The MacGruber Episode

Hey everybody, welcome to the Lonely Island and Seth Myers podcast.

We are doing a takeover today, courtesy of Yormat Coney, who is joined by his two collaborators on Magruber, Will Forte and John Solomon.

Welcome, gentlemen.

Thank you for joining us.

It's a Magruber takeover.

Here's the song.

Will, you should probably sing the song.

Are you tired of hearing about just the lonely island?

We took over the podcast.

Roober!

McGruber Takeover!

It's a takeover of a podcast that is normally Andy and Ike and Yorma, but says my ears.

But now it's John Solomon and Will Forte and Yorma, who's part of all of them.

McGruber.

Njorma, do you want to introduce your collaborators?

Yes, I do.

One is the incomparably funny writer, director, friend,

Johnny Solomon, who I've worked with forever.

He's a brilliant man, and he's got a hot, hot bod.

He has collaborated with me for years on the hit show Magruber on Peacock.

Previously to that, the movie Magruber of same title.

And then also all those guys.

Okay, this is taking too long.

And then also Will Forte.

God damn it.

Yeah, Forte's here, too.

It's really good.

So we are so excited.

Will and John and Yorma did Magruber, which first aired in the Jeremy Piven show.

Now, we've talked about the Jeremy Piven show because there was also a digital short that episode, but we kind of only glanced over Magruber.

Before we begin, since Forte and Solomon, who have not been on the podcast yet, I'd like to do a little bit of backstory with your journey to SNL.

Yes.

So John Solomon, hot bod in the gym daily.

Oh boy.

Brother.

Met him early.

Ots.

I don't even know.

Okay.

No, go ahead.

You do it, Seth.

Forte and Solomon, you guys met in college?

Yeah, we met in, I think it was our sophomore year of college, right?

Yeah.

We had two friends, Ann Hutchinson and Blendon back then, and Lisa O'Lay, and I don't know Lisa's current last name, but

they were both friends who each knew us and said, we think you guys would really like each other.

So they parent-trapped us, and we all took a history class together, which at UCLA is like 500, 400 people.

So then we took a discussion group together, which is more like 20 people with our teacher, Jim Lichty.

And then that was it.

Why did they think that you guys would be friends?

What about the two of you?

Is it just because you guys have the exact same vibe and have always had basically the exact same vibe of person?

Yeah, I think we're just two generally kind of weird, offbeat people.

Hot pods.

Hot pods.

Hot pods.

I don't know if you know this because this is only going from here up, but John has like award-winning calves.

Yeah.

But so does Seth.

But interestingly, so does Seth.

Yeah.

Johnny and I, when we were walking around New York City hot time summer in the city, if we were both in shorts, car accidents.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you can jump really high, right, John?

Because you're, you were a volleyball guy.

Yeah, but I do get jealous of Seth's calves.

He does have very big calves.

I do.

Yeah.

So Seth's calves are even bigger than yours?

I think they are bigger now, probably because you're probably still, are you still running?

I'm still running.

We'll throw some calves shots in the show notes.

Cool.

But I want to ask a question.

Couple of history dudes, sophomore year of college.

Do either of you at this time in your life think we're going to do comedy for a living?

Not me.

Not me.

No, I was in film school.

Will, well, no, Will, you had a, you had a little trajectory before you got into comedy, a little financial trajectory.

Oh, I don't know.

Yeah, I was, my dad was like a...

money manager slash stock analyst.

So I thought, oh, I'll just do what my dad did.

So I started working at Smith Barney Shearson as a cold caller, but never, you know, I didn't really take any acting classes.

I took a drama class my sophomore year of high school, never did any plays.

I did a scene night for that show.

And then the only other thing I really did performance-wise was I MC'd our school's talent show my senior year with two other guys.

And we just did a bunch of like Letterman rip-off type things.

I mean, they were our own original things, but it was heavily influenced by Letterman stuff, like throwing cheese out to the audience and stuff.

I was the exact opposite.

I grew up in the theater.

I don't think my father ever expected me to do one normal thing except for theater.

And I got a job at his theater one summer and I almost got fired because I made a dunce cap for myself that had the word focused on it really big.

And I would walk around to people and I would say, hey, is that a personal call?

You sure you're okay?

All right.

And I almost got fired from that job.

I feel like you should have got fired.

Now, Will, so you lose some pension funds for some old ladies during your financial times.

Sure, sure.

I know you left that out.

And then, John, you graduate college, and what are you doing?

Are you going to LA and try to make it as a filmmaker?

Before I went to SNL, I am in an ER filming trauma cases that come in with people extremely badly injured.

What was the penis one?

A guy was in a leather podcast.

So, wait, hold on.

Before we explain the penis one, and obviously our listeners want us to get to that.

So, you're basically making sort of training videos, like videos of traumatic injuries that will be used later for the purposes of education for doctors?

Yes, exactly.

Exactly.

And do the people sign a waiver after they do?

Because I would imagine most of the time they're not conscious.

My job is to convince them to sign the waiver.

Usually they do, because I think they're kind of excited that they got filmed.

Yeah.

Famous.

But you were also on the camera, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And to get them to sign, would you say stuff like, this is going to break you, baby?

That's right.

That's right.

Listen, when people see that schlong getting operated on.

All right.

So let's hear about the penis injury you filmed.

Quickly, the penis injury was a guy working in construction.

This was in another country.

I was in China and I was filming a guy who got brought in because a construction wall that he was working on fell on him and ripped his urethra.

And so I followed his treatment and it was pretty intense.

Now, wait, so did this news break from China and they're like, we got to get you on a plane or were you already there and it happened?

Yeah, there's like a bat phone for penis injuries that I get flown all over the world.

Now, this is a dumb question.

And I'm sure you get asked all the time.

Is that phone shaped like a penis or not?

Is that a dumb question?

They backed it off and they just did banana.

They just did a banana phone.

But everybody in the business knows what it's supposed to be standing for.

They know.

So you're doing great.

You're living the dream over in mainland China, getting close-ups.

And the day I was, do you remember where we were, Will, when I was hired for SNL?

I was trying to figure out if I was going to go to film in a military hospital in Iraq, and I was at lunch with Will and a man named Mike Shoemaker called Will.

Do you remember that, Will?

I don't remember.

Oh, oh, I kind of do.

Where were we eating lunch?

We were, we were in Santa Monica and I was freaking out because I didn't know if I wanted to do this because I was too scared.

And Will gets a phone call, talks on the phone, and just kind of throws out to me, oh, you're hired for SNL.

Anyway,

and just, you know, pretends like it's nothing.

And then, but you had already been there for four years at that point, Will.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Will, I will say my memory of this, Will, is you showed up at SNL.

At this point, you were coming out of the groundlings.

You had wonderful sketches in your first four years of the show, but you also were always banging the drum for your friend John Solomon, who you thought should join the writing staff.

And, you know, now it seems crazy.

It took four years, but I do think like you have to be on the show for a couple of years before people actually listen to you.

in regards to staffing decisions.

Yeah.

But that's your memory too, Will.

You were saying it from the beginning, like we got to hire John Solomon.

But also, John, and John will even say this didn't have a ton of credits or anything like that.

So, he, I mean, you know, obviously anybody who knows him knows how special he is as a writer and comedic force.

But at that point, we'd done the movie awards together, the MTV movie awards.

And before this, what other stuff had you done, John?

Comedy writing just stuff with you.

But then at that time, I know there was a demand from Lorne for more penis injury sketches.

Yeah, that's it.

Yeah, we had sent them, we had sent him that tape.

And it should note, you're like, what could be funny about that?

You guys cut it together with some really good music.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Benny Hill music.

It really is like, though, I mean, there were so many places where you would just have to go, just trust me on this guy.

I'm telling you.

And then, you know, begrudgingly, John would get hired and then become the indispensable person at this.

You know, now obviously, you know, everyone knows what they got in John, but like, it's great.

It's, it's, John, you're a very special, special writer.

Will, thank you.

And actor, he's a great actor, too.

He is a great actor.

You can see what John Solomon looks like in a very funny I Think You Should Leave sketch where he is upset that Tim Robinson doesn't know how to drive a car.

That's right.

That's one of my favorite recent John Solomon performances.

Thank you so much.

Also, the boss sketch is also very funny.

Yes.

Thank you.

With Patty Harrison

is very good as well.

Thank you guys.

Now, Will, when you started the show, were you using John as a resource, even though he was not a writer on the show?

Was he somebody that you would talk about sketches with?

Oh, all the time.

And so then John joins the show.

And do you form a friendship with Yarma pretty quickly?

We met John as the Lonely Island, like professionally, because I would imagine socially was maybe earlier, but hanging out at the movie Awards was the first time we really got to get into John's comedic brain.

That's right.

Yeah, we all kind of knew each other before SNL.

Yeah.

Because we would go to Channel 101.

Oh, that's right.

That's right.

And in fact, I remember the year that Andy was considered as a, an actor, I remember I was on hold.

Like they were not sure they were going to bring me back.

So I was like, I remember us all kind of going through Andy's packet and kind of helping him as I was like, you know, hanging in the wind, not sure if I was going to get brought back.

And there was a little piece of me that's like, this guy?

I'm helping this dude get in here.

He's probably going to take my slot.

That does speak to what a generous soul you are, Will.

And also.

I didn't want to bring it up, but I mean.

Yeah, you're a cool dude.

You're a cool dude.

the um being on hold i spent a summer on hold at snl and it is the weirdest thing in the world where they've basically said we're not gonna fire you outright but we are gonna spend the summer seeing if we can beat you yeah god how is it actually said to you like no but like it it makes sense they're like we just we're kind of on the fence about you and we're gonna have a ton of auditions like you could sort of do the math It might have been the same summer because that summer was a really big summer of that stuff where they were trying to figure out which way to, and in fairness, like, yeah, the show was a little, they were, it was in that post-Will Farrell zone where they were still trying to find their groove.

And then they found it when Andy and you guys came on and Kristen and Bill and Jason.

And, you know, all the members of that cast in the years before were fantastic, but there was just something that really congealed once those other people came and kind of turned into this new thing, right?

There was a very nice cohesion.

And speaking of that cohesion, one night, it's January of 2007,

someone has an idea.

This should be noted, we're two decades post the show MacGyver.

Two decades plus.

Yeah, man.

It's 07.

You must have felt confident nobody else at the table was going to have a MacGyver-inspired sketch that way.

Why do you hate nostalgia?

You know what I mean?

Like maybe it was the right time.

I love nostalgia.

I just like pointing out.

I don't want the listeners today being like, oh, well, of course they're doing a MacIver thing.

Nobody was thinking about MacGyver, but everybody remembered MacGyver.

Did we talk about this?

In the Jeremy Pippin episode.

Because if we did, then I feel like Will or John should explain how.

Well, it was a bad pitch.

That's what I'll say.

It was a really bad pitch in the room by me.

Yorma, I believe we spoke about how you kept pushing it and they kept saying no.

Yes.

Yes.

I mean, the Jeremy Pippin episode was maybe the fourth or fifth time that he had come come to us trying to see if we would write it.

Because Yorma would be in writing with Andy and Keeve all the time.

And then we started hanging out.

He would come write with me and John every once in a while.

So we would just have a standing date every week, pretty much, to try to write something.

And he kept pitching this, you know, I have an idea for MacGyver's brother, Macruber, who's just not as good.

And we just kept telling him

we didn't get it.

Did it bother you that MacGyver's brother would have have a different last name?

Was that one thing that was frustrating to you?

Well, first of all, it was his stepbrother.

So that solves that.

Oh, step problem.

Yeah.

Like, there were no holes logically.

So his mom divorced a guy named MacGyver and then remarried a guy named Macruber.

Yeah,

the best part of this was how much more confusing it got when we eventually did a sketch with Richard Dean Anderson, who is then MacGyver, and then we revealed that MacGyver is Macgruber's dad.

So it got progressively more confusing as things went on.

And didn't we say that his name was Magruber MacGyver?

Yeah, that's his.

Yes.

Macgruver was the first name.

But anyway, we basically once once,

but in fairness to us, I think that the way you were pitching it at first was that it was just a live sketch and that it was...

you know, doing all these elements just in a live sketch in front of the audience.

So finally, he's pitched it enough.

We just said, okay, he's just going to keep pitching this until we do it.

So might as well write it.

And it happened to be Piven, who was the host.

And then we kind of all came up with the concept of the three short films together.

And then it made a lot more sense in our brain, I think.

And every other digital short was not brought to the table.

So this was very different.

And to be fair, this wasn't a digital short.

These were like its own standalone things.

It was always like in threes, as Will said.

You know, McGurba's trying to diffuse a bomb.

He can't do it.

And then he explodes.

And like, there was always a different issue that week.

So if he's an alcoholic this time, he gets progressively worse.

And each little short film that we did would get progressively faster.

So usually the first one was about a minute and a half, the next one was about a minute, the last one's like under a minute.

And that was the format that we sort of created from the beginning.

It was originally the very first joke was what I pitched to these guys, which is that Magruber is using disgusting things to diffuse bombs.

And every time he asks one of his two assistants to hand him something, it's something horrible that nobody wants to hand it to him.

And that was the original format.

And then as we wrote it and Will put his wonderful personality into the character and we truly enjoyed working with each other, I think that's when it slowly turned into something that we wanted to do again.

I don't know if we...

Did we decide that we actually even wanted to do it again afterwards?

Or were we kind of just thinking it was like a one-off?

Like, okay, that was.

I don't think so.

Yeah, I don't think so either.

I feel like it got to the end.

We were pleasantly surprised it did a little better than

we thought it would.

And it didn't.

I don't think that we got to the end of it and thought, that was a fucking hit.

I think it was just like, oh, that went better than we thought.

And then we just kind of moved on.

And then like a month later, something happened.

We said, oh, we could.

What about a Magruber on this?

And we're like, oh, okay.

And then after doing the second one, then we started thinking, oh, we could, because the second one went pretty well.

I remember.

Yeah, the first one.

And again, I think it's one of the problems with the things that recur is the audience doesn't know what to expect yet.

So they're sort of learning for the first one and they only get excited for the second one when no one was saying, oh, great, a Magruber on the first Magruver.

It does play kind of soft.

It is dog shit, pubes, and then a bucket of bum semen.

Right.

Yeah, classy.

Classic.

That's right.

Which I do remember we may have spent two days discussing, is it bum sperm?

Is it bum jizz?

I like that it's not something different than the ejaculate.

It was always

the ejaculate of an unhoused person.

But it was, what do you call it?

Yeah.

And we went back and forth.

The thing that you're talking about, Seth, of just the first time you see a sketch that's eventually going to become a recurring sketch, we did have an advantage of breaking these into three because there's a theme song every time.

So even on the first time it aired, there were still three of them that were granted very short.

But you're like, oh, okay, we're going to see another one of these.

And then we're going to see another one of these.

So even by the the end, you're like, okay, I guess it's this fucking guy, McGruber, who seems like a total mess of a person.

I don't know if you guys will have a memory for this.

Do you remember anything else the three of you wrote together that had aired pre-Macruber?

I don't think...

Did we?

Falconers?

Did we do Falconers?

Because we sort of take up that mantle after Leo and Allen.

Right.

Those are Sloven and Alan originally.

Yeah, actually, we might have written a

Sloven and Alan were the two people who I wrote The Falconer with.

In fact, Sloven was the person who actually came up with The Falconer.

He was the Yorma of The Falconer.

Love it.

But yeah, then they moved on after a couple of seasons at the show.

So we might have, I'm not even sure because I know that Yorma put me in a couple of things, but I can't remember specifically something that we all wrote together that made it on.

Maybe not made it on.

We had definitely written before that.

Yeah.

Because we wrote a lot of things that we were writing for like 13 hours that never got picked.

Classic.

Now, Will, I know you to be incredibly detail-oriented.

I love your writing so much.

Your writing style to me is so divergent from the way I write.

And yet I am in awe of the results.

The funny thing about you saying no to Yorma multiple times about Magruber is all the things you said yes to.

You know, right?

Like, it's so funny to like know the things I saw you do at the table and the idea that you're like,

that's a very, I don't think that's a very fair comment.

Because I sort of feel like you make crazy things work all the time.

I also remembered, do you remember the sketch you did,

Lose Yourself?

Oh, yes.

It was a Luge sketch.

Yeah.

And you wrote it during the Winter Olympics, maybe the O, I'm going to get it wrong.

Maybe the O2 Winter Olympics.

And I just remember it was two guys and there was a song called Lose Yourself.

And it was two losers who were maybe breaking up.

And it didn't go.

Were we losing as we're having the conversation?

Were we losing?

I think you were losing during the sketch, Yeah.

And then in April, you came into my office and said, we're thinking about resubmitting.

Lose yourself.

And I remember saying, but wasn't that for the Winter Olympics?

And you were like, I don't think necessarily so.

And I was very taken aback.

And then you did a thing that I remember you often doing, which is I said no.

And then I heard you go one office over and ask whoever was there.

You just, you did a lot of, you did a lot of yes shopping.

That's so forte.

It was great.

And then I even heard that person, which I think was T.

Sean Shannon, was like, it's April, man.

Never take no if it's funny.

I mean, that's the thing.

It's like, it's a hard job.

You run out of ideas.

It is a hard job.

And then when there's something that was like so perfect for the show, like illusion.

Can I give Will just a quick compliment, which is that I have never

been around a person who has cared more about comedy and the detail of comedy than Will Forte.

There was a sketch that we wrote.

It's the date sketch where you're doing impressions and it keeps revealing that you guys are like, no, you're actually Australian and then maybe you're a spy.

It goes on and on.

It's a crazy logic sketch.

It just like eats itself over and over again.

It's fucking amazing.

And it was going to air is at the very end of the show.

And what happens is at the very end of the show, if for time, like the show goes over, which happens like constantly, at the very end, you could have two sketches.

And if one of them can get to time by cutting out certain lines, and they have like, you know, this line is exactly five seconds.

So, you go into the booth, there's just, you know, all these television monitors, and it's very exciting.

It's live TV, and you're in there as a writer, and you're with, and we were side by side with another team who's also trying to cut their sketch down to time.

And whoever gets to it, then it's like a sort of toss-up of who's going to be picked to actually make it to air.

And I remember getting the sketch and like being like, okay, logically, you can go from this line right here, you can remove two and a half pages right here and it still it still works it still works and looking at your face forte and you being like no i can't do this and i was like this is the only time this is going to air this is the only time it's so funny it could be and you were just like i can't i can't do it and i was like i was so impressed to have somebody who'd be like i would rather have it that part joke needs to be there 100

just dedicated john i feel like you knew the way and probably to this day know the way will Will writes more than anyone.

Yes.

Did you know it before you were at SNL?

Well, I did, but I didn't realize that there were other ways until I got to SNL.

You didn't think that every sketch had to be 15 hours of writing?

Well, you know, comedy sketchwriting was something that Will knew and I didn't.

And he, you know, definitely taught me everything I know about sketch writing.

And then I would go, you know, on writing night, Will and I would be working for, not exaggerating six, eight hours on a sketch.

And someone would go in their office and come out, you know, three hours later.

Like, what are you doing?

Lazy fuckers.

And I started to go, like, oh, did you feel betrayed?

Because Will had been working there for four years.

Were you ever like, so you didn't want to tell me there were kind of other ways?

Honestly, it was like, oh, well, this is why Will's sketches are Will's sketches.

Like this, this level of

attention is what makes a Will sketch.

And I think people, you know, felt the same way.

John, do you remember an idea Will had for a sketch other than Benjamin Franklin that wasn't ever going to work, that he wouldn't let go of?

That wasn't ever going to work.

Or one that maybe didn't work that if it was up to you, you would have said, I think we can move on to the next one.

But he had the siren call of trying to continue to make it work.

The thing that's coming to mind is potato chip, which did work.

But when Will pitched it to me, he just said, I just have this idea about this guy who wants to eat a potato chip.

It's so funny.

By the way, hear that.

And then if you haven't, go watch potato chip and just realize that if somebody gave you that pitch and told you to write a billion sketches, you would never have any overlap.

Do you know what's crazy?

There has been some talk about how long it takes me to write sketches.

And that was one where it was like seven in the morning.

We had been up all night.

I hadn't written anything yet.

John was finally done with this other thing.

And of course, the last thing he wants to do is start writing something at seven in the morning, the day of the table read.

But he came in and I had had this little nugget of an idea.

And I recorded it.

You remember I recorded it on the phone, John?

This little, oh, don't need my butt chip.

You know, that, like, just like 20 seconds of that, nothing about NASA, nothing about anything.

And we just, we did a real pound out.

I mean, I think we might have written that in an hour and a half.

I think our brains were so tired that we didn't have that censorship thing in our heads.

We just like let it go where it wanted to go.

Yeah.

Right.

That was, that was a pretty quick one from what I remember.

Okay, wait, okay, John, how long did it actually take?

Well, I think that that's accurate, but I do remember like the previous night, you would mention every few hours, you would mention it to me.

And I just kept going like, I don't, I don't, I obviously, I know you could make it funny.

I have no idea what, what it is.

Like, and then it was just, he obviously had an idea.

I will say every time you went to table for punching up scripts, the more normal the script was, the longer you tended to work on it.

And when you would come in with a forte-driven sketch.

And I remember doing this with you in particular when you were running your table, Seth.

It would be like, go through it.

And the suggestions would be like, I guess you could change that part if you wanted to, but you know, it's, yeah.

But like, the logic was so tightly its own yes that most people are just like yeah that i think you're good to go that is what it is yeah there were some and i i don't think one is right or wrong but like there are some writers who really use the table like hey i feel like i could beat this i can feel like i beat that and it was like i feel like you guys would bring in a completed house of cards and the idea would be like can we switch this jack of clubs out for three of diamonds you'd be like don't do it it's too it's meant to be this and i mean i sometimes feel like it looked like laziness because you guys come in.

I'm like, hey, we're going to say 10 things and you guys don't have to take any of them.

And then you can go.

Do you remember?

I think it's maybe the angriest I ever saw you at me, Will.

It was about, and I feel like, I hopefully I've rectified the situation because the sketch was Jenjamin Franklin and we have since produced it on late night.

You can see it online, Second Chance Theater.

Masterpiece.

You had submitted, it's a masterpiece.

You had submitted Benjamin Franklin a good many times.

And then Solomon came to my office one day and said, Hey, what do you think about resubmitting Jenjamin Franklin?

And do you remember what I said to you, John?

Yeah, I absolutely do.

You said, Well, it kind of flatlined.

The last time it admitted the table, it kind of flatlined.

Yes.

And then it was like a cartoon because I then just like heard your steps going down the hallway.

And then I heard like a, yeah, fourteen like this, all of a sudden is in my doorway being like, flatline.

Do you guys remember when when we wrote, it was all three of us, and we wrote the sketch where you play a naked sushi platter?

You know, that thing in Japan where there's occasionally they'll have nude women in particular.

I'm assuming they have men too, but this was Forte as a nude man with sushi all over his body for a party.

And he's proposing to his girlfriend, who is, I believe, Scarlett Johansson.

And he has wasabi under his balls, and there's a ring in it.

And I remember writing writing it for, it felt like, honestly, we wrote it for 10 hours.

And from the moment you pitched it, Forte, I was like, this is not going to be on the show.

And was like, I love you so much and love writing this with you so much.

I mean, there were definitely hours in there that I was like, what are we doing?

Why are we spending this much time on this?

But I was also like, well, this is one of the funniest things I've ever worked on.

So I don't remember that one.

Oh, that's even better.

You don't remember that one.

Two things I remember.

One time I heard Forte in an office spending a lot of time trying to decide if it was funnier to say don't or do not.

And another time, I can't remember the sketch, but you wrote the word both with an L in it.

Both.

And that's not what the sketch was about, but you kept saying both.

Yeah.

And it was, it was not, I remember I was at the table and it wasn't really playing, but every time you said both, like every comedy writer in the room just was so tickled.

And it certainly wasn't enough.

It wasn't enough to sustain a sketch, but I think we were all just sort of in awe of this like tiny piece of just like, I don't know, artifice on top of the sketch of both.

And I sometimes just find myself saying both.

Can we talk about, though, that the level of comedy in the sketch writing didn't just stop at the sketch writing.

We were right across the hall from Forte as the lonely island, right?

So our little place was right next to like the big table where all the table reads happened, and then right across from us was Forte.

So, there were moments where you would be so unbelievably frustrated because I believe, I don't know like how this happened, but as an example, John bet Forte that he could only listen to one song for an entire year, and he would play this song very loudly on his computer, which is Emerson, Lake, and Palmer Touch and Go.

That song, which is in Magruber, and I remember at the end of the year, he had played it like 450 or something like it was over 400 times.

And that's funny, ha ha ha.

But when that's across the hall from you, and every time you hear it, you're like, oh my God.

But that's just sort of the tip of the iceberg of what Forte I felt like brought to

the halls of Vessanel.

Will, will will you do me a favor?

I want you to read it the way you want it performed, and then we can decide later if it's worth keeping in.

But if you go into the chat, Kevin has found Hockey Date, a sketch the three of you wrote for Julia Louis Dreyfus.

Do you have any memory of hockey date, Will?

I don't.

Okay, so I'm going to read Julia and you read Will, okay?

I'm first on here.

That means it was my idea, apparently.

I think so.

Solomon, do you have any memory of hockey date?

Very vague.

Okay.

Okay, I have it up.

I have it up.

Okay, here we go.

Hockey Hockey date.

Open on hockey arena.

Will and Julia, Julia Louis Dreyfus, take their seats.

Will is wearing a Chicago Blackhawks jersey with the Indian head logo.

Thanks for inviting me.

I've never been to a hockey game before.

Pam, calm down.

Relax.

You can just call it a game.

Okay.

Well, this is my first game.

See, that wasn't so hard.

I guess I'm a little nervous because I heard sometimes people get hit by hockey pucks.

Are you going to do that all night, Pam?

Because if you are, I'm going to ask you to go home right now.

What did i do it's not a hockey puck it's just a puck you don't have to throw the word hockey in front of everything we're at a hockey game it's understood this is not a hockey beer it's just a beer these are not hockey dockers slacks they're just docker slacks so you're gonna start thinking before you speak or are you gonna turn this into the worst blind date i've ever had I'm sorry.

I'll try harder.

Yeah, I hope you do.

So how'd you become a Blackhawks fan?

Well, I grew up with a pet hawk, and it was black.

Really?

Pam, I grew up in Chicago.

That's why I'm a Blackhawks fan.

This is going to sound silly, but I always thought the Blackhawks logo is a little, you know, politically incorrect.

No, you're right.

You're right.

That does sound silly.

Sounds like something a silly little girl would say.

Oh.

So you don't think it's racist to use the face of a Native American as your mascot?

Racist.

It's a tribute.

We have have the utmost respect for the Blackhawk tribe, and we would never demean them.

Oh, here they are.

Woo, woo, woo, wait, woo, woo, woo, woo, woo, woo, woo, woah, woah, woah, woah, woah, woah, woah, woah.

How, how, Blackhawks?

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Could that cheer be any more offensive?

Well, I guess the answer is yes, since there is not even one shred of offensiveness in there.

Chanting how over and over.

You're acting like a real jerk.

How can you say that?

Oh, so you use the word how, and it's fine, but when I use it, suddenly I'm a racist.

I am a curator for a Native American museum, so I think I'd know what is or isn't offensive.

Hey, fat ass lady, bring me some candy.

By the way, Pam, I'm going to need some ducats for the candy.

I spent all of my money on the tickets, which to this point has not been worth it at all.

You're so, I'm not paying for your candy.

Then you are banned from my Native American museum.

I don't believe you're a curator of anything.

I mean, name me one fact about Native Americans.

I'll name three, Pam.

One, Native people use every part of the animals they kill.

Pam.

Two, not one morsel is wasted in the process.

Pam three, that includes the scalp, Pam.

If you ask me, it's a real lesson in conversation, just like this date.

What's that supposed to mean?

It means that because of your level of intelligence, I'm able to conserve a lot of brain power when talking to you.

How dare you?

There you go again with the how.

You and your friggin' double standards make me sick.

It's not the same thing.

You know, there's a movie I think you should watch sometime.

It's called Dances with Wolves, and I think it would do you a lot of good to see it.

In fact, I'd be very interested to see it with you because I've never seen it, and I hear it's quite good.

And after that, maybe we could rent Ghostbuster.

That's also on my list.

You know what?

Maybe this could work out.

Getting a much better vibe from you now.

Or maybe it's just the fact that you shut up for a second and I'm enjoying that.

Well, whatever the reason, I think it could work out between the two of us.

Okay, that's it.

I'm leaving.

You're a terrible person.

Pam, wait.

Look, I've had a really, really, really wonderful time with you tonight.

And just because you're ignorant, super boring, and a smidge above, but ugly, and your breath smells like cash is.

It is awful.

You have the worst breath.

Anyway, just because of all those four things that I hate about you doesn't mean that that I don't want to do you a bunch of times tonight in the back of my car.

And that statement is not as CD as it sounds because I live in my car.

What do you say?

What do I say?

What do I say?

I say just found love in the most peculiar place.

I've honestly been revolted by everything you've said to me tonight, but then when I tried to leave, I couldn't.

Something stopped me.

I mean, maybe it's because you handcuffed me through the seat, but I could have chewed through my arm, but I didn't.

Maybe that's because I'm a world-renowned potter and I need my arms to create my world-renowned cereal bowls.

But maybe it's more than that.

Maybe it's because I'm 116th Blackhawk or maybe it's because my nickname is backseat Bertha slash Pam.

Or maybe it's because I put that roofie in my own drink, whatever the reason.

I do want to get nailed by you in the backseat of your car slash house tonight.

What do you say?

What do I say?

I say, get out of my face.

You're coming on way too strong.

All I want is a little romance here, not some hoe bag.

So goodbye, backseat Bertha or Pam or whatever your name is.

Looks like you'll be dating your fingers tonight.

And we'll be dating.

What is your name, ma'am?

Cut to Kristen Wig.

It's Pam.

Great.

So I guess that temporary penis tattoo still works.

See you later, other Pam.

So Pam, you ever seen Ghostbusters?

Because your tremendous rack makes the ghost in my pants want to bust through my Docker slacks.

Now come give me a little makeout.

Will and Wig makeout.

Ghostbuster theme players.

How did that not get pigs?

Wow.

I mean, it went.

I think it went to dress.

What?

i think it maybe did did it i mean based on everything i know about a dress audience at snl they were very upset right away at how mean will was being to beloved julie louis dreyfus i'm excited that julia was like yeah that sounds great yeah let's do that one

that is horribly offensive and pretty fun to read it was real top to bottom how quickly into magruber the sketch do you decide that the theme song is going to be an integral part of it That was, that was from Jump, right?

I don't know that we ever realized in the first one, like, I just remember thinking, yeah, it should, it'll be a good framing device to have the theme song, but I don't know that I ever thought like just everything was a surprise about the first one.

It was just like, oh, yeah, okay, we'll do this.

We'll do this.

We didn't overthink it too much.

Looking back now, it's like a tremendously important part.

The theme song isn't changing in the first one.

You're right.

I think it's shorter each time.

It's just getting shorter each time,

but it's not actually giving you story changes.

So, yeah.

Did you guys re-watch it today?

Yeah.

I didn't.

I didn't.

I was surprised how tiny the dog shit was.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wait, who wrote the theme song?

I forget.

I mean, I think we all wrote the lyrics, but no, but Catrice actually made the song.

Yeah.

Shout out to Catrice and rest in peace.

She was the unbelievably talented person who also did the kickbox with us.

And she was just the best.

She was the best.

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, no, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's going to tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

Yeah.

Aka Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

Do you remember what the second Magruber was?

Because

it's on my re-watch list of one of my favorite McGrubers to watch and one of my favorite Will Forte performances of all time.

What is the second one?

The Molly Shannon?

Yeah.

Thank you.

I do remember that it was the alcohol one.

That's the second one that aired?

Is the alcohol one?

Yeah.

Wow.

I love that one.

Holy smokes, McGruber, there's no way out!

That's not our only problem, McGruber.

That dirty bomb's gonna detonate in 15 seconds!

Alright, everyone, keep it together.

Okay, if we're gonna get out of here, and we are gonna get out of here.

We need to focus up.

10 seconds!

What do we do, McGruber?

Casey, hand me that beaker.

You got it, McGruber.

April, I need exactly four ounces of tomato juice.

I'm away, McGruber.

Casey, hand me that celery.

Celery, check.

Hey, does everybody see any Tabasco sauce?

Uh,

McGrouper, are you making a drink?

What's up?

I feel like at dress, there was a way longer version, and I kind of wish I could get my hands on it because you were just kind of eating a hamburger as it was falling apart and answering Molly's questions and she was off camera.

And it is, uh, it's one of my faves.

Yeah, Will, one of the best food eating actors, like any scene where there's something that Will has to eat, like Vinnie Vedecci, right?

Used to just eat spaghetti.

Oh, yeah.

And the way you eat that burger is really expert.

I mean, I think Brad Pitt's our greatest dramatic eater.

Yeah.

And Forte's our greatest comedy eater.

Thank you.

He's the Brad Pitt of comedy eating.

Is Brad Pitt a well-known like dramatic?

Yeah.

Oh, I didn't know that.

I feel like, yeah, he's kind of the guy.

You can probably find a supercut of Brad Pitt eating.

I feel like the first time I noticed it is maybe Ocean's 11.

He's kind of eating throughout that movie in a way that's really fun to watch.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

Then you have sort of Jeremy Piven and you have Molly Shannon.

Then I feel like Seth Rogan shows up.

He's sort of tailor-made for Magruber.

He's like close enough in our age, has probably the same nostalgia for MacGyver, is in on the joke.

Another one I really enjoy watching and speaks to how quickly Magruber heightened to a different thing.

Do you remember which one Seth Rogan was, Forte?

I don't.

I mean, I remember I have an image in my head of what he looked like in the control room, but I can't remember.

He wasn't, that was not the plastic surgery one.

It was, yeah.

Oh, it was okay yes okay this is maggruber's concerned about aging and

first of all the thing i remember about this one that i love so much is in order to make yourself seem younger you keep saying things are tight you keep enthusiastic saying like isn't that so tight yeah isn't it it's tight right

so tight that that's in response to him turning on Maya and Seth and calling them mom and dad in front of his new girlfriend who has gotten tickets

who's gotten tickets to a Dave Matthews band concert.

And so I think the run of this, the three act structure of this one is maybe the first one, he's wearing a bandana and then it falls off and you see that his hair is super thinning, right?

Yeah.

McGruber,

he's getting kind of old now and that makes him uncomfortable.

McGruber!

Hey, Mike, go get some more guns.

McGruber!

The mine door is sealed shut, McGruber!

That's not our only problem, McGruber.

Once this hydrogen meter reaches critical, this baby's gonna blow!

Okay, this is no time to panic.

You're in good hands.

I've been doing this all my life for over 44, excuse me, 37 years.

In October, so I'm 36.

But I think if you were to ask most people on the screen, they'd probably say that.

Right, time to focus.

Casey, hammer that copper wire.

You got it, McGruber.

Caleb, that feather.

Got you, grooves.

Casey, come!

Right here!

Okay, great.

Now, if I can just bypass this detonator, I'll-

be hinder.

Look behind me.

There are things I need back there.

Just turn around.

Just whatever you see, whatever you find, just pick them up and give them to me.

Okay, okay.

I found this caulking, petty.

Here's a battery.

Okay, okay.

You just hang on to those.

I think I need to have everything that I need over here.

Thank you, though.

Two seconds, McGruber!

Okay, that's more than enough time for me to tie this bandana back on and then DQ

Second one all of a sudden, and this is what was so wonderfully absurd about McGruber, because they're trapped in something, but also in this one, his girlfriend is there, his very young girlfriend.

Just walk them.

I've tried everything, McGruber.

It won't budge.

I think it's soldered shut.

From the looks of this pipe, bomb, if we don't work fast, pretty soon our bodies are gonna be soldered shut, too.

Don't worry, we will get out of here.

I have a four o'clock appointment at the Miata dealership, and I do not plan on breaking that.

15 seconds!

What are we gonna do, McGruver?

Okay, first, quick introduction.

Everyone, this is Taylor.

Hi.

I met her at a hookah bar on Marina Del Rey.

Just go with her.

McGruver, 10 seconds.

Okay, let me diffuse this bomb here.

Check this out.

Mom, hand me that bottle cap.

On the way, McGruver.

Dad, hand me that band-aid.

Okay, son?

Oh my god, Randy got his tickets to see Dave Matthews in concert tonight.

Oh, that's tight.

That's so tight.

Mom, don't you think that's tight?

Dad?

Isn't that tight?

Come on.

You gotta at least think that's a little tight, huh?

No?

Well, I guess Taylor and I are the only ones who think that's tight.

And then this is what became so fun about McGruber.

Everybody knows how it's gonna end.

And there was the fun of where will the explosion come?

You know, at some point, like, it's like a Pop Goes the Weasel situation.

You know it's gonna happen, but it's like without the music of the song, Pop Goes the Weasel.

And then it's one of my favorite endings of McGruber, which is, you've gotten some work done.

And now the song is explaining the beat a little bit.

McGruber, his surgeon got involved, so we flew to South America.

McGruber,

turns out the medical standards are a lot more lax down there.

McGruber, he regrets it with every fiber of his base.

McGruber!

Dan McGruber was trapped!

That bunker buster is set to go off in 15 seconds!

What do we do, McGruber?

Casey, hand me that screwdriver.

Here you go, McGruber.

Caleb, toss me that paperweight.

Okay?

Casey, hand me that mirror.

Uh, I don't, I don't know, McGruber.

You want me to defuse this bomb or not?

Yeah, but...

Get the mirror!

Just get a little mirror,

It's a completely different tone of any Magruber because you're looking in a mirror and Seth and Maya are super concerned and it's got sort of like horror music.

Like opera.

opera yeah so we all know the audience knows that you've gotten some really gnarly plastic surgery done he's a monster he's a monster but then of course the genius turn you guys came up with is you turn around just a disaster your face is a disaster yeah

and you're pretty you think you you basically have a big smile and you go yeah it's pretty good it's not it's not so bad it's not so bad that's what i was about hand me that mirror yeah

yeah, he's got semi-shitty positive surgery on the second one, right?

And then in the first one, we also establish that he has a 3 p.m.

appointment at the Miata dealership or something like where we establish

that that's going to be Magruba's car when later we make a movie about it.

Oh, I didn't know that.

There's a Miata reference in

that's why he's into Miata's.

I think that when we were writing the movie, that's how we came up with it.

And I would almost certainly say that I probably pitched it because because Miatas were in my

I had a college girlfriend who had a Miata.

So in the back of my head, it just seemed like a reference that would always come up.

I'd always pitch Miatas.

I remember when I was whatever age, Miatas were a thing.

My dad had a friend who had a Miata dealership.

And my dad said, we can go down and he'll let us take it for a test drive.

And I remember driving around Manchester, New Hampshire with my dad in a Miata and thinking without irony, this is as good as it gets.

This is as good as cool as it gets.

This is, I think I felt better that day than I felt any successive day in show business.

Post-success.

I'm like, I'll never have that feeling of the wind through my hair.

By the way, they're really big in stock car racing.

I went to randomly a stock car race, you know, like Formula One style.

It's this big, cool-looking track.

And there's like 30 Miata's.

They're very easy cars to like soup up and make into stock car racing.

And I was like, we should take the Miata that after the movie, we sort of convinced Will that we should buy the Miata.

And me and John were also supposed to pitch in for it, but I don't think we ever did.

So Will bought the Miata and we had it forever in his garage.

And I was like, we should turn it into a stock car race, like trick it out, make it look like McGruber's actually driving stock cars now.

And then he would just always come in last and always put on his turn signals and just get lapped like a million times and just go around the country doing stock car races as McGruber.

Really good.

But Will sold it to charity and was very kind to the Boys and Girls Club of Venice.

Yeah, I just recently, for the Pangea network, we auctioned off the car and this guy bought it for 55 grand.

And so the car, you know, had been sitting in my backyard for, or it was on the lot, like after we did the show, it had just been sitting there on the lot.

So they had it towed to my place and then I had to, you know, do a million different things to get it up and running.

And I did several times had to like drive it through the city.

And it's, you know, it's just, it is that experience you're having.

It's like a pretty fun car to drive around, but it also has all the writing on it and, you know, penis drawings and stuff like that from the TV show.

So it's.

And also, you, I mean, I think the biggest detail is you also played Magruber.

It's a little bit like seeing Adam West in the Batmobile.

Yes.

If you're in LA and you see a dude in their car from their show, your first thought isn't, they're crushing it.

You're like, oh, no.

I guess that's all there is.

That's so cool.

Look at that.

He's driving the car from the show.

Like, oh, no.

It was really fun.

So, part of the deal was if the Miata went over a certain amount of money, I would go hand deliver it.

And so I went out.

They live outside Dallas and I flew out there and actually spent the whole weekend with them, had a really fun time.

And we taught his son to drive a stick shift in the Miata that weekend.

And we even, I brought the Magruber outfit and we made him wear the clothes.

So he was such a good sport.

He had the clothes on and the freaking wig and he's just driving around.

picked up a stick shift like that.

Like he, he was amazing, but it was a very fun experience.

And what a, what a weird way to learn how to drive stick.

With a dude from his prop car.

By the time you did the plastic surgery midlife crisis, McGruber, at that point, do you feel like, oh, this is, we love doing these and this now feels like a hit?

I don't know if I ever felt like it was a hit, but we definitely loved doing it.

And the character we were, I remember just sort of falling.

I mean, you listen to that Blackhawk sketch and you're like, this is just a Will Forte character.

It's just like a pretty shitty, detailed dude being shitty but it was so fun to write and like and having you know each time there'd be a new game that we were playing with it was it was more and more fun to do i would say i would say that it seemed like it was always very surprising it seemed like every time we did it it seemed like oh that's great that that's probably the last time we'll do that and then I think it was after the Seth Rogan one that then it started being a thing where Lauren would actually come to us and say, okay, I want you to do a Magruber.

Before it would just be, oh, oh, that'd be a fun thing to, you know, it was kind of on our terms.

And then it became a thing, which was a very nice thing to have Lauren want something from you.

But then it also put the pressure on you because sometimes you didn't have an idea really necessarily ready to go.

And then you'd have to come up with something.

And that was a different kind of stress, but also an honor to like have the boss want some.

And I think that maybe there is a,

I don't know, Lauren has this reputation and maybe people think, oh, there's sort of things I bet he liked and sort of things he didn't like.

Lauren loved Magruber.

I think he loved the thought and craft you guys put into it.

And historically, he doesn't like runners.

He doesn't like a thing that's in a show three times, but he was a huge fan of Magruber.

And I remember there was a Magruber in the Sarah Palin episode, which was, I think, you know, one of the most watched episodes ever.

And I always thought that that was a real compliment, Lauren, compliment to you guys.

Although it was funny, because like a lot of people who never watch the show watch that show.

And I remember once a friend of Alexi's dad seemed like, oh, what the fuck was that Magoober?

Thank you, Magruber boys, for joining us.

Forte, the sun is up in Australia.

We're going to release you to your project.

You guys are awesome.

I love you all.

Thanks for the Magruber takeover.

Always fun being with you three gentlemen.

You're three of my favorite people in the world.

So love you guys, and and uh, sorry, sorry, I'm a little it's the morning here, so I'm still waking up.

Love you, bye, bye, guys.

Okay, goodbye,

love you guys.

Are you tired of here?

And about just a lonely island, we took over the podcast.