"John Mulaney"

Speaker 1 Flu symptoms don't keep business hours. They like to show up at night, interrupting your sleep.
Nyquil Intense Flu helps shut them down.

Speaker 1 Specially formulated to ease flu and cold symptoms, it's the nighttime sniffling, aching, aching fever best sleep with the flu medicine, delivering fast, powerful flu symptom relief for up to six hours.

Speaker 1 NyQL Intense Flu works overnight so you can sleep. Try NyQuil Intense Flu today.
Use as directed, keep out of reach of children.

Speaker 1 Nobody wants to spend the holiday season clicking from one site to the next to get their hands on the best brands.

Speaker 1 But who knew Walmart has the top brands we all love, like the big names that your friends and family actually want and all in one place? Nespresso, Nintendo, Apple, you name it.

Speaker 1 Get the brands everyone loves at prices you'll love at Walmart. Who knew? Go to walmart.com or download the app to get all your gifts this season.

Speaker 1 Well, the fans are filing in here at Smartless Arena, and we're ready for a great game. I think that all the teams today are ready to go, and there's a lot on the line here.

Speaker 1 So let's see how they do over here on an all-new Smartless Smart.

Speaker 1 Smart.

Speaker 1 Smart.

Speaker 1 Listen, I just want to say this, Jay. I haven't, because I haven't until now.

Speaker 1 I think it's so brave

Speaker 1 for you with your eyewear to go Sally Jesse Raphael because I love the look.

Speaker 1 For me, I love it. Well, Sally Jesse would be a

Speaker 1 red. Yeah, this is a black.
But those do look like the same shape. The same shape.
Yeah, they are the same shape. Wait, am I usually wearing a different pair of glasses? Aren't they? I don't know, but

Speaker 1 for some reason today,

Speaker 1 they're casting you in a different light.

Speaker 1 They're casting you in a different role. Well, maybe it's because I'm suffering deeply from COVID.
No. Maybe that's what you're seeing, Will.
You don't have it.

Speaker 1 Why don't you have a little bit more sympathy for me because I'm lousy with COVID? Do you really have it? Yeah, but I didn't cancel today.

Speaker 1 I'm going to fight through and I'm going to do a great session. Wait, do you feel like shit? No, I'm on day six.
So I'm still testing positive, but the symptoms are all but gone.

Speaker 1 I don't know if you can, I still sound a little kind of 1993

Speaker 1 Sunday morning, you know, a little backed up, a little schnitzy. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So you've had to tough it out there at your house.

Speaker 1 It's not that tough. I've been brave

Speaker 1 old gooshak.

Speaker 1 I'm feeling

Speaker 1 the goose shack. The gooshak.
The goose.

Speaker 1 Oh, the goosh. Oh, that's a chronic masturbator, apparently.

Speaker 1 Okay, can I tell you that you want to hear a funny story? Sorry, let me just close the COVID loop for once.

Speaker 1 And let me say thank you to all the geniuses that

Speaker 1 developed this vaccine. Because I could tell that this is, I've had a pretty minor thing, you know, but were it not for the vaccine, I could tell this would not just be a cold.

Speaker 1 This would be,

Speaker 1 there's a little engine in this thing that the vaccine neutralizes pretty well. So thank you to the smart folks in the world, the scientists and whatnot.
So you're welcome.

Speaker 1 Well, yeah, from Sean and I, from the bottom of both of our hearts, you're welcome. And dark coal hearts.

Speaker 1 What were you going to say, Will?

Speaker 1 So there's a, in this, where I'm, where I'm, I currently am, and I'm going to, let's just keep it anonymous because I don't want to, but there's a, there's a certain chain department store um nearby here one of the people on our crew he tells me that there is a on a certain app on his phone that's used for male hookups uh that the

Speaker 1 that the bathroom and changing room at this place has glory holes what's the address

Speaker 1 what's the address

Speaker 1 wait did you was there an s on the end of hole

Speaker 1 holes

Speaker 1 so

Speaker 1 i want to can we double back to the multiple holes uh because i got questions but go ahead for sure.

Speaker 1 And so, as we're working on the show, I have worked it into virtually every aspect of hosting this thing. People talking about their Lego and their build, and this thing has a hole on it.

Speaker 1 I go, somebody did a cruise ship. I said, you know, the only cruising I do is in the men's department over at Blah.

Speaker 1 And the contestants have no idea what I'm talking about. And all the crew are dying because everybody now knows about this.
And who told you?

Speaker 1 A guy that I work with who's on one of these apps that's for hooking up with other dudes and goes, guess what?

Speaker 1 You'll never believe, like less than a mile from here is a full hookup thing, glory, plural holes

Speaker 1 at this place. And I said, Why wouldn't it just be hookup? It's why is it glory holes? Like, is that a real thing? He said, Yes, it's like leftover from the 80s.
I didn't know that existed.

Speaker 1 So, so, first of all,

Speaker 1 the general concept of the glory hole is you can go ahead and you can put, put, put, put yourself in there and see what you get, kind of thing. Or is it, is it just a message?

Speaker 1 First of all, it depends on what side of it you're on. That's right.

Speaker 1 I love that you guys are, you can ask me.

Speaker 1 Oh, Yoshan, have you ever been to a glory hole? No.

Speaker 1 But is the concept that you're too ashamed to have a face-to-face hookup and that you just want to put it in the mystery box?

Speaker 1 To be honest, I don't understand because the mystery box, you don't know what's on the other side. You don't know the age, the STD level of that person.
And then that was my next question.

Speaker 1 If you have multiple holes, and so I'm imagining that they vary in girth,

Speaker 1 and so will that then tell you, A, where you sit in

Speaker 1 the whole scale of things, but also

Speaker 1 what you're hoping is on the other side?

Speaker 1 But see, I don't know if it's ever revealed. I don't think it's ever revealed.
It never gets to be a reality.

Speaker 1 Are we crafting a new reality show?

Speaker 1 There's a reveal on the other side of somebody. Will, aren't you just kind of,

Speaker 1 why don't you? Oh, I want to go over there so bad. Yeah, go over there with your iPhone and and just photograph what these holes look like and maybe what sort of what sort of language

Speaker 1 we haven't heard from Will in two hours my drive and the other thing is I want to joke like that we drive by every morning like 7 a.m.

Speaker 1 We drive every day and just there's like a line in it's like the mayor the local pastor like all these they're all coming out of the shop right and they're all in there and and then the manager of the place is like man

Speaker 1 we got a line backed up here every day but we do not move a lot of product is right

Speaker 1 but everybody it just seems to everybody's all filled up before they come in here they empty and they leave they're empty or they go they then they go in the dressing room and i guess nothing fits we got the wrong product none of our product is fitting anybody

Speaker 1 that's hysterical we have shoulder shirt can you imagine my delight when he told me this yes when he told me that this was going on i was does he by the by the way does he frequent this place no he hasn't gone he hasn't gone but he sure that's what he says that's what he says yeah all right well you go you bring us back a video would you?

Speaker 1 I will.

Speaker 1 I'll keep you guys posted. Sorry, anyway.
And then send it to me as well. All right.
So this is a perfect segue

Speaker 1 into our guest.

Speaker 1 Okay. Wow.
I can best describe our guest today as that guy from that thing. But truly, he's in everything.
You may know him from SNL, which doesn't narrow it down much.

Speaker 1 Although he's credited for co-creating Bill Hayter's iconic character of Stefan,

Speaker 1 he's got not one, but three Netflix comedy specials. He stars as a chipmunk and Chippendale Rescue Rangers on Disney Plus.
Boy, does he make me laugh. It's Mr.
John Mulaney. John Mulaney has

Speaker 1 John. What do you have to say about the whole Glory Hole thing before we wrap that up? Is it drywall?

Speaker 1 Great question.

Speaker 2 Because I always thought it was the wall of a bathroom stall, which would be metal.

Speaker 1 Metal. Right.
Yeah, no, that's a separator. That's for wide stance folks.

Speaker 1 It would have to be drywall, yeah. Or plywood.

Speaker 2 Or plywood.

Speaker 2 That's scarier. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I've got to go check it out. I mean, obviously, I'm just obsessed with knowing the answer to all of this.
Sure. I just want to know what's written around it.

Speaker 1 You know, like, usually somebody's really kind of really running their mouth there when they write shit on a, on a, on a, on a, on a separator, right? Between a separate.

Speaker 2 On a separator, but you think maybe there'd be more grace and dignity to the glory hole where it's like, there's no need to write crude things.

Speaker 1 Some sort of encouraging fine, you know, the act itself because it's about love.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and and this is, it's all love, and we're going to move through it with love.

Speaker 1 Maybe it's a Washington Post thing. Truth dies in the darkness.
Go ahead and enter, something like that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you don't need all the arrows and the innuendo and the little limericks, which are in poor taste.

Speaker 1 Let's not be childish. We all know why we're here.
It's a helmet on a helmet. Do you think that there's like some ink, ink hair, you know, like some drawing of some hair and stuff like that?

Speaker 1 Or is it just like a big smiley face? I'm sorry, what?

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 I could see if they have those screens you sometimes see in elevators that give you like the news. You know, they give you like limited financial and entertainment news.

Speaker 2 In case you've got stamina, yeah, if you're standing there for a while, you want to know.

Speaker 1 What if it says something in like something inspiring? Like, you know, when the football players run through it, like Notre Dame and there's something over the door.

Speaker 1 If there's just something real inspiring over the door. What would get you charged up, Will? What would you want to slap? Go, go, go.
You know, I don't know. Like, you know, go forth.
Go get them.

Speaker 1 Go get them.

Speaker 1 Go get them. him.

Speaker 1 You know, go bravely into the void or something. You know what I mean? Let me tell you something.
This is not the way we started our session with David Remnick. Okay.
I can't. I know.

Speaker 1 Mr. Mulaney.

Speaker 2 It is how you started with Vivek Murthy.

Speaker 1 I think you believe it.

Speaker 2 It's almost the exact same banter.

Speaker 1 Very similar. It's a major left.
But that was more about the dangers of a glory hole.

Speaker 2 I know, because he's got to be that guy.

Speaker 1 He has to.

Speaker 1 Mr. Mulaney, thank you for being here today.

Speaker 2 I'm very, very flattered to be here. I've listened to, I think, almost every episode of this show.

Speaker 1 No way.

Speaker 1 Well, will you listen to your own?

Speaker 1 Absolutely, yeah. All right, good.

Speaker 1 John Mulaney, I'm such a, and I, I think we all are such big fans. Your last Saturday Night Live was so, they all, they're all great, but that last one was so fucking funny.
Your monologue was genius.

Speaker 1 I was like, it was so funny.

Speaker 1 How do you find such comfort, such comfort and such ease? Is it because you've been there so long?

Speaker 1 I mean, it is like home, right?

Speaker 2 It is a little bit like, yeah, it's like going back to

Speaker 2 school in a way,

Speaker 2 because you fall right back into the same, like,

Speaker 2 fall back into the same insecurities and securities. Right.
And in terms of doing the monologue, it's so scary and it's so many people that it's laughable.

Speaker 2 I think I get relaxed because if something went wrong, it would go so wrong.

Speaker 2 And there'd be no way around. No one could talk me down and go, it's okay that you accidentally.

Speaker 1 And you can't blame anyone else because you're writing your own monologue, right? Yes.

Speaker 2 And it's you right into the, not right into the lens, but basically.

Speaker 1 Basically into the lens. Milani, the first, so you first got hired at SNL as a writer.
Yes. Correct? Yep.
But Will, sorry to interrupt.

Speaker 1 Yeah, just interrupt, Sean. Don't worry.
Go ahead and just, you know. So then.
No, no, let me

Speaker 2 say something. Let me say something.
Good, good.

Speaker 1 You're right.

Speaker 2 I was hired as a writer.

Speaker 1 There you go. Okay.
Fucking Sean. And then

Speaker 1 you. So wait, listen, John.
To Will's point, we're having one

Speaker 1 Wait, this has got to be a great question. Hold on, everybody.
Get it, Sean. No, I was going to say, you were before SNL, you were discovered from the Conan, from Late Night with Conan.
Is that true?

Speaker 1 And how did that go down? Like somebody, who saw you on that and what was that like?

Speaker 2 The talent department at SNL saw me on

Speaker 2 Conan.

Speaker 1 Hang on. What's a talent department at SNL? What does that mean?

Speaker 2 It's just a room of the most talented people in the world.

Speaker 2 We call them the talent. Got it.

Speaker 2 Let me see. But, you know, also, they saw me on Conan O'Brien, but I was doing ASCAT monologues that same summer.
And I, with, when Amy and Seth were doing ASCAT a lot.

Speaker 1 So Amy Poehler, Seth Myers were doing ASCAT, which is an improv thing at Upright Citizens Brigade.

Speaker 2 Which is at 20, which at that time was at 26th and 8th under Gristides. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And they might have... You know, I haven't, I think they kind of floated my name there as well.
That seems familiar.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Because i knew some folks that were working there and the desire was to be a writer or performer or both no i auditioned as a performer but it's so i don't know there's so much it's so fluid between the two so you're doing so you're doing monologues at ask at how did you know amy and seth to do that like would you weren't on a t improv team at ucb or anything no i was an i'd been an intern at ucb and i was taking

Speaker 2 classes there.

Speaker 2 When I first moved to New York in 2004, I was taking classes there and I was an intern there, which meant I was taping garbage bags to the ceiling so that McDonald's water could leak down into the theater without splashing on the good folks.

Speaker 1 Did you start at 26 and 8th at that time?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I started at 26th and 8th. I'd been to the old, the first theater a couple times in college.

Speaker 2 And this was the second less fire hazard of the theaters. And I, yeah, so I was an intern, I was a janitor there

Speaker 2 on Saturday nights for, let's see, Respecto, Were they that number?

Speaker 1 Respecto Montalbon.

Speaker 2 Respecto Montalbon.

Speaker 1 Class is that.

Speaker 2 For a while, the NYU Hammercats had a slot there.

Speaker 1 These are all improv

Speaker 1 teams. Got it.

Speaker 2 And I would watch them as I taped the garbage bags to the ceiling because water was actively.

Speaker 1 Wait, Melanie, remind our audience who is in Respecto.

Speaker 2 Let's see. Rob Hubel.
He's got. Owen Burke.

Speaker 2 And the rest. And all of them were in it.

Speaker 1 Will, Willie, didn't you...

Speaker 1 I did a monologue, didn't I, at ASCAT? You sure did. A couple times.

Speaker 1 Remind me how that. I just remember that.
You had the sniffles that night, I remember. Did I really? You had the Saturday night sniffles, I think.
Yes.

Speaker 1 Was I still enjoying? I don't know. But I remember it being very nerve-wracking.
Yeah, you did it a couple times at 26 and 8th. Now, how did that go, remind me? I guess I was in a blackout.

Speaker 1 It's a Harold. We'll have Mulaney remind you how it goes.

Speaker 1 John, so you stand there, and then you, do you get, don't you get sent like one word from the audience and then you got to do a whole, literally a,

Speaker 1 just do an improvise, a whole monologue about that one word.

Speaker 2 You're sent it in that they say it. You ask, yes, but you get, people yell out multiple words, and I would say you pick the one closest to

Speaker 2 you because you might have anything to say about it.

Speaker 1 And then you just freestyle a story, but it has to last like five or ten minutes, right? I think it's five minutes, and it's supposed to be true. Yes.
Oh, really? It's supposed to be a true story.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Why? Did you make your shit shit up?

Speaker 1 I don't remember. I honestly don't.
How long ago was that? Wasn't that like 20 years ago? That was like 2003.

Speaker 2 I mean, would it be fair to say, Will, that like it could be a full story with an arc, but almost if you just gave details of anything, even if even you just walked us through a procedure.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 I would never, you would, once you do it more and more, because really what you're there to do is you're in service of the improvisers who are standing on the stage behind you, and you're trying to give them as many ideas to inspire them to create sketches, improvise sketches based on that.

Speaker 1 So do you want to know my story? So, so not really, not really. Sean, what is with you today?

Speaker 1 Fucking, I know you're the star of Goodnight Oscar, but here there are other people, okay?

Speaker 1 So maybe in Chicago with your armed with your fucking stellar reviews, you can just bust your way through shit. But here, there are other people.
Anyway, John, so sorry.

Speaker 1 But that was the thing, right, John? You're just trying to give them ideas.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you're just trying to give like texture and details.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 they're not going to perform your story front to back. Right.

Speaker 1 And your story doesn't, well, it's, it's a, yeah, front to back. That is the way to do it, right? Sean, do you have something you want to share? My story is pretty good for my ass cat.
Here we go.

Speaker 1 It's really short.

Speaker 1 So, so, Armani, the Armani, Giorgio Armani, invited me. This is so long ago.
We don't know. Invited me to Italy.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Yeah. The Armani.

Speaker 1 And Armani. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Somebody in the extended family.

Speaker 1 The puppy. Do you see how funny this is?

Speaker 1 So we go to, he invited me to go to some fashion show in Milan. So I go there.
Who did? Giorgio Armani.

Speaker 2 At the real Giorgio Armani.

Speaker 1 At the original.

Speaker 2 At the original.

Speaker 1 Not to be confused with George Armani, who lives in the North Valley here.

Speaker 1 So I go there. I go there.
I watch the thing. And then he invites, there's this party at his house afterwards.
And so I get one of the guys that that works there. Wait, how is this really a task?

Speaker 1 This is the story I told you. Well, no, it was a gathering.

Speaker 2 Ask at a gathering of people, and it sounds like this is too.

Speaker 1 Sure. Wait, so you told the story of going to Ormani's house? Yes, and then I went to the house and I grabbed the guy who worked at the party and I said, I want to see the rest of his house.

Speaker 1 He's like, he really doesn't allow that. I'm like, please, please, please.
So I go up to his,

Speaker 1 he gets in this elevator. I go up to his bedroom floor, right? And I go into his closet because I wanted to see what clothes he wore.
And in his closet is

Speaker 1 all in a line, like 50 Navy shirts and 50 pairs of jeans below it, all the exact same lined up. Exact same.
And it's all Tommy Hill figure? And it's all Tommy Hilfiger.

Speaker 2 Were you caught?

Speaker 1 It's all from the gap. I wasn't.
I hightailed it out there because I thought I was going to get shot or something.

Speaker 1 Did you steal anything? Be real.

Speaker 1 No, no, no, I didn't steal anything. Great story.

Speaker 1 And now, a word from our sponsor.

Speaker 1 Hey, all you underwearers. Are you sick of feeling bounced around? Have you got a bad case of juggler's jock?

Speaker 1 Is your junk drawer on life support? Well, Duluth Trading Company is here to get you buck naked.

Speaker 1 Since 1989, Duluth Trading Company has been engineering unders and workwear to help tackle your toughest tasks.

Speaker 1 Everything from underwater wielding to botanical gardening to excruciating Hollywood lunch meetings. Duluth Trading's buck naked underwear, life-affirming.

Speaker 1 Doesn't matter if you're working working overtime, golfing 36 holes, or dragging your co-hosts through a podcast. The no-pinch, no stink, no sweat construction keeps you comfortable.

Speaker 1 And the crotch cradling bullpen pouch, the epitome of support. Duluth keeps me super comfortable.
Every time I'm wearing it, I feel fully. supported.

Speaker 1 So if you've got a rear end and you're ready to go buck naked, visit duluthetrading.com or shop in store today.

Speaker 1 This message comes from the International Rescue Committee.

Speaker 1 The IRC has spent over 90 years helping people whose lives have been upended by crisis, often responding within just 72 hours when emergencies strike.

Speaker 1 Every day, IRC teams support recovery efforts in places like Gaza, Sudan, and Ukraine, helping displaced children and families find safety, rebuild their communities, and recover hope for the future.

Speaker 1 Donate today by visiting rescue.org/slash rebuild

Speaker 1 250 years ago, a promise was made to connect families and friends near and far. And during the holidays, that promise is more important than ever.

Speaker 1 That's why USPS is building a better network to meet your needs with timely deliveries, easy and affordable ways to ship, and everything you need to make your season full of holiday cheer.

Speaker 1 Their purpose is delivering your peace of mind, knowing your love will arrive, bringing joy to all. The United States Postal Service.
Learn more at usps.com slash holidays.

Speaker 1 All right, back to the show.

Speaker 1 Anyway, listen, John, so you're from Chicago. I didn't know you were from Chicago.
And you went, how long did you live here? And you grew up here?

Speaker 2 Zero to 18. Yeah, I grew up in Lincoln Park.

Speaker 1 Wow, I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you're from Chicago. I'm up in the burbs.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Sean's in Chicago right now.

Speaker 2 I know. I can tell from his hat and the view view and the fact that I know he's there.

Speaker 1 So I've always wondered what that, so listener,

Speaker 1 Sean has on a hat with the four stars and the blue stripe across the top and a blue stripe across the bottom. That's a Chicago flag or an Illinois flag?

Speaker 2 I've been talking about Chicago.

Speaker 1 So the city of Chicago has its own flag? Is that the only city? LA doesn't have a city flag, does it? I'm sure it's guaranteed it does. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm sure it does. I'm doing a Google search, right? New York City does.

Speaker 1 Wait, wait, wait. Sean, Melinda, you'll be happy to know that when we were in Chicago doing our shows live, that Sean's generous friend came by and brought us Chicago hats,

Speaker 1 20 different Chicago hats. Chicago, like literally 20.
Steve Horvath, yeah. Steve Horvath.
Very kind of him.

Speaker 1 But I was like, how would we need to know?

Speaker 2 It was very generous. It sounds like it was a lot.

Speaker 1 It was a lot. It sounds like it was too many hats.
Well,

Speaker 2 the way you're describing it, it's not.

Speaker 2 I'm not getting

Speaker 2 just a generosity vibe. It's a lot of hats.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the amount was surprising. Loved it.
I will say this.

Speaker 2 And you probably had like carry-ons for the tour. You know, you didn't want.

Speaker 2 You had to now carry

Speaker 2 20 hats in a laundry bag from the four seasons or something.

Speaker 1 Do you have merch at your shows, John?

Speaker 2 Yes. Thank you for merchants.

Speaker 1 That's short for merchandise. Sorry, John.

Speaker 1 What is your merchandise, John?

Speaker 2 I get to plug the merch. I have a t-shirt that says I saw him just after he got out of rehab.
That would be the best seller right now. No way.
Yes, it says that and has the tour.

Speaker 1 So, John, so Milani, you grew up in Chicago. When did you start, did you start doing stand-up or did you start doing sketch? What was your trajectory?

Speaker 2 Like, outside of a high school environment, I started doing, I did stand-up at a couple, not even open mics, just like weird variety nights at places like The Note near Wicker Park.

Speaker 1 But that's ballsy, though, to just start to do stand-up. Were you scared?

Speaker 2 I had weirdly high self-esteem when it came to that.

Speaker 2 Not really about any other part of life, but I was like, yeah, no, I'm a headline.

Speaker 2 I'm going to do this. It's going to be great.
People are going to be talking about this.

Speaker 2 And then I did improv in college. I auditioned for the improv group my fourth day of college.
And the director was a young man named Nick Kroll.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 2 he cast me. Yeah, he was a senior.
I was a freshman, and he cast me in the improv group. Very much changed my life.

Speaker 1 That's amazing. Wait, where was this? What college was this?

Speaker 2 This was Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

Speaker 1 Right, where you studied theology as well? Yeah, English and theology. Why? Oh, I thought.
You want to be a priest?

Speaker 2 No, I mainly studied Jewish theology.

Speaker 2 There was a very good,

Speaker 2 there were a couple of very good Jewish studies professors at Georgetown, and I just found it much more interesting theology because it's a lot more like, What the hell do we know?

Speaker 1 You know, yeah, what do we know from anything?

Speaker 2 Yeah, Catholics was a lot more like, This is the, you know, do this, and you'll, you'll spend this many days in fire, but then you can get out if someone prays for you.

Speaker 2 There were too many rules, too much structure, right? Judaism was a lot of like, who the, who the hell are you to ask? You know, like, is there a God?

Speaker 1 Like, who the hell are you? Sounds like shorter chapters, which is from Smart. Excuse me?

Speaker 2 Who the hell are you to ask that?

Speaker 1 Why is there water?

Speaker 1 Get out of here. Get out of here.

Speaker 2 Now, were you, were you a Weisenheimer weisenheimer in in in school when you were a little kid and that's where you thought maybe there might be a uh a way to make a living here i remember in third grade a teacher gave me an article like xerox from esquire like it wasn't for kids it was a it was like an it was an article and it was it was about this guy henry beard who wrote um for the harvard lampoon the national lampoon and the name of the article was the original smartass white guy and she slipped it to me miss kowal and she said i you'd be into this guy and this type of thing.

Speaker 1 That's cool.

Speaker 2 And yeah, it was cool. But I don't recall being like a troublemaker.

Speaker 2 But you knew that you had skills.

Speaker 1 You were making kids laugh. That felt good.
Yeah. And you wanted me to.

Speaker 2 And I was kind of a writer-performer in that I would tell

Speaker 2 more poorly behaved children what might be a funny thing to do.

Speaker 2 What if someone threw that out the window right now?

Speaker 1 And they would take the bait and you would watch.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that'd be pretty, it'd be pretty crazy if someone just threw their potato battery out the window right now you know right

Speaker 2 can you imagine how that'd be crazy i know you're pretty unstable god you would have been you've got a lot going on at home maybe maybe you'd be like a king for a day if you did that you know i really would be great in a cult you know that you'd be great if you worked in a cult i think i'd be pretty susceptible i i don't have a lot of cult confidence i i don't know how

Speaker 2 I don't know if I'd be the leader. I think I'd be a member.

Speaker 2 And it'd take me a while. It'd take me a while to see the light.

Speaker 1 Are you saying there wasn't a lot of bad behavior when you were a little kid?

Speaker 1 Like, because I'm just going through, as soon as you said battery, I had a just horrible memory of me and my friends throwing batteries at stuff.

Speaker 1 And there's more detail to that.

Speaker 2 I remember we got caught tagging up a garage.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we were always, we were.

Speaker 1 You were in a tag crew?

Speaker 2 Yeah, and my tag

Speaker 1 was hat sideways. Tell me the hat was sideways.

Speaker 1 Just a little askew.

Speaker 2 We wrote, we are the fuckers.

Speaker 1 Sure.

Speaker 1 And did you spell fuckers all weird? Like, no, it's like scary weird. F-U-K.

Speaker 2 To me, it was just the declaration.

Speaker 2 We are the fuckers. Of what?

Speaker 1 Of what?

Speaker 2 Of everything, man.

Speaker 2 Of anything, especially a garage door.

Speaker 1 You guys are a hardcore. So you could have gotten trouble if you'd gotten caught.
You could have gotten trouble for

Speaker 1 a few dozen things when you were a kid or not.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and I had a real, I didn't have a pyromania phase, but my good friend did. And I would supervise, I kind of supervised that a little.

Speaker 1 You weren't mean to cats or anything, were you? Not at all.

Speaker 2 No,

Speaker 2 not at all. Love was allergic to cats, so we had kind of agreed to disagree, relationship cats and I.

Speaker 1 Would you put like food, food coloring

Speaker 1 in beverages and things like that, John?

Speaker 2 No, but we would do a lot of like, what could we put a bottle rocket thing?

Speaker 1 What do you think he was in a church group?

Speaker 1 He's studying theology and being a real hellcat but no but you're like you're like the foreman of trouble like you just got everybody else creating trouble for you george foreman of trouble yeah you're like the german foreman's grill of trouble yeah i was i was i was healthy lean

Speaker 1 wait so um

Speaker 1 wait so so john so you go to you go to uh um

Speaker 1 georgetown georgetown and uh you're the guy running the the the improv uh team group whatever well now hold on a second i gotta stop you there uh i see john's got a zevia beverage in his hand now that is that it is a stevia based soda and i i can safely recommend every single flavor hang on john you're not getting any freebies out of this you're a guest i don't need freebies my recurring amazon i have two uh recurring amazon orders that i one i don't know how to cancel and one i can find see that's why i've never signed up for the for the automatic what is the one you don't know how to cancel?

Speaker 2 It's so much cream soda, but I'm fine with it, but it's stacking up.

Speaker 2 There's baby formula diapers and so much cream soda Zevia. And they're tall boys, too, because I just

Speaker 1 make tall ones. Yeah.
Yeah. Now, does that, that gets us into,

Speaker 1 you seem like a guy who watches what they put in their body.

Speaker 1 We're going to double back to Georgetown. Sorry, are we back to the glory holes? Oh, no.
No.

Speaker 1 All the way back.

Speaker 2 So there's is there no sugar goes into that body john no sugar goes into this body yeah um i am i am recently uh sober and so i'm allowing myself a lot of sugar in sugar and indulgences yeah i'm trying to cut back but i haven't yet and i won't today and i won't tomorrow watch out for the man with no vices let go ahead and keep one or two yeah sugar's just fine work i quit smoking cigarettes in november oh but

Speaker 1 showing off stop showing off

Speaker 2 I went to a hypnotist. Yeah.

Speaker 2 He was a UCLA paranormal professor who now hypnotizes people in his garage in Santa Monica.

Speaker 1 Sounds safe. Do you see spaceships when he's done? I mean, honestly, none of this seems problematic to me.
Keep going.

Speaker 2 Remember how I said I'm susceptible to cults? Well, I go to this guy's rock.

Speaker 1 He hits me. I spent eight hours in the garage.
So you're telling me the guy with the crystal ball, he moved his operation into the garage and now he's getting people off butts?

Speaker 2 Well, if he's so fake, how come he has some headshots thanking him for his work?

Speaker 1 Some.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 some sun-faded headshots thanking him for getting them off cigarettes. Entertainers who I recognize vaguely.

Speaker 1 Wait, so did it, so, so, did it work? I mean, are you craving cigarettes?

Speaker 2 No, it actually did work.

Speaker 2 I mean, I smoked from 13, age 13 to 39 and stopped in november wow after the second whole turkey no weaning whatsoever first hypnotism session you get to keep smoking for that week which is a big reason i did it was i love smoking so second session walked out never had another third session i actually don't remember i i really did i really did go somewhere else nice that's great so john mulaney i want to talk to you about marty short is a good friend of mine good friend of ours the greatest and i loved your sitcom with called Milaney with Marty.

Speaker 1 Thank you. I did.
I loved it. I watched every episode.
Thank you for watching. Milani.
I used to watch the

Speaker 1 on the on the tap over at

Speaker 1 Radford Studios. I would see you guys rehearsing all the time.

Speaker 2 It was so fun. It was one of the most fun experiences making the show.

Speaker 1 He speaks so highly of you, just so you know.

Speaker 2 I love him very much.

Speaker 1 Yeah. It's mutual.
I want to see that, damn it.

Speaker 1 I apologize.

Speaker 2 2014, Fox

Speaker 2 from

Speaker 2 August to November of

Speaker 1 2014. So it was a tight 13?

Speaker 2 I think they did air all 13. Our final episode aired against the SNL 40th, which I was working on.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 we ended up losing to that, the ratings that night.

Speaker 1 That's like the,

Speaker 1 Will, didn't they air the very final episodes of Arrested Development against the Winter Olympics?

Speaker 1 Opening of the Olympics.

Speaker 1 They burned all four in a row. they were just and they didn't tell anybody they're like get these off our salt lake city

Speaker 1 but John was that was that sitcom sorry sorry Sean no that's okay was that something you always wanted to do and you're passionate about it or I was I was I was passionate about I was and am passionate about multicam I really like you and Nepo so do we yep and I

Speaker 2 I mean I grew up on them but also I just find it and maybe it's also the Saturday Night Live in me and the stand-up in me i just like three to four cameras and yelling jokes to the back of the room and an audience a live audience and a live audience yeah and the six-hour day oh my god i mean i as as the ep and writer and everything i didn't have that but watching elliott gould and marty short and nassim pedrad leave at three i just thought oof

Speaker 1 that's that's the life of king would you do another one i would yeah yeah you should you'd be great

Speaker 1 we need to crack that. I'm calling you after this, after the session.
It's um who directed most of those episodes

Speaker 2 just when they're good. They're when they're good, they're so great.
Andy Ackerman, a wonderful artist.

Speaker 1 Seinfeld, yeah. Yeah, of course.

Speaker 2 Seinfeld, many other great things.

Speaker 1 And then let me ask you this, because I've always wanted to know, I've always wondered about like A-plus stand-ups like yourself who do all these specials and you tour and you're constantly writing.

Speaker 1 By the time we see your special on Netflix or wherever it is, how many times have you tried out that material or and how many rewrites did you go through before we see it?

Speaker 1 Or are we seeing stuff that you trusted or know will work from the moment you wrote it?

Speaker 2 Oh, those seem like two questions.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's a problem with Sean.

Speaker 1 Okay,

Speaker 2 the first part is it depends on how much I toured before the special. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So I did, so I did that sitcom. It was

Speaker 2 production was shut down in October. I went on the road the the next week, and then I taped a special that May called The Comeback Kid for Netflix.
That was a pretty short tour.

Speaker 2 Uh, the last special I did, there was about a year of touring before it. This one will be like

Speaker 2 this one will be close to a year, maybe over. I'm on the road steadily right now.

Speaker 1 So, how do you like that road stuff, that touring stuff, that staying in a hotel every night?

Speaker 2 I love it.

Speaker 1 I

Speaker 2 like hotel living. Um,

Speaker 2 I really like tour bus living.

Speaker 1 Do you take your own slippers with you when you go to all those hotels?

Speaker 2 I bring my own pillow, but I take their pillowcase. What does that mean?

Speaker 1 That's Jason doesn't like, doesn't, Jason won't walk on the floors of a hotel. He will not walk on the floors of a hotel without a barrier.

Speaker 1 And then.

Speaker 2 Do you put the remote in a Ziploc bag before you?

Speaker 1 I put it in a pot of boiling water.

Speaker 1 And then if it still works,

Speaker 1 we're on.

Speaker 1 But if it doesn't work, then there's no TV.

Speaker 1 So you take the pillow. Jason basically lives like Howard Hughes.
He has, like, at all times, don't show him your fingernails.

Speaker 1 And he's got like 12 layers of Kleenex between himself and anything that he touches.

Speaker 1 You're using the, you're bringing your own pillow, but you're using their pillowcase because you want to make

Speaker 1 it.

Speaker 2 Well, no, what happened? It's worse than that. I took one pillowcase from the first hotel on this tour.
Where did it start? We started in

Speaker 2 Portland, Maine, maybe.

Speaker 2 I took a pillowcase and it's still on.

Speaker 1 Because you like the thread count on that one. You're like, oh, we're going to keep this.

Speaker 2 I liked that it was long and my special foam pillow is longer than a regular pillow, too. So it was cool.
It was a nice fit.

Speaker 1 You sleep with a pillow between your knees?

Speaker 2 I got one of those at an as-seen on TV store at Foxwoods recently.

Speaker 1 Oh, is it like a body pillow?

Speaker 2 No, it's like a little,

Speaker 2 it looks like a yoga block, except it has a skate ramp in it. And you put it right between those knees.

Speaker 2 And it's at the, if you guys are at anyone near the as seen on TV store at the mall in Foxwoods, the casino,

Speaker 2 they have them there. And again, that's at the Foxwoods Casino.
They're outlet malls in the mass.

Speaker 1 Sean's a slow writer, so not too, not too fast.

Speaker 1 Wait a second. Is there really a store called As Seen on TV?

Speaker 2 Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 You've never been in there? You've never seen that? Come on.

Speaker 2 Oh, it's the greatest. Truly.
It looks like a storage unit.

Speaker 1 Can I ask you what they sell in there?

Speaker 2 I mean, the one thing I was really intrigued by this time was something called Battery Daddy, which was,

Speaker 2 it looked like a

Speaker 2 CD tower, looked like a compact disc tower for batteries. It was a big,

Speaker 2 it was almost like a pyramid where all your sizes of batteries had different levels they could clip into.

Speaker 1 Could you use that?

Speaker 2 Definitely can't find the double-A's when I need them.

Speaker 1 Now, do you guys keep your batteries in the freezer, by the way? Or am I just married to a photography?

Speaker 2 No, I don't think there's any science.

Speaker 1 What are you, a photographer? What's going on? I used to, I got one of those, I got one of those wedge pillows where you can slip your arm because my arm was bothering me for a while.

Speaker 1 And I bought it from, I think, like the backstore or one of these things, relax the back. And you actually put your hand, it looked like a mousetrap.

Speaker 1 And then I'd sleep on this thing. Anyway, it didn't end up.
Oh, what a catch. Do you have a CPAP when you go to sleep too? Sean, do you? I don't.
Sean, do you?

Speaker 2 My girlfriend, Olivia, has still, we still have the pregnancy pillow, that horseshoe-shaped thing.

Speaker 2 And I slept in it the other day, and it is fantastic. It's like sleeping in

Speaker 1 a bumper bowling lane.

Speaker 2 I woke up with something.

Speaker 1 Sean sleeps like in that position they tell you again when a plane's crashing, like with his,

Speaker 1 he's grabbing his knees.

Speaker 1 Just in case Sean wakes up real antsy.

Speaker 1 I never feel rested. I never feel rested.

Speaker 2 I saw an interview with Donny Osmond once where he was extolling. the virtues of sleeping on the tray

Speaker 2 on a commercial flight. Sleep on the.

Speaker 1 No, that always makes me want to vomit. And did he say, and make sure to drink 12 rums before you go?

Speaker 1 I love you got Donnie as a rum drinker.

Speaker 1 Bacardi, Bacardi. Yeah, not the

Speaker 1 top show. Top show.
Wait,

Speaker 1 I want to get back to this long professional and personal relationship you have with the guy who let you into the improv group, which is Nick Kroll.

Speaker 2 The wonderful Nick Kroll.

Speaker 1 The wonderful Nick Kroll.

Speaker 1 Best friend, older brother and everything mentor okay well we got it now we got it in writing and on recording we got it yeah i know that sounds good it sounds gracious i sound gracious because he let me into the group and now just air it on edge you've been paying him back ever since but but you you guys know it did you guys are like brothers and and you guys have worked together so much now over the last however many years since you've known each other and 20 is that like a thing that you guys consciously say or do you come back together every couple years or you're like or you go, you do your own thing, you're like, hey, let's go and do this.

Speaker 1 Or we, I don't know. How does it work?

Speaker 2 Well, let's see.

Speaker 1 For a while, we

Speaker 2 that's a good question. We don't consciously plan, you know, let's work together in 18 months.

Speaker 2 We love working with each other. So he'd be my first thought for anyone to collaborate with.
And then we have things that we've done consistently, like the theater show, Oh, Hello,

Speaker 2 where we played

Speaker 2 these two guys, Gil and George. We did that in a variety of media and then did it as a play on Broadway.
So like that's a thing where we will talk about revisiting those characters specifically.

Speaker 2 And then obviously I work with him on Big Mouth on Netflix, but I, but he's along with Andrew Goldberg and Mark and Jen Flackett, he's a creator EP, so I'm not doing that with him, but

Speaker 2 I'm lucky enough to be on it.

Speaker 1 You're on it. Big Mouth for Tracy is a really funny, very popular animated show on Netflix.
It's been on for five or five years.

Speaker 2 Tracy might even know that.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 she might know that.

Speaker 1 She's already moved on to human resources.

Speaker 1 She might know.

Speaker 1 And we will be right back.

Speaker 1 Today's episode is sponsored by Ashley. They don't just sell incredible furniture.
They're also making an impact in vulnerable communities. Here's a tough fact.

Speaker 1 Over 7 million kids are affected by the welfare system, and over 368,000 are currently in foster care.

Speaker 1 So together with Ashley and SiriusXM, we made a donation to four others, an organization working to end the child welfare crisis in America.

Speaker 1 You know, partnering with Ashley in our live show, first of all, they just made our set look really good.

Speaker 1 They made us really comfortable and they kind of made us look legit because otherwise it would have been, you know, milk crates and,

Speaker 1 you know, cardboard boxes. And Ashley made it look like a real, kind of looked like a living room, made it really comfortable, made our guest, John Mayer, really comfortable.

Speaker 1 And then he thought that maybe we're professional, we're not just a bunch of clowns. To be honest, there was a point where I got so comfortable, I forgot that I was in front of an audience.

Speaker 1 I was sitting back on that nice Ashley couch and I was just hanging out with my buds in my living room.

Speaker 1 Anyway, Ashley offers timeless, well-crafted furniture with white glove delivery right to your door. Visit your local Ashley store or head to ashley.com to find your style.

Speaker 1 Some like it hot, but for most, a little spice goes a long way.

Speaker 1 Dorito's Golden Sriracha Flavor Tortilla chips are the perfectly balanced blend of yellow and green srirachas for a chip that's tangy and sweet with just the right amount of heat.

Speaker 1 Dorito's golden sriracha are spicy, but not too spicy because Doritos knows bold flavor doesn't have to mean just heat. Try Doritos Golden Sriracha for yourself.

Speaker 1 Look for them wherever Doritos are sold or find a store near you at Doritos.com. Doritos for the bold.

Speaker 1 This is an ad by BetterHelp. Have you ever had someone that you haven't reached out to in a long time and you're just like, you know what, just do it.

Speaker 1 I just did that recently and it was such a wonderful experience. We had a great lunch, a lot of catching up and I'm so glad we did it.
It was great.

Speaker 1 As the seasons change, shorter days don't have to weigh you down. This season, BetterHelp encourages you to reach out, check in on friends, reconnect with loved ones, and remind them you're there.

Speaker 1 Just like it takes a little courage to send that text or grab coffee with someone you haven't seen in a while, reaching out for therapy can feel difficult too, but it can be worth it.

Speaker 1 It can leave people wondering, why didn't I do this sooner? With over 30,000 therapists worldwide, BetterHelp is one of the leading online therapy platforms. BetterHelp therapists are fully qualified.

Speaker 1 BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. This month, don't wait to reach out.

Speaker 1 Whether you're checking in on a friend or reaching out to a therapist, BetterHelp makes it easier to take that first step.

Speaker 1 Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com/slash smartless. That's betterh-e-l-p.com/slash smartlist.

Speaker 1 And now, back to the show. Hey, John, with all the things that you do and do well, how do you decide what to do? Is it informed by some sort of five-year plan that you've got?

Speaker 2 No, never had a five, never had a five-year plan.

Speaker 1 What about next week? Next month?

Speaker 2 I'm a little,

Speaker 2 I remember a professor in college said, someone was like, someone said, just taking it one day at a time. And he said, that's great.

Speaker 2 Of course, Mulaney lives minute to minute. And like, everyone laughed.
And I was really like,

Speaker 1 it was odd of him to to call that out in the middle of a Jewish studies class but you you you you have no no sort of North Star

Speaker 2 whether you whether you whether you get there or not at least it's giving you direction and forming and how I'd love a knockout obituary and great speeches at the memorial service but like then I can't think

Speaker 2 you know

Speaker 2 what's you just want it to be glowing what do you want your tombstone to say I've thought about this recently oh if it could say anything you know I I was walking around a cemetery in Connecticut where all the um where you do,

Speaker 2 where you do, and the graves are from like the 1700s. And back then, people would they I walked by a grave that said handsome and brave.

Speaker 2 I'm so it was like a hero of the revolution, handsome and brave. I was like, I think I'm gonna take that.

Speaker 1 Yes, so this is what I thought.

Speaker 1 I was thinking the other, I was in walking around a cemetery a couple of years ago one night, and not a big, big, just because it was a a better you know i get a better view inside the window of the it doesn't matter longer story anyway

Speaker 1 obviously for a lawyer i can't say why of course but reading all the all the gravestones i was thinking like i would want to put something like he was a cool guy yeah that's it because then if i saw that i'd be like who the fuck is that motherfucker he was a cool guy you know what i just i just read i read that you can now get your body turned into compost

Speaker 1 and you can you know use it to plant a tree or something It takes six months to turn it into compost.

Speaker 2 They just keep mixing the guts with dirt over and over again.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's what happens when you just fucking bury a body. Yeah.
What do you think a body does in the ground?

Speaker 1 It's a pickup truck worth of compost.

Speaker 2 So that just sounds like compost with a dead body in it. It doesn't sound like your body is doing anything.

Speaker 1 It does. That's a good point.

Speaker 2 Your gaseous, unembalmed body exploded.

Speaker 1 I would love to see your search history, though, Sean. You know, I did.
I looked at all. So would the FBI.
Why did you buy all that lime? What's going on?

Speaker 1 I'd like,

Speaker 2 you know, I would like it said at my funeral or

Speaker 2 on my gravestone that I, some of my flaws, like he was late a lot and people talked to him about it and he was still late.

Speaker 1 Are you still?

Speaker 2 Are you still late? I'm getting better at it.

Speaker 1 I'm getting better at it. Do you know why you're late?

Speaker 2 I think, well, one, Saturday Night Live completely destroyed my relationship with time in that meetings that were supposed to begin at 3 p.m. would begin at 5 p.m.
or 6 p.m.

Speaker 2 with no explanation or apology. So when I, after a couple of years there, I would meet people 45 minutes late and not think I needed to say anything regarding where I'd been.
Wow.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And then I think I'm better. I must think I'm better than everyone else.
I mean, everyone else, I guess.

Speaker 1 What about having a kid now? Kid really puts you on a schedule, right?

Speaker 2 No, a kid put me on a schedule. And I have made a big resolution to be on time, be where I said I'll be when I said I'll be there.

Speaker 1 And I've actually been good about that, yeah. Like Sean, Sean said, I'm gonna be outside a fire station all day today.

Speaker 1 So he is. It's, I live in, yeah, in the mountains.
Um, what is your uh, what do you think you're best at being a dad? What do you think you're worst at being a dad?

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 I know we're early days and we're just trying stuff out.

Speaker 2 Best at um

Speaker 2 swaddle technique i am a good swaddler yeah um i am a good swaddler i uh learned to swaddle somewhat from ozarks what you give a brief swaddle tutorial if you recall

Speaker 2 and we were waiting

Speaker 1 what was your favorite episode

Speaker 2 i love the one where you're i love the one where you're uh laundering all the money and you know everyone's like oh my god you know people check out that the department store those glory holes and they swaddle sometimes

Speaker 1 They sure do. Is that right?

Speaker 2 Good at swaddling. I'm good at, I know when tummy time is over

Speaker 2 before little Malcolm gives me that look like, Jesus, man, you're going to get me out of here. I know it's time.
I know that big head is starting to get a little tired of bobbing up and down.

Speaker 2 I probably am worse at overthinking

Speaker 2 how to approach him as an adolescent, which I really don't need to worry about for the next few years. But I am I'm constantly running scenarios of what of what kind of parent i'll be when he's 11.

Speaker 2 the combo between being a dad versus being a best friend oh just like yeah and and will i be in my mind i was like i'm gonna be this like uh

Speaker 2 semi-stern

Speaker 2 I'm gonna be this, like, I'm gonna kind of be like my dad with him. And that's all fallen apart in four months.
I can't imagine ever criticizing anything this kid does.

Speaker 1 But who do you? I mean, you, you know,

Speaker 1 I know Olivia. Olivia knows you.
Have you guys, has it become clear who's going to be the disciplinarian, who's going to be the nurturer?

Speaker 2 Oh, that's a good question. She's such a wonderful mother and so nurturing.
And also

Speaker 1 here it comes.

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 I mean, right now, she's right now, she's extremely nurturing, but I, but she, um, she can be extremely organized. She has packing cubes.

Speaker 1 That was a good choice of words. Great choice.
Thanks, guys. Now she can listen.

Speaker 1 So she's very good about organizing. Does that allow you to?

Speaker 2 She's very organized, very disciplined in a way that I'm not. However, I don't know when it comes to Malcolm.

Speaker 2 The ideal I have for myself is that I come home in a suit, which is going to be hard working at home.

Speaker 2 And that and that there's some expectation of your dad is home and therefore that, you know, that's intimidating, but I absolutely will never follow through on that.

Speaker 1 My oldest brother, Dennis,

Speaker 1 when he had, he has three kids,

Speaker 1 he would let them with crayons draw all over the walls in every room. And of course, that would upset his wife, and

Speaker 1 they would discuss it. And he was like, let them be kids.
Let them have

Speaker 1 do anything they want. You can paint over the crayons.

Speaker 1 Would you ever do anything like that? Well, here's it. And it should be noted also.
He came from like Sean. You know, Sean's dad never got mad at them drawing on the walls or anything.

Speaker 1 He didn't get mad at them doing anything. He would, just what? Now, the reason is he wasn't there, but

Speaker 1 well, if they hide the car keys, he'd hate that. That's the thing that would piss you off.

Speaker 1 Absolutely no chance of escaping.

Speaker 1 Who took my Toomi carry-on?

Speaker 2 He was always.

Speaker 1 His dad left him off. Who took my weekend up?

Speaker 1 His dad left like Cal L leaving Krypton, like just on his own, like in an escape pod. You know what I mean? I don't know if that red case is right.
Yes, is that right? I got that.

Speaker 2 Well, Will, Will and Jason, here's what I wonder. If I, I remember a good friend of mine when we were six to his dad.

Speaker 2 He was so mad at his dad and he said, Sayonara, sucker, motherfucker.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 2 his dad, his dad acted mad. And I, as I've gotten older, I'm like, Can, I don't know how I won't laugh if my kid ever like tells me off.

Speaker 2 It just will be if Malcolm ever yells at me, it seems like such a funny moment that I won't be able to not laugh.

Speaker 1 Well, we have, put it this way, I have videos of both my kids having, having breakdowns or tantrums at various ages because they're so fucking hilarious, which I show them now.

Speaker 1 And even in the moment, you recognize how funny, like Abel said, we have one Abel sing when he was little, and he was like, something, something, because you're the worst.

Speaker 1 And you can see him go in the moment, go, I mean, not the worst. I mean, you're kind of great, and I love you.

Speaker 1 And so he walks it back in the middle of his thing and then the other day when an able said to me the other day i went to wake him up for school i think i told you guys this and i go up and his eye he's 11 his eyes aren't even open yet and i go up and i go hey buddy we got to get up we got to get to school eyes not even open and he goes play is gonna play

Speaker 1 i'm like what is gonna play They constantly surprise you. That's the thing.
And you have no idea how you're going to react. And you just kind of go with it.
And I don't know.

Speaker 1 Speaking of not knowing how to react, hecklers, what's a good heckler story? Because you're on tour right now, right? For you, Sean. Thanks from scratch, right?

Speaker 2 I emailed my bullet points.

Speaker 1 No, but I love those stories. I love heckler stories.

Speaker 2 The best.

Speaker 2 I was doing Bonnaroo one year.

Speaker 2 And I was doing, there was a big comedy tent at the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Murfiersboro, Tennessee. And

Speaker 2 someone said, we've signed you up to do a show at the VIP camping ground, like the organizers of the festival. And I said, What's that about? And they said, Just get on the back of this golf cart.

Speaker 2 And they drove so fast

Speaker 2 in a golf, in the back of a golf cart, which is like falling out of a chair forever.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 they,

Speaker 2 I get to this, uh,

Speaker 2 like, I get to a plywood stage, and there's all these RVs, and there's like a micro brew truck giving out beer to these VIP glampers.

Speaker 1 Oh, you can handle. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 they had no idea someone had been brought in to do stand-up.

Speaker 2 And they

Speaker 2 didn't ask for it. They didn't want it.
They didn't like it. I was not someone they knew who that was.

Speaker 2 I was not someone people were excited to see. And I started doing stand-up.
And this guy yelled, I think I speak for everyone when I say we'd enjoy silence more than the sound of your voice.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. And it was so articulate.
It was so polite.

Speaker 1 How do you heckle back at that?

Speaker 2 I went,

Speaker 2 hey, fuck you.

Speaker 1 Sucker, motherfucker.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Sayonara, sucker, motherfucker. Jump on the back of the golf carts feet away.

Speaker 1 That'd actually be a good.

Speaker 2 I might close a special with that.

Speaker 1 Sucker, motherfucker.

Speaker 2 After a really gracious thank you to the audience, I turn around and then say Sayonara, sucker.

Speaker 1 It's funny.

Speaker 1 It'd be so great if that became your calling card farewell to your audience. Yeah,

Speaker 2 this aggressive, shitty little

Speaker 1 I would, I have this, I have this masochistic fantasy of doing one set of stand-up, but I would have no idea how to how to write

Speaker 1 a session.

Speaker 1 Have you ever heard of

Speaker 1 you know, yeah, I mean, the very fact that you call it a session is not a session, you know, but you know how like some

Speaker 2 I'm here to perform a session

Speaker 1 up. I'm here to perform a session.

Speaker 1 Um, well you know like how some music uh acts they don't write their own music but they perform them well have you ever heard of a stand-up having a whole set written for he or she and then they

Speaker 2 are there are and it's kind of more of an older school thing like there were there were performers who had a lot of writers and there were

Speaker 2 you know i really don't hear about it much anymore there are people who do stand-up who

Speaker 2 also do so many other types of sessions that uh acting sessions and directing sessions that they eventually have writers. But most people see.

Speaker 1 Why don't you go to an open session night? Are there? Yeah, go to open session.

Speaker 2 I'd actually like to end stand-up the way my therapist ends sessions, which is, okay, we have to pause now. Yeah, there you go.
And then just walk off stage.

Speaker 1 Jason, have you seen any good comedy routines lately?

Speaker 1 Would you like to go see some routines?

Speaker 1 You see some wonderful routines out there at the improv, which is short for the improvisation there on Melrose Avenue.

Speaker 1 I like when people call, like adults call, like my brother goes, I'm doing a play here in Chicago. And he goes, you got play practice today? Yeah.
You mean rehearsal?

Speaker 1 Is this Dennis with the three kids? Yeah. Hey, I don't want to bug you.
I know you're in the middle of play practice, but play practice.

Speaker 2 I know you're drilling the play.

Speaker 1 I do like saying practice instead of rehearsal when we're on set. That is fun.
I do like yelling

Speaker 1 at a hockey game, shoot the ball. I do like that.
Oh, man.

Speaker 1 Put that in your stand-up. Yeah.
Oh, God. Great idea.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 John Mulaney, we've taken up way too much of your time. Way too much.
The tour is from scratch. I know.
Why is that it? We could talk to Mulane forever. I know.
I don't want to raise that.

Speaker 1 He's probably got shit to do. An encore.
How about an encore?

Speaker 2 We could just do another one where we follow up on everything we didn't finish.

Speaker 1 Which is everything.

Speaker 2 Every thread we start, just every little thread.

Speaker 1 We don't like to do that. We like to keep a million tabs open.

Speaker 2 This browser has a lot of tabs open.

Speaker 1 We're the worst. We're the worst interviewers.

Speaker 2 You're the greatest, and I wouldn't want it any other way.

Speaker 2 I think it was Vivek Murthy who said to you guys, I've had a great time. I've had a really good time on the show.

Speaker 1 You see the way he brought it all the way back around you guys? This is what a pro does.

Speaker 2 That's how you end a session.

Speaker 1 Double callbacks. Johnny, we love you.
Thank you for your time.

Speaker 2 Love you guys. This has been really fun.

Speaker 1 You're the best.

Speaker 1 Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 Thanks, John.

Speaker 1 Thanks, buddy. Bye, buddy.
Bye, Johnny. Love you.
Thanks, John. Bye.

Speaker 1 John Mulaney. He's a smooth operator.

Speaker 1 Every time I see him on SNL, even in the sketches, I laugh out loud. Seems like a good guy.
I've never met him before.

Speaker 1 He's the shade of comedy. He's a smooth operator.
Oh, nice. That's great.
Well, thank you, man.

Speaker 1 And doesn't stop. Like, he just keeps writing and writing and writing and doing stuff.
I just don't, I'm so envious. Like, I don't, first of all, I can't write.
I don't know how to write well.

Speaker 1 And then just to keep writing all that stuff that works all the time and all those Netflix specials, it's crazy. Yeah, it's a lot of stuff.
And

Speaker 1 touring and

Speaker 1 touring with stuff for a year or a year and a half and then doing a special. And then immediately, like, you got a sense of his work ethic.

Speaker 1 His show ends production, you know, this was years ago. And the next week he's out on tour and like for a year.
Crazy.

Speaker 1 And then has a special like eight months later, like, and enjoys the hotels and the buses. Like,

Speaker 1 that's not for me. I wonder how that's going to go now with with the kid.
You know, like, is he going to be able to be happy about being on the road all the time? Well, we know how that goes.

Speaker 1 It changes. It changes everything.
And you get like,

Speaker 1 yeah, you know, it's. You better start working on that sitcom.
It's hard. It's hard, as you know.
The sitcom works for being a dad, though, right? It sure does.

Speaker 1 Yeah, why doesn't everybody just do a sitcom? Right. Just do that for the first 10 years.
Because I heard somebody that are like, oh, like I'm working this hard job.

Speaker 1 This friend of mine in New York works in this office. And my job is so hard.
I'm like, why don't you just get a sitcom? And then you're at home all the time.

Speaker 1 Because you can just order those on Amazon, right? I'll just sign up for you. So stupid.
Stop being such a stupid idiot and get a sitcom.

Speaker 1 But Mulaney is so, so hilarious. He's been so successful.
And he just, you know, he's one of those, like, he didn't sort of explode out of nowhere. Like, he just kind of,

Speaker 1 he kind of. built, he built, he built.
Like Conan. Like, remember when Conan came on the scene and we were like, well, who the hell is this guy?

Speaker 1 He's got the talk show now. It's like, no, well, if you look at his resume, like this guy has been a beast for a long time.

Speaker 1 But the SNL, the ones that Mulani hosts, the SNLs that Mulani hosts, are always rated huge. Yeah, of course, which is why they keep bringing him back because he's hilarious and he always delivers.

Speaker 1 And so, guess what? Turns out that that works in Showbiz, Sean. Yeah.
What? Try being good, Sean. Oh, shit, shit, shit, shit.
I just realized. Are we still recording? Yeah.
Yeah, we're still.

Speaker 1 I saw my hands on. I can hear you.
Sean? Yeah. We didn't ask him his favorite color.
What the fuck?

Speaker 1 Text him. Shit.
Who's got an email address for me? Hang on. No, well, he did ask funny heckling story.
Yes.

Speaker 1 I just asked for just a general

Speaker 1 that's up there with, what's your craziest audition story? But you know what I did? I realized that. Don't you love those stories? No, I do.
This is what I love about Sean. This is the reason.

Speaker 1 This is the reason I like it.

Speaker 1 That's the thing. It's Tashimi.
This is what.

Speaker 1 And I'm like,

Speaker 1 it's because Sean likes those things when stuff goes really wrong in normal situations. He loves people.

Speaker 1 He used to love bloopers and practical jokes. Right.
And then there's crazy home videos. Right, Sean? Don't you miss it? You want to know what happened last Saturday late show at the play?

Speaker 1 Okay, yeah, of course. I shit you not.
It was this long.

Speaker 1 I'm doing my,

Speaker 1 I have like seven monologues in the play. In the middle of when I play, and there's two or three other actors on stage.
And I love that you don't even know how many. Blanked out.

Speaker 1 Completely blanked out. You did? Yeah.
In the middle of my thing, I go, yeah, so I'm telling the story. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1 Sold out, by the way.

Speaker 1 And I look at Ethan and I'm looking at him. I'm like, fucking, please help me.
I have no, my mind went completely. I'm like, no idea where I am.

Speaker 1 And then he says a line. that skips about a page.

Speaker 1 And in my head, I was like, thank you, but I don't think I can skip that because there's information the audience needs in order to know the story later. So I was like,

Speaker 1 no,

Speaker 1 it was that fucking awful.

Speaker 1 What about somebody in the wings? Anybody on book in the wings? No, no,

Speaker 1 I said to the stage manager, she goes, I almost came on the god Mike and gave you a line. I go, just do it.
Who gives a shit? I'm dying up there.

Speaker 1 But what about just kind of sauntering over to the wings in character to get a back of the house? They're in the back of the house. So what did you...
So what happened? I fucking, I don't know.

Speaker 1 I grabbed it by a miracle. And did the audience know, do you think? Yes, for sure.
Really? A couple friends are like, hey, did you? And I was like, oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Did they ask for any portion of their money back? Like, could you ask for like five bucks back? Here's the scariest part, Sean. Here's the scariest thing.
And, Sean, we love you. I love you too.

Speaker 1 You told us this story verbatim yesterday.

Speaker 1 Once you lay down and get your ankles above your heart, Sean. This is so fuck.
We love you. We love you so fucking much.
We love you so fucking much.

Speaker 1 That's hysterical.

Speaker 1 Okay. Listen,

Speaker 1 by the way,

Speaker 1 just to bring it back full circle,

Speaker 1 I'm going to let you guys know, but I think that I have to go over to the store to check out the

Speaker 1 dressing rooms or the bathroom. Because if for no other reason than

Speaker 1 I'm really

Speaker 1 curious, there it is.

Speaker 1 There we got it.

Speaker 1 Smart.

Speaker 1 Less.

Speaker 1 Smart

Speaker 1 Less.

Speaker 1 Smartless is 100% organic and artisanally handcrafted by Michael Grant Terry, Rob Armjarve, and Bennett Barbico.

Speaker 1 Smart Less.

Speaker 1 You know those moments when you're trying to work through a complex problem and you can't stop until you've found the answer?

Speaker 1 That's where Claude comes in, the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough.

Speaker 1 Whether you're planning something big, researching a topic you're curious about, or just trying to work through a problem, Claude matches your level of curiosity.

Speaker 1 Try Claude for free at claude.ai/slash smartless and see why the world's best problem solvers choose Claude as their thinking partner.