Factually! with Adam Conover - How The Naked Gun Saved Comedy

Episode Date: August 27, 2025

The world is getting less funny. Not just out there in the geopolitical hellscape of every day life, but at the movie theater as well. While comedy films once dominated the box office, in recent years there’s been a sharp drop-off in theatrical comedies. The communal experience of sitting in a room with people and sharing one of the most fundamental human emotions has quietly evaporated, and been replaced by vague joke-shaped gestures at humor in your average Marvel movie. That all might be about to change thanks to the whopping success of the new Naked Gun movie. The brilliantly-stupid, unabashed comedy is a canary in the coal mine, proving that audiences still want to get together and laugh in a dark room together. This week, Adam talks with The Naked Gun writers, Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, about movies, comedy, and comedy movies. SUPPORT THE SHOW ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/adamconoverSEE ADAM ON TOUR: https://www.adamconover.net/tourdates/SUBSCRIBE to and RATE Factually! on:» Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/factually-with-adam-conover/id1463460577» Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0fK8WJw4ffMc2NWydBlDyJAbout Headgum: Headgum is an LA & NY-based podcast network creating premium podcasts with the funniest, most engaging voices in comedy to achieve one goal: Making our audience and ourselves laugh. Listen to our shows at https://www.headgum.com.» SUBSCRIBE to Headgum: https://www.youtube.com/c/HeadGum?sub_confirmation=1» FOLLOW us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/headgum» FOLLOW us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/headgum/» FOLLOW us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headgum» Advertise on Factually! via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a headgum podcast. I don't know the truth. I don't know the way. I don't know what to think. I don't know what to say. Yeah, but that's all right. That's okay. I don't know anything.

Hey there, welcome to Factually. I'm Adam Conover. Thanks so much for. Being with me on the show again. Look, I'm a comedian. One of the reasons I'm a comedian is because I grew up loving to laugh, as did so many of you. Gathering with a large group of people and laughing together is one of the most elemental human social experiences that we have.

It's something that we constantly crave. It's something that we as a species love to do. And there are ways that we do it together. One of them is to go see a live comedy show. And by the way, I hope you come see me on the road coming up soon. I'll be in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Brea, California, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York City, Tacoma, Washington, Spokane, Washington. I do it a big show in Los Angeles at the lodge room.

I'll be at the Bell House in New York later in the year. Head to Adamconver.comnet for all those tickets. But if you can't go see a comedy show on the road, well, one good way that you've been able to go gather with a large group of people in the dark, lose your consciousness, your individualized self, join a crowd mentality and laugh in unison. releasing some of your stress and fear and despair, one of the most accessible ways to have that fundamental human experience has been to go to the movies.

For a century, Americans and other people around the globe have been going to a movie theater sitting in the dark and laughing at some of the funniest people in the world on the big screen, until recently. Because for the past 20 years, for some reason, Hollywood has stopped making comedies by and large. They're still making superhero movies. They're still making horror movies.

But for some reason, comedies have almost disdemeanor. disappeared from the movie theater. Why is that? Well, today on the show, we're going to try to answer that question because I have, as my guests, the two writers of one of the counter examples to this trend. I'm talking, of course, about the recent naked gun movie, which was an absolute revelation. I went and I sat in the theater with some very good friends of mine, and we laughed

for 90 minutes straight with hundreds of other people. From the first moment to the last moment, we were guffawing, chortling, and releasing all that pent-up energy that we wanted to get out of ourselves. It was an absolutely incredible experience. And today on the show, I have Dan Greger and Doug Manned here to tell us how they did it. And what about the movie industry has changed that has made this wonderful experience all too rare? I've known Dan and Doug for almost 20 years. We got our start together as sketch comedy writers in New York City,

just writing shows to make people laugh in basements. And one of my favorite things about this movie was how they brought that spirit to the big screen in as pure of a form as I've ever seen. I know you're going to love this conversation. Before we get to it, just want to remind you that if you want to support the show and all the conversations we bring you every single week, head to patreon.com slash Adam Conover, five bucks a month.

Get you every episode of this show, ad-free. We have a wonderful online community. We'd love you to join. See you there. And if you'd like to come get some comedy community with other people in the real world, laugh in a dark room in your home city, head to Adamconover.com.com.

One more time for all my tickets and tour dates. I'd love to see you out there. It's one of my favorite things to do. And now, let's get to this conversation with Dan Greger and Doug Mamm. I usually get anxiety like I got a poop and then, but then usually like it's right before a show starts and then I'm like, I did the show and I didn't poop. Yeah, poop. Poop is a phantom.

But pee is real. You can feel it there. I pee like four times in every movie. I did pee once during your, well, this should be, we should be rolling for that. Oh, we're rolling now? Great. Okay, I did pee. during your movie does that make you man. Tell us where you felt comfortable

peeing. The movie's like 14 minutes. Where did you find? Short runtime. I think it was in there's like a dark blue club environment. Yeah, okay, great. Great. A little sleepier section, yes. You know what? I think that's probably That's right. So my move is I go, I get to the theater. On the way to the theater, I go to the bathroom and I pee. Then we go sit down in the seats. Yeah. We're during the commercial portion. I get up and I pee again then. And then usually about halfway through the trailers

is my third pre-movie pee. Whoa, okay, you're really- So there's an anxiousness too. There's an- Because that third one, there's not, that could be much coming out. Are you chugging a giant soda? No, you're not. Generally, I drink just normal amount of water.

That's my problem in a movie is that like I get a slushy. I get the big old slushy and then that's way into the movie, I'm like, I can't hold all this liquid. Peeing is not the only problem. You're getting a big slushy at this age. Oh, what I, where else are you getting a big slushy? It's just, you're not. I think at a certain age you just, I'm done with that part of my life.

I can see any movie with the slushy. What's with the environment of having to pee, though? Because when I'm at home, I'm like working on, I'm doing emails or whatever. And I realize I've been holding my pee for like 45 minutes in discomfort and not really caring about it. And then when I'm sitting in a movie theater, as soon as I get the merest tickle of it's going to be really uncomfortable in 45 minutes. Yeah. It fills my mind. It's the separation.

It's where you're not allowed to go. That's what it is. The anxiety about not having access to it. This is my whole life with pooping. Yeah. So you have this for pooping. Yeah, and I had a show about it for many years. Adam.

Adam? Didn't do your research, Adam? I wing it. Check the dossier, my son. I have a clip where I never used it. But it was like if I was ever in a place as a child where I knew I couldn't poop, I had to immediately. And the poop was very real.

It was not phantom. Yeah. Famously, Doug did poop on the commissioner of Major League Baseball's private plane. I did. I was a guest of my friend on Bud Seelig's plane. Wow. I was 13. And I was just.

my friend and I were going to visit, like, his grandparents and his grandparents' friends. I had no idea where I was going. Long story short, I ended up on, I had never been on a private plane or whatever, and but it wasn't luxurious. It was just like a small tube, and I had to shit. You're like, you're like six inches away from Bud's ceiling. I am this far, and they didn't have a proper bathroom. They had a jump seat that was also a toilet.

Oh, my God. And like a shower curtain? So if I wanted to do this to his feet If I wanted to touch Bud Seelig's foot And I shit in this basically like flying You know Campbell soup You're like a Cessna Right basically the size of this room

They everyone hated me on the flight And no one was gracious at all about it I was a little kid I was felt awful And his grandparents stocked me up With the modium on the way back They were so disgusted by me The first time I was ever The first and only time I was ever on a tour

bus. We did an Adam Ruins Everything tour that was like sponsored by the network. So they like rented a, like a tour bus with like my face on the side. My only time touring that way because it was a moving ad. But it was just me and Gonzalo Cordova, uh, who just had a show come out on an adult swim called women wearing shoulder pads. People want to check it out. That's really great. Anyway, he was opening for me. And then like a roadie tech guy and a tour manager. And the first day, the tour manager goes, hey guys, so like ground rules the bus, like just don't poop on the bus. Like if you never about a tour bus before, like you. How dare you say that? You say that. And as soon as you say that, and as soon as you start you're like well I got to go now

well I was like I don't have poop issues usually unless I've eaten a lot of cauliflower or something so but so you know you pee on the bus and you poop at the rest stops right and the second day I was like that's fine the second day he wakes us up and he's

like who pooped on the bus who one of you pooped on the bus one of you filthy pigs it wasn't me we're all literally me and Gonzalo and the road guy so it's only three only three suspect? Only three suspects. So who are you throwing under the bus right now? It was definitely, I think the guy's

name was Waldo. Walldo, are you hearing this Waldo? We were looking for Waldo. We found him. We found him. He had the brown stripe. More Waldo than we wanted. I had a lot of problems with that guy, so I'm going to throw him under the bus. We had some other conflicts on that. Then what do you do when you find someone like, okay, it was him? Now what? Yeah, I poop. You're right. You want him to go sit in, sit like, wear a hat and like fucking shame him. It's like, I don't know. I'm looking at the guy who's pointing fingers. Something tells me it's him.

Yeah. Who did it? That's how he deflected. Who did it? Yeah. Or it's the driver when nobody knows it sneaks away and does it. Thanks for coming on the show, guys. Thank you for having us. Thanks for.

So keep talking poop for the next hour. Oh, wait. I actually want to talk about something else about poop. Please. This is like a source of fascination for me. Have you heard about the Japanese phenomenon of needing to poop when you go to a bookstore? No. So that's Japanese?

I don't read. I guess I am, I have some Japanese. You do? It's called the Mariko Aoki Phenomenon. So I, my whole life, every time I would go into a bookstore, I would feel a sudden need to poop, like really, like cramping, like, oof, really bad. And it would be, as you said, it's real. I would go to the bed and I would literally have to poop. And it would happen in every bookstore, often in record stores, but usually like bookstores.

And I look it up once. I was working at College Humor at the time. I look it up, and I found a whole Wikipedia page called the Mariko Aoki phenomenon. and in Japan, a woman named Mariko Ayoki wrote into like a magazine in like the 80s. She was like, I have to poop every time I go to a bookstore. And it became an object of cultural fascination in Japan of people saying, why could this be?

What are the theories? It seems to be a real phenomenal, but nobody knows why. Because like maybe two weeks ago, I went to the last bookstore downtown for the very first time. And I had the worst shit attack I've had in a long time. I ran to the men's room. It's the pages. It's locked.

And I'm at the point where I'm at the point where I'm like, ah, this isn't going to happen. And I run into the women's room and I shit in the women's room. And then I wait for the women's room to clear out so that I can, like, believe. Oh, it was, it wasn't a single. No, no, no, it was a, it was a full woman's room? When you went in, was it full? I, I, I, I were, I ran it such a blur that I'm hoping, I'm hoping that the one woman at the sink didn't register my gender.

So you saw someone there. So there's one woman at the sink when I blur in. You're going to miss stapire. Hey, yeah, yeah, exactly. I go, ooh, hooo, my family choice. This is me booming. I made a big lady dutty. And I got to make dinner for the kids.

And then I just, and then I like just stealthily just like sat there stabbardly until I knew that there was no one else in the entire restroom so I could leave again. And then I, and then I didn't wash my hands in there. I ran out into the men's room so I could just wash and take care of my cleanliness in the men's room. Just to like restabilize men's room. Yeah, yeah. I take my time in here. Yeah, yeah, that was, and it was bad. And then maybe you just discovered what happened.

I mean, this, I've had similar experience. I've not had that exact experience, but this is like a lot of people report this about bookstores specifically. And there's theories about like, is it the smell of the paper? I was going to say, it was just trying to think about what it could be. Although, like, old books too. Not famously because I haven't talked about it, but a borders or a Barnes & Noble bathroom is usually just always wrecked.

It's just a bathroom. I mean, it goes, start. Starbucks and then it's right, right under it. You remember that Union Square? The Union Square was, that might as well have been the subway tracks. Or no, we're talking about Astroplace. The one in Astroplace.

The one at Astroplace. I used to poop in the Union Square while it was, I feel like the, the, the, well, because I feel like you have to go up. Most shit's happening in there. You have to go up like three flights of escalators to get to the bathroom, too. So you're just like, look at my, the amount of times I'm running on just a view of the city. The Astreplace train station tripping up the stairs and then getting into that,

into that. restroom and there's always there was never fewer than four people waiting in that line. Oh, that's it. And you can see it from the glass inside. It was all glass opening.

So you could see. It's like an attraction. It's how they get people into the Barnes & Noble. They know. Come on in. Take a shit. Take a shit. Waiting in the shit line. Yeah.

Well, you're waiting a shit line. You might as well buy a book. I almost joined David Barton Jim just so I get shit there. Well, let's talk about the movie for one second. Please, please. Before we force you back here. Oh, I, I mean, we're talking about my favorite subject. Right.

Thank you guys for saving comedy. Oh, you're welcome. Thank you so much. Is that official? I mean, this is what everyone's saying. Like, literally everyone I talked to in comedy is like, oh, do you see this movie? It's so good for comedy. It's so good for it.

Happy to help. I mean, the experience of, I went on opening week, the experience of sitting and getting to laugh with people consistently. And people laughing at the first joke to the last is like this revelatory experience of like, why do we stop doing this? It's really amazing. I mean, we got the joy of doing test screenings all the way through. And that first public one was like, was so, it was truly like I felt my heart fly out of my body. It was amazing. It was like so, so cool.

It was really cool. Because, you know, I mean, this is what we do, which is like, we all come from like some level of like live comedy where like you hone your skill set on actual laughter. Yeah. The laughter is the feedback you're looking for. Yeah. And so to get to make something where that, that is basically it. That's the metric. is like, is there a laugh there? No? Yes? Good, bad. Like, it's that simple. It was, it was awesome. It was so cool.

But why do you think that Hollywood has stopped trying to create that experience, right? Because one of the, getting together and laughing with a group of people is like a foundational human experience. Stand-up comedy is based around it. And based around the fact that people just want to do it all the time. Like, there's always a market for it. The market never goes away. and that is the special thing that theatrical and entertainment provides and yet when I went to see the movie I was like I can't remember another movie that was actually trying to make me laugh this much even movies that are billed as comedies

like the last 15 years we've had a lot of like action comedies with that really kind of replaced it couple of great gags but also real chase scenes I mean we always we talk about this a lot and it's certainly like in the line of work of what we do which is Marvel basically ate up comedy

between like Taiko Atiki and Favro who were brilliant directors and writers but they sort of subsumed a lot of that sensibility into like the side show for all of these big superhero movies like oh the Thor movie was kind of funny Yeah exactly exactly

And so you have your fifth or sixth lead and they are suddenly the only real comedy in those movies but like they're kind of the best parts of those movies They're the thing that you actually make them stand out in a lot of ways I mean, I think, look, I mean, you ask the question, but I think the answer is always comes down to the economics of it, right? Like, the movie studios are not in the business of, you know what's really good for society, just a bunch of people getting around and laughing.

Like, that's not really, they're not in that business. They're in the business of just, and through a lot of fault of their own, the, I don't think the numbers made sense anymore. And I don't pretend to understand exactly how streaming. works in a way that like props up companies and in a larger scene there's so much there's there's just so much behind the curtains i will never understand they don't want us to understand but you know if you look at you know we're we're filming this now the movie still in the theaters it remains to be seen if this movie is like a financial like hit or a boon for the you know it seems it's doing it's doing it's doing well but it's doing it's doing well

but it's not a runaway hit right now between well and like and like we got to make 16 more of these is the difference between well before did did they turn a profit from it yet so you know you have your budget and then the general rule of thumb is two and a half times the budget you know for P&A and everything to to make to for the studio to start making money and we never really find out about those things because we know what the box office is but we don't almost ever know what the video on demand like numbers are and then we definitely don't know you know this is a paramount movie they're going it's going to go on Paramount plus so what's the what's that license what's that license deal. And then how much have they spent on marketing? The marketing for the movie was

awesome. And they really got behind it and we felt that. We hit a later round in our testing and the scores were really good. And suddenly they were like, oh, okay. I guess now it's time to spend real money on this. And so we felt the faucets turn on a little bit in terms of marketing. And that, and we got lucky on that. That's great. I mean, there's a lot of, it made a huge difference. I mean, people, at least in L.A., people were like, are you going to see it this weekend? Yes, going to go see it like, you know, every parking garage. There's That was amazing. No, they really did a great job.

And they made it in an event. But that costs money, and you don't know how much that costs either. No, not really. I mean, the general rule of thumb is for that is the cost of the production budget. That's what they usually say. So double it. And then they say two and a half to get to profitable. To put to profitable because the studio only makes around 50 to 55% of the ticket sales and then whatever.

But like, I mean, also a big part of the history of it is that there was a meaningful period where like a major percentage of studio box office was coming from China. And so we were, we were making movies constantly that had to be sold overseas to China. Comedy was famously, like, incapable of, didn't translate.

As, of course, it would be. It's not, they're very culturally specific. Yeah, the amount of international comedy is like Jackie Chan, Mr. Bean. Yeah, it's really, really thin. I mean, we went. And Adam Sandler happens to do well overseas,

which is part of his big deal, is that he, like, I didn't know that. Yeah, that's part of thing is that, like, Adam Sandler kind of transcends it. Yeah, it's funny. He's funny sound. I'm going to see to water, do a do.

Look, I love movies my favorite. Yeah. But that started to dry up. Yeah, translates. That started to dry up. And so, but in the interim, all of the just sort of domestic comedies stopped being profitable to the major studios. So they just went to Netflix, basically. Netflix has a very different set of expectations about what they want out of anything they make.

They don't need it to, it's never going to be in a theater for them. That's the bottom line. They have no interest in that. Well, and comedy, when you're watching at home, like a thing that we know as comedians, but I don't know if audiences often think about, is you just laugh so much less when you're at home,

and so you don't expect to laugh. Laughter is infectious. That's a very good point also where it's like, oh, that's sort of why dromedy gets to be included so easily in the comedy category. Right. It's like, I smiled a couple times, and that's what comedy is now.

Yeah. When the bear made that sandwich, is that what the bear's about? Yeah, yeah. I mean, that was so embarrassing for, first of all, the first of all, first year that the cast of that show was up there holding Emmys and being asked

do you think you're a comedy? They should have pulled it. That's humiliating for that cast. It's insulting to everyone because they're making wanting to art. They were like, you guys nominated us. We're here. Yeah, the poor cast we made a great show. Like, just because it happens to be a half hour doesn't mean that whatever. But like that

was fed this idea that like comedy is dying because like look at what's winning the comedy awards is a drama. Right. Yeah. I mean, I do think that the explosion of of streaming sort of really brought down the expectations of just being funny because your point is well made like you don't have to laugh as much and you will not laugh as much at home yeah and I think the price is like you know but the fact is the average American like again I don't want to speak on behalf like like I have some greater knowledge

of this but all the streaming services cost a lot of money and you pay for them and right at your fingertips there are all these movies the idea of taking your family out to go see a movie like this can be a hundred bucks like a couple like it's it's it goes once if you get popcorn and like a soda parking it's it and and if you don't do that if you have kids you're getting a babysitter like it suddenly becomes this thing it's like we have this at home and if it's not this big event movie the idea of seeing like a low or mid budget comedy I feel like the bar just becomes so high for like well what's what's going to get us out of our seats yeah like out of home the things we already pay for to actually spend money spend time when

I'm just going to be able to see this in three weeks or four weeks. But to me, the differentiator should be laughing in a large group of people. I agree. It's a unique experience. And I think that the numbers kind of play out in that way a little bit. Like, the numbers are not bad. Our numbers are really solid. Also, I mean, look, another big part of it, and it does keep coming back to money because

so, all right, so we take off the ability to make money on these movies overseas. So suddenly, the money to make the movies has to be less because the odds of turning a profit are smaller. do you know why it's less overseas why they can't sell as much overseas is it like foreign policy comedy yeah yeah i mean well no china is a whole other thing i mean truly we developed a movie for for off of a chinese cartoon once and it was like the biggest thing in china and and we were like cool we're going to like get to make this movie they were in pre-production and and then there was some change in the regime and the owner of this of the finance year went to

prison and okay and you're just like you're like oh okay So, you know, like, and see, that's what you get when you, when you have to produce with... Side of the room broiled in a pretty... Right, exactly. It's like, I guess that movie won't happen anymore. And, like, and China has very drastically shifted its own internal tastes about screening American movies. So, so that, that has meaningfully gone off the table. They don't let in the movies that they used to.

Got it. And so that was a huge portion of international box office. So, again, and then combine that with the extreme rising costs of production. Los Angeles being the case and point I mean the Los Angeles production costs are insane and so especially we start talking about like comedies and naturalistic comedies

where it's like let's just throw up a camera and shoot around Los Angeles you can't you really can't for a lot of people the costs are prohibitive and so suddenly you're in this place where everyone has to take home run swings you have to spend a lot of money to try to make a billion dollars

and if you are taking these stabs at like a single a double like we spent we spent 20 million dollars and maybe we made 40 million dollars and that's an amazing success those things don't make a lot of sense for these studios anymore unfortunately I you know I hope that that the California tax uh production credit that just passed actually does make a big it's a good start it's a good start I would say that also I started this by shitting on the studios not caring about the theater experience I will say that everyone I know like every executive I know in this business that I've met with really wanted naked gun to work like so I don't I think

I'm talking about the upper, like the shareholders at the top who are like, don't really care. Yeah, those aren't even people. That's just like the machine logic of the economic. The machine of capitalism or whatever. But within these like the hallways of Paramount or 20th, like people were really excited about it. Like every people all over. Everyone was rooting for it.

It was, it felt great. And you talk to a lot of people who weren't writers just like that we don't usually get to talk to like outside of our general meetings with them where they're just like, oh, this was so great. This is why I got into movies to like make something like this. This is where I saw with my father or my mother growing up.

Like, so it's, the love is still there. Like, you know, hitting a single or double, like we made a movie for 35 million. It ended up making 55. Like a lot of people at, you know,

at Universal, at Paramount, like they do want to do that. Yeah. I just think it's a hard, it's really hard to get those movies greenlit. Yeah. And,

um, and, and push them through. That's why Nicky Gunn is like, you know, we kind of had a Trojan horse. it a little bit, too, because it's naked gun. It still is a franchise.

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I have to ask this before I ask anything else. So when I was thinking about the movie, I was like, hold on a second. Leslie Nielsen Star of the original Liam Nieson Leslie Nielsen It's the only reason we got

Liam Nissen It's a naked gun joke Into itself That's insane What's the next name down The list of celebrities Okay we'll go there It's like a fucked up

Antigram Yeah perfect Complete coincidence Yeah I mean I mean 100% I mean Coincidence other than

He's there's Yeah I mean That's just how we I would fuck up The names Constantly early In development Where I was

And then people Sometimes you'd be like, who's in it? And I'd be like, I thought he was dead. And I'd be like, no, no, that's Leslie. Yeah. So, I mean, I know you guys from going way back to doing just comedy at UCB. One of the things I loved about the movie was how it felt like our kind of comedy, my kind of, just like it was, it's like a sketch comedy movie. There's a lot of that sensibility that I love.

And I'm not saying that's the best kind of comedy, but it hit this sort of. That DNA, for sure. Yeah, the sort of pure comedy writing kind of gags and jokes. We were both sketch teachers at UCV. I mean, it fully, it was a real joy to get to come in and, like, really employ those skills. I mean, like, to that exact point, for a while in the script, there actually was an old, our old group was this group called Hammercats. Yeah. Which is maybe remember.

Yes. And it was, uh, and, and, you know, and there was a Hammercat sketch that I wrote when I was 19 or 20 that, like, was too involved to ever produce ourselves. and suddenly as we were writing this was like oh shit like that sketch will fit in this movie and like and I put it into a sequence and it was and it was in there for a while and then eventually Liam Neeson was like

this is too weird I don't like this and we cut it but it must have been really weird he really called it out and he was like he was like and this is not the one I know what is it I'll tell you it was certainly not going to be in the movie

I don't think it's going to be in any movie I'm hoping it makes the DVD. It's a very funny, very particular idea. It was that sequence, the car chase sequence, where, you know, he's driving and then it's the, he's like, oh, no, he's going to hit the, hit the balloons with the clown, and he's going to hit the bees. And then the windshield comes on suddenly, right? And so very, so the second beat of that was, was not, for a long time, was not, was not the bees. It was, you know, the trope in these, in these car chase scenes where, where you're sort of, car chase is happening and, and you see you're about to hit, like, a woman with a baby carriage,

and you're like, oh, God, get out of the way, get out of the way. And then you hit the baby carriage, and thank God, the baby carriage was filled with cans. And you're like, oh, thank God, right? That's the trope. And so the sketch, which then went into the sequence was, you're like, get out of the way, get out of way. You hit the baby carriage full of cans. Cans go everywhere, and you think for a sec, oh, thank God it was cans. But then the mom starts crying, and she's like, oh, my baby.

And then a man made of cans walks over. And he goes, oh, our baby! Our baby! Did you film this? No, no, no, no. I don't think it made it past the first draft. It was in there for a while. But we all liked it.

That's so fucking good. Anyway, so that was the second beat of that run for a while. And then, but truly, it was, it was, and that's a Hammercat sketch from 2005. Yeah. And so. Gregor's still looking for a way to get. I have these notebooks that I can't just throw away. I mean, that's, to me, that's such a classic sketch comedy joke.

And so much of the core of sketch comedy is how do I take it further than the audience expects, set up expectation, demolish expectation. The movie does that so many times. The chili dog sequence to me was so incredible. Everyone talks about the snowman sequence. I'm like, it's all about the chili dog sequence for me. Thank you. What's great is that there's a lot of dumb children to love in this movie. People are like, what's your favorite bit?

It's like, they're all just my idiot children I love. It's really, it's one of the joys of this is different people saying they like different things. It's really good. The perp saying like, don't you do it. Don't do it. I was like, this is, because I thought I knew where it was gone. I was like, oh, okay, all right. We got a nice little shit joke.

Okay. No, no, we got a lot more. Yeah. That was, I mean, that was also, we had a lot of, a lot of bits that in, in ultimately the larger goal that we started getting to is like, this movie really, really lives in momentum. and that like we really desperately wanted to be under 90 minutes wanted to kind of be at 85 minutes and so so there's a certain amount of

Akiva, the director Akiva Schafer really who we wrote with us well intelligently was like just started getting you know aggressive where it's just like we're cutting I know this is good but we're cutting we fast speed is our friend more than any individual joke and so there's a lot of bits in the movie that have that would

that could were written and filmed to be two or three beats longer that like the jokes are delightful to me they're great i mean man if they're i wish there were DVDs i know because maybe we could Doug and i would regularly do the the like the the the the writers edit where it's just like but i want every joke we filmed in there i mean they got there's got to be a cut of in the in the making but i hope so i hope so we'll see i was going to ask you something else but since you mentioned the runtime like was it hard to keep the runtime short and why are running times long. This is like I do not understand about the movie industry where like I think every

movie is too long. Yeah. You would think if you're trying to do turnover like a movie theater is like a restaurant. You want to get people in and out and sell more tickets. You want the movies to be shorter. I understand it takes work to edit something. Sure. But like a longer movie must cost more on some level. At least it costs more to finish. It costs more on VFX. But what's the pressure that makes movies long? I mean, I can't speak to it really other than I do think that there's just been sort of economics creep where it's like it has the sheen of meaningful

to be over a certain number. And so you're like, I actually think it's the opposite where people feel like, ooh, I'm getting my money's worth at over a certain number. I think that's part of it. It's like, if I'm going to pay for it, I want to see a bit longy, you know, like, you know, and then also I do think that's stupid. But then also, you know, I mean,

you were talking about going to, maybe you're, but if you go to AMC, you know, you're not seeing the movie for 30 minutes. 30 minutes. before the actual showtime or after the showtime is starting. It's a four-hour affair if you're seeing a Marvel movie. Yeah, so, like, it's, they're, you know,

I don't know, I just think they're trying to milk as much value out of it as they can. But it's not value for the... I agree. No, it's definitely not. It's not, you're not getting more. You're just there longer. Yeah.

And a lot of ways, you're getting less. Like, yeah, I don't know. I also, and again, I'm not, I don't see a lot of the superhero movies. They don't really appeal to me as much. I try to, like, see them just to know what's going on. But there's, There's also, there's also a, yeah, I would love to kill.

Oh, my God. But there's a, there's a certain self-seriousness about them where it's just like, and I feel like that trickles down too, like, well, we can't cut that. Well, it's like, we need that. Nolan got 2.45 for Batman. So why am I not getting, why am I not getting this? We joke, but I do think that there is like, oh, that is a, there's a real trickle down to like an autore kind of like, no, this, we can't cut.

But it's so funny that even in the most ruthlessly capitalist part of a capitalist business, ego would be the thing Like that's what it is I mean that's the beauty of Hollywood It is strange That like that Hollywood is one of the last bastions Of deep inefficiencies

That like ego Ego Ego still rules the day In so many ways That is probably not necessarily The case in a lot of other places Well because someone has power And then ego plus power

Right exactly Gives you the ability To lose everybody money Yeah I'll just It was such a relief Like my whole group Going to the theater was like

Oh it's like 90 minutes Like oh we're so excited that we have a night we still have a night i mean that my i only peed once instead of twice during the runtime you know yeah you're welcome i mean you did three times before it's three times before but if over two hours i'm peeing twice yeah there you go i mean that's a double pier i won't put on a bunch of movies just from that runtime alone by the way i have like talked to doctors and like looked at threads about like i pee a lot and what to do and they just say practice holding it and that just sucks i mean i don't want to do that i mean i i won't throw my wife under the bus any more than i already

have by even saying her name in the context of this conversation. So anyway, I'm going to, let's move on. Let's stop. Why am I still talking about it? By why, there's nothing to do with this conversation. Adam, leave me alone. Tell us what your wife, famous actress and show creator, Rachel Bloom. Tell us about her pee problems. God damn it, Adam. It's fine. Oh, wait to hear about it. No, no. This is going to be the clip.

We're going to clip this out for Instagram. Wait to you hear about Rachel Bloom's pissing. Yeah, I've got to hear about it now. Stay tuned. Give us the tea. Give us the pee. I made a huge mistake here. I've driven down a blonde. I've driven down a blind alley and I really got to leave you. We got to move on. We can move on. I'll talk

about drinking. I got what I wanted out of this. I've been told to drink two of these a day, right? Two of those big ass. And then to move on. And I started doing this last year. Yeah. And I was like, and I was working with the trainer and she was like, it will get better. They say it'll take six

months for you to, she says to start like to your body to like to get used to this much. And I will say it kind of kind of has. Like, I'm not peeing as much. Like, when I started doing this, the first three or four months, I was pissing, like, every, it was there was a strategy to try to pee less was to drink more water?

No, and then she was to be healthier. Oh, just to be. No, she was like, I want you to be healthier. And then I was like, I can't because I can't go to sleep. And I can't sit through meetings now. And she's like, just be patient. It will get better. Because drinking water is terrible.

No, drinking water is good for you. What are we talking about here people? Dr. Drinking water is good for you. But peeing, peeing is the worst. and also when you're drinking that much in the beginning it's especially feels like every time you have to pee it's an emergency

and it feels like as soon as you flush you walk out of the room you're like ah and then it feels like it just feels like it's dripping back like loading back up inside of you I have such anxiety about how much I pee and I love that this is about 40% of the interview content now but I have such anxiety about

and that people are going to be like oh look at them going to the bathroom all the time and you know that people are going to notice this about me and think that I'm weird about peevi This is what the Seattle's commercials are about, too. Like, people stopping their canoe trip to let go pee. And I'm in my early 40s. I thought Seattle was a boner pill.

Oh, right. What's the... You're thinking of, like, the S&L parody ad about, like... No, there's... Oh, Flomax. It's prostate stuff. Yeah, there's... Flomax is like...

You're like, I like getting new directions and they're pissing upwards. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's my thing. I like peeing into my own mouth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, let me... So, you guys, like I said, I detect so much... of the UCB sensibility in the movie of the uh and the sketch comedy even pre you know our

comedy careers predate our time there um and then i know that in the intervening time you guys have written on so many different types of movies big studio stuff like how do you end up now writing this like pure comedy just give me a little bit of the path of the career and then how you get to writing like this true comedy i would say that like the beginning of our career basically started with us, you know, in New York at UCB, having graduated and having to come to like the conclusion like, well, sketch comedy is not going to pay the bills. Like we had to actually be like, we're not going to make money from this. We need to like move to narrative, like to writing sitcoms, writing features that are not, you know, there's only going to be, you know,

two maybe sketch shows on the air at a time and, you know, probably won't be us. So we actively went away from that, which is why it's kind of so beautiful that this has happened. But, You know, the, that was the progression is like, we need to write, you know, we need to take our sensibility in and kind of push and see how that, you know, reveals itself in, in 30-minute sitcoms and stuff like that. So that's kind of like- Yeah, that eventually got us on to some, some successful sitcoms, which were on how my mother. I mean, how I meant your mother changed kind of how we, it's also how we learned really how to

write. But then, you know, we got to go to Crazy X from there. And Crazy X in its own really wonderful way was a very much a narrative. show, but there were these little islands of functionally musical sketched comedy in the middle of the episodes. And so those got to be kind of sketchy. And then Doug and I also wrote on on a show called The Comedians with Billy Crystal and Josh Gad, but it was a show about Billy Crystal and Josh Gad having a sketch show. And the interstitials of that show were sketches. So again, we got to like bring back, I'd probably pitch the fucking McCannman

sketch on that. I almost definitely have. I don't remember it, but maybe that's just... I also have sketches that I've been like in the back of my head for four years. He's coming back to. No one's coming back to. And man. Someone's like Can Man? It's so satisfying. I know.

You'll get it one day. I'll get it one day. And it'll be great. I'm going to just make the Can Man movie. Make it a horror movie. It would be a perfect. You just got to do one episode of Family Guy. It'd be a perfect family guy moment.

Exactly. That's why they hire me. And so, yeah, I mean, you know, it's funny. There was like a brief moment where, like, you were launching Adam Ruins everything. And I think I helped you out on the pilot. I came in to do a room. You did. Yes.

And it was very simultaneous to like the first feature that Doug and I had, uh, had sort of gotten on at Paramount, actually. And, and I remember like, you were like, yeah, you want to do the, be on the staff. And simultaneously we got this feature. And I was like, oh, oh, this, because it was, you know, what you were doing was this really wonderful. Unless they're not really known about me at the time. It's weird because I was standing right next to you. You really should come. You should come. Yeah, exactly. We were friends from from sketch. And, I was there too It's okay Anyway but it was a really Important sort of like path pathway moment Like diverging path moments

Because like you were like Because what you were doing was deeply What I sort of had got into sketch comedy to do Which was like you know I interned it with Michael Moore And The Daily Show and and My first job out of college was on like a triumph movie About the election And

and like and just like oh how do you make how do you turn sketch comedy into social activism was very much like what i had conceived of like going into this field for and and you were doing it i mean really deeply doing it and um and so and but then there was this like feature career that was like really starting to take off and and i was oh man this is crazy like adam's sort of offering me this thing that like is the thing that i said i wanted back then but i'm at this moment where I'm like, I don't think I want that anymore. I think I want to just sort of be a storyteller.

And I was next to him with two bags of money and I was like, I didn't know that this was such a moment for you. I didn't. I didn't until just now. I didn't even know he'd been offered a job by my back. I was like, I guess you just didn't like the prompt? You didn't like me. No, I loved it so much

but it was a crisis. It was like an emotional crisis. It was like, wow. Whoa, I've changed. It was a moment where I was like, wow. That's that's the thing I very much like set out to do when I started this whole thing and to be a part of what you were doing would have been really special but I also registered I was like I think I want to

I think that's not what I'm looking to do anymore and what was that movie you don't want to know at the time I was like so proud of it but boy was I can't even imagine it was like it was like a it was like the seventh earnest sequel

I mean I can't even know you didn't checks you passed up a chance to work with me to do it's so humiliating it's it ruined it ruins the story by telling you it was but it but in fairness it at the time i we were so we were like oh my god we're like making it was our first studio was our first real inside this belly of the bee studio movie yeah like in production we were doing like these reshoots and we were like you know really in it with like the present the studio and and so it was very real it was like oh my god we're making a movie um but it was uh the monster trucks movie The Monster Trucks movie?

Arguably one of the worst movies. After it was shot. I mean, I don't take any exception to that. I mean, what you come to understand is like a lot of sausage gets made and somebody's got to make it. But you can actually like trace our career and be like that, led to that, let to that. It is all very one-to-one, I would say. But I would say also that the sketch background and the UCB background, the image, improv sketch, working with a group of, like a group of friends and just like throwing ideas up at

the wall has served us tremendously in like in this in this world. And it kind of put it, given us a leg up, especially in the feature world where a lot of feature writers are right alone. They are not, they're not animated. They haven't performed on stage. Like, we are better pitchers than like a lot of people just because we've been, we've been on stage selling ourselves. And also we can, we can, uh, you know, shift and, and, and alt our pitches based on, like, what's working and what's not working. And also, like, so much of rewrite work in Hollywood is also about, for comedies, it's like, what are the set pieces?

And set pieces in a lot of ways are sketches or just sketches with, so there, you know, it is to say it's like, we left sketch, but also, like, we wouldn't be where we are. If it wasn't for, like, that backbone. I think it made us a little more unique. We weren't just coming out of film school, like having just studied, you know, film. we were making comedy. Well, when you come out of a live comedy, you're thinking about, like,

there's an audience in front of you, there's literal people, how do I make them laugh? And I remember when I started working on Adam Ruins, everything, I was like, okay, I'm imagining the audience sitting. I was always imagining myself as like 15 years old,

like watching TV in the basement, like watching Comedy Central. What would I enjoy? That connection to the audience, I think, comes out of doing live comedy too. Yeah. There's a pressure to make people have. too in the most important way where like even if you're not like when you're writing a bit now like

you eventually have to actually stress test it with the real audience but like you also do have an internal clock about like how laughs come out where they come out you know what what a punchline really is or means and it's it's you know if you don't have that live comedy experience it takes you so much longer to ever figure out like how to craft an actual joke that is funny that is Like, you can be in the ballpark of a funny idea that is still not actually going to elicit a laugh. Yeah. And so that, that experience is enormously helpful. I'd also say then, you know, we're doing movies, all sorts of different movies and TV stuff.

But then the biggest thing we ended up getting onto, we wrote this movie, the Chippendell's Rescue Rangers movie, which was deeply just a sort of a, you know, an if that, then what else sketch. Where it's like, okay, all right. So it's L.A. Confidential, but it's if cartoons were the stars of Hollywood. And so it just became this never-ending game in that movie of like, okay, so, you know, what does it look like to get plastic surgery in this world? Oh, it's CGI surgery. And what does it look like to, you know, to... What are drugs in this world? Oh, it's cheese.

Yeah, exactly. And so, like, yeah. And so, like, there was, that was deeply that exercise. And that movie, eventually, Akiva Schaffer, who also is, you know, now. a long-time collaborator of ours, but also as much from a sketch comedy background as anyone saw the script. He loved it and decided to jump in and we made that movie. And that's ultimately how we ended up on Naked Gun here,

which was we had just finished Rescue Rangers that had just come out. It had sort of had done pretty well. And then Paramount sort of was like really loved that movie. They really, I think, felt a little nagged by the ugly Sonic character. That like made headlines that you got. made fun of Sonic the Hedgehog for the previous iteration

of him being shitty played back Tim Robinson and and anyway so they basically went to Akiva those were like Akiva would you want to bring back naked gun

and Akiva was like yeah let's do it and he sort of gave us a call right off and be like let's all do that together and were you guys like veering back towards doing comedy because I know in between

again you did lots of different types of movies Monster trucks yeah monster trucks let's stop bringing that up Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we did it. We did, that was another early project that Paramount was we worked on the Ninja Turtles movie.

And, you know, I mean, it sort of goes back to what we're saying about, like, the marvelization of comedy where that it's a good skill set to have because ultimately if you're a good writer of storytelling and you can do comedy, then suddenly that is what most mainstream Hollywood movies are, which is like it's some other thing that all. also happens to be funny. And so that's been our bread and butter of just trying to make those kinds of movies, sell those kind of movies. But then to just, I mean, truly to have the sort of the harnesses taken off and just be like, actually just do the comedy.

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Visit helloalma.com slash factually to get started and schedule a free consultation. today. That's hello-a-l-M-A.com slash factually. I think one of the things that's really special about the Naked Gun franchise is that, like, it's a beloved series that a lot of people have emotional connections to, and what they specifically have connections to is the comedy writing. And your movie really showed that. Like, there's other comedies where, I don't know, people love, I don't know, Jim Belushi movies, and they love Boulouche.

That's the thing that they love, is they love him. Or the Blues Brothers, it's really almost like the style and the music and it's the whole, like, gestalt. But, like, my main memory is I loved the show Police Squad. Sure.

Because they would rerun it on Comedy Central. And I was like, it was like a portal to a kind of comedy writing that I was at like midnight on some, you know. I mean, because the performing is so, it's the, what Zaz created, you know, with police squad and the airplane was just like playing it straight.

And just saying the jokes, like, taking the tropes. So you have, like, these dramatic character actors delivering these lines. So it's never going to be Belushi. It's never going to be Ackroyd or Jim Carrey, like, hamming it up for any reason. It's just going to be the lines and the setting. It's funny. It's funny how it's the most writer-forward thing you can do. Because you're actually saying, like, look, I'm literally taking the exact same thing as another movie that's not funny.

And you're laughing now. So the only thing that's actually different is the, is the, like, very particular. or the very particular props that you've created or whatever. It is very very writer forward. And I'm having trouble thinking of other comedies that work. I mean, even like The Simpsons, right, which is as or the deepest influences on any comedy

writer, people are still watching the Simpsons even though the writing is not the classic writing that we all remember from seasons three through whatever. Yeah. Because the characters are out front. And I mean, it's funny because I mean, in writing this movie now, we really dove into a lot of the

underneath mechanics of like, I think, what what made those early movies work and what made, you know, naked gun so special. And one of the little tricks that, like, you, you want the audience to leave saying, it's just comedy. Oh my God. It's so funny.

But the truth is that, like, there's just enough story that works that you're tracking. You care about enough. The emotional relationships are, are just meaningful enough. You really are rooting for Pam and Liam and Liam. You really are rooting for, for Leslie and Priscilla. Like, when they kiss, you feel it.

You're like, e, you're happy about it. Yeah. And so, you know, those things really matter, but you, but, but you ultimately don't need or want the audience to even think that they matter all that much. They matter a lot, actually. If you've done your job correctly, you're thinking it, you're watching and being like, it doesn't matter. If you, the moment you're like, what the hell's going on here? Then you're like, well, you fucked up. I mean, we, we, and look, I think that that's one of the pitfalls of trying to write a naked gun or something is that you, you get the blank page and you're just like, you want to write a joke, joke, joke, joke, joke.

And then, but then if you go back and you watch police squad, you watch it. airplane you watch naked gun especially you watch the first 20 minutes of airplane it's slow there it's not it is not chock full of jokes they really you really settle into the genre and the tropes and then they start coming in a little bit more and more but you like so one of the skills and we we learned it through early drafts of being like no no no we have to breathe more like this scene is just like that's not a joke we need two more straight lines at least to kind of settle in and then do it and look now we're getting really inside baseball no please writing comedy but like it is like the the kid in you wants to be like no everything every line

is a joke it's it's because that's how you remember it that's how you remember naked gun you're like giant condom like uh you know dancing uh you know pistachios everywhere like everything is just you just remembering the jokes but really you go back and you're like oh this scene like they pull up it's a crime scene you know and that you know the stakes are there anyway it's It's just an interesting lesson, but, you know, to the Simpsons are, you know, we always, growing up also, I was obsessed with this genre of, like, spoof and big comedy. And then, you know, there's this sort of, like, flavor of, like, are you a Mel Brooks person? Are you a Zaz person?

You a Monty Python person? Like, they're all circling the same things. But there's sort of a, there is different tones to them. I mean, like, and again, like, you have Mel Brooks and there's a, there's sort of a fuzzier, warm character heart at the center, a lot of those movies, that these movies are so much more hard comedy hard jokes and they're almost litmus test to like the probably the personality we all had as like what every teens or yeah like oh i'm actually i like i like this a little more than that and um and they certainly inform like how you develop your your taste uh you know yeah it

does it feel risky at all working on a movie like this where where you know the the appeal to the audience is going to be that you've done just sort of the right bit of comedy gymnastics you've done a triple backflip. It's landed for people. It's a little bit about the pyrotechnics of it. You know, when we were sort of talking about action comedies, to me, not to throw shade any of those movies, but it's like, well, hey, if you're giving people an action movie too, then you're giving them something familiar and it'll just work on that level.

It doesn't need. But when you're like, hey, it's going to be joke, joke, with the bit of story you're talking about as well, it's a comedy. And also knowing in movies, especially movie comedies, it's like, you do one big flop and you're done. I won't list people. but there's some of the comedians I revere the most

did one studio comedy it flot they never did another one and took them five years to recover, right? Yeah, no, it was, I mean, it took every ounce of, of, I don't know, of ignorance, really to just put all that aside because you have to jump in.

I mean, even just jumping into this property is horrifying, really. Yeah, totally scary. And so, yeah, it's perfect. Naked gun, you go back to it, it still holds up. Like, it's, so it's like, why, you know, Dan is saying,

other day, and I've said it, like, if I heard other people, if I heard the announcement that Naked Gun was getting remade, you know, it would be like, why? Yeah, why? Don't. Fuck them. Please. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Why? Get away from everything. Just write something new. Do something new. So, I get it. Um, but also, I think, look,

we, we also talked about this a lot of Kiva and I, uh, all of us talked about it. Part of it was that Liam was doing it. And Liam isn't Leslie and he's not trying to be Leslie. And that in and of itself became like, okay, this is, we want to take the DNA. We want to be able to like honor what Zaz did with, with police squad and naked gun. But we have Liam. And Liam sounds different.

And he delivers lines differently. And he's created a genre into himself. And he's created a genre unto himself in the last decade. Exactly. So that did give us the confidence where we're like, hopefully it won't look completely like we're just doing a cheap knockoff of the of the thing that. It was so great. Yeah.

But, you know, thank God it worked, you know, because it easily could have, you know. Well, I think it worked because, again, you guys captured the spirit of the kind of comedy writing that it was, it wasn't just a knockoff of like, oh, here's the characters and here's the themes or whatever. Here's the world. Yeah. It was like, when I heard about it, I was like, oh, wonderful. I miss this style of comedy writing. And that's, you guys, you know, nailed it. I have to ask like obligatorily like

How much should we make on it? Yes. Yes, no, actually, no, I do want to wait to find out the residuals are. It's a different podcast. Oh, okay, okay, fair. Do the WGA podcast. In terms of, in terms of Liam's like comedy chops, right? Like how much were you prepared for how funny he could be, how much he would get it?

Because it's, did it make you mad as comedians to be like, God damn it, this guy's? No, no, that's what it's, I mean, first of all, I mean, there's that, Ricky Jervase show. I don't know I've ever seen it but he does he did one scene on extras

it was not life is short life is short oh okay if you haven't seen it it is spectacular and he basically plays himself asking his agent

played by Rick Jervase to to no he's Ricky Jervase I think he's going in and being like I want to use it as this agent I think they're all there each other

and he's like I want to do comedy right it's been set like a meeting has been set up with Liam and he's like I want to do comedy I'm really funny and like It devolves into this.

Him being like, let me do an improv scene with you. I want to do an improv scene. And he proceeds to give the most intense, uncomfortably serious improv scene. And he never breaks and he never pushes, but it clearly understands what's funny about it. Yeah.

And that was kind of... That was sort of the proof of concept to us in a lot of ways. We were like, oh, that one scene is the whole movie. Yeah. Which is just like, this guy playing taken in saying the stupidest things imaginable. Yeah.

Is hilarious. And so that alone to us gave us the confidence that he got it and that we were never going to need to ask him to do anything other than taken. Right. That was the biggest thing. So we weren't surprised in that way, although I will say. I mean, he was better than we never going to hope.

He was better than even we thought he would be. Because he was perfect on every first take. Like every take was really good and we could give him alts because he got the first take. And it was like, yeah, that's the read. That was, that's totally it. So, I mean, there was, it was even better and easier than we could have hoped. But at the, at the very least, we knew going in that if we just, ask him to do the character he's been doing

pretty consistently for the last 10, 15 years, we're good. Like, that's all, that's the whole name of this game is just like, what's the stupidest thing you can get Liam Neeson to say? And so we felt... Boy, did we push him? Yeah, I know. I mean, him saying Apple to App and Taboo,

that was one of the biggest last room. It was just like listing the third and fourth members of the Black IPs and the whole roomful of people laughing at the name Apple to App. I was like, that joke's just for me. Yeah, I know. It felt like that. That is one of the bits that like, I remember the three of us being like,

because we would, all three of us do poor Liam impressions. That was part of like before it would go, be like, will this be funny him saying? Like, love the black eyepies. Apple D. Appled taboo. We must have said that list out loud 1,000 times. Before it was ever even, we didn't even have a scene for it. Like, we just knew we liked the way it sounded in his mouth. very confident and very, like, so passionate about the black IPs was just very funny to us.

And it's like these close shots on them going back and forth. And then like the, my favorite moment is when they love, when they actually earn each other's respect from it, and then they're like, this guy's not bad. When they say the Duchess, the Duchess. Hmm. Okay. Maybe I was wrong about you. I'm there with a fellow compatriot. And to your point, that works because they had been playing a pretty straight scene up until

that point and then suddenly it slips into saying the stupidest thing you've never. And again, like the trope of the movie, you know we watched so many Bond and Mission Impossible movies going into this two where we're like it there's always the way the the hero and villain are circling each other in the

first act where it's like they're you know the storytelling trope the Save the Cat rule is that you know they're equal and opposite sort of parts to the story which is like they compliment each other in that way. And so you're Okay, that's how every movie does it, and it's functionally a cliché.

And so how do we make our two, our hero and villain, also circling each other where it's like, they're saying the flip sides are the same thing, and one's the good version of it, one's the bad version of it, you know, it's, it's Black Panther and Killmonger, but stupid. And, you know, and that was, that was, that was every moment of the movie was like, okay, this is what happens in the movies now, basically. How do we do the stupid version of it? And so, yeah. That's one of the satisfactions of writing like spoof parody comedies.

You just get to be like, that's the thing. I get to do the thing and have the pleasure of writing the thing. And then writing jokes on top of it. Like you sometimes you almost feel like you get to do it more purely than an actual movie gets to. Yes, for sure. Because you can just like double and triple down on the trope. We're looking for the trope. And when you're writing another movie, you're like, this is such a trope.

Oh, we have to bury this trope. I know we need it, but like how do we make it not sound like the trope? our job is the opposite. It's like once we're watching movies and once we see something twice we're like, that's a trope. Yep. Like that's going in.

Yeah. And then how do we make it even more intense? Yeah. How do we really put a spotlight on it? Make sure everyone knows where the trope is and then really rip it. The owl stuff was a good example of that where like that that wasn't in the movie for a while.

And later in the late in the development process, the studio was giving this note that was just like exhausting or it's like, should the movie be more about like, you know, his relationship with his father and proving, you know, it's about masculinity and we're like, oh, like, you know, blow my brains out. And then, but, but once we were like, wait, wait, actually that note is the note that

you'd expect in the movie. So why don't we just do the stupidest version of it? And so let's make it. So let's make it that he's constantly asking for an owl to be represented by his father. We had another beat in the whole middle where he had one beat in the middle of the movie that ended up getting cut eventually. But it was, it was, it was like, Daddy, please, I'm desperate. Give me a sign like an owl.

or something and and then and then this sort of mystical music comes in and smoke billows through and he looks and he sees like a white wolf walk by with like magical music and he's like yes but an owl I mean the idea of taking a network note and being like well that note's annoying oh wait a movie like this it's annoying because it's a trope yeah so then we'll make the note that's such a wonderful approach to take in Yeah, it was great. I was like, oh, and it totally is like, it's the whole end of the movie. I mean, it's great. I honestly found it like it was inspiring to watch as, you know, I'm now a comedy writer in my early 40s and I'm like trying to find like, oh, why did I get into this in the first place?

And what do I enjoy in this after doing it for a long time? And it really, like, brought me back to what I love about comedy writing. It was like inspiring to watch. Thank you. How did, tell me a little bit more about the writing process. Like, it must have been very deep. different from writing like what did you i mean how many other writers did you have working on a beyond beyond just us it really just i mean we had we had a couple punchup sessions with great

writers yeah uh and sent it to some people but it really you know was but the moment we got the job or even before we started texting immediately but we went to akiva's office every day uh we hired a writer's assistant which is something you don't usually do on movies truly had to fight for her to get brought a set, had to fight to her to even get credit. They don't even like credit writers assistants on movies. It's crazy. And it was just you know, we sat there. It was, we made

our own little mini writer's room like a T, more like a classic TV writer's room with the three of us. First two weeks was just about the plot making sure we got the plot right. Again, like what Dan was saying, like how do you make something that's simple, that works,

that has drive, but then is easily forgettable, doesn't get in the way of the comedy and and then once we kind of felt comfortable with the story that we'd come up with it just became pitching pitching watching tons of movies yeah I mean it was a good thing where it's like we would have because we had we just a big there were two things going on which was storywriting and and we you know you'd write a scene you're like this is funny but it probably is five jokes short of what the scene actually is going to need when we make a movie like this that has a volume of jokes

but just trusting that like as long as the scene works there's something fun about it that we'll find more jokes and then simultaneously having these sort of just like late night text chats going where it's like we were constantly watching every every noir every action movie everything from the last 30 years of of you know these things so that when we identified a trope we could just send it to each other we'd say take a video of I mean of like I mean John Wick has so

John Wick is almost, half them are almost parody movies unto themselves. Oh, yeah. They just don't wink at it. Like, John Wick has people who, who dodge bullets with swords, they fight with horses. Like, those movies also change as you watch it,

but the first one's really sort of like a gritty crime drama. They become more self-aware. And they become very silly and cartoony. I mean, the Fast and Furious movies are in fucking outer space at this point. Literally in outer space. They are spoofed onto themselves. I mean, I mean, I loved RRR. I don't know if you've seen it.

Oh, my God. But, like, where does that even live on the spectrum of, of like parody to action movie to sincerity. It's an amazing movie. But the things they do in that movie are so despite the laws of physics that many of them would easily fit a naked gun. You know, like he's motorcycle. He's fighting with a motorcycle.

Yeah. They do it a whole fight scene. The chicken fight with him on his shoulders, right? Yes. Yeah. We're just like, that's psychotic. Yeah. Truly psychotic.

No, if Liam Neeson had done that in your movie. it would have just played for laughs and then, right, funny comedy. There's some scenes that are like that. Yes. Like comedy fights scenes. Exactly. And so, you know, I mean,

that third act where he's just kicking the gun clip was very much like in the RRRR mold. Yes. And a little bit of John Wick parody too. Exactly. Exactly. And that certainly was we were trying to build in like, all right, the rules of physics are so make believe in in so many of these modern action movies.

Let's really try to like land on. that joke. So that was sort of the simultaneous track of this writing, which was story, make sure the story's working, the emotions are working, all of this going forward. There's comedy everywhere, but it doesn't have to be overloaded. And that was the scariest part was like not trusting that it would come, we'd find it, that the script in the early stages was not necessarily overstuffed with jokes, but that we had this sort of grab bag of like funny things, funny areas, funny, funny observations that we could then keep stuffing in. the point where, again, we would, we showed up on set with an 800 page alt packet. Wow. Like, that's not an exaggeration.

And, and so that, you know, the moment Liam is, you know, perfect on a first line, it's like, oh, let's get this. Or we're talking to the props department and be like, let's just get another coffee cup in there. And, you know, and so we were, we were kind of aware that the eventual pace of this movie does have to be joke, joke, joke, joke. Yeah. It does need a clip of jokes of a volume that.

is unlike any other modern comedy. And so we knew that eventually we have to get it all there. We just were really good. And our writer's assistant, Alyssa Aaron deservedly deserves a lot of credit for just keeping it all in a brain space where it's like, oh, this would be good here. This would be good here. Stuff that, you know, we're even just on set where like champagne shows up one day on set and we're like, oh, good. Oh, that's where we can stick up this Cosby joke. Like, you know, like, you know, that's, that sort of stuff that it, it just reveals itself a little bit.

In terms of like, that's so much effort, right, that kind of comedy writing, you guys put so much work into it. There's so many balls to keep in there. There's so much to hold on to, soon this is a couple years of your lives. It was, other than the, I mean, the strike slowed it right in the middle. But it was, but also truly a miracle that never happens. But because Liam was in before even we were in, there was this, like, circle. of like tunnel towards an end date that was very real. There was a momentum to the movie

that really did light a fire and then also again when you have three people it's not like writing in your office alone there was a there was a kind of electricity of just like we were putting out a lot of work every single day and

because we had a Kiva because we're writing with the director that also changes things because then you suddenly like you know studio filmmaking is for writers there's there's generally way less respect for the writing in studio films but directors do have

respect so you have your star who is a movie star and you have Akiva who people are excited about and that really does go a long way and we're writing with Akiva so there was a sense that it just had this momentum so it didn't take

it was about three and a half months before the strike pencils down Adam pencils down and you know I had my eye on you and we appreciate yourself This is ironclad also. We were like, the day, we were like, we need to have the stamped. We send it to our lawyers. Everyone got it.

It was a whole thing. We really like stepped it out. We were like, and then we didn't talk about it for a month. We didn't talk about it. We truly did not talk about it. And then. Thank you. No, for real.

That's how you do it. And then we came back. And then it was another three and a half months before we got a soft green light where they, where they basically green lit us to make a proof of concept, like, presentation basically. Oh, wow. We filmed one scene. With Liam?

Yeah, with Liam. Wow. Which would then go to the, like the board of like, you know, the record. What scene was that? It was a, it was a blend of the interrogation scene with Busta Rhymes and the hospital scene with the villain. With the villain of being like, oh, they're going to love you in prison. But it was sort of were like, oh, let's just try to get as many of our favorite jokes in

here as possible. And we could do it in a monolocation, just do it there. But you had a whole screenplay, but you picked this is the, this is the scene. It was the most producible. in a day. I mean, we had one day we didn't want to go shoot, we couldn't shoot multiple places. I would love to see that one. It's good. That just

sounds fun to shoot. Like, oh, we got one day with Liam Neeson, we've been working on these jokes for a while, let's shoot it. That sounds like a blast. That was seriously that was sketch comedy to a T. We were just like, all right, we just show up. We're just going to like get, bang it out. We're in the random storage unit on the Paramount lot that looks like a weird, dark interrogation

room. I mean, it was lit properly. It was great. But it was also like, man, there's a lot riding on this too. Like, again, It's the first time we've ever heard Liam as Frank Drebben Jr. It's like, this is what's going to make or break it. We had a script that everyone liked, but it was clearly didn't matter if this sucked. Well, and it's hard. A lot of people, you know, it's not real until they see it.

And they're just like, they're like, I don't know. Is this funny comedy? Especially when you have people being like, even if you tell, even if they know that naked gun shouldn't have a comedian in it, you'd be amazed at how many people are still like, but it's Liam. That was the fight at every step, early development was just like. There was just so much fear. Like, we're going to, we're going to greenlight this.

We're going to spend tens of millions of dollars. On a comedy with a Lee and Neeson comedy, there's fear. Like, it's significant. I think part of it is people forget because Leslie Nielsen became a comic actor. He was like Mr. Magoo and shit. That's 100% correct. In airplane, those people were all dramatic actors. They were all.

Leslie Nielsen was a thriller star. He was a, and not even a star that was a B-movie star. He was a B-movie. He was a B-movie kind of like character actor. He was in the Poseidon Adventure. Yeah. No, no, I mean, all of them were, were dramatic actors. And, you know, again, he becomes this comedic icon. But the movie, the formula they sort of figured out in that movie is because they cast. And this was a fight that they had all the time, too. If you read there, there's a book called, Don't Call Me Shirley, is that what it is? And it's the story of airplane. It's great. I'm just glad that that's the title. Yeah, it's a great book. It's a really fun book. And it's about the beginnings of, oh, and you. love it so much. It's like you fried theater.

I got to read this. I mean, yeah. I mean, I've talked to you about Exquisite Corpse being my favorite movie of all time. This is the movie that my sketch group made about the process of making a sketch comedy movie together. It's really great. Honestly, prior to reading this book that was the only art I'd ever

seen that felt like it connected to my experience of like, wow, what a specific time and place in someone's life to like be making this low budget art with someone. But this book actually captures the same exact thing and in a beautiful way happening in 70s and like the early you know mid 70s yeah about these guys basically coming out of Wisconsin and just being a sketch group together just finding a shitty shitty theater space

yeah moving to LA having no idea how to write movies wow like never even seeing a script before like a little of the format or anything like that but so much of it is is about their upbringing like coming up through LA where they you know but also there's so much as about the casting arguments they had that people like exactly so being like these are not comedians. They're like, yes, that's the point. And, you know, here we are still making, after they proved that it could work, we're still, like, it was, people were still very scared. Yeah, prove it again. Yeah. As sort of how comedy works, you have to show people that it's funny. You can't describe. I know. It's very hard to trust. Yes. Yeah, I know. And we sure is how to try to describe

in the, in the pre-production process, and it didn't work. You just have to show. Well, something that I'm frightened about right now is kind of the death of comedy writing. Like, I grew up loving comedy writing, wanted to be a comedy writer, having my mind blown by stuff like the naked gun guys or by Monty Python or The Simpsons, et cetera, and wanted to give people that same sense of shock and surprise, but it's like effortful. It costs money to do. And, you know, right now I'm confronting you know, I've done the kind of comedy that I've done for like, you know, 15 years now. And like I can't figure out who's going to pay to have it done. I mean, like late night, for example, we're watching a whole genre of comedy writing. People are.

like, is it dead question mark? Right. And it's, where is it going? People still want to watch funny people talk about the news, but they're watching it here on YouTube and podcasts where there's a $0 dollar budget that you're hoping to sell me undies ads against. And so you don't have, you know, a money to buy writers. I do monologue videos for this channel where I have, I have writers, but I can like barely afford to pay two people script to script plus myself,

whereas I'm like, if I really wanted to do work of the caliber that I'm used to making and watching, I'd have 10 people. Right, exactly. And, you know, the, like, so you guys have, like, created this thing that shows the value of that effortful, high budget comedy writing. Do you think there's a future for it? Do you think you really shows that? I mean, I do genuinely believe that, like, we have to figure out production costs.

That, like, we're, we're, we're, it's so expensive to film in, you know, and it's, you know, It's such a complicated debate, you know, is it just a race to the bottom to get these tax incentives from state to state? And, you know, Disney or Marvel just packed up from Atlanta to move to London. And so, like, you know, and I hate going to Atlanta to work. I don't want to go to Atlanta. I live here. And but now I'm like, oh, fuck, now I'm going to commute to London. That's even worse.

Yeah. And so, God, I got to go to London. Can you imagine? Yeah, well, yeah. I got a little, I know. I got to go to visit. I was like, did Adam offer you a job in London that I don't know about? When are you, where you're going?

No, but it's like you move to Los Angeles to work in Los Angeles. You didn't move to Los Angeles to work everywhere else in the world. Yeah. Well, there's the famous story that sticks up to me is they made a Rob Low game show. Right, exactly. And they shot it in Ireland and flew Rob and all the contestants to Ireland, even though they have a soundstage in L.A. And so how does that make sense for anybody? It's a bad world.

It's kind of crazy. And so, I don't know. I don't have strong answers to how we bring production costs back in line with the market value of these things. because I think that's ultimately, like, what we learned on this movie was, you know, there, without basically Adam Sandler being able to force some exorbitant budget onto Netflix, there's, there, there has to be a limit to how much they spend up front to make the risk of it worth it. And so, and that goes up and down the ladder. You know, there's only, there's only so much output, monetary output that any of these financiers can expect to get back. obviously you have your mega hit suddenly and that finances a certain amount of failures

but you still you want to be able to not lose a lot of money on something that's just like a little successful and you want to make things that are a little successful because that's the point like you know I am I want to be optimistic because I do think that people love comedy still like you know and how many articles are we going to see about like oh these kids

today are they're rediscovering friends for the first time and they're watching the office now and like and like it's Like, if people want it, I just, I wish I understood and there was more transparency with the economics of, of streaming and like what, you know, like, where, where, I don't know if they have transparency on the inside. I don't know if they know what makes something. Maybe they, maybe they, maybe they don't. Are they still, are they still functionally like lost leadering their own companies where it's like, yeah, we're just going to try to sell as much of this so that we crush everyone else? It feels that way. Yeah, I know. That's how it feels. So I, but, you know, like, I, look, there's, there's still. every year we still hear

they still want to make multi-cams because that is a cheaper model both for better or worse sitcoms but specifically multi-cams yeah we hear that where are the sitcoms where are they they're few and far between Dan has sold one with with Rachel

hopefully that that'll go but they the pilot season is all but done now that doesn't which sucks and that screws also financed a lot of lives I mean that was a huge change in people's lives There were plenty of people who made their living on being like, I'm in development every other year on a pilot that never gets made. I was going back and watching the comeback because, you know,

there's the new one coming out with Lisa Kudrow. And, you know, they made one every 10 years. And so I watched the one from 20 years ago. And it's about her getting cast in this pilot. And they're doing rewrites like, okay, oh, we did a little test rehearsal. Oh, we're going to rewrite the character. And they would go back in a room and do it. I was like, that's how it used to work.

It is. And that was, I was almost in the industry at that time. Like, that's within living memory. Truly. We just got there. You had the last years of that. We're actually, we're so lucky that we were the last years of the like the middle era of where it's like we were writer producers. We got to be on set. We got to edit.

But when we started, when we were just like baby writers and we were 23 and me taking our first meetings, we were taking meetings with all the old hat, like old friends and cheers writers. And these dudes were millionaires for nothing. Yeah. Truly like. If you want to hit show, you were. You were set for life. You were set forever. Yeah.

Because there were like eight shows. on TV. And they were, if you got- The shows that didn't do well still had 40 million viewers. Yeah, I know, exactly. And they had 26 episodes. And you had 26.

And you'd get an overall deal just for being associated with it and you'd make millions for years. So obviously that doesn't exist anymore. And that doesn't feel like it's coming back. And that's a market inefficiency that like, it's hard to, hard to justify, right?

Where there, there are, you know, and it's hard to justify the idea that, like, oh, we should have made 30 pilot. We should buy, you know, 50 pilot scripts to shoot 20 pilot episodes. to air four or five that that's so inefficient that's so inefficient but that's I mean that's how you when you guys are writing jokes you wrote 50 jokes to have one in the script you know yeah but a joke costs very little money and a pilot cost like several million dollars there's probably something in

between but when it comes to creativity like yeah you need to generate a lot of stuff I mean yeah yeah but I can understand not wanting to spend but you could also argue that because of that you're giving yourself less of chance of finding the ones that can really break through so than every year you're putting your money behind four comedies a year and maybe and maybe one of them gets a second season because so you could also make the argument that if you you shoot a couple more of them you give yourself a better chance of being like no this is great i mean i am making a pilot right now that is literally the only pilot for this network for this year well and it's just like and i and i'm happy to be alive but also it it it is tragic it i was like i was it was good

news when we were just found out that everyone else had been killed off and then also horrifying news because it was like, are you kidding me? Like they're not making anything. The Disney own company. What are we talking about here? We're the only thing you're going to make all year. What the fuck is happening? Yeah. And make three more.

Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's scary. You got an extra million dollars. Yeah, it just let's go. But that does also speak to Dan saying, like maybe theoretically, if production costs can come down, maybe it does open of me like maybe now we get back instead of shooting one pilot we're shooting two or three and

this is this is vague and perhaps polyanish but i am hopeful that filmmaking technology is improving in such a way where like the cameras are you know it's complicated but like you know the cameras have spectacular autofocus now right you don't need a focus puller as one example among many okay you're gonna get the focus pullers union after i know i probably am but like but i saw you starting this argument i was like you that is the wrong the wrong podcast You're going to start talking about how AI is going to make everything better? What I'm talking about is how, I certainly don't think that that's going to be the creative part of it, but I do think that there are, there's production elements that are, as technology improves, will be improved.

I mean, that'll be cheaper. It'll require less mechanics, less material. Wow. Yeah, I know. And that money hasn't gone back into the creators. Well, it, the budgets have remained the same, yes. Yeah, I mean, what's funny is that, you know, you look at. what it took to film something on like 35 millimeter and like how much more efficient it is.

Right. You shoot to a card and like plug it into the MacBook. Yeah, exactly. Why is that now more expensive than it was then? 100%. You're right. So there's just mission creep and bloat, I suppose. And like Wall Street and and, you know, the, the quest for efficiency on the part of these companies to like slash and burn absolutely everything is part of it as well.

But I mean, yeah, it is, there's the cost of production, like comedy. is something that's supposed to be cheap, right? It's supposed to be cheap with another thing. So if the cost goes down, maybe we can make more. Get the camera up and running and get funny people in a room. But the thing with comedy that you feel time and time again is it takes time to build a comedy audience. Like it's not going to start with a murder, like where a body is found under a bridge. Like it's kind of this thing where it's like it's sticky right away or where these, whatever these catchphrases are about like we need something that catches eyeballs.

Like, shows have great comedies almost all the time have slow burns. Seinfeld sucks for a while. And then people aren't watching it really. You know, like how I met your mother, the show we were on was on the chopping block for the first four years. And now everyone looks back at it. As this mega hit. Like, oh, it was a huge hit. It's one of the last ones.

But it was almost canceled. And then Britney Spears had an emotional meltdown and simultaneously did a guest spot on having a mother. And it saved the show. Yeah. Really? Do you remember when she like, cut her hair and cut her? She got her hair and was having a breakdown. That happened to be the same week that she was guest starring on our show.

Yeah. They credit that appearance with like saving the show. Like legitimately. Wow, because people are like, I got to see what happens here. What happened with Britney? I got to see this head. That was the first time you could see Brittany after the meltdown was on our show. And so the ratings exploded from that.

And that's legitimately. I mean, was she melted down on the show? No, no, no, we weren't there for that. Although there were helicopters circling the stage. I mean, like, that was, it was... This is before our time, too. But we came in, so we came in the next season off that, and everyone was telling us about it.

And the show had gotten, the show did explode off of that moment. Yeah. But it's just to say, it's like, how do we manufacture that? Like, getting, like, being obsessed with these, like, it's got to be big and people have to binge it. And it's like, that's just,

I think historically, it's not how comedy is like, they catch on slowly. And as you're writing them and performing them, they get better. Like, almost, no sitcom comes out of the gate and is fantastic right away. It happens sometimes.

Arrested. But Arrested was fantastic immediately. 30 Rock is pretty great almost immediately. I would say like what we do in the shadows for a new game for a new example. But that came off of a movie. So like it did have quite a bit of time to experiment going into the truth. But it's fantastic for sure. But like in general it's like especially you know like classic like sitcoms like they just

they take some time and like you have to. and you have to be committed to being like, we're going to make some more episodes to see if it works. Yeah. And there seems to be no patience for that. And I do think that that's one of the issues. Well, and people also use that as an example of why comedy went to television rather than movies because in television you can hang out with the characters.

You know the characters. You can do character comedy. Oh, yeah, that's what Dwight would do. That's what Stanley would do. It's, oh, I know these people, and that's the advantage. And it works well for comedy. And you guys wrote a movie that completely defies that. Yeah.

And, like, has no, no one's like, oh, yeah, I love Frank Drebben, Jr. I want to see, I know, it's a hundred percent. I want to live with him for 85 minutes. Right, exactly. Yeah. No, I mean, it's, I think there's, I also think there's room for a lot of types of comedy. Yeah. A lot of space for comedy.

I, you know, I'm also hopeful that, that as, as these production costs, like, as technology just becomes a little more accessible, that, like, there's no reason that we shouldn't be self-financing and producing our own stuff for YouTube. Like, you know, just, just make it yourself and, and get it out there. And, like, the audience on YouTube is literally bigger than all of the other networks combined. Yeah. The thing that I'm wondering is, again, YouTube really prioritizes, like, almost unscripted comedy. It does, but I don't think there's anything inherent to YouTube as a platform for that. I mean, the production costs are higher to make a narrative. That's just the, it's always going to be more expensive to, like, just have to fucking flip a camera around and go do it again on another actor.

Yeah. as opposed to just capturing reality. But nevertheless, for something contained enough, small enough, you know, and efficient enough, I do think that there's space to put stuff on YouTube. And a creator, as we're seeing with like stand-up comedians, self-financing and then self-publishing their own specials, like that's, there's more money to be made, have full ownership. Yeah, the problem, though, is that like, so online media requires such a

fire hose of content. The problem becomes the writing. So, like, what a lot of comics do is that, yeah, they do their special. I'm going to tape one later this year. It's going to go on YouTube, ideally. But what a lot of people do is they do crowdwork, right? They do improvise. The crowdwork thing has become...

Because it's improvised, and it's a way of creating endless amount of content. Podcasts are the same way, right? So we've gone from, like, you know, Stephen Colbert employs 25 writers to Andrew Shultz and his three friends sitting around yucking it up because they can just say, what, oh, do you hear what? You know, and that's, that's the trend that I'm like, are we going to see, I miss written comedy. And what's so unique to me about your movie is, it is so, it's, it's joke writing. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And there's production value.

And like, someone had to go and go, someone had to go make the, you know, the bartender glass rag that goes back and forth with a little machine in the middle of it that, like, just squeaks just because it's in the background and it's fun for it to keep squeaking. Yeah. That's an expensive, stupid little. joke, right? Like, if I were making, if I were doing this, like, for myself, I would not pay out of my pocket to make that joke, right? And so it does take money. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know, Adam. We're all fucked. That's, that's fun. I mean, there's this group, like, there's a sketch group on YouTube called Almost Friday. Have you seen these kids? I haven't. They do very good stuff. And I was like, oh, how'd they do this? And I believe it's a beer

company financing it. Or it's some kind of company that's like, okay, we'll also do a comedy like people are finding the money weird ways. You know, I mean, TV got it started as a, as a sponsorship medium. It's, it's okay. Like, you know, you get the right sponsor that doesn't, uh, yeah, that doesn't compromise the thing you want to do anyway. Like, it's fine. Yeah.

I mean, that's the soul of broadcast is like sponsorships, unfortunately. I'll take RJ Reynolds. People have heard me read ads like during this already. Uh, where should we, where should we wrap up? What's a good, what's a good final? What's on my clipboard? What's on my clipboard? Let's pull up that.

Yeah. I mean, well, it's what we were just talking about. Do you think that this is, do you guys feel like the response to the movie is going to open more doors to this type of comedy being made? Because I heard people going, oh, my God, I missed this. I do. And I do think that there's, I do think as we sort of readjust the market of movie making, I do think that they're looking for more doubles, which is to me the whole thing. as opposed to only home runs, only superhero movies. I do think that the studios and in general

where people are becoming more comfortable with the idea of like, that was kind of successful. That was a little successful. And that those are also successes as opposed to, you know, the billion dollar hit. And we're seeing fatigue also on those movies, too, like all across the board. On the billion dollar hit.

Yeah, they're harder, hard to get to. There's, there seems to be some fatigue, which I think is a, I think, is a good sign. But I don't, the answers I don't really know. I think it remains to be seen what this movie does for it. Again, we'll just go back to the fact that I do feel people inside the industry wanting it to happen. Yeah. Like desperately. So that's a good sign. And hopefully that move, that feeling moves up to the people in the top. We're like, yeah, let's let's just try. Let's make like a straight ahead, two straight ahead comedies a year. Just like, or a couple more

romantic comedies that have a little more edge to it or whatever. it is. I do think that's possible. I don't know that I don't think the floodgates are going to open. But I do think there's a world where things open up again and they see a path to profitability and and the goodwill. Like I will say that I think that Paramount is receiving a lot of goodwill from naked gun coming out. They feel good about it. Yeah. And I do think that that actually does mean something to like these these people who make stuff. They're like that maybe having a couple movies like that taking some swings with some comedians every year and being like

we made something cool or we made something that's not another Marvel movie or whatever which again we'd love to write. I'm receiving it. Fantastic four, five, six, however many of the fantastics there are. I'm certainly receiving it personally from people just like the joy that this movie is

sparking and I do think that that's in a wonderful way the world sucks and to have a little outlet for joy is really not just nice and important, but like valuable. Yeah. I think it means something. Yeah. And so. I have to believe it does. Yeah.

So I do think that there's, I do think that there's a, there's a lane for this type of movie, this type of comedy, and just the idea of comedy and something that's, you know, meant to be funny and just make people get in a room and laugh together. It means something and therefore it has value. Yeah, I mean, I went out with a bunch of friends. We wanted something to do on a Friday night. We went to the movie. We came out, smiling. And go, wasn't that a good time? Yeah. Then we went and got a drink.

You know, people, they just want the experience of going out and being entertained. And, you know, Doug, you said, like, how much these, how much a cost to go to the movies, family of four is like $100. I'm like, what, if you need AC and just do something with your family, like, what are you going to find? Global warming is going to help the movies. What's cheaper, you know, like, it's true. It's true. Everything is expensive. Like, what's cheaper than 25 bucks a ticket?

Yeah, you ever been to dinner? Like. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so if you can make, hey, people want to go out, guess what? Restaurants are closing too, Adam. You know, if you give them something to do with the AMC near their house and they can go sit in the dark and have a good time and have an outing for not too much trouble. You go to McGuffins afterwards. You get yourself away.

I also think we need to retrain people to do it, too, honestly. I think that we kind of lost, like, COVID really was, I don't know if you know this, but COVID was a pretty big deal. Yeah, because it kind of seems like maybe it changed some things. Yeah, I think it shifted things just a touch. So I do think we have to, like, do have to retrain it. Also, we train people that the only movies you're supposed to need to see in a theater are the big, are the big IMAX things that are like seat rattlers and like really, really a visual events. As opposed to like, it's the weekend, what movie are we going to see?

And that used to be a thing, obviously for us growing up, but even not that long ago, it was just like, all right, what's, you know, you open up the paper or you open a fandango and you're like, what's there? Like, and I do think the studios, we have to, I think, retrain people. I think the studios deserve some blame for seeding that territory to Netflix. Yes. Where it's like, where they, where they forgot that they had, you know, they functionally had a monopoly on, on this type of experience. And that they were like, uh, instead of just keeping people in the process, in the habit of coming, we're going to let, we're going to let Netflix take over almost every other genre. And we're going to chase them by opening up our own jobs. One of the things that really stuck out to me

is when the Mario Brothers movie came out a couple years ago and it was a big surprise hit One of the things I read afterwards was that it had been like a whole year had gone by Since there was a family movie in theaters at all Yes And so there was just a movie For a family to go to

Because parents have kids And they need to fucking do something with the kids And the same thing happened with Minecraft The same thing But people were like, whoa Now again, it's a huge property Yeah, it's one of the biggest properties. Super Mario and Minecraft.

However, there was a shock there and it was like, they both overperformed. They both did better than people expected. Yeah, they both overperformed. And there was reportedly quite a bit of joy in the Minecraft view. These kids were like on their seat. I didn't see it. Oh, yeah.

It's great. It's great. It was like a rocky horror for children. Yeah, it was great. Screaming at the screen. So I think that those, look at those and I say, that gives me hope. Yeah. Well, your movie gave me hope.

Thank you so much for making it. And thanks for being on the show. And I hope you guys have. have make so many more in the future. I can't wait to see the next thing. I'm sure that coming out of this, you're going to have some great next project. Apparently, Dan's going to London for something.

Apparently, go to London. I'm going to make he doesn't want to go. Yeah, I know. I don't know. So, Adam, I'm technically available. Oh, okay. If you're thinking about that writer's room again. I know you can only afford two writers. You know what, man, let's do something. Let's do it. All right, fine. Thank you guys.

Where can people find any other shit that you want to point towards? I mean, Gregor, on Instagram and X still, I don't know threads. I'm not really posting I'm there just lurking on the on the socials. Okay, go see naked, go see where does this come out? When does the show come out?

Pretty soon, I hope. Well, go see it in theaters. If it's in the theaters, go see it if it's not. Go get it on demand. We have our best residuals on the rental market on video on demand. Go fucking rent, yeah, rent a group of people. Go to the theater or rent it. It's like $3. Yeah. Like people get

so, they get all in a twist about spending. $3 to rent a brand new movie on a streaming platform. There's nothing better for the writer than... It's our best breakdown. Really? That by far. Enormously. I didn't know that. Our best residual formula comes from... I'm on the board of the guild and I don't know that. Our best residual breakdown

was DVDs and then video on demand like that kind of... Got it. I mean, that's too inside the guild baseball, but there's horrifying stories about the difference between the theatrical contract residuals when it goes to video on demand versus the streaming contract residuals when it just stays on streaming.

Uh, yeah, yeah. The difference is enormous. So if you want to support a movie, hit that rental version. Hit that rent. Hit that rent. Hit the $3 Apple pay, do it. Yeah, a couple times.

Do it for every room. Thank you so much for being on, guys. Thank you. My God, thank you once again to Dan and Doug for coming on the show. Go see Naked Gun in the theater, support comedy. If you want to support live stand-up comedy, head to Adamconover. Dot net for all my tickets to tour dates.

Coming up soon again, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, Braya, California, Los Angeles, California at the lodge room. Hope to see you there. It's going to be a big show. We're doing Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York City, Tacoma, Washington, Spokane, Washington, a bunch of other great cities as well. Head to Adam Conover.net for all my tickets and tour dates. Again, if you want to support the show, Patreon.com slash Adam Conover.

Five bucks a month gives you every episode of the show ad free. For 15 bucks a month, I'll read your name in the credits. This week I want to thank Nick Wagner, Jake, Callan, Hey, Look a Distraction, Uber Elder, Avaro Eggburger, Tracy, Joseph Mode, Greg 0692, Marcella Johnson, Matthew Bertelsen, aka the Bunkmeister, and Kelly Nowak. If you'd like me to read your name

or silly username at the end of the show, once again, patreon.com slash Adam Conover is the URL. Of course, I want to thank my producer, Sam Rodman and Tony Wilson. Everybody here at Headgun

for making this show possible, thank you so much for listening, and I'm going to see you next time on Factually. That was a HeadGum podcast. Hi, I'm Alana Hope Levinson. And I'm Dan O'Sullivan. And this is the outfit, the new podcast from Higher Ground and HeadGum. We're two journalists who are slightly obsessed with the mob and organized crime and other nefarious stuff like that.

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