
You're not listening. Like, it's just not, it's stop.
You have to stop.

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 2 Um, do you see yourself? You started in a much better tone. Do you see yourself in him?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I do.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Because you never listened to me for years and years.
You know that. Yeah, that's true.
And I used to, when I first hired you as my assistant, I'd say freeze. And you'd be like, what?

Speaker 2 No, that's stupid. Well, that was just smart of her, though.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. You were

Speaker 2 good life skills, really. You were 30.
That was appropriate. Yes.
Your father. Freeze.

Speaker 2 Freeze. Freeze.
No. What are you doing, Chris? I just took out my pepper spray.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 No, I'm it. Yeah, they're really, they love you.
They really, really love you. And I think that they, like, every time someone would come in, they'd be like, is that Uncle Conan? Is that Uncle Conan?

Speaker 3 And, you know, like, they're just really excited to see you. I don't know if you can.

Speaker 2 Doesn't that burn you a little bit? Doesn't that bother so much, yeah.

Speaker 3 Why? I don't know. I think when they're older.

Speaker 2 It bothers you more than anybody. It does.
It does. Yeah.

Speaker 2 You have kept me away from your daughter. I've noticed.

Speaker 2 You don't want her forming any attachments to me. That's not true.
I brought her in here before. You bring her in, but you're always, okay, that's enough, that's enough.

Speaker 2 And she starts to, I see light coming into her eyes for the first time, like unbridled joy and fun. And you're always like, let's get out of here.
And you wrap her in a blanket and you run away.

Speaker 2 I'm just going to look at what you've been doodling here. Oh, dear.
Oh, look at this. Oh, no.
You've got a Darth Vader that you've drawn. And then, is that a Boba Fett? What is that? A Glip Glop?

Speaker 2 And then this is just a regular stormtrooper. These are the renderings of someone who has thought about these guys a lot.

Speaker 2 I don't ever draw them. I swear to God.
And I just happen to today. And of course, it's the one day that you pick up the piece of paper.
Don't ever draw them. Don't ever draw them.

Speaker 2 These are perfectly rendering. I used to draw them in grade school all the time.

Speaker 2 So you're saying you regress when you're in my presence. I do.
Look at that. Those are really good.

Speaker 3 Those are really good.

Speaker 2 You're a very good artist, but it's just interesting to me that

Speaker 2 this is what I feel like I'm trying to get you to take an algebra test, and I walk by you, and I'm like,

Speaker 2 Mr. Corley.
That's exactly what happened in high school. Did you get

Speaker 2 horrible at algebra? Absolutely horrible.

Speaker 3 Did you have to tension a lot?

Speaker 2 I wouldn't say a lot, but I was no stranger. Yeah.

Speaker 2 You assume like a real. I was like a law-biting guy.
No, I was a real, like, I got away with a lot. I broke a lot of rules, but I very rarely got caught.
And I'm not proud of it.

Speaker 2 But I would do things like I once to get out of a test, did a full gash wax makeup cut on my hand and went in to class, just pouring blood out of it, going, I got to go to the, I got to go go to the nurse.

Speaker 2 And so it was very realistic. Very realistic, yeah.
I had it in my glove compartment of my car in high school. My brother Luke, we had this woman that,

Speaker 2 you know, my mom went back to work, my dad was at work. And so she got this woman named Eva Murphy, who was from Prince Edward Island.

Speaker 2 And she would, you know, help clean the house and she'd put on a meal for us at five o'clock. And she was just sort of there to make sure that there was someone at home.
And she did a lot, actually.

Speaker 2 She was wonderful.

Speaker 2 But my brother Luke once took a sorry luke i'm selling you out here but he spent a lot of time he used that fake vampire blood and he this is ingenious he used a he just wanted to play a prank on eva but he melted red wax on his hand and his upper arm so it looked like it had

Speaker 2 and then he he painstakingly put all this blood on it and it looked like his hand had accidentally fallen into like uh I don't know, a wood garbage disposal. Yeah, it was shredded.

Speaker 2 His hand looked shredded and he went, he came running into the kitchen. He was like, ah, Eva Murphy freaked out.
And I think Luke then was like,

Speaker 2 Luke was scared because he got,

Speaker 2 he just thought he was going to get, oh, you rascal. And instead, he came running in with a stump that was shooting blood.
Do you know what I mean? It was out of Money Python, the Holy Grail.

Speaker 2 Man, after my own heart. Yeah.
And I remembered I was horrified. Eva was horrified.
Luke was horrified. Oh, my God.
I don't think so. He's kind of a sociopath.

Speaker 2 But it was quite, that just triggered me. You just brought up a very painful memory for me.

Speaker 2 Is that a but?

Speaker 2 It's a W for rap, but it also could be. You looked, look at that.
Jesus, can I see you?

Speaker 2 So you're out of control today. You just drew boobies.
Well, after she said but, I put some nipples on her.

Speaker 2 Okay. So now I see why you would go into detention.
All right. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Well, I'm.

Speaker 3 Were you ever in detention? I feel like you were like the kid who asked for extra credit.

Speaker 2 I was the kid that carried other, escorted other kids to detention. No, you weren't.
I was making that happen. Oh, no, but still, were you the kid who was like, like, don't expect me if you're not.

Speaker 2 I have him, Principal Thomas.

Speaker 2 This

Speaker 2 malefactor.

Speaker 2 Nerd.

Speaker 2 Nerd, as he draws more Star Wars heads. Nope.
I've taken your booby and I've turned it. I took your frown and turned it upside down.

Speaker 2 So I'm very happy with what I've done. That's real good.
I know. And hey, you know the great thing about a podcast? It's perfect for drawing stuff.
Yeah. But look at that guy.
Look at that. See?

Speaker 2 Wow, that's really special. Yeah.
He's got his friend.

Speaker 2 I guess his friends call him Titty.

Speaker 2 That's Titty Johnson. I just took back everything I just did.
Okay, so we'll also post these on Team Coco podcasts on Instagram, both the Star Wars heads and Titty Johnson.

Speaker 2 Do you want to do that again and sound like you're not on lithium?

Speaker 2 I'm going to post these.

Speaker 2 Okay, Sylvia Plath. We'll also post these online.
No, I want the other one.

Speaker 2 You do it, asshole. Hey, you want to check out these fun drawings? See the whole evolution of two boobies to a friendly guy named Titty Johnson.

Speaker 2 Check it out on Team Coco Podcast on Instagram and YouTube. Yay!

Speaker 2 That's the kind of show you've signed up for. Hey, I am very excited.

Speaker 2 My guest today is one of my oldest friends, and he also just happens to be

Speaker 2 a legendary writer, showrunner, and producer. I mean,

Speaker 2 he's been responsible for like half of the really good TV shows in the last 25 years. Very true.
And he and I go way back and we got started together. We struck out two lads heading out to LA in 1985.

Speaker 2 He saved my life in so many ways, and I love him for it. The fourth season of his show, Upload, premieres on Prime Video Monday, August 25th.
And he has like 15 other things going too. It's craziness.

Speaker 2 I am so thrilled he's here today, and I know fans have been wanting this for a long time.

Speaker 2 The day has come. Greg Daniels, welcome.

Speaker 2 Anyone who doesn't know, and I think most people know because Adam Sachs has told me that this might be the most fan-requested interview that we've had over years.

Speaker 2 People are saying, when are you going to get Greg Daniels here? And yet I'm guessed like 750.

Speaker 2 I think I should have a podcast. Greg Daniels thought he had a friend,

Speaker 2 but I guess not.

Speaker 2 Look, I waited to monetize our friendship at the peak moment, and I think I've done that. Middle of the summer.
Who couldn't come because they were on vacation?

Speaker 2 You and I met in college, and we both worked on the Harvard Lampoon. We knew each other.
We were in the same class freshman year. Yes,

Speaker 2 which we could talk about. We did a class, which is like a playwriting class.
No, the other one, there was one that we did one with the same professor about stories. Do you remember?

Speaker 2 In freshman year as a seminar? I don't. It's all a blur.
Yes.

Speaker 2 I was dropping a lot.

Speaker 2 I might be thinking of someone else. I think you're thinking of someone else.
You know what we're going to do? We've never done this. We're going to start again.
Watch this. And go.

Speaker 2 All right. For the uninitiated,

Speaker 2 for people who don't know,

Speaker 2 Greg and I went to school together. We kind of knew each other.
And then I was on the lampoon. You were competing to get on the lampoon.
You dropped off a car.

Speaker 2 Why is that important that you were there first?

Speaker 2 I was there.

Speaker 2 This is like the fourth time you said this intro.

Speaker 3 I was on the lampoon. We were competing to get on the lamp.

Speaker 2 I could have gone thumbs down. I could have gone thumbs up.

Speaker 2 I was the John Lennon, and you were the Ringo.

Speaker 2 He was like, I can keep a steady beat.

Speaker 2 You dropped this cartoon off that is, and that moment, I remember that moment very well because you had to leave them on the floor of this building.

Speaker 2 And I remember going into this room in the Lampoon building where people would just leave their stuff on the floor and looking down and seeing this cartoon.

Speaker 2 And a good cartoon is like a little silver bullet. It goes right to your brain.
You had such a great cartoon, which was, why don't you describe it? I would never have brought this up.

Speaker 2 I liked it. I thought it was really funny.
I thought it was, that's, it was sort of my

Speaker 2 origin story. I suppose.
I suppose if we're talking about

Speaker 2 everything, but very literary cartoon, very small audience, very

Speaker 2 nerd-defining cartoon.

Speaker 2 I'll talk down to my people.

Speaker 2 It was a, oh, God, I can't. It's a sea captain.
It's a sea captain, old sea captain, and he's at some party, and he has a hello, my name is sticker on his shirt, and it says Ishmael. Ishmael.

Speaker 2 One of the great lines. Call me Ishmael.
And I thought, I saw that and I thought, okay, that's a great, that would be a New Yorker cartoon right now. It was well drawn.
We got to know each other.

Speaker 2 And then both of us were interested in getting into comedy. I'll just speak for myself.
The idea of going out into this crazy world by myself was terrifying.

Speaker 2 And I remembered thinking, gee, I wonder if Greg would do this with me because he's really funny. And then I'd have a good friend and we could do it together.
That was my feeling. Yes.

Speaker 2 I think you were under the impression that I was very wealthy,

Speaker 2 which I was not. Well, we, the summer before we graduated, we worked on a project.
Yep. And it was a very fun experience.
And

Speaker 2 I think that comedy is such a social thing. It's so much fun to joke around with friends.
And,

Speaker 2 you know, I prefer it that way for sure. And

Speaker 2 so, yeah. So I thought, well, that's cool.
Let's try that. And I remember,

Speaker 2 Greg, a brilliant fellow, and you were possibly going to go to law school. And I think

Speaker 2 your mother was questioning. And I remember when you showed up with me, it's like you show up with your fiancé.
You showed up with me. And I remembered your dad was like, oh, this sounds fun.

Speaker 2 And I think your mom was, who I love, by the way, I love your mom, and she's fantastic. But she rightfully was a little like, who's this Conan? And he's talking all this nonsense into my son's ear.

Speaker 2 That's the impression I got. Yeah.
Well,

Speaker 2 that was my two choices:

Speaker 2 lawyer or comedy writer. And I found that people, when I had been a kid, and growing up, they would say, You should be a lawyer.

Speaker 2 And they always said that when they were mad at me because I was being really annoying and argumentative. And then sometimes they'd say, You should be a comedian, you should be funny.

Speaker 2 And they were always saying that when they were happy with me. That's cool.
And I was like, you know what? I think I should probably not go down this path of everybody hating me. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 this part of my life is so seared into my brain, and I'm indebted to you because I don't know what I don't.

Speaker 2 I think coming out to LA was terrifying to me. It was just, I, I,

Speaker 2 what have you said to the audience about your origin? What can I talk about anything that they don't know?

Speaker 3 He ate a lot of burgers and fries, and he was

Speaker 3 weird and lanky.

Speaker 2 No, no, it's just genetics.

Speaker 2 It's not my girlfriend.

Speaker 2 For burgers and fries,

Speaker 2 we used to go to Donny Rockets. Did we talk about this?

Speaker 2 And I had this very annoying running joke with him where I would tell the wait staff it was his birthday every single time

Speaker 2 that we came. So they would come sing to him.
Yeah, it's annoying. Very annoying.
But I think all I have to tell people is that we came out here and

Speaker 2 we

Speaker 2 were

Speaker 2 very frugal. We were very hardworking.
We did not have girlfriends. We shared one car,

Speaker 2 one apartment and one office. Wow.
And according to my father, one towel.

Speaker 2 I don't know if that's true. No, it's true.
It's true. And I'll tell you this.

Speaker 2 We had an apartment, which I pass every day because I live not far away on Barrington. And I remember us, we had no furniture.
We got, all right, so we got

Speaker 2 mattresses from a parking lot in Watts. Do you remember that?

Speaker 2 We drove there and they would, you pick out your mattress and they throw it on a truck. They tie it to your top of your car and off you go.

Speaker 2 It wasn't a store.

Speaker 3 I'm sorry, who's they?

Speaker 2 It's not important. I don't know.
There was no warranty to this.

Speaker 2 There was no tag on the mattresses. And it was wrapped in plastic, but it could easily have come from a dead person's apartment.

Speaker 2 I don't know. There was weird stains on them, bloody stains.

Speaker 2 And we also had a subscription to the LA Times because it's very important to know what's going on in your community. And that used to pile up so fast that we built furniture out of it.

Speaker 2 We made, we stacked our LA Times. We did not have a couch.
We did not have furniture. So we knew we had to have a television.

Speaker 2 So we got a television and I know what it was because my brother Neil tends to, let's say, hang on to things.

Speaker 2 Somehow, my brother Neil, he calls me the other day and he says, I just emailed you something. And I checked my email.
He had emailed a photograph.

Speaker 2 He said, it's an old 1985 TV remote that says quasar on it. And I said, what is this? And he went, that's the remote control you and Greg had in your apartment in 1985.

Speaker 2 It's like the size of a dictionary. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 And it's all beat up. And Neil got it because I guess when we got our own places, eventually I took the TV.

Speaker 2 And then it had another life and it went to New York with me. And then eventually Neil gets all appliances.
He ended up with it.

Speaker 2 But the story that everyone needs to know is we shared a terrible car that we bought at like a junkyard near the airport. Rent a wreck.

Speaker 2 There used to be a place where you could rent cars, maybe still called Rent to Wreck. And when the wrecks got so wrecky that nobody would rent them, then they sold them.

Speaker 2 This looked, it was a 1977 Isuzu Opal, which is a car that I think they made twice and then said,

Speaker 2 no more? No more.

Speaker 2 And you could see the ground from in the back seat, there was a corrosion hole.

Speaker 2 And if you wanted to get rid of your litter, you could just drop it on.

Speaker 2 We were this unit. We were locked in.

Speaker 2 We worked really hard at our job at not necessarily the news, but one of the things that was

Speaker 2 unusual is for young guys who are 22 and out in L.A., we didn't drink. We didn't do anything.
We didn't do drugs.

Speaker 2 We were kind of interested in having girlfriends, but we didn't know how to do that. so I remember do you went to like a mrs fields and started chatting up the girl who worked at mrs fields

Speaker 2 and you were like i'm doing pretty well with that and then i had a second date with her you had a second date

Speaker 2 and so here's the best part of that

Speaker 2 greg comes to me because he

Speaker 2 He had some success with the girl at working at Mrs. Fields.
And he came back and he went,

Speaker 2 taking her out. And then he said, I need to speak to you.
Can I have the car tomorrow?

Speaker 2 So he had to ask me if he could borrow the the car. And I said, well, that's okay.

Speaker 2 And then I just stayed home with the TV, the quasar, and watched the A-team again. I don't know.
But I don't know. It's just, we had this is very accurate.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's not complimentary, but it's very accurate. Well, I mean, I,

Speaker 2 and then we had these, uh,

Speaker 2 we, we were so worried that we were going to get into some kind of what what if the job dries up and we don't have money?

Speaker 2 And you were more of a taskmaster in a good way about, hey, we got to make sure we don't blow our money when we're out here on our paychecks. So you found a place called Flaky Jakes.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, my Flaky Jake scam. He had a scam at Flaky Jakes.
Yes. So Flaky Jakes

Speaker 2 was great.

Speaker 2 It was this burger restaurant and they were very proud of the fact that they bake their own buns and that you would put the burger on the buns and then you'd go and they had hundreds of fixings.

Speaker 2 It's like a salad bar, a fixings bar. Yeah.
And, you know, and the whole thing was, you know, I don't know what, like eight bucks or something, but they would sell the

Speaker 2 buns for 35 cents.

Speaker 2 And you got the bun and you got a tray, and then you could go to the fixings and you could put tomatoes and onions and a lot of dressing, Russian dressing, pickles, and you can make yourself like this vegetarian fixing sandwich for 35 cents.

Speaker 2 So you don't.

Speaker 2 So they would say,

Speaker 2 I, of course, didn't subscribe to that.

Speaker 2 I was six, four, 155 pounds, which if you do the math, doesn't work. And I

Speaker 2 was always hungry. I was always perpetually hungry and I couldn't gain weight.
So I would say, I'll have the double, double, triple burger.

Speaker 2 And then they'd turn to Greg and he'd be like, just the bun, thank you.

Speaker 2 And then he'd walk over to this thing and pile it mile high and freaked out. I'd like to have to take a bad job because I had the burger, you know?

Speaker 2 I want to have a little flexibility there.

Speaker 2 And so.

Speaker 2 He has genius. Yeah.
So we're driving around. I'm just trying to paint a picture because

Speaker 2 Greg has gone on to be one of the most successful TV creators of all time.

Speaker 2 And it's just, no, it's true.

Speaker 2 And it's really fun for me to try to time travel and go back to, you had a kick once when you said, you had read an article that broccoli has all the amino acids you need. So you.

Speaker 2 You and I went and you filled bags with broccoli at the store and we came home and we boiled it because that's supposed to be or steamed steamed it, and then we ate it with some fat-free butter substitute.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And you were chomping it down, going, mmm, all the amino acids, and for very little money.
And I was

Speaker 2 thinking, why did I pick this guy? Why didn't I pick a guy who was like, come on, let's do a few lines and then go to that strip club. You got to carpe diem.
Yay! There was no carpe diem with us.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it was Greg holding you back, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 I'm the problem. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Thank you. Can you imagine? He had a t-shirt that said bikini inspector.

Speaker 2 There was not a nerd vibe in him at all. It was just me.

Speaker 3 This guy was supposed to go clubbing and you held him back with your burger.

Speaker 2 You say that Leopold and Loeb, neither one of them would have killed if they were alone, but together they were lethal. That's true of most murdering couples.

Speaker 2 Greg and I each made the other nerd vibrate.

Speaker 2 Nerd genes vibrate, and we both would get nerdier.

Speaker 3 I know, who knows?

Speaker 2 Maybe without you, he would have been like, you know, going to the strip clubs and I don't know. Yeah.
Having a burger. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I don't know.

Speaker 2 Having some real protein. I really want to run with that premise, but

Speaker 2 it doesn't feel right.

Speaker 2 Amazon is known for its products, but I also really love their customer reviews. Yeah.

Speaker 2 This holiday season, Amazon is bringing the most creative and outrageous customer reviews into the spotlight as part of their Amazon five-star theater.

Speaker 2 Here's a review for the board game Twister.

Speaker 2 Angela writes: I bought this to play with my other late 20s, early 30s friends. Our bodies were not prepared for the pain that ensued when all of my extremities ended up on the same color.

Speaker 2 My body went into full spasm. This is

Speaker 2 harrowing. My arms turned to jelly, and my spine broke in half.

Speaker 2 Finally, I fell slowly to the ground in frog pose. The torture was over.
If you're in basic shape and somewhat flexible, this is the game for you. Five stars.

Speaker 2 You know, it's very rare for someone to be doing something with a product and have their spine break in half and give it a five-star review. That is very rare.
Yeah. This person's a very good sport.

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Speaker 2 The fact that you can just order concert tickets through her, that's crazy. Yeah, exactly.
You didn't know that? Even I knew that. Wow.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I fought in World War I and I know that.

Speaker 2 Ready whenever, and yeah, and you were born in the second Obama administration. This is incredible.
Ready whenever inspiration strikes, Amazon.com/slash new Alexa.

Speaker 2 I was up half the night last night watching a World Series game. Yeah.
It was very exciting.

Speaker 2 I have to tell you, I don't care what your your sport is, tailgates or watching parties or, you know, whatever, if you're watching High Lie,

Speaker 2 it doesn't matter. It is Miller time.
Miller Light is brewed with simple ingredients like malted barley for rich flavor and golden color.

Speaker 2 It's a taste you can depend on because Miller time is always a good time. I'm out there throwing the pig skin around.
I used to just throw pig skin. Really? Chunks of pig skin.
Wow.

Speaker 2 I never had a football. Where would you find the pig? Oh, I went to a farmer.
Oh, good. Yeah.
And the pig had fallen and it was shredded.

Speaker 2 anyway back to miller light i like just hawking pig skin around i like to raise a murrow light in the air and celebrate a great pass uh throwing chunks of pig skin around uh one of those nail biters yeah last night's game incredible nail biter with the dodges incredible so anyway miller light great taste 96 calories go to merralite.com slash conan to find delivery options near you or you can pick up some merrillite pretty much anywhere they sell beer and if they don't sell merrillite turn to them and say sir you do not sell beer.

Speaker 2 It's Miller time. Celebrate responsibly, Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.

Speaker 2 I have such clear memories, and they come back to me whenever I drive past our old haunts. Remember, we eventually get separate apartments.
I found a $380 month apartment

Speaker 2 from Cynthia Stevenson. She had this special apartment that was really cheap, and she said, I'm moving in with my boyfriend.
You can have my apartment. You got an apartment not too far away.

Speaker 2 We're now in the flats

Speaker 2 in Hollywood. And I'll never forget, you finally decided you were going to get a new car and you were going to come by and show it to me.
And of course, you're very practical. You're careful.

Speaker 2 I did a lot of research about how you deal with.

Speaker 2 car dealers and you got to hold the line you got to go in there and tell them this is all i got and um so i did that i did everything right i went in there and i walked out they had sold me a car with no air conditioning

Speaker 2 because

Speaker 2 I didn't know what to do. I was like, This is it.
This is all I can go. And they were like, Well, we can make that if you get by this one that has no air conditioning.

Speaker 2 And I kind of was like, Yeah, maybe I don't need it. And so, this is interesting.
He comes by my apartment, and this is before cell phones, before anything like that.

Speaker 2 So, I think you called me ahead of time and said, Be out in front of your apartment at three o'clock. I'll come back with my new car.
I go out, and then you had bought a very sensible Toyota Corolla.

Speaker 2 So, I got the the one with no air conditioning, and then I also compounded my problem by getting a car that would last forever.

Speaker 2 Would have no air conditioning for years.

Speaker 2 And I got in, and you were a little defensive. I got in, and there was a giant hole in the middle.
This is a brand new car, and there's a giant space that you could put a watermelon in

Speaker 2 in the console. And I said, what goes here? And he went, well, that's normally the air conditioner, but I didn't get that.
And I said, do I sound like that?

Speaker 2 I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
I forgot.

Speaker 2 I'm sorry. I forgot.
I'm a part of Greg. I thought that I partnered with Niles from Fraser.
I apologize. No, but Greg said, oh, I didn't get that.
Greg was like,

Speaker 2 you the one. How am I doing? Hey, don't diss the pussy wagon.

Speaker 2 I was like, Craig, please.

Speaker 2 He said, I'm out on Vadge Patrol. I was like, Jesus, Greg.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 he said, I didn't get an air conditioner. And I said, There's only two settings.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I said, yeah, I said.

Speaker 2 I said, I don't know. Don't you need air conditioning? It's fine right now.
And it was, of course, it was February. Yes, it felt really good in the car without the air conditioning.

Speaker 2 After that, anytime we went to a meeting, he was covered in sweat. He looked like he was having a nervous breakdown.
I remember going to, I drove to, I think to see you in Chicago. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I did a happy, happy good show with Robert Smigl, Bob Odenkirk. And I was going to see you.
It was like August, and I drove from L.A. to Chicago, and

Speaker 2 I had to sleep during the day and drive at night because it was so hot in the car.

Speaker 2 I made the mistake of leaving a cassette in the car, and I came back, like when I went to get a hamburger, I came back, it was all curly cued from heat.

Speaker 2 It was a nightmare car, but I had a lot of fun. At least you had a hamburger, though.
You treated yourself. Yes.

Speaker 2 I'm dying. And so I need a hamburger.
I do remember we used to do very strange things to entertain ourselves. We have to sit down and we have to together write all this down sometimes.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't know what you've told folks here. Like

Speaker 2 one of my favorites was you're insane, and I was held back from my life as a fucking suck master.

Speaker 2 Oh, God.

Speaker 2 By the way,

Speaker 2 to Greg and Judy Daniels,

Speaker 2 to Aaron and Judy Daniels, I hope you're enjoying the podcast.

Speaker 2 See, I was a good influence.

Speaker 2 We redid the beginning four times, and we won't redo this.

Speaker 2 I'm not redoing this. I'm proud of this.
No, I'm not sure. I was just remembering the bit where we got into our first kind of argument with the costume designer.
And

Speaker 2 they went Saturday Night Live at Saturday Night Live. And they went to Lauren and they said, you fire these two or I'm leaving.

Speaker 2 And Lauren was like, this is my costume designer.

Speaker 2 She's, you know, terrific and got all these awards and everything.

Speaker 2 So he called us into the his office and we were a little uh nervous yeah we thought we were getting fired yeah and he sat down and and we just had this conversation he said you gotta we gotta stay in here about 20 minutes um so she thinks i'm yelling at you and yeah it was terrific he was great he was like i have to be here for 20 minutes and you're in here too and just so you know i'm yelling at you right now but he wasn't right um and we didn't get into a fight to be fair all we did was we wrote a sketch and it had these elaborate costumes and we checked on we went to the place where they were manufacturing them just to check on them because we thought that's what a good writer producer does is check on things and that apparently was us overstepping our bounds which okay i didn't know we didn't know that we were brand new so yeah i don't remember us we never got into fights with people or yelled at people no no no no we just ignorantly stepped on toes

Speaker 2 that just seems normal though yeah now that's normal i don't know it was one of those things we were new and i don't think it would have been an issue if we were we had a bad i mean i think we were pretty nice people but we had a lot of like bad instincts for hollywood like i remember when we before we got to snl we had an opportunity to possibly do a movie rewrite

Speaker 2 and um this was very rare for us we had never ever been offered anything like this so they sent us this uh script and we read it and we had this one meeting we came in and for some reason we were really concerned that the studio had wasted money because we didn't like the script at all and we were we spent the whole time going can you get the money back is that possible we're interested in the studio getting its money back and there were and we we weren't playing the game

Speaker 2 and also i remember the first meeting we ever had with an agent was no it was howard klein yeah We had a meeting with Howard Klein and Howard was like, okay, well, you guys, there's a good word on you.

Speaker 2 You're doing a good job. And the next step would be for you guys to do this and this and this.

Speaker 2 And I cut him off and I said, what if we, how does it work if we want to write new lyrics to existing songs? And he said, what do you mean?

Speaker 2 I said, well, you know, Elvis Presley had that big hit with suspicious minds. What if we just changed it to suspicious brains? Can we get paid for that? And he said, get the fuck out of here.

Speaker 2 I don't know why.

Speaker 2 Trying to tickle our own brains and be happy. Well, you had this thing, you had this thing where you wanted to put in our contract that if Bob Hope died,

Speaker 2 we would be released from our contract.

Speaker 2 Rules of comedy would have been all different. You know, there's all this boilerplate.

Speaker 2 We got our first contract. And it was just, you know, we were staff writers on not necessarily the news.

Speaker 2 And there's just this stuff that, of course, Greg got out his magnified glasses and was looking and saying, it says here.

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 according to Peensley T.

Speaker 2 Peensworthy, it says here that Article 4, Section 9, and it says things like that's been in contracts since the beginning of time, literally biblical stuff about fire, plagues, locusts, act of God.

Speaker 2 And I said, well, there should be, there needs to be, I said, Harry Klein, we need, we want a clause in there that if Bob Hope should die, comedy as we know it would be forever changed, and this contract is null and void.

Speaker 2 And again, he said, get the fuck out of here.

Speaker 2 Oh my God. I was like, I was kicked out of his office like 15 times.

Speaker 2 And Bob Hope just kept living. Yeah,

Speaker 2 he died six hours ago, the age of 150.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 I will say, I have so many

Speaker 2 happy memories that I wouldn't have had.

Speaker 2 I'm an anxious person, and I put a lot of pressure on myself. And Greg was really just a great

Speaker 2 hot smoking. The sleep Owen Wilson.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Greg should be played by Owen Wilson

Speaker 2 from the stick era.

Speaker 2 No, you

Speaker 2 we just had a lot of fun doing weird things that there's a whole story. It's probably a screenplay where you and I decided to just, I think we had seen in the news that

Speaker 2 Lady Diana or Princess Diana and her husband, Charles, had just been to Vancouver for like a fair. And we decided to expo.
The expo. It was like Expo 87 or something.
And we saw an ad.

Speaker 2 where they made it look amazing in the ad. And I think you, as a historian type person, knew about the Chicago Expo of like 1904 or something that was very like impressive.

Speaker 2 And we just managed to convince ourselves that if we missed Expo 87 in Vancouver, we would regret it for the rest of our lives. I still stand by that.

Speaker 2 And by the way, the Expo was over.

Speaker 2 The Expo was over, but we thought, we'll see the remnants. Oh, no.
So I remember we flew to, we flew to Seattle. It was like all business, too.

Speaker 2 It's just like Xerox had a thing because they had a new copier. Yeah.
You know, there was a new kind of asbestos they were coming out with.

Speaker 3 You signed in the paper and you're like, we got to go there.

Speaker 2 We got to go. So Greg and I fly.
I mean, other people on their weekends are, I'm in L.A. I'm going to get it on a boat with all my friends.

Speaker 2 And we did know people, Billy Kimball, Ian Meckstone Graham, who lived in a cool house. They all were writers.
They would go out on, they would rent. boats and all split it.

Speaker 2 And on the weekend, they'd go out and wear yachting caps and have fun. And there were women on the boat and you're like we're like suckers

Speaker 2 Xerox has a new copier

Speaker 2 so we're gonna be the first to see it we're gonna have our pictures taken with the new Xerox copier so we flew we fly to Seattle we fly to Seattle and then we drive in a of course the cheapest rental car you can get like

Speaker 2 the the Hyundai bulb and it's a light bulb that's they turned into a car and we drove that from Seattle to Vancouver And then we're watching,

Speaker 2 we're in our motel room, quickly sussing out that, well, this expo isn't really happening and it's raining a lot and all the exhibits are closed and there's a half a Ferris wheel.

Speaker 2 What are we doing here? And then we're, we're spending a lot of time. We got hooked on

Speaker 2 Beachcombers.

Speaker 2 There's a, there is a

Speaker 2 Canadian content show. that ran for like 50 years.
It's like the bold and the beautiful of Canada called Beachcombers. The Beachcombers, I think.
The Beachcombers.

Speaker 2 And Bruno Girussi was the star and creator, I believe. Glad you got that right.

Speaker 2 That's some male. I don't have to answer.
And we decided we had to go watch it be filmed. And

Speaker 2 we just became completely obsessed with this film and with this film. And with one particular character.
We decided there was one particular character on it who didn't have many lines.

Speaker 2 And we decided we have to meet him.

Speaker 2 And we made a promise to ourselves we're going to shake his hand before we leave Vancouver.

Speaker 2 And then we went and we got reporters' notebooks and we're interviewing people all over town, pretending we're reporters. And then someone sent me.
We went to the CBC.

Speaker 2 We found out they were shooting at Gibson's Island,

Speaker 2 which I now am like in that community a little bit because I shot upload up in Vancouver. And so I, people.
You've returned to the scene of that.

Speaker 2 Yes. People send me like beach comers shirts, like all the crew that I worked with there.
Yeah. So we and then we had to to get to Gibson's,

Speaker 2 like in time to go back to Seattle to get our flight. And we were running out the clock trying to figure out how to get to the set.
And

Speaker 2 we missed the ferry that goes to Gibson's. And it was the last ferry.

Speaker 2 There'd be no way to get there. So then we went down to the docks and we started talking to fishermen.
And we

Speaker 2 were choosing

Speaker 2 our situation.

Speaker 2 Yes. And we paid some guy to go faster than the ferry in his little fishing boat.
And we're so excited. We jump in this boat and we're beating the ferry.

Speaker 2 And we're like, yeah, we're going to get to the island before the ferry. And then we get on the island and we, we, what, and then someone tells us the character we want to shake hands with.

Speaker 2 He says, oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 No, I think he lives over on Mapleton Avenue. You and I fan out.
And you take one. You're pounding on doors.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 on doors randomly going, you know, where?

Speaker 2 Open up. And so Greg took the north side of the street.
I took the south side of the street. And we just both, and then I'm banging on like my seventh door.
Door opens. There's the guy.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, hold on a second. Greg, Greg, Greg.
Greg comes running. We both shake his hand.
He doesn't know what's happening.

Speaker 2 He's just accepting that he's got fans from LA that, you know, have made the pilgrimage. He's happy.
And we were did this.

Speaker 2 So, and then, but then we have to get on the ferry has docked and is putting on cars. And that's our last chance to make our flight to get back to that ferry, ferry, the one that we beat.

Speaker 2 And we start running down the street trying to get to the ferry. And this woman in a jeep picks us up.
You remember that? We were, we hitched like this woman, we explained it to her.

Speaker 2 She completely loved the

Speaker 2 got into the spirit of it. She like gunned it towards the ferry, went into the wrong way down a street because, like, the ferry line for the next ferry was already there, and uh, pulls up.

Speaker 2 So we had to kill her.

Speaker 2 No witnesses, That was the plan. Still unsolved.

Speaker 2 But, you know, so flash forward years, Greg's gone on to create half the TV shows people have watched. And I've gone on to my foolishness.

Speaker 2 And one day I get this, someone tells me, Ari Emmanuel, the famous Ari Emmanuel is on line one, agent to the stars. He's like, I just talked to Greg.
He told me the story of you guys.

Speaker 2 He thought it would be a movie. And he said, it's a movie.
And I said very calmly, no, Ari, it's not.

Speaker 2 It's an anecdote. It's two nerds doing something very nerdy.
Yeah. If anecdote film starts making films, then maybe.

Speaker 2 But Ari's got really good instincts. And so I don't know.
Maybe that should have been the next project. That'll be the next thing we do.

Speaker 2 So I knew early on that you were very interested in what turned out to be stuff that most people like, which is character development, story arcs. And I was always like, what?

Speaker 2 You know, it should be a sketch that's three minutes long and it should have a masturbating bear in it. And you'd go, uh-huh, yeah.
But what happens to the bear over time? And

Speaker 2 so we decide you start. I remember initially you were writing, I did an extra season on SNL, you start working on a screenplay,

Speaker 2 then you start working on these different things. I know that you worked, you did work on The Simpsons, you did work on

Speaker 2 for Seinfeld, and then you team up, you and Mike Judge do King of the Hill, I think was the was, and, uh,

Speaker 2 which was

Speaker 2 fantastic. And thank you.
That was a lot of fun. And it's coming back August 4th.
Yeah. Season 14.
Yeah. It's coming back.
And you are in this period right now, a real purple patch, which is.

Speaker 2 I don't know what that means.

Speaker 2 Purple patch. I usually means like a very creative

Speaker 2 sweet spot because

Speaker 2 King of the Hill is coming back. You are also launching

Speaker 2 season.

Speaker 2 Upload is coming. The final season of the final season of upload.
August 25th. August 25th.
You showed me the other day your pilot episode, the first episode for the next generation of the office.

Speaker 2 It's the new documentary by the same crew. That's how we're describing it.
Yes.

Speaker 2 It's not a reboot.

Speaker 2 It's nothing like that. You showed it to me,

Speaker 2 which I loved, by the way. I really loved it.
I like to slip you things. I remember showing you and Beckett Parks and Wreck.
And I get good feedback from Conan. Beckett said, no.

Speaker 2 Really? This can't work.

Speaker 2 Yeah. He said, cartoon in Texas, that's not going to work.
And he was really vehement about it. And he was like, five.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I saw the this latest, the episode for this latest show, The Pilot, and it starts, if I'm allowed to say, there's, we can cut this out if it's not cool, but there's a moment that's very powerful where the documentary crew is trying to find.

Speaker 2 it's well, it starts with them trying to find out what's up with Thunder Mifflin, and they find out some stuff and it leads them in a new direction to a different city. And

Speaker 2 in the different city, they stumble upon this historic newspaper, which has kind of turned into a ghost newspaper, which I don't know if you're familiar with that, but that's when some other company buys a local newspaper and fires all the reporters and keeps it going selling ads, but they just print wire stories.

Speaker 2 Wire stories, yeah. And so they see this and they kind of go, Well, that's an interesting subject for documentary.
And then this guy comes and he doesn't really have a lot of journalism experience.

Speaker 2 He's been selling toilet paper at another division of the company. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But he loved being on his college newspaper and he wants to revitalize this newspaper. He wants to bring it back to a real paper.

Speaker 2 There's just a great scene in it that's there's a lot about this new show that is putting a light on how much things have changed.

Speaker 2 So there's old documentary footage of the old newspaper in Toledo, Ohio. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And then they contrast it, and you just see 150 people working really hard on these giant machines, putting out the paper.

Speaker 2 And then you see this young woman who's an important character, but she's working at the paper and she's explaining to the documentary crew what they do.

Speaker 2 And she's just dragging and clicking AP stories and dropping them.

Speaker 2 And then a lot of it is just clickbait. There's a thing that automatically tells you, is this too big an article for this page? Yes, it is.
And then she has to pick a different article. And I thought

Speaker 2 very smart to make it about this right now, especially. Well, it's,

Speaker 2 you know, people have sort of counted out newspapers, and there is something in the tone of the office that this sort of poignancy of people doing their best in a situation that is not very hip or people have kind of counted them out.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 this new show has got a little more maybe bad news bearers energy because they are trying to do accomplish something. And,

Speaker 2 you know, and they are more inspired than the team that worked at Dunder Mifflin. And you're working with a guy who started out with me, Michael Coleman.
Yes.

Speaker 2 Michael Coleman is one of my, shout out to Michael Coleman, one of my all-time favorite late-night writers. Brilliant guy, really funny.
And he has enough on me to put me in jail

Speaker 2 because he was. uh

Speaker 2 everybody does i was gonna say more than some i think i

Speaker 2 i think i tackled him 50 times physically tackled him uh yes i i've seen the battery uh assault and battery things that he hasn't filed he's uh absolutely brilliant and i love that he's the guy behind uh nathan for you yes and when you think about you know a show um like the office that takes like a reality format and gets high comedy out of it i mean to me nathan for you is like the pinnacle so

Speaker 2 I'm very excited to be doing this with him.

Speaker 2 I'm sure a lot of you out there are plain Coca-Cola people, and that's respectable. Trust me, I'm one.
Yes, I am. You've many times seen me just, I like to order just a regular Coca-Cola.
I really do.

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Speaker 2 I'll think of myself occasionally as being very busy, and then I look at what Greg's doing, and you're doing 15 times the amount of work that's very rare that they all come out the same month.

Speaker 2 I mean, that's like nuts.

Speaker 2 The paper is September 4th. So between August 4th and September 4th, I have three things coming out, but they've been years in development and working on them and stuff.

Speaker 2 It's just random that they're right.

Speaker 2 Well, I noticed that I get at least I get an invitation here. I have to do three shows.
I don't know what some of the other guests do.

Speaker 2 I can't imagine that they have three shows coming out.

Speaker 2 The only guests I interview have an Emmy, a Golden Globe,

Speaker 2 you know, the whole thing, an egot,

Speaker 2 Tony, Oscar.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 I've been rooting for you to get on this, and I've been waiting. I know.
I thought

Speaker 2 Paula. when will Greg's career

Speaker 3 he called out Paula?

Speaker 2 That's what Conan's been saying. He said, I want to get you on, but Paula.
Paula Davis.

Speaker 2 Who we met

Speaker 2 at SNL, yes. We met Paula at SNL the first day we showed up there in February of 1988.
And I started talking to

Speaker 2 Paula. And she was sitting behind a desk and she was really funny and quick.

Speaker 2 And I said, oh, she reminds me of my sister Kate. I like this Paula.
Cut to her,

Speaker 2 me hiring her the summer of 1993 to be the head booker at late night. And she's still with me, a barnacle that cannot be removed.

Speaker 2 It's funny. I think about, I don't know about you, but I drive around Los Angeles.
And when I'm in New York, New York less so because it doesn't have the same associations, but

Speaker 2 in LA,

Speaker 2 85, 86, 87, I'm constantly passing things. And I have a very strong sense memory of you and I being there.
You went off to get your ridiculous car.

Speaker 2 I decided I need to get a different car than this piece of junk we bought at the airport. No, I got a 90.

Speaker 2 I decided I needed a car. Oh, no, yeah, you got a cool car.
Well, it is. Is it like a Dodge Dart or something?

Speaker 2 It's a Dodge Dart. It's the car they drive on Dragnet.
Yes, that's a good one.

Speaker 2 I wanted a car that looked like I was a narc from 1972.

Speaker 2 So I got and the thing about my,

Speaker 2 it was a Plymouth Valiant,

Speaker 2 which is the same thing as a Dodge Dart pretty much. And it was mustard yellow with a black interior, bench seats.

Speaker 2 And when you turned it off, the engine dieseled, which means it kept going.

Speaker 2 And I remember going on a date and getting out of the car to go open the door for the, for my date and opening the door. And I had turned the car off.
It was going,

Speaker 2 and then it was going,

Speaker 2 and just watching it and thinking, well, this isn't going to happen for me tonight. Well, I had a window air conditioner in the passenger side

Speaker 2 for my dates.

Speaker 2 The car's a little,

Speaker 2 it's a little side heavy.

Speaker 2 I'm trying to think of,

Speaker 2 and you know, it was really fun, which is a really nice memory for me.

Speaker 2 My

Speaker 2 hosting the Emmys, and I thought of this open that connected all the different shows that were going to be nominated.

Speaker 2 And my favorite transition, I always wanted to think of a cool way to get from one show to the next. At the time, Lost had just had its first season, was the big, you know, a huge hit, big show.

Speaker 2 Everyone's talking about it. So I wash up on the Lost.
My plane crash. I'm going to the Emmys to host.
My plane crashes.

Speaker 2 i uh wash up on the beach and i make myself i i make myself a hairdryer and uh get my pompadour going and then i

Speaker 2 walk through the jungle i meet hurley from lost he we find the what's it called the porch the hatch we find the hatch and he said we don't know what's down there and i said well i'm going to find out and i lower into the hatch and i i went to hawaii and shot this so you can i think you can look this thing up online i go down and suddenly my feet kick through something and you cut to my feet going through acoustical tile on a office ceiling.

Speaker 2 And I fall down onto Dwight's desk and it's the entire cast, that original cast of the office. Suddenly I'm in the confessional area where I'm giving my testimony, whatever.

Speaker 2 Well, you'd been, you'd actually been like our, our one celebrity guest star up to that point.

Speaker 2 You guys came to 30 Rock. We went to 30 Rock and Michael was in New York for a meeting and he was like showing all of his favorite things like his local pizza pizza place, Zabaros.

Speaker 2 And he thought he saw Tina Faye going into buttons. But it wasn't Tina Faye.
It wasn't Tina Faye, just somebody who looked vaguely like her.

Speaker 2 But then you walked by and the camera saw you, but he missed you. He missed me.
And he was, I'm going by. And I think I remember us doing like two takes.
And I came downstairs from my show.

Speaker 2 But that was magical for me because our different worlds, which are very diverse, came back together again. And you were directing me in your big hit show, uh, your second big hit show.

Speaker 2 And I was, uh, it was cool. It was really, yeah, it was like a nice happening.
Like, wait a minute, we're the same guys that

Speaker 2 maybe it's being the same age. I don't know.
There's a couple things that go like that, like the you hosting the Emmys when we want an Emmy, and there was something. Um,

Speaker 2 what were you saying right there? We were both arrested at the same time, yeah.

Speaker 2 No, but there, there's like things that

Speaker 2 things happen like that.

Speaker 2 No, but there was a lot of, there was a lot of neat little, that was a moment getting to work with you on that. And then

Speaker 2 I remembered Steve Carell.

Speaker 2 That's what I'm remembering. The upfronts.
This was hilarious. You were hosting the NBC upfronts the year that we came out.

Speaker 2 And I guess there was an enormous amount of overlap there, but this was so funny to me because this is probably inappropriate, but the show that they were really pushing hard was Father of the Pride.

Speaker 2 Do you remember this?

Speaker 2 It was the cartoon. Cartoon based on Siegfried and Roy.
And Roy had just been, it was about their tigers.

Speaker 2 It was like the idea was to take the Siegfried and Roy's tigers and do a family show about them, and it's animated.

Speaker 2 Frameworks, I think. Yeah.
And

Speaker 2 then Roy got it. Literally a month before it came out, one of the tigers nibbled on Roy's face.
Nibbled.

Speaker 2 He just had a notch.

Speaker 2 And they were like, nope, this is actually good for the show.

Speaker 2 Remember, they were just like, no. No, they cut to him, right? Like, you were on stage with all the advertisers and they decided they'd beam in Roy in bandages saying, it's okay.
It's okay.

Speaker 2 I don't have any

Speaker 2 ill will to my tiger. Yeah.
And he was to show that the tiger was with him, too.

Speaker 2 Heavily sedated.

Speaker 2 Jaw wired shut.

Speaker 2 Anyway, yeah, there were all these moments where then we were, our careers would come back together. But all this time, I'll tell you one thing is I've learned a bunch of things about Greg.

Speaker 2 One is that he doesn't want to just meet me at a restaurant and have a meal. He wants to meet me while we're doing something where our heart rate is up.
So you're always saying that.

Speaker 2 I like walking with people. I like walking with people.
I don't love having to look into people's faces when I'm talking to them. I prefer some faces are different.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 Sona, I might make an exception.

Speaker 2 Friendly face.

Speaker 2 But it's better. It seems better to walk.
Like

Speaker 2 parallel, right? It seems to talk more. Sometimes it's a little insane where I'll say it'd be really nice to sit down and I'm hungry.
I haven't eaten. You haven't eaten.

Speaker 2 We could sit down and you're like,

Speaker 2 no.

Speaker 2 I bring a bun with condiments

Speaker 2 for you.

Speaker 2 He has a big backpack filled with 33 cent buns and coleslaw and pickles.

Speaker 2 Something's never changed. Yeah, and it's just you'll, that's still what you want to do.
That's what you wanted to do in 1985. My dad always said people don't change.
They become more so.

Speaker 2 And I think that's the case. I think I think that's why that's what I like about character comedy, just to talk about that genre.

Speaker 2 I think that's what people like about it is that you feel that way about your own friends.

Speaker 2 And then to see somebody on TV, you get to know what their character is like and to see them act in character over and over again is very, you know, makes you feel like, oh, I know them.

Speaker 2 That's just like Conan. Conan's Conan going like this this with his vein popping.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Have you guys seen that? Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah. We've seen it.
I've been medicated since. Yeah, we've seen it.
Well, yeah, we were back.

Speaker 2 I mean, I don't know about you, but I've, I've enjoyed, we have a culture that,

Speaker 2 you know, says, oh, you shouldn't get getting older is not cool. It's not good.
And I just know that I'm happier now because. Well, you're older than me, though.

Speaker 2 So, yes.

Speaker 2 Yes, but I was on the lampoon first.

Speaker 2 Greg, there's a two-month

Speaker 2 April to June. It's a lot more than two months.
It's an eight-week difference between our birthdays. And Greg's favorite time of year every year is when I'm 50 and he's 49.

Speaker 2 And what he does is he calls me on my birthday and he says, how are you?

Speaker 2 Are you okay?

Speaker 2 And this goes on for eight weeks. And then my favorite thing is when that time elapses and it's his birthday, I call him up and say, ha ha.

Speaker 2 This is really cool. This, this art kind of banter, doesn't it?

Speaker 2 This is like, this is like, you got to imagine Bill Burrs doing that with his friends. Like,

Speaker 2 right? He's doing much cooler stuff. I don't think so.
He's doing much cooler things. I think this is maybe like what Jack Benny would do.

Speaker 2 Nope. With Jordan Burns.

Speaker 2 We were

Speaker 2 maybe two Mormon comedians.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I remember

Speaker 2 it was Greg. Speaking of birthdays, I'll just, we were in Westwood together.
We were walking around doing nothing. And it was Greg's birthday.
And I said, I've got a birthday present for you.

Speaker 2 Let's pretend we're firing our talent beams at each other as hard as we can. Oh, my God.
And he was like, what? And I said, just each, we'll be firing our, and I blasted you and nothing happened.

Speaker 2 Then you blasted me. And I stepped, I threw my coat off like I had been vaporized and stepped behind a light pole as if you were so much more talented than I that it vaporized me.

Speaker 2 And I remembered you were pleased.

Speaker 2 This was Conan's idea of a birthday present to me. Yeah.
To one day a year suggest that I might have some talent that

Speaker 2 I could do a joke better than I was.

Speaker 3 Was this recently or was this like it could have been recently?

Speaker 2 I was going to say.

Speaker 2 No, it's just like 1986, but it could easily have been a couple of weeks ago. Easily.

Speaker 2 I know. Nothing's nothing.

Speaker 3 That's why I'm asking.

Speaker 2 I don't know.

Speaker 3 Change that much. I was going to say,

Speaker 3 I mean, as a comedy fan, I think the reason people want Greg on here is because the fact that the two of you worked together for so long before the two of you went on to astronomical success on your own is it's very rare and it's really cool.

Speaker 3 I mean,

Speaker 3 it's cool for me to be in the room with you two just talking about this stuff.

Speaker 2 It's funny to me that

Speaker 2 because I think back to Greg just brought up, I am a

Speaker 2 some would say

Speaker 2 demonic, I have a demonic, I have various demons. And I would sit and I would be anxious.
And so I would grind my hands together.

Speaker 2 And if I, if something wasn't coming, an idea wasn't coming, I would, I would grind.

Speaker 2 Greg would lean back in his chair and he would, he thought that by whipping his head side to side, it would get, get blood into a part of his brain and create an idea. So I'd be sitting there.

Speaker 2 If you just, if there was a fly on the wall or a secret camera, it would have seen me pushing my hair through my crazy long, pushing my hands through my hair.

Speaker 2 It's very like with nail and I, yeah, the two of us. Yeah, we were just a fun reference.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 We were, I was grinding, I was grinding my hands, my eye vein, my forehead vein coming out, giant hair flying everywhere. And then Greg

Speaker 2 Greg has his eyes closed and is going,

Speaker 2 anyone who came in there would say, you got to medicate them both immediately, right? Yes. Medicate these guys.

Speaker 2 Well, I don't, I mean, usually I end these by saying, hey, excited about the new project, but you can't do that with Greg Daniels because it's last season of upload,

Speaker 2 continuation of King of the Hill. You have

Speaker 2 a new show that picks up where the office, it's the documentary crew that filmed the office has now gone forward and they're exploring this newspaper, which is tangentially related to Dunder Mifflin.

Speaker 2 Did I forget anything?

Speaker 2 I could talk about a few other things. Oh my God, it's insane.
I'm connected to this show Common Side Effects that people like. I love that show.
You know what?

Speaker 2 I haven't talked to you about Common Side Effects because you were out of town when Beckett and I binge-watched it. I didn't even know you were.

Speaker 2 I watched the first episode and loved it and then saw your name. Yes, well, I didn't know that you were involved.

Speaker 2 Mike Judge and I started an animation company about, I don't know, five, six years ago. And

Speaker 2 so we are producers. And of course, he's very involved in this because he's a voice.

Speaker 2 And it's done with this amazing animation God named Joe Bennett and Steve Healy, who is a writer on the office, who you might know. And yeah, it's a really good show.

Speaker 2 I watched it. with my daughter Nev, who loves anime.
So we watched the first one. And then again, we were like, well, the next one, then the next one, then the next one.
Absolutely fantastic.

Speaker 2 And I started watching it not knowing about your guys' involvement. But have you seen it? I absolutely love it.
I've seen the whole thing. And yeah, similar thing.

Speaker 2 I watched it because I love Scavenger's Reign, which I think

Speaker 2 did before. And the CEO, I was like, God, that sounds like Mike Judge.
Yeah. So, and then I was like, oh my God, it is.
And Greg Daniel, what is this? It's an amazing show

Speaker 2 about kind of

Speaker 2 conspiracies. It's very funny.
The animation is beautiful. It's also really sweet.
It's the best animation I've seen in a while. Incredible.
Because

Speaker 2 without giving anything away, watch Common Side Effects. And I've seen it on a bunch of lists as if you're

Speaker 2 everywhere on these lists, these critics lists of if you're not watching this, then you're an idiot. And shout out because I know you're not just a fan of upload, Daniel.
I'm obsessed with upload.

Speaker 2 Oh, thank you so much. That's so good.
The whole concept of it and like just everything about it.

Speaker 2 It's one of those shows that once the season would end, immediately Google when will the next one be out? I know. It's tough.

Speaker 2 Did you see season three? I did. Because season three is a, you know, dropped during the writers and actors strike.
Right.

Speaker 2 And I think there's a lot of fans out there that may not have seen season three.

Speaker 2 The first two seasons had a lot of, you know, push behind them. And then we weren't able to publicize season three.
So season four is the one coming out August 25th.

Speaker 2 And that is the final season, wraps up all the stories. And, you know, if you haven't seen season three, you can go check it out now.
This episode drops August 25th, too. So you can.

Speaker 2 Oh, how do you like that? Comes out today.

Speaker 2 Upload comes out today. Oh, what are we called? Winky Dink.

Speaker 2 I wonder if a publicist was involved.

Speaker 2 Greg's publicist is Greg wearing a wig.

Speaker 2 This was cut out of the treatise, I tell you. Now let's all go to Flaky Case for a bunch.

Speaker 2 Do the Mrs. Doubtfire of publicists.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that is.

Speaker 2 And I cannot end this without saying a big shout out to your parents because your parents, and I've said this before to them, but your parents. Well, they love you.
Well, they

Speaker 2 and they were, they said to me, finally, the sun, we've always wanted. Exactly.

Speaker 2 No,

Speaker 2 they let us.

Speaker 2 They still want you to go to law school, though. I know.
They think I fucked up.

Speaker 2 Your parents

Speaker 2 let us use their apartment that first crucial summer when we had no place to live. And I think if they hadn't done that, I don't know what our chances would have been.

Speaker 2 But that's where we started really working together. It got me out of Boston.
It got us both working together seriously. We wrote our packet.
We sent it off.

Speaker 2 Your parents, too, though. I I remember working out at your parents' house, and we went to see Spies Like Us.
They were not. Yo, that's right.
Boy, did we have fun. Yeah, that was a big deal.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Remember that movie? Yeah, we would see those kinds of movies. We would go see movies if we thought a girl in a bikini was in it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, she would be in the movie. Greg would see an ad somewhere, and he'd be like, there's a girl in a bikini in the movie.
We were true creeps long before the internet was invented.

Speaker 2 Spies like us, there was a girl on the poster in a full-length fur coat, and we were excited.

Speaker 2 She could see her hands. There's a nun in it, but she's a girl.

Speaker 2 I can see your hands. They poke out of the sleeves.

Speaker 2 We went and saw Witness because we went for the action.

Speaker 2 That barn was erotic.

Speaker 2 Greg, we got to do this again.

Speaker 2 This was

Speaker 2 scratched the surface. No, I'm serious.
There could be maybe 15 episodes where we talk about us in 8586 alone, and people would love that.

Speaker 2 Well, that remains to be seen. Let's see how this goes.
Well, there's a lot of talk about us alone in the 8586.

Speaker 2 You may get some comments. This was the most boring.

Speaker 2 I don't think so. Of all of them.
Adam, you can weigh in. Adam can weigh in.

Speaker 2 This is what people want to hear. Yeah, this is what they want to hear.
Sadly,

Speaker 2 sadly, it's what they want to hear. Because you know what? It makes them feel better better about themselves.

Speaker 2 Finally, you're humanized.

Speaker 2 Anyone listening to this suddenly feels like, hey,

Speaker 2 I'm a stud.

Speaker 2 These dirts didn't do anything.

Speaker 3 I have a couch.

Speaker 2 My car has air conditioning. I have an air conditioner in my car.
And I have a couch.

Speaker 2 I'm still going out with the Mrs. Fields girl.

Speaker 2 Well, Greg,

Speaker 2 you're go with God. You're killing it.
You're killing it. And I couldn't be happier for you.
Thank you. You too.
Yeah. I love the show.
And you love me. I know you love me.

Speaker 2 And you're going to end by saying you love it. I'll say it.
I'll say it. You didn't say it yet.
No. I love you, Greg.
Love you, Greg. Love you, Greg.
Yeah. Love you, Greg.
All right, love you, Back.

Speaker 2 Peace out, Tupac.

Speaker 2 Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend with Conan O'Brien, Sonom Obsession, and Matt Gorley. Produced by me, Matt Gorley.
Executive produced by Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and Nick Liao.

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