RE-RELEASE - Bob Odenkirk

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Speaker 3 Quince.com/slash fly. You know, David,

Speaker 3 our good friend

Speaker 3 is a movie star, and he's an action star. His name is Bob Odenkirk.

Speaker 1 Robert Bob Odenkirk, that's one of our favorite guests because

Speaker 3 we've known him forever since the 80s. And then he comes out in Nobody

Speaker 3 and he plays an action star. We knew him in the 90s, too.

Speaker 4 I knew him in the 90s. God damn.

Speaker 3 And so he's got next week. He comes out in Nobody

Speaker 1 2. Nobody 2.

Speaker 4 I saw this billboard and

Speaker 4 I think he talked about it a little bit on here. It was great.

Speaker 5 You know, we love Bob.

Speaker 4 For him to spin into this is crazy. And then they get a sequel.
That's how you know it was a success. I saw the first one.
I will see the second one.

Speaker 4 A lot of fun. And also, he's just funny anyway.
But he gets to play this, which I'm so jealous.

Speaker 3 I know. And we talk about during this podcast

Speaker 3 how funny he knows it is that first he becomes a great TV star, Better Call Saul, and now he's an action movie star later in his career. We had all this,

Speaker 3 he'll go over it in the episode about his career and stuff, and we laughed a lot.

Speaker 4 And how he just gets this off the ground, because if tomorrow day and I said, I want to do an action movie, no one's just handing me a budget to do an action.

Speaker 4 You know, you have to sort of, plus, I'm so fragile, but you have to sort of figure out a way to get that across. But he does a lot of training.
Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 3 yeah, it's just great. The sound effects, you turn your shoulder and you hear hear that crunch, you know.

Speaker 3 He does it great. I mean, because also he's at heart, he's a comedian, you know, and then he's an actor, so it all combines.
So that'll be good. But this episode, I loved, one of my favorites.

Speaker 4 So hope you enjoy it.

Speaker 4 Oh, wait, I have a great beginning. Ready?

Speaker 1 Here we go.

Speaker 4 Robert John Odenkirk was born in Benron, Illinois to Barbara and John. Then you got SNL.

Speaker 1 Wikipedia alone.

Speaker 6 That's really all there is to it.

Speaker 4 That's really a big jump.

Speaker 6 Well, that's all that matters.

Speaker 3 My little birdie told me

Speaker 1 this morning,

Speaker 3 at a given point, he said everybody knew Bob Odenkirk was the funniest guy in Chicago. Someone told me that today

Speaker 3 when I was doing my research.

Speaker 3 At some point in time, his initials are RS.

Speaker 6 Oh, geez.

Speaker 1 Robert. Robert.
Robert thought that.

Speaker 6 Robert thought that, but I don't think anyone else thought that.

Speaker 1 What did Chicago vote on that? I just said it was common knowledge.

Speaker 6 No, they picked someone else.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Larry, Larry.

Speaker 6 Oh, what's his name? He's a stand-up in Chicago.

Speaker 1 Larry Farley.

Speaker 6 Oh, shit. No, he was actually really funny.

Speaker 1 The cable guy.

Speaker 6 The comic who did Zaney's all the time.

Speaker 1 Doctor.

Speaker 1 I should know him. Chicago guy.
Chicago guy.

Speaker 6 And he never left the Chicago circuit. You know who's really funny is a guy named Mike Toomey,

Speaker 6 also a Chicago.

Speaker 1 Who just stayed there? We had Will Durst. Yeah, we had San Francisco.

Speaker 1 They like it.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Some people don't want to branch out.

Speaker 4 They do well there. They make money there and they just stay.

Speaker 6 That's right. That's right.

Speaker 1 And it's okay. They like the town.

Speaker 6 They get plenty of work. They get married and have kids.

Speaker 4 And they don't go crazy like the rest of us.

Speaker 1 And they're local stars, right?

Speaker 3 They go on the top radio show. Anyway, Bob, how are you? How are you? This is what I would ask you if we were at a restaurant.
I'd say, Bob, how are you? Yeah.

Speaker 3 Just generalize.

Speaker 6 I'm so good because I'm talking to you guys.

Speaker 1 God, that's the best answer I've ever gotten. Thank you.

Speaker 6 I really, I really love that you asked me to do this and that I get to hang out with you because it's true. It's like I listen to podcasts to listen to my friends talk, to hear their voices.

Speaker 6 And because we don't get to do anything, either because we're working or COVID fucked us up for two years, or, you know, or you know, just lives you get separated by having families and

Speaker 6 stuff. And it's just a really wonderful thing to get to just hang out with people.

Speaker 6 And I've been listening a lot to the Gilbert Godfrey podcast, which has been so entertaining, even though I didn't know Gilbert very well.

Speaker 6 But a lot of people I do know are on that, you know.

Speaker 1 know?

Speaker 6 And he just was.

Speaker 4 Yeah. You know,

Speaker 4 Gilbert, you know, when I worked with the funny boys, you remember them? The comedy team in the old days?

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 4 Jim Valley and Jonathan Schmock, both funny on their own, and they wrote together and performed. And so they were the guys that got me

Speaker 4 in the improv. Louis got me in the comedy store and I didn't make it.
I was 20. And the funny boys got me in the improv and I did make it.
And

Speaker 4 I stayed on Jim Valley's couch. And then he goes, I'm leaving for a week, but someone's going to stay here.
And I go in, it's like, hello.

Speaker 4 It was Gilbert Gottfried in his underpants, and he just sat eating cocoa puffs. And I had a roommate for a week.

Speaker 1 And I was like, who's this man? I didn't,

Speaker 1 you know, it's very weird to live with someone you don't know.

Speaker 4 And so I don't know him well like you, Bob, but I did get to spend a week just hearing him. Then I'd see him out and about.

Speaker 3 And he was so

Speaker 4 very interesting brain.

Speaker 3 And it sounds like an interesting guy. very funny gilbert would share some certain sensibilities bob you know the way he deconstruct i mean his his anderdice clay bit

Speaker 3 and his bad impress they were just so funny man he was just

Speaker 6 yeah i mean i certainly appreciated the hell out of him you know he was uh i only would see him around in new york actually and you probably did too at clubs you know when i did snl

Speaker 6 You guys probably don't know this, but I would go

Speaker 6 because you probably didn't even know I did some stand-up once in a while, but I would do Sunday night at the improv, which is not a you know, it's kind of a sad club.

Speaker 6 But it for me, for me, it was like I'd just get a couple laughs, and it just was like

Speaker 6 it made me feel so much better after my week of getting the shit kicked out of me. And just to even get a few laughs on that stage meant a lot to me.
It like charged me up for the week ahead, and uh,

Speaker 6 and so I would see him and Larry David and and those guys around that club um

Speaker 6 yeah it was it was interesting well those are hard-earned laughs i mean when you're by yourself and you walk up and just get a couple laughs there is that means a lot yeah yeah and uh but it it gave me a little boost that i needed um and when stand-up is giving you a boost you know you're in a hole

Speaker 4 I remember going that improv through I Dana, this is stupid, but, and we'll get to Bob in about 40 minutes.

Speaker 4 but what I did is I used to, I would come from Arizona and they said, I was a stand-up, and my buddy said, he knows this guy, Gary Grant, that can book you gigs. So I'd fly the crummiest airline.

Speaker 4 I'd stay at Columbia with my friend. I would take my suitcase with props

Speaker 4 and I would get my New York coat in quotes, which was my heavy, like, you know, like winter coat. I would never wear in Arizona.
It looked like a duster. I looked like young guns.

Speaker 4 So then I'd walk to the subway, take the subway to 44th, walk to the improv, wait until they assign me some comedian.

Speaker 4 I remember this guy was 36 and he had a Nova, and I go, if I'm still doing this at age 36, please kill me. Because I was 20.
And then we drove to like BF Packies or somewhere in Jersey.

Speaker 4 This is how you did it. I'd do a set, bomb.

Speaker 4 I would get maybe 60 bucks, come home, maybe spring for a cab fare because it's too late and scary to do the subway and do that for two weeks and I'd, I'd clear 500.

Speaker 4 And it was great. But I got to see the improv.
And I thought the improv, I'd always meet at the improv was the point.

Speaker 4 But it was so, I always heard about it. And I go in there and the stage is like four inches high.

Speaker 1 It's like, not that big of a deal. Not all.

Speaker 6 You know what was interesting about that when I first went there was they had that wall of photographs when you came out of the showroom into the bar.

Speaker 6 And in those photographs were stuff from from the 60s and 70s.

Speaker 6 And there's Andy Kaufman, and there's, you know,

Speaker 6 probably Jerry Seinfeld's up there.

Speaker 1 Then there's a guy juggling, and there's a singer.

Speaker 6 And I asked, I don't know,

Speaker 6 I don't think I asked Silver who ran that club at the time, but I asked probably the bartender or somebody, what's with the singer? And what is this juggler doing?

Speaker 6 And they said,

Speaker 6 well, that's what the club used to be. That's what all clubs used to be: is specialty act singer

Speaker 6 or music and then a comic.

Speaker 1 That's all of it.

Speaker 6 And then it became, and then the stand-up comedy boom hit, and it was like, everybody get the fuck out of here. It's just stand-ups.

Speaker 6 It's just.

Speaker 4 Then you had like Peter Potofsky. There was like guys that were juggler comedians, magic comedians, and they kept the comedy party, and it was probably easier to get on stage.

Speaker 6 You know, I think it probably, there's some value value to it in that, you know, if it's just one comic after another, it's like

Speaker 6 if there's just something between the comics that can kind of clean, clear the palate a little bit,

Speaker 6 it's kind of a,

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 6 To me, the issue I had, and I write about it in my book, which is why we're talking, right?

Speaker 3 Comedy, comedy, comedy, drama. I'm halfway through it.

Speaker 1 This is great.

Speaker 1 Fascinating.

Speaker 6 I hope you like it, Dana.

Speaker 1 I just got to the comedy, comedy.

Speaker 3 I have my own lane of this life we've shared together and then where we intersected was so cool. I just have great memories of you.

Speaker 3 And we wrote a movie together, which you primarily wrote, but called Tucson.

Speaker 3 And we had a lot of

Speaker 1 Tucson. We had a lot of Tucson.

Speaker 3 That still is a great, really funny script.

Speaker 6 Oh, yeah. Thanks, Dana.
I think so, too. I think it's a great scenario that you cooked up, which is that little guy in the West.
and he's... Irishman.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Irishman good with his guns, but just sweet as hell. And so the opposite of Clint Eastwood, just the very polar opposite of a Clint Eastwood character.
And

Speaker 6 so

Speaker 6 what was I saying? Just that.

Speaker 3 You remember the first scene?

Speaker 3 It's so you.

Speaker 1 Oh, what?

Speaker 3 Well, I think I come to town. I'm from Ireland.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and Lovitz has got a hangman's noose around him, and there's posters. He was running for mayor, and the posters said,

Speaker 3 if i don't clean up the town you can hang me and

Speaker 3 then lovitz was the conniving oh hello and i was like well i'm putting my guns and all

Speaker 1 so anyway but that was

Speaker 6 but um there was a joke in there dana that somebody else did in a movie very

Speaker 6 in the last few years it was one of the characters was named like clin eastwood yeah and there was some his name was clint eastwood and uh there was so much great stuff somebody did that joke recently right.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Or John Ham. Sometimes when John Hamm is in a show, they call him John Ham.
Just as I'm Harry David, it's funny.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

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Speaker 3 Should we go back to and then make our way to SNL? I just, I'm sort of curious because I don't didn't see it, but what was the stuff that

Speaker 1 got you?

Speaker 6 I talk a lot about the trauma of SNL. You know,

Speaker 6 SNL is pretty easy to write about because it was so hard and difficult for me personally.

Speaker 6 But that's true for a lot of people. And the story's been told many times, but I just told my version of it.

Speaker 6 But it's such a crucible, right, of pressure and desire and

Speaker 6 discovering yourself.

Speaker 6 And it just leads to a lot of interior trauma. And then that's something to write about.
Whereas, you know, when I got to the later parts of the book, and I'm writing about Breaking Bad, where,

Speaker 6 well, I mean, there was a journey there to become a better actor, but also the journey of the show becoming famous.

Speaker 6 But the show itself was a well-oiled machine with nothing but prose in every direction and nobody having any emotional issues, just working really hard and supporting each other and pulling together.

Speaker 6 Yeah, and so there's not much to say. We,

Speaker 6 you know, isn't it great? The writers did a great job and then we all worked really hard and it turned out well and

Speaker 1 nothing to say.

Speaker 3 And it's not like if they, if someone has a good scene and everyone goes, that guy's the best one.

Speaker 4 He's the best one in that scene. And then the rest of the day you feel like shit.

Speaker 1 That's it.

Speaker 3 You know, you're getting it day to day, I assume.

Speaker 3 When you're doing better calls, so all people are writing. It's a great day.
It's going to be great.

Speaker 6 Yeah, there's a, yeah, I mean, especially over time,

Speaker 6 the more you do it and you get to know the values of the show, what's good about the show, and you see it coming across in the writing and you know what you captured that day and think, well, that's going to play really well or be fun to watch.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 yeah, it's just not the,

Speaker 6 there's not as much to say

Speaker 6 as there is to say about Saturday Night Live, where there's so many books and so many, and they're all fascinating. I love them all, by the way.
One of the reasons I wrote my book is

Speaker 6 I love to read showbiz memoirs I just love them yeah

Speaker 6 and and usually when somebody gets into something that works and or they're talking about their hit show

Speaker 6 there's not much to say it's all about the struggle and the failure and the loss and the that's where it there's juicy stories you know Dana when I got there Dana was Bob was there already when I got seven I believe viewers yeah Bob was there and Dana was there and I came in.

Speaker 4 And Bob is always uh, I saw Bob more than Dana just because Bob was a writer with me, and we were in there all the time.

Speaker 4 But Bob's always sort of in a good mood, shockingly, when I look back because it's hard to be in a good mood at that place, but always laughing, always took a second for me. Uh, so did Conan.

Speaker 4 Uh, uh, but you guys at least would explain a little bit of what was going on because I was really a rube, just right off. I was a middle act.
I didn't know how to write.

Speaker 4 I didn't know how to use, I didn't know how to use a yellow pad. I didn't know how to, to, I had a square wooden desk.
And they just downy goes, here's your room. Bye.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, I don't know what's going on.

Speaker 4 What am I doing? And

Speaker 4 so I would, everyone has so much to do on their own plate. You do, Bob.
Dana does.

Speaker 4 And it's hard to take a second to tell someone, hey, because it's someone that not ultimately might take your job, but just one more person kind of in your way in a weird way.

Speaker 4 And you have to put that aside for a second and be a human being. And

Speaker 4 you did that. It was very nice.
And then, and now whenever I see you at a party, if it's a show-biz thing, I don't see Dana out as much unless we have dinner.

Speaker 4 But I run into Bob places and then I just beeline over to him because we always just start laughing within seconds. And that's fun to have.

Speaker 4 And we got through the craziness and we're both sort of sane.

Speaker 6 Absolutely, buddy. That's how I feel.

Speaker 6 I never told you this, but that party at Gaio's series where I met... McCartney and got to sit with him for 15, 20 minutes.

Speaker 6 As Naomi and I were walking in, my wife and I,

Speaker 6 I'm dreading going to this party because I'm, you know, 59 or at the time, 54 or whatever, and thinking, fuck it, I don't want to go out anymore at all, ever. And

Speaker 6 I'm thinking, it's just going to be intimidating. There's going to be famous people here, and I don't know what to say to them.
And I turn to Naomi and I go, you know what? David Spade will be here.

Speaker 6 And buddy, we walk in the front door and we look down the hall and there you are. It fucking blew our minds.

Speaker 1 I love it. He's a man about 10.

Speaker 4 There was one time I went to Guy's. I went to Guy's.
I didn't even go to the - I obviously don't go to the Oscars, but I didn't go to Vanity Fair or anything.

Speaker 4 I just went straight over to Guy's because Rock was over there. And I get there, and before you get in, there's a line for the bathroom.

Speaker 4 So I just stand in line for a second, and then McCartney comes behind me, and then he has a little...

Speaker 4 chitter chatter and then i'm floored and then bono comes out so i knew i was like again, like you, I don't think anyone knows what to say to anyone.

Speaker 4 So I do a few jokes that, you know, sort of strike out. And then we all kind of dart our eyes and then I drift.

Speaker 3 Bob, do you have something throughout, you know, Mr. Show or anything?

Speaker 3 If someone comes up to you in an airport or something, I assume like most celebrities specific compliments are the most flattering rather than you're great.

Speaker 3 You know, because someone came up to me, I'll just couch it. They came up to me at an airport and they said, I love skin heads in Maine, the thing I did with Colbert on my show.
And it's so specific.

Speaker 3 My friends share that and laugh about it all the time. But you must have a hundred of those, especially with Mr.
Show.

Speaker 3 There's so many quirky Mr. Show.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I'll tell you, I have,

Speaker 6 yeah, I mean, we've all gotten to do lots of cool stuff between the three of us. I've just had this, the variety in my career is sometimes strange.
in its intensity.

Speaker 6 You know, because this movie, Nobody, that I did, this action movie, that's like around the world, a whole different audience that probably they've never heard of Mr. Show.

Speaker 6 Some of them have seen Breaking Bad, and they're just like a whole nother set of people.

Speaker 6 But you know, the strangest thing is I always do have to do the math when somebody comes up to me of like, I have no idea what you know me from or what you think I did that was great.

Speaker 6 And I've had the biggest surprise is how

Speaker 6 more than a few times a year,

Speaker 6 somebody will come up and go, you are so great on how I met your mother. I mean, you're just the best.

Speaker 1 And it's like,

Speaker 6 I was on the show six times. Do you have anything like that, David? Do you have anything?

Speaker 4 Probably. Yeah, I mean, there are little nuggets that I've done that people, you know, I get Emperor's New Groove, and that's the only thing they know me from because of my voice.
And then

Speaker 4 you get things that are like Light Sleeper, where I played one scene, and someone doesn't really know you at all, and they know you're famous or you're something, but that's the only thing in your whole life they saw.

Speaker 4 And they appreciate it. So I'm happy.
And it's true. I can sort of guess by who's coming up.
I'm guessing sort of what they know me from. You know what I mean? And you might be able to get a feel.

Speaker 4 If they just say, you're great, I go, yeah, well, now let's dig in.

Speaker 3 I find that if someone is funny or in one scene of a movie or one part of a show, if they catch me and really make me laugh or impress me, I'm kind of like a fan from then on, even if it's just like a small cameo.

Speaker 3 But Bob, the interesting part of your story, obviously, obviously, is like we know where it sort of is,

Speaker 3 it went.

Speaker 3 And I'm just wondering when you go, well, we go back to 87 to 91 and knowing you and your work ethic, you're smarts and funny, all that stuff, like how does that guy,

Speaker 3 what was the emotional, I mean, who was Bob in those years that was so tenacious and so talented that then you went to this. And then, of course, nobody is that they're going to make 10 of those.

Speaker 3 That was so great for that genre

Speaker 1 to reinvent that genre.

Speaker 6 Thanks. Thanks.

Speaker 6 Listen, first of all, I gotta tell you, when they finally green lit that movie and I went to go make it, obviously, I'm thinking probably we're gonna fuck everything up and it'll be a mess.

Speaker 6 But I also thought, if it works, if it works,

Speaker 6 then the thing I'm most excited about is my friends

Speaker 1 going,

Speaker 1 What the fuck? Yes, I said it.

Speaker 1 I'm like, it, what?

Speaker 3 It's like Bob is doing this now,

Speaker 3 and it's not a one-off.

Speaker 3 That is too good.

Speaker 1 It's like, too fucking good.

Speaker 4 I watch it, and I go, this better be exactly what I think it's going to be. And it was, and it delivered.
And that fight, I think it was on a bus or something. I'm like, what the fuck?

Speaker 4 I couldn't even do. I was like, I'm a bigger puss out of all of us.
And I couldn't even do the fake stunts for that because I'm such a puss. I'd be like, we can't even fake do it with you.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Because I go, I don't really need to get beaten up, but I can't lift my leg leg up and kick.

Speaker 4 My mist will hurt my clavicle if I hold this too high.

Speaker 1 So I like it was you, and you have to be in shape. Oh, yeah, just to do that.
I've never seen a fake for that, right? I really pole punches to do anyway.

Speaker 6 I worked really hard because I knew I had a long way to go.

Speaker 6 And listen, right from the start, I was like, look, if we're going to do this, it's not going to be ironic. I'm not going to wink at the camera.
I'm not going to give myself an out.

Speaker 6 I'm going to look, if I'm going to look like an asshole, I'm going to look like

Speaker 6 a middle life crisis, loser, pathetic, like, what happened to you, guy? I'm going to do this thing all the way or not at all. And then if it works, it's amazing.
Yeah.

Speaker 6 And if it doesn't work, well, who didn't, who didn't think it wouldn't work? I mean, come on.

Speaker 3 But I did.

Speaker 4 When do you realize it worked?

Speaker 4 At a test screening or at

Speaker 4 just rough dailies or is there a certain point where you go, here's what we're coming together.

Speaker 6 COVID really worked in our favor because we had a cut. It was good, but it felt kind of like an indie movie.

Speaker 6 It was a little slow

Speaker 1 and small.

Speaker 6 And then this, because of COVID, this editor, who's the second editor on the project, whose name is on it, because it should be, said, I got nothing to do. Give me your movie.
Let me fuck with it.

Speaker 6 And two weeks later, this guy turned the movie back to us and it was like, oh, wow. Okay, wait a second.

Speaker 6 And the interesting thing is, he added, he built the sequence that opens the film out of shit that was on the cutting room floor. Didn't, not shot for the movie, just thrown away.

Speaker 1 What a worker.

Speaker 6 And everything else in the movie, all he did was chop it a little bit, shift some of the

Speaker 6 order a little bit, not much.

Speaker 6 And it was a totally different movie.

Speaker 6 Totally different experience and just worked from the get-go.

Speaker 1 Titan and Brighton.

Speaker 6 It was amazing what this guy did.

Speaker 3 Because you connected to the character because it does work in the whole emotional arc. You really do feel simple.
I feel sympathetic for your character. I want him to win.

Speaker 6 Yeah, well, that's actually, honestly, that's one of the things I thought I could bring to that genre is vulnerability.

Speaker 6 Yeah, vulnerability, genuine, like that you bought. Yeah.
Like, because a lot of times, you know, you don't really, they try to have it, but

Speaker 6 you don't really buy it. But you don't care if you're watching an action movie, a lot of times you don't care.
You're like, so what? I like this guy.

Speaker 1 I like this scenario.

Speaker 6 Go hit somebody. Yeah, it's fine.
Go, let's see the action and let's have some fun with it. But I thought, is there something I could bring to this genre? And I thought,

Speaker 6 you know, around the world, I'm known from Better Call Saw. And that's a character who's getting his ass kicked in a lot of ways and emotionally getting his ass kicked.
And

Speaker 6 and I play him and there's a sort of a great degree of uh empathy that people have for that guy and what the story they've Evan Schiff is the editor Evan Schiff

Speaker 4 came on board and and made that thing a beauty it's important to give credit I love it yeah and uh well if you're if you're bullied a lot Bob like I was and Dana was and uh Those movies are fucking, I love because it's what I could never do.

Speaker 4 And when you see like Death Wish wish with Charles Bronson he's at least a guy that's not getting bullied every day because he's tough but when you see a guy like you I totally buy I go all right Bob's a nice guy he's out there trying to fucking get through the world like everybody and people just always fuck they do it to me all the time and so I know Chris Rock is doing the sequel but anyway um I do spy but I feel like

Speaker 4 when you see you in that situation and I'm like, please fucking screw these guys up. It's like the equalizer or something.

Speaker 1 Right, right, right.

Speaker 6 And it's the fantasy wish fulfillment that I could deliver on because I could really be that first iteration of the guy. And you really, really felt like, yeah, he really is.
It's not just, you know,

Speaker 6 I don't know, Tom Cruise with glasses on or, you know,

Speaker 1 or a buttoned-up shirt

Speaker 3 buttoned up to the collar.

Speaker 4 I think you go into a bar, you go into someone and you say, you want to see somebody and they don't want you to, and you don't back down at all on anything, which is, I love.

Speaker 4 You just go, I think it's best if you, and you're like, this is the way I want to talk all my whole life. I just want to say,

Speaker 4 listen, here's what's going to happen. I hit you, you hit the ground.
I hit the next guy, he goes down. And the guy's like, what are you talking about? And you're like, just

Speaker 4 you wait about 30 seconds. You'll see how this hit goes.

Speaker 1 You know, I love that shit. I love it.

Speaker 6 So the fun of this, this idea, this thing I had, this secret I had inside me when I'm training, which is like my friends, Dana Carvey, David Spade, all these guys.

Speaker 6 If I get to make this and it comes off,

Speaker 6 they're just not going to know where to turn.

Speaker 1 They're going to have to go to the hospital and get an MRI.

Speaker 1 Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 3 It was a little bit of opening an old-fashioned newspaper. Bob Odekirk starring in action film.

Speaker 1 What the fuck?

Speaker 4 And the picture, the poster is like, you kind of beat up, I think.

Speaker 1 It was a great poster. What's going on here? Yeah.

Speaker 6 Well, it was a great joy to make that happen and to have that come to life but anyway

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Speaker 3 Can I ask you a personal question?

Speaker 1 Yeah, Danny. Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 3 Oh, I just for a second, because you're starring in this film, and you know, film and television have all overlapped. Now it's like the best stuffs on television.

Speaker 3 You're starring a film, so like when you're like in the 70s, whatever, what films woke you up to filmhood or show business? Like, what was a seminal film for you as a kid?

Speaker 3 You know, it could be for Ben Stiller, it was

Speaker 3 the Poseidon adventure.

Speaker 3 For

Speaker 3 Bill Hayter, it was taxi drivers.

Speaker 4 Hanks was 2001.

Speaker 6 I can tell you, American Graffiti. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 Okay, Ron Howard, 1973, Harrison Ford.

Speaker 6 Yeah, and,

Speaker 6 you know,

Speaker 6 I'd gone to films, you know, fun movies at the Cineplex, and they were just building Cineplexes at the time. But we had an old-time movie theater in our small town of Naperville, Illinois.

Speaker 6 And I'd seen a John Wayne film there on its first first run.

Speaker 1 Big Texas. How old I am.
Yeah. Rio logo.
Yep. Yep.

Speaker 4 I thought it was the Cowboys.

Speaker 6 And I liked it. And it was great.
And I loved going to movies when I could. But

Speaker 6 we didn't go to a lot of movies. But

Speaker 6 going to that little old theater where, you know, they showed just the latest thing from the studios for a week or two, right?

Speaker 6 And seeing American graffiti, man, that was a totally different vibe vibe than everything I had seen

Speaker 6 in that theater or anywhere. That was

Speaker 6 a new wave for film in America. And it felt more real.

Speaker 6 It had a modern energy to it. And

Speaker 6 it's a very good film.

Speaker 1 George Lutheran. It's really good.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 4 it's so interesting to see a movie that sort of changes the way you think, and maybe it tilted you towards comedy, maybe not, but just that's the beauty of movies when they you see a bunch that do nothing and you're just sort of killing time, and then one just grabs you.

Speaker 4 Nothing like it. It's it's what you want to do when you make movies.
You go, I want one that people remember, right? Right, something

Speaker 6 that's the thing a movie can be that a TV show

Speaker 6 pretty much isn't, which is this kind of very core elemental connection that just gets you deep, deeply. It's like a fable, and

Speaker 6 it really

Speaker 6 takes you on a ride. I think with TV, you're always, no matter how well it's done, you just aren't as close to those lead characters.
You're still just watching the story.

Speaker 6 You can be totally wrapped in the story, but you're just not, I don't know. I feel like movies just kind of

Speaker 6 grab you and take you on that one ride, and you feel close to those characters in a personal way.

Speaker 1 But, you know,

Speaker 4 it might be the fact that it's singular, you know, Bob. Like it's just you go and this is at beginning, middle, end, and you go, wow, and you want to see the whole thing again.

Speaker 4 And TV, sometimes you go, if someone says, did you see the series? I'm like, oh, what? And they're like, it's on episode four. I mean, you know, like season four, you, I can't

Speaker 1 have 200 hours right now. Go ahead, Bob.

Speaker 3 I just think the power of film more than ever now is turning off the cell phone and not being distracted because you're watching something with your wife, you're enjoying it, and then dring ring ding a ding.

Speaker 3 I mean, it's just it's it's a problem.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 You know, so the focus of a film.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 6 yeah, is really strong and really a powerful experience. Anyway, I still love T V and I love everything that we all get to do.
And I I really I like moving around.

Speaker 6 And I don't certainly don't think I have have a career, a future as a movie star, but I will get to make a few more movies, but it's not important to me. It wasn't like the drive of my life.

Speaker 6 I was driven by comedy, as my book really, really says. I mean, I'm really trying to warn people with that title.

Speaker 1 I know a lot of people know me from

Speaker 6 Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad, but I want to say,

Speaker 6 you know, I'm going to talk about

Speaker 6 comedy in Chicago in 1980,

Speaker 6 85,

Speaker 6 and you're probably not going to give a shit about that.

Speaker 6 Right.

Speaker 4 You definitely have fans that don't know you from comedy at all. Yeah, at all.

Speaker 1 At all.

Speaker 4 That's rare for us,

Speaker 4 for comedians that you have a whole huge new crowd.

Speaker 6 It's, yeah, it's true. And

Speaker 6 I want to move around between these things because that's always been the most fun thing for me.

Speaker 3 And that's one of the reasons I think I love sketch comedy so much is you're just jumping around from different ideas, different, you know, different tones something's really broad something's a little subtler you know i like jumping around between all that stuff so how did how did you find yourself because i not everyone if people should read the book but you know just quickly that journey from i know monty python was a big big wake-up call for you and then you like from chicago second city but what was it about monty python that's not in the book you know what what are your feelings even today you feel like that is the one that you and your brother bill just went holy shit.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 6 You know, I think,

Speaker 6 you know, there's a lot of comedy in the 70s that we all watched. It had kind of a, look, some of it was great, you know,

Speaker 6 for sure. I mean, I loved Carol Burnett's show.

Speaker 6 The vibe with those people was like joining a party that was a very welcoming party.

Speaker 1 Friendly and sweet.

Speaker 6 It wasn't like they were, yeah, friendly and sweet. And we sure needed that in my house.
So I love that. But I think Python was, for me, the thing that spoke about how I looked at the world.

Speaker 6 And it kind of put an arm around me and said, yeah, the adults are crazy assholes. And

Speaker 6 don't worry, you're not the only one thinking this. And

Speaker 6 it's okay. You can laugh at it.
That's what you could do.

Speaker 6 And I think it's because, you know, they're young guys. They were in their 20s making that show.

Speaker 6 And they were very smart. And they're very silly, like extremely silly, but very smart.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 6 that's the magic.

Speaker 4 That's a tough combo to get right.

Speaker 6 That's the magic combination to me. And

Speaker 6 it just spoke to

Speaker 6 the way I needed to see the world to be really comforted.

Speaker 6 You know, I mean, this is what all the things we do and the things that affect us on a deep level do in whether it's a movie or a book or a TV show or some stand-up act, is it makes you feel less alone.

Speaker 6 You just get that feeling of, I'm not the only one who sees this in the world. And when you're a kid and you're 10 or 11, at the time I was, I think, 11 when I first saw Python, that is a crucial,

Speaker 6 you're just about to become an adult.

Speaker 6 Probably really sensing, and in my house, I mean, life was extremely unstable at that point. Because there's,

Speaker 6 at that point, five kids, two more to come.

Speaker 1 Wow. Two more to come.

Speaker 6 How the fuck does that happen? When, you know, financially, it's off the rails. There's no future.
There's no stability anywhere, anywhere near you.

Speaker 6 And like, how?

Speaker 6 And you just as a kid, you know, no one's including you in any of that shit.

Speaker 4 Your parents are... My daughter's Alec Baldwin.

Speaker 6 Oh, boy, I wish he was.

Speaker 1 I wish he was.

Speaker 3 Mine wasn't a picnic either.

Speaker 3 We've talked about this, I'm sure, privately, but it was rough. But yours sounds really intense.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but I mean, look, you know, but it's not that special.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I mean, I try to express in the book: look, I know my childhood is not special. It is a very typical 70s childhood.

Speaker 6 You know, people were just starting to have the word alcoholism in their vocabulary. I mean, there was, uh, you know,

Speaker 6 it was just coming to understand a lot of all of my dad's friends all ended up broke, bankrupt, divorced.

Speaker 1 Really? And

Speaker 6 yeah, he used to take us out. He used to occasionally when he would hang out with us, he would take us to his office and we'd go to lunch with these five guys and they'd get fucking ripped at lunch.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 6 all of them, car crashes, divorced.

Speaker 1 It was like America.

Speaker 6 The playbook it was like the playbook hey you had your car crash i'm next i'm next you know and uh

Speaker 6 i remember my dad buy it getting in his car accident uh and his was a good one he went through the window in his car accident yeah he went through the window and landed like 15 feet outside the car

Speaker 6 and i remember him looking in the mirror picking glass out of his head like even like a week later he's still picking little pieces of glass out of his out of his bald head.

Speaker 1 Jeez.

Speaker 3 So you went in.

Speaker 1 But come on.

Speaker 4 That was a 70s. That was a dad.
Yeah, right?

Speaker 1 That was.

Speaker 4 My dad was a drone.

Speaker 3 We had all kinds of excitement.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Yeah, but look, the bottom line is it wasn't special. It was just where I was at when comedy came along and told me, yeah,

Speaker 6 he's nuts. It's crazy.
It's okay. Just laugh at it.
And

Speaker 6 Steve Martin on SNL was also like a superpower rocket ship to like crazy town and the best comedy the best mix of you know ample you know conceptualized

Speaker 1 uh

Speaker 6 you know like the the festronk brothers like that's fucking off the rails stuff

Speaker 1 you know um the wild and crazy guys

Speaker 6 um i am but they pull it off and it it isn't look there was there was a thing about the 70s humor that was kind of cute cute and talsy and wasn't, didn't make me happy.

Speaker 6 The dangerous stuff is what made me happy. And that's what came in, came around around, you know, this time for me.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Carlin.

Speaker 4 By the way, your American graffiti was my life of Brian.

Speaker 4 I saw Life of Brian and I was like, what the fuck is, I didn't know anything about Monty Python. I just went to a comedy and we snuck in because it was R-rated.
Wild. And it really.

Speaker 4 hit me like what the fuck are these guys it was nothing like i'd seen and

Speaker 4 you know I don't want to harp on it, but I just wanted to acknowledge that Money Python stuff did hit me also. I mean, I saw Animal House.
I saw all the stuff I'm supposed to see and fucking loved.

Speaker 4 And then that was just a little different move. And smart, silly, of course, and just doing stuff we didn't do here.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 I had the same reaction. All of my friends loved it.

Speaker 4 And you, now, now, Bob, I have to ask Bob if he wrote for Dennis because I didn't know that. I don't think I knew you wrote for Dennis Miller before SNL?

Speaker 6 Yeah, before I got on as a writer, I would send jokes. Well, I would send scripts to Robert.

Speaker 1 Here's what happened. Okay.

Speaker 6 I was doing different crazy shit in Chicago. Stand-up, sketch shows, anything.

Speaker 6 And Robert Smeigel,

Speaker 6 I'd seen his work at this little theater that we all went to school at called The Players Workshop. And he wrote a show there that later became a hit show.

Speaker 6 It ran for like a year and a half and made tons of money.

Speaker 6 And so I saw that show in its early iterations, and it was already solid. It's such good writing and so strong.
It's so, like, it just works. Like, I had a hit ratio of like 15%.

Speaker 1 And I didn't care, by the way, that was fine.

Speaker 6 And Smeigel had a hit ratio of like 90%.

Speaker 6 And it was like.

Speaker 4 Yeah, he was a big slugging person.

Speaker 1 Holy shit, man.

Speaker 6 I don't know where that comes from. You know, Robert

Speaker 6 it's the Rupert Pupkin effect is what he calls his achievement as a young writer, where all these years I've been pretending in my head that I was this writer, and I've been sort of writing stuff in my head, like Rupert Pupkin in his basement.

Speaker 6 And then he said, if you notice on the show, in the movie, The King of Comedy, when he actually gets a chance, it actually works.

Speaker 1 He's actually pretty good.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 6 And it's like just from hundreds of hours of you know of doing it in front of the you know in front of the wall interesting and uh and yeah and i hadn't done what robert did i think not even close to the hours he'd put in on really examining writing and sketch work and what a sketch is and

Speaker 6 and uh but he had i saw his work i loved it He saw me in this crazy show.

Speaker 6 It was off the rails, silly stuff, but I was doing characters and i was my i mean the only thing you could recommend about it was my commitment and my silliness i mean it was super silly and he got that i was willing to just go that far and and thought it was cool and we started writing a show together and then he got hired at s n l and so here i am in chicago and he doesn't know anybody when he gets to snl so he's calling me up on a monday and going i have these two ideas calling me again on tuesday reading the script to me.

Speaker 6 I'm going to do this joke. What about this? I'm just pitching him jokes.

Speaker 6 And he just has a partner, even though he's, you know, at SNL, new to the job, and he's got someone to call and work his stuff on with, and work his stuff with.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 so I'm sending stuff in. I guess he's sharing it with some other writers.
And then I'm sending jokes in for Dennis. And Dennis is doing them.

Speaker 6 I mean,

Speaker 6 you know what that means to somebody

Speaker 6 waiting tables in Chicago to go.

Speaker 4 You see a joke on the air.

Speaker 6 I remember my first joke. I remember delivering food to the table at Ed DeBevic's in Chicago, and I keep checking the screen because they have SNL on.
You can't hear it, but it's on the TV.

Speaker 6 And there's that picture of Bob Hope. And there's my nasty joke, mean-spirited joke.

Speaker 1 Mean-spirited.

Speaker 6 from this fucking kid.

Speaker 3 Do you want to tell us what it is?

Speaker 6 The statute of limitations on respecting Bob Hope for his earlier work ran out today.

Speaker 1 I love it.

Speaker 3 And that's the statue of limitations. It's all the language, and you know, it's like a nicely tight.

Speaker 4 Short, short, and tight.

Speaker 4 And people and it's something everyone's thinking. No one says out loud.

Speaker 1 No one says out loud.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 6 it did great. And Dennis does a couple of my jokes over the next year or two.
And Smigel, actually, there was one scene I wrote that got on. It was the Sideshow of the Stars.

Speaker 6 So, you know, they had Circus of the Stars. And this was Sideshow of the Stars,

Speaker 1 where they have, you know.

Speaker 6 I don't even remember the jokes, but somebody's got hair all over their body that you didn't know or something.

Speaker 6 Some, you know, sitcom actor.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 Robert, of course,

Speaker 6 punched that way up

Speaker 6 but I only got that was the only sketch that I got on when I hadn't been a writer there yet and then I had that meeting with Lauren that I detail in the book and I kind of exaggerated but the truth is Dana and David I went into Lauren's office and

Speaker 6 I really did think this guy does not want his ass kissed He's heard enough people, you know, praise him.

Speaker 6 He wants to, if he's going going to hire somebody, he wants to hear somebody with a critical mind who's a moxie.

Speaker 1 I got to hear what you said. I told you it's in the book.

Speaker 6 Well, I mean, I just went like,

Speaker 1 yeah,

Speaker 6 I don't know.

Speaker 6 What do you think of the show? Do you like it?

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 1 I could fix it. It's been better.

Speaker 6 It's been better for sure. I mean, I think the earlier years.

Speaker 1 Wow. You know, and

Speaker 6 what comedy do you like?

Speaker 1 What do you like? Oh, Monty Python.

Speaker 6 Monty Python. Now, that was great.
And that was great because it was smart and silly, and they didn't have to, you know,

Speaker 6 they knew their lines.

Speaker 1 They weren't

Speaker 1 reading cue cards. Yeah.

Speaker 6 You know, I'm fucking ripping the show.

Speaker 4 Well, thanks for coming in, Bob.

Speaker 6 I kind of think he's going to like this.

Speaker 1 You know, I mean,

Speaker 1 talk about not reading a room, man.

Speaker 6 Holy shit.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 6 the fact that he hired me is insane. The only thing I had in my favor was he doesn't really,

Speaker 6 I want to, he doesn't have to examine that kind of hiring that closely. I mean, if a couple of writers want you to hire somebody, you're going to say, sure, go ahead, give them a try.

Speaker 1 We can try.

Speaker 1 They think they're good because he doesn't.

Speaker 4 He's not first. How can he tell in a meeting? Yeah, but also in fairness, I wasn't listening.

Speaker 6 The other thing I'd say, David, is, I mean, Lauren loves Python too.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Friends of all of them.
Lauren also.

Speaker 6 Yeah, Lauren probably would say, if you said, what's the best comedy show of the last hundred years? He'd go, oh, well, it's not my show. It's Money Python.

Speaker 6 You know, and so the fact is, he probably kind of,

Speaker 6 well, the other thing is he also knows what it's like to sit across from a very nervous young person who doesn't know what to say, is completely wildly intimidated.

Speaker 6 And he's just done that 10,000 times and probably kind of gave me a little break for that.

Speaker 4 Maybe. Sure.

Speaker 4 He's very funny, also. And I don't know if that always comes across.
So we talk about him because we joke, but he's very funny. He's very dry.

Speaker 4 And when you can make Lauren laugh at read-through, it's so fun when he cracks up.

Speaker 4 Sometimes he slaps the table and laughs, and you're like, oh my God, what a home run.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 6 I never did that.

Speaker 4 Bob, we, Dane, I don't know if you remember when I was having some troubles on the show, and I think I would just credit Bob with

Speaker 4 the one in my picture in my head when I'm joking about People Magazine or just killing time in the day.

Speaker 4 And Bob is a great laugher, by the way, which always helps disarm, you know, make you feel better.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 4 he sort of came up with Hollywood Minute and steered it with me.

Speaker 4 Remember, Bob, we were thinking, like, maybe it could be a show.

Speaker 6 David, what did I do to help you with that? I just said

Speaker 6 what you do here in the writer's room, you should just do that.

Speaker 4 Yes, it was something that simple, but it made me, and we were framing it. And I'm like, could it be a show called Guess What? Remember, I was like, Guess what?

Speaker 1 You're an idiot.

Speaker 4 And then it turned into like just a series of photos, which when you said that Bob Hope one, that was kind of like a simple way it's put.

Speaker 4 You know, do a joke, try to think of something people are thinking. Everyone's kissing ass to celebrities.

Speaker 4 And I was unknown, which helped, you know, just innocent looking. That was part of it.

Speaker 4 That's why it took, I didn't want to do it as much later because I sort of turned into someone people knew and then it's, then it turns meaner.

Speaker 4 And it was just kind of fun to take someone's legs out for no reason.

Speaker 1 Like, hey, this guy is famous. Fuck you.

Speaker 4 And then, and there was always a reason. Like, I didn't want to go at people more than once because, you know, you get one freebie if they screw up.
And I didn't want it to be that mean.

Speaker 4 It was just for fun.

Speaker 4 But it was a big help. Just the fact that you encourage or even listen to me in between we're eating Wally and Joseph's or whatever.

Speaker 4 It was nice.

Speaker 4 It sort of just got me thinking.

Speaker 6 I love to hear somebody young, you know, I've helped a couple young talent

Speaker 6 groups or people

Speaker 6 to find some way forward. And it's because I know what it's like to tread water and lose ground and be lost.

Speaker 6 And if you can give somebody a little cue that maybe gives them a shortcut or clarifies what they're doing already, And it's a great feeling

Speaker 6 to be able to do that. And

Speaker 6 I guess I've done that even more than I thought. But

Speaker 6 I like to do it. I mean, part of it is,

Speaker 6 you know, one of the ways that you can use your skills when you've been at SNL for a few years as a writer. And by the time you were there, I'd been there for three years.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 I finally was feeling like I'm starting to understand

Speaker 6 what the show needs.

Speaker 6 Because instead of what I wanted it to be,

Speaker 6 which was insane, because it's never going to be Monty Python. It's not going to be a lot.

Speaker 6 Oh my God, there's so much about it.

Speaker 4 The reality. What's the reality?

Speaker 4 How can you help

Speaker 4 the show?

Speaker 6 It took me for years, years.

Speaker 6 But somewhere around my third year, my brain started to calm down and go, wait, it's not this other thing that you want it to be. It is a thing that

Speaker 6 has all kinds of, first of all, it's so fucking hard to do. You know, whenever we talk about it and we critique the show, and I mean, the fucking thing just

Speaker 6 on the face of it is impossible.

Speaker 1 It's absurd. It's an impossible thing.

Speaker 6 It's absurd.

Speaker 1 And the more I go back, the more I go,

Speaker 6 when I go back and see the show being done, I'm like, oh my God, this is impossible. You know, when I was young, I never thought that.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 6 when I got hired, there, I was like, come on, how come this isn't better? Come on, work, you guys. This is not hard.

Speaker 1 This is easy.

Speaker 1 It shouldn't be hard.

Speaker 6 You know, and it's like, once you've produced a few things, you're like,

Speaker 6 you want me to do a show Saturday night with sets?

Speaker 4 And how good all the departments are. Yeah, the departments are so fucking on it.

Speaker 6 They're so good.

Speaker 3 They're so practical. Anyway, did you ever think during a long dress show?

Speaker 3 Sometimes I thought maybe tonight's the night it won't, the show won't go on. They'll show a rerun of something.

Speaker 3 Sometimes it just seems like.

Speaker 6 I never thought that. I mean, I think it more now.

Speaker 6 But again, when I was there, Dana, when I started there, I had such, I don't know, you know, you guys know the people who start in this business, there's such a strange mix of

Speaker 6 confidence, self-doubt, ego, self-hatred. It's the weirdest.
Like, how does it work? How does it work that

Speaker 6 you have a friend, you know, we all have a friend,

Speaker 6 literally walks around all day hating themselves, talking about how stupid and dumb they are, and then gets on stage and tells a crowd of strangers what they think.

Speaker 1 Like,

Speaker 1 what's

Speaker 1 a madhouse?

Speaker 1 How does that work?

Speaker 6 Something's wrong here because if you don't think you're worth anything, then you shouldn't be thinking, give me that mic. I need to tell everyone what I am.

Speaker 1 Give me that mic.

Speaker 6 I just always felt I need to lecture these people.

Speaker 3 Hey, David, when it comes to gifting, you know, I've learned there are two types of presents, okay?

Speaker 3 The ones that get returned and the ones that instantly become a favorite. Do you agree?

Speaker 4 Yeah, that's Jenny Berg jewelry definitely falls in the second category.

Speaker 4 These designs, as you know, are very modern. They're timeless, always feel special.

Speaker 3 Oh, well, isn't that special?

Speaker 4 That makes them my secret weapon when I want to give a gift that really, you know, lands. That's why Jenny Bird makes it easy.

Speaker 1 The packaging is beautiful.

Speaker 4 It's very thoughtful. The pieces are comfy enough to wear every day.
Yep. And they ship fast.
That's not perfect if you're a last-minute shopper like me.

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Speaker 3 Bob, I always felt if I didn't kill,

Speaker 3 I'd get fired. I felt like I had to destroy it.
Maybe I pushed a little too much at times until I got to Johnny Carson. Was the only sketch I did toward the end where I wasn't pushing.

Speaker 3 But I just wanted to make the point that

Speaker 3 are you still with us? Your screen's frozen.

Speaker 1 Oh, okay. God, you were just

Speaker 3 that it seemed like you were

Speaker 3 like, if you told me you had a pretty good time on SNL, it wouldn't surprise you you because it seems like you were sort of around a lot like you'd be in a room with conan or robert or here's an example i wanted the audience to hear franken and i are doing a george bush senior we're sitting around somewhere going damn doing the thing gotta do it gotta go and then and then it was uh we're trying to go i think al said and the lesson uh the lesson of vietnam and you would just eavesdropped or just walked by and you just went stay out of vietnam and that killed on the show on saturday Lesson of Vietnam, stay out of Vietnam.

Speaker 1 Do you remember that moment, Paul?

Speaker 3 But I think you were around the show a lot. Grumpy old man was really your, you originated that.
I don't know. It seemed like you were around.
You know,

Speaker 6 listen, if I try to think of the things I contributed to SNL, and basically I say in my book that I didn't help at all and I got paid and I learned so much about how to write a sketch and what a sketch is made of.

Speaker 6 And then I gave nothing back, nothing in return. Like Lauren totally got the shit end of the stick with me.

Speaker 6 But

Speaker 6 probably

Speaker 6 those things maybe added up to something. The little things that I was able to do because Robert included me in writing or, you know, anybody did.

Speaker 6 I mean, I can think of some of them because they stick out because they were,

Speaker 6 it would have meant a lot to me when I was able to help and say something that helped.

Speaker 6 I wanted it to work. That's the other thing.
Sometimes I think I, when I talk about the show, it sounds like I hated the show or thought it was dumb and fucked this place.

Speaker 6 And it's not true. It's not true.

Speaker 6 I wanted nothing more than to be helpful and meaningful there. And

Speaker 6 it would have meant so much to me to feel that that way. But

Speaker 6 I just did my best.

Speaker 4 But you brought in like Motivational Speaker, which is one of the greats. I mean,

Speaker 4 just that alone, you could have fucking

Speaker 1 stuff.

Speaker 6 David, that was after I left. That scene was that true.
That was the next. Yeah,

Speaker 6 they did that scene the year after I left. Now, they gave me credit for it, of course, because I wrote it.
I wrote it alone in my apartment in Chicago.

Speaker 6 But

Speaker 6 that wasn't even I had like

Speaker 1 that,

Speaker 3 just that.

Speaker 1 Wow, what fan down by the river says

Speaker 4 just the fact that it's one of the most I mean, listen, I just was in the scene and I hear about it every day, so uh, but I had nothing to do with it, I just was cast, thank God, Lord Jesus.

Speaker 6 Well, you guys know that as proud as I am that I wrote it, and I'm supremely proud, it's a standout moment in my life and SNL's life is, you know, Chris Farley is the reason freight train.

Speaker 6 I mean, that guy, I mean, I talk about him a lot in the book, and it's weird, and it's fun to talk to you guys right now because I mentioned to Howard Stern on his podcast that,

Speaker 6 you know, it's strange to write about somebody who I, I mean, David, you were very close to him.

Speaker 6 I was not. I mean, I

Speaker 6 was, I felt very close to him, but so did anyone who saw him perform

Speaker 1 or even hung out and met him. Or met him.
Such a sweet.

Speaker 4 Yeah, he was so nice and looking in the eye and just like shake your hand and be happy. And they felt like, oh, that's why he was so lovable.
They're like, oh, this guy's my friend immediately.

Speaker 6 Yeah, Howard said, you know, I didn't really know him. And I said, but you did.
You did. Because you saw him.
Perform. You saw him as a.

Speaker 4 That's basically what it was.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And

Speaker 6 so

Speaker 6 I felt a little strange about writing as much as I did, but it was pure honesty. And he affected me and impacted me greatly, as he did everyone who got to know him.
So,

Speaker 6 you know, I mean, it's fun to talk about how I got to write that sketch and that it played so well on the show, but it's all Chris, you know.

Speaker 6 The show is always performance.

Speaker 6 One of the things that probably bothered me was that SNL is always going to reward and celebrate a performance laugh over a

Speaker 6 construction story laugh? And as a writer,

Speaker 6 I'm wanting those two to at least be equal. Right.
Or if not, lean in my direction, where you go, yeah, that performer who does says Van Dalva there, he's all right, but the fucking idea,

Speaker 6 that's so well constructed.

Speaker 1 And that probably was Jack Handy, right?

Speaker 3 Jack Handy. Yeah.

Speaker 6 A Jack Handy sketch is a jack handy sketch it is funny because jack handy is

Speaker 6 genius and and it does it you can put seven other actors in there if they're okay yeah you're gonna frozen caveman lawyer i mean phil was great but the concept that was

Speaker 4 just so jack handy and phil nailing it but just he's nailing a great piece of writing sketch that was written so well and the handy sketches you know like a fingerprint within a half a page at read-through you're like looking around around going, is this Jack Handy?

Speaker 4 Like, it immediately comes out of the gate.

Speaker 6 I would love to talk to you guys for five more hours.

Speaker 4 I love you, Bob.

Speaker 1 Thank you for coming, man.

Speaker 3 Thanks so much.

Speaker 3 It's a pleasure. You're right.
We could go for five more hours.

Speaker 4 Hey, guys, if you're loving this podcast, which you are, be sure to click follow on your favorite podcast app.

Speaker 4 Give us a review, five-star rating, and maybe even share an episode that you've loved with a friend.

Speaker 3 If you're watching this episode on YouTube, please subscribe. We're on video now.

Speaker 4 Fly on the Wall is presented by Odyssey, an executive produced by Danny Carvey and David Spade, Heather Santoro, and Greg Holtzman, Maddie Sprung-Kaiser, and Leah Reese Dennis of Odyssey.

Speaker 3 Our senior producer is Greg Holtzman, and the show is produced and edited by Phil Sweet Tech.

Speaker 4 Booking by Cultivated Entertainment.

Speaker 3 Special thanks to Patrick Fogarty, Evan Cox, Maura Curran, Melissa Wester, Hilary Schuff, Eric Donnelly, Colin Gaynor, Sean Cherry, Kurt Courtney, and Lauren Vieira.

Speaker 4 Reach out with us any questions to be asked and answered on the show. You can email us at flyonthewall at odyssey.com.
That's audacy.com.