Judd Apatow
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Yes, I have actually stayed at Airbnbs from time to time. And truth be told, I do really like them. I'm being totally honest right now that I've had great experiences with them. Yeah. I mean, you can have your look at you go get your own place, get your own pool, your own living room. You're not going to walk in an elevator. You're not going to see people when you're walking around in your undergarments. Yeah.

Yes. And if you don't understand what we're talking about, you should go online. What we're saying is you have a house with a kitchen and a bathroom and it's just for you, tailored for you. You liked your Airbnb over a hotel. Yes. And I do think I've had relatives stay nearby and sometimes it's very nice for them to do an Airbnb and have a little house and they're not underfoot. The last thing you want is your house guest to say, excuse me, um,

Where would I find a towel? That's a toughie when it's... Because they're naked? Well, it's like the 1800 time you say, on the towel rack. Yeah. Thank you. Oh, I was going to look there. People don't even think hotels sometimes just go, hey, I'll go there, I'll get an Airbnb. So you won't regret it? Russia has a great national anthem. And that's the only good thing over there.

And NATO got a little aggressive. No, I'm kidding. I was at the Russian improv once, and it was a tough – I was co-headlining. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yakov Smirnoff. Yeah, you had a Spade-Strogonoff special. You know, I will say this. Who are we talking about? When I – and I know that Russia's been in the news lately, and I won't say why, but without getting into politics – Come on, give us a hint.

When I did SNL, my first update bit was Yakov Smirnoff. It just sounds like some illicit sexual activity. What happened later in the shower? Yakov Smirnoff. I got yanked off.

And so Yakov Svirnov was like, in Russia, everything is crazy. You don't remember his act? He was a Russian comedian from the 1980s. Yeah, I guess. And everything was, I do not understand faucet. Yeah, he goes, you turn water come in Russia bullets. Like, does it though? But no one could really fact check it. In Russia, we take bath once a year. America shower all the time. What's up with that? Now give me a fucking...

I'm a comedian. It's so true. By the way, Dana, my rubles are really shitting. I have so many rubles I invest in. It's so dumb. You bought rubles? Oh, yeah. I thought they were going to be the next big thing. Don't play the market. Come on, man. So, Yakov. That's a crypto choice.

So Yakov Smirnoff was a Russian comedian and that reminds me of Judd Apatow. No, I have to tell you, I did SNL and my first thing was like big beard and I was on with Dennis Miller on Update and I was like this, in Russia. And then me and Dennis were going back and forth. I was doing stupid jokes and he's like, hey, it's not really, it's not like that anymore, you know.

And I'm like, but in Russia, like it's all my hook of my whole life. And it's going away. Did you have a funny name as like a Russian comedian? No, I think I was Yakov Smirnoff. Oh, you were doing Yakov Smirnoff. Okay, got it now. And people understood because I did open and go, I'm Yakov Smirnoff. Yeah, you say it. I am Yakov Smirnoff. It depends how far you want to go with Russian accent. I don't really do accents or anything. And so I just did the most stock version. And then I get off and it does okay. And then they go into the meeting after dress.

and to see what's on the air show. So it's at 11 at night, you're finding out if you're on. And fucking Dennis is the first one out. And he goes, hey, Spudley, you can take off the beard. Because I'm sitting there, my whole Yakov outfit, waiting to see if I got it. And I'm like this.

Because it's your whole life and you walk into the room at like 1045 and you see which cards were part of the outline of the practice show. Yeah, that's the dress. And then the ones who've been placed off the main area. So if you see Yakov Smirnoff over to the right, then you sulk, right? Mm-hmm.

Cat's member who's cut just sulks. It would have been nicer if Dennis just ran out and started stabbing me. That's exactly the pain. Because I would look in and I'd go, okay, Church Lake, cold opening, Wayne's World, okay, Massive Head Wound, Harry. Everything was in. Well, I'm just telling you, let me finish. I was scraping my update piece. It wasn't even over to the side. It was like way over here. Frank can put it way over here now.

All right, Judd Apatow is on the show. Judd Apatow. And Judd is an old stand-up buddy from the Valley before SNL. I knew him. Yes, from Born and Raised in Northridge, I believe. I just made that up. Yeah. But he's from the Valley. So that'll tell you a lot. We used to hang out a little bit, do stand-up out there. He has an interesting voice. I've never tried to do it, but for this intro, I'm going to try. Judd Apatow, ladies and gentlemen. Here we go. Judd Apatow. Hey.

That's Kermit the Frog. I know. No, that's Fozzie Bear. Look, this is inside baseball for an impressionist. I normally, when I start, I suck. And then give me time and I will master Apatow. Yeah, but that was an Apatow-zer. That's mine. I'd have to see a special right before I came in here.

Anyway, Judd Apatow is a brilliant director. He's directed a lot of great movies. 40-Year-Old Virgin. I don't want to judge Apatow. All right, here he is, Judd Apatow. Judd's got the most to go over. Not the most in SNL. That's a little wispy, but Judd's got so much and so much in comedy that it's...

Perfect. It's right up our alley. Can we go back to- Go back. We just started. And lead into this because confidence. Okay. This is what I think of you. I think of- Here's how I think of dysfunctional comedians. Yes. Wounded, upset, dramatic, dysfunctional, make the wrong decisions. Or as Leonard would say, never stop. They do stop. Yeah.

They whine. When I think of someone like you or Sandler, it's just full speed ahead. I mean, in those early days, I mean, how did you – remember when I hosted the 15th Annual Comedians Show? Yes, that's right. And I told you – The Young Comedian Special. I said one word, Judd, direct. No, I'm saying – You might not have heard of it. It was at catering.

Well, that was a big deal because that was the show we all wanted to get on. To me, that was like getting on The Tonight Show, the HBO Young Comedian special. Everyone broke off of that. You were on it. I went to the taping and saw you and Schneider do it. And Dennis Miller hosted it. He hosted it. And in the crowd was David Bowie.

And that seemed like the most pressurized situation to do a set with David Bowie in the corner looking like Starman. It was a really exciting night in Santa Monica at this little theater that is now a bookstore. And Drake Sather had an incredible set that night. He was on your set or my set? Yeah, yeah, mine. Drake was great. And then I auditioned for it in New York at Stand Up New York. Jon Stewart was also auditioning for it. I brought all my friends from high school.

Jon Stewart murdered so hard, gets the show. I go on after him. You couldn't bomb worse in front of all of my friends. That's the worst. And you stacked the crowd of it. I stacked the crowd. And even my friends were like, I don't know where to laugh. How did you deal with afterwards and the faces that go, that was good. Where they changed the review mid-word. There was nothing. There was no way for even them to fake anything.

- How long did that affect you? Like a week or? - I could wake up in the middle of the night right now and be like, oh. - Well, because that was a fucking big deal. There was nothing really going on and it was HBO and The Tonight Show and I tried to get on The Young Comedians every year and I kept barely missing it. And I was a young comedian and they go, oh, we gave it to Richard Belzer this year. I'm like, well.

Isn't he 80? Well, didn't we have, we had Janine Garofalo on the 15th annual. Oh, that was yours. Ray Romano. He was the one who stole it. And even when we were shooting these like interstitial interviews, I don't even know if they use much of it. We all went, Oh,

oh my God, Ray Romano is going to be a star. Like he found himself in that moment. Nick DiPaolo. Introduce me as Regis. I don't do it. I don't do it. But you really wanted me to. Anyway. Wait, if that's so many, this, I know we're going to talk about so many things. I love the young comedians because the lineups are interesting and the interstitials were interesting because they go, HBO said, just talk to the camera for a minute about whatever. And that was looking back, it really showed that,

You had no direction on ours. Yeah, me too. So what did, do you remember what you even did? I don't remember. I just remember watching Ray do his, and he was eating an apple while talking and just was already a master. And I think I just thought, oh, this is another level of it. And I thought I had a pretty massive,

mediocre set. And I made a very big mistake in doing the set, which is I had never been on HBO. I'd only been on like comic strip live and evening at the improv where you're never allowed to curse. And I said, I'm going to curse. Right. Why? Show them. And then if you watch my act, I think I just added fuck everywhere. Um,

just to be edgy and none of them were punchlines. And then when they would air it on Comedy Central and reruns, they have to bleep all the curses. So it's just a very weak set. - I always tell young comedians, save the fucks. Don't just go, I went to the fucking store. It has to be a punchline. And if you're Jerry Seinfeld, you'll fight the line for a year to get the fuck out. - It's hard to follow a dirty comic also. And now John Stewart, last question.

Do you look at the lineup and are you worried about following John Stewart or he kind of blindsided you? Total blindside. I don't think I knew his act that much back then because that was 1992. So I wasn't on the East Coast much, so I didn't know what was happening. And I don't remember who else was on that night. But then I got it the next year. And Andy Kindler was on that and Gene Garofalo and Bill Bellamy. Bill Bellamy, yeah. And that was...

Like the week we started doing the Ben Stiller show. So I had to go to Arizona and shoot it and then come back and we started shooting the Ben Stiller show. And so I have to ask, how did you know Ben at that point? I met Ben online at Elvis Costello Unplugged.

Okay. In 92. Online. 91. In line. Online or in line? You were physically in line. Seinfeld bit. Yeah. I was in line, online, and then Dana Gould was there. And he introduced me to Ben. And then we were chatting. And he very quickly mentioned that HBO wanted him to do a sketch show.

And I was like, oh, we should get together and kick that around. And we did like a day or two later and then sold it like a week later. And everyone thought we knew each other for years. And we literally had just met the week before. And then HBO sold it to Fox. - What were your credentials at that point that he would say, okay, you're good enough to do this? - You know, I had just like, they were like stealth credentials that seemed better than they were.

So I would help people write their acts and then they would throw me a co-producer credit. So I did that for Jim Carrey and Roseanne. And I did a special, which was a funny special with Dennis Miller. It was the pregame show for Paul Simon live in Central Park. All these funny shows. Right. And so he did a half hour where they showed clips of Paul Simon before. And you wrote some of his stuff. And so I wrote, you know, the pregame show with him.

When you write with Dennis, basically you're transcribing because he's so funny and you're just organizing. Christ, that's apatow cat. Got some lines for me here, okay? But my favorite joke I wrote for him was, we're about to start the show where Paul Simon, along with his, with 27, along with, he goes, coming up next is Paul Simon and the 27 musicians it took to replace art. Right.

That's a great line. That's very Tennessee. Coming up next, the 27, Paul Simon and the 27 musicians it took to replace art. Okay. But I, he used to do that too. Same with Gary. This guy whispered to his friend,

He means Garfunkel. See, it's the jaw. Everything. Carson's the jaw. That's the jaw. 99% of impressions are jaw-based. Jaw-based. Well, Dennis... So I did that with Dennis. And so that made it appear. So I had a bunch of those credits. I did like three Tom Arnold's specials that were like kind of like reality comedy. And it gave the appearance that I was a producer, but really...

I wasn't producing much. So were you actively in a very healthy way, unafraid, had an inner confidence and sort of self-promoting in a normal way? Like a sense, I can do this. Or were you like, Ben, so did you ever have... Where were your insecurities? I was terrified. You just fought through them, huh? I just...

- Well, I mean, I've talked about this before, but it's interesting to talk about it with David. - This podcast is huge, believe me. No one's heard it before. This is global. - But you know, David lived down the street when I lived with Sandler.

Rob Schneider lived across the street. Drake say they live close by. Drake say they live close by. I was writing jokes for Jim Carrey who lived over the hill. And that was right as In the New Color was starting. Jim Carrey was like Apple stock. You got in way early on that one. Exactly. I was like the Tesla stock. I thought I shouldn't buy because he was stoned on Joe Rogan. This is pre-iPod Carrey. Just like, I don't got nothing. And I definitely had that sneaking suspicion of,

oh, I'm not as good at this. So your career is based on seeing guys that are better than you and then just surpassing them, basically. Well, I just thought this isn't my move in the way that it's their move. I mean, I remember, David, when you came to town with your leather jacket, fresh from a,

Surfer, Arizona surfer. You were dressed like Sharon Stone in the Police Academy movie. Hey, baby, what's up, buddy? There's a new guy in town, and I wasn't even in at the improv. I would go to the Valley Improv and wait to see if someone didn't show up, and then I would do that spot. Oh, cover. Oh, yeah. The manager, Joe Drew, was always cool. I literally remember the day that you came to town, and it was like...

Oh, Jesus Christ. You could feel like, oh, this guy's going to do great. And he looks great. And he's got attitude. And then Schneider came from San Francisco. What? Come on. He's doing the gym teacher bit. Yeah. Set your clocks back. Yeah, he's doing that bit. And then Sandler was doing Elvis in the refrigerator. And-

And everyone seems to be reinventing it. It's all so ridiculous. Oh yeah, because you're like, this kind of isn't what we saw. When I used to look at that improv...

chalkboard it used to be. It would say like, this is dating me, but it would be like Leno, Paul Reiser, Jeff Altman, maybe Bells or Ellen. - Ellen, Seinfeld. - Yeah, Seinfeld. And you're like, it was such a like first Ballot Hall of Famers. You go, Jesus. And you didn't really realize it then, just everyone was good, you know? And then, but they all kind of were around the same age, same look. So that, I got in 60% because I looked,

you know, 17 and I had, I had blood. - You always had kind of confidence or you were faking it. - Faking it, yeah, still. - 'Cause I met you when you were like 21 and I was like, this guy seems like he's got it all together. - Uh-huh, that's all. - I know you know. I was completely wrong. - But then he passed out a Jack in the Box from hypoglycemia. - Do you remember when I- - Did you ever in high school say Jack Goff in the box? And that was the big joke for the guys in the Volkswagen driver's house. - And then you go, I could go national with this joke.

Jack off in the box. Jack off in the box. Hey, wait a minute. It's called Jack in the box. Hey, that's a sexual. No, Judd, what about. Come on, Judd. What about. When we, were you there when I passed out at Taco Bell? Well, I was, I didn't see it. Yeah. But it was this thing where like. No one saw it. Suddenly David has this thing where if he doesn't eat, he's going to.

he's going to go unconscious in public spaces. And then it happened in Saturday Night Live, right? Where they had to like wheel you out on a stretcher. That was pretty much every other week. I'm like stress. Yeah. We were meeting to play tennis. I think Adam, I think everyone's supposed to play tennis. And then I stopped by Del Taco, what everyone does before they do activities.

I think it was a combo. I was waiting in line. I hadn't eaten and I started to feel, and maybe there was a dog tooth in my burrito. Something about it was like, this isn't working. And then I go, I think I just laid down on the floor and talk about no friends, nothing, no one helping me. And I'm like, oh, Sandler's not even famous. Not yet. That's not going to help me. You knew he was going to be famous. Now I know he would have sent a chopper.

Well, you were delicate. That's when we found out you were delicate. You hang out with you and your eyes get real big and you go, I got to go. I got to go. Just got here. Let's go back to Judd for one second. I like exploring hyperglycemia in an adult's mind. That's page one. But anyway, so that was the environment as a fan of comedy, always a giant fan of it. I was smart enough.

So, you know, to meet someone like Norm MacDonald and go like, oh, this is another level of this. But I could sit. I used to write jokes for Roseanne with Norm. Like we both got hired to write her act together and John Rigi and me and Norm. I remember going to Roseanne's house and we would sit there with legal pads with Roseanne and.

She would say like, I want to do a bit about how it's better to suck cock than to kiss ass. Because at least when you suck cock, it's a deal. I'll suck your cock and then you'll give me something. When you kiss ass, you're doing it with the hope that you'll get something. And she'd tell us some like theory she had and we would like write it down and try to turn it into a routine. And so Norm was demurring away and like just trying to please Roseanne. It's fun to see Norm in that scenario. Yeah.

Yeah, you got to suck cock. Giving good feedback. Yeah, there's something there. You can kiss ass, but eventually you got to suck cock. How about that, Joe? You were smart because you were like noticing early on if you didn't think, which you did make it as a comedian, but early on you go, you were like, it was Bitcoin producer credits.

They were like worth so much you didn't know it. And then later they just start paying off and reruns. Well, you guys never wanted to help other people. That's what it was. We were really self-centered. Everyone wanted to be a star. It was Planet Dana from day one. Sharp elbows. Motherfuckers, follow that. Yeah, but you're never going to write like jokes for other people for money. I had no money and I was really afraid of being broke. So I thought –

No one seems to want to help anyone. And if people were like, oh yeah, they'll give you 50 bucks a joke or a couple of hundred bucks to sit with them for a few hours. So I did that with George Wallace and Taylor Negron. Everybody. Great. You know what? You're so right. Going back to dysfunctional comedians. And if they meet a guy like you, who's smart and funny, obviously, and disciplined. So valuable.

And it's going to kind of tease out the best of them. So David actually wrote jokes for me for a short period of time. Remember the grumpy old man joke you wrote? Oh, no. Go do it. It was something like, in my day, we didn't have latex condoms. Let's see. We would take a bearskin and wrap it around our privates and tie it off with a bungee cord. And we used the same one over and over.

Over and over again. And that's the way it was. And we liked it, but for a very brief time before he took it off. No, I think it was because SNL, I was, I talked to Sandler this morning because you were coming on. And I was saying, do you remember the sketch I wrote for Julia Sweeney? Because we had talked to her and we started talking and I wrote the sketch for her and she was surprised because I wasn't in it. Mm-hmm.

And he goes, yeah, well, you're a fucking writer. And I go, oh, that's right. Because we are so selfish that at the end of the day, my job was to write. So was Sandler. So you're not supposed to really write for yourself there. And so I wrote for someone else and then I got...

I guess, because Dennis would ask me for update jokes. If I wrote for Grumpy Old Man, I thought that was such a funny hook. If I could throw some shit in, fine. You've got great guys all around you. Like if I had a rewrite table. It is magic for a comedian who's written all their own stuff and knows how hard it is. And you have your few hits, you repeat them over and over again. And then someone like Bonnie and Terry Turner or David or Robert Smigel hands you something. And I'm like, because I had written a sketch before.

And I left it early on in SNL. I left it and Robert said, can I take a look at it? I'm like, okay, who's this guy, right? What a gift. I thought I'd already got it. And I came in, it was like gold. I'm like, oh my God, it's so much better. The fuck? Writing. So it really makes sense how comedians would gravitate toward you. Well, Sandler, you know, we...

was really smart. And that's what he did. Because I remember, first of all, I remember when he went to audition for the show. He flies to Chicago. At the time, his act is all just like mumbling. And the Will Chamberlain bit. And he was hilarious, but still hit and miss in the clubs. Like we loved it. We would sit in the back and just love it. But-

I remember going to gigs with him where it did not go well. It was not a consistent situation. We all knew he would make it big. The last time it did not go well for Sandler. Yeah. I mean, I remember going with him to San Diego to the San Diego Improv and telling Dave Becky who ran it at the time, oh, you got to let Sandler headline like on a Monday. And Sandler bombed so bad for an hour and put his back against the wall and just ran it. Just flat. Just said the jokes. Annoyed.

And so when he left to do the audition, I thought...

I mean, what does Adam do? I mean, he doesn't do characters. I mean, what is he going to bring to the show? And then he gets it. And suddenly like he's gone and I'm in this shitty apartment living under a stripper in the valley. And he doesn't bring his clothes, his ID. I literally have his ID and his driver's license from when he left. How did he fly then? I have no idea. Back then you couldn't do it. Like he took nothing with him. I literally have a box of his clothes. You could bring dynamite on the plane back then. You could do anything back then.

And so, so one time I forgot what this was. It was leading to. Okay. So he's trying to get on the show and his strategy was to write for you.

So he would write you an amazing sketch with someone, usually someone like Smoggle. I wonder what it was. And like in his head, so he'd write like whatever. I think he was part of maybe the Pepper sketch. Oh, Pepper Boy. Pepper Boy. Steve Coren and Smoggle probably got on that too. And the other one was the one where you're the host who keeps making out with the people walking in the restaurant. Yeah.

Oh, El Cantore. Yeah, that was when I was still on SNL. The other one was hosting, but Sandler, Schneider went in there. El Cantore was a fucking hit. Was it Christy Alley was the host? What was it? The other one was like, you lack of the juice. Oh, the fucking juice. Yeah, that was a smigle on Sandler. But yeah, El Cantore was the one where I had Victoria's Ark.

- Legs up in the air. - Legs up in the air. - Yeah. - And Smigel kind of fake tried to say, "Don't do that." And I'm like, that was one of the biggest, I mean, that I was just writing a physical gag, but yeah. - And Santa would give himself like one joke in it, but a good joke. - Yeah. - And that's how he tried to get himself exposed, which is to let other people like you

but give himself a key thing where I think he came out in his underwear at the end of the sketch. Yeah, he was ripped fit, man. He was like a boxer. Yeah, he came out as a, don't you forget about the macho man. Yeah, there's a little, and he came out as a wacky Pete. But I always found him funny and charming. And he did have a few months of connecting with the audience. Opera Man, it was so abstract. He had a star thing. And he would do that, I'm Arthur. And I just loved it, the silliness of it. But when he hooked, they went with him.

Boom. I don't think Franken loved it at first. Well, let's get back to you. I remember him telling me about Franken not liking it. He would like tell me that-

Because I would always be like, how's it going? Because I was, you know, this was my dream to get in and ask it out. That's what I was going to ask. So when Stanley got in there, like, oh my God, someone got in. They're going to pull me in at some point. And we would all be on the phone with Adam trying to think of ideas for him and Schneider. I don't remember you calling asking for anything, but I remember talking to Schneider. I was crying in my office. Passed out. Sensitive naked man was one of the-

He was trying to figure out, you know, how do you, how do you get on the show? How do I get my personality through? And I remember he said that one day he knocked on Lauren's door and Franken's in there. He says he's in his underwear. He,

he put a hammer in his butt. Like he was holding a hammer in his butt. This is Al Franken? No, this is Sandler. Oh God. And then he, he just like knocked on the door, opened the door and went like, it's hammer time. And then,

They did not look amused at all. And then he walked away. Like he was just trying to find a way. That's just a ballsy, that's very Sandler. Who would do that? Well, it's Lorne who's like New York guy and like upper going to Orso and Frank and then a guy walking with hammers. But it was the change and not the changing of the guard, but it was like a bunch of guys going,

Can we try all this kind of stuff? I was a little different. Adam was different that way. And so it just was a new way, I don't know, of thinking. But you were right along our lines. So I get on with Rob. Sandler gets on.

I don't think you knew Farley and Rock back then. So then you are very close to the show in that respect, and then you like it. And you eventually start writing. Have you been brought in as a guest writer? Well, I would talk to Adam on the phone all the time. I think in the early years, he was talking to Hurley, who wasn't on the show at that point. And we were all just trying to help load him up. So I remember...

I remember like working on the Denise show sketch. Yeah, that was a big one. With him. And I remember the other one I kicked around with him was the first cheap Halloween costumes. That's a great one. The Crazy Spoonhead sketch. On update. On update. Oh, I saw that. Yeah, yeah. I like that. That was fucking crush. And that was one of the first times he really went full Adam where it connected. Yeah, that was total commitment. Yeah. And-

And then one day I said to Adam, can I give you a sketch and just hand it in? Don't touch it. I just want to know if I was good enough to write the show. Oh, just like don't even touch it. Yeah, yeah. Just hand it in. Right into the read-through file. I don't remember what the sketch was about at all, but it was a Dennis Quaid sketch. And it went on really early in the show. And they did it. Oh, wait, you got it on? It was like a dinner table sketch on.

argument of some sort and it got on like in a key place and I think did reasonably well. And I thought, okay, I, I can do this, but then I never could get the job there. Like I had the packet and,

And I never got hired. Did you ever have a meeting one-on-one with Lorne? As close as I got was one day Adam called me and he said, he said, you know what? I had your packet and Downey after months was holding your packet and talking to me and Schneider. And he was asking about me and I was telling him that he should hire you. And Schneider said, I don't think he's ready. Shut the fuck up. Seriously? Yeah.

He did? And so I was like, what? They shovel riders in that. We've been ready. It's a tryout. But then I was like thinking about it. Come on. And of course at the time it was very annoying. And then I thought,

Later, almost every good thing that's happened in my life is a result of those four words. What? You're not ready? Just not getting in there was why I met Stiller and did the Ben Stiller show. I can literally blame everything in my life to Rob Schneider saying he's not ready. Meeting my wife, my children, none of it would exist if I went in at that time.

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find it on auto trader see it find it auto trader but later on roseanne hosted and i was writing jokes first i wrote her monologue and i guess wrote that week which is mainly the monologue yeah it's really fun that's always weird because it's not weird but sometimes they bring guests i think martin lawrence was the first one to do when i was there and he brought some guys and i was like oh okay

It's almost saying you guys are bad. Yeah. But it's more just like a trust issue because now I would love to have someone that wrote well for me around just to be because you're so alone and to go, is this shit any good? Because you might think it's good. And they go, why would you do that? And I go, well, no one's around to ask. It's literally 85 people against you.

And they're on your team, but you don't know and you're scared and they might be trying to talk you into something. It's hard to go back when you're lucky enough to have hit characters, you know, and every time it was like in the 90s when I would guest host, you'll do Bush, you know, and you know, Will will do Junior and you know, and then it was like, you'll do Church Lady and it's like 2012. I don't,

Getting close to her age, at least. All my characters were old. I'm still younger than Church Slay. Newsflash, kids. You're aging into it. Hey, Adam Sandler is listening right now. How you doing, buddy? He is. He's breaking the fourth wall. But Sandler didn't repeat characters when he hosted.

- Which is pretty cool. - I think that is sort of par for the course. - He did "Opera Man" maybe? What did he do when he came back? I think that may be the only thing. - He did an infomercial that crushed, he did the Farley song. - The Italian vacation sketch was maybe one of the funniest sketches of all time to me. - I think my daughter loved that one. - I haven't been able to float this theory out, but since we're on that, I'm gonna second. 2019, the year of Sandler. I'd never seen anyone break show business that hard.

Because first of all, his special was kind of supernatural because, my favorite word, because of shooting so many times and being so relaxed and so playful. Then he comes out with... Uncut Gems. Uncut Gems? Yeah, Uncut Gems. Then he hosts Saturday Night Live and he destroys. So those three kind of broke shows. And he won like the Indie Spirit Award. And he gave a speech that if anyone out there wants to Google something that is as funny as anything can be, Adam gave me a speech to all the...

you know, snobby independent film people. Right, yeah. Where they cheer him like he is their favorite person, has always been, and then he attacks them in the most hysterical way. It was a perfect speech. It was a great moment. It just sort of was full circle because back in the day, I remember Sandler just casually would say to me, they hate me, Carvey.

You know, the critics thought he was, they didn't get him. And now since it's turned, it's kind of interesting to see an arc of a career like that. Back to Judd. That's all you get, Adam. Judd is a, I had actually heard you were offered head writer at one point, but maybe that's not true. There was some sniffing around. Some grumblings? Yes. Maybe it was too late in the game?

You had too much going on? Well, at the time I was about to make a movie and I felt bad about bailing on the movie. That was one thing. And then I was also probably nervous about what I could accomplish at the show. Yeah. You know, what can you really do to the show? Because it's so locked in. It's locked in to how it's made and

And I wasn't sure I had something that I could bring to it unless I could really change it. And it shouldn't be changed. But look what's happened since then. I mean, it's just gone on and just gotten better and greater. And it did everything it should do. And so it just didn't feel like the right move. It informs me right now. Just because I was on it and it's still on in this huge franchise, I get to ride that wave. But I'm just curious.

Did you have wilderness years at all after Ben Stiller? You have a couple of years where you lost your confidence, nothing's going on. Or was it pretty much then you got with Shanley and that whole ride? Or was there times? Or we could talk about your Gary Shanley experience because I'm really curious about that and how it informed you as a filmmaker. Well, I was bouncing back and forth.

to a lot of projects that weren't necessarily connecting in a mass success way, but I like them. So I got to make a movie with Steve Brill, which still was in heavyweights, a Disney movie. It cost 10 million and made 20, so it didn't sink my career. And we loved it, but it wasn't considered successful in any way. And weirdly, now people really like it.

Yeah, it's charming. And then the Stiller show, we loved it, but it got canceled. Won the Emmy for best show, though. Yeah, for writing. And so that was exciting, but depressing. And then...

I did Sanders for a bunch of years. - Sanders. - And that was for me like, oh, I need to learn how to do this. And if I'm here with Gary, I'll learn how to write. And that is, I think what happened is just watching Gary make it. - Were you with the show when I came on? 'Cause I can't, Gary asked me to come on before it had gotten on television. - Yeah. - And I was doing the host thing. - Yeah, I so remember that moment

because you did the Smigel sketch where you did an impression of Gary. - Yes. - And it was hilarious, but not necessarily something that Gary would enjoy because there was a lot of whining. What was the impression? - It was hard with Gary and when he asked me to do it, I said, "You want me to?" 'Cause he wanted me to come in and do the impression to him. He goes, "Oh yeah, I love it."

I think it's kind of like, you know, Leno goes like this sometimes, but almost never talks like that. Gary and every comedian has their hook to signal the audience that I'm having a great time and this is really funny. So I noticed that Gary would talk like this, but then when something was really funny, he would go into this pitch and I told my dog that he shouldn't pee on the carpet like that.

So he wouldn't go to that gear all the time. Once in a while, he'd just go off here. It's like he's having a party in his brain. It was a great move. So I just did that, but I had teeth and it was grotesque. You had big hair. I had big, big hair. But so anyway. And so Gary...

I mean, it was really almost the definition of Gary. Wanting it to make more fun of him. No, that he's offended on some level by it because it just goes right to the heart of maybe whatever he might think is the cliche way of looking at him. Or like he's just too boiled down. Right, reduced to just a whiny guy. That's what I do with everybody though. Yeah, so he's whiny guy or whatever. So, I mean, he's not mad about it, but he's like,

Not loving it. And then you call him at some point and say, hey, I didn't write that. Smigel wrote it. I hope you don't feel bad. And then Gary's response was, well, let's just do an episode about it. And then he...

had the writers write the episode where you guest host and you keep doing an impression of him on the show and how annoyed he is at you. And that was like the meta version of Gary. You know, he has his girlfriend at the time, Linda, do an episode where she's in Playboy magazine. Suddenly we're shooting with Hugh Hefner. And then on the set, Hugh Hefner asks Linda to be in Playboy magazine. And now Gary in real life has to deal with the fact that his girlfriend is going to be naked in

in Playboy magazine. And then the next thing you know, we're all at the Playboy mansion at a cocktail party where they have big pictures of her naked. Right. Oh, look at, oh, wow. So weird. And Gary's got to be there. Oh, that's an episode too. And suffer through it. And that's what would keep happening with every person. Do you remember the Hervé Villachez was on that episode? Deplane, deplane, you know? And he didn't know it was a fake talk show because it hadn't aired yet. Yeah. But anyway, that was funny. Oh.

Here's the thing that I find very, very interesting. First time, like I've been really bad in the two movies that I did because 125 takes, 300 rehearsals, you know, and it'll come to the way you do films. But Gary, we get on the set, it was pre-digital. So there's three guys with 16 millimeters. So they're covering me, covering Gary, covering the two shot. And Gary's going, I'll say this, you say something like that. Never experienced anything like that. So when I watch it, I go, well, actually, it looks like I'm really acting. Yeah.

So that was also a genius part. I mean, he spawned a world, an industry. Well, because you have to be loose. Yeah. He liked going deep emotionally. It's a little bit cringe comedy, which I think people picked up on. Curb is a little bit like that. Curb, right. Ricky Gervais, you know. And so. After that. You know, when you got, what was the first film that you directed?

I directed The 40-Year-Old Virgin. And we would do table reads to try to crack it. And Gary would always come. He was so nice. And he would pitch the fix. So I said to Gary, what do I do about masturbation?

Because wouldn't he just masturbate all the time? Right, he's a virgin, he's 40. And so we're in a room with Adam McKay and all these great writers and Seth, and we're trying to go, what would he do? And how do you not talk about that? And how do you keep it Steve Carelli? So it's not cringey with him because of his likability. And then Gary just goes, maybe we just see...

his preparations for masturbating. And then Gary pitches out, he puts on his favorite bathrobe. He takes a shower. He puts out his tissues and his creams. And, and then we put on like Lionel Richie, hello underneath it. And, and that was the scene. And Gary would do that all the time. He, he, he would tell you,

the great joke and the emotion, you know, cause he did say to me once, I think the show, I think that that movie is about people who love each other. It's about love. And it's about when your friends are just trying to get laid, but you're looking for love. Yeah. And that was his genius. Yes, absolutely. To balance pathos and comedy. Yeah. Like other geniuses, Chaplin. So when you, I just hear things about the way you direct and I don't know if you did it on that one, but you kind of, you're running a lot cause you're on digital. Yeah.

So you're running long, long takes, which you couldn't do with 35 minutes. Not back then. Not back then, but I don't know when you started that. And you're kind of like tilting people out of their preconceived choices by sort of yelling out things. Do it like this, do it like that. When did that start? Because that seems great for comedians who can improvise. Well, it started with Stiller at the Ben Stiller show. Oh, you were doing it then? Yeah, because Ben...

You know, a lot of times we'd just be shooting a single of Ben doing like a Tony Robbins impression and we would have a script, but then Ben would just talk for like another 20 minutes off the top of his head. And you just run it on film. And we would just run it on film and, and,

And then sometimes Ben would play this agent character and he would be pitching bad career advice to people like run DMC or something like that. But he would get afraid to say it to their face. So he would do a soft version and then he would tell them they were wrapped for the day. And then he would redo his single with harsher jokes.

And then we would just riff and play what else we could do. And then when we started doing movies, we thought, oh, you could do that in a scene. You could do that in the middle of a scene, even for emotional stuff, not just jokes. And we did that with David on Love, where we just kept it loose. And it's not always...

punchline driven well I would say that for anybody when you're discovering it like sometimes when you think of a stand-up bit the best you do it is the first time you do it yeah and then you try to get back to that exactly but when you're discovering something the camera's rolling and you're doing it for the first time it just a lot of times gets a lot of pop I think that's what Brando was always trying to do by hiding notes and oranges on the ceiling so he just would experience it so that's all I got David

Yeah, and I think some of the best stuff I've seen just as a viewer on set is like Will Ferrell.

on set just doing a run of alternate lines. - Yeah, I was gonna ask you that about someone who, and probably Will Ferrell will be one of them, where you're sort of watching greatness in a sense. And I was envious that he would get these long takes to show that. It seems like so much fun. - I mean, the one I always think about, one was Milk was a bad choice.

you know, I'm in a glass case of emotion and anchorman that scene is just him and Adam for maybe it's just 15 minutes. They know they need one line. And they're going, they get to go 15 minutes to get that one magic moment. Just to go in crazy Adams, yelling out stuff. Will's improvising. They've written a bunch of stuff beforehand. There was one where I think it was a Rudd podcast.

punches Will in the face in Anchorman 2. And they just wanted to get funny reactions from Ron Burgundy getting punched in the face. And Adam yells out, after he hits you, he hit you so hard you speak a foreign language.

after he hits you, you know, and then it turned into after he hits you, he hit you so hard. You're now five years old. And Will would just go on run after run. Yeah. I would see that, you know, at the end, as many of those, there's never too many for me.

just to show that. And I always try to get Adam to do outtakes because, you know, like on grownups, it's all funny people. Come on, we're all fucking around the whole time. I'm sure there's something in there funny there better be. Yes. Just in the, you know, cause we do the same thing. It's like, what are we doing this thing? And we would even huddle up in between and takes. Yeah.

And I'm a hoarder, so I actually feel bad if I don't find a way to get those alternate jokes out. Somewhere. I mean, it used to be on the Blu-ray and we used to call them lino-ramas and just make five-minute reels of the alternate stuff. Because when I worked with Adam on Funny People, if he's riffing, I actually think it's gold. And the fact that it would just go in the toilet, I find unbearable.

I agree. We may have lost minutes from our wraparounds, right, Greg? Not to compare your feature film. You know, Dana, I think we have a connection. We've been friends for a long time. And for this episode of Fly on the Wall, we've partnered with eHarmony, which isn't us. eHarmony is a dating app to find someone you can be yourself with. We are not dating. I want to clarify that. But the connection is what you want in a dating partner. Yeah.

Just someone like, if you found someone that listened to this podcast, that's somewhat of a connection. And then you sort of build on that. You want someone with some common ground. Yeah. It's not, it, look, if you want to connect romantically over, you know, super fly or fly on the wall, uh,

It just makes us happy. You don't want to be watching The Godfather and the person next to you goes, this movie sucks. So dumb. Yeah. You want to connect on all issues and harmonize in life. Similar sensibility, similar sense of humor, and similar sense of sense. I don't like when they watch The Godfather and they're like, everyone in this movie is so old. I'm like, they're 40.

Watch 2001 Space Odyssey. Too much of this movie is in outer space. I don't like it. When do they land? When do they land? Why is that stupid red light acting so silly? Who's friends with a robot? We know dating isn't easy. That's why we partnered with eHarmony because dating is different on eHarmony. They want you to find someone who gets you, someone you can be comfortable with.

Yeah. I mean, the whole idea is you're going to take a compatibility quiz, helps your personality come out in your profile, which makes all the profiles on eHarmony way more interesting and fun to read. So I think this is the goal of dating sites, and I think eHarmony does it great. It's just finding somebody you're compatible with.

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Salt, sea salt, vinegar, smoky barbecue, sea salt and pepper is one I like the most. And I'm going to try this jalapeno lime. They don't have a red, red necky flavor just yet. Yeah. Red, red necky loves pistachios. I like to crack things open and put them in my mouth.

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This is just a basic question I'd ask someone to do it. The film that you were producer-directed, you had a vision of it that most realized it? I mean, I do think that the King of Staten Island... With Pete Davidson. With Pete. I do think for what was difficult about it, can you tell...

a fictional version of his story and what he's been through and make it funny, but make you really feel it. Like that tone for me, which maybe is a little more of a Hal Ashby tone, which I'm always trying to figure out. The fact that that movie works, I'm really proud of because it's balancing like grief and pain, but still trying to figure out how to make people like Pete and Gilbert funny. Which Hal Ashby movie do you reference in your mind? I always think about The Last Detail.

Because this ain't no horse's cock. I am the guy that we, that that's a reference with my friends and with my sons. We are the fucking shore patrol motherfucker. Yeah. I mean that energy where like, that's a pretty long shot with no edits and it just, the whole movie feels so real. It feels like a documentary and I'm always trying to figure out, can you do that with hard comedy? Yeah.

And had that aliveness. Interesting. Yeah. Good. Coming Home, did he do that too? He did Coming Home. Coming Home was crazy. And amazing stuff in Coming Home where they're at meetings with veterans talking about their problems. And he did a lot of it with real people and improvised it. And some of it is remarkable and very moving. So I always think about him. And I think about Paul Reiser in Diner.

Because he made up most of his stuff and they threw him into it and he created a character. It feels that way. It's so good when you don't know for sure what you're going to say or they say, you know, I get on some of these things. Even in sitcoms, they go...

All right, let's do another one and just spade this time. Dealer's choice, whatever you want. And you have five seconds while they walk back to the camera and say rolling. And then you go, ah, ah. And then you just try something. But it's like a movies two. Just do one. Let's do one for you. Yeah. And then sometimes they will keep rolling. Maybe you do that. And sometimes they do them one at a time. I don't mind keep rolling. And sometimes there's a guy there. Like there's some movies, usually on Adams we have,

or Steve Corners, someone that sits by Video Village. It's a tough job. It's grueling. - Yeah, just to be pitching extra jokes. I did that with Paula Pell on a bunch of movies. I mean, from Saturday Night Live. She's remarkable at the onset. - And you get some winners. - We'd love to have her on this podcast. - Yeah, we hear her name a lot. - For sure. - Yeah. - Speaking of SNL, what would be your dream team?

This is a fucking tough question. You know, I think I'd like to think of what might have been teams.

You know, like people that didn't get to full fruition in that space, you know. Okay. The Gilbert Gottfried, Robert Downey Jr. Right. Robert Downey was almost a blessing in disguise that he left. Same kind of thing with you and Schneider. He was 84 or 5. Yeah. One year. One year. Yeah. Yeah.

you know, who else was really funny? I mean, Terry Sweeney was so funny on the show. Michaela Watkins, you know, people that were there for a year, like Keckner, Jenny Slate, who are so good. And I mean, Stiller was there for like four episodes. Five shows. Bob Odenkirk.

Bob Odenkirk was there for a few seasons, but never really could get on as a performer. So I always think about people who are amazing that you could have put together an A-team kick-ass SNL cast. Conan and Bob were writers with us and they were feature players. They're writer feature players. And I didn't even know it for probably two years because I was told, you know, don't,

you know, like Shoemaker or Marcy or someone says, don't write yourself in right away. You know, you're here for a job. And I was like, lucky to be there, but didn't, like you were saying earlier, writing for other people, not that I didn't want to really, I just don't, didn't know how to, I only barely knew how to write for my own persona, whatever that was. And so I'm trying to think for Dana or think for, you know, whoever else. So that was hard. And then you get, I don't even know what I'm talking about.

I just forgot in the middle. That's all right. It's okay. I'll cover for you. So Conan. Oh, yeah. I was saying, but Conan, those guys should have been on. And they were, and then when I heard their feature play, I go, you're not on. And they would,

once in a blue moon write something and it wouldn't get on. Or just give themself three lines. And I was like, wow, they're just getting shut out. - But what do you think the difference was? Because certainly I know that when you and Rob and Dave, I mean, you and Rob and Sandler got there,

You were intent on getting on. It wasn't like, well, maybe I'll be a writer and hopefully I get on. I mean, there was real energy. Like I am here to become a star of the show. Yeah, Adam, for sure. From day one, he had such confidence. I was more embarrassed to do it and they were doing it. Rob was doing it a lot. And I was like, it's all that. Is it fair? And then he got copy machine on, which wasn't even, I was getting...

I'm saying, don't do an update piece this week. Oh, you know, you're here to write for people. Put that person as instead of you. And I'm like, all right, I don't want to get fired. And Schneider just had balls. So did Adam. They put shit in, put shit in and warm down. I remember going to Schneider to Jerry's Deli after the copy machine hit. Oh, really?

And he was as big a star as there is. I mean, it was just, it was a moment and it was hilarious. I mean, I also love the, uh, you put your, you put your weed. Oh, I was a big one too. Put your weed in there, put your weed in there. And so like Schneider was the first one who really broke on the show. What was the sketch that broke you that where you thought I haven't broken yet. Yeah.

A little thing I like to call Hollywood. Is it the receptionist? No, I think it was either that one or Buh-Bye. Buh-Bye, that's right. Buh-Bye was more overnight where I flew the next day and I heard it every day for at least 10 years. Like,

Like every flight for sure. Every flight. Really? How funny. I still get free peanuts. Just like Sandler always heard Iraqi Pete. Iraqi Pete. Iraqi Pete was kind of an incredible swing to have that kind of moment that didn't work. It was like during the Gulf War. Yeah. And it was just. What's a funny name? I think it was Frankie Pete. And in Adam's defense, I don't think he wrote it. I think it was Frank and he went, Iraqi Pete. And we can have some clown like Sandler come out in a Speedo or something. And it was like, okay. I was one time humiliated because.

I was not on for probably like 10 shows. And then I just, you know, people in Arizona are like, you're not even on, you're fucking obviously bombing, which is kind of true. And I was like, no, but I was. And then one day after I passed out, I was like walking down the hallway after my morning pass out. And then I should have faked it more during read-through just to get Lauren to go, oh, someone carry him out and give him a sketch.

So I go, sketch. What do you need? A sketch. I don't remember it being that precarious. No, I wasn't. But anyway, I'm sort of repainting myself. You all toured with me. Sandler toured with me. You toured with me. Opening for Dana. It was fucking great. Yeah, Jon Stewart opened for me, Dave Chappelle. Those are good shows. Yeah. I knew that. Yeah, you could tell right away. By the way, Dana had no trouble following me.

I would go on and I would do pretty good. I would just go in that special in those days. And then you walk out and they go, ah, push me into the wall. I've got to dance. If we're to be honest, Dana is still way better than all of you by far. Like it's not even a question, right? Is this going to be recorded? This is the crime. I've watched it all. I mean, you guys all killed it. I've watched it all. Dana, it's other level stuff. The Beatles explaining technology, it doesn't get funnier than that.

Well, you know, the thing is, the thing about Judd, you know, he's a filmmaker. He makes a lot of pictures. People go to the cinema, you know, with the popcorn, whatever. They look up, everybody's happy. Laugh, laugh, laugh. And then a little bit of a tear. They want to see it again a week later. Sorry. I love being a Beatle. Yeah, you can't. I would never follow Dan. That's like if you go, we're going to do this show and these people are going on. That was my one move. Once I got there after failure before and after, but I have a great blessed life.

When I got there after a little bit of time, I thought, damn, I'm a fish in water now. I'm like, this really fits what I do. The clubs was even tough sometimes because I had no jokes. I literally had not one punchline. It was all rhythm. Before you got to SNL. But when I got there, oh, they want characters, impressions, and catchphrases. I got that. I remember seeing you at Igby's before you got SNL. Yes. And that was a great small club that's now a strip club. And I remember seeing George Carlin play.

perform there. Great. I'll tell you, I mean, watching you reduce like a person to what the impression was, it was always amazing. Like what, what is your take on it? But, but,

The Biden that you do, when I saw you do Biden, maybe it was on Colbert or something, and I thought, oh my God, Dana quietly has a better Biden than everybody. Come on. Here's the deal. Let's get real. And guess what? Guess what? We do this thing as America. I'm going to do better. We're going to do better. I like the yelling Biden now. And then the whisper. We know how to reduce the deficits of people. Come on, folks.

Number one, what the guy said. Number two, the two part. Number three, you know the drill. It's not rocket science. Come on, we can do better. We'll do it. Come on, man. What about... I'm still learning him. What about when Kamala Harris is in this... I just saw a clip of her and she starts... She always has a nervous laugh. She's like the Joker. She's like... They're bombing Ukraine. She's like...

She's like, you wouldn't get it. Well, that's all. I just wonder what it'd be like to be married to her because she's very attractive and she's so cheerful. Be like, hey, Kamala, we're going to have breakfast. I mean, this seems like a really nice wife. Nervous laughing is troubling. It's troubling, it does. It is a deeply troubling thing. Oh, wait, let me go. I'm skimmed down here. Come on. Shit.

Everybody shut up. Come on, let's get some questions for Judd Judd Apatow. Oh, this one's funny. 2007 Entertainment Weekly did the smartest people in Hollywood. And guess what Judd got? Number one. What the fuck? Who was number two? I think I beat Will Smith that year. I'm sure you beat, well, you beat everybody, but you beat everyone in Hollywood. This is unbelievable. You're going really deep in research. Because that's the kind of thing that happens and you go, God, I wish people talked about it more.

Like no one talks about that in 2007. It seems like you're like everywhere. We had it with Ben Stiller too where we looked at his IMB and it was like, Ben, you're kind of like, whoa. And you have kind of the same thing like, oh, he's there, he's producing, he's directing. It's like the resume is so big, I had to take a nap after I read it. I have a question. It's just pointed.

No, I have a question not about Judd. This will be great. Okay. Judd, your daughter Maude, who you might not know this, she's on a show called Euphoria. Yes. I've seen a few of them. Euphoria is a show. Where is it? Showtime or HBO? Every time I watch it, I think I know Spade's watching it right now. I watched one and I was horrified, Judd. I haven't seen that many naked wieners since my fraternity hazing.

I was watching it and I was like, this is what they're watching? What happened to Laverne and Shirley? Yeah. And where's the simpler type? It's all gone. I think it's all changed. Silver spoons. But first of all, huge deal that Maude's on there. Freaks and geeks. I saw her on that and I saw Iris was in The Bubble. And Iris was in The Bubble. The Bubble. Which comes out April 1st on Netflix. Let's talk about The Bubble. Yeah. The Bubble is...

my attempt to do something during the pandemic. So what point of the pandemic did it hit you? When did you start shooting it? Because the pandemic- You wouldn't even be allowed to shoot it. Well, now I look back and I think it's almost like-

a nervous breakdown to want to make something during it. Yeah. Because the pandemic started in March. Yeah. And by a year from there, I was almost done filming the movie. And so you had... You got it going that fast? Yeah. It was a very...

I think maybe I had a manic episode. Were you leading with the protocols then? You had green light for film sets and actual bubbles. You were inventing it as you went along in a way. We were making a movie about making a movie in the bubble while making fun of the protocols, but also doing the protocols and making fun of the need to make a movie due

due to your ego or your madness, like that no one needs a movie. There's something more important happening. And we're mocking people who feel it's necessary while actually doing it. The whole thing is very hypocritical. Can we make sure we edit that out and put it on Instagram? Because that's the most meta. That's like hyper meta. Like we have a fake COVID supervisor in the movie who gives terrible advice. And then does, he's a real COVID advisor.

I mean, the real COVID advisor is giving the same speech five minutes before the fake one is shot for the movie. And you say, look at this clown that we're making fun of. And then you go, well, let's bring out the real guy who's exactly the same. We're all wearing masks. And then the actors are like chewing their masks in the scene and not wearing them on their ears. And we're making fun of how no one's wearing the mask. And so the whole experience was strange that way. But it started because...

I was really getting stir crazy and I was walking on the beach lot with my friend, Brent Forrester, who wrote for the Simpsons in the office. And one day we were like, we should just think of stuff. Like we're walking for hours every day. Wasted thinking and walking. Yeah. So we started talking about the NBA bubble.

And that started making us laugh. Like, oh, those guys are stuck in that hotel. What is that like in that hotel? And then I thought, well, this is almost like a Christopher Guest movie. Yes. You know, where all the actors are stuck in a hotel trying to make a movie about

And having a nervous breakdown. And then they're making a flying dinosaur action movie. And they think it's important they're not tuned into what's happening. And they're having nervous breakdowns and having sex with each other and doing drugs. And it's a sequel. How was it received? Who'd you pitch it to? And how did they receive it? Especially all the CGI and all the big stuff in the middle of the pandemic. I mean, I told Netflix and...

Ted Sarandos, our best friend. I told Scott Stuber. And he certainly got the joke and said, let's go do it. And I said, I'll write a script, but I'll need to be rewriting all through it because it happened very fast. And I hired people that I thought could change on their feet. Oh, you had a...

Who's the young lady that was in Sasha's last movie? Maria Baklova's in it, and Karen Gillan, and Keegan-Michael Key, and Leslie, and Iris, and Armisen is in it, Kate Cannon. She's good. She's incredible. Kate Cannon was funny. She's really good. She's great. Yeah, she plays the head of the studio, so every time she checks in to see how it's going, she's on safari, or she's skiing, and she's just around the world. She's one of the rich people that sort of is skipping the whole quarantine. Exactly. And so...

But we didn't have any cases the entire shoot. Interesting. You didn't? We just, you know, because it was only two sets, it was a green screen soundstage and the hotel. When did the vax come in, by the way? During the filming or when did the vaccine emerge? Were you already filming or did you have two shots and a booster? I never got vaxed because I was in England and I couldn't get it in England. But around February, in the middle of the shoot, you

People would walk up to you and say, I got a call that I can get a vaccination at 10 tomorrow. So I'm not coming in. And that's how it works in England. You have an appointment and you just go, it could be like that. You know, the cinematographer is like, yeah, I'm not here tomorrow. And then slowly the crew. And then I'm going to feel like shit for a while. Brits are like that.

I'm not going to get the jabber tomorrow, so I'll do it for the best. I'll just do it as long as you guys smile every time I do it. As long as he smiles. He's giving us so much joy. Is Lennon different than Paul? Lennon is very, very cryptic down here. How is it, Paul? It's great. You know, we're having a good time down here. How are you? I don't know. You know, just looking around, whatever. I don't want to do it anymore. I like that. You know my one where he talks to Paul. How would Paul explain TikTok to John?

It's very short little clippy things, you know, where people put something on funny and they dance around. It takes about 10 seconds. And if you do it, you're a star all over the world. We did Abbey Road. We did the White Owl. What's going on? You know, it's like Kanye West. Who's that? He's sort of a talkie singer. He's a bit maybe crazy. I don't know. Who was he? Did he have a woman? He had a woman named Kim Kardashian for a while. What did she do?

You know, she'd take pictures of her bottom. How did she take pictures of her bottom? With a little television camera in your pocket called an iPhone. She'd have to go working. She'd stick her bottom out and she'd take a picture of it. Doing the whole bit. What's so special about her bottom? It's not a normal

bottom. It's a bottom 2.0. It's like God made a fanny and attached a person as an afterthought. The whole family's doing the old show and the Baltimore's taking pictures. One man got so frustrated he became a woman. That's all I got. We don't have to keep it in here, but I like to entertain the entertainer. I'm here just for that. Where else would I go? This is the place. One of the great things I watched in the last few years pre-pandemic was you and

and Bill Hader and Mulaney at Largo doing an unproduced sketch. All right. Yes. Which was Casey Kasem and his son who don't get along. What was the premise of it? Yeah, they don't get along as a neighborhood son. I was there, right? We all did it first. Yeah. Yes, and it completely bombed on Saturday Night Live, like dead silence. Yeah. And then we just got revenge at Largo by doing the exact same. Son, you're a waste of space. Yeah.

You don't really do much with your life at all, do you? Dad, I know you're right about that. You know, it's that kind of thing, back and forth. For 10 minutes. Laid there at SNL, killed in front of 300 people. But I remember that dinner, and I remember that the check came, and we were looking around. Who took it? We checked Celebrity Net Worth. Did you? Did I pay? Or did Spade? You paid. You paid.

But I almost always pay. I can't remember. So I was kind of. I have a picture of us from that night. Let's look at the clip. Yeah. Let's put that on Instagram. Maybe it was. It should have been. It was a pretty solid Thursday. This might be kind of awkward, but I'd like to do another long McCartney thing. Yeah, go ahead. No, I'm right.

I'd like to do the last 15 minutes of my special. The other thing I did want to mention, because I do promote something, is I put out this book for charity. I had the first book sick in the head, and the money goes to 826, which is a charity that gives free tutoring to kids. Kids could just walk in this place and they get free tutors. Oh, my wife has many books to kids. We pay a lot of money for that tutor. My wife is a tutor. When I was doing SNL, she would tutor kids downtown.

- Underprivileged kids, my wife Paula. - Yeah, and that's what this is. - And I thought, how in the hell do you know how to teach someone English? 'Cause she went to a good Catholic school. I mean, could you teach English to a kid, a five-year-old, a three-year-old? Like build the grammar and know what a dangling participle is? - No, I barely got my kids through anything school-wise. And there were many tutors involved.

So this book pays for these centers. We give all the money away. And so the new book sicker in the head has like, you know, Sasha Baron Cohen and Nathan Fielder and Whoopi Goldberg and Letterman. So what's the general narrative of it? The narrative of it is that during the pandemic, I realized that everyone was home and available.

to do this. So all these people that I thought wouldn't normally do an interview with me had no excuse to say no, because I knew they were home. - See, that's the thinking. - And so I called Lin-Manuel Miranda and Letterman and people like that that might normally be too busy. - And they have no excuse. - Yeah, and also it was kind of an emotional interview because everyone was really thinking about their lives at the time. - And being more vulnerable.

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There's a true accent feature. It gives you feedback on your pronunciation. Yes. And of course, there's desktop app options. There's an audio companion and ability to download lessons offline. Yeah, so that's great. Lifetime access to all 25 language courses Rosetta Stone offers for 50% off. A steal! And I do think that the off-label thing that... I'm ad-libbing now, going off script.

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You just visit rosettastone.com slash fly. That's 50% off, unlimited access to 25 language courses for the rest of your life. Redeem your 50% off at rosettastone.com slash fly today. Can I make an observation? Yeah, please. During the pandemic, I did the sourdough, I did the puzzles, I did Scrabble, watched a lot of movies. Yeah. You made a movie and wrote a book. Yes, yes.

Should I talk to a therapist? I mean, I did a wordle. What the fuck was I thinking? I had two years to do something. Yeah. I realized that because I'm promoting the book, the movie, and then in May, me and my friend Michael Von Figlo made a two-part George Carlin documentary. Of course you did. So I thought maybe I had a nervous breakdown for two straight years. And work was the way to deal with it. I guess because at the time it didn't feel like I was working that much, but probably.

probably I was. But you were busy. You seemed to be always shooting. And to stop in your tracks on a dime, like one day we were working that show Lights Out and they go, just going for the weekend and we're going to have a no audience on Monday, which we thought was weird. And then it, even that fast by Monday. Yeah. Don't come back in. You know, we have a two week lockdown and we're in the third year of our two week lockdown. So,

- And I used to listen to all of your interviews with the cast of "Tiger King." - Oh yeah, that's right. - 'Cause you got everybody. - I know, it was so weird. - And you got that reporter who had all his tapes burned. That was an incredible interview with that guy. He was like, "This stuff actually isn't funny. They're really just torturing and killing all these animals."

And he was the only one who really told the truth. - Dana, you don't even know, I did a deep dive. I was the Wolf Blitzer of the pandemic. - I remember the Tiger King interviews. - It was just sort of a- - Pentagon papers. - I just hit him up on Instagram. Some of these people, we just found them and said, "Do you want to do it?" And they go, "It was mostly 'cause of Joe Dirt." - Yeah, because you- - They all like Joe Dirt, yeah. So they go, "Oh, they're like, "I'm one of them and I'm not gonna go after him." And I didn't really.

I let them tell their story. Joe Dirt is huge in sort of the, whatever you call that part of the country. The world. Rednecks. The world. Yeah, the world. While I'm in your house, something paid off. Well, you know, because I have seven Joe Dirt posters on the way to the podcast room. So the Tiger King himself loves Joe Dirt. That's what I've heard, yeah. Yeah. But I never really chased after trying to play him because it was kind of like Joe Dirt and it,

Didn't seem that fun or appealing, but it was so fun to watch it during then and be a part of it all. And it was such a, it was like the first big thing during the break. Have you seen the new one? I mean, one just came out with Kate McGinnon. John Cameron Mitchell. I haven't seen it. I don't know. I haven't seen it yet. I want to see it. Yeah, that's fascinating. But I actually really enjoyed those interviews because you went deep with everyone. So we watched this thing, which always felt watered down.

When I watched it, I always thought, this is so much worse than this. You would get real conversations with people where they laid it out. So I implore everyone to go down that. That's a good YouTube well to watch. Yeah, there it is. I'm like, when that tiger chewed off your arm, did you feel that? Yeah.

Were you allowed to take a lunch break after? She went back to work after that. Yeah, she did. She went back. That was interesting. I was like, yeesh. Yeah. It's interesting how things become such cultural phenomenon, like a wildfire, like a squid game after that. Yeah. I'm talking about Netflix now. Just like, boom, everyone has to see it. Everyone talks about it. A fury frenzy. Can I ask you a question? Yeah. Yes. Because I'm such a fascinated by George Carlin. What did you do in a documentary? Okay, bubble. When's...

Bubble come out? The Bubble? April 1st. April 1st. The book is out now. The book you can pre-buy now. And then the documentary about George Carlin. May like 21st or something. What did you take away from that? What did you discover about George Carlin that you might not have known? What was your sense after doing a deep dive on him? I didn't really know that much about him because he never mentioned his family in his act. He had no jokes about his wife or his daughter. Yeah. And...

So I thought, well, how, I don't know him. Sure. How could I even tell the story? Was he a weirdo or was he pretty normal? Well, he was a guy that grew up in New York. His dad used to, you know, beat up his older brother and, and there's a lot of alcoholism and the mom ran away with the kids and moved to upstate, upstate New York in the fifties and maybe even the late forties. And then,

She had to raise him alone. And then he loved like radio and Danny Kaye and got into everything through that. But the fascinating part is, you know, he had a very corny career in the beginning, very hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hippie, hipp

grew a beard and long hair and got very edgy. Then he kind of ran out of gas and got soft again, had a heart attack and talked about his stuff and those bits were great, but also very soft. And then he saw Kinison. And this is the thing we learned. Oh, was Kinison the hook? He saw Kinison and he said, I'm not going to be soft compared to him. Yeah.

And then he went for the rest of his life. He just, you were all diseased. Is it? Yeah. Are you talking about post like the seven words? Oh yeah. It's pretty late nineties. He, he went really angry, but still funny. At least you were all diseases. Really funny, really dark. But also the reason why we made it was because if you go online, whenever anything happens in the news, George Carlin trends, and it's people are putting up clips of,

of his bits about America or about big farmer, you know, abortion or corporate America controlling politics. And you realize, unlike most people whose acts age out and they don't really work anymore. No one listens to Lenny Bruce anymore. His stuff gets better. And he kind of predicted everything that's happening. Yeah. I saw him at 14, you know, we used to listen to albums, Steve Martin and everyone. Yeah.

And then George Cullen was in the mix. And I was like, this guy's fucking funny. No aspiration to be a comedian. Yeah. It was too high up, too good. It was just more like kids like comedy, you know? Here's an example of a line or just hitting it like, everyone's into the children. We got to save the children. We love the children. You know what I say? Fuck the children. Fuck the children. You go in the classroom, there's one winner and a whole lot of losers. I mean, it was just so politically incorrect. Yeah.

Check it out. You're all diseased. I think another line of that is like, have you ever noticed that everyone who's against abortion is someone you wouldn't want to fuck? You know, these motherfuckers, these stinky motherfuckers in their fucking tank tops. Let's get them in a field, put them on a pistol and shoot them in the fucking head. You would say that? Stuff like that. I'm loosely paraphrasing. He went hard. And in the documentary, everyone debates, did he go too dark?

Or did it get to like just an angry guy as opposed to an angry guy being funny? Yeah, I mean, and some people love it. And there are people in the documentary, comedians, some who say they like it and some people say, I think he lost it for a little while. How did he pass away? I mean, he- He'd had heart attacks. He had a lot of heart problems. I think he did a lot of cocaine for a long time. It feels like maybe he had some sort of-

OCD or attention issues that led to the fact that he would do a lot of cocaine and not hang out with people. He would just write books.

He loved to write. He loved words. And he would listen to music. But there were a lot of years where he was doing that. I mean, we have audio of him talking into tape recorders in the middle of three-day binges by himself. That's pretty scary. And people would sometimes go up to him and go, any advice? And he would just say, write everything down. That was it. Yeah. Because he was a master of word for word. Yeah. He didn't riff on stage. He didn't play on stage. That was poetry. It was like, yeah. He wrote like-

a show and had to memorize it. When I saw him, he would just sit before the show just trying to memorize it and do it

He knew it perfectly. And if someone yelled something out, he was not cool with it. He wanted to just keep going. His lists, his hooks, big shoes, little shoes, brown shoes, black shoes, boy shoes, girl shoes, shoes. Everyone needs shoes, tall shoes, boots. Jumbo. He would make these crazy lists and he's in his seventies, had a couple of strokes and he's just like so articulate. It's a hernia. And what is it? A hernia and a she. Oh,

I know the bit that you're talking about. Should be called a hymnia. Yeah. What we saw was that there was a period where people got bored of him for a little while. And so on Second City TV, Rick Moranis would do this brutally mean impression where he would say things like that and do like, you know, George Carlin starring in Death of a Salesman. And they would make fun of him.

And there was a moment where Cheech from Cheech and Chong said, George Carlin's over. All he talks about is things like peas, eating your peas. And then that really bothered him and it made him redouble his efforts. So where most people might cave in, he just went hard and said, okay, now I got to show you all. I waited on him at the Circlestar or at the Holiday Inn near the Circlestar Theater. Wow. Brought him a bowl of oatmeal, put it in front of me. He goes, oatmeal, oatmeal.

Drop the O and you have at meal. I said, give it a rest, George. But he didn't. There's no blue food. I didn't bring oatmeal. There's blueberries. Oh, yeah. Blueberries, strawberries, raspberries. There's no blue food. Apricots, bananas. All right, scratch that one. You know, I just have that theory that eventually almost everyone becomes a caricature of themselves in the arts. You know, like Johnny Carson had kind of,

Or you'd watch someone and go, is that an impersonator or the person? Because you have your hooks and you have your things and then eventually you're- And you get exposed. And that's when I pounce later on when they're sad and used up. Then I rub it in their face. But at least I'm honest. Anything left for Apatow? I have one left. One last question. How do you spell Apatow? Because I worked for the IRS. One P. One P. And your mom drove a red Corvette. Did they tease you as a kid with Apatow? Hey, it's Judd Apatizer. Did you get any of that? No.

- No. - I had Dana Carkeys. - Dana Carkeys? - Dana Carkeys fucked with me. - Why did I think of that? - Judd Appetizer, that's what I would have said. - I remember they used to call me the nose. - Oh, good job. - It's always weird to be anti-Semitic when every single kid in your high school is Jewish, but they're still anti-Semitic. - That's the worst. - I'm a self-hating white person. - Everyone can't help bullying. It's so funny about bullying is,

Bullying is worse than it's ever been. And all the data is in. It's bad. You know, like we think, I guess we fixed it. That makes you stronger. That's good for you, kid. It's unreal. It crushes your soul. I just wonder if I was a kid and I was like 10, 11 years old and like Twitter existed.

would I be one of those asshole kids just trying to give everyone shit? Because if I go on it, there's always like people who are trying to find my wound. Yeah. And, and to get your response. Yes. And if you do respond, there was like, oh my God, I'm your biggest fan. No matter how cool they are. But would I have been one of those kids? Cause I,

I think I would have found it funny potentially to just give people shit. - I think you might've been until you thought it tipped a kid over into self-harm. I don't think you seem like too nice for that. - No, I mean attacking like someone in the public sphere. - Oh, I see. People say mean things and if I block them, someone will say, "Hey, don't block my friend, he loves you." And you go, "It was the meanest." And they go, "He's being funny." But you can't even tell when people are funny that your friends are texting you. You can't tell the tone sometimes.

So you don't know what's going on. And then when someone you don't know is like, hey, fuck you. You suck. And then you go, oh, okay, I don't need that guy. I was being funny. What's the general meanest thing they say? If anyone can find tape of Dana Carvey being funny, I'd like to see it. There are certain generic put downs for comedians.

No, but there's this podcast and you've got a partner. All right, let's watch it. Like if I promote something, they'll just say, I'll watch it if you'll cut an hour out of it. So that's... This is 40 minutes too long. How long is the bubble? Yeah. Which is out when... Solid two hours. Okay. Solid two hours. Two hours and out. Some people want 90 minutes, but the other 30 is the same price. I did Master of Disguise and then we had to cut it down to 58 minutes. Wait. It didn't even make sense. It wasn't even a language because...

Because you bailed out. You were going to do a Sandler film called Mr. Pete or Sneaky Pete or something? Oh, Puka Pete. Puka Pete. And then you got mad. No, you or Fred Wolf had a falling out. So then I was in line. So I did a read through and they go, Carvey, you got to go in a week. But anyway, I go, it's not even a movie. It's just words on a piece of paper.

We have the crew. It was cut to 58 minutes and then it has 12 minutes of fake, well, outtake. So it had to be a certain length. Anyway, that's my experience with film. But the bubble comes. I like to promote. May 6th. April 1st. Jesus. April 1st. April Fool's Day. The bubble on Netflix. Love it. Sicker in the head. I saw it two nights ago.

- You saw it. - No, I got fucked. I didn't want to tell Bum. I really sat down to watch it last night. I had it on the Netflix. - He had your code. - Went for the pin number and couldn't find an email. Talked to these guys. - That's what happens to 90% of the people we send it to, but you were able to watch it. - I figured out, yeah. - You got in.

Did you enjoy it? I did a word on under two hours yesterday. Did you get through it? I got through it. No, did you get through it, David? Yeah, it gave me anything. Do you have any notes? Yeah, what about the ending? What did you think of that trick ending? Yeah. Oh, what was that? What's the ending? Come on, folks. You've got to see the first part of the second part, too. I just started to say the word helicopter. I said a couple of things. No, but they...

I like Keenan. I thought Keenan was funny. I thought your daughter did a great job. My daughter played your daughter in Love. Yeah, yeah. She was great. She was very fun on the set and very non-bratty. And she plays, she looks totally different. She's very actressy, different hair, different haircut, plays a TikToker, and has millions of followers. They're all stuck in the bubble. That looks like a castle. Is that a hotel? I mean, where did you do that? It's called like Cliveden Castle.

I guess there's a famous scandal there where like someone in the government had an affair there. That's like a, you grant me about it. The beetle shot help there. There really is. You did over there. Oh, who is the first ad that looks like James Bond? A little bit. Daniel Craig.

The first AD that looks like. No, he's a studio guy. Who's the guy that comes in? He's always standing in every scene. Peter Serafinowicz. Okay. Oh, he's hysterical. He played the tick in that TV show. That was the answer to my, uh, word all question. Here's another jaw impression. So anyway, we'll close it with this. John Apatow is here, you know, uh, does a, does a lot of great movies. Um,

I would have read all your movies but everyone knows them they're all fucking monster if there's a pandemic or an earthquake he just goes right into work mode I don't know what it is he calls Scott Subra after the big one we should do an earthquake movie he's like well nothing works right now Judd Judd it's been a pleasure thank you for coming thanks for coming and being in house in the house we're in Spades House you know why I came last thing

because I don't like hearing this Zoom sound. Let's get people on a real microphone. So we've got two years to figure this out. That's a director that doesn't know a lot of sound. I totally agree. It's a little bit like comedy waterboarding when you do it on Zoom. You guys, I want to show you one of my five pantries. I have one more thing to say, David. That's it. Let's go. Let's go.

Hey, what's up, flies? What's up, fleas? What's up, people that listen? We want to hear from you and your dumb questions. Questions, ask us anything. Anything you want. You can email us at flyonthewallatcadence13.com.

Hey, Dana. Hey, David Spade. The question is, this is from Uvaldo Garcia. Uvaldo Garcia. My question is, is there a common denominator to which SNL alum go on to be megastars and which don't? Or is it as simple as having great characters that capture America's attention? Or is it something deeper? This is a 12-parter. Well, first of all, if we knew how to become megastars, we would be megastars. Yeah.

You think we're holding back on that one? Yeah. We went to the Megastar, you know, symposium where Tony Robbins was teaching it. His hands were as big as my whole body. I accidentally went to the Megastore, Costco. And, yeah, I would just say that there's an intersection between talent and the marketplace. And it's...

When you're young and naive, you go, well, the best band will be the biggest band. That only happened once, and that was the Beatles. And the best, the funniest guy will also make the most money. So get rid of all that. I can go to the comedy store and see three people funnier than me. And they're not doing as well as me showbiz-wise, but it's a combination of a million things. So if you're doing well, it's a lot of it's luck. But I think you have to bring it over and over and over because everything's a fucking audition. Yeah.

People can lose faith in you somewhere along the way and go, you don't got it anymore. Oh, yeah. Now people go on live streaming movies and no one knows if it bombed or whatever. But back in the day, a movie star, if that person had two bombs in a row, you kind of had to go back in line and then wait a lot of years. But again, all you go back to is trying to do a good job at whatever you're doing. But a megastar...

Has a mega mansion. There's not that many left. It's me, Dana, and then I can't even think of anyone. Megastars have, they don't talk about the security, cybersecurity, physical security. Everyone treats them weird. I don't know about the goal of Megastar as opposed to like just being funny and employed. I don't know. Did you ever dream about being Megastar? Brad, I feel like has a tough life and he would never say it himself, but I feel like

Just everywhere you go, if you connect eyes with someone, they go, that's fucking Brad Pitt. And they don't know how to act and they get weird. And even when he meets other celebrities, they freak out. So that's being a mega when you're in a room with other celebs. It's too much energy in the room. And I get starstruck by fame. I mean, with Brad Pitt, you know, if I met him, he'd go, we're going to go over here and get some pizza. I go, that's a good plan.

I like what you're doing. I like being on your podcast, David, because you got good witticisms. I'm Brad Pitt. I'm chiseled. I'm tan. No, but being a sex symbol, and I'll let David speak to this, being a sex symbol has a different energy. There's a megastar just goofy comedian, but then there's a megastar who's a sexual star. Then you get guys or weirdos in your bushes hiding out. For women especially. Yeah.

I'm so glad that I never reached megastar status. That's all I'm saying. I hate that I reached it so early. I go to the grocery store and no one cares. I take the mask off, the hat off. I go, hey, everybody. I went the sexual star route, which was stupid early on. He was a porn star for a wee bit of time. And then I went back to, I just want to see what...

I don't remember what my old life was. I'm going to be a busboy again. No, I don't know. That's a stupid answer, but thank you for asking a question. And we've been Dana and David and we've been dumb.

Fly on the Wall has been a presentation of Cadence 13. Please listen, then rate, review, and follow all episodes. Executive produced by Dana Carvey and David Spade, Chris Corcoran of Cadence 13, and Charlie Finan of Brillstein Entertainment. Production and engineering led by Greg Holtzman, Richard Cook, Serena Regan, and Chris Basil of Cadence 13.