Dane Cook

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Speaker 1 We have on our show today, Dana dane cook a familiar name

Speaker 2 then my name d a n e and i am d a n a for all you fans out there

Speaker 1 you put the d n a in d a n a

Speaker 1 this one's interesting because his journey i he was the first person to really use social media to create a fan base with with a platform called myspace from the early knots my space i like and uh and then he he had so much to talk about because there's so many things going on he did a ton of movies he's still doing movies he's sort of gotten to the place now where he had ups and downs and he's like

Speaker 1 i'm good with everything and i just want to try to do the stuff i really really want to do and he puts his own money into stuff and he's doing he's really it was super uh interesting to talk to i didn't know a lot of what he was telling us.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, he really made the leap pretty quickly to stadiums, you know, which people are doing a lot now, you know, arenas. Yeah, he was giant.

Speaker 1 He was one of the first to go. It was Dice, I remember it was big.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Dice earlier than him. And then he came out new, and he was just like

Speaker 2 huge. And

Speaker 2 he goes, he's a very open, real person because he's had some ups and downs. He had some legal issues that he'll address in terms of family members.
And it's very, very interesting interview.

Speaker 2 He's very,

Speaker 2 he's a smart, clever person.

Speaker 1 I'm just kind of similar to the Matt Reif, where good-looking dude comes out, blows up in comedy, and has a big career. And

Speaker 1 so hear his story. Stick around, listen to this.
Here he is, Dane Cook.

Speaker 2 Hey, wow,

Speaker 2 the nutty professor is our guest today. And he is, is, you know, Dane is surrounded by incredibly, he's got a stormtrooper.
I'm just painting a picture, man. Mass.
You are.

Speaker 2 Are you a science fiction guy like me or fantasy, Marvel? What do you?

Speaker 5 When I see this, I look like an intern at Bad Robot.

Speaker 2 But at least they have a restaurant in Bad Robot, has a full-scale restaurant. You've been there, right?

Speaker 2 You're just walking along. Yeah.

Speaker 5 I've seen it. And, you know, it wasn't until I looked at your benign benign background that I look like I'm Mr.
Magorium's magical emporium over here. So it's a little too busy.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, look at Dane and I is pretty blank, but you at least are in a

Speaker 2 hotel. I'm in a hotel in New York City.

Speaker 5 You guys look like you're in like one of those

Speaker 5 off-the-grid doctor's office.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Dane is in an undisclosed holiday in green ribbon.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I'm near a buffet.
It's 10 minutes. It's 10 feet away, but you're not going to see it.
But

Speaker 2 let's cook it up.

Speaker 2 I want to have a phrase. I just thought of it.
Let's cook it up.

Speaker 1 Let's get it cooking.

Speaker 2 I'll ask you later: how do we blow up this podcast?

Speaker 2 I mean, we need, we're doing really well, but I want to know, because you're the master of that, the original, we can start there if you want, or your childhood. But the first

Speaker 2 comedian that I know of that

Speaker 2 identified social media

Speaker 2 broadband, MySpace,

Speaker 2 and then decided instead of hanging out after the show, would go back and work social media. And then became the biggest comedian on planet Earth.

Speaker 5 Right.

Speaker 5 You know, I was a, I was a, I was a dork, basically. I was a dork that loved comedy.
And I felt like on stage at night, there was this great opportunity to kind of be whoever you wanted to be, right?

Speaker 5 You could create this persona. You could, you know, have this this kind of rambunctious facade.

Speaker 5 And then I would go home and for 23 hours of the day through the entire terrible 90s of road work, I was just miserable. I was really, really like languishing, miserable.

Speaker 5 And like, how can you make this other time of the day work? And how could my geekdom work for me somehow? I love computers.

Speaker 5 I saw the internet as kind of like, I don't know, like some kind of portal, you know, to college kids that were, you know, online late at night downloading porn or whatever they were looking for.

Speaker 1 It's like Facebook or something. You start to go, I got to get to these guys.

Speaker 2 But dial-up, the energy of dial-up in those days. Waiting.

Speaker 2 That's just my wife. Good night.
That's all I got. I don't have anything else.
That's it. Good night.
That's not bad.

Speaker 1 That's her yelling at you. No, that's her just talking like Denny.

Speaker 2 Yes, dear.

Speaker 2 But anyway, so that was,

Speaker 2 you're a worker bee then. You're a nerd and not willing, you're willing to put the work in because that is what's pre-broadband.
You got to really

Speaker 2 work it.

Speaker 5 Hey, listen, by 98, everybody made it pretty clear to me if you didn't have like a Saturday Night Live or an HBO, you know, young comedian special, if you didn't have one of those two things,

Speaker 5 you know, you weren't going to zeitgeist. You weren't invited to the party.
And I, it's funny because I had an SNL moment where they wanted me to come in. It was right after Adam had left the show.

Speaker 5 And I'm sure you guys, you know, remember right around that transition and they were, they were looking at me. They were coming down to see me in the village.

Speaker 5 I was just doing gigs down there, going back and forth from Boston. And on my way to my audition at SNL, I had a full-on panic attack.
I sat on a bench outside of Rockefeller Plaza.

Speaker 5 And I didn't go in. I actually called my manager.
I said,

Speaker 5 I'm not, I can't do it. And he's like, why? They're all waiting for you.
They want to see you. They're looking for something to fill that, you know, that void.

Speaker 2 Void, yeah.

Speaker 5 And I blew it on the day because I was like, too,

Speaker 5 I also, I also knew from a few friends that had been on the show that it was, that it was more confrontational. And I was very beta at that time.

Speaker 5 And I was like, I'm not going to be able to fight for skits. I can barely, you know, get my food order out at a, at a, you know, for a waiter at lunch.
I'm not going to be able to survive at SNL.

Speaker 1 Two men enter.

Speaker 2 What?

Speaker 2 You see that? That's read-through. I just want for who's ever listening, young men or whatever, how do you go from a beta to at least your stage persona became alpha-alpha?

Speaker 5 Yeah. It was interesting because, so my, my dad was a BC graduate and an all-around athlete.
You know, he played every sport. He boxed.
He was just a stud.

Speaker 5 And my mom was like, you know, there wasn't an Al-Anon meeting that she didn't want to sit in. You know, she was just like real super sensitive, very like introvert.
And I got a lot of that.

Speaker 5 I was, I was kind of like an introvert, but inside I was very competitive because of my dad's side.

Speaker 5 So it wasn't until I got on stage and started feeling like, oh, wait, what if I, what if I took this version of myself and just kind of brought that into the.

Speaker 5 the meek shell inherit the earth 23 hours of the day and see if I can live in the middle. So that's kind of where it all got built up from.

Speaker 1 Well, it wasn't getting you anywhere. I mean, especially that SNL thing is such an interesting story that I was there.
I mean, I was still, I stayed a year after Sandler.

Speaker 1 So I would have been probably someone you would have seen there of my final year. But wow.
And how, and don't your people turn their back on you a little after that, your management agents or no?

Speaker 5 Yeah, they were not, they were not happy.

Speaker 5 I definitely felt like I let myself down because you got to realize two years later, I'm, you know, I'm somewhere in, you know, Tampa at a D-level gig and I'm watching Fallon, who, you know,

Speaker 5 you know, got this.

Speaker 1 He's doing what you could have been doing.

Speaker 2 You were right there with him. You would have been maybe a castmate with him.
I don't know.

Speaker 5 Right. I was just, I was out there going, oh, no.

Speaker 5 Oh, wow. I think I, I think I missed out that opportunity.
And of course, at that point, there was, there was nothing else. There was just.

Speaker 5 There was just the next gig where at that point, they didn't care that I was coming and they didn't care care when I left. It was those gigs.

Speaker 2 Just a flash in my head. Did you ever play the rib tickler in Minneapolis? No, I did not.
That's a real club. It was kind of a fun club.

Speaker 2 It's pretty grim out there when you're, I mean, but at that point, at least in your head, you're going to be a professional. We're making a living.
You're not leaving.

Speaker 2 You're just going to find a way, right? You're not one of those people who quit for a month or something.

Speaker 5 I'm doing a lot of college gigs.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 5 So at the time, I'm out there. I'm doing a lot of gigs.
I remember the kind of the gang that was out there at the time was like, I would do gigs with Chappelle, Tracy Morgan,

Speaker 5 who else was out there at that time?

Speaker 5 Just a flock of like, you know, great up-and-coming comedians that were killing it. But I felt like everybody else sort of had a trajectory and mine was already like,

Speaker 5 you know. Every time I walked by that bench at Rockefeller Plaza, I was like, ah, I'm an asshole.
I can't believe I screwed it.

Speaker 1 You're like, I had mental problems before. It was cool.
You were way ahead of the game there with ADD.

Speaker 2 If you were now, you'd Instagram that or you'd live stream it. I'm right outside Rockefeller Center.
My dream's right there. I can't open the door, gang.
You're right. Full-blown panic attack.

Speaker 2 That would have blown up globally.

Speaker 1 That probably would have been a good time. On your personal day, I blame SNL and I'm going to come in there.
They owe me. You would get that day back somehow because it is tricky to do that.
I mean,

Speaker 1 it's hard because I'm sorry. I'm going to be answering all your questions for you.
Please. What it is, is you

Speaker 1 do that and now you're going to do rib ticklers and all these gigs, which we've all done. And you're going, where am I?

Speaker 1 What is my goal now? Because I just kind of missed one goal. So it must be tough.

Speaker 5 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 5 It definitely was. I mean, it was like

Speaker 5 there was, I never wanted to stop. You know, I always was like, okay, I guess there's some other avenue.

Speaker 5 But it wasn't till like the end of the 90s into, you know, my space space and social media that quite literally uh long story short i was sitting in front of the computer one day i start posting stuff on my space and i just was putting up clips and talking to fans and really like just nerding out all day like eating fruit loops and just responding to people

Speaker 2 you know that were uh

Speaker 5 you know, in between classes. And then finally, I remember I saw it go from a few hundred people to like 2,000 followers in like a matter of days.

Speaker 5 And I was sitting in my office, or I say my office, but I was sitting on a futon, which was also in my kitchen, which was also

Speaker 5 in a basement.

Speaker 2 We all had a futon at some point. Right.

Speaker 1 The dreaded futon is your kitchen.

Speaker 5 And then I finally looked and I was like, damn, dude, I just hit 2,000 followers. And I'm serious when I say, I'm like, I think this is it.
I was like, I think I could build like a little

Speaker 5 army. through this and I just didn't let up.
For four years, I answered everything that anybody sent me. I would send them links and you name it.

Speaker 5 I like, I was friends with everybody for a while who wrote me.

Speaker 2 And what was, how big did that first wave get? Where did you get to in four years? I mean, this is early, early social media, 100,000 or

Speaker 5 it was seven, it was seven million followers by the time, you know, MySpace was say defunct. But in that seven million,

Speaker 2 like 2004, five? Yes.

Speaker 5 Yeah. And so it was crazy.

Speaker 1 billion today.

Speaker 5 Right. It really, it's almost like being like, you know, on the Celtics in the 80s and realizing, right, those guys probably only made $40,000 a year versus like,

Speaker 5 but I could click one button and sell out, you know, you name at that point, like a field house at a college or even a small arena back in 03, 04. I could click one click.

Speaker 5 And the algorithm just did it.

Speaker 1 You just say tickets for sale going on sale right now. Done.

Speaker 5 No radio, no good morning, Cincinnati, like nothing. Just click.

Speaker 1 No zoo crew.

Speaker 5 No zoo crew.

Speaker 2 You got, I'm going to use the word oracle, pioneer. I think young people listening understand

Speaker 2 the first, maybe the first human being. I don't know who your peers were, but I know in the world of comedy, you started this.
So some of the toxicity of social media, I kind of put on you.

Speaker 2 Let's turn this around a little bit. You're a problem.

Speaker 2 That's extraordinary. In the meanwhile, I'm just interested in the process of the lane of becoming great,

Speaker 2 not just good as a stand-up. You know what I mean? Just that work ethic and all that, those reps.

Speaker 5 Yeah, well, if you start knowing I can click one button and get everybody's attention, I better be delivering something that's worthy because if you have that many people walking away from your shitty thing,

Speaker 5 they're they're going to tell everybody. So, yeah,

Speaker 1 you have to be good. There's no way you're doing those gigs and not having satisfied customers because

Speaker 1 it wouldn't last a minute. You know, of course, everything ebbs and flows, but.

Speaker 2 A great mindset is I have to kill. And so that means the weaker bits go overboard.
I have to kill. And they're all coming to see me and they're my friends.

Speaker 2 So I get this pressure.

Speaker 5 I would be in the village every night and I would try to book six to upwards of 10 gigs in a night so I could work, work, work.

Speaker 5 I'd be going to sell Boston Comedy Club, the WA, come up to Stand-Up New York, come back down to Dangerfields, back over to the cellar for the midnight show.

Speaker 5 Just do that circle, man, all night long to try to figure out what works, what's funny.

Speaker 2 Okay, that's lesson number two for young people listening. That's just work.

Speaker 5 What's your demographic here, Dana? When we say young people listening, we're talking 40.

Speaker 2 No, anything

Speaker 2 under 60.

Speaker 2 90 yeah most of most of the demographic is 83.

Speaker 2 um i don't know why i come from the 80s we have all you elderly residents at mediplex nursing home in lexington listen up any aspiring stand-ups who've been in it 35 years are having trouble in their mid 50s landing a paying gig you're you're getting truth to power here right now we are cooking it i like when we have paul mccartney on and be like get somebody famous i'm like he is famous i know

Speaker 1 get some get somebody from tick tock it's like we try to do both, but you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 We're like old school, the people that actually did something, you know, and I think TikTok is something and all that stuff is something, but we sort of are more old school about it.

Speaker 1 But listen, we'll take whatever. We're trying to bend a little bit on this.

Speaker 1 So you do that. So you're far from Burger King, where you, where you worked once, and I fucking still miss Burger King.
I love it so much.

Speaker 2 Did you grow up really just middle class, basically?

Speaker 5 Or were you? Yeah. Yeah, we grew up,

Speaker 5 I say in my act because I thought we were lower middle class. And I learned in my teens we were upper poor.

Speaker 5 My mom was just, you know,

Speaker 5 cleaning toilets and doing housekeeping and just doing anything she could to keep us in a, you know, in a pretty good spot. But yeah,

Speaker 1 Southey, you Southie?

Speaker 5 We were in Allington, which I don't even know how we

Speaker 5 managed that, but, you know, we were in this system. We were food stamps and Salvation Army used to come over and have to, you know, fill our furnace up with, you know, with oil.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 We were almost drafted by the side.

Speaker 2 You were lower middle class.

Speaker 2 I'm just saying it's where you came from, where you went is always startling.

Speaker 5 Yeah, we, we were like a week-to-week family, but it was kind of also kind of really, it was really bonkers because, you know, we would, my mom, it took me a lot of years to realize like, my mom just was, you know, full tilt committed to like, even if you're desperate and you, you're ass out, you got to like like still go for your dreams.

Speaker 5 So my mom, even though here we are, we're in the system and we're like trying to figure out week to week, she'd come home with like a used Corvette and be like, look what I bought.

Speaker 5 And I was like, how, how, how can we even do that, mom?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 5 We can't. She's like, I know we're going to have to work harder.
She would just be like, we got to all work another job so I can have this

Speaker 5 fun car.

Speaker 5 And it was just like, she set a precedent, which obviously I took into my stand-up, which is like, you just got to, you can have what you want, even in the lean years, the tough years, but you got to work triple overtime.

Speaker 5 You got to, you got to, right? Give it everything you got.

Speaker 2 You got to pay for it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 We also found out, I just looked up, she did have an OnlyFans.

Speaker 5 She did have an OnlyFans.

Speaker 2 First for you.

Speaker 5 She would have been doing like a Jane Fonda workout, but like in a slinky outfit back in the day.

Speaker 1 I'm in my Barbarella outfit today.

Speaker 2 I don't want to go on a tangent. That's funny.
I can't get a handle on the money in OnlyFans. This Olympic athlete, I think it's a gymnast from some country.
And so she's got 320,000 followers.

Speaker 2 You had 7 million, but she's monetizing $20 a month. And it's not pornographic, just cute stuff.
So it's $6.3 million a year, loves her new job. So anyway, that's kind of fascinating.
But

Speaker 2 let's go back to you.

Speaker 1 Let's go back to our grind of comedy.

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Speaker 2 What was the biggest? I mean, Retaliation was seemed in 2005 was sort of a rocket, a super rocket.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 5 Yeah,

Speaker 5 that was my second album.

Speaker 5 And it was kind of funny because when I put the first album out, Comedy Central, who did my record deal, they were like, the comedy album is dead.

Speaker 5 So they gave me this great bad deal where they were, because they were like, it's just a calling card.

Speaker 5 And no one's even, I remember they told me in the meeting, if, if eight, if you move 8,000 units, you know, pre-digital, you know, we'll be, we'll be shocked.

Speaker 5 And I was telling them, you, I got a lot of fans, man. I got colleges all over the country.

Speaker 5 So I made a great deal with Comedy Central where I was like, okay, if I sell over a hundred thousand, you'll give me like two dollars and fifty cents per album.

Speaker 5 And they were like, okay, but if you don't, we keep everything. And I was like, deal.
And then retaliation, I think, sold like, I don't know, 102,000 copies in that first week. And that

Speaker 5 was like a big win for me and my fan because I was like, okay, now I'm putting a little bit of cashiola away so I can really live this dream.

Speaker 1 They got to listen. That's crazy because when you can play the, play that like that, where they don't believe in it.
And you like have almost a secret weapon going. Wait, do you guys not?

Speaker 1 I'm trying to let you know.

Speaker 2 That's a shrewd business move. And that went platinum, right? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 Double plat, man. Double plat.
But I did it as a double album because I knew I would go gold or maybe, you know, possibly please platinum.

Speaker 5 If you have two discs at a, in a unit back then, that counted as two sales. So I hit that 500,000.

Speaker 5 It was like my little cheat way in by doing a double comedy album. Oh,

Speaker 5 I could hit that precedent

Speaker 5 sooner if I was going to hit it at all.

Speaker 1 And was that, I'm sorry to interrupt. Was that, because you did Premium Blend, which is something I hear in a lot of intros to comics.
And I don't do it. I did half hour comedy.

Speaker 1 And then there's, we've all done stand-up spotlight, you know, evening at the improv. So it's all that kind of stuff.
But those can help you blow up a little bit.

Speaker 1 So did premium blem move the needle or what was really the needle mover other than you're just doing it on the road?

Speaker 5 Yeah, it was premium blends. It was,

Speaker 5 you know,

Speaker 5 they had like three or four of those kind of like, not stand-up, stand-up, that was like early 90s, but you know, those things where they would clipify you and then you would end up interstitials or whatever on their network or shorties watching shorties and all these kinds of things.

Speaker 5 But more than anything,

Speaker 2 I want to be on that.

Speaker 5 More than anything, it was, it was like, it didn't occur to me until you know i was maybe 26 27 i was like i was like oh i'm i'm growing up with a new generation of comedy fans if i just stay here and expand with these premium blends and stuff i'm i'm just going to build up that you know initial uh squad of of familiarity and uh i didn't know i mean did i know it was going to go to you know, Madison Square Gardens and all that?

Speaker 5 No, I hoped it was a dream, but it was definitely like when it started happening, I was like, oh shit, this is gonna, this is gonna be in the never-been-done-before business. Unbelievable.

Speaker 1 Madison Square Garden is such a benchmark for comedians because it's very rare. I think they said Dice did it before you.

Speaker 2 Well, it was incredibly rare when Dane did it because just Dice and then you, right? And that Madison Square Garden? Just you were the second.

Speaker 2 And you did two shows in one night or two shows back to back?

Speaker 5 Yeah, I think it was two shows. Yeah, an eight and a ten.
Somehow we managed to.

Speaker 2 Eight and a ten?

Speaker 2 It's 20,000. It takes five hours to load them out and in.

Speaker 1 Oh, y'all, did you do TD Gardens? I'm sure Boston, you would have.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, that was

Speaker 5 dude. That was vicious.
So, like, Spade, it was crazy because Vicious Circle, that was the first arena anything. And HBO, when they were like, all right, we want to give you your moment.

Speaker 5 What do you want to do? And I was like,

Speaker 5 I want to see if Marty Cullener, who I was a fan of and I knew had directed Carlin's first special 1978 on location, Carlin in the Round. And so I went and pitched HBO.

Speaker 5 Could I meet with Marty and could we do it in the round? And we could, we could do it at Boston Garden because that's my New England affiliate.

Speaker 5 All my fans from now 15 years, they somehow agreed to pay for that and do it. And that was the first arena that I ever played was that Vicious Circle show.

Speaker 5 That was the first night I ever played an arena in the round like that.

Speaker 2 Wow. And I watched that.
I watched that when it first came out. And I was like, damn.
Yeah. This guy, who is this guy? I mean, the commitment.

Speaker 2 There's the bit you, is it the one where you do breaking and entering?

Speaker 2 And if someone asked me to ask you this question, is that a true story where you just say to your friends, let's break and enter somewhere tonight? Or was it an embellishment of a true story?

Speaker 5 Yeah, no, no, it was, it was.

Speaker 5 It was cobbled together from two or three different times where what we would do is there was always like construction sites and new homes being built around where we were.

Speaker 5 So we'd sneak through the woods and then we would be,

Speaker 5 we'd get into these places and, you know, whatever,

Speaker 5 you know, just like, you know, literally just like hang out in these abandoned or being built homes.

Speaker 5 And years later, I remember in like junior high school in my first, you know, notebook of like possible ideas for

Speaker 5 sketches, I was like, I got to do something with the, with the B and E. And so that ended up in there.

Speaker 2 You have something in common with David in that you don't lean on it.

Speaker 2 Neither does David, but you both will use sound effects. And you did a lot in that particular bit, sneaking in, opening the door,

Speaker 2 all that stuff, which is a very effective thing to paint a picture.

Speaker 1 It's texture.

Speaker 2 No, it's great. I do it.
Everyone does it. It's great.

Speaker 5 Yeah, you're painting these verbal pictures and you're trying to use as many.

Speaker 5 Anything. Johnny Carson once said, you know, you use everything as a comedian.
You use everything. Something you did when you were eight, you know, you use every element in stand-up.

Speaker 5 And I guess, you know, that's what we try to do.

Speaker 1 If you don't have sing, I mean, there's when you go in SNL or stand-up, there's singing there's playing instruments all help in stand-up you know what i mean if you can put that into a bid it helps some noise helps some anything also jokes also the verbal it's all combined you're like fuck this is a highly competitive business if i have one thing i can do use it to help a bit yeah that'll use it that's is that right when you did snl because you hosted twice Is that in two years?

Speaker 5 I forget what someone told me. It was like the end of one season.
And I think I'm either back-to-back host because I opened the next season. It was like I ended the season, then maybe it was one.

Speaker 5 And then I, it was like almost like within three episodes, I hosted twice.

Speaker 1 Shit, get more famous.

Speaker 2 My gosh.

Speaker 2 I knew it.

Speaker 1 I mean, that's rare. And this year, I mean, Nate did it last year as a comedian, Nate Brigatzi.
Like, I don't know, maybe March. I don't know when, but then he came back this year.

Speaker 1 So even under a year is pretty remarkable, I think. Because when I was there, you know, it's because you could pick anybody.

Speaker 5 So it's very hard to get a double invite like that just to be able to finally do it though after the the bench incident years earlier and to finally be asked to you know come on there and host man it was like and then to be able to even just share it with you guys like i don't want to geek out too much but it's very cool because growing up watching you guys and continue to and then there i was i missed my moment but i got a second chance at like being a part of your world in in a way.

Speaker 5 You know, that was the show in seventh grade that really, for me, it was a Martin Short moment. I remember watching Martin Short do Ed Grimley.

Speaker 5 And I think that night, that episode with, you know, all of you guys and all the shenanigans, I was like, I think I kind of belong around these people.

Speaker 2 I think that's where I got to go. Definitely.
How'd you get past the bench?

Speaker 1 That's when you came and hosted. Did you hit the bench?

Speaker 2 Did you tell Lauren about the bench incidents?

Speaker 2 Did you tell anyone about it?

Speaker 5 I told him because at the time when they first were looking at me, you know, from what I understood,

Speaker 5 he was familiar. I I was on the radar.
And so, you know, I reminded him and said, I don't know, I probably

Speaker 5 kept a slot available for you guys that day because I didn't come in when you guys wanted me to, but he didn't, he didn't care too much about that.

Speaker 2 And who was, who were your playmates then? Was Tina Fay still there? Was Fallon? There was sort of a

Speaker 2 when you were hosting.

Speaker 5 Yeah, Andy was there, and Bill Hayter was on the come up. And Kristen Wig, I got to do some Target sketch, you know, with her.

Speaker 5 Yeah, man, it was, it was, it was fun. I, you know, Don Pardo was still there for the first time I came through, so I got pictures with him in the hall and got to hear him say,

Speaker 2 yeah, man, it was,

Speaker 5 it was, it was, I got to feel like I, I was horrible in a couple of things. I remember just coming off a couple of sketches being like,

Speaker 5 whoa, that was bad. Okay.

Speaker 2 I hope the next one's better because that one, I you talk about the air show, not the practice show, the air show?

Speaker 5 Yeah, yeah, the air show.

Speaker 5 I was like, I remember something, ooh something missed the mark and i how can we describe that that feeling in your body when you know you're missing and you just got to keep going yeah i know with stand-up you can call an audible mayday mayday and go to do crowd work or switch up your best bit but you're locked into a sketch and and everybody's been in sketches that die there everybody how about when you're how about when you're in a sketch and you know you're dying and then you lose the fake voice that you're trying to do

Speaker 2 right right

Speaker 2 you can't stay

Speaker 2 caution

Speaker 1 what happened to this guy hey what am i doing here where do we go oh funny yeah terrifying it's like you know you're closing i was on the road you got like a six minute closer and you needed to get to your time you start it they're not buying it you're like i think i have to do this whole fucking bit because I have nothing left and I've got to do this.

Speaker 1 And now I'm locked in and you're scrambling for a way out. It's just, that's a sketch.
And you know, know everyone else is relying on you. Eyes are darting.
You're like, oh, this is.

Speaker 2 Oh, when you have your ender, what you think is your ender to a five-minute bit and it gets nothing. So that, that, that, that, that, that.
And just like crickets.

Speaker 5 Dana, Dana, I remember times I'd be on the road.

Speaker 5 The opening bit would miss so bad,

Speaker 5 I'd go to my ender second.

Speaker 2 Oh, you closer

Speaker 5 second. And if that shit the bed, I was like, what do I do for the next 35 minutes?

Speaker 1 Holy fucking shit.

Speaker 1 I was thinking the other day, have you ever done this?

Speaker 2 We always talk about

Speaker 1 when you're a stand-up and you're

Speaker 1 bombing and there's something really rewarding about you slowly get them back. It happens sometimes on corporate gigs.
You're not really paying attention.

Speaker 1 But then you slowly, by the end, you're getting them and it's really fun.

Speaker 1 The thing that's worse is you're killing and you're losing them somehow. And you're like, what's going on? I was killing.

Speaker 1 And that's the sickest feeling because you're like, you miss three bits in a row and you're like,

Speaker 1 I cannot lose these people. There's no way.
So weird. And it has a lot of people.

Speaker 2 Especially in a big room. You know, Richard.
Hey, what I do.

Speaker 5 You want to stop and be like, honestly, sincerely, what did I do? Where did you go?

Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 I thought we were friends.

Speaker 1 I sometimes go, guys, you were the ones that laughed at the dog joke. Where are you? And they're like, ah.

Speaker 1 That was funny. This stuff sucks.

Speaker 2 But Richard Pryor said, don't reflect the energy of the audience. If they're going down, then you just get louder.
You just never sort of start to get into their rhythm.

Speaker 5 And, you know, and I don't see Dane doing that, but I did a gig with, it was me, Bill Burp, Terese O'Neill, a few guys. It was like dinner theater gig, 95.

Speaker 5 And a guy, you hear the utensils rattling. People are eating.
All you hear is like, you know, the people getting

Speaker 2 chewed. Right.

Speaker 5 Glasses being refilled with way too much ice. You're like, do you need that much ice in your water? Really? You need Arctic level ice right now?

Speaker 1 And everything noisy.

Speaker 5 Bill Burr's on stage, and you know, Bill, whatever, he's like trying to, he's trying to wrangle him.

Speaker 5 And a guy in the very back who wasn't having it threw a threw a buttered biscuit through the air, and the buttered biscuit hit butterside up and just stuck to Burr's head right here-like a buttered biscuit unicorn, Bill Burr.

Speaker 2 Stuck? Stuck right there.

Speaker 2 I'm getting hit with a fucking biscuit over here. Which biscuit?

Speaker 5 stuck in my head dude

Speaker 1 he's listening right now going you guys

Speaker 2 hi bill but it is

Speaker 5 it is fun now to talk about the i've been thinking i'd like to do like some kind of well i guess it is podcasting but it'd be fun to do like a documentary with just kind of like worst work

Speaker 5 worst hell gig moment worst

Speaker 5 What's the worst thing that ever happened on stage to where you left and you were like, why? Why am I doing this?

Speaker 2 Okay, that was my next question

Speaker 2 for you was that it for you or is there worse the most humiliating

Speaker 5 worst thing i had i had a stage collapse i used to be like i was really like

Speaker 5 huge high energy you know the first 10 years so i was like a whirling dervish i'm like i'm the tasmanian devil of comedy and i'm sweating within four minutes and it's just and i'm on a stage at the university of rhode island and it and it was one of those makeshift ones that they kind of made for the show that you feel like it's always moving a little underneath you.

Speaker 5 The legs collapsed, and the whole stage went, and I slid into the people in the front row, like under the chairs.

Speaker 5 I ended up under them.

Speaker 5 And that was pretty humiliating because then I'm like,

Speaker 5 where do I go from there? 10 minutes in after I've started swirling again.

Speaker 2 You might find this funny thing.

Speaker 2 Anybody said this before, but there was a comedian, Rick Reynolds, who was great. He was him around.

Speaker 2 Anyway, and Rick would

Speaker 2 went up one night, and sometimes the audience would razz him. So he went up, he wanted to kill.
He was all fluffed and folded. It was at the improv in San Diego or something.
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 And then within two minutes, I looked out and he was wading into the audience, fighting them, a left, a right. He wanted them to love him.
He's a big guy.

Speaker 2 He wanted them to love him, but within 90 seconds, he was doing roundhouses to the front row. I thought that was one of the greatest turns in life.

Speaker 1 He wore pants with flames on him that day.

Speaker 2 If you won't love me, I'll beat the shit out of you.

Speaker 1 You don't like that joke? How about now?

Speaker 5 There was a gig in downtown Boston where somebody projectile vomited during the show

Speaker 5 into the back of the head of the person in front of them. I wasn't on stage, but I was watching the comic.

Speaker 5 And then the person who had thrown up was the best because they throw up and everybody's like, you just hear, ah, and then that drunk person who threw up just went keep going keep going like like

Speaker 2 so still really nice about it never

Speaker 2 like let's get the attention off me it's all it's okay i'm sorry i love you dane

Speaker 5 I did almost pass out live on air at Saturday Night Live though during my first appearance. I

Speaker 5 they did a sketch where I was wearing an oversized sweater, holiday sweater, and it had all these, I don't know how they made it, but it had all these real real pieces of like you know lint the huge and uh yeah during rehearsal they were they were like floating around like you could see them in the air and what happened during rehearsal was I breathed in and one of these big lint balls went into my throat and suddenly if you ever got like a thing a cotton in your throat I couldn't fucking breathe

Speaker 5 I was terrified because I was like and I'm I'm trying to you know get it out Then during the live, I see them all floating around me.

Speaker 5 And I'm so scared that I'm going to breathe one of these things in that if you watch the sketch, I'm just doing this randomly to keep

Speaker 5 squatting. Let me tell you, just to keep lint balls from falling blocking your mind.

Speaker 1 Trying to do your German accent for the sketch.

Speaker 2 That is one thing about comedy and Saturn Live in particular. Like I was doing a club once and

Speaker 2 I just bit my tongue and I'm just bleeding. And now, Dano Flarfo, you know, stuff like that, or you're a Charlie horse or you slam your shit.

Speaker 1 Shit, slash an eye. There's so many things you can do.

Speaker 2 And then you got to go up there in pain.

Speaker 1 I mean, you have to take a dump every week introducing you. They're like,

Speaker 5 giant boner.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I always have a boner.

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Speaker 1 What about these movies? I'm going to tell me if these movies sound familiar. Do you recognize any of these names? Employee of the month.
Good luck, Chuck. My best friend.

Speaker 1 So you're starting to get a ton of movies. I remember you were getting one almost probably every year they were coming out.

Speaker 1 Any favorites or any ones?

Speaker 5 It was kind of cool because that was just, it was like I came up with these directors, producers that, you know, were just fans, had probably seen me years ago and like whatever shit gigs, but now they're, you know, fans and they're like on the come up.

Speaker 5 So they, you know, how it is. They kind of like go like, all right, I'm on the come up.
I want to, I want to, you know, do something with you. You know, you're a comic that entertained me coming up.

Speaker 5 So it was really fun. Definitely felt like I had a great era through.
It was really Lionsgate, like eight Lionsgate films, I think I did in a row.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 5 Yeah, it was a blast, man.

Speaker 5 I will tell you, like

Speaker 5 when you hit that, you know, when you're hitting your stride and you're the bell of the ball in that moment before, you know, Haterade and the spanking machine, you know, has to knock at your door.

Speaker 5 When you're at that moment and you're getting the adulation and you're not in jeers in TV Guide, you're in Jeers and TV Guide.

Speaker 2 Oh, right?

Speaker 5 It's awesome, man. It was a good run.
I had a good

Speaker 1 run. Jeers is so funny.

Speaker 2 Who's your favorite director or favorite co-star? You had favorite Jefferson there.

Speaker 2 Kate Hudson.

Speaker 5 Oh, man.

Speaker 2 Who's Hotter? Kate Hudson.

Speaker 1 Jessica Alba.

Speaker 5 I got to work with all the Jessicas.

Speaker 5 I think working with Kevin Costner on a drama I did called Mr. Bliss.

Speaker 2 Yes, I saw that movie.

Speaker 5 Loved it. I got great in that.
The time of my life.

Speaker 5 I got to work with Diane Weiss, John Mahoney, and a great gang of people on Dan in Real Life.

Speaker 5 Steve corell led that movie saw that too i got to do like comedy stuff that was just like my version of vacation or my version of the comedies of stripes and then i got to do some stuff that was um ancillary but to me just as rewarding because it was so like unex different it was just stuff that was different from comedy so it was cool yeah

Speaker 2 of course who has that i mean so so just pause for a second in your existence so you're doing these films you've got all these specials and albums and millions and

Speaker 2 you're getting really wealthy and

Speaker 2 really famous.

Speaker 2 Did it go to, I mean, how did you respond to that? Just work harder? Were you kind of numb to it? Or were you sort of, what are you?

Speaker 5 Yeah, it was like, all I ever wanted to do is take what I earned and put it back into creativity. So I didn't have like.

Speaker 5 I was just a jeans and t-shirt guy. I wasn't living, you know, I leased my car.
I wasn't doing anything that was, you know,

Speaker 5 you know what I mean? I wasn't trying to like uh

Speaker 5 live this you know lavish lifestyle i just really wanted to go okay if i can take this money and make the stuff that i want to make with my with with my you know gang coming up um but you know unfortunately things sometimes get in the way i'm i've just finished a two-year documentary where i can't talk too much about it but basically i had to put my own brother in prison in 09 because pretty much the life savings that I had up until then, he had stolen.

Speaker 5 Him and his wife were basically like behind the scenes, taking everything that I'd earned, all those movies, all those arena shows, and they were

Speaker 5 investing it for me

Speaker 5 in terrible investments.

Speaker 5 And that threw off my plan a little bit because that went from me being able to self-finance and kind of sustain outside of Hollywood.

Speaker 2 Oh, you're right. I'm back on the road.

Speaker 2 You could. So you literally went back to essentially zero.

Speaker 2 I mean, I'm not saying you didn't have 10 bucks in your pocket, but basically millions and millions of dollars goes missing and you can't get it back.

Speaker 2 I know you have a documentary, but I mean that.

Speaker 5 Millions of dollars gone. The doc will come out next year.
And basically what I'm sharing in the doc is not only like what that year of court cases was like going up against my brother,

Speaker 5 but it was really like, how can I, I'm coming off of the, I'm, I'm, I'm not, I'm no longer on that trajectory. In fact, I, for that era, it was a pretty, it was a pretty good run.

Speaker 5 So now I'm coming down the other side. Things are cooling and we're just hitting 09.
We're going to hit this terrible economy, housing crisis. And I now have a decision to make.

Speaker 5 I could take the little bit of money that I have remaining and I can invest it in renting arenas myself because no promoter in that era wanted a front because of the economy.

Speaker 5 So I spent a year taking anything I had and renting like... I was renting arenas like they were elks lodges.
I was calling arenas. Can I rent it on a Tuesday? How much? 60 grand? All right.

Speaker 5 And I would set the ticket price. And then my goal was at the end of that year, I want to be able to recoup what he took.

Speaker 5 So when I see him in court, I'm not looking at him like feeling like I'm under his thumb still.

Speaker 5 So that was a wild couple of years, man, because I went from rags, riches, rags. And then I had to figure out a way to kind of have my own little Rocky two moment.

Speaker 2 Did they, I'm sorry, don't answer these questions because I know the doc marriage is coming out, but I'm just curious, were they incompetent by investing it and losing it?

Speaker 2 Or were they actually embezzling it and enhancing the

Speaker 1 thing?

Speaker 5 Yeah, it's like both, Dana. They were like doing some things that enhanced.

Speaker 5 They were doing some things willy-nilly that were, when you see it, you're going to, it, let me tell you, this is what I'm proudest about.

Speaker 1 I will watch it.

Speaker 5 The doc,

Speaker 5 if we did our job right, it's like

Speaker 5 it's going to be slaughtered in true crime and comedy because there's a lot of funny shit, but also it's, it's pretty harrowing the level of, you know, um, sociopath and megalomaniac.

Speaker 5 And the guy that I grew up with that I love, my best friend, my older brother, like when you see who this guy was in this dock, you're going to, you, you won't believe where this goes.

Speaker 5 You, it, it gets dark, man. Yeah, I didn't even tell you the dark part.
That's just the, that's just what happened to me. Everything that kind of was happening around me.

Speaker 1 Well, also, you know,

Speaker 1 when people get

Speaker 1 a little more money, they get a little more fame and it's, you get a tighter circle because it's very hard because everyone's grabbing at you.

Speaker 1 And so you really only have a handful of people that you trust. And when that happens, that's mentally,

Speaker 1 that's such a kick in the ass because you're like, wait, I can't even turn to my family.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and resentment,

Speaker 2 from jealousy to actual resentment, David had his own issues with that, but it's kind of hit hiding in plain sight. And that would

Speaker 2 besides greed, but resentment because now his little brother this is just biblical is a superstar and so he i don't know is well is he uh how's your relationship now or is he in the documentary or

Speaker 5 um okay you'll have to wait and see on that okay that's good i mean i want you to

Speaker 5 i'm gonna watch this document teaser already i'm into it i've stayed close with my nephew his son i was always close with him he was 15 when it happened i'm still really close with my brother's son today.

Speaker 5 The doc gets into kind of where things are at now. But realistically, yes, like in that moment of like whole crush depth level of despair, this is the weird thing.

Speaker 5 The gigs are still, the fans show up. The gigs are outstanding, even though the economy, like people are trusting me with a couple of their last dollars right now in this time.

Speaker 5 But like, I remember, even though I was, I was so busted up, I still just loved comedy so much that it, I,

Speaker 5 it's, this is going to sound like so kind of hokey, but it just saved my life because I loved laughter in that time.

Speaker 5 And I knew, even in the, that moment, I knew I was like, someday, I don't know if it's going to be in 10 or 20 years, this story is awesome. This story, because it's, it's what happened.

Speaker 5 It's like a downfall moment. Everybody loves downfall.
It's a comeback moment. Everybody loves a comeback.

Speaker 1 It's a showbiz moment.

Speaker 5 It's a how, how did I do it on my own? I'm self-made, but then this thing happens. My brother's the devil.

Speaker 5 And I remember sitting in it being like, I don't know when I'm going to talk about it, but someday this will be the best story I ever tell. So I can't wait to talk about this next year.

Speaker 2 We've heard stories around this idea, like Doors Day's husband died. She was doing sitcoms.
There is no money. It's all gone, but nothing quite like this.
So you have two right now.

Speaker 2 Nobody, no comedian went on MySpace and really kind of hacked the idea of social media and just have a million followers. And now, this is your second one.

Speaker 2 Uh, and now

Speaker 1 I don't know if they're still doing it. I saw them, I saw Dane a week ago at the improv.
So, yeah, yeah, you're still getting to do what you like to do.

Speaker 1 This is a story that happened, and you have to just keep moving, of course. So, nothing you can do, but just keep moving and keep making money and doing what you like.
Yeah, um,

Speaker 2 it's and did you get more popular? Because I was going to go to this, like, this idea of

Speaker 2 like being handsome and alpha, like

Speaker 2 surrogate boyfriend, David. I'm talking to David now.

Speaker 2 But you know what? You're brand, you were, you were, and, and, um, also a great stand-up and a millionaire.

Speaker 2 But, and so, comedians are easily jealous and stuff like that, you know, like I, I had a health issue in the 90s, and I got more compliments. And that guy's great, you know.

Speaker 2 Did people suddenly kind of, you're awesome, you know, because

Speaker 2 people would get, these are just, you know, human emotions.

Speaker 1 You mean when he's a little down, are they finally being cool about?

Speaker 2 Well, you might find people going, this is a brilliant stand-up and you get more stuff because it's, you know, you're no longer.

Speaker 5 You find out who your friends are so quick, you know? Yeah, that's true. And then, and that well put.
And then everything lead.

Speaker 5 Listen, I, I even knew when I was on the come up, because it wasn't like it was overnight.

Speaker 5 It was, you know, it was a long kind of trajectory i i already had like my boston cronies my friends who are just regular folks away from the industry i've never felt like i'm really a i'm in it but i'm not of it you know i'm out here because i like the clubs and but i've never quite felt that let down

Speaker 5 by it because I knew it's that's the mechanism you know they build you up knock you down and then it's up to you to figure out like what's really how do I own my own IP and how do I get to my audience?

Speaker 5 All that other stuff. I don't, it didn't really rattle me to the core as much as stuff that happened with my, you know, with my brother.

Speaker 1 If you can remember that you're not quite as good as they say you are at the point when you're at the zenith and then you're not as bad as they say you are, you're like, I've always been what I think is pretty good.

Speaker 1 So if I, they say I'm great, I'm like, I don't buy into all that shit. I had, I had a friend that wasn't a yes man and he would keep telling me, I'm not some ass kisser.

Speaker 1 You know, I'm not, I'm your friend. I'll tell you when you're bad.
And I'm always going to tell you you're bad. That's what a good friend I am.
You're never good.

Speaker 1 I go, well, you can be a sometimes maybe man or maybe a yes man. No, no, it's always a no man.
You're not good. I'm like, wow, you're such a valuable person in my life.

Speaker 2 I think it'd go the other way. What's so bad about saying that? I am that friend he's talking about.

Speaker 2 I apologize. But I kind of relate to you in that way.
I feel I'm outside the thing. I'm not in the party scene and I never really cared.
I'm mostly possessed with doing something funny.

Speaker 2 Truly, it sounds self-congratulatory. I also was an introverted extrovert and also had a lane of real competitiveness, but plain fair about it.
But yeah, just see a guy kill. I want to kill like that.

Speaker 2 You know, that kind of thing.

Speaker 5 Yeah, it's what's so, you know, there's no

Speaker 5 playbook. And also, too, like, then you make it.
And I think the hardest part was like, I made it. And then the group of guys that I was around at the time, they think you're different.

Speaker 5 They want to make it. They're not feeling so good about where they're at.
And you know what?

Speaker 5 It's so funny is like you looking at you, like at a time when I broke through, you know, I remember talking to Bilberr outside the Law Factory. He's like, ah, man, when's my ship going to come in?

Speaker 5 And it's like, look when a ship came in. It came in.
It's like he had his moment. He's still in his moment.
And you go, you don't know, man. You got to hang in there.

Speaker 5 You just got to keep duking it out.

Speaker 5 And you hope that on the other side of it, you just have great people around you that will give you shit when you have a great moment and will talk you up when when like you realistically need a little bit of help.

Speaker 2 Well, obviously it's the era of the personal career outside of the mainstream Hollywood, Tom Segura and Bill Kreischner and all these guys who are Nate Borgatzi, they try to get him to do a sitcom.

Speaker 2 He's like, what's in it for me or whatever. Not Nate, but a game show or something, but you just, it's kind of what you've done.
You know, you've maintained danecook.com or just Inc. Do you think

Speaker 5 you think they pitched Borgatzi a game show of Yahtzee, like Borgatzi Yahtzee?

Speaker 2 What do you think they brought Borgatzi, right?

Speaker 1 Bor Yahtzi. I have to get off the podcast and produce that.

Speaker 2 I'll show you a text. That was exactly what they did.

Speaker 2 I'll show you a text text.

Speaker 2 I think Nate is a technology. Borgi is not a bad idea.

Speaker 2 I don't remember. They were pitching him something, but he already is Nate Borgatzi, Inc.
You know, he

Speaker 1 gets a brand. He's like a clean brand, which is very rare.
So I think that will keep working for him.

Speaker 5 The game show they pitched.

Speaker 5 great they pitched me you know they tried to get me in the game show uh at the time and it was I think it was called mr mr mr whiz i think was going to be the name of the game show

Speaker 5 mr whiz what about dane cooks in a cooking show

Speaker 2 dane cooks how about gotta take a pee the great game show

Speaker 5 cooking show

Speaker 2 Well, obviously they pitched you a cooking show because your name's...

Speaker 2 They pitched me a car show because Carve eats it, you know.

Speaker 1 Can you you drop the VAY and just be like, can you just be Dana Carr?

Speaker 2 It'll help the show.

Speaker 2 I do think,

Speaker 2 you know, just it's an interesting, emotionally violent ride because I'm doing some visits on SNL right now and seeing the young people with big eyes, you know, trying to break in when they're on Saturn Live.

Speaker 5 You crushed it. That was awesome, man.

Speaker 5 That was, and allow me to say, I thought you were the best part of that whole opening.

Speaker 5 I thought everybody was great, but you just like, it's that moment where you feel like somebody just came in and took it to another level. It was awesome to see that.

Speaker 1 That cold opening when he came in at the end, I was like, this is great because they don't know he's coming. Yeah.
Everywhere they turn, it's another celebrity. They're like, that guy.

Speaker 1 And they're like, oh, fuck, here comes Dana.

Speaker 5 And you hit, and you hit on every, you know, where I think I see like where you want to hit. Like, I felt like you hit on every line that you wanted to hit.

Speaker 2 That one felt good. First one was a little nerve-wracking, but then I, it's become a character.
It's Mr. Magoo, it's Tim Conway.

Speaker 2 It's fanciful. Yeah, there's definitely, you know, hey, you're not here.
I'll come right back.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 So she's standing there. It's great.

Speaker 2 I'm just coming on to it. I did little YouTube clips on this show, but nothing.
Now it's really fun to do. Full three-dimensional.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And you would probably appreciate this being a host: is that we go out now and we shake Lauren's hands. And I'm in the Biden get up.
That was for the second show.

Speaker 2 So I do it-just a giant hop skipping as whatever I can get out of my body, sprint across the studio, dressed as Biden because it gets my headspace into laughing. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 They're looking at me as hyperactive Biden. But anyway, but that's,

Speaker 2 it's, it's, it's a lot of fun. Thank you.

Speaker 2 See, when you do Biden tells you, gives you a compliment, it really matters.

Speaker 1 Somebody who's been there knows what Biden training like Rocky to come back and run again, and he just gets stronger and stronger, and he's running with a log on his back.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he's just punching a guy. And guess what?

Speaker 1 And by the way, punch.

Speaker 2 And guess what?

Speaker 1 Because you actually are very active. You could, you could pull all that shit off.

Speaker 5 I think that what like a lot of people don't realize is that comedians in these moments that like you guys are sharing on this podcast or even just the backstage at the store or wherever, like that is kind of the, that's like the best part of the show is great.

Speaker 5 The show is like the frosting on the cake of the day, but the correspondence with comedians and what, what gets us off and what makes us really laugh about a set or what went wrong and nobody cares, but other comics care.

Speaker 5 Like that minutiae. I'll tell you a quick thing about like Jerry Lewis.
Jerry Lewis was my, I became friends with Jerry Lewis in the last eight years of his life. He was my mentor.

Speaker 5 He was a really good guy to me. He

Speaker 5 definitely in that dark moment coming out of like my brother. You know, the industry kind of doesn't care about me at that point.
My moment's over. I'm coming off of this, you know, terrible.

Speaker 5 And all of a sudden I get a phone call out of the blue inviting inviting me down to see Jerry Lewis' documentary, Method of the Madness, down at Paramount. I'm miserable.

Speaker 5 I'm literally in like a rut, but I'm like, I grew up loving Jerry Lewis. I never met him.
I don't know Jerry Lewis.

Speaker 2 I got brilliant, absolute genius.

Speaker 5 Genius, like, you know, he conquered the world for a decade.

Speaker 5 It was really, you know, you know, Martin Lewis, like, Jerry Lewis is like the Bieber of comedy, the Jimmy Carrey, you know, Sandler Carey, and

Speaker 2 Sandler Carey. Yeah.

Speaker 2 All in one. Nutty Professor is one of the greatest comedies ever made.

Speaker 5 So I sit there and I go and

Speaker 5 after the presentation, I didn't know Jerry Lewis was going to be there. He gets up in front of everybody at Paramount.

Speaker 5 The first thing he says, I'm sitting in the fourth row with my buddy Richard, and we're just watching. And he goes, and he's 82 at the time.
And he gets up there and he goes,

Speaker 5 Where's Dane Cook?

Speaker 5 First thing he says. And I can't believe it.
I can't fathom it because I'm hearing the voice that I grew up loving saying my name.

Speaker 5 And then he goes, I want to know where Dane Cook is.

Speaker 5 And I'm like, I don't even know how to stand. I'm half standing.

Speaker 5 And I think I said, Jerry, I love you. That's all I could think to say.
I go, just Jerry, I love you. And he goes, I want to talk to you, my boy.
After. And so I go and I meet Jerry Lewis after.

Speaker 5 He takes my phone number. He starts calling me.
Every Sunday he calls me, hello, it's the Jew in the desert calling Dane Cook, my boy.

Speaker 5 And I start this friendship and mentor, you know, Sundays with Jerry, basically. But I would go on the road with him because he's still touring, 85, 86, 87.

Speaker 2 And I promise I'm getting to a point with this story, which is about like- Oh, I'm loving every second of this story.

Speaker 5 So, so I'm, I'm, I'm, and I'm, and I'm seeing just everything about Jerry. I'm seeing him perform.

Speaker 5 And every night, Jerry would do a thing where at the end of his performance, he'd do the hyperwriter and he's doing

Speaker 5 this for like a fucking hour.

Speaker 2 The panama. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 It's mental.

Speaker 5 But after that, he would do a Q ⁇ A.

Speaker 5 He'd do a Q ⁇ A. The Q ⁇ A was always 40 minutes.
And he'd sit in his chair.

Speaker 5 And you could go up to the mic and ask Jerry Lewis a question.

Speaker 5 And on this particular night, two things that, like, this is who I think we all are as comedians in our heart, what Jerry, what happened to and from Jerry on this night.

Speaker 5 And it gave me permission for the rest of my career to be like, I'm a madman. I'm convoluted.
I can be a lot of things all at once. And Jerry just proved that I'll never not be those things.

Speaker 5 Here's what happened. So he's up there.
He finishes all the stuff. And

Speaker 5 first, a woman comes up and she goes, she's so excited to speak to Jerry Lewis. And, you know, he's, he's, uh, you know, he's got all these, you know, spine problems at this point.

Speaker 5 His hands been doing the typewriter for so many years are just like

Speaker 2 little T-Rex hands, little T-Rex hands. Yeah.

Speaker 5 And he's always kind of like, you know, surly.

Speaker 5 And if you know anything, or if you ever had the chance to share space with him, there's something kind of scary, king of comedy, about Jerry, but also very like, just like

Speaker 5 boyish and beautiful, but something kind of intimidating. So he's in the chair and his tongue's going,

Speaker 2 and he's

Speaker 5 spinning like he's looking for the shark off the back of a boat.

Speaker 2 She acted on Prednisone.

Speaker 2 Dane is doing a very interesting, very physical act out. It's like the hunchback of Notre Dame, T-Rex, typewriter, Jerry Lewis.
Okay, continue.

Speaker 5 So the first thing that this is great. So the woman comes up and she's so heartfelt.
And she goes, Jerry, I just want to say that in 1972, you did a film called The Beach Cottage.

Speaker 5 And when I watched The Beach Cottage, I was so moved. And there's a scene on the beach.
And I'm watching Jerry. And he's like, he's just going back and forth.

Speaker 5 I think he's going to like break the wood chair that the director's chair he's sitting on because I can hear it creaking because he's going back and forth.

Speaker 5 He's turning it into a rocking chair, even though it's a static chair. And she finishes her statement.

Speaker 5 And Jerry goes like this. She goes, can you speak to anything about that experience in this film that it moved me?

Speaker 5 It really enhanced my young life. Please, anything you remember about the film? And Jerry goes, I guess he goes,

Speaker 5 that movie sucked and I sucked in it.

Speaker 2 Her dreams are crushed.

Speaker 5 Mortified. She's literally

Speaker 5 like backs away.

Speaker 2 from

Speaker 5 wow oh my god so this this moment happens and then all of a sudden the the liaison who after 40 minutes comes out and we're like 23 minutes in or whatever, and says, ladies and gentlemen, one more time for Mr.

Speaker 5 Jerry Lewis. And Jerry looks at this person and then Jerry is taken off stage.
I go backstage and Danielle, his daughter, is there and she's like,

Speaker 5 he is fit to be tied and he only wants to talk to you. And he's in the back of a room where everybody wants to meet him.
And he's sitting alone at a table, but nobody's approaching Jerry.

Speaker 1 Ways Dane.

Speaker 5 Wait, Dane Cook. I grew up with a, you know what it is? I never was intimidated.
I grew up with an alcoholic father, and I think I always kind of liked that weird energy. I was never like

Speaker 2 energy.

Speaker 5 I walk up to Jerry and he's eight. Now he's 88, 88 years old.
And I'll never forget this, man. He just looked at me and he grabbed me really tight by the arm and he goes, I had 15 more minutes.

Speaker 5 They lit me early.

Speaker 5 And he was so upset that he didn't get to finish his time.

Speaker 5 I go, I think your career is going to be fine, Jerry. You've conquered the world.
You've done everything. And he just wanted 15 more minutes of Q ⁇ A and he was robbed of it.

Speaker 1 And it was like, got the light early.

Speaker 1 Is that a mistake or do they just want to market?

Speaker 2 I don't know.

Speaker 5 I don't know. But he was so livid.
And it was like, it was a gift because I'm like.

Speaker 5 when we're talking and we're in these moments and for people listening like to me it was just like oh we're all such unique creatures comedians and we all have permission to spin as much as we want as long as we get those little nuggets of comedy, you know, gold when we're on stage.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, getting off early would be also, God, the other night, I was, this is not as good as that story. Of course, it sucks.
That was great. That's a good one.
But I had a corporate gig.

Speaker 1 I think I told Dana, Migo, we have a countdown clock out there for you. You do 45.
And I was like, okay.

Speaker 1 And that's kind of the typical corporate. It used to be an hour, but 45 is believe me enough.
So

Speaker 1 it's always the end of their day. Dana and I always laugh.

Speaker 2 Oh, no, they get up at six.

Speaker 1 And you could be a surprise. And they're like, they're starting to leave.
And they're like, oh, this guy.

Speaker 2 So it's,

Speaker 1 they're usually pretty good. But anyway, so it's 45.
And these things are like, this one was 11,000 people. And they got like stopwatches, headsets backstage.
All right, they're going to get her off.

Speaker 1 You're almost on. You have 90 seconds to get up.
So they push me out there.

Speaker 1 And I'm getting my bearings. And I dart down to the clock and it goes 59, 58.
I'm like,

Speaker 2 wait, is an hour?

Speaker 1 And then it's going down and I'm like, I thought it was counting up. And then I go, am I supposed to do 45? And you can't ask anyone now.
I might go, do they want an hour?

Speaker 1 Because it's a different set. Like I have to change.
Yeah. And then I go, I'm sticking to my 45.

Speaker 1 And it's not going one to 45. So now it's at like 28.

Speaker 2 I'm like,

Speaker 2 28 is supposed to be

Speaker 1 what would it, because, you know, I'm glancing over between my bit about falling out a window and my hilarious. I I don't want to give the whole act away.

Speaker 2 But, you know, I love that window bit.

Speaker 2 So, you know, you're just going, I don't want to do this math.

Speaker 1 Am I even close to being done? I don't know.

Speaker 2 Anyway, well, I'll give it my, the best thing you can hear at a corporate date, the CEO had a little too much to drink and he went over. I'm supposed to do an hour.
Could you do 35? I'm so sorry.

Speaker 2 I'm so sorry. Are you okay with that?

Speaker 2 And then you fake like you're mad. I don't know.
Maybe they could sweeten the pot i'm i'm sweeten the pot

Speaker 2 it should be a little female

Speaker 5 carrot sticks in my cage you know you don't live in an art tell you what i'll land the plane at 28 minutes how about that is that

Speaker 1 i'll go even shorter yo yeah because you've been great

Speaker 2 Do you mind if the CEO meets you for one photo?

Speaker 1 I'm like, I always hear a lot of comics won't do this. I go, who the fuck is saying no? They paid you.
You're there. Like, oh, can you take a picture of this daughter? No, that's not my deal.

Speaker 1 I'm like, yeah, get her back here. Get anyone back out.

Speaker 5 Does it cut into your time if we did this raffle? It's 10 minutes. Like, please, I'll open with a rat.
Like, please, yes, let's make a raffle.

Speaker 2 I'm just poor, hungry children. And would you mind staying on stage and picking the raffle? It really would help.

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 1 Should we do we have to call your agent?

Speaker 2 Why do people do corporate dates and then just angrily fight the whole process? You know,

Speaker 2 don't pick the ticket, but once you are in there, just say yes. Just say yes.
Because you say yes to 100 autographs and then you or picture, sorry, 1940s, and you say no to 101, you're an asshole.

Speaker 2 So always go to the end and say yes.

Speaker 5 Oh, right. Yeah.
You get in there. You know, it's like, I'll put on the Uber Eat shirt, whatever you need.
Like, yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, let's go. I'll wear an A.
CEO can get me in a headlock as church lady.

Speaker 1 We did a contest to see who one of our employees of the month can kick you in the nuts. Is that fine? I'm like, get her up there.

Speaker 1 You know, anyway, Dane, thank you for talking to us. Anything else, Dana? This guy's got a very interesting

Speaker 2 tour.

Speaker 2 The tour is on now for the first time. Oh, yeah.
Okay. Here we go.
So you got fresh new flavor, fresh, new flavor tour, Dane, Danecook.com.

Speaker 2 And he's, you're going out for a few months and you're going all over the place.

Speaker 5 Yeah, fresh, new flavor tour the rest of the year, all beautiful theaters only. So we've been at the Beacon.
We did the Chicago theater, Fox Theater coming up, beautiful theaters across the country.

Speaker 5 And then Gritty and Pink is my new special, and that'll be out in the spring.

Speaker 2 No, I like that. Gritty and Pink.
What a cool name. David's doing a special.
We'll just end with this. Have you picked a name yet?

Speaker 1 No, I'm waiting.

Speaker 2 Jane's obviously good at names. Hello, Bane.
David's special. You need help.

Speaker 1 I know. Let's brainstorm because

Speaker 1 I have a couple and then I go, I'll wait. Because you know what? You don't have to name it the day you shoot it.
So I'm lucky because it's a week away. I can wait till it's getting closer.
Yeah. But

Speaker 2 Rackham is not going to do it because David loves to say that. Say Rackham the way you do it.

Speaker 1 Oh, if there's a joke, you do a joke. And when you go, hey, Dana, I saw you and you with your mom.

Speaker 2 Ha ha, rack them.

Speaker 1 It really puts people.

Speaker 1 They're in their place. They have nothing to do.
They can't.

Speaker 2 It's such a funny observation of the alpha of saying rackham after you've cleared the debt. It's Jackie Gleason, Paul Newman, Minnesota fats.
But then they fall in. Rackham.

Speaker 5 Hey, before you guys disconnect me, I got to say this sincerely because we've always sort of traveled different different circles.

Speaker 5 And I know, David, we've, you know, been on same stages, but this really,

Speaker 5 even though I approached David, I said, I hope if at some point, if you guys ever, you know, need a guest to fill in, you have a dropout.

Speaker 5 It just meant a lot for me to be able to come on here and say, like, you guys have brought me a lot of entertainment.

Speaker 5 And you guys also have been cool to work alongside, even though we maybe didn't always end up in the same backstage. So I appreciate you guys.

Speaker 2 I was always a fan, and this podcast, Your Energy, the Stories, you made our job really easy.

Speaker 1 Very entertaining.

Speaker 2 It was great.

Speaker 1 People are going to like it, and I just had a great, fun hour. So thanks, bud.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that was awesome.

Speaker 1 I'll see you backstage.

Speaker 2 Good luck out there.

Speaker 2 All right, buddy. Peace out.

Speaker 1 This has been a presentation of Odyssey. Please follow, subscribe, leave a like, a review, all the stuff.
Smash that button, whatever it is, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 Fly on the Wall is executive and produced by Dana Carvey and David Spade, Jenna Weiss-Berman of Odyssey, and Heather Santoro. The show's lead producer is Greg Holtzman.