Andrew Schulz

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Our guest today. Who is our guest today? Let everybody know.
Andrew Schultz. Pretty big comedian out there.
A guy I don't know really well. I do think he's very funny though.
And I've checked in with him here and there he was on the roast with tom brady that's

how a lot of people right would maybe know him on a bigger scale uh even though he does do theaters all over of course um big comic out there has a podcast kind of a controversial guy which is good shakes it up and uh a lot of fun we had a great chat with him mostly we talked a lot about-up and a lot about how to film specials, how to sell them, and what works out there these days. Yeah, two interesting things.
One is he is very much a powerhouse out there. He's very high energy, and he steps outside the lines.
He's definitely edgy, extremely funny. Then we got him show and he's uh he's kind of sweet and

humble it's sort of funny when you see this dichotomy of the performer and his real personality number two he says he's he plays arenas regionally but he's he's huge in dubai and huge in Australia

and so

he films a lot of stuff even between

his specials He's huge in Dubai and huge in Australia.

And so he films a lot of stuff even between his specials.

So he's a one-man band. He's an ecosystem.
He's a business. He's very savvy and smart about stand-up.
And like David said, he, a minute ago, his special takes a turn and it's a story, a sweet story about him and his wife trying to make a baby. Have a baby, yeah.
And all the stuff that happens. Life on Netflix.
Right. And he's got good hair.
Check out Life and here's Andrew Schultz. Thank you.
This is a huge honor, guys. I just want to let you know.
you know this is a huge i'm sure you guys get this all the time but uh i really appreciate it uh let's see when wayne's came out you were eight or nine yeah so i get it yeah i'm 41 so 41 but you but you read at a 44 year old level i understand i'm high i'm high yeah but uh your specials are awesome um they're powerful man and uh i guess it's your generation but the beginning of of the one the recent one on netflix is so cool where you come out you land two jokes like a cold opening the way it opens and your dad introduces you and then it's a shot behind and it just says the name of the special gigantic i mean it's like we would crawl out in the 90s and just what's up it's just like it's an event the way you start how much control did you guys even have with like how specials looked when you guys were doing none was it so hbo would just be like hey show up do the material and then we'll handle it you know i remember backdrop what do you want your backdrop i had an old one called take the hit and they said you wanted i want to do i want to do an arizona and they said what do you want your backdrop to be and i'm like coctuses i mean it's like so fucking stupid but it was like a desert yeah it was just like i go maybe live coyotes but what happened is no one actually looked at the back and uh and and also you just wanted to be enough to not take away from what you're doing or you disappear in the back what you're wearing so it's all complicated it's just is it any good what was it like like uh so so back then that ask questions. I really did.
It's all back then. No, I love that.
You're curious. Go ahead.
Okay. Okay.
Okay. Because I was coming up at the downfall of the Comedy Central special.
Okay. Right? Yeah.
There was a moment when I was young, young, I remember like the delirious is, I remember watching like Martin, Chris, like I remember these like events. I remember going to watch a Martin Lawrence special in a movie theater.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. It was, there were just these like insane spectacles.
Right. Yeah.
And then, and then like the comedy central, like half hours, I think it was like, you know, you would try to get premium blend. I remember that.
And then maybe you get a half hour, then maybe you get an hour. And I remember like those like impacting people's careers less.
When you guys were doing like your first specials, was it like the next week you couldn't walk down the street? Were you already so famous it didn't matter? Like, could you feel people watched it? Mine came out, I'll just answer this, in in 96 i'd already been on snl and uh it was an analog world so as just to be pithy i never you know i don't know how you name your specials i just called it critics choice yeah i saw that five stars so for years my sister would call me and then i was on cable tv comedy central playing on a loop. She goes, you got Critics Choice again.
But it was a much bigger impact then. So you felt it.
You felt like people were, it was appointment viewing, people were watching. Once it got off HBO and was on Comedy Central a lot.
Oh, Dana, was yours HBO? I believe it was. I think that was the only game in town really when i got mine on uh i was on maybe snl or just shoot me and then it was it was a big deal because i didn't really know it was a big deal but you got paid pretty well and i remember hbo only did a couple so yeah it was very rare and uh that it did have an impact on the stand-up i didn't chase the stand-up as hard because i was working and then i got more into stand-up later back into it but they were your question is yes it had a little more impact and now stand-ups everywhere and it's on your phone and it's clips and it's people doing crowd work so you go is a special important it's very stand out still.
Is it a game changer? From this generation's point of view to whatever, 2016, 2017. And people like yourself and Nate Bragazzi, I don't know, Tom Segura, name them.
Matt Reif, whatever. Sebastian.
there's this phenomenon of gigantic and you're super global uh and you're killing in dubai and with these inside jokes and tagging them with your material which is it's a nice a nice thing to listen to because you don't feel like you're doing crowd work you feel like you're legitimately asking questions or making statements anyway speak to this phenomenon of andrew schultz from compared to like 2016 i mean i think i think okay i think there's like there's definitely levels right like it's like i think like nate and sebastian and like shane like i think they're doing a within every city they go too. And I think I'm like a regional arena act.
Yeah. There's something that Joe Coy goes different spaces.
It's bigger, smaller. Where are you loved most? Fucking in the middle East.
I was joking around with Tim Dillon. I was like, listen, if you do like a decade of women are annoying jokes, like you'll sell a lot of tickets.
Women are annoying. Flies over there.
So, but, but yeah, so it's like, I'll have my markets, but it is kind of weird because usually that's, usually white guys aren't like that. You're right.
Like usually there's like an Asian dude will crush in like San Francisco, Hawaii, Irvine. Right.
So I'm kind of, I have, I have like, I'm like an Asian arena. That's kind of what I am.
That's what I think. Like random international places.
So yeah, it is, it is a, it is, it is cool. It's fucking awesome.
I don't know what to tell you. Like, well, yeah.
Well, you're owning it. I mean, you're not like nervous out there.
You're not, I mean, you have, you have, when I get comfortable, you put the foot one foot's on the monitor and you're playing to 20,000 people. And this is what you would do at a little, you know, a hole in the wall.
One foot's on the thing and it denotes I'm relaxed, man. I am in total charge here.
So it'd be easier to say at request a step stool out there it wouldn't look as cool I guess I just want I want the front of a boat put your foot up put the front of a boat out yeah what about I have a question about when you do these I just talked I think Segura went overseas um and overseas I think when they told me once do you want to go overseas they go what they do is they'll put you in a couple of small you know like clubs or maybe a small theater let's see how it goes see how famous see if anybody gives a fuck and come back and then the next time you have a gauge I'm like wait go twice so like Dubai and stuff I don't know because you must have bigger themes i mean you can't mention ralph's you can't talk about sepulveda you can't and that's the hard part the bigger you get you have to go this has to work for everyone and i remember rock chris rock i used to say you're smart you go politics you go relationship marriage and those will last you 40 minutes. And those, at least everyone gets it.
Is that what you need over there? Listen, I got lucky that my sperm doesn't work and everybody wants to have a family or a lot of people like having families. So like that was a kind of relatable story that I ended up telling.
But what I noticed about like Abu Dhabi specifically, like is that they're more connected with American culture than the English. Because they, a lot of them are all educated here and in like real America, like Tennessee state, not NYU or UCLA, like some rural American colleges.
So they know all the references. But if, when you go to amsterdam like they are those are that was those are some tough shows but i'm not gonna lie those are some tough shows i'm sure they can it's not even your fault it's just you pop in and you're like i think they were saying some of these cities were tough and some were like full crickets and some were great and And you're like, I just, you don't even know.

You don't know why.

And probably someone does better as a special fucking crickets.

Did I have full crickets to laugh back to the other night?

I'm like, what's going on?

Am I getting worse at this point?

That's gotta be a meme or something.

But what you did in Australia is you're,

you backed into jokes about the aboriginals there.

Oh yeah.

You know, I like doing that.

Like I like,

I like going to places and like writing some

Thank you. Australia is.
You backed into jokes about the aboriginals there. Oh, yeah.
I like doing that. I like going to places and writing some jokes the day of and then seeing if it goes well.
But I like talking to people when I'm in these places and I'm trying to get information and see what they're proud of, what they're embarrassed of, and writing some stuff about them that they wouldn't maybe expect me to know. And what I find is like, if I can, you know, sometimes it goes well, sometimes it doesn't, but if it does go well, the rest of the show goes really well.
Cause I think everybody there goes, Oh, okay. Like he, he cares about us.
He's not here. It's just, they like something local for sure.
They're like, he's made an effort and, and he's interested in this place. And, uh, yeah.
So that tends to, yeah. Here's an oversized laugh.
I got just the other night. Sorry.
I'm playing some Valley. We're flying into catch him.
And I said, I mean, I, I, I go some valleys. That's the place I'm playing.
I mean, catch him. I just thought it'd be a complete shithole.
So that got such a big laugh because it's out of the blue. In Sun Valley, Idaho? The clueless guy.
I just thought Ketchum would be a shithole, man. It's great, but the laugh is so big when it's local, and I was doing that since the late 70s.
I mean, and always a few jokes about the place and what's the shitty town that they'll laugh at. Yeah.
Yeah. And also like, what is some like weird, like every place has a big story.
You know what I mean? Like they're not talking about Elon over there or fucking Trump or whatever the politics is. Like whatever their local shit is, is fun.
So, you know, how can I pull that? Like there are all these, it was all the Israel Palestine protests when I was in Australia and there was all these Australians, like give them back their land or whatever. So the joke I had is like, there's some Aboriginal dude watching these white Australians, but give them back their land.
So it's like, like the joke, that joke would work in New York, but in Australia, it really, it really goes.

So I,

yeah, I try to,

I try to write a joke that I would use anywhere,

but that is the epicenter of where it would get the best reaction.

But you're also auditioning.

Like I asked,

or I was thinking if you were in Ireland,

cause these guys just went to Ireland.

I go,

would Conor McGregor's just running for president?

Do you say that?

Is that something you don't even know what side they're on?

You start something and they like it.

They don't like it.

I mean,

yeah,

I was,

when I was in Ireland,

I was,

the guy who's president now is like,

he's almost like an Irish stereotype.

Have you seen what he looks like?

No.

He's like four 11.

Like he looks like what you think like an Irish. Carries a pot of gold.
Like literally. He's a leprechaun.
So I was having some fun with that. And it's interesting because I was teasing him, but you could tell they really like him.
So they were like laughing, but they were also like, oh, he's good. Careful, careful.
They're underdogs. I have a lot of They're, they're underdogs.
They're, they're amazed how much we love their country, you know? But I would say that when you do ad lib something, that's new that day that you thought of that day and you get a laugh, then you're just kind of alive in the frame. I mean, I can tell by watching you like, cause then you're going to go into your, your tried and trues.
Cause that's how you how you do stand up but every time you do something that's fresh just lightens the whole show up right oh it lights yourself up too you think you're also like like like australia was kind of almost like cheating because i got to do like four or five shows before i did that one where i i I put out the, the Australian material.

Like usually I just got to think of it the day of, but this was,

I got to work it out a few days and like find the bits or whatever.

So that's always fun when you're, you're away,

but it's just rare that you can go to a place where you just go to a country and tour five places.

And I just have to, cause we didn't do this either, but you, you,

you're taping, you have your specials. And then when you travel the world, you've got a five camera crew or something.
Is that, and then you use it. Yeah.
We have, I have my one guy shifty who like edit the special and he was like instrumental, like directing it. And he's this kid.
He like came to start working on us when he was like 18 years old. It's like unbelievable.
And he, he brings five cameras and then he just sets them up and then just hits record. So we don't have like this whole crew.
We just have one guy that's doing it. So it's a little less stressful.
It looks like a special. I go, did he have another special? I wasn't aware of, you know, because that's the shit we can do now.
It's, it's, it's kind of crazy, right? It's very, very smart. Well, it's also takes away from the fear of like, I just mine it comes out soon i basically i wanted you to have you on so i could plug mine but um no i uh it comes out but it was andrew schultz it's hard to do it's hard to do the two in a row show the the typical sort of cookie cutter thing for comedians is get a maybe a theater two shows in one night cut them together do your best and i didn't do any tricks really i sort of regret it i was just telling dana before there was no like super tricky way to get in and then you're getting algo briefings like it's got to be the funniest in the first and then all your bad material at the end i'm like what bad material like oh you want us to tell you and i'm like no no no they'll tell you you hey david you're open with your closer and i'm like wait what's going on so you gotta just try to get them and all that stupid shit yeah i i saw bert talking about that a little bit i think think.
And yeah, like, I don't know. I guess it's like, I don't think any of us have ever opened with something bad.
Yeah. You're supposed to open to get them going.
That's the second hardest thing is a closer opener might be harder. You got to get them going.
And if you don't get them going, you don't, you lost them into the interspectum at netflix and they do every minute you made it to 12 minutes or 13 minutes so it's like as if you're playing a theater where constantly people are leaving like there's just you start out and they're leaving and by the end you've got like 12 people you're playing wembley and so you have to do a special is if every minute they want to go try and watch something else, you know? Yeah. But I think what you're doing is great.
Just continual. I think if you do a, like with mine, it ended up being a story.
Like I didn't want to do a one man show. I feel like, yeah, like I, it kind of is almost like that because there's like a serious moment or whatever.

But I feel like sometimes when you say one man show, you're almost like asking people to like reduce their comedic expectations.

Or to hate it.

Yeah, definitely.

Or to immediately fucking hate it.

Fucking hate it.

Yeah, yeah.

But if they hate it.

It really is a one man show, but don't call it that.

Don't call it that.

But if you call it a one man show and they hate it is because they're not smart enough. Didn't you that no i did not oh yeah i mean like oh right yeah you if you must not be smart enough to understand this high oh yeah it's got a one-man show yeah yeah you know it's so intelligent you know yeah yeah the guy who doesn't have jokes he calls it a one-man show but yeah jay is a purist and he understands that.
So I kind of wanted to almost trick people and I wanted just regular hard-hitting jokes and then eventually kind of get into it. And what we found, I guess, Netflix told us they're like, yeah, the retention, like the watch through to the end was like insanely high.
Because they're invested in this story. Oh, a story.
It's like a long story long story yeah it's like a phone call yeah so like you pitch it yeah yeah i'm just gonna it's just like being on a phone call that's not you ever call your mom yeah it's like that it's like that so that's the first time you really at the at the end you're being sentimental specifically seminal and you're getting awes and stuff you haven haven't tried that before, but it's interesting to land that. I thought my life was boring my whole career.
I thought my opinions on shit were better than anything going on in my life. So I never talked about anything personal.
And then when it was hard to get my wife pregnant because my sperm sucks, it was the only thing I could think about. So I started writing jokes about it.
And then, yeah, it ended up – and it turned into this. So it was cool.
I saw a video of your sperms at the finish line. They're like this.
They're not quite making it. They're just kind of falling.
It's a video that's going around, yeah. You got to see it, dude.
Yeah, you got to see it. People are tagging my sperm in pictures of the governor of Texas.
I like that it's called life instead of like jizz patrol or something. You could have really ruined it with the title.
They wouldn't be doing much patrolling. It's just more like just standing there checking it out.
It's a dream. Where's the egg? We got 10 minutes left.
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But I agree that it is funny.

It's fun to tell stories because people will say you should do this joke or this is a funny joke and i do have some jokes my act but i do love telling stories because it's the only thing that's more of a fingerprint to you because yeah i do do stuff about the airport i do it about this and common denominators but I'm trying to do my version of that and longer stories are more fun for some reason just maybe because I'm older to go let me just tell you this thing and then that's more true to me than going I don't think anyone else is going to tell this story like this also also like we get a sense of you like your personality shines through because it's how you acted in that moment but but also i think that like if if somebody walks into a room and goes guys i gotta tell you this story we're gonna give them 10 seconds if it's boring after 10 seconds we'll probably go but everybody likes a story it's like our earliest form of digesting information like if you just give me facts, I'm going to kind of look the other way. If you tell me some shit that happened, I'm kind of locked in.
Like I'm rooting for you in your story. When you tell me something happens, I want it to be good.
I hear a TikTok story from someone I've never met and they started a story about a breakup with a guy and I just sit there and stare. I'm like, why am I even fucking listening to this? It's like 30 minutes.
It starts at everyone's starts. I like it.
I go, I've actually told young standups who've asked my opinion and little teeny clubs. I said, pretend you just saw something on the street and you just came in to talk to your friends.
Because usually when you tell a bit the first time, you're urgent about it and you're very specific. And then you start to lose it.
And Jerry Seinfeld says check the setup check the setup check it out troubleshooting you gotta check the setup because it's on the rack you know that is such a true statement like the first time you tell a joke you think it that you like and does well you think it leveled the room and then you go look at like the video audio and you're like oh like five people laughed but yeah it's just one loud guy yeah and then it goes away that's so true like the same joke the same words your excitement in it wanes a little also when you say one and you say it off top of your head and if you didn't tape it i mean i'm everyone's different but I hopefully record it on my phone when I go

to the comedy store or whatever, because when I audition these turds and then I smash them

in between two jokes that work, you know, and then I do one in the middle.

But if it somehow works, I have to remember inflection, when it was in the set, how it

worked, what happened.

Because sometimes I go, oh, I got that one.

Next time I say it, nothing.

And I go, nothing. What was the magic? What worked? And all that is so important.
Yeah. Sometimes you'll work on a joke and then get it really good.
And the joke in your set that follows it can no longer follow it. Oh, it gets hurt by it.
Oh, wow. Yeah.
It's not strong enough after how good this joke is yeah it's stand-up is the best sometimes you got to tell your joke i'm moving you up to closer that's a great feeling you know i'm gonna try this it seems to work enough i'm putting it at the end and you go fuck i have a new closer oh that's so great because then the other one can do a little tent pole heavy lifting in the middle what's what's the deal when you guys go to the store like do you have to respect the light or or are you just at a point where they it's a suggestion yeah i go i go when i go how long do they go 15 i go great they go when do you want the light i go at 30 but there's a lot of guys that get the light. I won't say names, but they literally get the light.
And then they start going, so what else is going on? I go, no, no, no. That's not what else.
That's wrap it up, guys. When the elbow is up on the mic stand.
They've already done 20. That elbow is up there.
I'm like, no, we know where they're from. We don't care.
It's over. This is my favorite shit.
Like this is the, this thing that's like, and this has always existed, but it's really popular now. Like the, the comics pretending that they don't care.
So they'll have like a notepad on stage and they're like, look like, all right, what else do I got in here? And then they'll look at the page and then do a joke they did in their last special.'s just like you know it's okay to care we care it's okay to try you we all try we're we want to do well you don't got to bring a prop on stage yeah leaf through it by the way it does better if you have a notebook because there's something about going guys what do you think of this and then, that's pretty good. And then you read and you're like, well, not good enough for your real act.

But for this little thing, you just thought of it.

Sure, this is a wispy idea.

Yeah, keep working on that.

Do you guys like, I mean, when you do a group show at the comedy store

and there's like eight, nine people,

doesn't it become like a de facto competition?

Like people, you're not even thinking about,

oh man, you were one of the best tonight. Or were this like i don't really like one of group shows yeah it's gross but you know right do you do the store a lot or not when i'm out there that's where i'll come oh right you don't live i don't see you there no i'm in new york man so yeah so you just do that right you have way more choices.
You can run all over, right? Yeah. I usually just do the Cellar and the New York Comedy Club.
So Cellar has, what is it? One, two, three, four rooms. 18 rooms.
Yeah. Yeah.
So it's like, it's literally like I got a kid now. So I can go there for an hour and a half and do four shows or I can bounce around the whole city for four hours yeah and now i'm like okay let's let's get the work in that i didn't realize that that's fantastic you go to one place basically and have four audiences boom boom boom and then get out yeah you can't i mean it's kind of like store has what three rooms so you guys bounce around oh yeah you're right go upstairs do the belly room i don't know i don't practice much but anyway i'm down to the nubs i mean i'm like the only thing worse than having hits is not having hits so you know what i've seen interesting what i've seen now is that like you know how like everything in comedy just goes through these like cycles and like people new to comedy don't get it because they haven't experienced like the last cycle like impressions are really popular now have you noticed that um well for me it's i just that's all i do impressions and characters now i'm not trying to tell anything but just nail those no no what i'm saying is like we've known that we've known that about you for for decades and then like things go up and down in popularity.
And I think with Trump and probably Shane does this amazing version. He does a great version.
And I think with the popularity of that, I've seen a lot of other people working in impressions. And there was times when I was coming up where people weren't doing impressions.
Crowdwork is really popular. There's time.
Now everybody's annoyed with crowdwork. And And like all these things, it's just so funny.
Like all these things go up and down. Cause I remember early on impressions, like when I was coming up, like seeing like Eddie, your best friend, Eddie go like crazy.
We are best friends. Crazy.
I know, just kidding. I mean, it was, it was amazing with the impressions.
Amazing that he didn't lean on them, but he was, Daryl Hammond called him our best impressionist, but he was only, he was doing prior. If you weave them into something too, it doesn't look like a big setup.
You know, you're just like, they're like, Oh shit. That sounds like that person in that story.
Yeah. Like it's amazing.
Yeah. It's, we all love it.
Like there's nobody. It's so funny.

Even watching comedians, like comedians, we can be like annoying with what, with each other. When like somebody is trying to be funny or like sneaking a bit, but when somebody does an impression that's spot on, everybody shuts up and just listens and enjoys.
Like, especially if you can do another comedian that we're friends with yeah do you have any do you have anybody that we know someone's gonna do shane because he grabs the mic funny you know yeah he's got he's shane has a great uh laugh like i i told sign for that everyone has like a little bit of a laugh Pryor, it was kind of a constant under. And Shane has a really good little giggle he does after every bit.
And he holds it very much high like this. He's a big guy.
But I didn't really realize that. So I'm feeling better about myself right now.
But do you have an impression you do or would like to do? Because maybe we can help you out with now i'm bad too if i can't do someone i'm terrible it's a very painful thing to try to learn selective like you can't just mimic everything at times like it takes me a long time it took me a long time to get biden I would say like a year and a half.

And then some are easy.

I don't really have any methodology other than exposure.

I have to hear something a lot or hang out with someone a lot.

I'll do friends and stuff, but that's all.

Do you tape it?

I just start talking out loud to myself and it's terrible.

And then finally, if it comes to me, it comes to me i i see an impression i can't do and i'm i'm incredibly entertained you know what i've noticed is like uh sometimes i see people doing an impression of someone's impression yeah for sure yes that's the best way yeah yes because like you've distilled the four things about the person that like he physically does. Get those little hooks.
Exactly. And then, so you did the work and then I see people doing, oh, that's just a version of Dana's.
Right. They cracked the code.
Dana cracked the code and now you just do that. But you don't get any credit for it.
You don't get any credit for it. Which is kind of fucked up.
The latest one I am doing, because it's kind of fun,

is I've just extrapolated Jimmy Fallon into a thing that I like to,

because I was hanging out with him at 8H Wines in New York. Let me see, Jim.

And I did Johnny Carson getting pulled for drunk driving.

I've said this a lot, but in 1972, and it's where he,

what he had to drink and where he was drinking at.

Oh, sorry, officer.

I didn't know I was swerving.

I had two slippery monkeys at the hook and crook.

Okay, so that's the setup and then jimmy fallon is like oh my god oh my god sorry officer it's insane it's insane i can't believe it so it's just this sound collage coming at me that was just pure distilled jimmy fallon It was crazy. Yeah, he doesn't have to say much.
Yeah, sometimes it's just the sound.

Like, you could do this one. Christopher Walken sees an amazing magic trick.
Just quick. Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! What was that? Yeah.
Didn't know where the rabbit went. It's like a language.
Kevin Pollak and others have wound down walking. That's a classic where when someone cracked walking, it was like, fuck yeah.
Everybody has walking now. It's so fun.
What about Goldblum? I feel like he talks in a unique way. Does anybody do him? Oh, my God, yes.
Elon Gold does a perfect version of him. Oh, Elon Gold, Kyle Dunnigan, yeah.
Who's doing Elon Musk? Has anybody done Elon good? Because he kind of… It's tricky. We're going to malls.
I mean, Kyle Dunnigan… You have to haveigan, you have to go to malls. Um, I did it for 18 seconds on SNL.
I just did him at a rally. You know, that kind of guy jumping around, but I'm still trying to learn it exactly because he is kind of soft spoken, mostly on podcasts.
Uh, so on podcasts, thinks a lot.

We've got to go to Mars.

We simply have to telephone Mars.

And he's thinking and the way he looks around.

But I'm still coming on to that because there's two things.

I mean, one is you could do a perfect Biden the first month of his administration, but people wouldn't be assimilated to it.

They need to kind of, you know.

So we saw a lot of people saw Elon at the rallies first. I've seen him on a lot of podcasts so it's a work in progress andrew i'll get back to you yeah it's tough to crack some of that shit because there's not like a something to bite into you know my end was i used him as a setup for trump to get a laugh you know i did it on bill you know he's like, Elon's there and Trump's there with a red tie.
And so we're going to go to malls over the set. We're sending too much money.
We can't sustain it, all that. And then they say, Mr.
Trump and Trump says what he said, what he said. He's a smart cookies, a tough cookies, a cookie crumble.
So I just used him to set up. That's it.
That's it.'s it. It's word association with Trump.
It's like every word's got to take you a little bit further away than the point that he's trying to make. Even he just thinks of it as he goes on.
He just word association. He's a cookie monster.
He's a lawn of dune. You remember the lawn of dunes? Everybody loves the lawn of dunes.
Everybody loves them. Everybody loves them.
But yeah, that's one way to use it as someone who does impressions. That is so funny.
That is how he talks, really. It's like every word reminds him, everybody loves him.
Love him. G Gays He throws in Gays Trump will never say So I So you know Like anyone Might run out A stream of thought He never does We're gonna go with Lord of dudes It's like weak to him If you stop a thought So he just keeps going He His thinking is weak.
Yeah. And repeating a phrase five to 10 or 15 times.
Launadoon, Launadoon. Everyone loves Launadoons.
You see the Launadoons. You look at them and you got them and they're like, people like the Launadoons.
Take a bite. Yeah.
And it works for him. I want to ask you, because you interviewed him because his dialect, it is so infectious.
It's so infectious. It's a singularity.
And he knows how to use it. Like, like for example, when he does that little like rev up sound, like we're going to do it.
Like he's, he's like injecting energy. Maybe he's slowing down and he feels himself.
He's got, he's like, I'm getting come back up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But like- The fries are wearing off. He called it the weave on the show, like what you guys are describing right now.
Oh, he named it on your- Okay. And he was like, he's like, he's like, yeah, I call it the weave.
It's like, I'm in here. I go out there.
I come back here. And then I come all the way back around to the point that I was trying to make.
And he goes, people think that I'm stupid that I do that. You actually got to be really smart to go all the way back out here.
What do you say is that dumb? It's so funny. Surprisingly, it's a very smart maneuver.
Yeah, I know. He is absolutely hilarious because you're just waiting for, okay, what is the point here? Where where are we now he like he's like keying into like thing like he said something without trying to be funny that i laughed at like he goes um he goes he goes after he got shot he goes he goes yeah and it fixed me up he goes these country doctors i'll tell you you know and i laughed because like it's funny he thinks that there's regular doctors and country doctors like yes the doctors in the country are like overall little house on the prairie yeah so i laughed at it and he clocks me laughing and i swear to god he hits it in the next three sentences he's like yeah he's country doctors yeah yeah country doctors see if you'll nibble again.
He's like workshopping. Yeah.
He's like, he doesn he's country doctor. Yeah, yeah.
Country doctor. See if you'll nibble again.

He's like workshopping.

Yeah, he's like.

He doesn't know what the funny part is.

He goes, I went to the general store also.

Yeah.

Oh, because he got a laugh.

He was kind of like wanting to understand.

Yeah, yeah.

What did I do, right?

Okay.

I like when he goes, someone asked him a question.

He goes, another dumb question from an idiot over here.

It's just like, who says that? That's why comedians love him. It's just so funny.
You go, who would ever say this? You almost wish that he was just like, just make him like a royal figure so he doesn't have to be politicized so that we can just laugh without there being any scrutiny because it's undeniably funny. It's just funny.
Another dumb question from an idiot woman. Another dumb question.
This woman is a terrible person, not polite at all. You're not a smart cookie.
You're not a smart cookie. I'll tell you that much.
You know you're not. You're not a smart cookie, I can tell you.
Look at this. I know the gutter all one is such a funny movie that i think is kind of new but uh cookie cookie that's magic johnson's wife how'd she not get it like should we all just talk like that all day he casually was in magic having trouble with the blood work but uh wife's cooking you're like that middle part? They gotta take a lot of tests.
They take them all the time and cookie comes out. He takes a lot of vitamins.
He's back on his feet. There's a lot of that breathing thing too, but yeah, there's so many hooks and so many things to do with that guy.
It's extraordinary. Oh, I have a special question too.
Oh yeah, ask him what Trump said. He's back on his feet.
He's back on his feet. You're like, why, was he laying down for a while? No, he's back.
Magic is fully back now. It's from 35 years ago.
They worked out. He got very strong.
They had to do a cocktail. They call it a cocktail of pills.
It's a cocktail. Excuse me.
They had to get the right cocktail. They got the right cocktail of pills.
And that seems okay now. But anyway, he's got a question.
No, I thought I was just back going back to his special where you had it and then you bought it back and i think that oh yeah that situation it turned out to be i heard different rumors but highly successful oh yeah it was it ended up being the best it ended up being the best thing for me situation i don't have any animosity by the way for amazon like i get

what they had to do like you know they they made a business decision and they're like we don't want these jokes tarnishing the brand and i get it that's fine i bet you would be different now like i bet just culture has kind of changed a bit but um but uh but yeah i was able to put out and the people were like so supportive and it was it was incredible and then people made a bunch of lies online about how i i i told them to i told them that that it would never be available anywhere else and even though i told everybody if you can't afford it just steal it on the internet and then eventually it would be on youtube but it is what it is you know you have some you do something good and it's successful and people are gonna find a way to be upset about it and when you do something like that it was great was it basically off your website it's just a click and this is and you pay it was like there's this company called moment house that was bought by patreon so essentially it's like it looks like it's on my website but they basically put their mask on my website so you go to my website and it just kind of like almost forwards it to theirs and then it almost just looks like um it looks like netflix or something like that or any other place and you just watch it because theo and i were talking about this for this uh this uh indie we just did and this is one of the things i brought up i brought up your situation i said i mean you guys could i think you'd kill it with that but i also think that there's an appetite i think there's an appetite for you guys now i think that like i think that there's going to be a lot of excitement about that i think people would pay for it 100 but i think streaming is the way to go i don't think movie theater is the way to go just yet it's a tough decision because i've done movies and movie heydays when it was like big weekends you're up against this movie you're against this yeah uh and now it's tougher and i was when we were going over all the processes of what could be because you know we sort of did it well we did do it without we just paid for it and said absolutely no plan and it's kind of fun and people think that's intriguing just because it's awesome someone's got to do it it's like okay now what and then just figure out what's surfacing is the best situation but you know when you say uh theaters i don't want any stink if something doesn't go perfectly right away because people back off and i go guys i, I've been in movies that don't do well. It's fucking a dagger.
And nowadays when it's all these superhero movies and even if Snow White doesn't make a hundred million the first weekend, they're pouncing on it. Obviously it's a budgetary discrepancy with ours, but it's just optics.
Do you want to look like it's a hit? It's very hard to figure out all that stuff. You're a hundred percent right.
Because you see like the theater empty and the people take pictures and it's very easy for them to like pan the film based on that. But dude, getting people to leave their house is almost impossible now.
Like that's the big trick. It's so easy not to leave your house.
You don't have to leave. And also they don't even know if the movie is going to be good or not.
Like at least with, at least with like a franchise like Batman, you're like, all right, I've seen a bunch of these movies. I'll get the babysitter.
I'll take the risk. I'll go.
But here's this movie where it's like, all right, well, I love all the people involved in it, but have I seen a movie where they're all in it together? I don't know. I, but if you put that on streaming,

like for me,

if that movie is on Netflix,

you that there's no brainer.

The first week you're top 10,

no brainer.

Cause it's,

it's like the investment is so minimal.

It's like,

if I'm a spade fan,

I'm watching,

if I'm a deal fan,

I'm watching,

I'm sure you guys have a bunch of other like cameos from people.

Like it's,

it's,

and then if it is good, the word will spread and you'll stay in the top 10 forever but stream extreme extreme but what do you what do you recommend that they do do you actually audition it for all those streamers so netflix and amazon and hulu they're all they're all you need two offers you need two offers you don't have one offer unless you have not like even my, like even with my Netflix deal, I had one offer and then that offer changed significantly when we got another offer. And I don't begrudge them for it, but like they're not in the business of paying you what you're worth.
It's just, you know what I mean? Yeah. Paying the minimum they can.
Yeah. There's nothing like another suitor.
It's the same thing with single people or something. They want me to, you know.
If I'm Amazon right now, like if I'm Amazon right now and I know that like Netflix, I mean, Theo did his last one on Netflix, right? So Netflix is like invested in building that guy up. I'm buying the movie just off the strength of just taking.
Yeah. Yeah.
Like, yeah. I mean, brand war right there.
So to me, that's just like a no brainer. So I would, I'd talk to them.
I talked to Hulu. I'll talk to Paramount.
Every, right. We've been asked about it.
Any chance we could hire you to be our manager. Is that, as I will do it.
Totally. No, It's fun to think about it out the streamers that I've heard about.
Any chance we could hire you to be our manager? Is that totally outside?

No, it's fun

to think about it out loud because

we haven't seen it. We're going to see it this

weekend. This is the first

time it's been rough together.

So we liked and we shot it. We liked

the scenes. And I said, I've done a lot of these.

I think it's got a chance. So let's see

it all in a row. If it's how I

picture it, we're in good shape.

But, you know, directors got

it. You know how it works.
And they get

Thank you. I think it's got a chance.
So let's see it all in a row. If it's how I picture it, we're in good shape.
So, but you know, directors got it. You know how it works and they get eight weeks.
So then we'll go in there and start fiddling with it. But I was like, I have a good feeling.
And I've been asked about it from some streamers. Like, can we look at it yet? And I'm like, we're not, we don't even know what we're doing.
We're not there yet. Yeah.
Yeah, we're not. And it's good because there is interest just because it's a weirdo move.
But if a comedy works, it's huge. How many movies are made every year? I don't know.
I mean, I kind of know why they don't, but I think they've slowed down. I mean, Sandler is responsible for most comedies out there.
Like he has a deal. So he either produces them or he's in them.
And that's a big chunk out there. Yeah.
And that's on streamers. So I think, I think we're like, we're basically one successful R rated comedy away from having like another decade of really funny R rated comedies.
Yeah. So whether it's you, somebody else, it's going to take one.

I feel like culture is at the point now where we can be naughty again.

And if one goes,

we're going to have some fun.

Then people can't ordering them.

They have some edgy jokes in there, as Bade has told me.

I mean, funny, but definitely

different than...

You guys have been entertainment for,

especially Hollywood, for long enough. Everybody, what is it it they say it's a race to be second or something like nobody nobody wants to put their balls on the line oh yeah yeah right we'll make one thing happen then follow then you go okay that works i was just gonna ask the question or the observation that like looking at yourself like you uh coming up at this time it's like you're the ceo of your career you can either self-produce or not or the um you're not asking for permission you're not auditioning much you're not trying to meet corporate entities to help you you're the ceo of andrew schultz and so that the freedom that people have with social media to pump everything youtube is extraordinary and vent and i think it's great it's a different world than what we came up in yeah there's there's a lot a lot more freedom that's for sure and like if now is the time if you just want to create shit to do it you know obviously like making films and TV shows is so expensive.
Then you got to find a way to raise some money. You guys are able to do it, but you guys are all rich, successful dudes, you know? We put most of it ourselves.
So, and that's a good way if you can to just say, you want to just green light this right now and go. And I think fortune favors the brave, whatever that cliche is.
I think it's true. And I think that basically everybody's afraid to do cool shit, but once it's there, everybody wants to buy it.
So I don't know what you guys spent on it, but you guys decide the price. Like, right.
You know, you could, why is it not a hundred million dollar movie? Who fucking knows? Right. If it's going to do, I paying a lot for uh comedy specials out of the blue remember i think the the top they've got like 20 million or something like that 30 million a clip like it used to be like two three million whatever was the biggest and then suddenly it jumped huge and i asked someone at one of those streamers and they said because if if we do a movie with that person, it will cost us 20 to 30 million.
So we're paying 20 and we're going to use four times the views on a special than a movie. So it's really saving us money in a weird way.
And I was like, I didn't look at it that way, but they could have gotten them everybody for cheaper. And I think they got back down to earth after a couple of those.
Real quick. I think it shifted.
Yeah. I'm when Amy got 11 and said it was not enough.
Why aren't I getting 20? And I'm like, wow. And she got, I think they kicked her some more.
No way. Fucking.
Yeah. Well, because it was going out there and saying that yeah yeah yeah that's when you could kind of use the uh yeah you can use like sexism or racism for a little uh i mean it's hard to say with it's rock and chapelle i mean it's it's ballsy to step forward and say give me that we're the same i wouldn't.
I'm not there. It lets you know where you are in the ecosystem and show business when you know people are getting 20 or 30 and then you get your offer.
It's all supply and demand. If they feel worth it, they're going to give it to you.
Okay, I got it. They know what they're doing.
I understand. If somebody else is going to offer it to you, that's the thing.
If somebody else is going to offer it to you, do you know where you're going with this one that you just filmed yeah or can you mention or i don't think i can because we have a press release coming out this week ah got is it a done deal or is it just a possibility i shot it already yeah i shot it comes out in may so uh but i'll tell you you're special yeah yeah but uh i will tell you that when i did the hbo when you were talking about earlier, uh, the take the hit one and there was notice,

it was noticeable for me.

And then it took me all this time.

And I did a comedy central one and it was like,

it didn't happen.

Actually.

I use Dana as an example because Dana was like,

I keep trying to watch it,

but I have to get on an app and then I have to sign up and then I have to go

here.

And I'm like,

I can't even find it. And I'm like, it's not easy.
Like they air it once at midnight or something. And then they air it a month later.
And it's not like you can just get it like on a stream. So it was caught up.
It almost burned my material. Cause I'm like, can I just do this again? Because if I were you, I would, I would, unless it exists on YouTube or or something like that i would just use some of the stuff that you really wasn't even doing clips it was right before clips so clips would have helped it like hey here's at least i could clip it out and say come to my next show but i'm like i didn't i would i would use some of that if you're not i mean there's like i think i'm pretty sure like chappelle use a joke he did an earlier thing in a later thing i mean it's like an amazing it's one of my favorite jokes that he's ever written but it's the uh and i think he even made it like better but it's the joke about uh you know it's like hard being successful in black like uh i remember my house got broken into like these people came in robbed my whole my whole house, called the police.
They showed up and they're like, he's still here. How about you do a joke? That's a little undercooked in a special.
And then you still do it for a while on the road before it comes out. And'm like sometimes i still do them because i go this thing is six minutes long now it's so much better i agree and people go oh i think you did that i go i actually didn't i did 30 seconds of preview yeah yeah now it's a very early version you got a three-month-old versus a full adult yeah and i go plus who care that's the thing is like is everyone really going thank god i got this all new mediocre material thank you that's what you got to tell the audience when they complain you think this is bad yeah let me do the whole hour of new yeah fuck yeah here's some new shit for you but it's already they're like just throw together another hour i go relax with that casual throw together an hour you're good i go fuck i gotta get out there and grind it out and practice it's hard yeah it takes time man you also gotta have some shit you want to talk about like yeah i i take time off like after i felt like i haven't gone on stage since i recorded i went one time or something like that and that's been months I probably won't go on for a little bit I'll like live a little experience shit see what I want to talk about do people yell out stuff to you in your act like if they go Diddy what do you think of Diddy and you have to go you have to have something.
Oh, wait a minute. Actually, that's, they will do a topical thing.
Yeah. But that's also like, that would only happen if I'm like just kind of meandering or not.
Like if I'm doing well, usually there's not suggestions. But if you're talking to the audience, do they feel like it's open season to talk from back here when you're talking to this person up here does that get hard to do the last special i did like the last one for this i did a lot more like crowd work and stuff like that and then people and i was putting out these like uh clips that were crowd work and it was just like it was the only thing that i could generate weekly like for me right when i write a bit it takes like a while to make it a good joke and add tags and all these other things.
I didn't want to give it away, but they just, you know, they just would go viral and whatever. So people were coming out and kind of expecting that.
So at this special, I purposely barely do that at all as like a way to just go, Hey, I don't, I get why you thought there would be a lot of crowd work. Cause I put out all these crowd work clips.
Now you see this whole hour. Now I want you to potentially expect this with maybe some interactions, but it's not going to be just interactions all the time.
Cause it's, it's very easy where like, and I've seen this happen, like the algorithm can make you decide what kind of comedy you want to do instead of you deciding. And I think sometimes people fall victim of that.
Like something does really well. So they go, well, I guess this is what I do now.
And it's like, no. That's good of you to switch it up because it's hard to go in there and write a whole hour and not have any crutches because sometimes you know you could go in and and just with a few things get things right back or but it's hard to go out there and practice long sets of nothing it's just oh and it's you're bombing and it's brutal and if you're in the store here or even when you're at the cellar like when i went on last time it was nate was there and uh chris rock and you just go i'm not gonna try new shit because there's always someone there watching and you go yeah i want them to go yeesh and i go yeah it's a little undercooked but well there's something there but they just go yeah i just remember you bombed i i think a lot of people liked it man i think a lot of people of people were liking what you were doing out there.
Oh, when I did that night, it was fun. But when I...
That was me doing someone talking to you after the show. Oh, yeah, yeah.
I thought it was, instead of great, they switch it to good right in the middle. It was good.
It was good. When I followed, Dane and I just did a gig together and when he come out come off after annihilating i have to follow this fucking asshole and they're like killing and then i get he comes off all excited and i go hey fuck that crowd and he goes oh i go look it's not your crowd those jokes are funny man don't don't second guess yourself why are they fucking standing i'm trying to fuck with his head right before i get out there not all crowds are going to be smart they don't get you yeah it's great when when did you uh have that term where you're like god damn i'm i'm getting really, really good at stand-up? I don't, I think it's like.
Was it gradual or was it? I think you feel good and then you go up after Greer Barnes and you're like, am I good? You know, like there's just, you see people do it that are just incredible. You're like, am I? Or like, even when I was editing the special, like watching your own comedy a thousand times.
It's sickening. You're like, yeah.
You're like, what is any of this funny? Like, it's actually kind of nice. Cause then when it comes out and people go, wow, this was so funny.
You're like, Oh really? Like, yeah. Editing is horrible.
Editing, watching yourself to stand up. Gross.
The worst thing in the world. Push push in, I go, push out the door and burn this fucking thing.
Push in. Come closer.
Goddamn, what? That's for a horror movie. That's not comedy.
That's for fucking Saw 3. It's the cowboy shot, you know.
Yeah, keep it loosey-goosey. That's how I edit comedy, though i edit comedy though by the way like a horror movie what do you do go push it for drama and stuff it's it's like yeah tension release not as exaggerated but like the same idea of like i don't like for example like some people the director on mine like for the first day he was doing like a line cut i think it's called like where they cut it.
Yeah. Kind of live.
Yeah. Like, buddy, there's no way

you The director of mine, for the first take, he was doing a line cut, I think it's called, where they cut it. Yeah, kind of live.
Buddy, there's no way. You don't have my set memorized.
There's no way you could guess the right angle to go to. You don't know which way my head would turn.
Why are you wasting your time with this? It makes no sense. What was it? We said it's like catching a fart with chopsticks.
Comedy, I don't know't know where my head's gonna go so it's like we what we do is make sure all the cameras are filming it and then we get in the edit and then we make sure that i'm not jumping out in the middle of a setup setup yeah that's right they can kill jokes go on your back all of a sudden you're like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What are we doing? Have you seen that?

You're watching somebody special and it's like in the middle of a punchline, they cut to the back of their head.

Yeah.

Or like the start of the setup is on their back.

And you're like, why would I?

Has anybody ever told you a story and turned around first?

And you pay more attention?

You know what it is for me?

Sometimes you're watching it like someone is watching it sitting in a magic chair and they're watching the special. And all of a sudden they're flying way back up in the auditorium and then ran close.
And then in the back of the head and like that, they get tired of just watching the standup. And so the amount of cuts you're like, fuck, I'm exhausted.
So yeah. Yeah.
It's like build things. things also like i don't ever do a crane like nothing has ever been funnier because the shot went like that yeah your joke drive by joke they're telling me they're like the crane is 25 000 i'm like what like what for what just to to show ruin bits a big production yeah yeah they like to show it's a big house because i said in

mine could i do a smaller place they're like they like to show that they paid for you and it's a big

theater and i'm like i think people would believe that i also do theaters but it's fun to get into

a smaller room so i think down the line i will switch it up how big was the room for life you

know we did we did 3 000 but that was bigger than i would want to do we were going to do this other

I'm sorry. And I will switch it up.
How big was the room for life? We did 3,000, but that was bigger than I would want to do. We were going to do this other venue.
And then they canceled my tapings after Trump was on the pod, which they say is unrelated. And I believe them 100%.
So we moved from that venue to the beacon and, um, and I w I would usually, I like the venue to be under 2000 seats for a, for a table. Sure.
I think between a thousand and 2000 is the money spot. Cause you can like, you're, you can see every person in the room.
Yeah. You you're with them.
I don't think an arena is right for it. I think it's a flex, but I don't think it represents, I don't think it's a good representation of how connected you are.
Also, the amount of time you have to wait in between laughs in an arena is a lot different than the person at home laughing. So now at home, they're going, ha, ha, ha.
But on stage, you're still waiting for the arena. So now they're disconnected.
I like these Shane they're saying ones i'm like how do you it's so different to go out when it's all the lights for the tunnels are out there for like at the basketball game and yeah there's so many things going on by the way if i if they want me to do an arena i will do it and i'll film something as a flex even if i bomb or just do 10 minutes but uh i think mine is about 1700 it was about that pocket of a place i played i liked where was it what did you do it was in denver and uh which one and denver's what's it called heather paramount so great great theater great audience always when I played comedy works and stuff,

it was always great audiences there.

Yeah, they have good vibes out there.

Good vibes.

They look like a good comedy town.

They like it.

I like 50 to 70 for myself.

Because I'm doing little sketches,

doing little people talking to each other and stuff.

Doing his hand magic.

And, you know, the last special, I worked it out in 50 seaters, and then I did it in the 1900s. I just love the idea.
Anyone use dental floss? Don't worry. But I like the small round.
That'm saying but uh i think i think it's better for the audience i think the people watching at home enjoy it more personally the the 10 percenters like the big room you know to show people look what look what you can draw and stuff i get that but creatively you know i think a tight it's better for comedy in a. 100%.
It's better for our bank accounts in a big room. And oftentimes we will let our bank accounts win that war.
Dictates. That's a question I have for you.
Is there, would you do any commercial that they offered you if the money was good enough or discern discerning? Have you been offered commercials? No, I mean, no, I don't get offered really commercials, commercials but like there's like certain things i just i don't know if i could i don't know if i want to do it i don't have like a moral objection like i got gambling advertising on the pod you know i got a boner pill i'll do all that kind of shit yeah boners don't got a style you're fine there yeah but like i'm trying to think I don't think I could do like a herpes medication. You know what I mean? American express.
We're pulling our offer. But yeah, not bio.
Yeah. We're going to do a collab with you on that, but it's okay.
That'd be great. Imagine.
All right. Anything else for this young man, Dana? Just live on Netflix now.
Being well received. Yeah.
Thank you guys so much, man. I really appreciate you having me.
really appreciate you having me It's fun hanging out with you Anyway I can help with that film man Let me know I'm really excited about that I'll talk to you off cam This has been a presentation of Odyssey Please follow, subscribe Leave a like, a review this stuff, smash that button, whatever it is, wherever you get your podcasts.

Fly on the Wall is executive produced by Dana Carvey and David Spade, Jenna Weiss-Berman

of Odyssey, and Heather Santoro.

The show's lead producer is Greg Holtzman.