Family Trips with the Meyers Brothers - JUDD APATOW Chased Robert Conrad Down on Hilton Head Island
Episode Date: October 29, 2024Judd Apatow joins Seth and Josh on the pod this week! He talks about growing up on Long Island, taking a family vacation to Hilton Head Island, chasing a celebrity for their autograph, dealing with pe...er pressure in 7th grade, getting poison ivy and chicken pox, the comedy club his mom worked at, the ghost of Bobby Shad, and so much more! Support our sponsors:Blueland has a special offer for listeners. Right now, get 15% off your first order by going to Blueland.com/TRIPS #familytrips #sethmeyers #joshmeyers #juddapatow #hiltonhead  Â
Transcript
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Hey Poshy.
Hey Sufi.
Well, it happened.
I'm a married man.
You're a married man.
Yeah, I'm off the market ladies.
Sorry.
I know there's a lot of tripsters.
Stop calling me.
A lot of tripsters who've been listening,
trying to find out about you so they could drop
a little detail about your life
when they run into you on your walk with the dogs,
but it's over, game over.
Pashi's a married man.
I feel like it'll take us multiple episodes
to fully unpack the wonder of your wedding,
but as someone who was a guest, A plus job.
Yeah, thank you.
There were a lot of things that were important to me,
but really very high up the list was I wanted our guests
to have a great weekend.
And I really, I don't like patting myself on the back,
but I do think we did that.
I think people had a blast.
And I was so glad that it was over a holiday weekend,
so it was able to breathe a little bit.
There were some of the things that we planned,
which was like Friday night, just book a reservation
at the reservation at the
restaurant at the hotel. And we're going to have sort of different groups of people rolling
in and it'll just be mixing and mingling. And that was all we needed to do for that
night. And it was so much fun.
I came in to that beautiful little restaurant and it was truly everything you would want.
Different tables of different people. You'd get up, you could move around.
I can shout out the venue. Yeah. Glenn Falls House in the Catskills.
Glenn Falls House in Round Top, New York. Really. Incredible staff and incredible venue.
Yeah. And also peak leaves. Yeah. You did call for an East Coast wedding so that all your West Coast friends could see what peak leaves look like, and it delivered.
Yeah, I was on, like a month leading up to it, I was on the Farmers Almanac sort of website looking at sort of a rolling calendar of when it was going to be popping.
And it was popping.
It popped. Dad gave a wonderful speech at your wedding
and he said something really sweet,
which is he gave a lot of credit to you and Mackenzie
for how quickly you planned this
and the two of you really did plan it on your own.
And he said he was just having the best time
and he loved it so much and he doesn't like anything.
Yeah, he did.
When we sat down at our little sweetheart table in the reception tent,
dad was looking around and he was just sort of so taken with everything and he yelled at Mackenzie
and I, he was like, I love this and I don't like anything. This is beautiful. Which yeah, that also
makes you feel really good in the moment. And you know, we had, there was some rain on Sunday.
The ceremony was on Sunday.
It was a little touch and go,
where we're gonna have to get married in the tent,
where we're gonna have to get married in the restaurant.
And we sort of, we waited, we held,
we found a half hour window.
It was really a half hour window.
And I should also say, it only worked
because you guys were always gonna have
a nice tight wedding ceremony.
Yeah.
You didn't have to make any edits.
I think it was 20 top to bottom once we got started.
So we just needed people in position,
maybe with processing and recessing.
Right.
To a bagpiper, no less.
There was a bagpiper, surprise bagpiper.
Yeah. Which, yeah, he was great.
Shout out, I will say, you know,
I mostly talk about how they massively disappointed me
and let me down.
Boys crushed it, the Myers boys.
Your boys and your little girl, yeah.
They showed up, they were sweet.
If they were bad kids at all, I didn't see it.
There were not a lot of kids there,
and I feel as though our children grew up a lot
on the weekend because they appreciated
they were being treated.
This was a honor to be there.
And they sort of behaved like it.
There was a very funny thing where,
I guess it was Mackenzie's nephew and my boys were
all ring bearers, but of course there were only two rings and you very wisely realized nobody,
you didn't want to tell one of the three kids they didn't have the ring. So there were three
ring boxes, two with a ring and one with a pretzel nugget, but no kid knew who had the pretzel nugget. Right.
Yeah, it just felt like it was like the weight of a ring
and they walked down and they were great.
Yeah, and then our officiant,
the fantastic and wonderful and lovely and charming
Jack McBrayer opened the ring box with the pretzel
and promptly ate it.
He ate the pretzel.
Yeah.
Another wonderful thing, I don't even know if you noticed, but, you know, Addy was supposed
to walk down and sort of flower girl.
Yeah.
And she was, she was fine.
At the actual wedding did not make a peep, but she wanted me to carry her, so I carried
her down.
Yeah.
And then I sat in the front row with mom and dad and the boys, and Addy sat behind us with
Alexi and her parents.
And I don't know if you noticed,
but about two minutes into the ceremony,
Addie got up on her own, walked around,
and sat in dad's lap.
And she was in dad's lap the whole ceremony.
I think she just wanted to be able to see you guys.
And so it was very, very sweet.
Yeah, that's one thing looking back
at like things you would do differently.
And I don't know if they do this at weddings,
but I feel like it should be standard operating procedure.
And I don't think it is,
but I think you should sit on the opposite side
of the person who you're like,
so you can see like, you could see me speaking
rather than Mackenzie speaking,
not that same Mackenzie speaking.
The groom side should be opposite the groom.
Yes.
That's so smart.
Yeah, because some of like, you know,
Mackenzie's stepmother was saying, she's like,
oh yeah, we couldn't see you at all, like during your vows
and you want to be across, but missed it.
You, you- It's okay.
Still married.
This is good though. This is good for people when you get married.
These are a couple things to remember.
You did not see her dress until she came down the aisle.
You burst into tears.
Yeah, a lot of crying at the whole wedding.
A lot of crying.
Yeah, and all the pictures of me
that I've seen from the ceremony,
my face is twisted up and I wish maybe I had been able to hold it together a little better.
Yeah, you did not hold it together at all.
And yeah, your face was a contorted mess.
You looked so handsome and from suit looked great, hair looked great,
but like from hair to suit, it was really a contorted pretzel face.
Yeah. Pratt's whole face. Yeah. Um, the, you know, night of the wedding,
Addie did great, ceremony, whatnot,
and then she went, we put her to bed.
Axel made it through a couple of this toast,
and then he couldn't make it.
Yeah, so he fell asleep.
He fell asleep.
I don't know if it's his arms, yeah.
Ash pushed through. Ash is very, he embarrasses very easy. couldn't make it. Yeah, so he fell asleep. He fell asleep. I don't know what to do with his arms. Yeah.
Ash pushed through.
Ash is very, he embarrasses very easy.
He does not like people looking at him.
And yet, Ash went crazy on the dance floor.
Yeah.
A real rate of passion.
Yeah, it's one of my favorite sort of times
in a kid's life when they don't know how to dance.
Like there's no-
Doesn't know at all.
There's no kid at seven who's like,
oh, what a great dancer.
Maybe somewhere there is who's like,
you've been in training.
But then when you see it, it is like,
you're like, what have you done to this kid?
Yeah.
That they already know how to dance.
I feel like if an eight-year-old knows how to dance,
it's probably like some sort of abuse.
Yeah.
There's like, there's a toddlers and tiaras
kind of thing going on.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
But he was just, and I think he said to Alexi, he's like, I just listened to the music and once it takes me over, I just can't stop dancing.
He just needs to feel it out. And then, yeah, he's kicking his legs around and he was, you know, surrounded by a bunch of his family
who were dancing with him.
And I feel like those are great moments.
Great moments.
And so many, so many of our friends were so attentive
to the kids and I think that made their weekend really great.
Also, Alexi gave Ash like a teaspoon of wine in a glass
so that he could toast.
Yeah.
And then he had like one, and then he had like half of that, half a sip of wine in a glass so that he could toast. Yeah. And then he had like one,
and then he had like half of that, half a sip of wine.
And he kept saying on the dance floor,
oh, I wish I hadn't had that wine.
Yeah, it was bad for his belly.
I keep cramps.
He goes, I keep getting cramps.
I think it's from all that wine.
Yeah.
But yeah, it was great.
It was so beautiful.
Mackenzie looked amazing.
Oh my gosh.
Beautiful vows.
You guys had beautiful vows.
And then it was just, it was just a very,
and you guys went hard every night.
Yeah, we shut it down at two in the morning,
two in the morning, and three in the morning.
Which is nuts.
Yeah, and then we're up by nine
to sort of see people for brunch every day. I also want to shout out, dad gave great toast.
Mom did a reading.
Yeah. Beautiful.
Yeah. Made me cry.
Totally. Just great.
Yeah. Mackenzie's parents were great.
Great.
Her mother in particular, you're like, whoa, uh-oh.
Like, could be trouble.
Linda Rollins. Shout out to Linda Rollins, a live wear.
Even you introduced her as your mother outlaw.
Yeah.
So this is-
Because in-law doesn't seem right.
Doesn't seem right.
For a woman like Linda Rollins.
And she came up there in her cowboy boots
and only had bullet points.
I'm so impressed with that speech.
Yeah.
It was, she showed it to me later and it was so good.
And it was so funny and touching and sweet.
And yeah, and it was just, it was like just bullet points
and she was kind of off the cuff, but it was fantastic.
It was, she was in the pocket.
It was really great.
And in general, you know, there's always,
it always seemed like a slightly unfair advantage
for the people who spoke for you.
A lot of them are in the business of show.
But top to bottom, Mackenzie's friends and family
all had really, really funny, really moving speeches
and toasts throughout the whole weekend.
But yeah, Linda Rollins, she was kind of,
it was fun. Cause like you, it could have gone off the rails
in a way that also would have been talked about for years.
But I think the money on Linda landing the plane
in such a beautiful way,
you could have made some cash on Fandl.
Yeah.
But so she was great and you were great.
You were very nervous for that speech,
which your son told me about.
And then I was like, Ash.
Oh yeah.
And then I was like, he can't be nervous.
Like he's always doing this.
And then I saw you and I was like,
oh yeah, no, yeah, he is nervous.
I was very nervous.
I was very, it's, I get to do it,
I knew I would only get to do it once.
Yeah.
So, and you had done such a great speech at my wedding.
And so I knew how much time you'd put into it.
And I, you know, Ash hates when I cry.
And he made it to my toast.
And I told him like, I'm gonna cry. And I think
it was, I actually am really glad he saw it because it also, you know, it was, people
laughed a lot, which I think makes him happy. And then when I got down, he like patted me
on the back and he said, it's okay, it's okay that you cried. Yeah, also, I guess Alexi
said the first joke I told, everybody laughed and he laughed really loud
and then he turned to her and shrugged and just went like
I don't know why that was funny. And then I guess like five jokes in he turned to Alexi and said I'm just gonna laugh when other people laugh
Yeah, that's what laugh tracks were for. It was like just to make you feel okay and
Yeah, that's what laugh tracks were for. It was like just to make you feel okay and maybe if you missed it.
My favorite and obviously mom's favorite as well, my favorite line in your speech is that
I think it's possible that Mackenzie loves you even more than I love you and exactly
half as much as my mom loves you.
That was her favorite for sure.
She definitely likes jokes about how much she loves you.
Yeah.
Especially when they're told with love and there's no, yeah, nothing mean about them.
So it was great.
And yeah, we're just sort of easing back into life over here. Mary Ann, man, you know, we recorded an episode before we recorded this intro,
and you mentioned, you said to someone, my wife,
and it was, it's funny to hear you say it for the first time.
Yeah, we were on the plane coming back, and we each wanted a Stella,
and they only had one on the cart,
and the flight attendant was like,
I'm going to have to get one in the back.
And I was like, it's fine.
Like we can share it.
Like she's my wife.
She was like, okay.
Like I didn't know, but I feel like maybe that's the first time I said it out loud,
but it feels, you know, I said in my vows that it would feel very natural.
It does feel very natural.
And I took my ring off just when we were sitting around yesterday, sort
of having a slow, lazy day and it feels strange to not have my ring on already. So yeah, it's
just a switch got flipped and now we're married.
There you go.
And yeah, it feels great and yeah, very happy.
Yeah, I get you. It was so special.
I'm so happy for you both.
Thank you. Yeah, we'll get some pictures and time.
And, oh, our friend Jill Benjamin was at the wedding.
And I said to, I was talking to Addie,
and I said, did you have fun?
And she said, yeah. I go, did you like my friend Jill?
And she said, no, she my friend.
I go, oh, she's your friend?
And I said, is she funny?
And she goes, she is funny.
She is so loud.
And I really liked.
Yeah.
Even, yeah.
That's one of her moves.
One of her moves is so loud.
Yeah.
All right, well, you did it, bud.
Yeah.
And now we're going to have a wonderful conversation with Judd Apatow.
He's one of the best.
And we mentioned it at the end, but Judd is doing a couple of stand-up shows
that we want to tell you about because they're both for great causes.
He is doing Judd Apatow and Friends at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta
on Sunday, November 3rd.
All proceeds are being donated to the American Red Cross
to help flood victims in Georgia
and the Beacon Theater in New York City
as part of the New York Comedy Festival
on Saturday, November 9th.
And that is a fundraiser for people in North Carolina
who were affected by the hurricane.
He is a very funny person and obviously someone
whose heart is in the right place.
So do enjoy that conversation with him.
Oh, also, also real quick.
Yeah.
We're gonna try and do another listener episode.
So if you guys have any stories,
we wanna hear your family holiday stories.
These could be Thanksgiving, Christmas,
Hanukkah, New Year's, et cetera.
So go to speakpipe.com slash family trips pod.
That's speakpipe.com slash family trips pod.
Or if you'd like to submit your listener story as a video,
whoo, for your chance to be featured on our YouTube channel,
you submit to familytripspodatgmail.com.
So yeah, get those in and we look forward
to talking holidays.
This is, you know, just a couple of married guys
doing a podcast.
Enjoy Jeff Tweedy, everybody.
Family trips with the Mice Brothers.
Chips with the Mice Brothers.
Family chips with the Mice Brothers.
Here we go. Hello.
Oh, hello.
Hello.
Hello.
Hey, buddy.
What's happening?
Good to be here.
This is just, I'm, you obviously,
you came from a family.
You're incredibly close with your current family.
Yes.
But you might be one of those people,
and I knew this about you,
it's one of the first things I knew about you,
you knew you wanted to do comedy younger
than I think most people knew they wanted to do comedy.
Did that come from your parents at all?
Well, my grandfather was a jazz producer.
Okay.
And later in life, he had his own label
and he produced the first Janis Joplin album.
Wow. Wow.
Big Brother and the Holding Company.
Apparently he went to Haydash, Barry and like,
I guess it was 66 and made all the bands audition for him
somewhere. And I think he saw the Grateful Dead and all the
different people that were surfacing then. And he signed
Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the holding company and
produce their, their first record. So that was like the big
family lore, but Bobby, Bobby Shad, Bobby signed Janis Joplin.
And our Jewish family.
Bobby found Janis!
But then she did drugs and ruined it.
Did he have the demeanor of somebody
that you would expect of a jazz producer
who signed Janis Joplin?
Was he a
big character?
He was, yeah, he was a big character. You know, he was from the Bronx. He talked like,
you know, he talked like, you know, almost like Bugs Bunny from the Bronx. Very opinionated.
You know, loved jazz and blues, hated most rock and roll. Jimi Hendrix ripped off all
those riffs. You know, he would like listen to any Jimi Hendrix song and tell you whoiffs. You know, he would, like, listen to any Jimi Hendrix song
and tell you who he stole the riff from.
Oh, yeah.
Hated the Blues Brothers.
That's a fun guy to have at a party.
Well, the Blues Brothers, even I knew the Blues Brothers
were ripping everybody off.
He was mad at the Blues Brothers.
Very, very upset about it.
That sounds very fun now, having a grandfather who
would tell you what Jimi Hendrix was ripping off.
But as a kid, was it a drag to have a grandfather
who was telling you that cool music wasn't cool?
I mean, it was both kind of cool and funny
and also a little weird
because I loved the Blues Brothers so much
it really did understand how anyone on earth
could not love the Blues Brothers.
I loved the Blues Brothers.
I loved the Blues.
My dad, I remember him and he, my dad, you know, he, I remember him, and he, my dad, you know,
he loved SNL, but even he kind of thought,
you know, you could buy Sam and Dave albums
and they would be a lot more fun then.
He just thought all those people are broke
and why is everyone pretending?
But then, you know, the movie made people
like all those people again.
So a lot of those people, whatever,
Johnny Lee Hooker, Reatha Franklin, like it made people again. So a lot of those people, whatever, Johnny Lee Hooker,
Reatha Franklin, like it made everybody cool. So he was just totally wrong in every respect.
What did you call that grandfather?
Did he, well, was he grandpa?
Did he have a?
I think we just called him Bobby.
That's great. Bobby Shad.
And he- Bobby Shad.
He was just a big, big larger than life character because he was one of the first
guys to produce like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie like early 50s, late 40s.
But I think everyone talked about him as someone who was one of like the creators of the music
business who didn't find a way to really get rich.
Yeah, right.
You know, like he turned down a lot of stuff, you know, like he tried to sign Elvis Presley, but wasn't
fast enough.
Yeah.
Right.
You know, he offered Elvis Presley a deal.
It took him forever to get Mercury Records to approve the money to offer Elvis Presley
the deal.
And in that pause, which was based on the fact that they didn't know which division
you would sign him
under, because rock and roll was so new.
Like, is this country?
Is this blues?
So there's this pause, and then RCA gave him, like,
25 grand and a Cadillac.
So there was all these, like, myths about him.
By the way, they could all be bullshit.
I mean, who knows?
With that said, you must, do you think about that
every time you have a project going in business affairs
takes like six to eight months to finish a deal?
Do you just think about how Bobby Shad lost Elvis?
How could this take so long?
I found like an article about him
and it was all him just saying
how rock and roll wouldn't last.
Great.
Yeah.
It's nice to both not make the money
and be on record as saying rock and roll wouldn't last.
Yeah, it's too shallow.
It's too shallow.
Bobby Shad is an A plus name
and I'm guessing Shad was not his last name.
I think it was Shad Rinsky.
Shad Rinsky.
Yeah.
Good drop.
For music, it's a good drop.
But he was friends, and my grandma Molly,
they were friends with Toady Fields.
Okay.
And so Toady Fields for people who don't know
was like a Joan Rivers type comedian who also sang
and she would always be on the Mike Douglas show
and Merv Griffin and we would go see her
at Westbury Music Fair.
And she had diabetes at some point
and had her leg amputated.
And then she did this comeback tour in the 70s
with one leg and they drive her up to the stage
on a golf cart and she would be hysterical
about going to the gas station to get something
out of the trunk and them seeing her extra leg.
She was one of those people who could be really funny
and very self you know,
self-deprecating.
So I think as a kid, I saw a Toti and they talked about her like she was Beyonce.
And she ultimately died because she was told not to get plastic surgery because it was
dangerous because of her diabetes. And she refused to take the advice and died from a surgery for a facelift or something.
But she was hysterical.
Everyone in my family thought she was cool.
So you did have, your parents also liked the idea
of going out, liked the idea of seeing comedy and laughing.
That was a big part of your family?
Yeah, we would go to, West Bay Music Fair was the place.
I remember seeing Dangerfield when I was a big part of your family? Yeah, we would go to, West Bay Music Fair was the place. I remember seeing Dangerfield when I was a kid.
I saw Don Rickles there.
Don Belweez doing magic.
How far was that from your house, that venue?
20 minutes from the house.
So that was the magic place.
And then when I was in high school,
when I could go without my parents, me and my friends,
Ron Garner and Kevin Waltman,
we thought we were adults because like in 11th grade,
we'd go see Cool and the Gang without our parents or the Four Tops verse The Temptations.
They would tour like they were in some sort of rap battle.
We went to a Four Tops Temptations concert.
Yeah.
In an outdoor park in Manchester,
New Hampshire and it rained as hard as it's ever rained
while we've been at a show.
And yeah, it was great.
And the stage was a little wet,
and they were a little old,
and you did get a little worried when they were doing.
It was melting.
It was a melting happening.
And just like with the mood,
when they were doing the A and two,
proud to beg dance moves,
you're like, they're going down.
Yeah.
Well, there was always one or two
that were replacement Temptations. Oh're like, they're going down. Yeah. Well, there was always one or two that were replacement temptations.
Oh yeah, you never saw all four.
They were like 70 and then two were like 19.
So you grew up on Long Island, yeah?
Yes.
And two siblings?
Two siblings, yes.
That is correct.
And would you take family vacations?
Would you guys, what was a typical Apatow vacation?
Our big vacation we would take was
to Hilton Head, North Carolina.
So we were in Long Island, we would drive 14 hours.
Oh my God.
In the car and-
In one shot or would you stop over somewhere?
I don't remember the stopover. Oh my God. In the car. And- In one shot or would you stop over somewhere?
I don't remember the stopover. I don't know if we did it like two runs of seven.
We must have done the stopover.
I don't remember the stopover.
There is a chance that we just got up early
and did it from like seven in the morning
till nine at night with like no lunch break
or just stopping at McDonald's. That feels more like what it would have been
with the three of us in the backseat, no seat belts, one of us laying on the floor. There
was a whole thing of, you know, because no one wanted to be in the middle. It was too
tight. So someone would just lay on the floor and then we would listen to Steve Martin.
We would listen to Let's Get Small when it first came out.
A lot of little Riverbend as well.
So again, this has to be,
at that age your parents are the gateway,
so they're totally fine with having it on.
Oh no, they loved comedy.
My dad loved comedy.
There was a lot of Bill Cosby.
There was a lot of the Chicken Heart Monster routine happening.
I don't know if we listened to George Carlin in the car,
but certainly the Steve Martin record was gigantic at that moment,
and we would all laugh at it.
But they also thought comedians were cool.
They would say, like, Lenny Bruce is the coolest guy in the world.
And they would have those albums.
Our parents thought comedians were cool, too.
The other thing about, which I'm very impressed with your parents being,
you know, obviously a little bit older than ours, Steve Martin, like that was,
it wasn't anti-comedy, but it was such a leap from anything that they had heard before.
Yes, yeah.
And it's so fun to realize, and again, obviously Steve was wildly successful,
but it's so cool to me now when you listen to those albums and you realize,
wow, so everybody just got on board with this guy who taught them a new way to enjoy comedy.
Oh yeah, that's why I love that Steve Martin documentary
because they had so much footage I hadn't seen before.
And I just, I kind of knew it,
but I didn't really understand that that voice
that he was doing, like, how are you doing today?
You know, that voice, which we talked like that.
I mean, I was born in 67.
So when he hit big in late seventies, I mean, you know, I was 10,
talking like that for years, not really knowing what I was doing
or where this voice came from.
And in the movie, it was just so clear that it was just a magician's voice.
He was just making fun of a magician going, you know, look at the ball, you know, and that it was
just so simple that he had just, what if a guy talked like a magician all day long in making fun
of comedy? Like it's the most genius, simple, simple thing, but we loved it. I mean, it just made us so happy.
And I was probably into comedy before then,
like the Marx brothers.
And then Steve Martin just busted it into something else.
That thing about when you adopt a voice,
I've been talking to my mom recently,
because we grew up right next door to Adam Sandler,
and my mom was a school teacher.
And I said, do you think, I can't tell if every kid from this area talks like Adam Sandler and my mom was a school teacher and I said, do you think, I can't tell if every kid from this area talks like Adam Sandler
because that's how people from this area talk or Adam Sandler hit it big and
everybody realized vocally they were close enough to just start talking like Sandler.
So how much older is Sandler than you guys?
Probably about, I think, 10 years older than me.
Yeah. So when he hit, you were in high school.
Yeah. So when he hit, you were in high school. Yeah.
Yeah, so that must be crazy that someone from your hometown
became Happy Gilmore while you were in high school.
There were a lot of red hooded sweatshirts
that started showing up in high school because of Sandler.
Because when I was living with Adam,
after we both graduated college, we lived together.
And when he would talk about New Hampshire and Manchester, he just talked a lot about being like the only Jewish kid or not many Jewish kids around. And he had all these jokes about it.
You know, all those kids, you know, they would throw pennies at me, you know, and then I saved
all those pennies. And then I thought of own business, and now they all work for me.
You know?
You did talk about Manchester's having some
interesting rough kids there.
It's always, yeah.
I think people maybe make the mistake
of thinking about Robert Frost when they hear New Hampshire,
and you should really focus on the Manchester
of Manchester, New Hampshire,
because it is a little bit grittier
than I think people are led to believe.
Like he said, there were kids,
they would like drive up to people,
like kids in his high school,
they would drive up to strangers and go,
hey, can I get directions through the highway?
And then they would like lean in like, yeah, sure.
And then they would punch them in the face.
The New Hampshire L.O. A then they would punch them in the face. They'd be in there a little.
A Manchester-
Like, brute knuckleheads.
A Manchester handshake is what it's known as.
That's no desert, so I'm not saying something
you haven't heard of from Manchester.
I don't know if you remember, Seth,
there were always tales, there's this like,
I know there was a great diner on Kelly Street in Manchester
and there was always talk of the Kelly Street posse and it was like a gang but I don't know that it really existed or
if it was just a myth and I'm sort of fascinated to to do some get an audio
history go back and ask people was that a thing or was that just something that
was said? I had a weird thing my weird Manchester thing that happened recently
I was watching that.
Is it Pennebaker who did the war room,
the documentary about the Clinton campaign?
Or was it R.J. Cutler?
Cutler, you're right.
And but the-
I am a documentary nerd, sorry.
You are, I mean, you cover a lot of,
your nerddom covers a lot of work.
And I was very confident.
I didn't even start trying to think of the answer, Judd.
I was like, Judd's gonna take this one.
I couldn't believe it even came to me.
I think someone just said it to me the other day.
The, but you know, the first scene is in Manchester,
like just down the road from where I was in high school
and I was in high school during that campaign.
And it was that funny thing of, I don't, in my head,
everything looks the same as it looked in 1992.
And then you see what cars were
and it might as well be old black and white footage
of a trolley and a horse-drawn car.
You're like, oh my God, those were the cars
when I was in high school? That is mind-boggling.
I had that the other day.
I had to remaster the 40-year-old Virgin,
so we redid the sound and the picture,
which was wild because it looked so bad.
It looked like a movie from 1974.
It looked like a TV movie.
I'm shocked.
When like Tim Conway would do like a drama,
like a movie of the week, like it just looked so bad.
And then suddenly it looked brand new and gorgeous
and they just fixed it all up.
And seeing the phones and things like,
that's 19 years ago and already the phones and things like, you know, that's 19 years ago and already the phones and the TVs
and just everything about it, it just ages so quickly.
And I think about that when I make movies,
like don't show the technology, it's gonna be weird soon.
You know, like I did some old stuff with Stiller,
I think where he gets on like the cell phone
and it's literally just like a giant box
with a big antenna on it.
Like were we really making things
when that was the size of the cell phone?
Yeah.
It's nuts.
And it does, I mean, that's the heartbreak thing is again,
that feels like four years ago you made that movie.
And of course it's 19 years ago.
Yeah.
And I also was like, wow, there's some jokes in here.
I am not sure I could do today.
Oh yeah.
Well, yeah. I realized not sure I could do today
I realized I hadn't watched it in 19 years
Yeah, I hadn't watched it and so I really got a view of it as if as like a comedy fan
Because I had I swear to God forgotten
95% of the jokes like I have a really bad memory So as I'm watching it, I start just giggling
as someone who is seeing the movie for the first time.
But every once in a while, there's a joke like,
oh, what?
Okay.
Yeah, we thought that was cool that day.
That's changed a little bit.
I'm aware that we are getting far afield of family trips.
So I have one question before Josh
is gonna ask us about Hilton Head.
But you mentioned you haven't watched it again.
Now, obviously when you are editing a movie,
you have to watch it so many times.
Is that why you haven't watched it in 19 years?
That you just, you reach the point where when it comes out,
there's just nothing, no value,
you can get out of it anymore without sort of time?
I, you know, it's not like conscious.
It's just like, you don't notice it.
You're like, oh, I haven't watched that.
Like if it's on TV, you might watch a few minutes,
but there are certain ones I will watch.
Like I know that I have watched,
but maybe not beginning to end.
Like I produced Step Brothers.
That was written by McKay and Will Ferrell
and directed by Adam.
That's the one I will watch.
Yeah.
Like if it's on, if I'm a half hour in,
I will watch the next hour.
Like I find that one impossible to shut off.
Yeah, perfect.
We've got a friend who's got two sons in college
and a daughter, but him and his two sons,
they quote that movie nonstop to each other, The Bennets.
And it's like, sometimes I don't,
I feel like they're just trying to talk to me normally
and I don't get that they're quoting it.
And I have to like sort of re-rack my brain to be like,
oh, right, right, right, this is the Stepbrothers thing.
I always remember there was a 180 page draft
in pre-production.
God.
There was a giant SeaWorld section, but.
It's so funny to hear there was 180 pages
and it wasn't about like the French Revolution.
I think they were just so amused writing it
that they just could write it forever.
Like once they figured out what that joke was,
but there was like a 25 page SeaWorld section.
Hey, we're going to take a quick break
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Hey, Baji.
Yes, Sufi.
We've got our Pittsburgh trip coming up.
We do.
I'm fired up.
And one of the reasons I'm fired up
is because once again, we have booked an awesome Airbnb
and we're just going to be hanging out in one of dad's old neighborhoods, dad's old stomping grounds.
Look we used to stay at hotels, it was great, no complaints about it, but this is something special
because we're a family and I feel like last year at our Airbnb it felt like the way we were family
when we were growing up.
We would all just meet downstairs.
We would get some bagels from a local place down the street, brew some coffee, and we were just ready to face the day.
Yeah, and if you, you know, if we're out and about and we get home, you might want to just throw on the TV and see if there's a game on or play some Scrabble, play a board game and just be in that shared
space and be together, be in a home away from home.
And being in a living room with mom and dad is very special, especially not their living
room which is covered in dog dander and gives me an allergic reaction.
Some trips are better in an Airbnb when you're traveling with a group of friends, maybe you're
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When you guys, so when the Apatow's would make their way to Hilton Head, what was that vacation like?
I was trying to remember vacations
because I just have a really shoddy memory.
So I was like, can I even remember anything
to tell these guys?
And then suddenly like things started coming back.
And the main memory I have is once we saw the actor,
Robert Conrad, the star of Baba Black Sheep,
and what was the other big show he was on?
But he was in all these commercials,
like I dare you to knock this battery off my shoulder.
And at the time, he was one of those guys who would be on,
like, would have this celebrity,
like, what was it, the competition between the stars?
Yeah, Battle of the Network stars.
He was the guy who treated it really seriously
and was just a fucking asshole to everybody on TV.
In my head, he's like a kind of what DiCaprio was
in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Is that kind of a, that's what I would count, yeah.
Yeah, and he was riding a bike,
and me and my brother saw him,
and I was just an autograph freak.
I wanted autographs.
I'd write letters to every star in the world
with these like books of where to send the letters,
and I'd get Paul Lynn's letter
It back in the mail or like a photo or something and we chased him for miles
like miles across this island
Were you also on bikes? Yeah, we were on bikes
Yeah, and he was fast and we were like chasing him
Then he got on the beach and he was walking on the beach and setting up his stuff on the beach
Then we ran up to him just sweating.
And he just turned to us, he goes,
"'Why didn't you just ask me five miles ago?'
-"Hahaha."
Like he didn't understand what we were doing.
Like, are they following me or not following me?
But the worst thing that happened
in Hilton Head one year, we were all excited to go.
I was a little older, like,
it was seventh grade. And I'm with my new friends. Like I was kind of friends with these. I was
friends with these two guys who were my best friends. And then one of their brothers was a big
pothead, deadhead, and he would travel and follow the Grateful Dead. And then one day, one of my friends was like,
let's try his pot. And this is in sixth grade. And it really
scared the shit out of me. We went and tried to smoke it like
where they were like building these condos and the security
guard trying to light on us. And we ran for like two miles. I'm
sure the guy didn't move like he didn't chase us. But we, we just
thought we're going to go to Alcatraz
for it.
And as a result, I kind of switched friend groups because I all summer long in summer
camp thought when I get back, they're going to want to be drug addicts.
Right?
Like I was just like a real nerdy kid, terrified.
So I switched to these other friends who they became the potheads like like the freaks from
freaks and gigs I had accidentally switched to the wrong group and then my
friends didn't but so one day I'm with these new friends and we're maybe
talking to some girls in the neighborhood in seventh grade and to be
funny I jammed poison ivy up my nose I don't know what I was thinking so then
like a couple of days later but I'm covered like forehead to neck in poison
ivy so I'm putting all this medicine on it for poison ivy but what I don't know
is now I also have chicken
pox. So my face is covered with chicken pox and the poison ivy
medicine is not what you're supposed to put on chicken pox.
Now the chicken pox become like these giant nuclear chicken
pox. They're enormous. I still like scars from it, right? So
now, so but in the middle of that,
we're supposed to go on vacation.
And I'm this monster.
When we left on vacation,
I think we thought it was still Poison Ivy.
And on vacation, we realized I had chicken pox.
I mean, it's quite a smokescreen, you gotta say.
To have chicken pox.
It was like the movie Mask.
It was just, it was very bad.
And so now I'm alone in the condo for two weeks.
It's like a two week vacation.
And so I just started watching General Hospital.
I do want to just track back to say,
it's incredibly impressive how good it turned out you were at comedy
considering you thought it was funny to put poison ivy in your nose.
Which isn't even like funny. It doesn't look funny. It just looks like putting a leaf in your nose.
Any other leaf would have done the same effect, I think.
I think I also had a joke at some point in elementary school where I would shove as many tiny pebbles as I could up my nostrils.
And I would put my arm out and play a slot machine.
So you would pull my arm down, I'd open my nostrils
and all the stones would fall out.
No, I wasn't funny at all.
By the way, I like that one.
I would have liked to have seen that.
I was without wit.
I mean, I generally still am,
but I was really a person who liked comedy
who was not funny.
I remember working for The Critic.
You know, The Critic was an offshoot of, you know,
Mike Reese and Al Jean created it.
John Lovett.
Sorry, John Lovett is a movie critic.
And it was one of my first jobs
and the entire staff went to Harvard
and they would, you know, sit and debate Fermat's theorem.
And they would literally talk about math equations
that hadn't been solved.
And I would make dirty, stupid jokes.
I always just remember one of them going,
oh, Judd, you've outwitted us again. Were your parents based on the fact that they respected and liked comedy?
Were they excited when this became your path?
Yeah, I think that when I decided to try to do it, they helped.
I mean, my mom took a job after my parents got divorced as a hostess
at a comedy club. They owned a restaurant and the bartender was this guy Rick Messina.
And then he went and opened some comedy clubs. He later went on to manage a lot of people
like Tim Allen and became gigantic manager. And he's a great guy. But he opened this comedy
club and my mom who was broke took a job seeding people
at the comedy club when I was in high school.
And I always thought she did it for me.
She never said that, but why would you take that job
in that moment?
So like looking back, I'm like, oh,
that was the portal to see comedy.
And Jay Leno was there that summer.
And all these people like Paul Provenza were at the club.
And then I started interviewing comedians
for my high school radio station.
And then I got a job as a dishwasher at a comedy club.
I just kind of wanted to get near it.
And my parents, they would drive me to Huntington
for my dishwashing shift.
And then I'd have to get a ride home or take a cab home.
A lot of times the cab cost as much as I was paid to be a dishwasher.
I would make no money,
but I would get to talk to Jackie Martling for five minutes at the bar.
That was reason enough to have the job.
You're helping the economy because you pay for
that cab ride and it's just money going back into the system.
It's good. Yeah, it's good for everybody.
It helped Long Island a lot.
What was your family's restaurant?
It was called Raisin's Restaurant.
And they had it for starting like at the end of elementary school.
Then we all became dishwashers there.
Right.
And, you know, we would make like $4 an hour.
And during Junior High, we were working massive amounts.
Like, it would take so many hours to make $100.
But we really wanted money.
All our parents were getting divorced around the same time.
There was no allowance anymore.
All our parents were broke.
And so the idea that we could have money in our pocket really excited us.
So all my friends got jobs there,
cooking hamburgers and making salads and stuff.
And then we would have money and then we would go
eat at Beefsteak Charlie's and be really excited.
Like we were adults, like, oh man, we've got money.
Let's go to Beefsteak Charlie's.
So you wouldn't eat at your family restaurant.
You would take the money.
We would eat a little bit.
There was a lot of theft, you know,
like it would be the end of your shift
and you would like quietly steal a live lobster.
Like go home.
There was a lot of like, that bad.
Was it a popular restaurant?
It did okay for a while.
The big thing was once Billy Joel went.
That was the big thing, that Billy Joel was there once.
He did not return.
And, but it was like a fun era of work.
And then I left to be a dishwasher at a comedy club.
I wanted to watch comedians, but I never did the math
that if you're the dishwasher,
you're not in the room with the show.
Yeah. Right.
And so then I-
I would say it's probably maybe even the loudest room to be in. Exactly. Yeah. And so I couldn't with the show. Yeah. Right. And so then I- I would say it's probably maybe even the loudest room to be in.
Exactly. Yeah.
And so I couldn't see the show and then I said,
I'd be a busboy and then I switched to be a busboy so I could watch the show.
It's funny, I would think if you have a restaurant,
your kids are dishwashers,
you feel like you're teaching them the value of hard work
and they'll use that when they go on to their next job.
And they probably don't think that their next job
will be just dishwashing somewhere else.
Exactly.
It was a funny time too because at the comedy clubs,
this is like 83 or something, everyone was on cocaine.
So I'm like a child, I'm like 15,
and I don't understand this energy everybody has.
There's a lot of, there's a lot happening
which I don't understand at the club.
Yeah.
Right, but you probably just write it off as you are a kid
and this is how adults act.
It must have taken years to realize what was going on.
Oh, it was so exciting.
I mean, but you did feel like this is an adult world
I'd like to get into somehow.
Not the cocaine part.
Right. But like, oh, there's, you know, I remember Rosio Donnell,
like it was her first night, they let her perform on the weekend.
The whole club was buzzing because they were allowing this young comedian
to go on on a Friday.
Yeah.
That's amazing. And did she crush?
She was really, really funny.
I mean, people were hilarious.
Back then, Bob Nelson was like the star of the club,
and he would do this bit where he would turn on a radio.
He'd have a radio on stage,
and he would just switch the channels on the radio.
And for every kind of music,
he could improvise or do like a scene.
So if it was dentist music,
he would suddenly be at the dentist.
If it was heavy metal music,
he was kind of this stoned rocker.
And it was amazing.
Bob Nelson was that guy who used to dress up
like a football player.
And he would circle the mic and do all the names
of the college football players.
I remember, I think it was,
was it on one of those Rodney Dangerfield HBO specials?
I feel like, yes.
One of the stars at Brain Donors.
This is a deep cut for the comedy fans.
But he was amazingly funny.
When you were, when you sort of, your life
went out to Los Angeles and you started
meeting with some success, did your parents ever come visit?
Was that a thing that they would?
Well, I would go visit my grandmother.
My grandparents lived in Beverly Hills.
So I remember taking a vacation with my grandma, Molly,
without my parents.
Without your siblings too, just the two of you?
I was with my siblings.
I always remember one vacation
because we went to see a taping of Taxi.
Wow. And it was a two-parter. And I think we were there like one of Taxi. Wow.
And it was a two-parter.
I think we were there like one in the morning.
Yeah.
I got Danny DeVito's autograph.
And then we went to see a television pilot,
Burt Convy, the host of Tattletales.
I guess my grandfather recorded him at some point.
And he had a pilot for a talk show,
like a daytime talk show.
And his guest was Alan Alda.
And this is like in 78 or something.
So that was very exciting.
And then the second guest was someone that I had never seen before.
Richard Simmons, like an early beginning of Richard Simmons career, getting the
crowd up and making them exercise.
The show was not picked up, but that was really exciting.
And then we went to Hollywood Squares, and I was very-
So this entire vacation, it seems like,
was just going to see shows taped.
Yeah, and Disneyland. Great.
And was it the dream?
Is this what you wanted to do?
You wanted to go see it? Oh, yeah.
Yeah. I was just like,
oh my God, Florence Henderson is eight feet from me.
I mean, I remember who was on the Hollywood Squareds
because it was like Pearl Bailey,
Joe Rivers, Vincent Price, George Goebel,
and then Charo was there and she walked over
and I don't know why and said hello
and then like made me stand up
and do the coochie coochie with her.
And if that's not gonna be memorable, right?
If that's not gonna make you want to get in show business to get back to Charo.
Yeah.
You're still chasing that coochie coochie high.
I remember I interviewed Michael O'Donoghue, the first head writer of Saturday Night Live
when I was a kid in high school.
And he said to me, he goes, you know, at some point in your life, you have to realize you
have the same job as Charo.
You are no better than her.
You are doing the same exact thing.
Very nice.
I mean, it seems like it's interesting
because you want it to be a compliment,
like to be like, don't judge Charo,
you have the same job as her,
but it did seem maybe a little snarky.
No.
Like, it's all awful.
Speaking of which, what did you guys make of the Saturday Night Live movie?
I have not seen it yet, Judd.
Yes.
I am, I wonder if it will, I do think it had to be made by somebody who didn't work there.
Yes.
So, and you know, and Jason seems like a good person to make it, but I still feel like I'll
feel weird watching it.
I know.
I guess when you're like really inside it,
you notice everything that doesn't feel accurate to you.
It's kind of fantastical.
And I certainly went in as someone who is of a generation
that remembers like the first year of it,
even though I was like eight,
but yet we would try to stay up at eight, nine, 10.
And like, we couldn't even,
like it was almost impossible to stay up. But, and so when you watch it, you know, at first you're like, okay, how
is he trying to manage this? And then at some point you realize, oh, he's kind of come up
with this very imaginative way to combine a lot of the lore. And you're not sure for
a moment, just as a super fan, what you make of it.
And then it just winds you over. And then at the end, I'm sobbing. I'm fully sobbing
because you remember, oh, this is my whole life. Like, this is what made me want to do
this. And the nostalgia, I was talking to a friend, Paul Sims, about this. He had the
same experience. He said, you just remember that as a comedy writer,
half your life is in rooms with 10 other comedy writers.
How many hours you have reviewed
how Saturday Night Live was that week.
Right, right.
It's true.
Like 10,000 hours of your life is just talking about it,
talking about your friends who work there,
how they're doing, how everyone's feeling,
how the show is, and everything about what you do
was driven by your interest in it.
Whit was such a huge part of our upbringing as well,
and it was a thing that we shared with our parents
because we would watch it and tape it,
and then what we liked the most,
we would show our parents in the morning.
So I feel like our parents' experience
of the late 80s, early 90s is that all the sketches
were bangers.
Yeah.
Because we would just show them like 20,
on Sunday morning we would show them sort of like 20 minutes.
And I think the great, I remember the greatest thing
was it, our parents used to make us watch
the McLaughlin group.
Yeah.
So you know, we watched this current affair show
and then when it was an SNL sketch.
A great one, too.
A great one.
Yeah.
That, I felt like it was, you know, the combination of these two worlds, and I just could wait
for my parents to wake up so I could show them the McLaughlin group.
It's also, it's amazing.
It's amazing that the McLaughlin group was zeitgeisty enough for SNL to be able to be
like, yeah, everyone knows the McLaughlin group.
Yeah, but it was.
It is a monoculture.
Well, it's because the impression was so good.
It didn't matter.
It almost didn't matter.
It was such a funny character.
And I love that Dana Carvey is doing Biden on the show because I had heard him do it.
I think I saw him do it on stage once and maybe he was doing it on his podcast. And I thought, look at Carvey just quietly,
while everyone's struggling to figure this out,
he has come up with the most hysterical impression,
and now that he's murdering on the show,
it always reminds me that there's a very big argument
that he's the funniest cast member of all time.
Like, if you really line them all up for killing.
Yeah, for just killing.
And also his ability, it's so fun to watch somebody
come back on the show and not get heyday laughs.
Yeah.
To genuinely come back with a brand new impression,
not of somebody, not of like a John McLaughlin
that nobody knew you could even try to do him,
but like, hey, the most powerful man in the world,
yeah, like you said, nobody had cracked it,
and then you watch him do it,
and it's the way that everybody's,
the first George Bush, everybody was just doing Dana.
Yes.
And this is, you're just like,
oh, you can't do Biden now without doing Dana.
Yeah, yeah, it's like he created
like the James Cagney impression. Yeah, yeah. It's like he created like the James Cagney impression.
Yeah, exactly.
That everybody does.
Did you, with you and your girls,
did you, were you a big family trip when they were younger?
Did you take them around the world?
We, you know, it's funny, as a kid,
we never even considered going anywhere interesting,
like Europe. It was never even discussed.
I don't think I knew anyone my entire childhood who had gone to Europe.
I don't know why. It wasn't like there weren't people who could afford it.
But I have no memory of anyone being like, we went to England.
Our parents went to Europe, but they certainly never brought us.
No.
Oh, they didn't.
We saw pictures of them in Paris,
but I was in college before I got a passport.
They weren't gonna waste it on you.
No, 100%.
Yeah, see, that's the mistake that we made.
You wasted it on your daughter.
We had one trip, we went to Italy.
We were very excited about this trip to Italy,
two-week trip to Italy. We were very excited about this trip to Italy, two week trip to Italy.
But the kids were young,
I'm trying to remember exactly how young,
but maybe like seven and 12,
or like six and 11.
It was like 100 degrees.
It was so hot in August.
And the second we got there, we realized there was nothing to do
except go to museums and Italian restaurants.
And my kids right away let us know,
we are not going to museums.
We hate museums.
And we would try to drag them, like Statue of David,
and they were just like,
is there a pinkberry
around here? They're just like looking for anything like American pinkberry was a big
one. And like, we didn't go to Italy, Justin, go to Pinkberry. We have that right near the
house. And I'm like turning into the worst father of all time because clearly this isn't
sinking out. And then we go to the Vatican, right? And it's a real pain to get this figured out.
We've got the guide and the guide is just mean to us.
The Italian guide just really does not seem to like us.
And my kids hate the Vatican so much.
I'm just bored.
It's just like, you don't realize it's mainly just
like paintings and sculptures. And it's so hot and it's just, you know, you don't realize that it's mainly just like paintings and sculptures and it's so hot and it's so crowded.
And I didn't know what to do because I was getting so upset
that the vacation wasn't working well.
And we all start arguing all the time.
And I started just taking photographs of my kids
looking miserable in front of beautiful objects.
Yeah, it's a good activity.
I would just try to frame them just like,
like in front of the prettiest, like, you know, Leonardo da Vinci painting.
It was just a myth. And that made me feel better that at least I had a purpose.
Yeah, did they, when they were young, I mean, there's a little bit of an age gap
with your daughters, right?
Yeah, five years.
So do they bring out, do they, when they travel,
do they travel as a team or do they bring out
the worst in each other?
Oh, the worst, yeah, yeah, no.
I think five years is a lot.
It is a lot, yeah.
Because you're not in that age of where you can do
the same things.
And so it was just a lot of different spaces
for them emotionally.
But they found a way to individually hate the vacation
at the same time.
But it's funny, I guess both of my kids moved out.
And so we're empty nesters.
And then the rest of your adult life
is trying to figure out
how to get them to wanna hang out with you.
Right.
Right, cause it's always like,
would my kids ever willingly want to be near me now?
It's their call basically, how much time we spend together.
Do we have a breakfast?
Would they go on a vacation?
So they're nearby, how far away?
If you had to drive to where your kids are, how long would it take?
Well now, I mean they've been kind of working and so it's, I don't even know where they live right now.
I think they're kind of both working kind of between living arrangements and we're trying to like lure them back with a high thread count.
You know, you don't need a apartment right now, you can just be here and you know, save some money.
And then you do realize like, am I pleasant to be around?
Right?
Like, clearly you don't want me as part of your friend group.
Yeah.
And then, so under what circumstances
can I get you to hang out?
You know, so everyone, so I will try to like plan
like a very, a very nice vacation,
mainly to get them to hang out with us
and try to figure out a place they wanna go.
Right.
Yeah.
Did you ever rectify that Italy trip at 6-11
and go somewhere with them more in mind
with what their interests were
that maybe you and Lesley found?
Did we ever make it right?
I think we did.
We went to Japan.
Oh, that's cool.
And they love Japan.
And that was really, really fun.
What did Japan have that Italy didn't
for someone who's considering taking kids?
Well, noodles.
I think it's really about the noodles.
You know, like a kid doesn't need anything
except noodles and air conditioning, right?
So that was fun.
There's a lot of food, right?
It's just like, you know, you go,
although we went and had sushi at some place,
like some fancy sushi place where they would put
live sushi on the grill.
Like we watched the, they would, we watched the shrimp die.
They put like shrimp on the,
and our kids were like freaked out.
Like they thought that that was cool.
Like, hey, you can eat it immediately after it's death.
Like that would be a better taste.
You know, you can taste a little life.
Let's get that.
A little bit.
Like once we went on a fishing trip
and we never go fishing and we're not really fishing.
We're just watching the people on the boat fish.
And suddenly they catch like some big fish
and our kids are like, we, they caught a fish.
And then some other guy just pulls out a bat
and starts beating the fish to death.
And there's blood everywhere
and our kids are like screaming and crying
and they've witnessed this murder.
And suddenly they're traumatized by it.
But Japan, yeah, there's tons of stuff to look at in Japan
and it wasn't hot and the culture is really interesting.
That's a great vacation if you can get there.
It's really, really, really fun.
And so were you doing more like outdoor temples
sort of things as opposed to museums
if they weren't into museums?
Yeah, I mean, you know, there was a thing we did
where they, it was like a class where
they taught you to play these gigantic drums, like some sort of like Japanese drum. You
know, it was a little more active kind of a vacation. But yeah, there's definitely like,
here's a 90-foot Buddha. I always remember there was a guy giving a tour, he was a Buddhist
monk. And I brought my kids over
and I was like, can you explain what Buddhism is to them?
And he said, you know when you're a kid,
you're friends with everybody,
and sometimes when you become an adult, you forget.
And I thought that was sweet.
Yeah, that's a good thing.
Yeah, good lesson for your kids too.
Did your kids, I say this as someone who's not sure
of this answer about my kids and me,
did they think you were funny?
Like when you were a dad, were you entertaining to them?
I felt like I was not getting enough comedic respect.
Yeah, okay.
In the house.
I think that might be where I'm landing, too.
I'm not sure, like I thought, you know,
come on, I produced super bad. I wouldn't get any like from the friends. There was no energy of like,
he does something that we find interesting or fun.
And like once I got very excited because I said, what did you guys do last night?
And they were like, we watched, we watched Anchorman.
And I'm like, how was it?
It was good.
That's as much as I ever got out of respect from them.
I think, yeah, I, you know, I may have done some things
bad as a parent, you know, like I remember
there would always be nights
or they would be really loud till like four in the morning.
And I did become the dad going like,
when are you guys gonna go to sleep?
I mean, there is a limit, there is a limit.
I certainly had some meltdown dad moments
where they're like, your dad's weird.
Oh, I've got that for sure.
Would you ever, you would strike me as the kind of dad who would, your dad's weird. Oh yeah, I've got that for sure. Would you ever, like, you would strike me
as the kind of dad who would,
if there's like a sleepover party
that you might try to master at ceremonies,
like what the movie's gonna be or dinner,
do you ever, did you ever feel like
you were sort of on stage trying to perform?
Well, they always loved, you know, Leslie
and she knew how to manage all of that.
And I just always felt like as the only man in the house,
like, I'm just like this weird dude wandering around.
And I didn't wanna be, you know, I didn't wanna be,
I couldn't figure out how to crack the code.
But I guess that's like a dad thing.
I used to do this joke on stage about,
like every dad joke is the same.
Is there's a group of children
and they're all whatever, 10 years old,
bunch of girls, and you just walk in and you go,
so what are we doing at night?
Just the idea that they would even consider letting you
in their space to hang out with you is a comic conceit.
I also imagine, I mean, you're also up against,
you know, you're married to Leslie,
who's an incredible comic actor, very funny.
I imagine she probably was crushing.
Yes, they always adore her and she's part of it.
At least she's in show business.
My wife's a lawyer and she's crushing with my kids.
Yeah, well. With nothing for me lawyer and she's crushing with my kids.
Yeah, well.
With nothing for me?
Is she talking about torts with them or?
They love torts.
No, I, yeah.
She does.
I mean, she's found a way to make it funny.
I don't quite know how to explain it.
What are they connecting over?
I think that you're never gonna talk to your dad
about like, we like boys or, you know,
there's nothing that isn't uncomfortable
to talk about with your dad.
But I certainly took my best shots.
We, it has been a delight to talk to you.
We really appreciate it.
You're, oh, you're going on tour
and you're gonna be at the Beacon?
I'm doing the Beacon Theater on November 9th.
Have you done standup at the Beacon?
I have, I did it once with Amy Schumer.
We did a train wreck tour with David Tao and Mike Pabiglia.
It's the best place in the world to do standup. I did it once with Amy Schumer. We did a train wreck tour with David Tao and Mike Brabiglia.
And it was great.
It's the best place in the world to do stand-up.
Don't you think it might be one of the great stand-up theaters?
Yeah, it was amazing.
So Mike Brabiglia is going to be there with me and Ricky Villas and some special guests,
which are really exciting.
And that's part of the New York Comedy Festival.
You can get tickets at nycomedyfestival.com.
And it's a benefit for North Carolina for the hurricane.
And then on November 3rd, I'm in Atlanta,
the Variety Playhouse, and that's a benefit for Georgia
for the hurricane.
And Jeff Foxworthy is gonna be on that show.
Oh, wow.
And that you can get tickets at JuddAppetow.com slash events.
And that's my two city tour.
Two cities.
But that's the year.
Two good causes.
Two good causes.
That's the year.
But yeah, those will be fun.
Before we let you go, Josh is gonna ask you the questions
we ask all of our guests here.
Okay.
You can only pick one of these.
Is your ideal vacation relaxing, adventurous,
or educational? Relaxing. I'm ideal vacation relaxing, adventurous, or educational?
Relaxing.
I'm lazy.
Yeah, that's good.
I'm lazy.
What's your favorite means of transportation?
Train, plane, automobile, boat, bike,
walking, something else.
Oh, horse.
Horse, you strike me.
I don't do it often, but I think horse is more exciting
than the rest of that.
It's definitely exciting.
My wife is an equestrian
and I've only been on a horse with her once.
Yeah.
But yeah.
If you could take a vacation with any family,
alive or dead, real or fictional,
other than your own family,
what family would you like to take a family vacation with?
Oh, that's a really good question.
What family?
Maybe like the, I just realized that it probably isn't a good vacation, but like in my head
I was like, maybe like the young like Murrays, like the Brian Doyle, John Murray family like when they were
all like teenagers. Probably be pretty fun. I was gonna say Belushi but I feel like they were
diner owners and they were not gonna make it that fun. You'd be ditch watching. Maybe that's what
I want is to get back. That's what you do. You want to get back there. Your roots. If you had
to be stranded on a desert island
with one member of your family, who would it be?
Oh, geez.
How do you answer that without,
I'll pick someone dead, my grandfather Bobby.
He died when I was like in high school,
right when I thought I could begin to understand
what he did as this kind of cool guy.
So I'll say the ghost of Bobby Sha.
And then you are from Siosset, am I pronouncing that right?
Siosset, Long Island.
Would you recommend Siosset as a vacation destination?
I would say, I can't say you would vacation there,
but you know, there's the Crest Hollow Country Club there.
There's a lot of weddings and bar mitzvahs happening there.
So I think, you know what, don't vacation there,
but I think it could be a home to an important family event.
That's a great answer.
Lovely.
And then Seth has our final questions here.
Judd, have you been to the Grand Canyon?
No.
Do you want to go?
No.
Great.
I thank you very much for your time.
It's been lovely having you on family trips.
Do check out Judd, Sunday, November 3rd in Atlanta, Saturday, November 9th in New York
City, both for great causes, both certain to be very funny shows.
Great seeing you, buddy.
Yeah, great to see you.
Thanks, Judd.
Bye, Judd.
Bye.
Granddad was a jazz producer, called him Bobby Shad
Judd would hang with him in toady fields
Signed talent that was super good long before super bad
Had Elvis but he couldn't close the deal
One year on vacation down in Hilton Head, saw Robert Conrad biking down the road.
Judd and his brother chased him down to a beach just outside of town.
Robert said you could have asked five miles ago.
Judd's first go in comedy, it wasn't up to scratch.
Although scratching was exactly what it guaranteed.
Not only did he have chicken pox, which
are super bad to catch, he added some insult to injury.
He added some insult to injury Stuffed his nose full of poison IV No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not worth a jud. Don't stuff your nose with
poison IV. No, no, no, don't you go stuffing it up your nose. Why don't you know what everybody
knows? Don't stuff your nose with the poison IV, yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
Don't you know this is a shockingly terrible way to go?
Stuffing your nose with the poison ivy
You can stuff it with pebbles, you know what I mean?
Do that thing where you're the slap machine
But don't stuff your nose with the poison ivy Oh, ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch- Oh no! Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah,Ch-Ch-This isn't good
Don't stop your nose, poison of E!