RE-RELEASE - Jon Hamm

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All right, our main man.

I met this guy at Hunk class.

Yeah, the one and only John Hamm who's

so brilliant in Mad Men, that was his coming out party. And then he's gone on to do all these things.
Madmen.

Always in

used a lot in comedies and for good reason. The guy knows what he's doing.
Very personable, very

studly, a lot of fun to chat with. I see him out sometimes and

just a good old school hang. Yeah.

Since we recorded this, when I was doing SNL last fall, I just hung out with him a lot. He'd come to a lot of the parties.

Super friendly guy and

loves comedy. You know, he can do drama.
He can do anything. But yeah, to be he since this one, he's in a show called Neighbors.
I think on Apple TV, he's fantastic in that. Fantastic.

So this was us, me getting to kind of know him. And he loves comedy.
He sent me some

really obscure, bizarre comedy clips. I mean, he's a fish.
Even when he's just doing like the boyfriend of Kristen Wiggin, Bridesmaids, just more scoring. Yeah.
Just you cut there.

It's probably not supposed to be that funny on paper. Those two were hilarious.
Ads.

Movie as a whole. So great.

So

let's hear some John Ham.

This is it, man. This is not gonna be.
We're all should be your nickname, Spader. Eagle Beagle.

You can always test how old people are. If they see a shoe, it's just Eagle Beagle, they'll either get it or they don't.
And no one gets it. You do.

I do. I do indeed.
John, it's good to see you, bud. John Hamm is John.
Oh, we already introduced him, right? Okay. Do we start? Yeah, right.
We've been going for about 20.

So when you get up in the morning, you have your list, you're going to do this, call this person, podcast at 11 with Spade and Carvey.

Does it make you happy or Zach? You had Letter Day. You caught me right before I'm going to, I'm leaving the country, too.
I leave on a vacation.

Well, I am going to Switzerland.

Are you for real? What are you going to do?

Ski? Ski. Yeah.
I've never been skiing in the Alps. I've never really learned past.
That's a nice place. Well, wait a minute.
Were you someone who could ski as a kid, as a young man?

Here's what my first ski lesson was. It was in St.
Louis, Missouri on a frozen golf course. And my friends who all knew how to ski said, just keep your skis pointed and

keep your weight on your downhill ski and then pushed me. And so I

immediately couldn't figure out, they're both pointing downhill for me, so I didn't know which was which, and I immediately fell down. The parents at school,

they'd all come in on crutches like around December. You know, they'd go to Lake Tahoe to ski, and then they'd all be kind of in a boot for a while.
Yeah,

we had a big diaspora of rich kids that went to like, you know, Aspen and Breckenridge and like Colorado. That was the move, but I was not wealthy.

Let me tell you about my first skiing, Dana. Give me 20 minutes here.

I went to,

I ski, I snowplow. I ski like I'm looking for a contact lens, you know.
Okay, sure. So I'm not good.

My friends go, the best way to learn is go to the top of the hill, but it's really to ditch me, you know? So I have all the green runs. I go, let's let's go down Pop-Tart.

And they all go, no, we're going to go down

Devil's Ball sec. I go, no, no, that one sounds hard.
I go, listen, I worked it out. We're going to go down Santa Claus into Jelly Bean

and then into Candy Corn and then Pillowtown. And they go, no,

Hitler's abortion. Here we go.

No. Yeah.

Hitler's abortion. Here we go.
And I go, no, no, no, that one, it's not on the map, but that sounds hard.

It's not even a thing.

And so the point is dana some of those sound hard i'm enjoying this very much did it did that chunk ever find its way in your skin yeah that was in my last special okay got it bit alert i remember it but i was too kind to bring it up i dodged a i dodged a i dodged a train not a bit cross-country skiing with my brother and his wife and it in the woods lost noise and then suddenly a train and we dove into the embankment not funny a train a train you didn't see the tracks?

The tracks were covered. It was really quiet.
Maybe we were kind of yelling or whatever.

And it probably was, it was coming around a bend and then

it wasn't like one second, we would have been dead, but it was like, you know, five seconds. Just proves the old saying, never go cross-country skiing.
Yeah.

And always dive away from a train that's coming at you. That's what I say.
Now, what's your favorite podcast you've been on so far in the last, since the pandemic, John?

Because we want to talk about one topic.

This is up there. I was very much looking forward to this.
Now,

I know both of you sort of separately

here and there, but

it was a very exciting thing to be asked to be a part of. So, I mean, the jury's still out, but I mean, I mean, I guess it's show business, but yeah, we're thrilled to have you on the show.
Thrilled.

We did a deep dive. We do our homework.
John's from St. Louis, Dana, where my daughter lives.

Isn't that real? St. Louis, Missouri.
What is she doing in St. Louis?

Well, actually,

yeah, sure.

Well, we'll get to that later.

We all do, Woody Allen.

I don't mean to be didactic or facetious. Oh, you're a wonderful girl.
No, he's a beautiful, intelligent woman. It's just that the location is sensitive, you know.
I'm fear of rock croppings overage.

You know,

she lives where it gets a little more good looking towards Springfield, where Brad Pitt's from. Okay.
That's a good plan. Fair enough.
Like it. Oh, here's Brad Pitt from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Go ahead, Dave. Yeah, let's face it, buddy.
This is Leo. Let's face it, buddy.
I'm a goddamn headspin. Would that guy say to you, you want me to go to Italy and do Italian movies?

Don't cry in front of the Mexicans. Look, I'm your gopher, man.
And I kind of like watching your house up in the hills all when you go off and do your things.

But where I come from, going to Italy and doing an Italian movie ain't the worst of it.

Did you see the movie, John? I did, yeah. I was like, does John seen it?

I was just, I was, I was wordlessly enjoying it. Do you watch your movies and television shows?

Yes. I wouldn't say I watch, I wouldn't say I seek them out, but if they happen to be on and I'm in the mood, yeah, for sure.

Because John Lovitz on Monday would be down the hall with a VCR watching Sarah Night Fly, John Gnosis, and laughing his ass off

at his sketches. I always felt I would look at them, but

trepidatiously, like feel like I'd be too critical or too self-conscious.

You know, it's funny, I guess, having done, you know, we did 90 some-odd episodes of Mad Men. So I'll pause.
If one happens to be on and I'll click on it, I'll go like, oh, when was this?

Like, what was going on in my life and what was happening? And yeah, sometimes you go, I remember that day, it was cold and we came to the set late. There was a problem with the lights.
Or

sometimes I have no, I mean, the show

debuted fifth

over 15 years ago I think the debut was 2006 so whatever that is 16 years ago

and it went off the air in 2015 so that's seven years ago so it's a very um

it's very weird it's like well if I was in a show that good I think I might look at it you know like like Bert Lancaster I did a movie with him once he goes how are you gonna be in television you've got no chin so I don't look great in a profile Like I'm going to be, you know, so, but if you have a movie star head, like

movie star heads are different. You know, there's, you know, I don't know, James Brolin from back in the day.
Brolin's got a big dome. And it's just a good cranium and then a chin.

It puts you in your place, too, being in the SNL makeup. department because you see all of the heads of all of the people over the years

sitting there lined up like little soldiers. And I will say I was probably in the top one percentile of head size in that room.
I think only Affleck and Brolin had me

on head size.

Affleck has a noggin on him. You know, told me George Siegel, I did a show with him, and he said, I have a movie star head, meaning him.
He said, you don't, meaning me.

And he said, you might have trouble in the movies. And I said, well, thanks for that.
Is that anything? Same thing. What are these fuckers doing? Yeah, fuck him.

He's so excited about his big fat head, but we're comedians.

I go, I'm just going check to check here. I don't know what's next.

Okay, listen.

So

for

Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving.
Yeah. I'm going to

add into the mix some Omaha steaks because

it's like I want to, you know, have them around because they have steaks, they have hamburgers, they have yeah, they're fun. They're fun to to have around.
Yeah, and then you take that, and then

I'm going to tell people that's a good gift idea for Christmas.

You know, send them out, take the pain out of going and shopping. Suddenly, you got all this at your fingertips.
Yeah,

they come gift-wrapped. USDA certified tender, I like that, steaks, juicy burgers, cozy and convenient comfort meals.
And a lot more than that, David.

Oh, yeah, there's way more than that, Dana.

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You've had some Omaha steaks, haven't you? Yeah, you're going to see me

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Yeah. And watch me.
Hey, hey, hey, hey. You know, I'm over there like, how do you like them? You know, yelling.

I once dated a woman named BBQ, but good night.

Oh, yeah, I actually met her with me.

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You know, David, last year,

I gifted Masterclass to my sister for her birthday, and she couldn't stop talking about it.

See, see how that works? She integrated it into her mornings as a little personal growth ritual, inspired me to do the same. Okay.
Now it's part of my routine, too.

Just a few minutes a day, and I feel sharper, calmer, more creative. We needed to get you like honed down into that zone.

I'm so glad you just heard that. Like you heard me.
You felt my.

I hear what you're saying. Yeah, exactly.
You listen. That's my crime.
I'm a listener. You hear, but you don't listen.
You look, but you don't see.

One of the favorite classes that I've heard about is amy polar you know what i mean amy polar does a uh improv class and yeah those are those are things you can actually use in your everyday life people have when you're writing emails and your presentations when you're in conversations it sort of makes you think a little differently but there's so many with master class i mean there's how many 200 world-class classes with genius people teaching you and the plan start at just ten dollars a month.

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But I have a two-part question for

John. John is

a three-part. Can I first just

insert? Because we'll get it out of the way. My Don Draper impression? Yeah.
Oh, yes. Don Draper is asked to give someone a ride to the airport.

I don't even know you.

Is that it?

Wait. That's it.
No, that's not bad, though. Well, I can't.
It's a soft one. I don't even like it.
Is that your hook, John? Is that that line? Is your hook? I see it in memes. He's on memes a lot.
Oh,

on Instagram. Yeah, I don't.
I've seen some of the memes. I don't know if that's one of them.

I know there's one of me like laughing and drinking that it gets used quite a bit, but uh that might be a gif.

Might be a gift. Let's not.
It's a blurry line.

No one in the history of film or television has made a smoking a cigarette cooler. You know, maybe McQueen or Bogart, but

yeah,

it's a pretty rare company, that's for sure.

You really got that. It makes you cooler for sure.
I mean. Well, it makes you sicker.
Yeah, I mean, there's a bit of a tabling that is it worth it to smoke.

Look, the science isn't in. Table the lung damage.

let's just go with how hip it is to the way you did that the science is on its way in but i you know some early reports say it's bad for you but i say

it looks cool so it's sort of a coin toss i say yeah do your own research yes all right i have another quick

30-second compliment let's get joe rogan in on it we compliment our our guests here but this is just an observation for me is that when I watched Daniel Craig doing James Bond, then I met him at the Oscars, name drop.

And he's still Daniel Craig, but he does this thing that becomes James Bond. And I felt that you did the exact same thing on Mad Men.

You have John Ham, and then either your jaw or your shoulders, just like,

just an interesting connection for me. I really felt that.

There is a part of it, you know, that's

very, you know, depending, obviously, you know, when I'm wearing the suit and the thing and the hair slicked back and all that stuff, it's obviously very different.

The way you you carry yourself and everything. There's very much a, you know, I am playing a character on that.
It's not just me wandering through like that.

Daniel Craig is a character actor, and I think you are too. Yeah, I mean, I remember the first time I hosted the show,

we had several Mad Men sketches at Read Through. 27.
I'm sure they load them up. Yeah, because you're going to get one at least, so you might as well throw everything.

Yeah, just one made it on the air. Yeah, for sure.

But

it was funny because, like,

you know, I had spent the time up to then other sketches and reading, you know, various funny parts and this's and that's.

And as soon as it got to the Don Draper, I sort of dropped into the Don Draper voice and everybody kind of went, oh, it's a character.

Every girl slid off her chair. That's what that sounds.
That's what that sounds like. And the cadence, the rhythm.
I mean, you're married with the right very much. That was a very,

very cool. David, did you have something before I interrupted your 20-minute question? Thank you, Dana.

I'll get back to you. I have two many.
One was I was at the Mirage this weekend. Oh, I appear there sometimes.
Whoops. But I was with, first I saw on TV, I watched Mr.
and Mrs. Jones.

Keeping up with the Joneses, yep. Yep.
Is that what they, the final title was? Yep. Yeah, they went with that.
And then,

and he's a student that, and I go, you work with Zach. And Gaul, is that how you say your name? Gaul? Gal.
Gal? Yep. Gal Godot.
Refer Godot. Jesus Christ, she's beautiful.
And then

it's arresting. Thanks.
I mean, I'd be sick. So

you did a good job in that because it was so funny. I was about to see you and I was about to come dink around and look at your stuff when I got home and I go, ooh, I get to watch this.

And what a fun, sort of different movie to be in. And then I was with Ray Romano.
We do shows together and we golf sometimes and then talk about a quick impression.

I think, Dana, he does a Ray Romano.

Everybody kind of does a Ray Romano right now. But I'd never heard one, really.
And I fucking work with him. Well, we always, there was a joke that we had going on.
I forget who started it, it,

but there was a, it was always like that you could do Brad Garrett and Ray Romano very like

having a conversation.

You know, Ray's back here. Oh, come on.

And then

Brad Garrett is, oh, Raymond.

So

it's just back and forth. Come on, Raymond.
Come on. It's mice and then.

Yeah, it's really Lenny and Squiggy. It's different versions.
That's it. See, I love micro impressions where it's just the essence.
You don't need to say anything more. I love Ray.

I mean, everybody loves him. It's been established at this point.
They named a show after that concept. But yeah,

he's awesome. Super sweet.
Here's my Barney Fife. And?

So, that's only one word. That's all you need.
Barney Fife. Whoa, Landy.
Yo.

And

here's my Christopher Watkins sees a magic trick.

Quick.

Wow.

That's it. We're done.
Boom. Hey, Dana, did I tell you? And John, you can listen.

When Aykroyd said we should do Mayberry, me and him, I should be, that was back after Conad's. He goes, you know, maybe we should do

Mayberry RFD. I play Andy Griffith.
You play. You got to save the money.
You know, you got to save the money. And then he was always very business.
We went off about aliens.

But yeah, I love Danny Aykroyd and that we should have done it.

Well, let's think for a second of a John

Dana. Let's get space.
That That is too late, I guess. Can we put you

in a series live streaming? We call Ted at Netflix.

You're already on FX, Hulu, you're everywhere.

By the way, on Sequitar, I love the Apple commercial. Oh, thanks.

What about John Hamm or what happened to us? Yeah, everybody but John Hamm.

I mean, that is so. That was the name of the commercial.
Was that the name of the commercial? Yeah, that was the name of the commercial.

I love it because they say it on the top in quotes when you get your call sheet. Everybody but John Hammer.
The hammer. The fucking

great commercial. Yeah, you did a good job.
You dropped that. And just the way you played it is sterile.
It was funny, too.

Like my friend, a guy who I've known who's a buddy of mine, you guys may or may not have met

my very tall friend named Tall John, who is the comedy writer. He used to write for Sarah Silver.
Oh, he works at Sarah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think you've met him at Largo or something. And

he's hard to miss. He's 6'10.
But

he used to write promos for the WB back in the day. He and Drew Goddard and this guy, Wayne McLamie, who was directing it, and he used to direct the promos.

So it was like we used to all go out and get beers and stuff and hang out in the late 90s in LA when we had no money. And we would go to Largo or we would go see comedy or what have you.
And

now it was very strange to see that dude on a set of a commercial that

I was sort of nominally the star of, which was pretty cool. Well, the tall guy, he would be at Sarah Sovman's roof party.
He would actually stand on the sidewalk and we'd be on the roof.

But, you know, you would go to Largo. Would you go to Largo a lot? Because I know you like comedy and you'd go see stuff.

Yeah, that was my entree into sort of cheap entertainment because

LA, even back then, was expensive. I did not have much money.
And so for, you know, whatever, two, $5 drinks or whatever it was.

And I didn't have to wait in line because I usually knew somebody and I got to know Flanny and the gang.

He's the nicest club owner. Yeah.
he's great. But it was a pretty hot moment in time, the late 90s.
And, you know, it was everyone from, you know, Zach was just starting up.

He had had that weird show on VH1. Oh, yeah, that's right.
Yeah, yeah. Oddfit.
And then guys like, you know, Bob Odenkirk and Sarah and Tenacious D and

Paul F and Doug Benson, just all those guys now that are sort of the... the eminence grees of

LA comedy is

that's when they were all going. It was five bucks.
It was like, it's great. It's still, I don't think it's it's that expensive.

Largo is still a great place to go run stuff or go just jump on somebody's show. I think the last time I saw you was at, was that

Sarah? I think so. There's a photo of you, me and Sarah.
Did we take a picture? Yeah. All right.

Oh, okay.

Post it. I talked to Largo a lot.

I tagged the shit out of you in that picture, I think.

Anyway, can we for a second talk about like just right before Mad Minutes and SNL? Because that's really interesting because people are

our listeners may not know this. So you literally were still, you came to LA, you were still not working, making a living as an actor till 29 or 30.
So you had years of waitering.

I mean, I was just, how long that that go on?

Well, when I got to LA, I moved out to LA in 95. So and I, and I didn't stop waiting tables until I was 29.
So I had about four years of kind of roaming the desert, so to speak. And weirdly enough,

I got a a text from a number that I didn't recognize about a month ago saying, hey,

is this John Hamm that used to work at this restaurant that I used to work at down in Venice?

And I said, okay, I haven't, yes, this is, but that's a very weird way to refer to me, but okay, yes. Yeah.
And

it used to be owned by Dudley Moore and Tony Bill. It was called 72 Market Street.
It's not there anymore.

But it was like a really cool

Venice restaurant, you know, Sean Penn and Angelica Houston and Robert Graham and all the cool Westside folks would hang out there.

And I was a waiter there. And so

that was the first time I ever saw Paparazzi. Richard Gere came in with someone who wasn't Cindy Crawford.
He just broke up with Cindy Crawford and it was like

a deal.

So anyway, they were having a reunion of this thing. So they're trying to get everybody that used to work there.

And yeah, fun fact, the guy I worked with at that restaurant left the job to go to Juilliard, and I didn't see him again until the pilot of Mad Men, where he played the young tobacco executive, like the

younger

protege version.

Wow.

Did you wait on famous people

that you admired and stuff? Did you wait on famous?

You know, the only time I really waited on anybody famous was Don Henley once.

Oh, okay. Couldn't have been nicer.
I love Don Henley.

There was a run there when Mitch Glazer, who you probably know, Dana, or maybe you do. Kelly Kelly Lynch and Kelly,

they're neighbors now, and I used to go and run catering at their house,

which was an old husband. Wow.
I heard you worked on porn sets as a fluffer. Did I read that right?

What does that do? What does that mean?

That was my first question. Certainly, there were no genitals touched.

I was in the art department, believe me or not. There's an art department.
An art department for porn. Yeah.
I mean, it was softcore, but it was like, you know, skin emancipation. Was it Emmanuel?

Late night, whatnot. We shot in these dismal, dingy places down in LA, downtown.
I love it. These stages.
Was it like, like, really like Skin-Amax? Like, they'd be kind of naked if they wanted to.

It was just like some dude in a sock and a lady with patches on her whatevers. And

it was go time. And then, you know, then they'd have like these ridiculous scenes of like, what do you mean?

You're lost.

I've got a divining rod.

I was just walking by and

I happen to have a boner.

Right here. I got an extra one.
You want a bar one?

Oh, shit. What? Yeah, no, I got the job from a girl I went to college with who was like, she was like, I can't do this anymore.
It's like soul crushing. And I was like, oh,

soul crushing. I don't do anything.
How about entertaining?

Kevin Nealon and I did a bid on SNL where we sat in chairs like we were porn stars and we were bare, you would like we were naked, you can't see. And we had people attending to our crotch.

It was like, yeah, yeah, powder it up nice. Yeah, trim it down.
Yeah, make it nice for the people. Yeah,

put a little fence around it. I mean, we went nuts.
I remember that one. Do you remember that? Put a little fence around it.
Yeah.

John knows SNL. John is.
I watched the monologue this morning where you were an ad guy. Of course, you knew you're going to have to do an ad once.
I thought it was funny.

And Bill Hayter, you kept saying, no, ma'am. And then he goes,

I'm not a ma'am. And then you go over here and do something.
Then you come back to him. And then Andy Sandberg chips you up.

But I thought that was funny that you can actually think of him on your own. No, that was funny.
I've done it. I've hosted three times as well, John.
So we should talk to Lauren.

If you want to have a three-timer club, we could do it. It's fine.
You know,

everyone's got a Lauren. Go ahead.
Sean, which one of the 18 Mad Men sketches were you sort of gravitating towards? John, you can pick one, maybe two. Three is too much.
Three.

I just feel like maybe one after update, one maybe, maybe a commercial parody.

Yeah, yeah, the three-timer, not as much play, the three-timers. Three-timers

don't get anything. One thing I'm curious about as we go into your SNL experience is like, so Madman comes out.
It's only on like a year or a year and a half. I mean, so you get that.

You're starting to feel you're riding this rocket. Your whole life's changing.
And then you get the call. You weren't even on Madman that long.
That's my curiosity.

Before Lauren, who loved it immediately, told me about it,

now you go, you're going to host SNL.

It just seemed like a rocket ship. Yeah,

I remember when I, when my agent said they want you to host SNL, it was at, it was in New York City.

It was at a, at a, like a mac, you know, back when they had magazine things, but there was a magazine cover that I was on, a party for it.

And

my girlfriend at the time and I were about to leave the country to go to this trip we had planned. I had been working all year.
We were like,

We have to book this trip and it'll be great. And it was the week that they wanted me to host SNL.
So I had to say no.

And that's- Oh, you said no to SNL to go on vacation.

Well,

that'll be the end of that. I guess I'll never get asked, but at least I was asked, you know, blah, blah, blah.

And immediately came back, well, how about the following week? And

okay, that sounds great. Like, sure.

And not having any any idea of what it entailed at all other than knowing the show and knowing, you know, kind of some of the people at that point I knew I had met Amy and

Kirsten and that, yeah, that crowd. Right.

So there, there were a couple of people that I knew that that were, that had been there for some time. But

yeah, it was, it was a, it was a real, it was a real eye-opener for the first time, to say the least.

And that was also happened to be the episode that Amy Poehler was wildly pregnant and then had her baby Saturday afternoon. So we had to completely re-retool the lineup.

And is it true that she found out during rehearsal that her doctor had died and then you calmed her down? I'm sure you've told that story. Why did you say it went? And then she laughed her ass off.

Go ahead, tell that story.

I was sitting next to her. We were shooting a thing with Jimmy Signorelli.
Yeah.

The late, not even late, but the late, great, so to speak, filmmaker. Guy who did all the pre-tapes.
And

we're sitting there. We're in some weird office space in Midtown.

And Amy is, you know, nine months pregnant. And I'm sitting there.
And it's like a, it's a mat, it's a Don Draper. Here's how to like, here's how to pick up ladies.
Like rule one, be Don Draper.

Like, okay. Yeah.

And so it was really funny. Like, stop.
Fred Armason is playing the guy who's like, hey, maybe you want to go on a date. And they're like, get lost, weirdo.
And then I'm like, hey, how about it?

And Poehler's line is, let's get me out of this skirt.

I wanted to have that career. Can I go back in time? I want to have it.
So it was really funny, but we're sitting there in the makeup chairs. You know, they have the kind of temporary thing with the

lights and the mirrors set up. And I don't know really anybody, especially the makeup artists or the hair people or anybody.
I'm just okay.

And kind of going along. And then Poehler gets a call.
And

hello.

Yeah. I can't what

what

you're gonna be kidding me and then immediately starts to like get emotional and sob and stands up and walks kind of behind a

you know a

thing

and i'm hearing now i'm hearing like sobbing like like

and

and i'm like looking at the hair you know the makeup person is like frozen i'm like do you what uh what's happening

and what do we do Like, do we go home? Like,

what's happening? Do we recast? So it's like, this all takes place in about 35 seconds. And she comes back from around the little fake wall and has clearly been like

crying. And everyone's like, Amy, oh my God.

What's happening? She's like, you won't believe this. I just found out.
My, my, my, OBGYN, who's been with me through this. This is her first child, has been with me for this whole trip.
He just died.

God damn. Like, no way, like, no way did this happen.
And I was like, oh, my God, Amy, that's terrible.

But this is like a really big thing for me. So can you pull your shit together?

And she immediately was like,

like laughed, like cracked up. So I was like, thank God.
That could have gone way too long. That landed nicely.

My question for you about Jim Signorelli is, if this, you're shooting something on a Saturday or was this during the week? It was during the week.

Okay, good because that's where i started to not check out yeah okay because you they gotta they i think people at home don't realize when you do s and l and if you're a host you for sure probably don't get like the first night is kind of easy you meet lauren you go to a monday meeting and everyone kisses your ass and you're like this is uh john ham and then everyone politely applauds and they go next week sharon stone everyone goes yay and then you immediately feel like an asshole the inside joke every week inside joke we do every week and then but then you kind of go to dinner at Orso or I don't know what you do, or you just leave.

And then you go, this isn't too hard. And then Tuesday, you come in and it's writing day.

Yeah, Wednesday is the crazy day. Yeah, Tuesday's the Tuesday's Orso dinner night, and the host comes back after.
Yeah, and then writes and hangs out.

And I think that's when, even when I went back to host twice, not three.

Which they're really not giving parties for the two-timers for sure. So I go and they go, and even knowing the drill, I'm at Oroso nervous going, I don't, I think I got to get back there.

Like, I want to get back there and just go over everything because I'm fucking starting to freak out that I'm not, because even Tuesday day, no one does anything and then no one's getting it written.

You're like, guys, we have all this time we're wasting, but every day, every week I'm changing pizza, just hanging out, wasting time,

wasting time. The entire system is based on procrastination, coming from ADD.
You can't really focus until there's a hard line. We got to go now.
Yeah.

You know, that's, so when you walk in there, do you, were you more, okay, you did it three times.

What was your nerve rate coming into that office on Monday, sitting there with all these sketch players?

What, where were you? Were you out of 10? Or were you sort of naive? Like, maybe this will be fun? Or what were you thinking? Maybe it'll be fun.

It's true.

It's true. You go, maybe this will be fun and easy.
And then he quickly turns, you go, God damn. Well, David's right, though.

Like, there's nothing on monday that is really if you haven't done it before that that suggests this is going to be terrifying yeah yeah so they start you out a bit backlog everybody's like calm and relaxed and they're pitching ideas that'll never make it the first time

the first time i i came in and we had the meeting on monday the writers all came in dressed in 60s gear oh really that's cool everyone from paul lapel to john malini to call in everybody everybody was like pater was in drag to madmen yeah oh wow

lutz was dressed up like joan like it was it was

amazing like they all just raided the costume department and came in like that so they're in awe of you at this point which is nice

well they would love to be able to comedians want to be able to do what what you do you do comedy and that but yeah we kind of respect

so but it was it was weird it was you know there's nothing to suggest like oh this is going to be terrifying until wednesday when you have a packet of you know 25 sketches that you have to read at that table and try to get laughs.

And you've seen them for exactly, you know, maybe an hour or two to kind of go through them. You can't, I'm sure you don't even get to all of them.
There's no way. No, I mean, not at all.

There's no way. I mean, it's, you know, it's a phone book size thing.
And writers come in just to tell that you can.

Can you do a thing where

you do a voice and it sounds kind of like the, okay, do that. Right.

Which one is this? I'm sorry.

Right. And then you're kind of Russian in this one, but not Ukrainian.
Just play that a little bit. And then you're like,

you don't have to sound exactly like an elephant, but just do whatever you can.

Right.

Your head spinning going, and then Lauren. And it's every five, six seconds for about an hour until you go in that packed room with a low ceiling.
And everyone waits for Lauren.

And then he comes in and regally starts the read-through. And it's like four hours of cold reading, essentially.
Cold reading. Yeah.
Solid BO, like off the charts.

Everyone in there is sweating and grossed out, and there's no ventilation. Someone goes, crack.
Lauren will go, crack the window. And then someone reaches back.
I got it, Lauren.

That would be me usually. I got it.

Faden, David is a waiter in an Italian restaurant. David goes to the table.
David puts down the water.

I wrote this stupid one for Farley when we had no ideas. I wrote Googoo in the honeypot and where he was a

so stupid, but it was like an eight-foot honey pot. And then he he gets in there and he's stuck in honey in a diaper and he keeps crawling out and he's covered in honey.

And they go, Google, were you in the honey pot? He goes, No, I go, I saw you in this area, but he's cover far. Yeah, and he goes, David, you think we can do it?

I go, It's just stupid enough, it might work. So, I hand it in, knowing I'm light that week.
And then Lauren gets through and he goes, Google in the honey pot.

And then he turns the whole sketch over and goes, Wayne's World Cold Opening. I go, Oh,

he skipped it. I never heard him skipping it.
Unheard of. He didn't skip when I did Funny Little Poopy Head.
And

He should have. I did Funny Little Poopy Head with Jan Hook.
She was Mrs. Funny Little Poopy Head.

And I had massive stage direction where Lauren had to say Funny Little Poopy Head over and over again.

Funny Little Poopy Head is sad. Funny Little Poopy Head sits down.
It's like that thing that Funny Little Poopy Head.

But he bailed on your sketch because that sounded funny to me.

And he never mentioned it. I know Farley would have crushed it.

I think Sandler later wrote one. It's like not even writing.

That one isn't even really writing either, but I think he put one where it's a film piece like for Signorelli where he's in a pool and he just puts all this suntan oil on and then he just tries to get on the raft for about four minutes

and he's going, oh, God,

which you know, we've gone to that well before, but it seemed to work. Never done, never not funny with Farley.
Yeah, and then he, and then I think that one even got like at least read.

Laura, and then it's this: the sketch is like one paragraph, and then Farley struggles and screams for 45 minutes.

And then he falls down.

Yeah, Dennis used to go, hey, Farley, you got Fari Fall. Farley falls down.
Anything else in the tank?

Anything else for us? Dennis, Dennis? Any other moves? Tech, get rid of it. Just lay waste all the junior varsity.
You know, Sandler, they're not buying the kooky guy, okay?

Spade, wait till Carvey leaves, because David would sit behind me and Lauren would go,

David's ready at any time when you're not

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Oh my goodness. No one says that.
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I don't remember eating it sorry with the roof I said just the roof

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But back to our guest. Something that I love, that I love this.
Yes. I love Bill Hayter

and love his Vincent Price. And then you came in and did James Mason.
And you must have loved that because you did it great. And every line killed with James Mason.

First of all, that sketch is so... Talk about so weird and specific.

And it crushed, like a sketch should not kill that hard when it's especially a a sketch about like a we relatively obscure 50s 60s totally very obscure to the young audience

tell me uh Dane I think clearly nobody nobody knows who Vincent Price is clearly just a funny character he's got a fake bird and it's all black and white and he's like I don't even know if he's really trying to do a really accurate but it's just a funny hello I'm Vincent Price it's just kind of just off-putting and then Fred Armison is Liberace is yeah it's just ha

and Fred could all do all that all day. Very musical.
And then it's like a TV show and

it's going badly and he's getting frustrated. So James Basin.
It's a whole trope of like, you know, bringing in special guests. I mean, now we have our special guest.

Yes. Isn't this a great show? Legaria Hansen.
Again, like no one knows.

No one has any sense of who that is, except that she's a weirdo. She's got a lot of views.
I think people just, it's those get passed around.

I had to,

you know, we did that for Dress,

and it was Dean Martin at dress.

Really?

So, and it kind of fell flat. I guess my Dean Martin wasn't very good.

But

also, Lauren was like, well,

here's the problem. It's a drunk playing a drunk, and it's a hat on a hat.

Hat on a hat. Hat on a hat.
That's very Lauren. That's a big one.
What else can you do?

Right then?

Really? At like 10.30 on Saturday night?

The show's on in 45 minutes?

Come up with another obscure impression that will make sense. It's weird and you can you can and get a 10 out of 10 on it and nearly nail it.

And so Hayter comes in my dressing room and he's like, hey, man, yeah, I don't know.

I said, this is going to sound weird. I said, I can kind of do a James Mason.
He goes, no way. No way.
Do it. And I was like, perfect.
Well, Joe, I don't know. And

that's it. And he goes, perfect.
That's it. That's done.
And I think he and Mulani had written the sketch the other. So I can't remember who wrote it with him.

But then we did that. And again, that was at 10.45.
So, you know, we're all up in Lauren's office. Like, so John's going to do, is it James Mason?

Okay, John's going to, that's going to change from Dean Martin to James. So get out on the cards.
None of the lines change.

He's always, then he was an alcoholic, right? He was drunk and lascivious. It was just funny, you know, sexually inappropriate.
Yeah, it was just hysterical. But that is, that's impressive.

The reason I could do that is because

me and paul rudd growing up would we love the movie um heaven can wait and oh yeah i saw it james mason plays the the the angel who kind of shepherds warren beatty's you know journey whatever it was yeah but his line is you're dead joe

and so that's what we would always say to each other randomly how you doing charles groden and diane cannon Diane Cannon

behind the first

fucking great movie Jack Warden. Jack Warden.
Oh, yeah. Hey, Max.

So that was. Jack Warden has one of the best lines in all of cinema, I think, in a little movie called Shampoo.
Oh, wait a minute. I saw it a month ago with my wife because we see it every year.

The movie's six. And the line is.

The line is, now that's what I call fucking.

So

he catches Warren Beatty. He doesn't realize it's Warren Beatty fucking his own girlfriend.
His own girlfriend, Julie Christie, but he sees him through a doorway and he goes, that's what I.

Gene, you got it. So you're a Warren Beatty, 70s Warren Beatty.
You know, shampoo, having come wait, parallax view.

There's nothing better.

Parallax view. Wow.

I've gotten to hang out with him on quite a few occasions.

He's a great guy.

I mean, the stories are, you cannot have a dinner that's less than three hours with him.

I hung out with him once. Yeah, it's very, he's very bright.
See if I can find that. Yep, there it is.
Oh.

Oh, shit. Wow.
So what year was that? Were you

probably 2016? He just showed a picture of everybody. Did he reach out to you or how do you guys have dinner? Or did it mutually? He was a fan of the show.

Oh, yeah. He would have loved that show.
Were you getting cold calls? Kind of, yeah. Some stars.

And then

he and Annette had some friends that one of them was a guy named Bill Pope who was the director of photography for Baby Driver. So, I think that was probably around Baby Driver.
Let's not forget.

Baby Driver.

I think that, yeah,

that makes sense because he was probably 30 or something when 1960 hit and that the end of that era of, you know, slapping him on the bottom and all that.

Pre-feminism.

I mean, you know,

his first movie was like Barefoot in the Park, maybe, or was that Robert Redford? I can't remember. That was Redford.
It was 58. But didn't he do the play?

He might have. Yeah, he might have.
He's wearing shoes in the park.

Huge Redford fan. I tried to convince my sons who are with me up here in the middle of

the to watch Three Days of the Condor with me.

We watched Bud Casting The Sundance Kid, and they loved it. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. It doesn't get any.

I was about to say.

Shit.

All the President's Men. All the President's Men.
Don't get me started. The Horse Whisperer, whatever.
He's amazing.

The Electric Horseman, I think you mean. The Horseman Fonda.
Oh, he had the Electric Horseman and then the Horse Whisperer later in 98. Yeah.

John, do you have any parts that they came to you and you had to pass up on that you didn't do that you would like to?

I couldn't.

Other than me and grown-ups, other than my parts and grown-ups.

And I'm glad you said no.

I've had pretty good luck, honestly, of the things that I've turned down or not been able to do have not come back to kind of haunt me or anything like that.

I was sort of loosely attached to Gone Girl at one point.

There was meant to be a situation, and then it was because Mad Men was shooting. It was like, oh, okay, I can't do it.

That's the way that goes. But I really liked that book and the guys from St.
Louis. And they did a good job with it.
Yeah, Ben did a great job. Ben's phenomenal.
I love him. Ben's great.

Those, you know, but I haven't had very many of those. Those are like few and far between, which is nice.
Like, you don't, I don't have a lot of.

things.

But yeah, like you said, grown-ups. That was a

when you said no to grown-ups.

Um, no, but you now, when you get involved with something like curb your enthusiasm, is that something because you know Larry or he just likes you and says, Hey, do you want to come on?

Beep, pop, boop, pop, pop. I had done a weird little movie with Larry

that was for HBO, I think, called Clear History, where he invents

a car.

It's a very convoluted setup, like most of his setups. Yeah.

And he invents this car and it goes sideways and he forgets about a lot of the

guy that owns the car company, like, you know, Elon Musk or whatever. And we had a really good time.

We shot it in Boston with Greg Mattola and had a great time doing it and made each other laugh so much. We had so many great people in that film, too.
We had Michael Keaton. We had Hayter,

Jimmy Tingle. I mean, like all these Boston comics.

wow.

What a great name. Yeah, stand-up.
Yeah, we had all these like Boston comics that were that were bopping around, coming in and out. And

it was really fun and funny. And we got to know each other a little bit and played a little golf in Boston.
And

ever since then, he's kind of kept me in mind for stuff. And I've been able to do the show a couple of times.
It was always really fun. Yeah.
Yeah, that's

kind of a genius, I guess. I don't know.

He had some frequency all his own. You know what? I've been watching a lot of old Seinfelds too,

which hold up so remarkably well, other than kind of the fashion,

which stands out a bit, but

the jokes and the stories, and you can so clearly hear Larry's voice in George Costanza, and not only that, but just

in the stories, like the setups and the particular kind of annoyances of, you know, the one was on last night was the parking garage, where they just get stuck in the parking garage for the entirety of the episode.

Yeah, it's those little observations, little stand-up observations, but extenuated and just shot well. There's a liveliness to them.

I mean, Larry, when I was watching your episode last night, the two Larry David, it feels like he's not breaking, but

he's enjoying it so much. He's kind of smiling a lot in a lot of his lines.
Even when you're talking about it, Larry had that too on Seinfeld. You could see

it. He had it.

And Adam in his early films had it a little bit. It brings a lot of charm to the bus.

Yeah. Yeah.

We know it's funny. It's funny.
You know, John, did you have this experience? So I did a curb where, where

they, I, I guess this is how they do it. They have a loose script, which this was the fun for me because I don't improv a lot.

I mean, in these movies, we do a couple things, but a whole scene where they go, okay, you're leaving the LA, you're leaving a Lakers game.

You run into Larry and they go, you are going to defend yourself with whatever he's going to say to you. And then they go over to him and they talk to him.
And I go, what's he going to do?

They go, you'll find out. So that's all we got.
And then we meet with a crowd and then he's, we both have a friend with us.

And then he starts going after me about something and I start defending myself. And then we cut and then we go back and they go, now

brag about what you're doing. And then they go, and then he's going to do something else.
And it was so fun because you got to be on your fucking toes. And he's great.

And everyone's, everyone in the scene is always good because they're going to hire everyone good is it like that kind of that's that's pretty much it i mean the last you know the last one i did was with albert brooks and laura keitlinger and you know jb and you know so many everybody at that point kind of get knows what they're doing yeah on that's on that set and you just kind of it's not unlike snl you just want to try to stay out of the way and and understand that the process is going to be the process and it's going to work and you can contribute where you can uh and that that was my you know i was able to do that that and pitch ideas and say like, what if I'm, you know, this or what if I'm that?

And so what kind of ideas would you pitch? And were they, were they? I had that, my idea for this last one was that my character, I'm about the least Jewish person in the universe.

Like I'm a Roman Catholic from St. Louis, Missouri.
Lutheran. And I said, like, you know, what if I, what if I'm just like

understanding, like, I'm trying to like pepper my, my conversation with like Jewish

phrases and words, and, you know, but I get get them wrong, or I'm

almost right with them.

And they thought that was a pretty funny thing. And they don't, it rubs them wrong a little bit.
Kind of like, what do you, that's not what you want to say. Like, yeah, yeah,

yeah, but but delivered with like the ultimate confidence, like most, you know, that thing in LA of people that 100% wrong, but but saying it out loud and proud. That's my life.
That's my whole life.

I know. It's amazing.
People with no information have, yeah, yeah, fake it till you make it.

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What's the one thing other than Madman? What are the couple things that people stop you and they know you from? What's the EPA? What's this stuff? Oh, the fucking town guy. It's a great movie.
Love

the town. I get that in Boston and I get that in airports.

The TSA loved the town. Yeah.

The TSA loves it.

Yeah, I see the town, and that's one when it comes on, unless one of my movies is on.

If it comes on, I watch the whole thing unless Ben warmers is on and so i the town is such a badass movie and um i love it's all boss and it's all weird uh not weird it was just cool it was a really fun one to make cool like we were all kind of everybody was you know renter was just coming off of hurt locker and rebecca hall had i think she was in iron man or something like everybody was kind of coming off their own thing and it was ben's second uh directorial effort and his first one was so good gone baby gone yeah so it was really kind of fun and exciting and and warner brothers like left us alone really like to make this thing and uh it was it was great how it all came it was like kind of this weird perfect storm the the other guys in the in the crew with ben and and jeremy were these kind of local guys that were just kind of scary enough to be believably you know kind of low-level criminals and yeah sure uh it was fun you know it was just fun we got really really lucky we got to shoot in boston in the fall and it didn't snow or rain or any of that stuff.

We got to bang around Fenway Park, you know. Yeah, it seemed like you had run of the town.
How is Ben Ben

as a director? Like, how, how did he? I mean, he's great. And I, I, I, I, I fell for him.
Obviously, it's like that's the hardest job on the set, especially when you're also the lead of the film.

Um, yeah, and

yeah, yeah, and he's also in Boston, like everywhere he goes, he is remarkable. And he's also, he's a big dude, like, he's probably 6'4, 6'5.
He's a tall guy.

He's not like, he's not hiding hiding in plain sight. Right.

So everywhere he goes,

he's Jesus.

Hey, guy, what's going on, guy? Hey, he's fucking pinned out.

Get over here. Give me a fucking hug.
Too good for us. That's his mother, ladies and gentlemen.
I got to tell you. Thank you.

God damn.

But yeah, so it was obviously.

He had a lot on his plate, but he pulled it off and he did the smart thing, which I think the lesson to be learned from that is like he hired amazing department heads.

Like our director of photography was this guy Robert Ellswit, who shot some Purple Blood, among other things, and won his fair share of hardware.

And he had really, really talented camera operators and art department people and stun guys and second unit. And it was

seem to block off chunks of the city and get to drive all over and do everything. It was fucking, it's fun on a movie.
You're like, you run the whole town. It's great.

Yeah, and especially that guy in that town. That's funny.
Yeah, sure.

You know, do a movie with me in Scottsdale. Let's see what's going on.
Yeah. And August.
We'll see what's up. Yeah.
We shoot in the afternoons. You'll enjoy it.
We shoot at dusk for one hour.

It's called sunburn/slash windburn.

I always watch movies to see how many nights they shoot, to see how much complaining I would be doing. I'm like, look at all these fucking nights, man.
Why do you even say anything?

What if it's vampires? I could never.

But they're in the daytime. Yeah.
They're in the daytime.

Don't drink blood. Ruins the whole movie.
I don't care. I'm like, it's easier to shoot.

Do you have a wish list of like, if you got a script across your desk, like, I mean, do you like to do something way, way comedic?

Or, you know, like, I've been told by a prosthetic makeup artist that everyone wants rubber on their face

ever since Churchill

with

who won the Oscars. Sorry, one of my favorites.
Gary Oldman. Gary Oldman.
Yeah. So now everyone wants some prosthetics because that's how you get at least a nomination.
Like for you to hide John Hamm.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Would be kind of interesting.
I hate sitting in the makeup chair. Damn, I can't.
Well, let's get rid of it. And

there goes your Oscar. Yeah, there goes my Oscar.

How about a bald cap? Let's be honest. It wasn't happening anyway.

Did you wear a bald cap on SNL? We're jumping around. Oh, yeah, for sure.
Oh, they're popping wigs on and on. They're putting wigs on you on top of it.

So the one of your own hair is always like a little wrong.

And you're exactly like it. And you're like, this is me and my own hair in the monologue, and you've still got a bald cap on.
Everyone's like, that looks me.

But at least I'm now sweating from my dome of my head all the way up. My head is wet.

Yeah.

No, any, you know, the fun thing for me would have been to be a part of the Star Wars stuff. But that's, I think that ship has sailed because I was such a huge Star Wars fan back when I was little.

And I, you know, I remember being like in third grade or something and, and, and Star Wars coming out and, and it, you know, it starts with the big crawl, right? And it says episode four.

And you're like, episode four? Like,

what did I miss? What did I miss? Like, there must, there were three episodes that just didn't exist. It's so weird they started like that.
And yeah, A New Hope, episode four.

And so then, then, like, the rumor mill started. among the third graders of like, well, you know, there's, there's nine of these.
There's meant to be nine of them.

They read it in like Fangoria magazine or something, you know, and like you, that you thought, wow, nine, nine more Star Wars. That's going to be amazing.

And they're not meant to be completed until 2019, which back then was, you know, 40 years later. You're like, what? I got to wait 40 years for these? Like, no way.

They go, and two are going to be good. So you don't know which two.
Did you literally at your age, you might have had Star Wars

little

figures? Oh, I had figurines. I had a poster.
I had sheets. I had the whole deal.

It was a big part of my life. So I had the little Darth Vader-shaped case that you kept your little guys in.
Odds.

Yeah. So anyway,

I never got the call for that one. But I don't know.

We shot

Fletch, which we were rebooting. Oh, yeah.
I knew you were Fletch. Whoa.
Oh,

I love it.

That was pretty exciting. We were going to ask you about Fletch.

That was in Boston again.

The third book in the series takes place in Boston.

Hey, Fletch guy.

How did you, I mean, obviously, you've been asked this question, but like, how did you evolve it to match John Hamm? Did you?

Well, part of it was, you know, obviously I looked at it kind of like and Greg Mattola, who I worked with on this,

we both kind of were like, it's kind of like a cover song, right? It's a cover version of a song. Yeah.
We already have Hey Jude. Yeah.
So why would you do it just like Hey Jude?

Like maybe maybe mix it up a little bit. And so we were very cognizant of

not doing Chevy

and not doing

teeth and wigs and thises and thats. And

we wanted to still make it funny, but we wanted to keep it more in line with the tone of the novel, which is almost more of like a whodunit.

And he's still a wise ass and he still gets himself into trouble and has to talk his way out. And it's still funny and there's still jokes.
It's really fun to play.

It was. It was super funny and it was John Slattery's in it with me and I got

your bandmate, former bandmate. You guys have a lot of fun.

We got the band back together in some way. So

we had a great time.

It was a blast.

That was another character in my youth where we all

had a huge movie and Chevy was great. I enjoyed that.
Did you do characters in it where you're undercover, like with a mustache or something? Did you do any of that?

We kind of shied away from that. We thought that that was a real good way to get

in trouble with whoever

sued by Chevy. It's fun to be the guy talking your way out of something.
In other words, lying, basically, as the actor, right? It's really fun. Like, I was on car.

That's not my car, that kind of stuff. Yeah.

Although, I just came by to say hello. And if you

got it, I got it. We had

another part that was really fun for me, because I don't really get a chance to do this a lot, was like developing the script and then having

Zooms like this, but with comedy writers and having everybody pitching

ideas and thoughts. And we had like, we had like Murderers Row.
We had Paula Pell, we had Bill Hayter. We had so many great Robert Carlock.
We had so many great

minds that were kind of throwing out ideas.

One of the best ones was, and I won't ruin it, but it's

basically the end of the movie that Bill Hayter came up with.

He's like, I've never seen this, but what if you do this? And he explained it to me. I was like, that's a great idea.
And we immediately stole it and put it in the movie.

What was it?

You can't tell you. Oh, you can't tell us? Well, let's guess.
Okay, I'm being Bill Hater. All right.
What if, like,

all right, at the end of the movie, right? You go,

hey, you wake up. Medium hater right there.
You wake up, right? I'm doing, I don't know where I am. You say it's a medium hater.
Yeah. It's a medium hater.

One thing that's unique about Bill, he's so brilliant. And a lot of times comedians aren't an audience, but man, does he laugh? He laughs.
He's a good laugher. Everybody.

Laughers are so important in comedy. People say that.
Well, now that's a must-see. We can look for that.

John was. I have one question.
I know we got to let John go soon, but he's got to go to the airport. A lot of the female fans asked if you would wear sweatpants to the airport.

I don't even understand that question.

I tend to dress up for the airport. Thank you very much.

My grandmother taught me to wear nice clothing to the airport. It's a big wiener question.
I think that's what they're getting at. I'm feeling it.

I like it.

We're about to say wham bam thank you ham to this guy. I was waiting for that one.
I stole it from your monologue.

Yeah, wham bam thank you ham. That was exactly the same one.
Yeah, that was you said they called you the hammer or hammer time or something? Spader, what is that skateboard deck behind you?

John, finally someone fucking asked me the tough questions. Dana doesn't care.

Sort of what that

is. No, that's how I paint.
That's like what I do. Go ahead.
This is

there's an artist, Richard Prince, and this is a skateboard deck because I used to skate. I still milk it out.
I'm not any good. But my brother gave me that because he's big into art.

But I didn't know what to put in the background. John's like, oh, I have Louvers.
I want everyone to know I'm red voice. I have a skateboard deck that was sent to Tony Hawk somewhere in here.

I think it's like a Tony Hawk, the best one. Dana.

The best skater. So, God, you're going to Switzerland.
We've never had someone on the podcast who was leaving to Switzerland.

You skipped the fact that Tony Hawk was my stunt double in Police Academy 4. Was it? Dana.
Skate double.

And he was about 6'10. Yeah,

he's a Louise Louis. And he rides Goofy.
No, I ride Goofy. He rides regular.
I ride Goofy. Yeah, John, we could tear it up.
Fucking Melrose going to Belmont.

William Morris drops you, and then you become John Hamm. Do you ever run into those guys and you get up in their face a little bit? Oh, hi, William Morris.
Remember me? Yeah.

Don't you think there should always be one person working for WME whose name is William Morris? Yeah,

so that you could go and be like, you're the guy. You're the guy.
You're the origin of the shit. It's literally like some schmuck in the mailroom.
Like, what? I just, I, what?

I didn't even want to work here. They just made me.

I went over there when they

started with Endeavor when they started. That's how old I am.
And then they merged. This is, yeah.
I'm boring the audience again.

Okay.

You know what people love to talk about? Yeah,

agencies.

Well, they love to talk about people who doubted you, then you made it, and then you shit all over them. They like that revenge of the, hey, William Morris.

You were in a Super Bowl commercial, but

Seth Rogan did one with your precious Paul Rudd. Were you jealous that you weren't the other guy and it wasn't you and Paul Rudd?

I, you know, I think that,

yes, the short answer is yes. Yes, that's the right answer.

And knowing probably

within the ballpark when he got paid for that, I'm really jealous. But yeah, you know, I think that, you know,

the fun thing about commercials now is that no one gives a shit. It doesn't mean

15, 20 years ago, like Chris Clooney did an ad or Brad Pitt did an ad and everyone thought the world was ending. And they're like, yeah, well, we're allowed to do that now? Like, cool.

You could also do them over in Europe and they didn't know about it. But now like Mel Gibson selling Japanese whiskey or something.

No, you could do them. You could do commercials.
There's no

live streaming and movies. Everything is just when I started on OnlyFans, everyone's.
All right. Well, let's let John go.
He's got a flyer. Isn't it OnlyFan?

Mine is, yeah.

No, mine does pretty well. I do pretty well.

Yeah. Gross, though.
Look at Dana. I'm rich.
I have stairs. Oh, people can't see his house.

And a dark room under the stairs. Where are you? What if my wife came out of there with handcuffs on? Yeah, that's just...
This is

the lovely bones. This house was built in 1912, and yes, it has ghosts, and they visit all the time.
Yeah, I bet.

Are you in the San Francisco area? Yeah, yeah, Northern California. Russian Hills.
Redwood trees and stuff.

It's the Rich Heights. Yeah.
Just my wife grew up here in this town. So we just have a house.
That's lovely town. I got to go to

the Lucas ranch over in the Presidio. Oh, you did.

That was pretty neat. That was pretty neat.
That was as close as I got to being on Star Wars. It was a lot of fun.
Well, guess what?

I kind of know George Lucas.

Keep your phone close

you should definitely be in a Star Wars movie if you want to. They're going to keep making them.
Oh, no, they had to take a break because they got greedy and did one every three months.

And everyone needed, we need two or three years. Oh, yeah.

Did you go to the kennel where they keep the baby chewbacas?

All right, I'm out of jokes. I got to go.
First comes a joke. Then comes the laughter.
Goddamn, it's failure.

First, try a joke. Joke, not work.
Try, dude. Then comes unemployment.
Is try

is no try only have i i can't i don't want to get blue anyway i'm gonna sing

we always close off with a song thank you no we don't

it's madman i would have gone with it it's raining madmen well we got to thank john for being super cool And whenever I see you out, you're always nice. It's fun to talk to you.

It's always going to laugh. It's a great pleasure, and thank you for having me.

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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.

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