Danny McBride

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Speaker 5 Hi, my name is Danny McBride, and I feel

Speaker 5 very righteous about being

Speaker 3 Carlin O'Brien's friend. Nice, nice.

Speaker 4 And a little plug for the series, Righteous Gemstones.

Speaker 3 I like it. That was very well done.
Thought out.

Speaker 3 folly's here hear the yell back to school ring the bell brand new shoes walking blues climb the fence books and pens i can tell that we are gonna need friends

Speaker 3 yes i can tell that we are gonna need friends

Speaker 4 hey there welcome to colon o'brian needs a friend joined here customarily by uh sodom obsession mad gorley good to see you both

Speaker 4 to see you uh Very excited about our guest today. Normally, we don't talk about the guest in this part of the segment, but we just taped with the guest,

Speaker 4 Danny McBride. And Danny McBride, I'm walking him out.
We had a great time. It's a really fun interview.
I love this interview, and we've been wanting to get him for a long time.

Speaker 4 And we're walking out on the way out. He went, hey, man, I got a gift for you that I brought for you.
And I didn't know what it was going to be.

Speaker 4 And he's fishing around in his pocket and he takes out what looks at first like a very expensive pen. And then he said, it's a dick light.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 it's a light that shines a penis

Speaker 4 onto things.

Speaker 3 What?

Speaker 4 It shines a penis, I believe, onto.

Speaker 3 Oh, I see it. Yeah, yeah.
It's a little guy.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I've had girls say that to me. What?

Speaker 3 Oh, I see it.

Speaker 4 Do you want to try shining it on the wall so we can get it?

Speaker 2 I don't think it's. Does it not turn off?

Speaker 3 Yeah, there it is. Yeah, Caroline.

Speaker 2 Oh, a dick.

Speaker 3 Where? Right on the wall. I see it.
It's right there.

Speaker 4 I don't see it. I don't see the dick.

Speaker 3 Oh, there it is. Yes.
Yay!

Speaker 4 There's never been more call for her. That's what she said, but I'll leave it at that.

Speaker 3 There you go.

Speaker 4 Yeah, so anyway, this is what Danny McBride gave me. At first, I thought he was giving me a Mont Blanc pen, you know, and I thought, oh, I can't accept this, but this is what he brought me.
And

Speaker 4 I can now shine a cartoon penis

Speaker 4 on anything at any time. What are you going to do with that?

Speaker 3 What are you doing?

Speaker 4 I'm going to the opera tonight, downtown, and I'm going to make sure that there's a penis head on.

Speaker 2 That's a cute little dick.

Speaker 2 I thought it was a vape pen.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I didn't know what to expect. I didn't expect this.

Speaker 5 I thought it was a dick pen.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Oh, that's cute.

Speaker 4 Yeah, not since Johnson biographer Robert Carroll have I been given a dick pen, I guess.

Speaker 3 This is nice. You can use it for drunken frat parties when you don't want to leave like permanent Sharpie on somebody's face.

Speaker 4 You know, it's nice. It's considerate.
Yeah. You don't want to draw, and also the time it goes into.
Here, you play with it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Yeah, you two at drunken frat parties.

Speaker 3 Let me just ask. Oh, seriously.
What is that nice?

Speaker 4 I guess Danny McBride brought a gift, and it is the kind of gift that a lot of his characters would probably have in their pocket. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Sorry, this just recalled, and you can cut this part, but I just remember not too long ago, Jamie Fox got into a fight because I guess he was at a dinner somewhere publicly, and somebody from upstairs was shining one of these pins.

Speaker 3 Why would you edit that out? I don't know if we want to put

Speaker 3 business out there, but what are you talking about? I just

Speaker 2 shining like, well, well, because it is like a laser pointer.

Speaker 3 The headline is, and this is from TMZ, it's a Jamie Fox laser penis pointer sparked dinner altercation. Beef with jackass crew.

Speaker 4 Oh.

Speaker 4 Oh, so Jamie Foxx is somewhere, and the jackass crew is above him

Speaker 4 at a separate area of the bar restaurant. Still at it.
And they're shining

Speaker 4 a penis light so that a penis shows up on Jamie Foxx. He becomes enraged.

Speaker 3 Mr. Chow's in Beverly Hills.
Oh, that's a, wow.

Speaker 4 You know, that's a fancy restaurant. And if I go to Mr.
Chow's in Beverly Hills, which I don't, I'm not allowed in because of my own dick light incident several years ago.

Speaker 4 No, but if I went there and someone was doing that to me, I mean, that's the last place I would think that would happen. But anyway,

Speaker 2 it's a laser pointer, though.

Speaker 2 It's not really a flashlight. It's a.

Speaker 4 No, no, it's a laser pointer, but

Speaker 4 when deployed, it makes this,

Speaker 4 I guess, very cartoonish-looking male genitalia. Yeah.
And then you can shine it on people.

Speaker 3 All that to say, be careful, or else you're going to get your ass beat.

Speaker 3 What's that? What do you say? All that to say, just be careful where you point that.

Speaker 4 Because what happens? Is that considered an insult?

Speaker 3 To some people, it depends.

Speaker 2 It depends.

Speaker 3 It could also be an invitation. You know, like, hey, see you from across the room.
Click, clack.

Speaker 4 You know, like.

Speaker 3 Or it's like you're going to be shot with a dick sniper gun.

Speaker 4 You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 4 There's a sniper who's going to fire a dildo at you.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Like a skyscraper.
But it's going to be like, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 It's the aiming mechanism for a dildo.

Speaker 3 A dildo gun. Dildo.
Okay, sure.

Speaker 4 Anyway, it's a gift.

Speaker 4 Guests don't often bring a gift, and

Speaker 4 I appreciate this.

Speaker 3 And we could count on one hand. Jimmy Kimmel brought barbecue.
Right. Randall Park brought like cheap liquor store whiskey.
No! Wait a minute. No.

Speaker 3 I thought that was that.

Speaker 2 And he brought it. Cool it.

Speaker 3 That was part of its charm. He went to the liquor store and got like snacks and cheap.
Okay, well, maybe

Speaker 4 present it a little better the next time. He also brought a drawing he did of me in a nice little frame, which is one of the worst drawings of me I've ever seen.
Terrible.

Speaker 3 Beastie Boys brought fruit tarts.

Speaker 3 I didn't know that. Yeah.
Billie Eilish and Phineas sent a bunch of milks afterwards. That's right.

Speaker 5 Different kinds of milks. Every kind of milk.
Every kind of milks.

Speaker 3 Kaylee Foco sent us little equestrian mugs with candies in them.

Speaker 2 And she sent it to the two of us. Like, why didn't I get a dick laser pointer?

Speaker 4 Yeah. Well, I think it's probably

Speaker 4 PC for you get a dick.

Speaker 3 dick you get a vagina one. Yeah.
Oh, those are

Speaker 3 geez.

Speaker 3 Those are harder to find because they're hotter tickets.

Speaker 3 Nobody wants that. Nobody wants that.

Speaker 3 So,

Speaker 3 yeah.

Speaker 4 No, it's, it happens every now and then.

Speaker 5 A,

Speaker 4 oh, no, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. He brought, remember, he gave me 65 acres of land in Austria.

Speaker 3 What? Yeah.

Speaker 3 What? Yeah.

Speaker 3 This is for you.

Speaker 3 It's land in Austria. I hope you enjoy it.
Remember that?

Speaker 4 And I've seen it. It's beautiful.
65 acres up in the Alps. It's incredible.
Yeah, it's amazing. Lucky.
Yeah. Well, I mean, but you know what? I say that Danny McBride dick lighter, 50-50.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 Oh, Chris Martin gave you a

Speaker 3 honey. And honey as well.
Yes. For Liza, that Dakota that was for Liza.
That's right. Honey.

Speaker 4 That's right. That's right.
He gave me like it's almost mandolin-sized tiny little guitar. And

Speaker 4 he wrote on it, and I play that at home. It's really nice.
It's got a nice, bright tone. That's right.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 you weren't there for that. No.
No. No, that's the one where I went to Chris Martin.

Speaker 4 Lovely fellow, by the way.

Speaker 3 I bet. He is.
Real nice.

Speaker 2 What do you know? No. No idea.
We didn't get anything.

Speaker 4 Yeah, that's kind of the way it should be.

Speaker 3 He also bought us lunch. Oh, fuck you.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Sorry.

Speaker 4 Was it just a big pot of honey?

Speaker 3 No, they're delicious sandwiches and cookies.

Speaker 3 And we all ate there in the sunshine. And he gave us pins.
He all gave us little love pins.

Speaker 3 Oh, that's true. Yeah, he really cult goes.
He gave us a lot of cool stuff.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and then he gave us robes to wear.

Speaker 3 Yeah, he gave us those makes ropes.

Speaker 4 And then he told us that, yeah, we had to live in a certain compound for a while. It was amazing.

Speaker 3 Chris Martin compound.

Speaker 4 Julia Louis Dreyfus, deviled eggs. No.
I just made that up. Now I'm making them up.
That's a funny makeup. I like those make some up.

Speaker 4 Michelle Obama gave me a scrimshaw.

Speaker 4 She gave me a scrimshaw that she had made of a three-masted schooner on a whale's tooth, which is pretty cool.

Speaker 4 So that was fun. It was a really nice one to have.

Speaker 3 We've stopped talking in hopes that you'll move it along. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I'm just going to pretend I'm looking for something.

Speaker 3 I might need a tissue.

Speaker 4 Al Pacino gave me a grill for my teeth.

Speaker 3 It says thug life on it. Remember that?

Speaker 4 And then he took me to the dentist and the dentist put it on.

Speaker 2 He went went with you to the dentist. That's so nice.

Speaker 3 He's like, well, just

Speaker 3 all.

Speaker 3 What is this impression?

Speaker 4 That was him. He was melting.
I didn't realize he was made of ice cream. My guest today, we should get into it, right?

Speaker 4 My guest today, as you know, is a hilarious writer, producer, and actor, also a very generous man.

Speaker 4 And he's the force behind such shows is Eastbound and Down, Vice Principals and The Righteous Gemstones, which is currently airing its fourth season on Max.

Speaker 4 And this is a man we've wanted to talk to for a while. I've met him before, of course, because I travel in those waters,

Speaker 4 celebrity waters. But you guys, everyone here has been so jazzed.

Speaker 3 Danny McBride, welcome.

Speaker 4 You know, I have to start. This is the most obvious place to start, but I have to start with how I met you, which is one of my favorite things ever.

Speaker 4 Back in 2006, you're a complete unknown and you make this movie called The Foot Fist Way. And I think I got a call from Will Farrell who's just saying, like, this guy's really hilarious.

Speaker 4 You have to have him on the show because Adam McKay and Farrell had seen the film and they were giving it a big boost. And you got to have Danny on the show.

Speaker 4 So we booked you on the show and your concept was to come out as Fred, what's his last name? Fred Simmons. Yeah, Fred Simmons.
That's right. And we used to love to do shit like this on late night.

Speaker 4 We didn't tell the audience anything. And they don't know.
You couldn't do this now because you're Danny McBride, but they didn't know who you were. The movie was just about to come out.

Speaker 4 You're a complete unknown. So you come, I just announced you, and you were, we talked about it.
And you said, I want this announced as like, this is just the real deal.

Speaker 4 We have a guy here, and he's going to give a karate.

Speaker 5 Karate demonstration.

Speaker 4 Demonstration.

Speaker 3 And he works works with these kids.

Speaker 4 And you brought these kids out. And I'm sure you can see this on YouTube or wherever.

Speaker 4 And you come out, and what you have to remember when you watch this clip is everyone in the audience thinks, I'm totally dead serious about it. I never give up that this is.

Speaker 4 And you come out and you start trying to get the kids to break boards and do stuff. And when it's not going your way, you start yelling at them

Speaker 4 and getting really mad at them.

Speaker 4 And the kids look a little upset. And I'm looking at the crowd, and the crowd is horrified.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 4 it's great. It's one of my favorite things, one of my favorite memories of a almost 30-year late-night career is you out there going, Come on, try to get over here.
Where are you going?

Speaker 3 And you're shouting at them.

Speaker 4 It's not going well. And I think it ends with some of the kids getting upset and running away.

Speaker 4 And then you get mad and you run away. And I'll never forget, I'm standing there in studio 6A, which is where we Letterman had his late night show and I had my late night show.

Speaker 4 And you had just run away and everyone's run away. I say, I played the part of looking kind of like a confused, upset host.

Speaker 4 And I just went, okay, I guess we'll figure this out and we'll be right back. Go to commercial.
And Max and the band start to play.

Speaker 4 And these two guys who are about 19 or 20 years old are sitting right near the front row. And they go like, Conan, what the fuck?

Speaker 4 And I went, guys, I don't know.

Speaker 3 I don't know.

Speaker 4 I didn't even tell them because I thought that's breaking the rule.

Speaker 5 I didn't say to them, breaking the illusion.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 we did that. And then you do Foot Fist Way and then you go on to all this crazy success and well deserved, by the way, but Eastbound Down, Vice Principals, Righteous Gemstones, movies.

Speaker 4 Everybody knows and loves Danny McBride. And I'm thinking, there's something I really love about that moment in time when no one knew you and you're being a total asshole.

Speaker 5 I often wish I could go back and do it again.

Speaker 5 That was the first time I had ever even done press. Like I had never even had an interview before.
I'd obviously never been on a late-night show.

Speaker 5 And I remember I couldn't eat for like two days before we did it. I was so nervous about what we were doing.
And it was so much fun. And you're right.

Speaker 5 You played along and felt like we were really offending people and upsetting people. I think after I was on, we looked online and there were people who were mad about it.

Speaker 5 They were like, they should take his school away.

Speaker 3 He shouldn't be allowed to be around.

Speaker 3 He shouldn't be allowed to be around kids.

Speaker 4 And the kids were good. The kids didn't let on at all.

Speaker 3 Not at all.

Speaker 4 And it was perfect because it was kind of this mini scandal. Like this guy lost it on kids on Conan's show.

Speaker 4 It just made me so happy. And I remembered thinking, like a lot of people, and then I saw Foot Fist Way and The Foot Fist Way, and it's a really funny movie.

Speaker 4 You mine a similar area in all your different characters where you're not particularly good at something or legit, but you have this fervent belief in yourself. Oh, yeah.
So you're not good.

Speaker 4 You're trying to build up this school. You're trying to teach martial arts.

Speaker 4 But there's one film, there's one part in the movie that set everything apart for me, which is that you're trying to show in the movie who this character is.

Speaker 4 At one point, I don't know if it's your, I think it's your wife comes home or your girlfriend, she comes home and you want to play a prank on her. And I'll never forget this.

Speaker 4 And I have not gone back and looked at this since, so I'm probably misrepresenting a little bit, but your idea of a prank is you jump out with a knife and you go, ah, like that. And she goes, ah!

Speaker 4 And then you just go, ah, just a prank. Fuck you.

Speaker 3 And I'm like, who says?

Speaker 4 And I remember watching it, and this is back in 2006, so I'm sure I had like a DVD or that they gave me or something.

Speaker 4 You know, there was no, today they'd send me a link to watch the film, you know, but not a special.

Speaker 4 Yeah, but whatever. I got a brick of some kind and fed it into a machine that doesn't exist anymore.
And when you jumped out and did this, it's that's not a prank, first of all.

Speaker 4 But then when your response, when the prank is, you do it, and then you go, ah, fuck you.

Speaker 3 And I was just, it blew my mind.

Speaker 4 And I was like, I got to know, I've got to know this Danny McBride. Who is this Danny McBride?

Speaker 5 I think it's funny to play characters who have terrible senses of humor.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 No, it's,

Speaker 4 that's why I was so jazzed about you coming on the podcast is I thought I've encountered you many times in life,

Speaker 4 but we've never really had a chance to have a conversation. And I'm such a big fan of yours.
And I just want to know, how does a Danny McBride happen?

Speaker 4 You know, I mean, first of all, I know that you grew up in Georgia and rural Virginia, and you've described yourself as kind of a latchkey kid.

Speaker 5 Yes, yes.

Speaker 4 So what are you doing? You got a lot of alone time?

Speaker 5 You know, I was born in Georgia, and then I actually lived in Lompoc, California for a little bit,

Speaker 5 really young. My dad was a guard at the prison there, and so I lived on the prison reservation where all the other

Speaker 5 families of people who were working in the prison lived. We were there, I think, for maybe about four years.
And it was kind of, it was crazy. It definitely

Speaker 5 was a nutty place to live in the backyard of a

Speaker 3 prison.

Speaker 5 You know, the only time I ever really thought about it was there was one night I can remember that there was the sirens went off at the prison, and my dad came in and made my sister and I like go into their room.

Speaker 5 And we had to shut the door, and I'm like looking out the window, and he's getting his shotgun and like jumping into the back of a pickup truck with all my friends' dads.

Speaker 5 Like there was, it had been a jail break, and they were like going out to go

Speaker 3 haunt him down, I guess.

Speaker 5 But he had got transferred to the Federal Bureau of Prisons in D.C. after that.
So then we moved to Virginia and then kind of grew up there for the rest of it. Yeah.

Speaker 4 And you say you've spent a lot of time

Speaker 4 in the South, and you've sort of said that you didn't feel like you quite fit in with what some people would call redneck culture or whatever.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I think, you know, my mom was from Pennsylvania.

Speaker 5 And so even like when we moved to a place like Northern Virginia, it's like, that's everyone, you know, it's not necessarily just like only southern culture there.

Speaker 5 That was everybody moving there who worked in D.C. DC.

Speaker 4 And it's a mix.

Speaker 5 It's a mix. Yeah.

Speaker 5 And so when you would meet, when I would meet kids with like really thick southern accents, I was always like just amazed and tickled and liked it and would try to imitate them and try to act like I belong.

Speaker 5 But yeah, I just grew up, you know, living there, parents both working. That was like the beginning of cable TV and video stores.
And so I just, I loved all that stuff.

Speaker 5 I was just like, I wasn't into sports. I wasn't into anything like that.
I just really loved movies and TV and, you know, and just was obsessed with it.

Speaker 4 You would find friends that were into the same stuff, which is usually what happens.

Speaker 5 Yeah. And then it was very few.
You know, I had only like a handful of buddies who were into that stuff. I would try to make movies in my backyard with kids.

Speaker 5 And then I went to the North Carolina School of the Arts for film school. And that's where I met honestly all the guys I still work with to the day.
Jody Hill.

Speaker 5 Jody Hill, David Green, Richard Ryder, our production designer, our music supervisor. There's like, you know, it's people who I met when I was 18 years old.

Speaker 5 And we're guys who couldn't afford to go to NYU or USC. We're going to like this little state-like run school that is just beginning to have a film program.

Speaker 5 And I don't know, we always just felt like outsiders there. Like we're learning to make movies in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
It wasn't like we were so far outside the bubble. I don't know.

Speaker 5 I think it instilled in us this idea that we should all like stick together and help each other out because we were kind of living on an island so far away from all the resources that other people had.

Speaker 5 And then we just kind of kept that up through our careers.

Speaker 4 This caught my eye. One interview you said, I I realized it didn't look good in a pickup truck or like a big four-wheel drive truck.
Like that wasn't you.

Speaker 5 It was, it wasn't me. But then it was funny, like, you know, you, just because we're, I'm from the South, then, you know, we lean in with something like Kenny Powers.

Speaker 5 I think that was the perception, was that. But it was sort of like, that was sort of my love letter to all the assholes that I had grown up with.

Speaker 4 You're so good at being an asshole.

Speaker 4 You're so good at being an asshole.

Speaker 4 And this is something I want to connect with you on because, and this is going to get tricky because my team is going to weigh in on my part of this, but I think I love being a bad guy.

Speaker 4 I don't think I am. This is going to get tricky.
I think in my core, I...

Speaker 3 When do we get to chime in?

Speaker 4 I meant like a few episodes from you.

Speaker 4 Like in six months, you get to chime in.

Speaker 3 But I love,

Speaker 4 I've really enjoy it. And I see a kindred spirit where, Ike, you are a very nice guy.
You seem like a very genuine, nice person, but you relish being a dick.

Speaker 3 You just relish it.

Speaker 4 And it's fun. It's a release.

Speaker 5 It is. And, you know, I feel like with some of these characters, I feel like,

Speaker 5 you know, they're the butt of the joke.

Speaker 4 So, you know, as opposed to just delivering like one-liners and stuff, it's just sort of like embodying a complete joke, you know, like just making someone who is so silly and ridiculous in that, I don't know, I just find i i have a good time to you also have the best dismissive laugh like ah yeah i mean i'm not gonna do it but you just like you laugh at people make fun of them in in in your in your characters and uh i'm trying to think of like there's a moment in the movie about the end of the world oh this is the end this is the end and there's this great part where everyone's playing themselves and so you're danny mcbride and they come and tell you that all these different people you know like all these different stars real stars who are all playing themselves have died because it's the end of the world.

Speaker 4 And they come and tell you, they're telling you, and then they tell you that Michael Sarah is dead. You're like,

Speaker 5 nobody wants Michael Sarah dead.

Speaker 3 Yeah. No way.
And people love Michael Sarah. And you're like, ah,

Speaker 4 who fucking cares about Michael Sarah?

Speaker 3 And it was just making me, I remember that moment, like, you really popped in that movie because whose response to Michael Sarah is dead is a good laugh.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

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Speaker 3 Yeah.

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Speaker 5 I should go see this feel-good movie.

Speaker 4 Screen Rant calls it one of the year's best films, while The Hollywood Reporter calls it a warm and witty delight that balances poignancy and humor with rare delicacy. Huh.

Speaker 4 Critics are praising Fraser's performance with Next Picture calling him brilliant and describing the film as a love letter to Japan. You know, true story, when I was shooting a show in Japan,

Speaker 4 we shot a segment where I rented a family.

Speaker 5 I think we still have a picture framed with you and your family that you rented.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it was really fascinating. And it was a great experience.
And I worked out some of my issues between my father and I with my rental father. That's good.

Speaker 3 Who I don't think spoke English. But guess what? It worked out beautifully.

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Speaker 4 I got to bring this up because you and Sona have a

Speaker 4 similar fascination, which is the Goonies. And this is one, I'm older than you guys, so it skipped my generation.
When I saw the Goonies, I didn't get it.

Speaker 4 And then I know that like it's Sona has built a small religion around the Goonies.

Speaker 3 She was the Goonies. You loved Matt.
She was Matt.

Speaker 4 And you like the Goonies.

Speaker 5 I love the Goonies.

Speaker 5 I took my, before we left California and moved to Charleston, South Carolina, I took the kids up to Astoria to go see the Goonies' house, to go see The Rock, to go see the jailhouse.

Speaker 3 It was wanting to go. It was all.

Speaker 3 Oh, my God.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I love that movie. I thought it was cool.
I mean, I think it was just, you know, of the age, seeing a bunch of kids that are your age on TV and they're cursing.

Speaker 5 instantly appealed to me.

Speaker 4 I think when that movie came out, I was 22. Yeah.
And I thought these kids should be in school.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I was like, sitting in the theater, like, why aren't they?

Speaker 4 Why are they running around?

Speaker 4 A ship wouldn't be underground. You know, it just was, I shouldn't have been seeing that movie.

Speaker 5 I remember my grandfather's take on it was that it was pornographic, and it confused me about what pornographic meant. I'm like, is it?

Speaker 3 Is this pornographic? Is this.

Speaker 5 But I guess it was the language that he didn't like.

Speaker 3 It wasn't

Speaker 3 Then the kids were banging each other. I was going to say.
I was going to say.

Speaker 4 It must be a director's cut that I haven't seen.

Speaker 3 He had the laser disc.

Speaker 4 All the kids are just going at it. Oh, God.

Speaker 3 Oh, come on.

Speaker 4 Like, you haven't thought about it.

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 3 Oh, man.

Speaker 4 Fuck you.

Speaker 4 I'm channeling McBride now.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 It's funny, though. I've seen the effect because I was in, I was shooting in another country and ran into Martha Plimpton.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 And the people on my crew who are, again, 10, 15 years younger than me, their hands were shaking. Oh, yeah.
And I'm, I love Martha Plimpton. And I was like, hey, Martha, how are you?

Speaker 4 And she'd been on the show a bunch. And good to see you.
But I, but I thought, you know, it's not Prince. You know, I mean, it's, do you know what I mean? Like, it's,

Speaker 3 no, but they were all Goonies. Goonies.

Speaker 5 Goonies fans. I did this really small movie with Jodi called Legacy of a White-Tailed Deer Hunter that was like a Netflix movie.
And Josh Brolin's in it.

Speaker 5 I was like wanting to say something about Goonies like the entire time. And I just felt like, oh, I got to play cool.
And there's like one scene where I'm like almost dying in the scene.

Speaker 5 And he's like, you know, trying to help me out. And he's like, you know, don't die.
And then in the take, I was like, Goonies never say die.

Speaker 5 And he just looked at me and he's like, that's the worst delivery you've given.

Speaker 3 I was like, I know. I got scared.

Speaker 4 I could see him, too, being not too happy.

Speaker 3 He's like, you know, I've gone on to all this other amazing work. It doesn't matter.

Speaker 4 Can't keep bringing me back there. You know, there's this thread that runs through, like whether it's Eastbound Down, Vice Principals, Righteous Gemstones, they're kind of screwed up Don Quixote's.

Speaker 4 They're on this quest.

Speaker 4 And I think one of the things that makes Don Quixote and that kind of comedy or character so compelling to me is that the character fully believes it.

Speaker 4 The character is completely invested in what they're doing. And I thought it was really interesting that you made the decision that in the Righteous Gemstones, the gemstones are not con men.

Speaker 4 They are making a ton of money off of this and it's a great business and they'll do what they have to do to grow this. But at their core, they believe.

Speaker 4 And I think that's essential. It has to be that way.

Speaker 5 It has to be.

Speaker 5 I think it's what allows you to still make them feel like no matter how far into outer space the comedy might go, that there's somewhere you can kind of get back down to planet Earth by the end and kind of like have a chance to make it touching or to make somebody feel something real in it.

Speaker 5 We kind of learned that when we were writing Eastbound. I remember when we pitched it, we were so enamored with just Kenny Powers being such a shithead and treating everyone so terribly.

Speaker 5 And that was making us laugh.

Speaker 5 And then there became this moment where we were like, what would make him more interesting is if he was actually good at this and it's not like he's just a joke like if he actually had talent and part of the tragedy is he squandered it yep I remember that being like a breakthrough because that wasn't part of our initial pitch it was like yeah he flamed out but the idea that he was really talented and he had something there that that's part of why he's overstretching so much is that he's like squandered something that that was in him that he kind of abused and I don't know it just was a eye-opener that like you know you can make jokes with these characters but if you can kind of like actually give them something real under there to to struggle with, it just ends up giving you more room to play.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and it enhances, it actually makes the jokes

Speaker 4 funnier.

Speaker 4 When I was at The Simpsons, I remembered all I was interested in was coming up with really funny ideas for stories and really funny lines for characters. That's all I cared about and good visuals.

Speaker 4 And I thought of myself as, I don't really care about story arc and stuff like that. I just want to be the hot gun in the room.

Speaker 4 I want to be, you know, I want to be, I want to come up with the stuff that it's really going to be great and cutting edge, whatever. And I remember getting talked to about, it was explained to me by

Speaker 4 Mike Reese and Al Gene. They said, you know, that it's, it's really important to James L.
Brooks and to Matt Groening and to Sam Simon.

Speaker 4 The thing that makes this work is that it's a family and they all love each other.

Speaker 4 And I remember at the time being whatever I was, 24, thinking, what? That's so lame.

Speaker 5 You know, they just watched the Goonies.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I mean, but I remember it.

Speaker 3 I remember it. Yeah.
It's possible.

Speaker 4 It's completely pornographic. Yeah.
I just didn't, I didn't understand that at all, but I went with it and then later on realized that you don't have a show if Homer doesn't care if Bart dies. Yeah.

Speaker 4 If he's that level of, yes, Homer does lots of incredibly stupid things, but he does care about his family. If he's a sociopath, you don't have a show.

Speaker 4 And if none of them, if they're all sociopaths, you don't have a show. And that's the kind of stuff that my old writing partner, Greg Daniels, who's done a million great shows,

Speaker 4 Office, Parks and Recreation, and just to name a few, but he was so good at he's funny. He can come up with really funny stuff, but he also knows that you have to care about these people as people.

Speaker 4 And I think that was one of the revelations of that Steve Carell was so brilliant at,

Speaker 4 which is he's being such an asshole. He's so misreading the room.
He's so

Speaker 4 not doing his job, but you know that he's a good person at heart. Totally.
And that is such a hard thing to do.

Speaker 4 And I think that that's, that was one of those things that resonates with me when I watch your work is I care about you.

Speaker 4 I care about the characters you're playing because you've invested them with that. Even if they're pretty,

Speaker 3 pretty terrible. Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 5 And I love like working with actors that get that.

Speaker 5 Like Edie Patterson, who plays my sister on the show, I met her on Vice Principals and instantly saw that with her, that not only can she just deliver insane punchlines, you know, that are completely lunacy, but like she has the chops to like make you care too, and to make, to hurt your feelings or to make you kind of want more for her.

Speaker 5 And I think the moment we started messing around with that kind of stuff, it just like that became what a little bit of the pool was with all the comedy.

Speaker 5 It's like, how can we surprise people by being so foul? And then weirdly underneath it all, there's like something that might resonate with people.

Speaker 4 It's a family and they are, they do care about each other. They live in this insane situation.

Speaker 3 Exactly. They're gangsters.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 They're gangsters who believe that what they're doing is righteous. Yeah.

Speaker 5 That was what was kind of crazy even starting the show is that, you know, I moved down to Charleston, South Carolina with my family about almost like eight years from ago.

Speaker 5 And I wasn't really sure what I was going to write next. And once I was there, I saw a lot of the churches there.
And I was like on the every other radio station is like a religious station.

Speaker 5 And, you know, I went to church when I was a kid. My family was pretty religious.
And it just got me thinking, like, what is church like now?

Speaker 5 And so I started like kind of doing research on these megachurches. And it just kind of instantly seemed like it was something that would be in one of our worlds.

Speaker 5 Like the idea of like these people kind of seeing themselves as a celebrity and being, you know, big shots and just the idea of saying one thing, meaning another.

Speaker 5 It just felt like it was right for what we wanted to do. But then I would look at stuff that tackles religion.

Speaker 5 And I always kind of never, I couldn't think of anything that I really liked that had done that.

Speaker 5 I was like, oh, there's something about it that is usually too cynical or it's just bashing on people's faith. And I don't know.
It just didn't seem like it was.

Speaker 5 like it was something that I wanted to do.

Speaker 5 And so, yeah, we started writing that show sort of like one of our mantras was like, you know, yeah, these guys believe and the butt of the joke is never what their belief is. It's just them.

Speaker 5 They're the butt of the joke. Their hypocrisy is what's funny and not like what they believe in.
And

Speaker 5 everybody on board the show got down with that. They were all that, that was sort of like what everyone kind of followed.
And it'd be interesting because you oftentimes would see stuff.

Speaker 5 People would come with things, whether it's production design or anything that might push things too much. Like, oh, I think the joke here is that it's Jesus.

Speaker 5 And maybe that's like not where we should get the joke from. It should get the thought process behind someone, you know, is more funny than just cheap shots, I guess.

Speaker 4 Yeah, you don't want to to be punching down. You don't be making fun of the faith.
You want to be looking at these people, which it is a family. They live on this ridiculous compound.

Speaker 4 You know, I mean, I'm a big Walton Goggins fan, and I'm curious how you two came together.

Speaker 4 I know you were on vice principles.

Speaker 3 Yeah, Walton, you know,

Speaker 5 I had seen Walton in the Shield, and Walton came in and read for Eastbound.

Speaker 5 It was the, I think it was the third season, and we ended up casting Sudakis in that role.

Speaker 5 He was like Kenny Power's best friend, but I mean, I always, I mean, it was just, you know, not because Walton didn't do a good job reading, but it was just like, I think we already had our mindset on Sudaikis.

Speaker 5 And, but Walton just stuck in my brain forever after that when he came in. I was like, God damn, that guy was so funny when he, you know, and so unexpected.

Speaker 5 And I had bumped into him a few other times through the years. And then when I wrote Vice Principals, he just came to my mind that he was, you know, that I would like to spend some time with him.

Speaker 5 And I felt like this was a side that he hadn't really shown people. And in all of his work, there's a comedic undertone to all of it.
You know, he's just naturally funny.

Speaker 5 And so, yeah, it was just kind of awesome.

Speaker 5 I sent him that script, the pilot, and he called me back later on that afternoon and was just like doing the Lee Russell voice, which is the character he played at Boston Principles.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I was like, this is going to be fun.

Speaker 4 He was here.

Speaker 4 He did the podcast. And do you remember this? He came and he was, I think he was flying back and forth a lot to Thailand for White Lotus

Speaker 4 at the time. And so he was tired.
I came in and his people said,

Speaker 4 Walton just needs to sleep for 25 minutes and then he'll be okay to do the podcast. So he was in that room that I just saw you in and there's a couch there and he just lay down like a vampire

Speaker 4 and like put his hands over his chest and instantly went out and slept for exactly 25 minutes

Speaker 4 and and then came, and then they like reactivated the,

Speaker 3 you know,

Speaker 3 reactivate Goggins.

Speaker 4 And he like sat up

Speaker 4 and he came in and he was great in the podcast and then probably said, now I need 17 minutes.

Speaker 4 There's something I've always thought about in comedy, which is one of my favorite characters, I always go back to him all the time, is Peter Sellers. Inspector Clusaux and the Pink Panther movies.

Speaker 4 And those movies were a huge deal to me because my dad would take me to see those films and I never saw my dad laugh that hard.

Speaker 4 And I would be laughing, but also notice clocking my dad laughing so hard. And I thought they were fantastic.
So I introduced them to my son, and we watched these movies.

Speaker 4 And it took me a long time to realize what makes it work is that Clousseau, he is deadly serious.

Speaker 5 Totally. Yeah, we never, weirdly, we never approach any of it like it is a comedy.

Speaker 5 Like we, even when we talk to the, you know, the production designers and all this stuff, we, we, we approach it as if it's like so serious. And then that just makes it so much funnier.

Speaker 5 I remember even when we sold Eastbound, you know, they were trying to talk to us about shooting it all digitally and everything.

Speaker 5 And for us, it was like, no, we like fought really hard to shoot on like Super 16. And then even the other seasons were on 35 millimeter film.
And it was like, there was no real reason to do that.

Speaker 5 But for us, it was all part of the aesthetic of like, we can't treat this like it's just something cheap. You know, it needs to be approached.

Speaker 5 as if it has scope and grandeur and then all these jokes and all this ridiculousness will will play then you know Yeah, you're shooting it.

Speaker 4 It's like you have to go in with the intent that we're making, I'm David Lean and I'm making Lawrence of Arabia.

Speaker 5 That's it.

Speaker 4 Wait a minute. What's the topic again?

Speaker 3 Don't worry about that. That's it.

Speaker 4 And I think that that comes through. It's funny how

Speaker 4 you talk about the way people want things shot. I've heard that some

Speaker 4 producers, some executives want things to be bright and colorful if it's a comedy. They actually want it to be brighter because they want to let you know that it's a comedy.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 As opposed to trusting that you'll figure out that what's happening is very funny. Yeah.

Speaker 4 And more so if some, I think, if things are a little dark or if there's a grayness to it.

Speaker 5 It's so true. I remember us hearing that, that like, you know, oh, you need to get a comedy DP.
And we were just like, what, what the hell is that? You know?

Speaker 5 And to me, it was like, no, it seems like, you know, we don't want to play into any of this stuff. There's not like a way to shoot it.

Speaker 5 And, you know, yeah, for us, that always, it felt like if you're filming something, you should use all the tools that come with filming something.

Speaker 5 You should be able to know when to make it dark or when to make it light. You should know when to make it beautiful or when to make it ominous and scary.

Speaker 5 And why would you strip all of those things away just to kind of light something bland so that the jokes play better?

Speaker 5 It just, it felt like it was missing out on what the advantages are of doing something filmed.

Speaker 4 So I'm curious, you live, you don't live here. You don't live here.
And we're in Los Angeles right now.

Speaker 5 In your office, no, I've never lived here.

Speaker 3 There was a year.

Speaker 3 There was a year where you were going through a little bit of a rough pass.

Speaker 3 Okay? 2022.

Speaker 5 I remember. And

Speaker 3 you lived here.

Speaker 5 You found me in the bottom of the pool that you took out.

Speaker 4 When we bought this podcast studio, there was a little pool out there. And the first thing I said was, that pool goes.

Speaker 3 And so does Jackie.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you have the Jack Hammering. Yeah, exactly.
And that guy, McBride, get him out of here.

Speaker 4 But

Speaker 4 yeah, I just, it's interesting because I know there are people I really admire. Zach Galifanakis is another one who he doesn't live here in L.A.

Speaker 4 and he's very resolute about, no, I'm going to live with my people, my life.

Speaker 4 It's not. a rejection of L.A.
It's just, no, I'll do the work here, but I want to go.

Speaker 4 In your case, it's Charleston, South Carolina. Yeah.
Which is, by the way, I've been there several times and I'm a history buff.

Speaker 4 I was telling you before we started the podcast that I've been there and taken the tours and absolutely, I think it'd be a dream to live there.

Speaker 5 It's insane. You know, I'd never even been there until we shot vice principals and really just fell in love with the place.
And

Speaker 5 I had small kids at the time. They're still small.
They'll never grow.

Speaker 3 I won't let that.

Speaker 3 You know, it helps if you feed them. We'll see.

Speaker 5 But my wife was from Los Angeles. I loved living out here.
I mean, I was here for almost 20 years and, you know, I loved it here.

Speaker 5 But I definitely kind of saw that my kids, if I kept them here, it wasn't like they would have a bad life, but it was like there would just be elements of my life that I feel like they wouldn't be able to experience.

Speaker 5 Like, there was something free about being able to get on your bike and just like cruise through your neighborhood and stay gone until the you know the sun went down.

Speaker 5 And I knew, like, when we're living up on Malholland, I wasn't exactly trusting my six-year-old son to go on a bike and just come back when the sun comes down.

Speaker 3 Go down Malhoen at 60 miles an hour, unable to stop.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 There's the old Manson house.

Speaker 5 But I just wanted, I wanted them to have a little taste of that. When we went to shoot vice principals there, I was seeing it in real time.
They were getting it.

Speaker 5 They were having more independence than I had ever had with them here. Like they were able to hang out with friends and it wasn't like we were overseeing it or like coordinating a play date.

Speaker 5 It was like just kind of naturally happening. And so I just kind of wanted that.
I thought it was, it'd be cool for them. And yeah, so that kind of motivated us moving there.

Speaker 5 And then luckily, a lot of the guys I work with, they all were kind of at the same point in their lives where they had young kids and were kind of a little like helpless about how to raise kids here.

Speaker 5 Everyone had come from small towns. And so it was an adjustment.
And everyone just kind of decided to go down together. It was like, I think we went to the other side.

Speaker 4 Wait, so you live in like a community with your friends.

Speaker 3 Yeah, we all do.

Speaker 4 Some people call that a cult.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 We allow others in. You know, there is no, but we moved there with like, honestly, like Jodi Hill, David Green, he's got a place there.
Like,

Speaker 5 yeah, John Kachuri, Jeff Frowley, all these other writers from the show, we all moved there the same summer and set up shop. And yeah, it's been almost eight years now.
That's amazing.

Speaker 5 Yeah, it's been a lot of fun. We didn't have to make new friends.

Speaker 3 We were able just to keep the ones that we've always known.

Speaker 4 You can't, at a certain point, you can't make new friends.

Speaker 5 It's too much effort.

Speaker 3 Which is great for this podcast and its title.

Speaker 4 Have I really made friends with any of them?

Speaker 3 It's true.

Speaker 4 I reject. The minute the podcast is over, I tell him, get out of here.

Speaker 4 I won't see you again.

Speaker 4 It's all a scam. You know, I have to ask you about working with John Goodman because

Speaker 4 he's one of my favorite people.

Speaker 4 I mean, I'm just thinking of all of the iconic roles he's played. So much great work with the Cohen brothers.
And he was the first guest on my late night show. Oh, wow.
September 13th, 1993.

Speaker 4 And I ran into him recently on an elevator. I hadn't seen him in years.
I was like, hello, John. He was like, hello.
And I said, remember, you're my first guest.

Speaker 4 And he said, yes, you, I believe, you know, the way he can talk, he's very serious. He said, I,

Speaker 3 you,

Speaker 4 you, George went canceled. So you, I was your second choice.
And that was not the case. He was misremembering.
He remembered that.

Speaker 3 But the problem is he misremembered it.

Speaker 4 Yeah, he misremembered it, which was, no, he he was our first choice.

Speaker 4 And we wanted someone who we knew would be really fun and friendly and go along with all the weird stuff we wanted to do.

Speaker 4 And that we put George Wendt in the audience to challenge him to leg wrestling. And that was just to show people how weird our show was going to be.
We wanted to do that right off the bat.

Speaker 4 So that was always the plan. And now somehow he's got it switched in his mind that, and I remembered, then he got off the elevator and I never got a chance to

Speaker 4 straighten him out. That like, no, no, no, you were the first choice.
George Went was the plant in the audience, but he's lost a time now.

Speaker 5 He, uh, you know, and maybe it's good for him, but he, I feel like he underestimates how much influence and how great he is.

Speaker 5 You know, I would like be surprised when, you know, I would sense that he was nervous or worried that he wasn't doing good. You're like, are you kidding me?

Speaker 3 It's like

Speaker 5 blowing everyone here out of the water.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 5 He's incredible. I mean, I always,

Speaker 5 I've always loved him. And, you know, he

Speaker 5 was like making, he was in TV when TV wasn't really really that cool.

Speaker 5 And, you know, he's like, you know, on your TV and then he still can go do the Cohen brothers and he can, you know, and he's, everything is so funny. And he's lasted for so long.

Speaker 5 And he still can make you laugh and can still do stuff that's challenging. I mean, I never thought in a million years we would get him on this show.
It was like completely like a lark.

Speaker 4 Also, because he's such a good actor, he, his, he can, I mean, his menace

Speaker 4 on the gemstones, his sense of purpose and drive. And I've, he's built this

Speaker 4 thing. And you get the sense that he really has, and that it comes from something real.

Speaker 5 Yeah, totally.

Speaker 4 You need a real actor to do that.

Speaker 5 You do. And if we wouldn't have had someone like him, I don't think the show would have worked.
I think you needed that legitimacy, even for us. Like,

Speaker 5 I think I could have done it.

Speaker 5 There were thoughts that maybe you could.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you could have done it. No, I, I, I'm no,

Speaker 3 George Went. No, no,

Speaker 5 George Went for sure.

Speaker 4 No, I, I, I, I, in all fairness, fairness, I think, yeah, you've got a Goodman or a Conan.

Speaker 5 Often brought up at the same time, yeah.

Speaker 4 Often in the same sense.

Speaker 3 Cohen brothers

Speaker 4 just don't have my number. They don't know how to get a hold of me.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's the problem.

Speaker 4 I'm very hard to get a hold of.

Speaker 3 Yeah, very hard.

Speaker 4 I have a flip phone. Not everyone has the number.

Speaker 3 That's what it is.

Speaker 4 You said that you like these guys, these characters.

Speaker 4 They see themselves as something they are not, which is, I think, also, it's part of the same line of what we've been talking about, but people who don't see themselves as what they really are,

Speaker 4 but their belief in themselves is genuine.

Speaker 5 Their egos are just unchecked. Yeah, they, I just feel like that, you know, when you want to make the character the butt of the joke, that's like the most,

Speaker 5 I don't know, that's like the richest ground of just, you know, the tragedy of like seeing someone telegraphing how they want you to see them and then knowing that they're not that.

Speaker 5 It just always makes me laugh.

Speaker 4 So you're in South Carolina now. Is it weird to come into LA and like, okay, now I'm driving around the 405 freeway and I'm going to do press and things like that?

Speaker 5 You're, I mean, it's funny. I mean, I would, I lived here 20 years, drive everywhere, and then instantly I feel like I'm an old person who's never been around a moving car before.

Speaker 3 It's like, there's so many cars. It's everything's so fast.
Right.

Speaker 5 You do slow down. I mean, everything is so slow there that you, it does.
It kind of, I'm like, wow, it's wild that I was used to this pace.

Speaker 4 It's nuts. One of the things I love about Charleston is when you go downtown, they have the old gas lamps.

Speaker 4 It's like you've gone back in time. You know, they've done a really good job of preserving.
And so I would think it's about as not L.A. as you can get to me is gas lanterns in the streets.

Speaker 3 Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 5 Just burning in the middle of the day, just burning propane.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 Someone over there has a butter churn.

Speaker 4 I'm curious, like, when something like Gemstones is done, you've wrapped it, and you're going to unveil this new season, are you on to the next thing already? Are you?

Speaker 5 You know, I'm after I leave here, I go sound mix the very last episode. So after today, I will be officially unemployed.
I'm done.

Speaker 5 I don't, I mean, I have ideas what I want to do, but I really just kind of want to just chill out for a little bit and catch a breath.

Speaker 5 I mean, I've been on Gemstones full-time now for like seven years.

Speaker 5 I mean, it doesn't seem like that because there was COVID and there was a strike, but it's, I'm so monogamous when I get on something like this. I like live and breathe it.

Speaker 5 I mean, when we're not in between seasons, seasons, I'm literally just like reading the Bible, watching sermons, just trying to find material and find inspiration.

Speaker 5 And so I think after a while, you kind of do have to just shut it off because even in my head, if I were to think of ideas now, they all would feel similar to gemstones because my brain is so trained on finding humor and finding comedy that like fits that mold.

Speaker 5 So I think in a way, you kind of have to just like let it go and kind of stop.

Speaker 4 thinking about it for a while and then kind of so okay so what do you do to relax what are your what are your fun things? What's your happy place?

Speaker 5 I need to get hobbies. I don't have hobbies, unfortunately.
I've tried a few different ones in Charleston, and none of them have really stopped. What did you try?

Speaker 5 When I first got there, I was like, maybe I'm going to be somebody who's like into grilling. I'll be into big green eggs and

Speaker 5 learning how to master the big green egg. And I had that for a while.

Speaker 3 And then I was like, I'm going to have a heart attack with all these fucking steaks I'm making that no one's eating. And like

Speaker 5 trying to dial the temperature in just right. It's like my wife's like, yeah, big deal.

Speaker 3 You kept it at 250 degrees for 12 hours like you've mastered it

Speaker 5 but this pork it falls right on

Speaker 3 my heart feels tight my chest

Speaker 5 i got a i got a like a little box you know i have a dock and so i got a boston whale where like everybody in uh in that area like is out you gotta have a boat right well i thought i did and then i realized i'm not a i'm not a boat person i don't like owning it i uh i would be responsible for everybody's like safety i would get out there and i would just have the worst time because because I'm just sort of like so worried that I'm going to kill someone.

Speaker 5 And I was like, this feels like someone else should be driving this thing. I should be able just to drink and like let the wind blow my hair back.
And so, and it's also boats are so much maintenance.

Speaker 5 It's like you finish going out and everyone gets to go home and then you got to sit around for like an hour and a half hosing the fucking thing down and like flushing the engine out.

Speaker 5 I'm like, I don't need nude chores. I don't, I don't like this.
So I like let the boat rot for like an hour and a half, like a year and a half at the end of my dock.

Speaker 5 I would just look at it and just, it would make me me feel terrible. So I'm like, I have no desire to use that thing I've spent money on.
And I would watch it fill with rainwater and

Speaker 3 barnacles grow on it.

Speaker 5 It was just a constant reminder of like, you know, you don't have hobbies. You don't even like going out on boats.
And so I sold that and got rid of that. And

Speaker 5 yeah, now that's what I'll do. I'll try to find what the next.

Speaker 4 I love that you have a camouflage shirt.

Speaker 5 And anyone who sees this on video, you're wearing a total camouflage hunting shirt, but I doubt you need it i doubt that you do anything that requires you to wear a camouflage i i want to but yeah i don't have it in me even even even honestly even fishing to an extent like everyone fishes down there it's like all right i'll get into fishing we have this koi pond in our front yard and there was like we inherited when i bought the place like koi fish there and then this like fucking heron this bird started coming every day would be on our roof would come down and it would pick up the koi fish but the koi fish are too big for it to eat so they would just drop them on the on the leave them on the side of the ground.

Speaker 5 I would come home and there'd always be dead fish like leading up there.

Speaker 3 And I uh

Speaker 3 birds just laughing at me.

Speaker 5 I started a straight-up war with this bird where it was, it would, the same one would come every day. And my wife and I had all these tricks.

Speaker 5 Like I had like left my sons, and again, I like left my son's like remote control car down there. And then every time I'd see it, I would turn the car on to chase it away.

Speaker 5 And then that evolved into just like nerf guns where like that thing would come and I would just like run out there, like lighting it up. and

Speaker 3 it knew who I was.

Speaker 3 I think you found your hobby.

Speaker 3 You have a hobby. Yeah, it's fighting birds, saving boyfriends.

Speaker 4 I'm fighting birds without hurting them. Did you win? Did you get rid of them?

Speaker 5 Well, you know what was funny? It's like one day I went out there and I did, I lit that bird up.

Speaker 3 I made full contact with that thing.

Speaker 5 It flew over the hedge and I went back in the house like, got him. The bird flew around to the back of the house and started banging on the window and shit all over the back of my desk.

Speaker 3 It was like, oh, he knew. He knew.
He knew. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Cut you the bird at a gun store.

Speaker 3 Yeah, he's going to even score. Yeah,

Speaker 3 I bring a nerf gun. You bring a real gun.

Speaker 5 Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 5 But I think protecting those fish, there was a few times where I saved a few, where I got home and the fish was still flopping on the ground and I saw the scared look in its eye as I put it back in the water.

Speaker 5 I was like, I can never fish now. I've ruined it for myself.

Speaker 4 I'm determined now to go. I'm going to go to Charleston, South Carolina, and hang out and get the word out that I'm ready to hang with Danny McBride.

Speaker 4 But then it's just going to be really fun that you don't reach out to me. And I know that you're just like six miles away.

Speaker 5 No, I'll reach out to you.

Speaker 4 But what would we do?

Speaker 5 Well, there's a few good bars down the street from my house. We probably ride around in golf carts.

Speaker 3 Maybe we go on a ghost tour.

Speaker 3 I would love that.

Speaker 5 I, I, you know, the area where I live, people cruise around on golf carts, and there's no hotels or anything out there. It gets pretty dark after night.

Speaker 5 And like, I love to just like put put the kids in the golf cart and I literally just like play the soundtrack to the shining and turn the lights of the golf cart off and just cruise around the island.

Speaker 3 It is, it is more frightening than what you could imagine. Yeah.
So, so how are they doing, these kids?

Speaker 3 They worry about

Speaker 3 therapy.

Speaker 4 You said they haven't really grown much and they're terrified all the time.

Speaker 5 I remember when we shot Land of the Lost here in Los Angeles. We were, that's like one of the only movies I ever worked on that shot on a back lot.

Speaker 5 That was what I thought all of Hollywood would be. It would be like you'd be on a on a, you know,

Speaker 5 the studio and every movie would be shooting there. I think we were the only movie that was shooting in town that time on the Universal lot.
And we would have all these late nights and

Speaker 5 Will Farrell and Yorma and I would get in golf carts at the like late at night on like, you know, on these night shoots and we would drive through Universal Studios when it was closed down and we would pull up in front of the psycho house.

Speaker 5 And one by one, you'd have to go up by yourself and knock on the door.

Speaker 3 And it seems so silly. It was scary as shit.

Speaker 3 Oh, my God. That does sound scary.
It was. It was.

Speaker 5 You would freak yourself out. There was no way after you knocked that you would not run back to the golf cart where everybody was.

Speaker 3 And then quickly make some jokes like it wasn't that scary.

Speaker 2 Hey, don't they have the mom in the window?

Speaker 2 Yeah, they have her like a mannequin, not real.

Speaker 3 Oh, that might be a working act.

Speaker 4 I think it's a working actress.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 3 She's there 24-7.

Speaker 3 It's so creepy. Yeah.

Speaker 4 She was on like silver spoons.

Speaker 4 And now that's what she does.

Speaker 4 This has been an absolute blast. Absolute blast.
You've been on our,

Speaker 4 how do we get, how do we get this man? He's never in LA. Just, I'm so happy that you were able to get yourself in here and

Speaker 4 met met you in 2006 and right away was an instant fan. Like, and then everything just has, from a distance, I've just watched everything blow up since for you in all the best ways.

Speaker 4 And I'm really happy. And

Speaker 4 Righteous Gemstones is hilarious and great. And this is the final season?

Speaker 5 This is the final season. Wrapped it up this season.
Yep.

Speaker 5 I think it's our best one yet. I know everyone has to say that to get people to tune in, but I really do think that.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Well, I am so happy for you, and I look forward to the day that I intrude on you in South Carolina.

Speaker 5 Please come down, I'll give you the real tour.

Speaker 4 I will, and seriously, I mean, I'm a huge, uh, I've been to Fort Sumter, I'm a real nerd. I've toured the, I know a little bit too much about, and I've gone to the South and I've told people this.

Speaker 4 I took my wife on, when we were newly married, I took her on a drive through Georgia to look at

Speaker 3 Civil War

Speaker 4 landmarks, and the marriage almost ended there.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 4 anyway,

Speaker 4 thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 3 Seriously. Seriously.

Speaker 4 And get a hobby.

Speaker 3 I'll try to.

Speaker 4 Amazon is known for its products, but I also really love their customer reviews.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 4 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 4 Here's a review for the board game Twister.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 When all of my extremities ended up on the same color, my body went into full spasm.

Speaker 3 This is harrowing.

Speaker 4 My arms turned to jelly and my spine broke in half.

Speaker 4 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 4 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.

Speaker 4 Anyway, whatever you're looking for this holiday, find the perfect gift on Amazon.

Speaker 4 I was up half the night last night watching a World Series game. It was very exciting.
I have to tell you,

Speaker 4 I don't care what your sport is, tailgates or watching parties or, you know, whatever, if you're watching Hi Lie,

Speaker 4 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 4 It's a taste you can depend on because Miller time is always a good time. I'm out there throwing the pig pig skin around.
I used to just throw pig skin. Really? Chunks of pig skin.
Wow.

Speaker 4 I never had a football.

Speaker 5 Where would you find the pig?

Speaker 4 Oh, I went to a farmer. Oh, good.
Yeah, and the pig had fallen into a shredder.

Speaker 4 Anyway, back to Miller Light.

Speaker 4 Just hawking pigskin around. I like to raise a Merrill Light in the air and celebrate a great pass,

Speaker 4 throwing chunks of pig skin around.

Speaker 4 One of those nail biters. Last night's game, incredible nail biter with the Dodgers.
Incredible. So anyway, Miller Light, great taste, 96 calories.

Speaker 4 Go to Merrill Light.com slash Conan to find delivery options near you, or you can pick up some Merrill Light pretty much anywhere they sell beer.

Speaker 4 And if they don't sell Merrill Light, turn to them and say, sir, you do not sell beer. It's Miller time.

Speaker 4 Celebrate responsibly, Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.

Speaker 3 A number of episodes ago, we talked about how you lost your beloved and I think long-term leather jacket. What? Well, weren't you in a long-term relationship with this leather jacket?

Speaker 2 I bought it and I wore it a lot.

Speaker 4 Got you burying the lead, which is she lost her house.

Speaker 4 She lost her house and her leather jacket was in the house.

Speaker 3 This is the first I've heard of that. Okay, yeah.

Speaker 4 You're a real sensitive guy.

Speaker 3 My house burned down.

Speaker 4 You lost your home in the Altadena fire. Yes.
And

Speaker 4 you are still living, you're living with your parents?

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 3 Okay, well, we won't get into that too much.

Speaker 4 There's some stress there, probably. It's okay.
It's all good. I love your mom.
I love your dad.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 4 But your mom can be a bit much.

Speaker 3 Oh, wow.

Speaker 2 Oh, we're going to clip it and show her.

Speaker 3 Quoting you. Yeah, what? I love her.

Speaker 4 I don't know what you're saying.

Speaker 2 What did you say? What did you say?

Speaker 3 I love her.

Speaker 4 Okay. And I was quoting you when you said she, you know, you and your mom clash sometimes.

Speaker 2 We, we do.

Speaker 4 You're two strong personalities because you love each other very much.

Speaker 2 I adore my mom, but we have a generational divide and a

Speaker 2 cultural divide.

Speaker 3 There you go.

Speaker 4 So anyway, house burns down.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 4 And among the things you lost was the leather jacket you've been wearing since the day I met you. Yeah.
You've had that jacket forever. And sometimes I would kid you about the jacket because

Speaker 4 you would wear it every day. You wouldn't mix it up too much.
Okay.

Speaker 2 I loved that jacket.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and I'm sorry it went. And what did I do?

Speaker 2 What did I do?

Speaker 3 I forget.

Speaker 3 I forget what I did. Oh, okay, then I guess we have nothing else to talk about.

Speaker 2 Oh, okay. Well, okay, so it's still, they still make this jacket.
And I found it, and you very generously offered to buy me a new one.

Speaker 2 So I went with your credit card, which I have, and I bought a new jacket for myself.

Speaker 4 I got an alert that this, they were very suspicious of you using my card.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 2 And then, but then I realized what I did was I just bought you like

Speaker 3 ammo.

Speaker 2 for me. Yes.
And that's not, I don't know why I did that.

Speaker 3 That's why he did it in the first place.

Speaker 4 There was a jacket I made fun of, and then it was lost in this tragic tragic fire, and I needed the jacket replaced immediately so I could make fun of the jacket.

Speaker 3 So I could make fun of the jacket. I was like, because you're sitting here in a leather jacket.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 It's like I'm sitting with Mad Max and the Red Baron right now. This is amazing.

Speaker 4 Oh, no. The problem is not that it's a leather jacket.
I love leather jackets. It's just that she only wore one jacket, and I swear to God, you wore it to everything.

Speaker 2 I did wear it to, it fit me like a glove. It was like stretched in this.

Speaker 4 When your kids were christened in that beautiful church, and I was the godfather, and it was a beautiful beautiful ceremony, I'm wearing a suit, Liza's wearing a dress, people are wearing robes, you're there wearing Dr.

Speaker 4 Zayas' jacket from.

Speaker 2 Okay, come on. It's so cool.
Don't I look cool in it, though?

Speaker 4 No one looks cool who says, don't I look cool?

Speaker 2 Yes, I do, though. I look so cool.

Speaker 4 It's a great jacket, and I'm happy. And you know what? I'm happy that you got this back.

Speaker 2 Yeah, me too. I am too.

Speaker 3 It really felt like

Speaker 2 a lot of the things that we lost, we've been trying to find versions of it.

Speaker 4 Oh, there is one thing in particular. Isn't there that you guys lost a poster? What is it?

Speaker 2 A cell, an animation cell from King of the Hill

Speaker 2 that Tack loved. And so it's the first time I've ever really done this.

Speaker 3 I asked Greg Daniels, my old writing partner.

Speaker 2 Who's your old writing and who I've who I've gotten to know really well over the last few years? And not few years, but

Speaker 2 a very long time I've been working for you. And I asked him, I said, do you have any or know where I could get one?

Speaker 2 And he gave Tack the exact one that he lost, and it felt like it was just coming back from the dead.

Speaker 4 Greg, you're a mensch,

Speaker 4 he's a really good guy.

Speaker 2 It was really nice.

Speaker 4 Shout out to Greg Daniels. Yes, that's so nice.
So, you're so slowly you're going to rebuild your life by getting back some of the objects.

Speaker 3 I lost a hundred thousand dollars.

Speaker 4 That's a lie.

Speaker 3 You're just lying now.

Speaker 3 And guess what?

Speaker 4 It had real sentimental value.

Speaker 3 It was all special bills.

Speaker 4 I remember you, you that uh paper bag of $100,000 with $100,000 meant so much to you.

Speaker 3 It's so special to me. And I really wish I had it again.
Well, I guess there's one thing we can do. What are you going to do?

Speaker 3 Some Monopoly boards.

Speaker 3 Get a lot of fake money and put it together.

Speaker 4 No, but I bet you there are a bunch of things we could go through and get back.

Speaker 2 I hope so. I mean, it does feel like you're bringing things back from the dead, which is cool.
This jacket meant a lot. I loved this jacket, and I really thank you for doing it.

Speaker 2 Although I do know you're just doing it so you can keep the riff going.

Speaker 4 No, that's part of the reason I did it, but there's 10% of it.

Speaker 4 90% was keep the riff going so I can continue to bash away at you. And then there's 10%, which is I love you and I want you to be happy.

Speaker 3 That's very nice.

Speaker 4 Thank you, Snake. But 90% total

Speaker 4 guns blazing.

Speaker 3 I know, gotta get you.

Speaker 4 I know, I know. Make you feel bad.

Speaker 3 Sure. I know.
I know.

Speaker 3 So you had a happy ending.

Speaker 4 And did you, you didn't lose anything in the fire, did you?

Speaker 3 I'm sorry to say I didn't.

Speaker 4 It is weird. There's a survivor's guilt.

Speaker 3 Of course there is.

Speaker 3 I'm telling you, there is.

Speaker 4 There is totally a survivor's guilt in L.A. right now.

Speaker 4 I mean, I've talked about this, but I've been very open about the fact that fire got really close to my house and filled it with smoke. And I'm still not back in it.

Speaker 4 We've been out since the fire, so it's been months now since I've lived in my house. And it all has to get cleaned out and everything.
But you can't,

Speaker 4 there's nothing I, I'm just still, I'm grateful. I'm very grateful that my house still exists.

Speaker 3 And if I ever catch myself saying to anybody, my sneakers, my Brooks sneakers got a little,

Speaker 3 they, they have good art support for when I run in, well, they got a little smoky.

Speaker 3 And so they have to be wiped off because they got smoky.

Speaker 4 And then you're, you're probably standing next to somebody who lost their house.

Speaker 3 Yeah. So keep my mouth shut.
You lost your house. You can't go back to your house.
That's why I feel like I have guilt all around, survivor's guilt all around.

Speaker 3 I feel like I want to sleep in a tent in my front yard. You should.
No, that's going too far. I should.
I can't. It would feel really smooth.

Speaker 4 I wouldn't chill it with smoke.

Speaker 4 Toxic smoke. Well, I'm glad.
I'm glad that we got that back, and we'll get other things back. Thank you, sir.

Speaker 2 Thank you.

Speaker 4 Peace out, Tupac.

Speaker 3 Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend with Conan O'Brien, Sonom Obsession, and Matt Gorley.

Speaker 5 Produced by me, Matt Gorley.

Speaker 3 Executive produced by Adam Sachs, Jeff Fross, and Nick Liao. Theme song by The White Stripes.
Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino.

Speaker 5 Take it away, Jimmy.

Speaker 3 Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair, and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples. Engineering and Mixing by Eduardo Perez and Brendan Burns.

Speaker 3 Additional production support by Mars Melnick. Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and Britt Kahn.

Speaker 3 You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts, and you might find your review read on a future episode. Got a question for Conan? Call the Team Cocoa Hotline at 669-587-2847 and leave a message.

Speaker 3 It too could be featured on a future episode. You can also get three free months of SiriusXM when you sign up at seriousxm.com/slash Conan.

Speaker 3 And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.

Speaker 7 As the daughter of immigrants, financial struggles were part of my everyday reality. In high school, I became homeless and had to live in a woman's shelter.

Speaker 7 Thankfully, being an APIA McDonald's scholar enabled me to attend college and begin a new chapter in my life. And now, my reality is filled with endless possibilities.

Speaker 4 McDonald's has awarded nearly $4 million through APIA scholars to support students. Learn more at APANext.com.

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