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Our guest today is Bill Simmons, and he is a podcast joggernaut.
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He is the head, I like that word.
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He s the head of The Ringer on Spotify, and it s a huge, huge network of podcasts.
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He s a sports guy from Boston.
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He s been all over ESPN and we go over that.
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But the main feature of this particular episode, which I had a lot of fun with, is he said after, I want to talk about Saturday Night Live.
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And so David and I have never been asked this many questions by a guest.
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And so we go over a lot of SNL stuff inside baseball.
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I think we got to stuff that we ve not talked about in the ways we talked about.
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So I really enjoyed it with Bill Simmons.
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Yeah, he s a deep diver.
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He knows everything.
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And you know, the funny part was, Dana, we had a lot of questions about, is the NFL fixed and this and that.
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I had a lot of questions for him about sports.
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And I asked one.
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And then he goes, I want to talk about SNL with you guys.
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And I m like, well, it wasn t really interviewing us, so he just talked about different favorite things, and we got some backstory on him.
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Yeah, he s a very interesting character.
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He ll talk about anything.
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the financing and podcasting movies that he s a fanatic about, and gambling, sports gambling, sports.
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He talks about the Super Bowl and just a lot of SNL.
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He is maybe, I d have to say, the biggest fan of just SNL that we may have ever interviewed.
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So that s interesting in itself.
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I agree.
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He knew more than anyone.
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And we did a pretty long one.
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He could have gone on, I think, much longer.
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But we both had to use the bathroom, so we turned out.
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But he was great.
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All right, here he is, Bill Simmons.
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This is my setup.
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This is where I do my pod.
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So I got all my stuff behind me, so it looks like I m in this big, and then if you zoom out, it s just like this little weird corner of stuff, and then nothing else looks like that in the room.
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Fake busy corner.
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Yeah, fake busy corner.
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I m in an abandoned motel near Bakersfield.
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Dana was taken.
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I put a do not disturb.
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I m a minimalist.
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Good one.
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Everyone s gonna knock and give me food.
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I m a minimalist.
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What can I say?
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God, no shit.
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Wait, I have to ask Bill first.
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There s no way, what did you have to do with 30 for 30?
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I just saw this.
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I created it.
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I came up with the idea.
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That s huge, dude.
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I sent the memo.
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And then for like a year and a half, me and my friend, Connor Schell, like basically came up with every angle of it and got it sold.
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That s in my notes.
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Yeah.
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I don t want to talk about me though.
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I want to talk SNL.
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No.
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We don t need to talk about me.
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Okay.
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I know.
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No, you re boring.
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I understand.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Everyone knows you.
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Okay.
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Top, best athlete.
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I m trying to do a mashup of Bill Simmons.
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Best athlete host on SNL.
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Oh, wow.
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That s a tough one.
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Does The Rock count?
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What s The Rock on?
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He s an athlete.
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Well, he s a movie star.
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Yeah, no, he s an athlete.
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The Rock was really good.
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I mean, he did The Rock Obama, which I thought was one of the better presidential sketches they did in the last 20 years.
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Yes, that was funny.
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The Rock is good.
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Yeah, there s Peyton Manning.
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Back in my day, Joe Montana with Walter Peyton.
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Yeah, but I mean, Montana was in one of the iconic sketches of the late 80s, that the, I m gonna go upstairs and masturbate, which was like out of, nobody could believe he did that back in the day.
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It was like, oh my God, Joe Montana said masturbate.
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And you know what, fun fact, talk about how, fun fact, talk about how competitive Joe Montana is.
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He finishes the show and he landed that sketch, which killed, and then he can t come out of his dressing room, almost like a boxer.
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He feels,
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He feels he didn t do very well and Joe, can you go talk to him?
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He just can t come out.
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It s funny.
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Jesus.
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John Madden was good too, it was before your time, but he came in right as he was taken off from CBS and they built, it was during the Eddie era.
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Yeah.
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They built the whole show around him and he was pretty good with that.
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I want to say OJ hosted in the first five years and thank God he didn t kill anybody.
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Oh, he killed.
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Yeah, he literally killed.
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I had to say it.
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I know it s not funny, but I had to say it.
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Charles Barkley during David s era.
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He was good.
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I just missed him.
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Oh, yeah.
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Yeah, he was good.
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Sometimes it s tough.
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Hey, did Joe Montana have any problem with that joke, Dana?
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No, I don t think so.
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His inner monologue was, yeah, I ll be upstairs masturbating.
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Yeah.
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There was a charm.
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When athletes come on, or non-professional actors, there s a sort of kind of stilted charm to them, you know?
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I find that that s a big, big part of the show is having movie stars, non-comedians try to do an hour and a half of a live sketch.
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It s a ridiculous task.
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It s a great reality show.
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I think when MJ came on, that was in the running for about as famous as he ever was.
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That was really when he had ascended to the A++ list and everybody was so interested to see how he would do.
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And he did really well, but it just felt like a moment when he was on.
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That changed 8-H.
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Everybody was flipped out.
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So he was Michael Jordan at that time.
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It s a real interesting part of being a cast.
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I remember being behind the slats with Michael Jordan, and we re about to go do the sketch, and it s live, and he s not in his element.
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He s kind of looking at his script, and I said, you know, just look at the card.
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Don t worry about it.
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Christopher Walken does it.
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Just look at the card if you have to.
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And they re so used to coming through in pressure that eventually you come out and the adrenaline is running and it s basically no different than if they have a big game or something like that.
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When I got to know Seth Meyers and Hayter and those guys in the late 2000s, they popped on my pod, I was always so interested in the mechanics of...
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the person coming on who hosted, who fit in right away, what actor, actress, comedian, who just kind of got the show and could have been like a surrogate cast member versus somebody who came in and was just kind of their head spinning the whole week.
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And then certain people would come in and you guys that were on the show would be like,
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This isn t easy.
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This person gets it.
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This guy or this girl could actually be on the show full time.
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Well, I d be curious what those guys said.
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Off the top of my head, John Goodman was just good at everything.
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Tom Hanks, of course.
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Tom Hanks was a great one, yeah.
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Completely committed.
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By the way, I want to just, for a second, check your memory.
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What was the hit sketch, kind of objectively, for Michael Jordan s episode?
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Wasn t it the Stuart Smalley?
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Yes.
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Yeah, and then there was a naked thing.
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I mean, I m top, top, top percentile SNL fan that has ever been on this show, including all the people who have been on it.
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You re just not gonna, I grew up with the show.
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I was an only child.
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I remember every single season, everything that happened.
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I m just, I m gonna have an answer for every question you have.
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I now put you, I knew you were a fan and a sports fan, but now I put you in context.
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So now you re one of those people, which is great.
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There s not that many of them that are comprehensively dug into that show.
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So let s, should we try to see if we can stump him?
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Here s the thing.
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I told Spade this when we did a podcast.
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I was born in 1969.
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That s literally the perfect year to grow up with the show because I was six when the show premiered.
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I wasn t able to watch it until I was maybe eight or nine.
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They started running the half hour highlight shows on NBC that would be 9 o clock, 9.30, whenever that was on.
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That s how Belushi was my first guy.
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I m like, who is this?
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I m like eight.
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I m like, this is, how does this person exist?
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Started watching those.
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They finally let me stay up late for the fifth season, my parents.
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And then I was all the way through Eddie, uh, when you came on, when, uh, when spade, like the height of the nineties and all that, then Hartman, I mean, uh, uh, Farrell coming back and basically saving the show.
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And it felt like it was a trouble.
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Uh, I ve been there for every piece of it.
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Wow.
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Have you, have you,
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Did you ever entertain going into the business of what we re in?
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So ironically I did.
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I was, I was, um, in the mid nineties.
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I was writing for the Boston Herald and I really wanted a sports column in the high school newspapers.
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And it s like, I have no chance, this is never happening.
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And I lived with a guy who I d done a lot of comedy stuff with just for fun.
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And we knew this guy named Bill Lawrence, who I think- He s a producer.
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Yeah, at the time he was on the show Friends and he had an SNL connection.
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And it was the year when everything blew up, when the New York Magazine, when they wrote that piece, and it was when they were coming in and they re blowing up the show, it was summer of 95, maybe.
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And we did this whole packet and we sent in 20 pages of stuff.
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Now I learned later, there s no way anybody even saw it, but we sent it in and we re like, this is it, this is our big break.
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And it never happened.
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Without, you mean without an agent or something, just sending in a packet?
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No, but we had like, oh, a guy knows a guy.
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It was one of those, but you don t know any better.
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I was living in Boston.
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We re not supposed to, you know, we re not supposed to read them.
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When we were on the show, we were talking yesterday about how we had mailboxes, you know, there wasn t email.
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So Dana s was always full.
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And then, and Mike Myers, and then everyone else has started getting full.
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But if people sent packets, which a lot of people would send us scripts and stuff.
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And to this day, if you read, they can sue you.
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So you really can t even read it in case,
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You don t like it, but three years later, there s a sketch like that on the show.
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It s very easy to think of something.
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Yeah, see, we didn t know that in Boston.
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We re just like, this is it.
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They re gonna hire us.
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We ll be able to come in.
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We ll be hanging with Sandler.
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And it just did not happen.
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Better keep my summer free, so I can go in there and prep when they call right away.
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What was your first sketch that was the top of that 20-page pile?
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What was it?
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What was the topic of it?
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It was a big Friends parody.
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It was the first year of Friends.
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You probably saw it in the pile.
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I saw it in the pile.
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And I told Lorne, it s not happening.
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It s all right.
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He ll do fine.
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I remember we had another one about Jesus coming back and signing with Nike and doing this whole, and we were like, really, this is so edgy.
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This is going to be great.
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I read it now, I d want to kill myself.
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Yeah, but sometimes stuff was funny anyway back then.
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When I even look back at sketches that are like clanking, it seemed to work then and you just don t know.
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And then later you d embarrass, but some of them actually still hold up.
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Yeah.
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It s funny with your era, the sketches were mean in a good way.
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Like some of the stuff, like some of the Carson stuff Dana did, you d go back and you watch it and you re like, ooh.
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Man, was Carson okay with this?
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I just don t know if, stuff s not mean in the same way, especially SNL, which is way more celebrity friendly than I think it was, but back then it was like, Rob Lowe did that, the Arsenio Beckman, whatever that was, like the Arsenio parody.
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It s like, man, this is kind of mean, but it was good.
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That s what we all grew up with.
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That was what made us laugh.
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I don t know if there s a better way to put it, but if there s an elephant in the room or what you re not supposed to say or what you re observing, you just need to tease that out.
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That s why it s funny.
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And then it can be construed as mean or not mean, but Johnny was fine with it.
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He actually liked Carcinio.
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You know, he said, they re making fun of Arsino as much as they re making fun of us.
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And then there was one sketch that got him dinged and I was blacklisted casually from the show.
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So bittersweet memories, but of course I revered Carson and I revered doing him.
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I ve never had more relaxed fun than being in the Johnny, the Ernest Nebraska guy.
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That s just a great... Bill s here, and you apparently have a very big podcast called... It s called The Ringer, I understand.
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That interviewer with that voice hasn t been replaced yet, but we ve had some great people, but no Carson yet.
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Well, then you did the Larry Sanders episode.
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Which is one of the best seasons in the history of television, season four, where you come on and you re doing the impression, and they re trying to keep Larry from finding out that Dana has this impression of him, that he sees it.
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And then it s a whole cat and mouse game of whether he s going to do it on the show.
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But you actually have the mustache on and the fake teeth.
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You re like, eh, how s my ass?
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Yeah, and I heard Gary s tweet later, but I told him, I said, I m just doing one frequency that you use in your standup.
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SPEAKER_03
And I don t even know what he s trying to do to me.
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You know, it s like Jay Leno.
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Yeah, it goes like that, but he doesn t talk like that.
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SPEAKER_03
You know, but anyway.
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SPEAKER_03
He goes like this too.
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I do think that was different way back in the day where you would take a piece of something, and both of you guys did it.
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You d take a piece of whatever, and then you d blow it out, and now it d become the impersonation.
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SPEAKER_00
Will Ferrell did that when he was doing W. He took small pieces of it.
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SPEAKER_00
It wasn t even close to being W. You did that when you did George Bush Senior, same thing.
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SPEAKER_00
Now I feel like when they re doing the impressions, it s more like a dead-on impersonation of somebody is the trend now.
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But back then it was like, I m going to take this one piece and go crazy with it.
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SPEAKER_03
I m doing it with Biden currently because you need to... I said this yesterday, but my latest toy is so abstract.
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SPEAKER_03
It s the only one who understand Biden is Hunter.
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SPEAKER_03
So then I can do Biden of anything.
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SPEAKER_03
Hey, dad, what s going on?
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SPEAKER_02
Yeah, it just goes to people and says, hi.
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SPEAKER_03
Oh no, I already ate.
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SPEAKER_03
Maybe tomorrow night.
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SPEAKER_02
Yeah, because I was so sure.
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SPEAKER_03
Yeah, 7.30 is great.
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SPEAKER_03
Okay.
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You know, so I find for myself in high school with my friends, I don t want to ask you this, abstracting my impression of the water polo coach into madness.
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SPEAKER_03
And then that rhythm extenuated, but coming from someplace real, like Will s
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SPEAKER_03
W was in a real zone, but so playful.
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I just liked the style of it.
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SPEAKER_03
I also like people who could do a perfect impression too, but I do like abstracting it.
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I mean, that was Hartman.
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When I was in college and we would tape it, we d have the VCR player, so we d tape it, we d watch it the next day.
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SPEAKER_00
It was like a Sunday ritual.
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SPEAKER_00
And Hartman did the McMahon, and we thought the McMahon was like the funniest thing of all time.
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SPEAKER_00
It wasn t really... There were pieces of it, but his version of McMahon, we thought combined with the Carson, we would be imitating and we d be talking about it.
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SPEAKER_00
But Hartman was really good at it.
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SPEAKER_00
He did that with the Sinatra group too.
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SPEAKER_00
Whereas same thing, like his version of Sinatra, Piscopo was more of an impression, and he would have fun with it.
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SPEAKER_00
I know Piscopo was on your pot, I loved it.
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SPEAKER_00
But the Hartman Sinatra was a little bit, I don t know, a little rowdier, a little angrier, and I thought it was funnier.
1
SPEAKER_01
What about Ed McMahon doing it when all he has to say is, yes, and you are correct.
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SPEAKER_01
Just those little hooks, just saying it over and over.
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SPEAKER_01
You are correct, sir.
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SPEAKER_01
And then when he goes young, oh, older reference lost on younger viewers.
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SPEAKER_01
Yes.
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SPEAKER_03
Because that was where Phil was the laugh bomb and I didn t have to carry that weight.
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SPEAKER_04
I was kind of doing this rhythm and setting it up and very sincere.
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SPEAKER_04
And I know that you are correct, sir.
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SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_03
Old reference, last time.
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SPEAKER_03
So it was just like a magic show.
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SPEAKER_03
It was like, do, do, do, do, do, and then boom.
1
SPEAKER_00
But yeah, Phil was just- There was a piece to that Carson thing though, where you were tapping into something that I think people of my generation were feeling, where Letterman was our guy for my generation.
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SPEAKER_00
The most important things that happened to me when I was 12, 13 was Eddie Murphy and Letterman.
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SPEAKER_00
and just kind of going on the ride with both of those guys from 82 to 85.
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SPEAKER_00
And Carson, I love Carson.
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SPEAKER_00
Everyone, for three generations, Carson was with three channels, everyone watched Carson.
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SPEAKER_00
But he did start to seem a little old by the time we got to the late 80s.
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SPEAKER_00
And when you guys kind of crossed the beams and went after him a little bit, in a fun way, but you still went after him.
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SPEAKER_00
It was a little like when Norm went after Letterman in the mid 90s.
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SPEAKER_00
It was the same thing where he loved Letterman,
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but the fact that he was parroting him was like, oh, okay, we re doing this now.
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SPEAKER_03
Well, I would say built to that, that I kind of realized that everybody, every comedian becomes a caricature of themselves.
1
SPEAKER_03
Like, am I looking at this comedian and maybe actor or whatever, or am I looking at an impersonator?
1
SPEAKER_03
So there s just this redundancy to your character.
1
SPEAKER_03
But with Johnny, Jay Leno told me,
1
SPEAKER_03
he was guest hosting back then, Johnny was still around, that Johnny would walk down at NBC in Burbank and just yell out, they re making fun of me now, it s time to go.
1
SPEAKER_03
So that was Johnny, who s obviously was very bright, kind of reading the tea leaves, you know.
1
SPEAKER_01
And then you never went on again, right?
1
SPEAKER_00
I didn t.
1
SPEAKER_00
Well, so what happened when you did Dennis Miller, who you were friends with, who used to be on the show, and then you did Dennis Miller cooking, but did he like that?
1
SPEAKER_00
Did he think it was funny?
1
SPEAKER_03
Well, Robert Smigel writes these pieces that are brilliant, and they re a little cutting.
1
SPEAKER_03
With that, because I was good friends with Dennis, I just called him and said, we re doing the cooking show, the thing, and he goes, okay, that s all right.
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it s hard to say no, even though you don t like, I don t think anyone really likes an impression when they re, it s like getting a caricature on a boardwalk.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s all the things you re fearful of yourself.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, all the things you don t like.
1
SPEAKER_01
Right.
2
SPEAKER_00
three weeks after I left SNL, I m like, let me get out of the building.
2
SPEAKER_00
Jesus, let the body get cold.
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, you had Terry Hatcher sitting next to you for the Spade in America that time.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I thought that was one of the best ones you ever did.
2
SPEAKER_01
And she just started doing you and it was like, oh shit, what s going on here?
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
But at least I got to be there and give her jokes and things to say to so make it funny and make her at least get
2
SPEAKER_00
get more of the laughs because she was the host, but she was great about it, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
That was actually a fun one, because I was there, but when you did Dennis with Tom Hanks, that was fun, but Dennis is in on it.
2
SPEAKER_00
and then I think he doesn t mind, and he sort of is that way, and his voice is so perfect to do.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think he was always cool about it, and he s so great, and it s so, when you have a way of speaking that can be, it s just very unique, and I think that s ultimately a compliment.
2
SPEAKER_02
It was just from hanging out with Dennis a lot, and touring with Dennis, and just extrapolating that attitude, but you know,
2
SPEAKER_02
I was standing outside a hotel, Dennis and I were playing Dallas or something, and I said, just hit me that your whole comic motif is like, life is really fucked and it s really hard because the car
2
SPEAKER_02
At the airport, the car gets you to the gig, right?
2
SPEAKER_02
But when you do the gig, the next morning, the car s always late, which I pointed that out to Dennis.
2
SPEAKER_02
And then he just, he laughed so hard, me going dark, you know?
2
SPEAKER_02
They got us in, but now fuck it.
2
SPEAKER_02
Now it s a half hour late, flight s leaving, you know?
2
SPEAKER_02
And he died with that.
2
SPEAKER_02
But I just think that attitude is still so funny to me.
2
SPEAKER_02
Billy Simmons, huh?
2
SPEAKER_02
SNL cat.
2
SPEAKER_02
I got the photographic memory like a junior Kreskin here.
2
SPEAKER_00
Kreskin s always in it.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, we golfed once in Palm Springs and he goes, uh, we drive all the way there.
2
SPEAKER_00
And he goes, he goes, you want to go golf in Palm Springs?
2
SPEAKER_00
I was like a newer comic.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I go, yeah, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
So he goes, yeah, okay, I ll meet you out there.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m like, we don t wanna drive together?
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, okay.
2
SPEAKER_00
So we drive all the way out there.
2
SPEAKER_00
Two hour drive?
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and then we get out there and then we re golfing and I go, hey, how far to the green?
2
SPEAKER_00
He goes, hey, Spud, you don t have to worry about the green for another fucking nine shots, all right?
2
SPEAKER_00
Hit it as hard as you can.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, okay.
2
SPEAKER_00
because we were, I don t know, and then he hits two bad shots in a row and he goes, fuck, and I m heading back.
2
SPEAKER_00
I go, back home to LA.
2
SPEAKER_00
He goes, yeah, fuck that.
2
SPEAKER_00
I go, Dennis, don t be, this is, you re too hard to deal with.
2
SPEAKER_00
Come on, we re having fun, everything s cool.
2
SPEAKER_00
But I looked up to him so much, I couldn t really talk back to him or bust his balls too much.
2
SPEAKER_00
It took so long.
2
SPEAKER_00
to get to that point, but he s still always above me, better joke.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s always that thing growing up, who do you look at?
2
SPEAKER_00
That s why when people come on the show, I still have a reverence to certain people because I got there with Dana, with all these guys, because they were always the ones that I looked up to going on.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then if you ever get in a movie where kids come to you and say, hey, we watch Benchwarmers or we watch whatever, and then you go, if this is anything close to what it was like when I would watch movies,
2
SPEAKER_00
and I saw someone from that movie, I would have fucking freaked out.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because that s all that mattered in my life, was those movies.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, we also had less choices back then.
2
SPEAKER_01
I really wonder, like, if you re like 18 now, there s so much comedy and stuff to watch, and TikTok, all these different places.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it all just blended.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like when, I think you guys were both on the show for this, the Partridge Family versus Brady Bunch sketch.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like to me, that was one of the peak SNL sketches.
2
SPEAKER_01
Not because it was like one of the funniest, but it was like, it hit this time.
2
SPEAKER_01
Everyone watching that show had the same pop culture experiences, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
So anyone I knew knew the Partridge family.
2
SPEAKER_01
We knew the Brady Bunch.
2
SPEAKER_01
We knew every episode of those.
2
SPEAKER_01
We knew Charlie s Angels.
2
SPEAKER_01
We knew all the early SNLs.
2
SPEAKER_01
We knew the early, like we all had like the same 25 things with the same movies.
2
SPEAKER_01
So when you guys did that and it was like, oh, they re going for this.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, there s more cast members.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, they re going to have the boys crack.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I don t know how you would do that now in 2024, because I don t know if 15, 20 years ago, people at age 22 would have all the same experiences.
2
SPEAKER_02
I don t know if it exists.
2
SPEAKER_02
I mean, the biggest show currently is The Bear, which is a great show, but how far can it reach compared to primetime?
2
SPEAKER_02
I got canceled from a sitcom and we were doing
2
SPEAKER_02
Mickey Rooney show, 24 share, or whether it was 30 million, or it s just with three channels, it was insane.
2
SPEAKER_02
But we actually, to that sketch, we had Melanie Hutzel on, who was in it, and she wrote it, and we broke that sketch down for like a half hour on the podcast with her, just the part she wrote, and how it came together, the Brady Bunch mashup.
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, plus Susan Day was in it, which pushed it over the top, but I heard even Piscopo, when he was on a couple weeks ago on your show,
2
SPEAKER_01
And he was talking about how they didn t feel like the show was doing that well, but yet 8 billion people were watching or whatever it was.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s what it was like.
2
SPEAKER_01
We had 11 channels.
2
SPEAKER_01
So even if SNL was kind of failing, everyone was still watching it.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then when SNL started to come back with Eddie, it was like, this is great.
2
SPEAKER_01
SNL is back.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then they had the Billy Crystal season.
2
SPEAKER_00
Did you have a crush on Susan Day or not?
2
SPEAKER_00
I did.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God.
2
SPEAKER_00
Come on.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, growing up with the Partridge family, I was like, Dana liked David Cassidy, but me and you liked Susan Day.
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, then she had the L.A.
2
SPEAKER_01
Law comeback, which was like, all right.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was into it.
2
SPEAKER_00
Chrissy didn t talk much on the Partridge family.
2
SPEAKER_02
Who s more attractive from that era?
2
SPEAKER_02
Elizabeth Montgomery or Susan Day?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, Susan Day.
2
SPEAKER_01
I felt like Elizabeth Montgomery was a slightly older generation, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
They still loved her.
2
SPEAKER_02
Thanks for answering that, Bill.
2
SPEAKER_01
No, no, there was like, there s three generations.
2
SPEAKER_01
There was like the Peggy Lipton, Belinda Montgomery generation.
2
SPEAKER_01
There was the Lindsay Wagner, Linda Carter, Cheryl Latt, Jacqueline Smith generation.
2
SPEAKER_01
Loved, loved, loved.
2
SPEAKER_00
With Susan Day.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was such an easy sell, goddamn.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, I know, everybody.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was in all the above, all the above.
2
SPEAKER_00
Blythe Danner?
2
SPEAKER_00
The Charlie s Angels.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
Blythe Danner?
2
SPEAKER_01
Then we moved to the Dukes of Hazzard, Fall Guy, Heather Thomas, Catherine Bach, that era.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
You were watching a lot of TV.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was an only child.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was watching sports and TV.
2
SPEAKER_01
What else was I reading books?
2
SPEAKER_01
What else was I going to do?
2
SPEAKER_02
Me too.
2
SPEAKER_02
I know.
2
SPEAKER_02
I know all those shows.
2
SPEAKER_02
I don t know what we ve lost.
2
SPEAKER_02
We were going to ask you just because you have your pulse on media, podcasting stuff.
2
SPEAKER_02
Is Jon Stewart s coming out in SNL and what is the influence now of political satire versus 80s and 90s in terms of moving the needle?
2
SPEAKER_02
I like that phrase.
2
SPEAKER_02
So anyway, talk to that if you want to.
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, it s, I mean, SNL had a huge part with this.
2
SPEAKER_01
I would say maybe the biggest.
2
SPEAKER_01
And once Trump came in in 2016, I think it just became a lot harder because when the real life stuff is a parody, how do you parody a parody?
2
SPEAKER_01
When you look back to Aykroyd, I mean, you ve talked about this on the podcast, Aykroyd s doing Nixon, he s got a mustache.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like everything was way more loosey-goosey.
2
SPEAKER_01
Aykroyd s doing Jimmy Carter, talking about the Allman brothers, spoken to Doobie with them.
2
SPEAKER_01
And Hartman does Reagan.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, the Reagan sketch where Reagan s pretending he s out of it and then everybody leaves the room.
2
SPEAKER_01
Mastermind.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, that s one of the great sketches they ve ever done.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then once they figured out the debates, the 88 debate, I think, was huge with the Dukakis and Bush and there was just so... And Lovitz doing the, I can t believe I m losing this guy.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think from 88 all the way through Sarah Palin, SNL really was
2
SPEAKER_01
kind of shaping how people thought in a lot of ways.
2
SPEAKER_01
To me, the Sarah Palin thing still makes me mad because when they had her on with Tina, I felt like that s when something shifted and the celebrity cameo became as important for the show as making fun of these people.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that to me is like the line in the sand when the show started to change a little bit.
2
SPEAKER_00
They d have 32 cast members, then they d bring on stars to play people.
2
SPEAKER_00
and not use the cast.
2
SPEAKER_02
I would be furious if I was cast.
2
SPEAKER_02
A lot of cameos.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
I feel like it s very, it s so different and difficult to be a cast member on that show right now.
2
SPEAKER_02
If you re just coming in to establish players, and I think it s great.
2
SPEAKER_02
I kind of wish I d stayed a few years longer, but people are staying 10, 12 years, and then new people in there.
2
SPEAKER_02
It s such a different dynamic, but Lorne is managing the best he can, you know?
2
SPEAKER_02
I thought you stayed the perfect amount of time.
2
SPEAKER_02
Well, I definitely, because Wayne s World hit and my political impressions hit, I got sort of freakily really big, really fast, maybe too big, you know?
2
SPEAKER_02
And so I had so much stuff coming at me, I was almost confused as to what to do.
2
SPEAKER_02
But later on, I realized that my own attention
2
SPEAKER_02
deficit disorder and sketch comedy.
2
SPEAKER_02
I was like a fish in water in that.
2
SPEAKER_02
That s why I went back to it in 97 with the Dana Carvey show.
2
SPEAKER_00
Smigel?
2
SPEAKER_00
Nothing about me.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right.
2
SPEAKER_00
Loaded.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m asking about podcast superstars.
2
SPEAKER_00
What s next for Megan and Harry?
2
SPEAKER_02
Because I don t... Didn t you say something about... You ve commented a lot.
3
SPEAKER_00
I might have said something in the past.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s a great word.
3
SPEAKER_00
But do they, is it Hallmark movies now?
3
SPEAKER_00
What s next?
3
SPEAKER_00
What would be the best movie?
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, there s probably a huge- Rom-com.
3
SPEAKER_00
There s a huge acting comeback for her at some point, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
She should do that Suits show.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s huge now on Netflix.
3
SPEAKER_00
She should just jump right back in.
3
SPEAKER_02
Or some TV, like a Christmas movie where her divorced husband and they have to be with the kids, but they re stuck in the snow and then they fall back in love.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, she just needs one of those.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
And she s back.
3
SPEAKER_01
And John Corbett could play her husband.
3
SPEAKER_01
No, he s just a friend of mine.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because all she needs is one thing like that to get big ratings just out of curiosity factor, and she s back in Hollywood.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t know why she s not jumping back in Hollywood.
3
SPEAKER_02
It felt like that was the biggest reason Suits took off again, though.
3
SPEAKER_01
Of course.
3
SPEAKER_01
Because she was in it.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s huge on Netflix.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s not a secret.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
Do you think if Harry came out, I mean, he did some event in Vegas where he made fun of himself a little bit or told some jokes.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think that s the move for him.
3
SPEAKER_01
Sure.
3
SPEAKER_01
It could be on this podcast or on yours.
3
SPEAKER_00
Or host SNL.
3
SPEAKER_01
Any kind of little, just in the lane of it being funny, he s aware of how people perceive him and stuff, I think would be... Because they re just monolithic now.
3
SPEAKER_01
We don t really know what they re thinking.
3
SPEAKER_01
They release statements.
3
SPEAKER_02
Here s one thing I ve learned, Dana, and I ve had my podcast since 2007.
3
SPEAKER_02
Not everybody should have a podcast.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s okay.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s not like, it s not like a driver s license.
3
SPEAKER_02
You know, some people just can t do it.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s turning into it.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s sort of mandatory.
3
SPEAKER_00
I just want to make a note because it s just for the people listening.
3
SPEAKER_02
You don t all have to have one.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s okay.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s not like it sounds easy and it s kind of hard.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s hard.
3
SPEAKER_02
And you have to, you have to have some level of expertise on something.
3
SPEAKER_02
You have to have some real authenticity.
3
SPEAKER_02
I mean,
3
SPEAKER_02
Think about all the reasons your show works.
3
SPEAKER_02
You have a relationship with each other.
3
SPEAKER_02
I d want to listen to you guys talk anyway.
3
SPEAKER_02
You have this wealth of SNL related guests, but then also other comedians that could come on that feel comfortable with you.
3
SPEAKER_02
They tell stories.
3
SPEAKER_02
I hear things maybe I didn t know.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I just feel like I m hanging out with you guys.
3
SPEAKER_02
Like podcasting is not that hard, but people always over and over again, make it hard.
3
SPEAKER_02
And they come up with, they try to do the idea versus to look at what actually works, which is like, do I want to spend time with the hosts or not over and over again?
3
SPEAKER_02
It s do I want to spend time with these people or not, or this person?
3
SPEAKER_02
And that s what works.
3
SPEAKER_01
Where do you interject?
3
SPEAKER_01
Because people tell me about outrage.
3
SPEAKER_01
If it s outrageous, it s contagious.
3
SPEAKER_01
A lot of podcasts kind of harbor in the idea of clicks and trending.
3
SPEAKER_01
You have the hot take that gets there first, and there s that lane.
3
SPEAKER_01
We want to make people feel good and be interesting, but should David and I have a feud, we can cut this part out, but should we find a way to get really mad at each other?
3
SPEAKER_01
But you know, that lane, I mean, it s just- No, you guys are good.
3
SPEAKER_02
You guys are doing great.
3
SPEAKER_02
Spade, maybe every month, could just take a flying pot shot at somebody to see if it could maybe get in a couple places.
3
SPEAKER_02
See if I still got it.
3
SPEAKER_02
Out of nowhere, jumping off the top rope, flying elbow on somebody.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I want to, believe me, I want to a lot of times.
3
SPEAKER_01
Instead of flying the wall, fly on the minute, and you bring back Hollywood Minute, but it s part of our show.
3
SPEAKER_02
Wait, can we talk about Hollywood Minute for a second?
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, sure.
3
SPEAKER_01
One of the iconic update reoccurring things that David did.
3
SPEAKER_02
Did Hollywood Minute create Twitter?
3
SPEAKER_02
Ooh.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
How about that?
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think you should take credit for that.
3
SPEAKER_02
It was a precursor for sure.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s basically Twitter.
3
SPEAKER_02
You watch it and it s just like, he s throwing out these one-liners with a picture.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s like one-liners about a photo.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
You should talk to Elon, maybe see if you can get a cut.
3
SPEAKER_00
God damn, I don t know.
3
SPEAKER_00
I sometimes hear old Hollywood Minute jokes and I go, God damn, like some of them are pretty rough.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I think for back in the day when it was just fawning over celebrities, that was the only hook it had.
3
SPEAKER_00
It was like someone doesn t really know anyone or you don t know me and I ve got sort of an innocent look and then really,
3
SPEAKER_00
Hopefully cleverly.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that s another thing is a lot of the writers I was going to say are trying to use me to get through me even through sketches through Dana.
3
SPEAKER_00
They want to get stuff out there, even if it s like anger and they go, you should do this because they don t have a way to do it.
3
SPEAKER_00
They go, I can funnel it through one of these clowns and get it out there.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then I ll be on the side going, yeah, fuck that guy.
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, social media has changed that though.
3
SPEAKER_02
You re doing that on the show and it s just on, right?
3
SPEAKER_02
And people taped it, then it comes and goes.
3
SPEAKER_02
And if somebody got mad, maybe you d read about it in a newspaper or the trades, but ultimately you couldn t even see it unless you watched it.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I think now that the last 15 years, one of the things that s changed with the show is if something
3
SPEAKER_02
you know, like you have some comment on hollywood minute be like, oh my god, then it turns into a thing.
3
SPEAKER_02
Then the celebrity gets mad, they fire back at you.
3
SPEAKER_02
Now people are reporting about that and it turns into a story.
3
SPEAKER_00
It would be before I went to bed that night, I would know what hit, what didn t, what was the problem and then I d have to have an answer next day and then there d be a feud and then
3
SPEAKER_00
it would go back and everyone have a fucking comment about it.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think that keeps us now really helps it because if I don t see a sketch now, I follow them.
3
SPEAKER_00
So if I don t see a sketch, I can watch it Sunday morning.
3
SPEAKER_00
They re just like sketch, sketch, sketch, like broken out monologue, this, that, and that s kind of a smart way to sift through to see what s going on there lately.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, totally.
3
SPEAKER_02
Well, it s also interesting to see how the cast members are using, like Chloe Fineman has a really good Instagram account and she s just like test drives, different characters and stuff.
3
SPEAKER_02
And you re watching half the time you re watching and going, how is this not on the show?
3
SPEAKER_02
Why am I watching this on Instagram?
3
SPEAKER_02
But it does seem like audition.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
It seems like there s more creative outlets than probably you had in the mid nineties where you re writing for yourself.
3
SPEAKER_02
If they say no to the sketch, you re basically like, oh shit.
3
SPEAKER_02
All I did was walk out and say goodbye to everybody.
3
SPEAKER_02
Then that I did nothing.
3
SPEAKER_02
And then that s it till the next week, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that one stung.
3
SPEAKER_00
That was a little too close to home, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
Backstage, Nealon and I, when we were doing Hans and Franz, we would just giggle for hours, going back and forth and stuff.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then it s distilled, distilled, distilled to four minutes.
3
SPEAKER_01
But with podcasting, you can do it long form.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, we do have a second podcast where eventually we ll get around to platforming ideas.
3
SPEAKER_00
We have a video one.
3
SPEAKER_00
Everyone s fucking shitting their pants.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, Jesus just doing it.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s all too good to be true It s called superfly
3
SPEAKER_02
I follow, there s an Instagram account that does, I m listening to Superfly, by the way.
3
SPEAKER_02
You ve done like three, four episodes.
3
SPEAKER_02
I like it, because you re just bouncing around.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, you re just doing your thing.
3
SPEAKER_01
We re still getting used to it.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s harder than we thought.
3
SPEAKER_02
Well, you guys are buddies, though.
3
SPEAKER_02
You re fine.
3
SPEAKER_02
There s this Instagram account that runs all these old sketches, and they ran comedy killers from Nealon s, it s a game show, Nealon s the host.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I, I, I don t know if Dana was still in the show, but David probably was, but it s all these categories of things, whether they re a comedy, it s like the categories, like the Holocaust, child, it s just, and then it goes through.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I was like, man, what would happen if they ran this now?
3
SPEAKER_02
What would the reaction be?
3
SPEAKER_02
Cause back then we were like, Oh yeah, this is great.
3
SPEAKER_02
What a great idea.
3
SPEAKER_02
This is so funny.
3
SPEAKER_02
We were all in on the joke.
3
SPEAKER_02
Now people would just get mad.
3
SPEAKER_02
I feel like.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think that s why people like Bill Burr or Shane or those guys do well, because it s just, even Theo, they just say whatever they want and it s almost like back in time.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then some people go, I don t want to get mad.
3
SPEAKER_00
I just want to laugh or not laugh and not have a big opinion about it and move on.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then people get mad at them and want to get rid of them.
3
SPEAKER_00
And you go, no, maybe you can t get rid of people anymore.
3
SPEAKER_00
Hopefully, if it just falls under comedy,
3
SPEAKER_00
Of course, we always think you should be able to do whatever you want, but not everyone agrees.
3
SPEAKER_02
But isn t the reason you guys got into comedy is like, part of what was funny is, oh, I probably shouldn t say that, or oh, I shouldn t laugh at that, but that s what was funny about it.
3
SPEAKER_02
And now the fear, there feels like there s more fear than we ve ever had with comedy.
3
SPEAKER_02
But I agree with you that it s coming back, because my son s 16, and he loves Shangela s.
3
SPEAKER_02
And that generation I think is ready to see somebody kind of dance close to the line again.
3
SPEAKER_00
Right, they went from the super pampered, super everyone s scared to do anything and the new people like, hey, fuck it, let s get back to just laughing and doing jokes and not, because it s all down to like five jokes you re allowed to use.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then everyone s like, okay.
3
SPEAKER_00
I ll accept that one.
3
SPEAKER_00
That one didn t offend anyone.
3
SPEAKER_00
It has no corners on it.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s just the most generic, bland dog shit.
3
SPEAKER_00
And some of these comedy specials, they re just sitting, talking, like there s not even, they re just like walking around and you go, is there a joke?
3
SPEAKER_00
Someone s like, ooh, I won t have an audience in mind, or I won t have this.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it s not just even jokes anymore.
3
SPEAKER_00
They re making you laugh.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s like introspective.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I go, I personally would go, let s just get back to getting laughs.
3
SPEAKER_00
I agree.
3
SPEAKER_00
What do you think, Dana?
3
SPEAKER_01
You were maybe too young for this when it came out, but Blazing Saddles.
3
SPEAKER_01
Blazing Saddles is a peak movie for me.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m a senior in high school or something.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, sure.
3
SPEAKER_01
I knew that Richard Pryor, who co-wrote it with
4
SPEAKER_01
Mel Brooks was not racist, and neither was Mel Brooks.
4
SPEAKER_01
I knew they were satirizing.
4
SPEAKER_01
All the white racists are idiots.
4
SPEAKER_01
Cleavon Little is above everybody.
4
SPEAKER_01
And the movie is hysterical.
4
SPEAKER_01
But yeah, you can t do it now.
4
SPEAKER_01
The difference between
4
SPEAKER_01
Like, I played a Strom Thurmond or whatever, on SNL, and now it would be like as if I m that guy.
4
SPEAKER_01
We ve lost our sense of humor about it.
4
SPEAKER_01
For better or for worse, it s very serious out there because the stakes are very high between the left and the right and Trump and Biden.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s just compared to Clinton versus George C. Henry, it s so benign.
4
SPEAKER_01
And now it s all toxic.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I have to trace it back to social media, giving us a platform and tribalism.
4
SPEAKER_01
Talk to that.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t want to even mention.
4
SPEAKER_01
What do you think about that?
4
SPEAKER_02
People getting in their bubbles.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s a combination.
4
SPEAKER_02
Social media becomes the hall police.
4
SPEAKER_02
where a lot of people on social media are just trying to get people mad at each other, being like, did you see that?
4
SPEAKER_02
Did you see what he said?
4
SPEAKER_02
Did you see that?
4
SPEAKER_02
And kind of poking the bear on that stuff.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s also easier to go backwards and have somebody be like, oh, I dug this thing you did at your comedy set in 1993.
4
SPEAKER_02
That s weird.
4
SPEAKER_02
You have people who are doing standup acts.
4
SPEAKER_02
I know they re trying to take the phones as much as possible,
4
SPEAKER_02
And I m not a standup, but I ve talked to enough of them.
4
SPEAKER_02
Sometimes you re out there, you re testing shit, and you re trying to figure out what works and what doesn t and where the lines are.
4
SPEAKER_02
And if you re losing that ability, that becomes dangerous too, I think.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s also hard to pry people s phones out of their hands.
4
SPEAKER_00
I mean, who s giving up their phone for two hours?
4
SPEAKER_00
That s a very tough situation to say, you can t talk to your babysitter, you can t talk to anyone.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so you have to agree to do that.
4
SPEAKER_00
People are doing it, but yeah, what you re saying is true.
4
SPEAKER_00
If you wanna say jokes that go way too far, and then you re gonna be judged on that, you re like, this is where we used to practice.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then we go, okay, that one didn t work.
4
SPEAKER_00
Okay, that s too much.
4
SPEAKER_00
But it s already out there now.
4
SPEAKER_00
And they re like, no, that s your favorite joke.
4
SPEAKER_00
And you re like, no, that was a pretend joke I m trying to sharpen.
4
SPEAKER_00
And now I m gonna die with it because that s, where do you practice?
4
SPEAKER_00
What do you do?
4
SPEAKER_00
I m with you.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, well, you wanna, as comedians mostly, just you wanna say what you re not supposed to say.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s what pops into your head.
4
SPEAKER_01
Sure.
4
SPEAKER_01
And to take that away.
4
SPEAKER_01
And we all self-censor now.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh, I can t do that.
4
SPEAKER_01
I won t do that.
4
SPEAKER_01
We ll cut that.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, just do.
4
SPEAKER_01
You re not even thinking about it, but you are.
4
SPEAKER_02
Well, I remember the sketch, the Italian restaurant sketch with Kirstie Alley when you re the maitre d  and you re just like basically mauling the guests, which I m half Italian, so I love that because Italian restaurants really are actually like that.
4
SPEAKER_02
They re very touchy feely.
4
SPEAKER_02
So you went for it.
4
SPEAKER_02
And there s that one part when the camera pans back and he s just got Victoria Jackson with her legs up.
4
SPEAKER_02
And then by the end of it, they re just licking the face and doing all that.
4
SPEAKER_02
I don t even know if... I m not even positive that would fly now.
4
SPEAKER_02
I don t know.
4
SPEAKER_01
I just don t know.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s right on the line.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t think so.
4
SPEAKER_01
But what I would tell people who ve seen it or are offended or whatever is, I asked Kirstie Alley, can I
4
SPEAKER_01
Are you okay with this?
4
SPEAKER_02
She s amazing.
4
SPEAKER_02
And she lets everything go.
4
SPEAKER_00
Some people are there to say, whatever, let s do anything you want to me.
4
SPEAKER_00
And whatever s the funniest and they trust you.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then it s way funnier than the people that are stiff and worried about it.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s the best.
4
SPEAKER_01
And we did it in dress where I go over to the table and
4
SPEAKER_01
Victoria goes back, I have her legs up around my shoulders and I m talking to everyone sort of.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then apparently the censorship people said, hey, chill that a little bit.
4
SPEAKER_01
But somehow Smigel pretended to, or Rob Schneider, I can t remember, pretended to try to get to me before that.
4
SPEAKER_01
But that was probably, once I was in that position in 8-H, I go, one of the biggest laughs I ve ever been part of was that.
4
SPEAKER_00
Had the honor to be associated with.
4
SPEAKER_01
To your point, couldn t do it today.
4
SPEAKER_01
We re gonna have,
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t know if we had her already, Sharon Stone.
4
SPEAKER_01
There s a sketch that has 16 million on YouTube, where we are sort of ogling her.
4
SPEAKER_01
She s going through airport security.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh, look, and I m playing a man from Indonesia or something.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh, look.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh, can we take her?
4
SPEAKER_01
And so we re taking her clothes.
4
SPEAKER_02
I don t know if we ll talk about it with her or whether you were after her, but... I remember when I did the pod with Spade, we were talking about SNL.
4
SPEAKER_02
The thing that I always feel like it doesn t get enough credit for
4
SPEAKER_02
It catches somebody a lot of times at the absolute most famous they ever were at whatever point in their career.
4
SPEAKER_02
with the guest host, right?
4
SPEAKER_02
See Sharon Stone on probably like right after Basic Instinct or right before and she s the most white hot famous she s ever going to be like right there, right in that moment.
4
SPEAKER_02
And that s why it s so, it s so funny to see some of the social media accounts that are around SNL, right?
4
SPEAKER_02
About like, they have the ones of just, there s a, there s a Twitter account of just a guest host announcing the musical guest.
4
SPEAKER_02
And sometimes it s really funny, because they could be like, there s Steven Seagal introducing the Smashing Pumpkins, and it s like pop culture Mad Libs.
4
SPEAKER_02
There s one, Emilio Estevez saying goodnight, and it s Pearl Jam, and it s like super young Eddie Vedder, and it s like, all right, thanks to Eddie and Pearl Jam, and there s no other pop culture artifact like that.
4
SPEAKER_00
Someone dug up, Bill, which I saw, might have been on Twitter,
4
SPEAKER_00
just rolling at promos, which I didn t know they were rolling when I was there because they re just rolling and then they re like, and I used to write promos.
4
SPEAKER_00
So it s me, Emilio, Eddie Vedder, Lauren.
4
SPEAKER_00
talking and then going, okay.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then it s just all the talk in between.
4
SPEAKER_00
I would say this, I d hit this.
4
SPEAKER_00
We step out of frame.
4
SPEAKER_00
They try one.
4
SPEAKER_00
Hey, it s Emilio Estevez and Pearl Jam.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then we all walk back into frame and go, how d it go?
4
SPEAKER_00
We were a second too long.
4
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
4
SPEAKER_00
Take this word out.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s riveting for me to go like, there s me.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s almost like watching that Beatles thing where you go, there s something I didn t know about.
4
SPEAKER_00
And they re filming.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it just a little sliver of time in one of my favorite things in the world and just doing it.
4
SPEAKER_00
And just my daily, the boring daily grind of that place.
4
SPEAKER_00
And you go, right.
4
SPEAKER_00
So fucking cool.
4
SPEAKER_02
Well, for both of you, it s like all that stuff must be like these random home movies that are in your attic.
4
SPEAKER_02
But meanwhile, like 20 million people have seen them and their dress rehearsal and stuff.
4
SPEAKER_00
We never saw dress on video or we are, they have it somewhere because now they re showing clips from SNL from dress and they re showing this and they have a million things backstage and some of the mystery is gone, but it was fun to just.
4
SPEAKER_00
run around backstage, there s no security, there s no nothing, there s people in the hall drunk, and friends of friends that are there, and Phil Hartman s going, move the fuck out of the way, because he s got 90 seconds to get to his quick change of back, and people are drunk, go, hey man, I m at the show.
4
SPEAKER_00
But now I think they ve got it a little more dialed in, but that was part of the fun of it.
4
SPEAKER_01
There s a surreality to it.
4
SPEAKER_01
I always tell people it s a little bit like going back to your high school on a Sunday afternoon when no one s around and just walking around the halls, whatever that feeling is.
4
SPEAKER_01
So when I m there on the 17th floor and I ll be walking along and I ll see me and Phil in a sketch or picture David, it s heady stuff.
4
SPEAKER_01
Experientially, it is the most intense part of one s life, or right up there, because of the liveness of it and the legacy of it.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s why I think of cast members who joined this year.
4
SPEAKER_01
I was lucky, but I had Eddie and Billy Crystal, Martin Short, those guys, and then also the original cast, which is like Mount Rushmore for all of us.
4
SPEAKER_02
But when you showed up, the show was in trouble.
4
SPEAKER_02
Cause it felt like that transition year after the Billy crystal, uh, that Martin short and Christopher guest that year.
4
SPEAKER_02
And then Lauren came back, he had this young cast and only a couple of them ended up staying, I think for the second year.
4
SPEAKER_02
But then you showed up at Hartman showed up and all of a sudden the show was the show is amazing again.
4
SPEAKER_02
Um, but could you feel like, did it feel like that was a make or break year?
4
SPEAKER_02
Now I feel like I m interviewing you.
4
SPEAKER_02
Did that feel like a make or break year for the, for the cast or did you not even sense that?
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, unless I ve misremembered this, but Diana Minot, who was Lorne s lieutenant producer, really nice woman, I believe her saying, I was told that we had a 10-show commitment.
4
SPEAKER_01
10 shows?
4
SPEAKER_01
Bernie Berlstein went to Brandon Tartikoff, I think, and just said, you gotta give Lorne one more shot, as I remember.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I was told this, if we don t hit the ground running, they re gonna pull the plug at Christmas.
4
SPEAKER_01
So incredibly nervous anyway.
4
SPEAKER_01
And the first sketch that I did, Madonna came on for my first show and apologized for the 85 season.
4
SPEAKER_01
That was our cold open.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then I m in a sketch with Jan Hooks and Phil and myself.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I just found out recently, I was talking to Robert Smigel and Jim Downey, and they just said that the audience felt safe with us.
4
SPEAKER_01
And at that moment, because you don t want the
5
SPEAKER_02
audience to feel nervous for you or not quite sure where the joke s going.
5
SPEAKER_02
You want to get them relaxed.
5
SPEAKER_02
So to come in with them and do that was great.
5
SPEAKER_02
And then when David showed up and Chris Rock, Chris Farley, Sandler, I felt like in those years we were peak, peak all cylinders for us because we had the bad boys kicking ass.
5
SPEAKER_02
And then we also still had Phil and John Lovitz for a year and Dennis and stuff.
5
SPEAKER_02
So that was
5
SPEAKER_01
I mean, that was that was the second peak of the show.
5
SPEAKER_01
I feel like the show is in danger in my lifetime three times.
5
SPEAKER_01
The first was.
5
SPEAKER_01
after the original cast left, that Jean Dominion year that you talked about a little with Piscopo, but it really felt like if Eddie isn t there, the show gets canceled.
5
SPEAKER_00
Was that the Robert Downey, Anthony McCall?
5
SPEAKER_00
No, that was before.
5
SPEAKER_01
That was, the next one was the, so that was season six.
5
SPEAKER_01
Piscopo.
5
SPEAKER_00
But they had Eddie.
5
SPEAKER_00
Gilbert, Cazarensco.
5
SPEAKER_01
Piscopo and Eddie, they end up keeping, but if they don t have Eddie, I think the show gets canceled.
5
SPEAKER_01
I think if the Dana, Phil Hartman, that first season doesn t work,
5
SPEAKER_01
I think the show gets canceled.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it really feels like if the Will Ferrell that season, if Ferrell s not on the show and the new blood and the people they kept, but then the new people they brought in, if that season didn t work, I do wonder if they would have canceled it that year.
5
SPEAKER_01
Because I remember that was back in the day when those magazine profiles, if it was the right kind of hit piece, really felt incredibly damaging.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I remember reading that New York Magazine piece and being like,
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God, the show s gonna get canceled.
5
SPEAKER_01
And then that first episode with Will, he showed up, he did Get Off the Shed, he did the phone thing with Meryl Hemingway, and it was just like, oh, we re good.
5
SPEAKER_01
This guy s amazing.
5
SPEAKER_01
This show s gonna be good again.
5
SPEAKER_01
But after that, I never felt like SNL was in danger again after that.
5
SPEAKER_02
Where do you feel... Now that you are sort of an expert, what do you feel about this season and this cast?
5
SPEAKER_02
Do you watch as much anymore or no?
5
SPEAKER_01
I watch.
5
SPEAKER_01
I still watch.
5
SPEAKER_01
I still monitor it.
5
SPEAKER_01
I think they ve made the mistake the last decade of too many cast members, which I think you can always trace when the show is struggling.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s hard to get to know.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
When the show is always humming, it s always smaller cast members.
5
SPEAKER_01
I ve talked about
5
SPEAKER_01
a bunch of people about this who ve worked on the cast.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s like a basketball team.
5
SPEAKER_01
If you guys watch basketball... I do.
5
SPEAKER_01
If you re playing 14 players...
5
SPEAKER_01
And everybody s playing 12 to 18 minutes a game.
5
SPEAKER_01
Guess what?
5
SPEAKER_01
The team s going to suck.
5
SPEAKER_01
But if you figure out who your seven or eight are, and you ride those seven or eight, the team s going to be really good.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I always felt like SNL, at its best, always had the eights or nines.
5
SPEAKER_01
I went to Lauren s office 10 years ago, and I got to do a podcast with him, which was amazing.
5
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it was honestly one of the highlights of my career.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I was giving him my basketball theory, and his answer was,
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but the new cast members, that s kind of like the draft, and it takes a couple years for the new cast members to have their sea legs.
5
SPEAKER_00
Put them behind a veteran.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and you gotta have those guys ready, and that s why we have the deeper cast.
5
SPEAKER_01
I get it, but I still feel like it should be eight or nine max.
5
SPEAKER_02
It would have been tough on me.
5
SPEAKER_02
I happened to be in like four things on my first episode.
5
SPEAKER_02
I didn t even know what I was doing.
5
SPEAKER_02
but it s sink or swim.
5
SPEAKER_02
If you re slow motion, it s kind of like when an NBA player gets traded and then he comes in with a new team with a new system and he gets into his rhythm, he fits with the system, all of a sudden he s scoring 20 points.
5
SPEAKER_02
He s a different basketball player.
5
SPEAKER_02
But if you re coming off the bench constantly and the offense isn t running through you,
5
SPEAKER_02
And the same thing with SNL, if you can t get your reps in and get rid of the fear, not all of us are Eddie Murphy, who I thought was a savant at 19, but even Will Ferrell, everybody gets better the more they re out there, and then the audience also discovers you, gets comfortable with you.
5
SPEAKER_02
So it s pick your poison, I don t think, you know, Lorne, it s his show, he s 50 years, he has a method to everything, he thinks of everything, so I guess this is,
5
SPEAKER_02
um how it how it works you get to be on the show but you may have we we didn t have anyone not in the show when i was there was seven cast members right so everybody was in every show but now a lot of times i wasn t in for two weeks it s like survivor yeah because there s people that just if you don t make it and then and then they sometimes add but don t subtract so now
5
SPEAKER_00
You add this person because you got to cover like a leading man type, you know, there s sometimes there s types.
5
SPEAKER_00
I never got that back then.
5
SPEAKER_00
But sometimes you need to fill a Phil Hartman role.
5
SPEAKER_00
Sometimes you need to fill this kind of guy.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then.
5
SPEAKER_00
if you don t do, or just adding now suddenly, it s just too many to keep track of.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s just hard for them.
5
SPEAKER_00
They go bananas.
5
SPEAKER_00
But then if they leave, where do you go?
5
SPEAKER_00
I remember I was gonna leave a year earlier and then they re like, what do we have lined up?
5
SPEAKER_00
Because it s always easier to get work when you re on SNL.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then had a movie almost every summer and then you leave and luckily,
5
SPEAKER_00
God, I m just shooting me, but that doesn t always happen, so what do you do when you go?
5
SPEAKER_00
And so you just sometimes just stick it out, and there s people there sticking out longer than we used to.
5
SPEAKER_00
I stayed six years, and that was considered a hair long.
5
SPEAKER_00
Sandler, Farley, Rock was three, Sandler, Farley were four or five, no, five.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I stayed one year too long and I was like the fucking guy that went to college that came back to high school, because it was Will and Sherry and I was like, I liked them, but I didn t, I immediately felt like, oh no, all my guys are gone.
5
SPEAKER_00
and I don t know what to do with this, I don t.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so I just did one, Lauren goes, stay, and you can do one segment a week, do whatever you want.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I didn t do sketches, I just did one segment a week of whatever I wanted, and that was like my own kind of update.
5
SPEAKER_00
So that was where the Terry Hatcher thing was, Sean Penn gave me a tattoo.
5
SPEAKER_01
I thought that really worked, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
It was fun, it s fun, but you have one swing to get it right.
5
SPEAKER_00
I went to the World Series, did a field piece,
5
SPEAKER_00
to the Braves with Chipper Jones and some people.
5
SPEAKER_00
So, you know, some of those came out pretty funny, but after that I said, no, I think it s time to boogie and...
5
SPEAKER_00
And then I forgot where this question started.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, I mean, part of it is about how you build the cast, right?
5
SPEAKER_01
And everyone says the same thing.
5
SPEAKER_01
You have to have that one glue person, you know, and then you can argue about who the greatest glue person was.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s probably Phil.
5
SPEAKER_01
Phil Harvey and Ackroyd.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, Ackroyd s in there.
5
SPEAKER_01
I think there was a moment where Sudeikis and Hayter together,
5
SPEAKER_01
We re just literally covering every possible glue thing you would ever want.
5
SPEAKER_01
And Fred Armisen, too.
5
SPEAKER_02
Right.
5
SPEAKER_02
All those guys are superstars.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s always amazing that we get these new peaks after Will Ferrell, and then we asked
5
SPEAKER_02
Kenan Thompson, who s your MVP or whatever? 
5
SPEAKER_02
And he said, the women of the last 20 years.
5
SPEAKER_02
And I do think there were complaints about misogyny in terms of casting, and Nora Dunn had some complaints about it.
5
SPEAKER_02
And boy, starting with, I don t know, Sherry Oteri through Tina, and I ll miss all the name, Maya, and Amy Poehler, and it s just Kristen, and then Kate,
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, but you know what though?
5
SPEAKER_01
I never thought that was totally fair because I always felt like Jan Hooks was one of the best cast members of that entire generation.
5
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Ever.
5
SPEAKER_01
And they re always like, oh, it wasn t until this when, and it was like, man,
5
SPEAKER_01
I mean, to me, she s in the running of one of the best female cast members in the history of the show.
5
SPEAKER_01
I think she s in the top five.
5
SPEAKER_02
Women were not running for president.
5
SPEAKER_02
Sarah Palin came on the scene.
5
SPEAKER_02
And there was Tina Fey meeting that.
5
SPEAKER_02
In the era I was in, it was mostly men politically.
5
SPEAKER_02
There were other figures, but so that sort of evolved as well.
5
SPEAKER_02
Obviously Hillary became a big thing, but yeah, Jan Hooks, I don t know if, I wouldn t call her underrated because everybody knows, but if you really take a deep dive into her work, she was one of those, what can t she do, you know?
5
SPEAKER_00
Bill, who s your starting five if you took out the original cast?
5
SPEAKER_00
They re too good, they don t count.
5
SPEAKER_00
And take us out.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, take us out.
5
SPEAKER_00
He s like, you don t have to worry about that.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I got that.
5
SPEAKER_01
Dana s got a real Mount Rushmore.
5
SPEAKER_00
Dana is very close.
5
SPEAKER_01
He s got a legitimate Mount Rushmore case.
5
SPEAKER_00
He really does.
5
SPEAKER_00
I really have to say, I ll give it to Dana.
5
SPEAKER_00
Okay, take Dane out.
5
SPEAKER_02
I get people who think I m an impressionist, like Rich Little, when I meet him at airports and stuff.
5
SPEAKER_02
You did the best impressionist.
5
SPEAKER_02
And I go, well, but what about Church Lady and Garth?
5
SPEAKER_02
And they go, oh, that s kind of flattering.
5
SPEAKER_02
Okay, go ahead.
5
SPEAKER_01
I think Hartman and Eddie and Farrell, just all the different stuff they could do.
5
SPEAKER_01
They just had it like, it s almost like instead of just naming five, it s almost like who can t be left out.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I think you have to mention those three and you have to mention Dana.
6
SPEAKER_02
You have to mention Dana.
6
SPEAKER_02
I have.
6
SPEAKER_00
And if you re pulling the original, if you re saying that s off limits, that s tough for me because I think Gilda was the best female cast member they ever had.
6
SPEAKER_00
And it s not a popular opinion because it was 100 million years ago and people barely remember it.
6
SPEAKER_00
But man, if you go back and you look at all the stuff she did, she was so good, so talented, so famous that she had her own Broadway show.
6
SPEAKER_00
How many cast members in the history of SNL could be like, you re so good at this, we re going to have a show called Gilda Live and you re going to do all your characters.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s like impossible.
6
SPEAKER_02
I m not going to fight you on Gilda.
6
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
6
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I mean, all these girls, the women today will probably be like, they looked up to Gilda.
6
SPEAKER_02
I m sure like we looked up to different
6
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I looked up to Gilda too.
6
SPEAKER_02
I mean, I would watch her and I didn t realize how hard what she was doing was.
6
SPEAKER_02
I would see characters and just think that was the people.
6
SPEAKER_02
And then later go, oh, they re doing different.
6
SPEAKER_02
I don t know what was going on.
6
SPEAKER_00
I actually thought over the last 20 years, I thought Maya Rudolph was my favorite female cast member.
6
SPEAKER_00
I thought she could do the most.
6
SPEAKER_00
I just thought she was incredibly talented.
6
SPEAKER_00
I know she has like four or five kids.
6
SPEAKER_00
She s definitely gone the family direction a little bit, but I think she was like,
6
SPEAKER_00
I just thought she was one of those, she could literally do anything.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s almost like you could make three or four packs for people like Maya, Amy.
6
SPEAKER_02
You could do top 20, you could do top 50.
6
SPEAKER_01
And then you have Armisen and Sudeikis and Bill Hader, maybe the best.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s a fun game, it s a way to celebrate the show.
6
SPEAKER_01
For me, my thought about Gilda is the charisma and the likability was at the
6
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the highest I d ever seen of any cast member.
6
SPEAKER_01
I mean, there was an adorability thing about her.
6
SPEAKER_01
She s playing a little girl on a bed.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s just herself.
6
SPEAKER_01
She s so committed.
6
SPEAKER_01
There was just this kind of other level of likability or adorability, whatever quotient you want to call it.
6
SPEAKER_00
Who do you have as your number one?
6
SPEAKER_00
Maybe you re too close to this and can t answer, but number one weekend update.
6
SPEAKER_01
Well, I have to bifurcate them in a way, like- Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
Like, Chevy was the original, and so when I m watching that show, you was just, no wonder he s a movie star.
6
SPEAKER_01
He was so great.
6
SPEAKER_02
Such a good vibe to watch, Chevy.
6
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, everything was funny, everything was exciting, it was fun to watch.
6
SPEAKER_01
Dennis did six years solo.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s why I don t, you know, when you had Tina and Jimmy Fallon and stuff, this is a different kind of idea.
6
SPEAKER_01
I do think the current two, Michael and Colin, have a great chemistry.
6
SPEAKER_01
They re getting even better and looser.
6
SPEAKER_01
They re tricking each other.
6
SPEAKER_01
So I think they re really as good as it gets.
6
SPEAKER_01
But for a solo, night after night, I ve never been around... Dennis is just such a brilliant joke writer.
6
SPEAKER_01
And he s a machine.
6
SPEAKER_01
But so I would put him up there as the solo.
6
SPEAKER_01
I mean, Norm only did two years, you know, it s different, right?
6
SPEAKER_01
It was two years.
6
SPEAKER_01
Norm also had a thing you couldn t take your eyes off of him, you know, when he was doing Update, that smile, the dimples.
6
SPEAKER_01
I mean, he was like, he looked like a movie star.
6
SPEAKER_01
He never played into it, but he looked like a full-blown movie star, especially in that era.
6
SPEAKER_01
And then the turns that his jokes would take,
6
SPEAKER_01
I don t know what do you call it, David, that style of his, like, OJ s not doing too well because he kills people, or whatever it was, you know?
6
SPEAKER_01
The pauses, yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
Pauses and like this really bold turn.
6
SPEAKER_01
So he s, it s fun to talk about.
6
SPEAKER_02
Michael Jackson says he ll never get married, mostly because he s gay.
6
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_02
It s like, and then, but they let him do it.
6
SPEAKER_02
And then it s just hard to compete with that because that s just in a world of you weren t canceling people, he would have been canceled.
6
SPEAKER_02
I mean, there s so many things he said, and then he doesn t stand up.
6
SPEAKER_00
Or he was uncancellable.
6
SPEAKER_00
He might ve been uncancellable, yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
He just wouldn t have cared.
6
SPEAKER_02
No, he doesn t care.
6
SPEAKER_02
And even later in his career, he would just do gigs and people come, they know what they re getting.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, can I just talk to that for a second?
6
SPEAKER_01
Because Norm s, he wasn t stoned, but his eyes were all sparkly and he had a grin on his face.
6
SPEAKER_01
I saw him go on The View once with Barbara Walters and everyone, and they re just talking about presidents or something.
6
SPEAKER_01
And he gets into a casual thing, just soft selling it with that grin of his.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, the Clintons, right?
6
SPEAKER_01
I mean, you know, they re good.
6
SPEAKER_01
I think I like them, but I think they killed a guy, right?
6
SPEAKER_01
They kill too many people.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s one problem.
6
SPEAKER_01
And Barbara Walters didn t know who he was.
6
SPEAKER_01
It was just a comedian getting booked.
6
SPEAKER_01
What are you saying?
6
SPEAKER_01
So his soft pedaling, he was almost like a country guy out in the town square or something.
6
SPEAKER_01
So they never landed hard in like a way with Norm.
6
SPEAKER_00
That was also part of his- I thought Dennis was the best.
6
SPEAKER_00
But at Norm, Norm was my favorite.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I don t know, I just felt like, I didn t know if everyone was in on Norm.
6
SPEAKER_00
I didn t know anything.
6
SPEAKER_00
I m living in Boston.
6
SPEAKER_00
We don t have the internet yet.
6
SPEAKER_00
I don t know how popular it is, but I just knew like me and my friends, we were like, this guy s probably getting fired soon.
6
SPEAKER_00
Let s just enjoy this for the 10 to 20 weeks.
6
SPEAKER_01
Did he originate fake news or was that someone else?
6
SPEAKER_01
Did Norm say and as if- Here s the fake news.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I think he did.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, he also, he did the note to self.
6
SPEAKER_00
Another interesting argument that I, people always have the same SNL arguments.
6
SPEAKER_00
Nobody has the, who are the best five people to just pop next to the weekend update guy for four minutes.
6
SPEAKER_00
Oh, for bits.
6
SPEAKER_00
Combo, because that was Belushi.
6
SPEAKER_00
That was one of the things he didn t get enough credit for when he would come in and he would do different things.
6
SPEAKER_00
He would do the one where he would just get super mad and end up with the, but no, and then he d go flying off the stage.
6
SPEAKER_00
I feel like he was the first one that got crazy.
6
SPEAKER_00
Eddie was unbelievable.
6
SPEAKER_00
Eddie became famous.
6
SPEAKER_00
And then Sandler probably hit the hardest of anybody.
6
SPEAKER_00
Cause he could do the characters, he could do the songs.
6
SPEAKER_00
The first time he did the Hanukkah song,
6
SPEAKER_00
You go back and watch that clip, people lose their fucking minds.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s like he s Leonard Skynard singing Freebird.
6
SPEAKER_00
He s a professional singer.
6
SPEAKER_02
It s unreal, along with jokes, which is very rare.
6
SPEAKER_02
And he s cute.
6
SPEAKER_02
And then I remember when he did Crazy Spoonhead, he did all the Halloween things.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
And just commitment.
6
SPEAKER_01
I mean, Adam has that, whatever he has, he s got it.
6
SPEAKER_01
you know, the super, super likable charm.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
And hater, I think is up there too, for just popping on Kate McKinnon was really good at it.
6
SPEAKER_00
Just coming on, playing some crazy character, but it is like its own little skillset.
6
SPEAKER_00
Cause you, it s like, you re a basketball player.
6
SPEAKER_00
You re just coming in and you have to make like five threes in two minutes.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
You did it.
6
SPEAKER_00
I mean, that s how you broke in right.
6
SPEAKER_00
With a sit next to Dennis Miller.
6
SPEAKER_02
I was doing like little Hollywood minutes.
6
SPEAKER_02
Oh, that s what, that s all that was.
6
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I guess I would come in and do those.
6
SPEAKER_02
But even if I did anything, I talked about going to concerts or whatever, you re sitting on a desk in the dark and you re like, and you know, it s coming to you, which joke, and then you slide in and the cue cards, they point and they go like, you re up after this one.
6
SPEAKER_02
And you re like, because you re in the dark and no one s really looking at you and you slide over and then there s 20 million people, like they see you.
6
SPEAKER_02
And even when you walk by, you go, I can just run in front of that camera right now.
6
SPEAKER_02
I guess that s a trust issue.
6
SPEAKER_01
It is like a rodeo thing, because I remember one time, you re on deck, and you re in the darkness, and the show s all lit up, and there s laughs and
6
SPEAKER_01
And I think it was Chris Rock was performing or something.
6
SPEAKER_01
So I see his chair rolls out and he does his thing, then I m in the shoot.
6
SPEAKER_01
And it is, you have to go from just darkness and crew guys around you to being on, you know?
6
SPEAKER_02
So there s kind of- But Dana, what about when you do, you do a good one and it kills, and then you kind of scoot yourself and then Piscopo, I mean, Joe Dixo pulls you off or whoever.
6
SPEAKER_01
Joe Dixo.
6
SPEAKER_02
And then you re in the dark and you re just walking behind like a Gap Girl set and no one s even looking at you and you re like, your adrenaline s going, but the show s still going over here.
6
SPEAKER_02
And you sort of walk back to the underneath to maybe snag a few compliments from Lauren and the producers watching.
6
SPEAKER_01
Well, you try to look at some of the audience members and they avoid eye contact.
6
SPEAKER_02
And then you go back where it s lit by your dressing room to change and you re like, anybody?
6
SPEAKER_02
Did it go good?
6
SPEAKER_02
Did it go bad?
6
SPEAKER_00
Another good category is,
6
SPEAKER_00
the Mount Rushmore or whatever of people who weren t even the focal point of the sketch, but somehow were still the funniest person in the sketch, which is like, to me, Chris Farley s number one.
6
SPEAKER_00
He s in the dysfunctional family feud.
6
SPEAKER_00
He s just like the loser kid who Harvard s been mean to.
6
SPEAKER_00
And he s probably like the fifth most important, but every single thing he does in the thing is hilarious.
6
SPEAKER_02
And then at the end, he runs out and starts kicking to the left and right.
6
SPEAKER_02
I just saw that the other day.
6
SPEAKER_02
I go, what a moron.
6
SPEAKER_02
I remember walking at rehearsal.
6
SPEAKER_02
I go, you re not
7
SPEAKER_02
really doing then? 
7
SPEAKER_02
He goes, oh yeah.
7
SPEAKER_02
You were on the other side.
7
SPEAKER_02
You were in the normal family.
7
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, watch him.
7
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I think we were the normal family, right?
7
SPEAKER_00
Chris was, there was so much intellect behind all that.
7
SPEAKER_00
You knew him much better than I did, David, but his rhythms and sounds and moves that he would, you know,
7
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it just, they were so concise and you could not not laugh.
7
SPEAKER_00
Like when he would do his kind of fake laugh, like he would turn into a hog, just around the office.
7
SPEAKER_00
You re like, this is irresistibly funny.
7
SPEAKER_00
But yeah, your eye went to him, anything he was in.
7
SPEAKER_00
I once did Ross Perot riding him like he was a piggy.
7
SPEAKER_00
Come on, piggy boy, let s go, piggy boy.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I was going, Chris, is this okay with you?
7
SPEAKER_00
And he goes, oh yeah, do whatever you want, you know, whipping and stuff.
7
SPEAKER_02
I know other people get mad that you can t do that to Chris.
7
SPEAKER_00
No, Chris wasn t mad.
7
SPEAKER_02
He was like, no, no, do it.
7
SPEAKER_02
I ll do whatever you want.
7
SPEAKER_02
I don t care.
7
SPEAKER_02
I think it s funny.
7
SPEAKER_02
He would never kill a bit.
7
SPEAKER_01
So we re headed for the 50th year next year.
7
SPEAKER_01
I know.
7
SPEAKER_01
Which I think is really good for your podcast because the fact that the show s been around for a half century is... What do they do, Bill?
7
SPEAKER_00
What is this, long leave?
7
SPEAKER_00
Who takes over?
7
SPEAKER_00
It s stunning and bizarre.
7
SPEAKER_00
I can t even fathom it.
7
SPEAKER_01
50th.
7
SPEAKER_01
I m guessing Lauren s going to leave.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I m guessing somebody major has to take over the show.
7
SPEAKER_01
Somebody with real DNA.
7
SPEAKER_01
So when NBC would approve, everyone would have to approve.
7
SPEAKER_01
I just feel like it s Tina or it s Seth if he wants to do it.
7
SPEAKER_01
And it s got to be somebody on that level who has that kind of chops.
7
SPEAKER_01
They re not just like, hey, we hired Bob.
7
SPEAKER_01
He s been a huge fan of the show.
7
SPEAKER_01
He ll be taking over for Lorne Michaels.
7
SPEAKER_01
see that happening.
7
SPEAKER_01
I feel like the person s got to have DNA.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, we brought them over to Hallmark.
7
SPEAKER_00
And they would be warned ahead of time that half the time you re miserable.
7
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s a tough show.
7
SPEAKER_00
Not every show crushes.
7
SPEAKER_00
There were just a lot of shows in my era where the party s a little grim.
7
SPEAKER_00
didn t really land it that night, because that s why there s no other sketch shows, because the ratio of success to failure in a quick hit sketch.
7
SPEAKER_00
But I do think the fact that it s live, they tried to take that away in the 90s.
7
SPEAKER_00
They said, let s make it taped, and we got to change the theme, and Lorne, to his credit, always resisted.
7
SPEAKER_00
Somehow he knew about branding before maybe that was become such a thing people talk about.
7
SPEAKER_00
Stuck with that theme, everything s familiar, and that s why we can interview cast members.
7
SPEAKER_00
We talked to Mikey Day yesterday.
7
SPEAKER_00
He s on today, and we know everything.
7
SPEAKER_00
We told him that.
7
SPEAKER_00
We know the offices you re in.
7
SPEAKER_00
We know Lauren s there.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s still
7
SPEAKER_00
But Lorne might just stay a few more years.
7
SPEAKER_00
I don t know.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
Who knows?
7
SPEAKER_01
Like the Patriots are going through this now.
7
SPEAKER_01
Bill Belichick just left and they hired a new coach and he s got a new coaching staff.
7
SPEAKER_01
And there s been a lot of stories about, whoa, things are so different.
7
SPEAKER_01
And, oh, the coach talked to the media today and, oh my God, they re changing this part of the office and it s going to be this now.
7
SPEAKER_01
And everybody s like, because Belichick was there for 20 plus years.
7
SPEAKER_01
And just any kind of change feels like the most substantial change ever.
7
SPEAKER_01
So I can t even imagine with S&L if somebody else came in and was like, hey, I thought of an idea.
7
SPEAKER_01
We re going to merge two offices and make it one big.
7
SPEAKER_01
People are like, what?
7
SPEAKER_01
You can t do that.
7
SPEAKER_01
that way for 50 years.
7
SPEAKER_01
I don t know how you do that.
7
SPEAKER_00
Maybe Tina and Seth could make one, Lorne, I don t know.
7
SPEAKER_00
Lorne is very good politically with the new regime as Universal, whoever he is, or whoever the head of the network, he s really good at doing that.
7
SPEAKER_00
How do you navigate all these cast members
7
SPEAKER_02
um kind of game-a-throning each other even even if they love each other it s still just your friend gets so i don t know it s really hard and lauren has all the celebrities too so lauren can call someone and say maybe steve martin would be good in this let s call him yeah but that s the thing that has to be able to be dialed in
7
SPEAKER_01
The new iteration of the show I don t feel like should be celebrity dependent.
7
SPEAKER_01
I would go back to what the roots of the show were and go to cast members and a guest host, but not be celebrity dependent.
7
SPEAKER_01
Because celebrity and pop culture is part of what they should be kind of skewering.
7
SPEAKER_00
I felt that.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and we talked about it earlier yesterday when the podcast started a while back.
7
SPEAKER_00
But yeah, when a celebrity would come in...
7
SPEAKER_00
And then in my era, someone from the cast would do that impression.
7
SPEAKER_00
I just thought it was dispiriting for the cast.
7
SPEAKER_00
I m going to say it, the secret sauce, one of them is watching a young performer come in, male, female, watching them trundle along and then become a star.
7
SPEAKER_00
In real time, you re experiencing it with them.
7
SPEAKER_00
And that is still the magic elixir of an unknown person being thrown out there.
7
SPEAKER_02
And you want those impressions to have some bite, and you want to have some edge to it.
7
SPEAKER_02
And it s just hard if they re a friend of the show, friend of the show, and so you got to stay away from some people.
7
SPEAKER_02
You can t do this politically.
7
SPEAKER_01
You could argue they should be having so much fun with Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, right?
7
SPEAKER_01
That should be... Yeah, I m sure they won t.
7
SPEAKER_01
Think about if those people existed in the late 70s or in the late 80s.
7
SPEAKER_01
Sure.
7
SPEAKER_01
That would have been fodder for the show every week, but now I feel like they d be a little afraid because, oh no, she won t want to come back on if we make fun of her.
7
SPEAKER_01
The other piece of it is, why is the show live?
7
SPEAKER_01
at this point, if there s no danger that comes with being live?
7
SPEAKER_01
Because the whole reason they had the show in the first place was this is live, anything can happen.
7
SPEAKER_01
Any line might get crossed, somebody might swear accidentally, all these crazy things could happen.
7
SPEAKER_01
Now it s like a safe live, which I don t, at this point, I don t know why you just wouldn t tape the show at eight o clock and air it at 1130.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s not like, oh my God, what s gonna happen?
7
SPEAKER_01
Do you feel like anyone feels that way anymore?
7
SPEAKER_02
Maybe.
7
SPEAKER_02
It would be better.
7
SPEAKER_02
I mean, when you can have two takes on something like on a movie, you re definitely better.
7
SPEAKER_02
Some sketches, you come off on the wrong foot and you re like, oh my God, we came in wrong and it s just not clicking.
7
SPEAKER_00
You can t save it.
7
SPEAKER_02
I want to step back and go, let me just come in again.
7
SPEAKER_02
And then you re like, it s too late.
7
SPEAKER_02
It s not, it s not working.
7
SPEAKER_00
When something, like when Ross Perot s running mate, Admiral Stockdale, came out and he was kind of goofy, and then like three days later, Phil s doing that, and I m doing Perot, and we have the car, and that was just, what the show does best, better than anyone, when it happens, is the zeitgeist is all there, but now you ve got to compete with things like this, everything, and then you hit it, and it s this relief valve,
7
SPEAKER_00
And that s when the show is magic.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I think in the modern era, with all the different people doing different kind of comedy takes all the time, it is more difficult, but that s still, when it happens, it s great.
7
SPEAKER_01
Well, it s going to be interesting when Shane hosts at the end of this month.
7
SPEAKER_01
Everyone knows the backstory of it.
7
SPEAKER_00
Why do you think so, Bill?
7
SPEAKER_00
What do you think?
7
SPEAKER_01
Because I think there s going to be real danger, and it s like, holy shit, I don t know what s going to happen.
7
SPEAKER_01
And that s a show I want to watch live.
7
SPEAKER_01
That s more about him than the show.
7
SPEAKER_01
I also think he s one of the funniest people working right now.
7
SPEAKER_00
We mentioned that when we talked just casually that time.
7
SPEAKER_00
He s the guy right now.
7
SPEAKER_00
His take, you just want to listen to him.
7
SPEAKER_00
Going back to the show and how he got fired, that s an example of a live show where you want to see it.
7
SPEAKER_00
How are they gonna handle it, the show, and how is Shane gonna handle it?
7
SPEAKER_00
So I m sure they re thinking about different things, but usually when the show s at its best, it s gonna go right at it.
7
SPEAKER_00
You know, like maybe him and Bowen Yang will be in a rowboat somewhere, I don t know, but they usually go right at it.
7
SPEAKER_00
Right.
7
SPEAKER_00
You know?
7
SPEAKER_02
Bill, I have a, don t get mad, I have a sports question.
7
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, let s go.
7
SPEAKER_02
Don t get mad, I know your temper.
7
SPEAKER_02
My temper.
7
SPEAKER_02
Because people ask me this, I m kidding, he doesn t have a temper.
7
SPEAKER_02
Is football allowed to be rigged?
7
SPEAKER_02
I know people say is football rigged, but then they also say it s entertainment or NBA.
7
SPEAKER_02
Is that stuff allowed to fudge and twist because it s an entertainment company instead of just sports?
7
SPEAKER_02
I don t really get that.
7
SPEAKER_01
Are you saying could the Superbowl have been scripted because Kansas City won and they won in overtime and Taylor Swift and her boyfriend kissed after the game?
7
SPEAKER_02
That s part of it and how beneficial that is.
7
SPEAKER_02
Or even I saw a thing with Shaquille, I ve seen basketball players sometimes online saying, oh yeah, we re told the finals will be this long and who wins.
7
SPEAKER_02
And Shaq saying when he got
7
SPEAKER_02
drafted, David Stern said to him, where do you want to play, hot or cold?
7
SPEAKER_02
And he said, I want to play somewhere hot.
7
SPEAKER_02
And he goes, okay.
7
SPEAKER_02
And then the day of the draft, he goes, it ll be Orlando.
7
SPEAKER_02
And then he s saying this and he goes- Yeah, that s a famous story.
7
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
I mean, that s so weird.
7
SPEAKER_02
I never heard that story.
7
SPEAKER_02
And I go, is that, so are the ping pong balls really bouncing around or is it, you know, I don t know.
7
SPEAKER_02
It makes me,
7
SPEAKER_02
Think all this stuff, and then the defense is we re an entertainment company.
7
SPEAKER_02
We don t have to play exactly by the rules, and you go, oh, like a movie.
7
SPEAKER_02
We have to make it fun to watch.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I don t think.
8
SPEAKER_00
I think they can rig the games, but I used to write about this all the time.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s the same thing like how you guys would do impressions of people.
8
SPEAKER_00
I would always play up certain things and have fun with it.
8
SPEAKER_00
One of them was that David Stern, the old NBA commissioner, was basically Vito Corleone and rigging all this stuff.
8
SPEAKER_00
There was always this thing about when Patrick Ewing went to the Knicks.
8
SPEAKER_00
It was the first time they ve read the lottery.
8
SPEAKER_00
There are seven envelopes and he s reaching down and he grabs each one.
8
SPEAKER_00
And if you look briefly for like a split, split second, it looked like the next one had a little bit of a crease on one of the sides.
8
SPEAKER_00
Then there was a theory that they had frozen the envelope, so as he s feeling the envelope that was frozen, that was the one he picked.
8
SPEAKER_00
That s great.
8
SPEAKER_00
And it was like, whatever, they just put it in a carbon whatever, so it was freezing cold when he touched it, so he knew that was the one.
8
SPEAKER_00
But that was always a recurring bit about him.
8
SPEAKER_00
Same thing when Jordan got...
8
SPEAKER_00
suspend or when Jordan retired, there was always a thing.
8
SPEAKER_00
Oh no, actually Jordan got suspended for a year.
8
SPEAKER_00
The Shaq thing, that was always a story.
8
SPEAKER_00
There was stuff they did in the late 90s, early 2000s where
8
SPEAKER_00
the perfect team for the league and the ratings always seem to win.
8
SPEAKER_00
And that like most famously, it was a Philly versus Milwaukee, Allen Iverson.
8
SPEAKER_00
They re trying to get him into the finals of 2001 playing Milwaukee and Philly shot like a hundred more free throws than Milwaukee in the series.
8
SPEAKER_00
There was the Kings Lakers game, which I m sure you guys remember 2002, where if the Kings win game six, they win the series.
8
SPEAKER_00
Everyone on the Kings fouled out.
8
SPEAKER_00
So you see stuff like that.
8
SPEAKER_00
I do think they can kind of nudge the officials to say, Hey man, we don t like how, you know, Shaq is being defended when they do this, you got to call it.
8
SPEAKER_00
And then they start calling it early.
8
SPEAKER_00
And the other team s like, wait, we were doing that last game.
8
SPEAKER_00
That s a foul now.
8
SPEAKER_00
Um, but yeah, there s been some fun conspiracy stuff.
8
SPEAKER_03
Players that are spend their whole life playing as hard as they can to get where they re, it s just hardest to buy.
8
SPEAKER_03
You re going to tell players not to play hard, but then you see like, Oh,
8
SPEAKER_03
I, you watch all these, like, which I would never see a lot of chiefs, uh, no holding calls.
8
SPEAKER_03
And then they just show over and over holding and you go, I mean, they, the refs can t see everywhere, but sometimes if they want to, they can always find a hold somewhere because it s kind of.
8
SPEAKER_00
I mean, that s the Patriots going 19 and O and the helmet catch.
8
SPEAKER_00
Where if you watch the helmet catch, like four guys are holding for Eli because he buys like an extra four, four seconds and just holding all over the people are just getting mauled and the refs are like, cool.
8
SPEAKER_00
And that was the year we had spy gate for the Patriots.
8
SPEAKER_00
And you know, the, the commissioner s office was against them.
8
SPEAKER_00
So the Patriots fans have always felt like that game was.
8
SPEAKER_02
What s the penalty rate per game right now?
8
SPEAKER_02
Because it seems like when I watched the NFL, there s an incredible play.
8
SPEAKER_02
And then I immediately go looking for the flag.
8
SPEAKER_02
Oh, flag!
8
SPEAKER_02
The best play I ve ever seen.
8
SPEAKER_02
So I do think if you re going to rig professional sports and you want to kind of nudge it, that would be your way to do it without getting caught.
8
SPEAKER_00
That was when sports gambling really took off the last 15 years.
8
SPEAKER_00
One of the first edges the best gamblers had was the referee tendencies.
8
SPEAKER_00
And this was an NBA and NFL specifically where it was like, oh, this team, they call more penalties and more penalties means this will happen.
8
SPEAKER_00
And this is the same thing with NBA.
8
SPEAKER_00
If somebody is more foul happy, then the over is going to hit more.
8
SPEAKER_00
And now all that stuff s kind of on the internet and people know it, but when they assign certain refs to certain playoff games,
8
SPEAKER_00
Then people are like, oh, of course they assign that ref.
8
SPEAKER_00
He always calls it for the road team.
8
SPEAKER_00
So that stuff s out there.
8
SPEAKER_00
I think it s fun.
8
SPEAKER_00
Some people take it very seriously.
8
SPEAKER_03
Well, when I m losing millions every week on DraftKings, I sort of think about it.
8
SPEAKER_03
How d you do in the playoffs, Spade?
8
SPEAKER_03
I do DraftKings, but I also do a fan duel.
8
SPEAKER_03
I get with some guys and do like fantasy or guillotine leagues or weird stuff like that just to keep the fun going up until the end.
8
SPEAKER_03
And I do okay in those, I m not that great.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s just some, it s a good time killer.
8
SPEAKER_00
I m in the fantasy league with Jimmy s cousin and Jon Hamm and all those people where it s 11 people in the league, but the winner gets to vote somebody out of the draft the next year, which I think is the single best rule.
8
SPEAKER_00
So we have to show up, we have to show up.
8
SPEAKER_00
And then the guy who won s like, all right, Dana, I m sorry, you re out.
8
SPEAKER_00
And you just have to get your stuff and leave.
8
SPEAKER_00
And that s it, we don t see you for a year.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s great.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s really, really, it gets super bitter.
8
SPEAKER_03
And you keep going lower and lower with people or do you add a person?
8
SPEAKER_00
No, it s the same 11, but we have 10 people in the league every year plus the guy who got voted out.
8
SPEAKER_00
Oh, so it s even.
8
SPEAKER_00
So they get to come back a year later.
8
SPEAKER_00
They can t get voted out, but then somebody else gets voted out.
8
SPEAKER_03
It has to be even Dana, you don t understand.
8
SPEAKER_02
I m gonna ask you guys a question.
8
SPEAKER_02
I mean, I felt beat up after I watched the Superbowl.
8
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_02
I don t think I ve ever gotten that beat up.
8
SPEAKER_02
I m from Bay Area, so I m a Niner fan, but I liked the Chiefs too.
8
SPEAKER_02
I m not fanatical, but I was rooting for them.
8
SPEAKER_02
But there was some frustration and penalties and the way it ended, I was like, ah.
8
SPEAKER_02
It wasn t satisfying.
8
SPEAKER_02
If you re a Chiefs fan, I guess it was, but it was like that new fifth quarter.
8
SPEAKER_02
I wasn t paying attention to that.
8
SPEAKER_02
I d never been in the Super Bowl.
8
SPEAKER_02
I wasn t briefed either.
8
SPEAKER_02
That was new rules for the overtime.
8
SPEAKER_00
You were confused.
8
SPEAKER_00
It was one of those things people wrote about it.
8
SPEAKER_00
But nobody actually thought it was going to happen.
8
SPEAKER_00
So then when it was happening, there was so much strategy to it that none of us had really totally considered.
8
SPEAKER_00
And the Niners ended up choosing to go first.
8
SPEAKER_00
But I was saying this week, to me, it s like going second was such an advantage because you become the blackjack dealer.
8
SPEAKER_00
So the other guy s going first, you know, exactly what they re going to do.
8
SPEAKER_00
And then you can decide what you need to do to match whatever they did is the advantage.
8
SPEAKER_00
But I don t think we realized that until we watched it.
8
SPEAKER_03
Cause if you get a touchdown, you re not just going for two, probably because you could win with a touchdown with an extra point.
8
SPEAKER_00
The chief said that they said that they were scoring, they were getting into.
8
SPEAKER_00
They were gonna try to go for the game.
8
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
8
SPEAKER_02
I told my wife it was over.
8
SPEAKER_02
I said, oh no, Mahomes got the ball.
8
SPEAKER_02
They re gonna do four downs.
8
SPEAKER_03
They moved back so fucking easily when they came back.
8
SPEAKER_02
I was like, oh no.
8
SPEAKER_02
It s gonna be prevent defense.
8
SPEAKER_02
It was just so predictable when one team is playing three downs punt or they did get the field goal and the other team is gonna go four mentally to move the ball.
8
SPEAKER_00
Well, and then there s this inevitability with them, which I think all the best athletes have.
8
SPEAKER_00
where when the door is open like that, you re like, oh, here we go.
8
SPEAKER_00
Do you think he could host SNL, Patrick Mahomes?
8
SPEAKER_00
He s kind of quirky.
8
SPEAKER_01
I think I could host it.
8
SPEAKER_01
We would do the game we thought we d do.
8
SPEAKER_02
I get a little stutter.
8
SPEAKER_02
That was pretty good.
8
SPEAKER_02
Oh, I like that.
8
SPEAKER_02
Oh, I m sure everybody does it on, you know.
8
SPEAKER_00
No, that was, I haven t heard a lot of Mahomes.
8
SPEAKER_02
That was good.
8
SPEAKER_01
It sort of is like Pee Wee Herman.
8
SPEAKER_02
Now I m doing Bobcat Goldthwait, but that s okay.
8
SPEAKER_02
Bobcat Goldthwait as Pat Mahomes.
8
SPEAKER_02
As Pat Mahomes.
8
SPEAKER_02
But yeah, he s a supernatural talent, a word I like to use a lot.
8
SPEAKER_02
He can host for sure.
8
SPEAKER_00
You asked me about athlete host.
8
SPEAKER_00
I thought Kelsey was actually really good last year or two years ago whenever he did it.
8
SPEAKER_00
I thought he was solid.
8
SPEAKER_00
I think he d be an actor.
8
SPEAKER_02
He s with CAA.
8
SPEAKER_02
There s a master plan.
8
SPEAKER_02
I love it.
8
SPEAKER_02
It s just to make him into an international movie star.
8
SPEAKER_02
And he probably has the looks and the charisma to do that.
8
SPEAKER_02
The Rock did it and was open about it.
8
SPEAKER_00
I m ready for action stars again.
8
SPEAKER_00
I feel like we re in such a weird spot.
8
SPEAKER_00
The era I grew up with
8
SPEAKER_00
where we had Arnold and we had Sly.
8
SPEAKER_00
Then Van Damme showed up and Seagal and all these dudes.
8
SPEAKER_00
There was a new one every year and we had this embarrassment of riches.
8
SPEAKER_00
Carl Weathers had a chance.
8
SPEAKER_00
Had a chance.
8
SPEAKER_00
And now it s all these Jason Statham guys.
8
SPEAKER_00
They know how to do this choreographed kung fu stuff.
8
SPEAKER_00
I don t know, I miss the days of just like these big dudes that we can kind of make fun of on a show like SNL.
8
SPEAKER_03
I liked Seagal, I thought he was great.
8
SPEAKER_03
Seagal, his first five were great.
8
SPEAKER_03
Oh yeah, he s great.
8
SPEAKER_00
He was a legendary bad host though.
8
SPEAKER_02
Anybody seen Richie?
8
SPEAKER_02
In the pool hall scene, one of the great scenes in the movie.
8
SPEAKER_02
Anybody seen Richie?
8
SPEAKER_02
Anybody?
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, he always played Italian dudes.
8
SPEAKER_00
He played like Nico Peretti and people like that.
8
SPEAKER_03
I didn t even know what that meant when I was a kid.
8
SPEAKER_03
I just kept going, you better kick his fucking ass, dude.
8
SPEAKER_03
And there s like eight guys and he walks in and starts being a dick.
8
SPEAKER_03
And I go, once in my life, I just want to be this guy.
8
SPEAKER_03
Just go up to a bunch of guys that are looking at me and go, the fuck are you looking at?
8
SPEAKER_03
Just for once.
8
SPEAKER_03
And then beat the shit out of all of them.
8
SPEAKER_02
He was Steven Seagal when he hosted the show.
8
SPEAKER_02
As far as just this alpha male presence and stuff.
8
SPEAKER_02
and talking about how he could choke anyone out or beat anyone up.
8
SPEAKER_02
He was the perfect guy.
8
SPEAKER_00
He was the legendary reviled host though from your generation, right?
8
SPEAKER_00
Wasn t he the least favorite?
8
SPEAKER_02
There s others I wouldn t mention.
8
SPEAKER_02
I liked him.
8
SPEAKER_00
I did too.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s hard to act tough when you ask for a scrunchie.
9
SPEAKER_02
I found it fascinating.
9
SPEAKER_02
You d go by the dressing room during the week and you d hear a woman in a state of pleasure.
9
SPEAKER_02
It was just really interesting.
9
SPEAKER_02
Oh my God.
9
SPEAKER_02
What a lover that guy was.
9
SPEAKER_02
I guess so.
9
SPEAKER_02
But he was just fun to talk to.
9
SPEAKER_02
What a trip.
9
SPEAKER_02
But he was a little offended by Hans and Franz.
9
SPEAKER_02
We had to rewrite it because he thought we were making fun of him in the read-through and then we rewrote it so that
9
SPEAKER_02
You could beat up Arnold.
9
SPEAKER_02
You re the only one who could beat up Arnold.
9
SPEAKER_02
But I like the guy.
9
SPEAKER_02
I don t know.
9
SPEAKER_01
I like him.
9
SPEAKER_01
There s worse hosts, but you can t really name everybody.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s just too rude to name them.
9
SPEAKER_01
No one s going to do that.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that becomes aggregated.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s like the Daily Mail.
9
SPEAKER_00
David Spade said so-and-so is the most reviled host.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, they quote it for the rest of your life.
9
SPEAKER_02
But Marcy Klein told us that she was the wrangler of the hosts over the years and producer.
9
SPEAKER_02
Hi, Marcy.
9
SPEAKER_02
And Lauren would say, so-and-so was in their dressing room, they re not coming out.
9
SPEAKER_02
So she would have to go in there and they d be crying, and the show s on in four minutes, or just having a panic attack.
9
SPEAKER_02
And so, yeah, you kind of have some empathy for the hosts.
9
SPEAKER_02
They re doing something that s impossible.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
You know, one of the things, cause I loved all the books.
9
SPEAKER_00
Like I read, there s this great book that came out.
9
SPEAKER_00
I m going to say mid eighties though.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s called, I think live from Saturday night or something like that, but it s about the first 10 years of the show.
9
SPEAKER_00
And it was one of my favorite books.
9
SPEAKER_00
And then the oral histories came out with Jim Miller and shales and a bunch of other stuff.
9
SPEAKER_00
But you d read the history of the show and these things that happen, never expecting YouTube s coming.
9
SPEAKER_00
and all these other things where you could actually just go back and watch.
9
SPEAKER_00
So there was always that legendary story of Belushi, when he was so fucked up, he couldn t go, basically couldn t start.
9
SPEAKER_00
It was, I think, when Kate Jackson hosted.
9
SPEAKER_00
And they were like, it s 50-50 whether he... He could die in the air if you put him on more and more.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s like, I ll take those chances.
9
SPEAKER_00
And puts him on and he s in the first sketch.
9
SPEAKER_00
So I ve always read that story.
9
SPEAKER_00
And then you watch the clip and it s like,
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, Belushi seems fine.
9
SPEAKER_00
He s fine.
9
SPEAKER_00
He s a tiny bit green, but it doesn t seem like he s gonna die during this sketch.
9
SPEAKER_01
It sounds better, yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so sometimes the video doesn t match up whatever the story was.
9
SPEAKER_01
The folklore, yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
Dana, we gotta wrap up Bill, but anything else you have something good for Bill?
9
SPEAKER_01
It can be sports, it doesn t have to be, it can be anything.
9
SPEAKER_02
Well, I love sport.
9
SPEAKER_02
Well, I, you know, I m a big, uh, like a lot of people now, but I, I was with the warriors mentally with Nate Thurman and Rick Barry.
9
SPEAKER_02
And, uh, so I ve always been a fan of the warriors.
9
SPEAKER_02
And of course this era was Steph is, is amazing.
9
SPEAKER_02
I guess the rumor today they re trying to get, which they re not going to get LeBron, are they?
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it, it didn t happen to trade deadline was last week and, and then it mysteriously got leaked today that the words tried to trade for LeBron and the Lakers said no.
9
SPEAKER_00
And LeBron didn t want to go there.
9
SPEAKER_00
So obviously the Lakers are leaking this because the words are playing better.
9
SPEAKER_00
and they have good chemistry, and it s like, oh, actually, they were trying to trade a bunch of you for LeBron.
9
SPEAKER_00
Get in their heads.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so it felt, I thought a little diabolical.
9
SPEAKER_00
Get Bronny.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, oh, they were trying to get LeBron, but we said no.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s like, all right, maybe.
9
SPEAKER_01
Don t you have to get the kid to get Bronny, I mean, get Bronny to get LeBron?
9
SPEAKER_00
Well, the kids had a rough freshman year in college.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
So I m not, I m not sure he s hopping into the draft.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
It s a tough one.
9
SPEAKER_00
He s like five points a game at USC.
9
SPEAKER_00
So.
9
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
9
SPEAKER_02
This is my last question.
9
SPEAKER_02
Cause I know you re a movie fanatic as well.
9
SPEAKER_02
Cause you do the re rewatches.
9
SPEAKER_02
Um, I don t like to forget top 10, whatever movies that you can revisit throughout your life.
9
SPEAKER_02
Oh yeah.
9
SPEAKER_02
I see The Godfather every year, pretty much.
9
SPEAKER_02
There s ones that you just see a lot of.
9
SPEAKER_00
For me, Heat was the movie that started the rewatchables because we did, on my podcast, it was the 20th anniversary.
9
SPEAKER_00
And me and my friend Chris Ryan were just like, let s just do a podcast about heat.
9
SPEAKER_00
Fuck it.
9
SPEAKER_00
People loved it.
9
SPEAKER_00
So we created the Rewatchables.
9
SPEAKER_02
What do you want to do?
9
SPEAKER_00
That was the first time Pacino went full scream, which is amazing.
9
SPEAKER_02
Pacino is crazy in that movie.
9
SPEAKER_00
Pacino has explained it after that he s playing the character like the guys on cocaine.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
And it s like, yeah, we know we saw heat.
9
SPEAKER_00
We, we, we know that s what you re doing.
9
SPEAKER_00
She s got a great ass, but he, he s up there.
9
SPEAKER_00
Um, go ahead.
9
SPEAKER_00
And then, uh, boogie nights, the two godfathers are on all the time now because
9
SPEAKER_00
I think Showtime has just stripped all their library except for the Godfathers, and they re on constantly.
9
SPEAKER_00
Amazing.
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I just feel like I can dive in at any time to those.
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Shawshank s a good one, Pulp Fiction.
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I mean, there s certain ones that just- Any science fiction in there?
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Not for me personally, but for a lot of people.
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I mean, there s a ton of comedies.
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I mean, you know, Tommy Boy, I m not just saying this because Spade s on this, but Tommy Boy has become... The good thing about, especially when you get older and you have young kids and you can start showing them the comedies, it s gotta be one of the first six or seven, because I don t know how old a kid has to be to understand Farley was one of the funniest people of all time and how funny that movie is, but it s probably like age four.
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where you can, like Fat Guy in a Little Coat, it might even be H3, but you can just indoctrinate them in that.
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So there s a bunch of the rewatchable.
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What about me in the window watching The Girl at the Pool?
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Are we watching that part?
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Maybe like fast forward.
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Is that cut out of, I think that s cut out on TV.
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So there s, even Joe Dirt, there s stuff that s cut out and I never know it.
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And then I go, so there s people that are seeing these movies with a couple of parts missing,
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because it s so rough for TV.
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And I m like, they don t even know those extra parts.
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I don t know.
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That s a bummer.
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One of the cool things now is like with YouTube and all these different places, like, you know, Dana show from the mid nineties.
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Like, I don t know, 20 of those sketches are on YouTube now.
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That was one of those things where if you love that show and then it gets canceled and it s gone.
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There s no, unless you taped it on your VHS, it s gone.
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It s history.
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And now kind of all that stuff has a second life, like shows like Freaks and Geeks.
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You can dive in that.
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Larry Sanders, which Shanley was always famously never wanted it on DVD.
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He was always very prickly about it.
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And now every episode s on the Max app.
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It s great.
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Nothing goes away now.
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We re all in cyber bits.
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We re next to Godfather, next to everything else.
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It s just all there.
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Could Airplane be made today?
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Yeah.
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I think the problematic ones, Animal House,
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Yeah.
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If you re talking about, is this movie canceled now?
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Which we talk about a lot on the rewatchables, like Animal House, Revenge of the Nerds, Porky s.
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I don t know how Porky s happens.
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A lot of stuff with women, yeah.
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I don t know how Porky s happened the first time.
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Yeah, I don t even know how you explain it now, much less in 83.
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Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
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Yeah, but that s a good movie though.
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At least it s well-written.
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Sean Penn is so good in that.
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Yeah.
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But yeah, some of the 70s, 80s, I think Airplane s fine though.
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I just think a really silly movie right now, cause the country s in such a bad mood, if that s just joke permitted, almost just physical gags would be a nice look.
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Yeah, it s weird that the airplane naked gun type of movie, which I was, I mean, that s what we all grew up with.
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It just kind of is done.
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And then they would do the top secret and they would do the, the ripoff versions of those kinds of movies.
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But it was like 20 years of them.
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Then they made the scary movie franchise.
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Now nobody does any of those.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Never know.
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I don t know.
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That s my final question.
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Thank you, Bill.
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Bill, it s been a pleasure.
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I appreciate you hanging out with us.
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This was really fun.
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I forgot I was on a podcast or even even hosting a podcast.
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So thank you.
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This was fantastic.
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I love you guys.
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You guys get a fantastic podcast.
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This has been a presentation of Odyssey.
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Please follow, subscribe, leave a like, a review, all this stuff.
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Smash that button, whatever it is, wherever you get your podcasts.
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Fly on the Wall is executive produced by Dana Carvey and David Spade, Jenna Weiss, Berman of Odyssey, Charlie Finan of Brillstein Entertainment, and Heather Santoro.
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The show s lead producer is Greg Holtzman.