Ed Helms
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Hey, David, why do you want to learn a new language and where would you use it or how would it come in handy? Well, if I tour the road, I would go to mostly English places, but sometimes I want to go to these other countries and I do feel a little insecure about going without knowing a language. And it's never too late.

But it's also never too early. I mean, I should have done more when I was younger. This is Rosetta Stone we're talking about. And you should try to get in on this quickly because you probably learn quicker when you're younger. Oh, definitely. Right?

You learn about cultural appreciation. You appreciate cultures when you start to learn a language and go to the culture. And also it's good for your brain, David does wake up your brain. Like I, I do like to study stuff about comedy and when I'm on the road and trying to memorize stuff, but yeah,

Definitely don't use the brain like that anymore. And I think it wakes it up and it's very good for you. You know, like you travel more. If I even go to Mexico, which is very close. I don't know if you know where it is, Dana. It's straight down from here. Straight down. I thought that was Hungary on our border. You thought it was Canada or Chechnya. Yeah, Canada is up and then Chechnya is down. Anyway, I'll look it up.

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Our next guest is a charming, funny young man. Sorry. I thought I started this. I like it. I said to John, our next guest, a charming, funny young man had a lot of success with the television show. The office was Steve Carell. And of course the hangover. Have you seen the office? Ed, have you seen the hangovers a little rougher on the edges?

The office takes place in an office. It's Ed Helms, everybody. You know the face. He does commercials. He was in the Vacation reboot, I think. I saw that. Funny. He was great on The Office.

Obviously the hangover movies, you can't escape. They're so funny on all three of them. Yeah. We talk a lot about that. We get all the deets and ins and outs of those movies. Yes. Really fun guy. Looks young, Dana. He really looked young because when you're on the Zoom, you see your face and you see his face and you go, huh? Yeah.

what's different is going on we look pretty young but he looks he's in better shape so i'm going to start doing whatever that is he's he's got a later date on his birth certificate but he is uh he's charming likable and funny and tells some great stories and one of the giant waves to go from the office to the hangover movie was just like i mean sort of being shot out of a rocket

or whatever they say. Yeah, that's what they say. Joey's a funny young man, funny young man, and enjoys this, and I think you're going to enjoy this one. Right, Ed? Yes. Enjoying the younger actors. Not that great. No, it actually was pretty good. I'm laughing because it was actually the right tone. Very shimmery. Good skin. All right. Ed Helms, guys. Ed Helms.

Ed Helms, thanks for coming on. Oh my God. We love having you. This is a great privilege for me. I am very excited to be here. Yeah. Honored. I would say honored. Oh, okay. Only mildly. Thank you. Only mildly. Mildly what? Mildly embarrassed, but mostly honored. But no mixed feelings. Hopefully.

Yes. What I read a quote today, someone said about Kamala Harris, it's not about her at all, but just the phrase up the wazoo. I hadn't seen it. It was in the New York Times. Like she's got experience up the wazoo. I just put it out there for you guys as a starting off point for the podcast. To talk about the term. I haven't heard that in a while. It's gone away for sure. It feels 1960s.

to me is it new to you Dana because I've definitely heard it before but I do feel like I haven't heard it since like college David and Ed I think it's very 60s you know with bitching and stuff like that you guys are younger than me but we don't have to get into that was there ever a wazoo

There was a thing, a wazoo, it was like, you know, it was a little metal. Oh, fuck. I was one letter off. Yeah. Damn it. Here's my research. There it is. I saved these for my book. Can somebody Google wazoo? I want to know what, I would assume it's like,

colloquial right that's what i'm assuming yeah yeah it's the huge ass of an uh arctic elk it says no i don't know oh god you had me it was such a good what is it specific a person's a person's anus that's there you go it says it in there that's got to be slang

A human anus. That was a record. The sad part is this is part of the podcast. We are. Well, we always say anus on the podcast at some point, but that was only 242. Anus is a very clinical term. And I do find it. And sexy. I do find it funny when you mix like a formal doctor setting with like.

I have a pain in my wazoo. Right. When a doctor said to me, he goes, I said, I have a pain down here by my hip flexor. He said, it's here. There's a hip flexor. There's a tendon that goes right next to your nutsack. And I go, well. Yeah. Nicknamed doctor is a funny sketch. Your man unit.

And is experiencing difficulties. Yeah, it's Nick. What would it be? Nicknamed Doctor. You would have done it on a segment on Jon Stewart. Oh, yeah. The Daily. Look how we got into that. Yeah. Because I remember you reminded me of Will Ferrell in the sense you're running around

kind of naked around your leg. You have little bikini briefs on. Oh, yeah, yeah. And then you lean down and you go, I got a camera under my ball. Sorry, it's the blue shell. Nutsack. Let's use the clinical term. It's a nutsack. Good. We've moved on from the anus. Yeah, you're referring to a field segment I did in which... On the Daily Show. Yeah, Point Pleasant, New Jersey had just...

reversed a decades-long ban on banana hammock-type bathing suits or Speedos. Speedo. And so they had banned those for men for decades. They reversed the ban. And so I, of course, went to Point Pleasant, New Jersey and wanted the Speedo point of view. So we put a camera...

under my nutsack and I walked the streets. This is television. It sounds like filth. It is absolute filth. I'm not proud of it. No. I'm mad it came up. Yeah. Mad it aired. Me and my darn research. I am the Speedo Bandito. Have you ever worn one in real life? I was a competitive swimmer in high school. I wore them all the time.

Oh my God. When you say competitive, let's say like, what was your, what was your stroke? What was your most, well, your best stroke? It's my best. Well, uh, let's talk stroking. Um, I was good at freestyle and butterfly. Those were my strokes.

Yeah. Butterfly is kind of violent. I mean, it's weird. I don't know. I think it's elegant. It's like a kind of dolphin. It's like very beautiful. It's, uh, yeah. So what was your resting pulse when you were like 17 in the morning? If you're, cause I did track and field and intervals and all that. My resting pulse was 34. You knew your resting pulse. Is that good or bad? I don't even know. What was all the rage? That was your pulse, your pulse rate. You know, I just, yeah.

I don't know. I have no idea. I don't even know what it is now. Could you get back to us maybe after the podcast? I will. I'll check. Dana's like, I met my wife. We were talking about pulses one day and just sort of a common interest.

Yeah. So you swim is freestyle. The one where you go one arm, one arm, one arm, one arm. That's the classic. That's like the straight ahead. Basic Tarzan Tarzan swim. Yeah. Is there a treading water? There's not that. Is it? No, not, not in, I mean, water polo guys do that. Do they touch the ground? They don't touch the ground. No, they don't touch the bottom at all. Oh, and, and, and same with, uh, with what do you call it? Synchronized swimming. Like they don't even shit. They don't cross out one more Olympic sport. I won't be doing.

But you, you had to have been crazy fit, uh, swimming like that. What am I? I mean, what's coming to mind? Yeah, I was in good shape. I was in good shape in high school. Then, then, and then I stopped. Yeah. What happened? Good shape. Now life's been good to you. I want to meet your dermatologist. Yeah. You look good, dude. I don't know because my dermatologist is, is zoom. I,

I have the little, uh, the, what is the facial, uh, yeah. Facial smoothing. Blurry background is, is a good way to maybe look better or worse because it's so much focus on just what's your app. Cause I want to get it with the blur background. You look, you look filmic, right?

I think you have that. I'm going to tell you guys, I'm going to give you guys a little tech support on how to look hot. H-A-W-T. I want you to go into your camera menu. I like this. What's that? Where's the camera? Don't you love how tech support people always say,

All right, do me a favor. Go to your file menu. I like go to your dashboard. I go, in my car? Yeah. Do me a favor. Do me a favor. Do me a favor. Here's what we're going to do. Do you see, what do you see right now? You mind if I share your screen? Big blur. I don't know if we're there yet.

Yeah, let me take over your screen. I'm just going to dip into your personal accounts and your photos. If it's okay with you. Just give me complete control over this apparatus. Do you care if I close this window that says bonerlicious.com? And I go, no, go ahead. I don't need that anymore. I'm a little straight-faced when they talk about porn. I go, no, no, that's fine.

I actually am not embarrassed. No, no, hold on. Could you just leave that one? Do you need me to close it? What does closing windows do to help? Just leave it. Just push it aside. Is it taking a break? You got to close the windows. You got to close the windows. You got to close the windows. Oh, yeah. That's Trump what he's running on. Sorry, I had to throw in a little Trump. Oh, Trump tech support. That is a good. Ah, yeah. There we go. We're going to close the windows. We're going to close the windows. We're going to close more windows. They've never seen windows closed like this.

This is the window closing. Do me a favor. Go to your file menu.

J.D., get in here. He's young. He's vibrant. Look at the beard and the blue eyes. Get in here. Hey, Dad! How you doing? I hate to talk your regular job stuff, but when you do the Daily Show, do you have to be somewhat political? You just have to be funny, right? It's just like what happens in politics. They find a spin on it, and then they say, maybe this will be funny to do a field piece kind of thing.

Yeah, I would imagine it's comparable to the kind of SNL cultural satire, right? You're just kind of looking at what's happening and trying to figure out

uh, so the, the formula for field pieces, which is what I did the most of was very simple. It was sort of like find the news item. Like for example, that point pleasant New Jersey story, and then just take the dumbest possible stance or, or, or in the case of one I did about a guy who was like, um, who was anti like trying to, what was he?

He was trying to start a straight pride parade in Boston, I think. So obviously he's a, he's like a jerk. And then you just, the formula is you just take his side and then you, right. Or you just take the wrong side. Do you ever go with him and say, let's do this. Let's. And then he doesn't know he's being clowned or whatever. Uh, well, well, yeah, you, I mean, you know, I sat with that guy. We did an interview. There was another guy that was trying to do, uh,

a, uh, uh, he was a libertarian and he, he started a, a, as it's, it was ironic, but it was to make a statement. He started a guns for tots program and, uh, just to make his like libertarian statement.

And of course, and it was like giving away free gun toys to children on, on playgrounds. It's a tough sell. So, so I went to, I had toy guns, guilty toy guns. I shot every kid on the block. I had real guns. No, it was, but he, he was so ridiculous. And then a lot of times people, they might even know the daily show.

already, but they think that they can sort of outsmart you. Yeah. Yeah. So you sit with them and it was a little, I will say like kind of the disingenuous part of it was hard for me because I grew up

I grew up in the South. I'm very people-pleasing. I just want to make people comfortable and laugh and have a nice time and a nice hangout. And I'm suddenly in this job where I have to sit across from someone and try to make them squirm or ask horrible, horrible questions. That gets me itchy. Yeah. And so there was a little bit of a, yeah, just something that

that went against my grain somehow. And I, I kind of forced myself to do it. I, and I always, I did love, there was, it was fun to find those, those, those really rare moments of like extreme comedy in those moments of tension. But I actually, I think I gravitate more towards just good scripted comedy. Like, you know, the, like the SNL stuff was always, you know, that was my,

I mean, just like probably everyone that you interviewed, that was my dream was to go, was to be on SNL and to have your, have your job. And, uh, and I, I just looked up to guys like you and, um, uh,

And it was, so that was always, and then the daily show became, all right, I like this. This feels like something I can do also. And my favorite parts on the daily show were actually this, the scripted segments, the studio chats, like with John, where I'd be like at a green screen, you know, in Baghdad or whatever. And those were really more like.

sketches. That's fun because you write them at a time, you know where the beats are, you know, you think it's going to kill up front. Yeah. At least you have faith in it. I've done field pieces and I've done also I produced Frank show that made me so itchy. And then field pieces, my theory, I did someone SNL to where it's go have a wispy idea, go out, shoot five, 12 and a half hours, two and a half minute bit.

Yeah. Yeah. If you shoot enough footage, you're going to get something. You can get an extra laugh out of a fucking reaction shot or something. Just get something. Cause sometimes you get it and you go, this is a little thin guys. And then they go, well, let's get in there and they edit it and they add something, a little music and you go, okay, not too shabby. Yeah. True. You're absolutely right. It was those field pieces were built in the edit and sometimes they fell apart in the edit. There were, there were field pieces that I did that just,

died in the edit room. It was like, oh, there's just no way to save this, which was, that's, and that's when you walk out like, oh, I'm getting fired today. This is not working out. You know, Dana, I did one where I went to a plastic surgeon and one, you know, we were running out of bits and I go, let's just go. And then I go, what would you do to me? It's like the dumbest thing because it got real, real quick. So he goes, let's just take a quick picture of you. And I go, well, and I started getting a little weird. I go, well, like this is already going sideways on me.

Because he goes, oh, there's a lot we could do to you. And I go, okay, this wasn't the way in my head it was going to go. And then he takes one picture and then he goes, hang on. I'm sitting across from his desk. I'm looking at the camera and I'm like, it was funnier the fact that I was sickened by it. Then he turns and he goes, okay, here's the 14 things I would do to you. And nine of these are non-negotiable. You have to do it by noon tomorrow. I'm like, what? He goes, take a look at the nose. Take a look at your eyes. Take a look at your hair. Take a look at your forehead. Take a look.

And we could get you up to an eight. And I'm like, well, I don't want to talk about this anymore. And then I just walk out. Wait a minute. I got hit by a car. My hello. Eight is the maximum. Yeah. He goes, listen, we're not a fucking miracle workers. He goes, what did he say? You can get to an eight from a four or seven. I, well, who said I was a four? What are we numbers are going to go? Are we pulling people? Because I ran into the zip check on a computer. Did that air?

Can I watch that? Yeah. I think, I think somewhere, I think, I think there was some lights out. Maybe, I don't know. Maybe show his show. That's brutal. It's brutal, dude. I didn't know. Who is this guy? That guy's mean. He took it seriously. He goes,

Oh, yeah. Like, I've been waiting for a guy like you to walk in. He goes, we're going to fix you right up. Oh, there's so much you can do. Oh, my God. You're so such. Tell me you have no budget. You're a piece of clay. I can hold you. You're literally like a piece of clay that hasn't been shaped. Just a blobby piece of blob. And I don't know if this is true or not, or if it's a wives tale that that George Burns went in.

uh, at 96 and got some work done. All that way. It took us all that way. I just thought it was a funny idea of even at 96, he got five of his 35 wrinkles removed. It was hard to tell. What about when you see like the golden girls were all like, you know, 31 years old and you're like, wait on the show. Like no wonder people thought,

50 year olds were so horribly old. It's like, you know, Archie Bunker was 36 on that show. I'm like, good. I know. Do you ever watch old movies and just look up the age of the actors? You can't, right? John Wayne was 47 here. He looks wasted. Yeah. Him and Ward Bond doing shots, smoking a hundred cigarettes a day. It's like they put whiskey on their face in the morning. It just looks like. I think it was cool. They said John Wayne, when he died,

Have you ever heard this rumor? They found 55 pounds of dead meat in his colon. No, that wasn't that Elvis. It was an impacted fecal matter. No, it's impacted fecal matter is the actual medical. This was cow meat that was still so raw, a good doctor could have brought it back to life. I know I got a lot in there. Yeah, you could have thrown it on the grill. Wow.

All right. I'm going to tell you something about a LinkedIn, Danny, which you probably already know. But, you know, when you're hiring for a small business, you want to find quality professionals that are right for the role. That's why you have to check out LinkedIn Jobs. Now, when I was getting a job at Bullocks, which is a clothing store in Arizona, they said I had the best meeting and the worst performance. So they would have weeded me out here at LinkedIn Jobs because they have the tools to find the right professionals for your team faster and for free.

That's exactly right. I mean, it is very difficult to know who you're hiring and comprehensively to get them vetted by LinkedIn gives you takes, you know, takes away the hassle of finding new people. I mean, LinkedIn isn't just a job board, David. LinkedIn helps you hire professionals you can't find anywhere else. Even those who aren't actively searching for a new job, but might be open to the perfect role. Do you understand? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, listen, I feel like I get it. In a given month, over 70% of LinkedIn users don't visit the other leading job sites. So if you're not looking at LinkedIn, you're probably looking in the wrong place.

Well said. On LinkedIn, 86% of small businesses get a qualified candidate within 24 hours. Hire professionals like a professional on LinkedIn. 86%. That's a good percentage. Who has the time? Dana, you're a small business. You're out there trying to just run a show and you can't just stop everything and try to interview and make calls and bring people. You just call LinkedIn.

It's easy. Bing, bang, boom, beep, bop, boop. Quicker. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash candidates. That's linkedin.com slash candidates to post your job for free. Terms and conditions, of course, apply.

By the way, the last thing on this was, The Daily Show, do you audition? Do you do a fake field piece, or how do you get on there? Yeah, that was your first big thing, right? Yeah, that was definitely my first big thing. I'll give you a little bit of the ramp into it.

Um, I graduated from college and, and in the back of my head, I was like, I'm gonna get on SNL. Like that is where that is. My, I didn't tell anybody. It was very sort of, I mean, only maybe one or two of my closest friends knew how driven I was on that. And I'm, so I moved to, but then I was like, well, how do I do that? And I was looking at, but I really was like analytical about it. And I was looking at

you're, you know, you guys and, and, uh, others and, and how they had, uh, like the paths. And it became clear. It's like, you've got your groundlings sort of, you know, pathway through, through, through Los Angeles. But then you also had this crop of, of New York city standup comedians like Adam Sandler and, and, and even Eddie Murphy and guys like that. And, and, uh,

And I just felt like for some reason, the standup comedy. Well, and, and you, that's your background too, Dana, right? The standup. Yeah. I was a pure standup. They, the groundlings didn't exist in San Francisco. There was a couple of improv groups, but I didn't know anything about sketch comedy groups. So I did standup. So that was, so that was what I was like, this feels like what I can do. It's, it's kind of entrepreneurial. I can just, if I just apply myself, I can work my way up.

And that's what I did. I just moved to New York, started doing all the open mics and gradually kind of got some... And I started auditioning for commercials and all that stuff. Wait a minute. Were you terrified? I mean, your first set? I mean, how hard was that leap? Did you do enough theater in high school or college? Yeah. Well, I did a lot of theater. I did a lot of theater in high school and then a little bit in college. But I never...

Theater was not what I wanted to do. But I started doing stand-up the summer after my junior year in college. I did my first set at Stand Up New York. And what were you like initially? Were you doing characters, voices, setups when you're writing all your stuff? Yeah. Because that does train you to write.

I would say like one of my favorite comedians at the time and well, it still is, is Brian Regan. And I just always loved his love him. Yeah. What a genius. And I just loved his, um, he would like describe something and then slip into the goofy character in that situation. And so that was sort of how I would model my bits. Like, uh, I would just sort of set something up and then kind of

place myself in it like a dumber, goofier. Like you say, I like when the guy at the gym comes up to you, are you using those weights? You know, you just, whatever you turn into the guys. Yeah. Yeah. I had, these are some of, I mean, these are so embarrassing, but I had, I want to hear them. One of my, like, this was like my closer for a while. Okay. This long bit about how awkward it must be to be a goldfish because when they put

poop, the strand of poop stays attached to their body for a while while they swim around. And so I would do this whole bit of like, what if that... Then I would be like, imagine that happened to you at a bar and you go to the bathroom and you come back and you're trying to strike up a conversation, but you have a string of poop. And it just went on and on. And it was that...

But it was me in character basically as myself trying to sort of explain away this. What was the final line of that bit? And then you said, I'm Ed Helms. Good night. What was the actual last line? So the poo remains attached. I'm Ed Helms. I finally had to say, does anybody have some scissors? Yeah.

Something like that. And then you guys, thanks for coming down to Sir. You guys have been great. You guys are great. Well, then I, then I, I, I eventually dropped to that one. And my next, my next big one was going like, it was a little story about taking a taxi and then getting out of the taxi and thinking the taxi driver and then getting on an elevator and going up the elevator and

And then I get to my floor and I step off and I turn around and thank the person still standing in the elevator, the elevator ride. And that was sort of a setup for,

for me to just talk about all of my social awkwardness, which, which was, uh, always has always been a lot of thank you. What extreme? Yeah. Just, and then trying to explain to that person, like, Oh, I'm sorry. I was in a, you know, I was in a taxi taking mindset. I hadn't switched over to the elevator taking mindset. Yeah. I had one where someone's coming at the elevator and says, hold, hold, please. And then you have to fake like you're trying to find the button. Yeah. Uh,

I can't, I don't want this going. Everybody had an elevator. I do that. I start on the ceiling. I go to the ceiling. Oh my God, is it up here? And then they're like, no, on the wall. I'm like, behind me? And they're like, oh, it's closed.

Every comedian did that. Oh, yeah. Army issue. Yeah. Or racing to get on the subway and you get it. This was this was I did this one for years. You race, race down the stairs and sprint down the platform and you get on the train and you're like, and then the doors don't close for five minutes. And you're just standing there panting, having to explain like, I'm sorry, I thought the doors were going to close. That's why I.

I ran. Why am I walking you through all of my worst, the lowest point in my comedy? Well, you're not using this anymore, and we're always in the hunt for a bit that's laying around. You know what? Dana, you can have it. You can have it. You could have this one. People get mean bits. You know what you should say? This guy that works tells me a joke. Everyone knows. You can have it.

That's yours. I tried to give this to someone recently, an elevator bit. On the elevator with a guy, a woman, whatever, they get off and they go, see you later. Should I be worried? We need to see you later. Did I take a ride with Dexter? Come on. Yeah. Come on, Christ sakes. Who is this guy? Who's

So you have a big resume. I don't know where to go, but daily show. So stand up, you, you got good and they saw you. Well, I, so yeah, I got into the sort of comedy central at the time. They were just, there were so many standups doing like this premium blend show and all kinds of, they were sticking standups everywhere. Yeah.

And I kind of got on the radar and, um, and then the daily show, which at that point I was watching religiously because I had really fallen in love with the show. And I was feeling like, I think I can do that. I was sort of studying it. And, um, and then kind of out of nowhere, I get this, they had this huge cattle call and, um, I go and I'm.

really inexplicably arrogant like i really felt like i had done the homework which is rare for me because i i'm not good at preparing for things but i just felt like i had been and i'd been working on my snl audition and i had like a little stable of characters or whatever but then i at the same time i was like really studying stephen colbert and steve carell and those guys and um

And a friend of mine had auditioned maybe like a year before and hadn't gotten it. And I was like, yeah, like, of course you didn't get it. Cause you didn't do these, the five things that they all do. How do you not know that? How did you, and so I was just kind of a nerd about it. And, and I got out of the, you know, few hundred cattle call people. I got, I was one of the five or six callbacks and that was a sit down, uh,

That was a segment in the studio with John. So they, they give you a script now ordinarily again, I would be terrified, but they give me the script and it was a script that Colbert had just done on the show like two weeks before. And I knew exactly how he did it and all of the tricks and stuff and the kind of like newscaster cadence. And, um,

which I learned from your Tom Brokaw, Dana. One of my earliest bits was a, going back to that for a second, newscaster ordering dinner with his wife and a surprise coming from my wife today. She'll have her steak medium rare and a cup of black coffee instead of their traditional cream and sugar. So it is a funny cadence. Yeah. It's like a weird, people don't realize that. And you see it in movies a lot when actors

play newscasters, they don't get it right. Because it's totally its own thing. But Colbert and Carell at the time and others, Mo Rocca, Vance DeGeneres, those guys were crushing it on the show. Vance DeGeneres. Crushing. By the way, I just want to ask you, what was it like when you met Carell and Colbert? I...

was so nervous uh that wasn't until i actually got cast but um i really it's so funny thinking back on it it was such a it was a basic cable comedy central show like it wasn't and it became more of a phenomenon but yeah but it really wasn't that big a deal in the world but to me it was it was my whole world i was so so excited and i had to like

pretend not to be excited and nervous because that's like, you know, that when you're too excited or nervous in a comedy setting, everyone's like, get out of here. Like you're totally ruining the vibe. It's just hard. Try not to try. Try to be confident, not cocky. They're all in this click and they have all their one-liners and you're the new guy. It's just, that's always hard. Try not to try. That is literally advice I got the first week

uh, with a, uh, a segment producer that I was working with. She was like, you're a little too young.

You're too excited to be. And that was Joe Biden was the segment producer. You're too eager. Guess what? The fact of the matter is you're too eager. No, that, that happened. So with, I would just assume those guys, cause I gave him a job a few years earlier and I auditioned them and became friends with them. And they're not normal show business guys. I mean, they've been married for half century. Right. They're so Midwestern.

I that I just wondered how they would be. They're kind of like on the show and they're becoming stars and you're the new guy coming. I assume they were incredibly kind. I hope so. So, so great. And and Carell and I only overlapped for a few months before he left to do, I think, right. Watching Ellie or some. He got his own sitcom. And then, of course, he really blew up on Bruce Almighty.

which came out like a, a little while later, but, um, Evan almighty, I guess, or Bruce, which are an almighty. The first one, Bruce was the one where he was the newscaster. It was like gibberish talking. And that was the Jim carry one. Yeah. That was the Jim carry one is where he really popped. Yeah. Because he was so funny. So funny. And then he finds his way to the office. I don't want to leap ahead, but then you both end up on the daily show and you both end up on the office. Yeah. One of those things.

Yeah. I've had a front row seat to corral for many, many days. Has he, has he changed? Has he ever gotten slightly cocky? The worst. He started out the worst. He stayed the worst. No, the truly the best, like, like gentlemen and kind and never,

I mean, I will get to the office stuff. I have, I have a lot to say about that, but people will want to hear from you on that. Um, but, uh, but I forget where I was somewhere. Oh, so the, so I get the audition and I go in, um, for this segment with John and I knew how to do it. And, uh, again, I was like weirdly kind of self-assured. Uh, I, and I'm a generally kind of anxious person. So I, I,

But I, it was one of those rare moments where I kind of, I, I felt like I was where I was supposed to be. And that was, that's such a rare, beautiful gift of a feeling when you, when we get it, which I, I feel like it's probably rare for everyone, but yeah.

but the audition went really well. And then they basically said, okay, so we're going to hire you and your buddy, Rob Corddry, who I had come up through like improv. He was more from the improv comedy space in New York, but I had also been doing a lot of improv. Um, cause that, that was where Conan O'Brien was pulling cast for his sketches on his show. And so I'd gotten kind of into that world and, um, with the upright citizens brigade. But anyway,

Rob and I get hired and we don't get hired. They say, we're going to give you guys segments to do and we're going to see how you do. Yeah. So essentially it was like a full blown TV segment, but, but as a tryout. And so that was my first, my first one. And that was the one where the field producer who was so great, she was like, just so, you

she was, I felt like she was on my side. Like she wanted me to do well, which is kind of rare in show business. And she just was, and she was the one who like a couple of days in, she's like,

look, this is going great. We're going to have a lot of fun when we go shoot this thing. Because you do like two weeks of prep work for one of those. And she's like, and we're doing meetings with John and the writers and whatever. She's like, this is going great. And you're trying a little too hard. You're too happy to be here. And then so I tried to sort of like- I like this woman. She was so great. And I tried to swallow my eagerness a little bit

and act cool, even though I, I just, I felt out of my mind. I was so excited to be there. Um, and it worked, the segment went really, really well. And, uh, John really liked it. And then I, uh, I pitched another segment. My second segment was probably the, the one that clinched it for me. And that was, um,

Kind of like your plastic surgery bit, David. It was called Touched by a Scalpel. And it was right after Katie Couric had gotten a colonoscopy on camera for the Today Show. - Right, yes. - So we were sort of like satirizing the dramatization of medical, news people going under into medical situations and then making a story out of it, kind of like exploiting themselves.

And I had a mole removed from my nostril and, and we made this, this huge dramatic segment about it. And it was the most inconsequential thing, but it was very, very fun and silly and went really well. And then that's, that's when it locked up.

And then at some point, I don't know when it happens, you're out there with John. It's a year later or something. And the crowd goes crazy when they see you. I mean, that's... Is that when you finally come in? It's a heady thing, that idea of success on television and people being just happy, especially comedians. If you make someone laugh, it's sticky. Yeah.

Yeah. You're so right, Dana. It's like when you feel like the audience knows you and actually has like a, you're starting off ahead of the starting line because the audience is already warm to what you do. Yeah. That took a while, but then also weirdly, and I don't know

I don't know what, how, how your SNL experiences were specifically. I've, I've lots of friends who've, you know, been cast members, but it really, after that initial sort of like ramp up, like you're saying of maybe five, six months of just like pure excitement and bliss, like, yeah. Then set, then the sort of like sign wave kicked in of like,

and oh, that segment went terrible or John didn't laugh at that joke or whatever. And then you're sort of like,

I don't know. I started to kind of just poison myself a little bit with negative thoughts. And then, and then you get, you do something great and you're back on top and then it just, and then you're just sort of writing this. Same thing. Yeah. SNL. If you, cause you have great shows where it really works and it's very rare. Um, and then you have shows that are just okay. Um,

And yeah, it's the hard not to kind of go, but on SNL. Yeah. You just same thing as you got the next show. Yeah. Usually, unless it's the finale, this is the end of the season. It would be like really, really good if it was like a good show as opposed to, you know, we love Lauren. We like good shows. Yeah. There was one, I did a field segment. I remember, uh,

And we, we, we get back to the edit and we're working on it. And John would always come in for a screening or two and give notes. And he comes in and get the screening. And he's like, Ooh, I don't know, guys. I don't know if this one's, I don't know if this one's going to work. Um, and, and he's like, give it another day and then let's see how it goes. And so we keep working on it. We're like rewriting all the voiceovers and whatever, trying to chop it up.

And John comes in the next day. He's like, okay, all right, let's work on this some more. This is getting somewhere. And then he digs in with us and he's spending time in there, which was very unusual in the field segments. Usually he would just give notes and, but like, he's in there with us. And I'm like, is this good or bad? Like, is this, is it good that he's here or is he like trying to resuscitate? Right. Either way. And then, yeah.

And then a day or two goes by, which is, and it's been in the edit way too long at this point, but it's undeniably, it's undeniably good by the end of it. So it's like, okay, it's going to air. Thank God. Okay. And it plays that night on the show gets a huge reaction.

from the audience. And I said to John after the show, I was like, that went really, really well. Can you believe it went so great after such a tough process? And his response was something like, well, yeah, I mean, you can make anything good if you work hard enough on it. And it was kind of like, it was basically saying like, we kind of,

had to like waste a lot of time polishing your turd that's how you interpret it but it was it was i think it was a genuine way of saying like do better like we gotta you gotta deliver like you can of course you can slave over something and really put all hands on deck yeah all and that'll that'll get it passable but like

Like, let's get it. You can't burn that much time and man hours. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're supposed to be better. It shouldn't get to him. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You know, a lot of people, when they stop me, they know we've messed now. And it's a lot of times from repeats. We didn't have repeats for a long time, but TBD, the channel now has...

repeats of SNL. TBD TV, it's on seven days a week. Wow. And you know, if you watch this and if you like SNL, you're going to relive a lot of the best moments. A lot of the best moments from the Blues Brothers to Beavis and Butthead. Yeah. Get all your classic episodes. I mean, you can name Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood, The Church Lady, Chippendales.

The best of recent seasons, including Washington's Dream. That was Nate Bregazzi. Van Down by the River, which you were in. Yeah. TBD TV also features best of episodes, including the best of Carvey, best of Spade.

If there is one, I'll watch SNL on TBD every Wednesday from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. That's right. TBD is a free TV network available in most areas with a digital antenna that you can buy online for around 20 bucks. Yeah. These things just usually get bigger and bigger because...

People start hearing about this here in LA. It's on channel 5.5 in New York city. It's also on charter cable channel 92, and you can always watch it on YouTube TV. That's right. Visit tbd.com to find out where to watch SNL on TBD TV in your area. And I'll just say, well, isn't that special? Well, the holiday season is almost here. Are you ready to celebrate? There's still time to create space for overnight guests with all the comforts of home.

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So now you're successful. And how did you find your way to the office? Another smash. So, or these, these smash, I suppose of the last quarter century or something. It's, it's a phenomenon. Well, so, um, of course I knew Steve and, and I actually had a bit part in, in Evan almighty, which was really fun. And, and he had started, I think he had started working on the office at that point.

And I remember when they cast Steve as the Ricky Gervais character, I just remember thinking like he is going to crush this. That will be, he's like so perfect for that. Yes. Because like he, that same, he brought this kind of like,

affable obliviousness to his daily show pieces. And I just knew it would be so good in as awkward, clueless guy, weirdly arrogant in ways. Yeah. But still likable. Yeah. He had a, it was a perfect match of a part to a, to a performer. Yeah, exactly. And I, I sensed that even before the show started. And then of course it was so, so good. And I, and then it became another show that I,

watched religiously um in in kind of a studious way also as a fan um oh and i i actually auditioned for it so when nbc was casting the original cast i think i read for jim or dwight i can't remember who but i went into 30 rock for a casting session um and obviously didn't get the part

I wasn't devastated because I loved my job at the daily show. But then a year or two goes by and I, I, I love the, the fake documentary format. And I w I worked with a friend on a, on a short, that was basically a short documentary about a zombie trying to like get his life together and get out and then like start dating more. And he was just complaining about the sort of like,

difficulties of being a zombie and all the assumptions that people make about zombies and um and so it was a lot of like it was very office style like talking to the camera mixed with like b-roll and um and little bits um and and we and we paid for like really good zombie makeup so it was just very very silly and somehow that got into um greg daniel's hands greg greg being the uh

Greg Daniels. Yeah. Creator show runner of the American office. And, um, and, uh, I got asked to pop in for a chat with Greg and that's when they told me, Hey, we've been thinking about this character. He's like a Connecticut yacht club kid and he's kind of an idiot. And, um, we think it could be really fun. What do you think? And I just started kind of like pitching on it a little bit and, oh, it could be like this and this. And we just had a really fun conversation.

chat about what this Andy Bernard would eventually become. Um, and then, um,

uh and then it kind of was it kind of felt similar to the daily show because there was this sense of like the story's gonna split and they're gonna take jim to the stamford branch and we're just gonna try out these people and if it doesn't work we're just gonna float jim right back to scranton and so yeah it was a very uncertain casting it wasn't like join the cast of the office it was more like

come on let's see how it goes and so uh that was just like the daily show yeah a little bit yeah so but it put rashida and me in this funny little crucible together and i think we really bonded at that time because it was so uncertain feeling and like what's going on um but uh

It was so, so fun. And again, it was one of those rare moments where I just felt like, oh, this Andy Bernard character. I get him. I get why he's a doofus. I get why this is like fun and funny. What's the vibe like on there? Is it stressful? The office set? I'm sorry. Yeah. Is it like run and gone? I mean, it's probably pretty thought out, but.

Is it stressful? We got to get our days. There's some shows that are tougher than they look, you know? Yes. And I would say it was long, very long hours, early, early mornings, and then kind of late evenings a lot. But it was such a cohesive group. And there was very little, if any drama involved.

Um, the writers were so a lot of the, it was a lot of, a few people from SNL, like Mike sure had come on board. And, um, and of course, Greg Daniels origin was SNL, but, um, but it just had, it felt, I didn't.

I would say the vibe was exceptionally good. It was an exceptionally good group of people that was enjoying each other, making each other laugh. The writing was so everyone believed in the writing and believed in the show. And that, that takes you so far. I think if people, if you're getting scripts where, where you're disappointed or even a little apprehensive about doing something or whatever, that's when tension and like interpersonal conflict can start to creep in and

to a, you know, a whole show dynamic, but, but really the shows were so good. Like the scripts were so good and, and, and the cast was so funny. Everyone made each other laugh. And what I was going to say about Steve, we were, we were starting to talk about Steve a little bit before the thing. I think that, um, that made it work so well for so long is that Steve understood. And, and in, and in a lot of ways, um,

I think sort of passively taught all of us. He understood what it meant to lead a cast and he understood that. And I don't even know if he thought about this or if it was just sort of his natural instinct, but he was always on time and he always knew his lines and he never, ever complained. He would get exasperated here and there. You could tell, but it was never, he was never like complaining about,

process or the people. And when the, when, when the top dog on a set is behaving that way, it makes it impossible for anyone under that person to behave in any other way. Yeah. Yeah. Because, because

Because then it's like, well, Steve's not complaining. Steve's Steve has more lines than anybody. He's in more scenes than anybody. He's he has to work harder than any of us and he's not complaining. So like, why, why, why would you complain? And I think we all kind of internalize that again, not,

I wasn't even aware of it at the time. It just was sort of like, oh, this is how we are on this set. We just, we show up and we are there for each other. I don't think Steve's capable of that being a Midwesterner, but it's also like he was passed over for SNL. And if you make it at 23, it's easier to develop being a little bit spoiled. But if you know that you have a job, you know,

And never losing gratitude over that. Yeah. And I think Steve would be incapable of that, but, uh,

I just loved, I mean, it was such a breath of fresh air in America, just the way everyone was alive in the frame all the time, just with little glances and stuff. Just the way it was shot, it just made it just so real, as opposed to brilliant sitcoms where there's laugh tracks and all that. So stating the obvious there. But the thing that's interesting now is how big it's become since it went off. And it's on Netflix. It's just...

It's just huge. I agree. It took on a life of its own even after the show ended. And I still have little kids come up to me that are so excited about The Office. I'm like, you weren't even born when the show ended. Yeah. And it's still resonating for you. And I think it's a testament to the commitment of the

of the writers and the cast and the vibe. Like this vibe that I'm talking about that everyone felt on set

uh, made it somehow out through the screen. And I think people feel the warmth of it and they feel, you know, and I also know you're working on a show that works. It's like a hit like that helps a lot. Yeah. And it's growing. So anyway, it was because we don't have all day, but we have a lot of time just because you, you go from that, you get to the office. I know there's all this stuff that happened. And then all of a sudden,

And you've done a lot of other things with the hangover happens. The movie, the hangover, one of the biggest comedy hits of, of all time. And so what are you feeling at that point? And how did that come about? Cause that thing was great. I mean, I look at those comedies just in context. I look at tropic thunder with the one question I wanted to ask you and then hangover could, is there anything in the hangover that couldn't be made today?

Oh, I think, I think a lot of things, the ending credits. I haven't watched it in quite a few years, but I, my gut feeling is that a lot of it, I just assume probably a little tricky tonally. Um,

Yeah. Well, Todd Phillips, the director, kind of stopped doing comedy and went and did The Joker. Yeah. He felt there were too many rules because of whatever the culture had shifted. But that movie, it was just like Tropic Thunder. I think the year before when I went and saw it, it caught me off guard in a great way. I really laughed my ass off at that movie. First blush. Good title. R-rated.

everybody's good in it well such a clean concept yeah i think the uh by the way um it's uh making my year that you're saying that i that really really means a lot what you liked the movie that i was in i really appreciate that well bradley cooper and zach and you the three of you guys it was three different notes it was so it's a perfect casting you guys were all

But it did. It just had a lively pop to it that you can't, you know. I also think it was a little, the plot of that movie is kind of a magic trick because I was in a hotel lobby maybe a month or a week or two after it came out. And there was a group of old ladies, like literally grandmothers sitting around talking about bits from the movie and how funny it was. And I remember thinking, okay, this, and then of course you had like all the

the frat boys that love it. But, and so the, the movie did this thing where like the, the guys, the, the characters are behaving horribly and,

in a way that like is very aspirational for like young men to be like party animals. Right. And they, so they are party animals and that appeals to like young people, but then the next morning they're mortified by their own behavior. So that's what makes it redemptive to the older set who were like, Oh, these sweet boys got themselves in a pickle. And it kind of like should have been called the pickle.

The pickle. You're right. Damn it. But I just, it did. I've always thought that that plot was very special because it had, it was able to appeal. There were parts of the story that connected to so many people. Yes. It was just such a funny device that they're basically blackout drunk and then they're figuring out

all this stuff going backwards and feeling very human, human about it. What? I don't remember that, you know, and you guys had, that was Tyson, right? Punch. Oh yeah. Was that the first one? Second one. Do you remember? Tyson was in the first one and the second and the second one. Yeah. He's in the end of the second one. Yeah. Second one's where I get his tattoo.

But getting Tyson and using Tyson and how Tyson has become now with hot boxing podcasts and how he's become this cultural figure that everybody loves. Um, it was just, uh, you know, just, it, it, the movie was pacing away that all of a sudden you're seeing a tiger and Tyson, like, it's just, just like it moves on such a great pace. It just never, never let up. You still talk to the tiger. Yeah.

Yeah, it was so good. I got in there and I didn't want to punch the tiger. He told me, he says, you got to punch the tiger. I said, I don't want to punch the tiger because I got tigers. Sorry. Can I tell you something? It is terrifying working with tigers. Have you ever worked with a tiger? With their real indigenous teeth and claws? So the first night we worked with the tigers, that's the thing. Yeah, the...

basically the tigers are sort of only restrained by the illusion of restraint. Like the tiger believes that their cord is strong enough, but actually they could break it if they got really freaked out. They said the tiger believes that what it is, the tiger, the tiger believes it can't break the cord, but it probably could. Yeah. It's something like, well, you're, I don't know. We're just looking at these leashes and like, that is not sufficient. Like that is no, I was the,

Um, and then the, the night, the first night that we were here, uh, it was at the Tyson mansion set, uh, which was out in Chatsworth, I think. And, uh, and the, the, the tigers were on this truck and in these big cages, uh,

Like in a flat on a big flatbed in these big cages. And it as dusk set in, cause it was a night shoot. And so dusk is setting in and the wind is whipping up and there's all these trees and tall grass, like, you know, just like kind of billowing in the wind and the tigers are. Rowling in their Kate, like back and forth pacing, getting really anxious and antsy. And we're like, what's going on? And the trainer's like, oh, you know, they're, they're, they're nocturnal. They're night hunters.

So they're just, they're getting keyed up. For someone to kill. So they're night hunters. And they're like five minutes. Yeah. We're going to start with a night shoot. And they give you this whole like safety lecture about how to like, don't turn your back on the tiger because if they see your back, they think you're fleeing. And that's what makes them want to attack.

You'll never get bit. If you do put pressure on it right away or point at the tiger and yell stop. Cause that's what we were told to do with dogs. It would chase us when we were running, get eye contact and yell stop. But that would be terrifying with the tiger.

And then of course, Bradley that later on we're, we're doing the, the, uh, some of those photos for the ending credits. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And Bradley's like, can I feed it? They're like, sure. They give him a giant milk bottle and he's just standing there. I think it's one of the pictures in the credits where he's like actually feeding. I was like, Bradley, what the hell? Yeah.

I love big movies that have budgets where, I guess it was Todd Phillips, or someone in a room writing, Mansion, Tyson, Punches Tiger, you know, and then it appears. And it works out perfectly. It's probably hard to do all that stuff. By the way, night shoots are tough anyway. Oh, yeah. Just for anything. And then when I see a movie, when I write them with my buddies, we always go, the final draft is like, let's go through

and eliminate anything that could be day. Because sometimes you just put it in there and you realize you don't need it. Or you shoot it inside and they put, they darken the windows because flipping a whole movie to night and you do splits, then you're like, oh, it throws everything off. And so,

Most people are sane enough to try to avoid night shoots. What's your longest day on a set? You think at where you get there? Yeah, this is, this is nuts. Um, so I was shooting the office at the same time as the hangover and they had both been incredibly accommodating. So the, the hangover said, we're going to make our work week Wednesday to Sunday and

And the office said, we're going to crossboard you, meaning they're going to condense all my scenes into Monday and Tuesdays of an office production week. So there was one night where we did a night shoot in Las Vegas on a Sunday night, and I had to be on set for the office at like 630 the next morning.

Um, but we're shooting until four 30, like, and I couldn't tell each production exactly what was going on because I freaked out. So, um, I was on my own dime. I bought, I chartered a little jet from Las Vegas to, um, Van Nuys airport, which was 10 minutes from the office, uh, stages. Okay.

And I wrap on the hangover at like 4.30 or 5 in the morning, race to the airport in Las Vegas, jump in this little jet that was the size of a Honda Civic. Lear 25, probably. I don't know what, tiny little thing. Yeah. And-

Uh, I land in Van Nuys. I sleep maybe 15 minutes on this plane and Landon Van Nuys go straight to my trailer on the office stages, get changed and start shooting and have a full day. And of course they've cross-boarded me. So it's all me. Like I'm shooting every scene that day. Um, and great. And the craziest part about that day is.

And there were actually a couple of days that kind of were like that. But the craziest thing about that is that at the end of that office production day, Ben Stiller had asked me to do this little

Uh, he, he was like, had some big benefit and he wanted me to be in a comedy sketch. I had agreed to it like a month before. Oh yeah. So, uh, it had squeezed in right at the end of that office production day. And I think I was on like my seventh or eighth Red Bull. I got to that. Um, but I shot that thing and it went fine and then just zonked out. And I will say, um,

as crazy as that was and that that was basically a month of insane of like very intense insanity flying back and forth from vegas and and like long days on both productions um it was also like one of the happiest months of my life i loved every minute of it the production of the hangover was

one of the most fun things I could ever have hoped to be a part of in this business. Um, it was so collaborative. It was so none of us were, you know, stars really at the time. And so everyone was just kind of like humble and eager to make something great. And, um, and it was a similar ethos to the office where like,

me, Zach and Bradley actually were almost competitive about like being on time and like being professional and kind of showing up for Todd because Todd is a, he's like a very obviously fun and hilarious director, but he's, he's very professional. Like it's, it's a, it's like an, it's a grownup set. It's not like, it's not like other comedy movies I've been on where it's just kind of like feels like a party. Um,

But we loved it. I think all three of us just were so psyched to show up and do the work and find the jokes. We would take these breaks and just step aside. Todd would be like, what's wrong with this? Why isn't this funny enough? And we would all just

figure it out i remember wow he's now my favorite director just just saying that going to the actual performers and going hey guys what do you think three funny guys you're like but i just want to say here for people listening is that when you're in stuff you know is not working and you're trapped in it whether it's a bad tv show or a movie or whatever that that is very exhausting so your your hours are insane but you're in two spectacular things that are memorable to this day

Pretty cool. Yeah. I did not realize that that was happening at the same time. And now a word from our sponsors at Betterment. Do you want your money to be motivated? Do you want your money to rise and grind?

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Well, I also, I had had my tooth removed. So I have an implanted tooth here that I've had since high school. And my dentist was able to take the crown off of it for the hangover. Jesus. But then I had to have a flipper that had a fake tooth on it to go to set on the office. Yeah.

And the weird thing is that it did affect my speech a tiny bit. If you really pay close attention, you could tell. But it was just one of like so many hilarious details about that time.

It's crazy. Yeah, it's an amazing run. Amazing trifecta of three of those on top of everything else you did. We should mention before we let you get back to your magnificent life, besides looking 36, you have a podcast. Yeah. That's very cool called SnapFu. Tell our audience about it.

Well, thank you so much for asking about it, Dana. I love the idea of it. And I wanted, after you tell us what it's about, it's like the history that's happening right now in America, in a political sense, you got ears coming off, you got people resigning and stumbling. And so to your podcast, you're actually...

Yes. Well, so it's called snafu and the premise is it's kind of a documentary history podcast. And the logline is it's about history's greatest screw ups. And it's it's just a really fun kind of cheeky look back at some moments in history where.

where shit just went really sideways. And, um, each season, this is a season two just came out. It's a, I heart radio, uh, or I heart podcast. And, um, a lot that along with film nation and, uh, uh, gilded audio and your production company name, which I, I like Pacific electric picture company is my company. And, um, we all collaborated on video or audio.

No, the podcast is audio.

where they're moving troops and navies all over the planet. And the Soviet union looked at that and was like, hold on guys, are you staging to invade us? Is this practice or the invasion? Like NATO said it was, it was just an exercise, but the Soviet union thought it was,

real staging for an invasion. And so they ramped up their nuclear posture. And then of course the U S clocked that in our posture ramped up and it, a lot of historians. Yeah. A lot of historians believe it was the closest we came to a nuclear Holocaust. And all of this was completely under the radar, not known to the public at all until just a few years ago. And it's an insane story, especially when you kind of look at the template of what

uh what ronald reagan and other politicians were saying at the time and and now knowing what was going on underneath it it's a wild story that was season one season two of snafu just came out i'm so proud of it it's uh this is like the ultimate mashup of my my nerdy love of history and then of course my love of storytelling um season two is uh the story of medberg which is a

uh, a, uh, acute abbreviation for media burglary. And it is the town of media, Pennsylvania, where a group of, um,

of activists, anti-war activists in 1971. Vietnam War going on. It's a crazy, tumultuous time in America. And these activists felt like the FBI was getting a little bit shady and starting to intimidate or harass people. And so they were like, how do we prove this? And so just these citizen activists

pulled off this insane heist where they break into an FBI office in Pennsylvania, steal files, and then they start to leak them to this very courageous reporter, Betty Medsger at the Washington Post, and she starts to publish them. And that was the beginning of J. Edgar Hoover's sort of like exposure as a very...

dark figure. Um, yeah. How many years was he in the head of the FBI? I mean, he had files and he could have blackmailed everybody. Yeah. He did. He flagrantly blackmailed lots of people, but, but even worse than that, he was, he was harassing, uh, like so many civil rights activists. Martin Luther King was getting relentless harassment from the FBI. Uh,

And then, of course, the anti-war activists were also getting harassed and at times blackmailed. They would write these poison pen letters. There's a famous one that they wrote to Martin Luther King that's just like,

basically telling him he should kill himself and, but it's anonymous, right? It's like, well, what? But that came from the FBI. Um, and, uh, and then of course, COINTELPRO was revealed, which was this, uh, which, uh, stands for, uh, counterintelligence program. And that was a, a program that under which the FBI was officially harassing and, um,

really like abusing its power and surveilling so much like illegal surveillance of law-abiding citizens, which is terrifying. I don't like that. I don't like that. Would you, would season three potentially be the Trump assassination attempt? I mean, because that's like...

What? Yeah, I don't. Yeah, I. But you have a large part. No, actually, season three is in the works already. We have season three in the works. It's an exciting one. I'll talk about that next time I'm on the show. I was told by your producer that it's about David and I starting this podcast. It's an actual documentary. It's season three and four. This is all deep cover BSL.

Yeah. I love history as well. And, and things like that, where we don't know which went on behind the scenes is just fascinating. So anyway, snafu.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you. It's actually a blast talking to you guys. Yeah. Very interesting. I want to get, I want to do this in reverse and just talk through your entire careers because, uh, well, I don't know. We talk about ourselves. I know. It's fun. It's fun. Just because as a bookmark, we kind of did get to, but you did host SNL.

on may 11 2013 and in which during the monologue you were in a spandex unitard and you twirled baton so that's never been done before i'm very proud of that i don't think that uh yeah that was a wonderful wonderful night and and really like the the i just remember feeling that was the kind of

that was the realization of that dream that I'd always had to be on SNL, even as my dream was to be a cast member. But then of course the host was like, the second best dream is to come be big enough to be a host or the cast is kind of like, hi, Mr. Helms work for you. Yeah. I have an idea where you and I are postman and all anyway, but, um, yeah, what, what a story, what an incredible journey you've had. My God.

It's amazing. I'm just getting started. Yeah, you're just getting started. Hey, believe me, where I'm up on the ladder, you are just getting started. Don't overage yourself. People go, well, I'm this age. It's kind of, no, no, don't do that. You have to just not go gently into that good night. You just keep going. Keep going until they stop you. Keep going until you get enough. I'm really glad to be here with you guys. This means a lot.

Thank you, buddy. Thank you. Good to see you. Good luck with the podcast. This has been a presentation of Odyssey. Please follow, subscribe, leave a like, a review, all this stuff, smash that button, whatever it is, wherever you get your podcasts. Fly on the Wall is executive produced by Dana Carvey and David Spade, Jenna Weiss-Berman of Odyssey, and Heather Santoro. The show's lead producer is Greg Holtzman.