Inside Conan: An Important Hollywood Podcast - Alec Berg

Episode Date: July 31, 2020

Writer/producer/director Alec Berg (Barry, Silicon Valley, Seinfeld) stops by to talk with writers Mike Sweeney and Jessie Gaskell about his memories of writing for Late Night with Conan before moving on to Seinfeld which included 1AM writing sessions, doing a Nobody’s Watching themed episode that got the lowest ratings ever because of the Olympics, playing the Saint Patrick’s Day beard & Robert Duvall, and sneaking around 30 Rock to watch Pearl Jam rehearse for SNL. Got a question for Inside Conan? Call our voicemail: [phone] and e-mail us at [e-mail] For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com

And now it's time for Inside Conan, an important Hollywood podcast. Hi, welcome back to Inside Conan, an important Hollywood podcast. Beautifully done. I'm half of the hosting team. My name's Mike Sweeney. And you are, again? Jesse Gaskell. We're both writers on The Conan Show.

Yeah, the non-Emmy-nominated Conan Show. Yes. It's Hollywood's fourth biggest night. It really is. We were nominated for Emmys a few times. And once I went and, you know, they have bleachers for fans, fans of television, I guess. And they just yell it all. You know, there's celebrities that are walking by like, oh, hey, hi.

You know, people yelling at Conan. And I was like, I don't know, 20 feet behind him. And I'm just like, you know, okay, I'm just an anonymous schlub. And then someone yelled, Hey, Lincoln! What? Because I played Abe Lincoln on a few sketches. So I was like to my wife, honey, please stop. Hold up. I've got to milk this. My fan is here. Yeah, exactly. I have to have a one-on-one moment with this sad man in the back of a bleacher.

We did sketches all the time where the way the sketch would end was figuring out a new way to assassinate Lincoln. Oh, wow. Yeah. I think once they had me come out as a reanimated head in a jar and they're like, here it is, Lincoln's head. And then the curtain opens again and John Wilkes Booth's head comes out in a separate jar and he has a gun in his teeth and he shoots me. Oh man. It's kind of an old cliche to end a sketch with someone getting shot. Yes. I actually think that works. That's the exception. Yes. And it teaches history. So it's educational as well. It's true true Well, how have you been? Are you still sewing? I am still sewing, I was actually sewing right before this

Really? When is your sewing time? No, I'm serious Anytime I'm stressed out, I sew all the time Like late at night seems not good, that's like Silence of the Lambs sewing down in the basement Oh yeah, you can only sew skin suits at night Right, exactly But during the day, it down in the basement. Oh yeah, you can only sew skin suits at night. Right, exactly. But during the day, it seems like the right time. Yeah, it's nice.

I put on some music and I was listening to a Jimmy Buffett record. Oh, okay. Not just any music. You're sewing to Buffett. Well, we have a great interview. We do have a great interview. Please.

This is one that we recorded a long time ago, but we've been sitting on it. Maybe the pandemic was in Wuhan and we were all just like, oh, China, get your act together. I think we mentioned in the podcast, oh, a pandemic would never come here. Yes, right. And if it did, it would never last more than a month. Right. And even if it did, it would never shut down television production, our most hallowed occupation in this country. But we talked to Alec Berg, who, if you are a fan of television, I think you're a fan of his.

Yes, he's one of the minds behind Silicon Valley. And Barry, another reason we want to talk to him was he was one of the very first writers on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. He was. And then he left. He and his writing partner left to write on a show called Seinfeld. Am I saying that right? Does he regret that move? We'll find out. Here's Alec Burke. So how do we, put the cans on and then what is this podcast?

It's probably your fourth one today. Yeah. I don't do a lot of these. Yeah. I really don't. Yeah. Well, we were wondering how much of this territory will be trodden, but we think people haven't... Oh, good.

Okay. That's great. I don't know that a lot of people know that you wrote for Conan, so that's exciting. Yes. Yeah. People don't know that I write for anything. Right. Why should Conan be any different?

It's buried in your resume. We should introduce you, Alec Berg. Hello. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Welcome, Alec. Thanks for doing this. Of course. Thank you for having me. On a Friday. On a Friday afternoon in Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, yes. So far, this is going great. It is.

It really is, actually. It's going very, very well. I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, but I think it's going well. I'm assuming it's all sarcasm. I assume every interaction I ever have with anyone is sarcasm. How could I be so sarcastic? Sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised. See, I actually have the opposite where I'm often being sincere and people think I'm being sarcastic. That happens to me a lot where every once in a while I'm sincere.

People just assume. It's the boy who cried wolf. Yeah. So you can't. So you gave it up. I'm trying to quit. Yeah. I've mostly quit.

Alec, you have this incredible resume. But the one thing a lot of people probably don't know about you is that you wrote on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. I did. Briefly in 1994. Is that? It started in February of 90, that would have been 94. Yes, we got there for show 99. Wow.

Jeff Schaefer and I, who I worked with for many, many years. You were a writing team at the time. So we got there, yeah, in February, we got there, there were nine massive blizzards that winter. They still talk about the winter of 93, 94 in New York. It's like, what are the worst ones ever? And we got there for eight of them.

Oh, wow. So it was like blizzard, and then the snow would start to melt, and then another blizzard. And so that's my memory of trying to get to 30 Rock every day was like 10 feet of snow on the sidewalks. Oh, wow. Were you already living in New York? No. Jeff and I moved out to LA in the spring of 92. Okay. And we had been trying to get half hour jobs and we had gotten tiny nibbles of things here and there

and just enough to keep us in macaroni and cheese. Yeah. When Conan started hiring, we met with him. We were actually, Jeff and I met with Conan the day he moved to New York. Yeah. He just, he said, whatever you like. No, but we were meeting with him and literally his car came to take him to the airport while we were talking to him. And I remember him pacing around and looking out the window and he said, do I need to leave now? Like he's here. I'm supposed to talk to you guys, but is it rude that he's sitting down there ready to take me? And I like, I guess he had not. This was like the first time he'd had a car call for him.

Yeah. What a pup. Yeah. No, this was. Things have changed. He didn't know you can leave him waiting for hours. It was weeks before he became unbearable. Yes. Now the driver sits out there for weeks. Yeah, but it was literally the moment that he left for New York.

Oh, wow. And you guys were meeting with him about something unrelated? No, about writing on the show. He and Robert had started to sort of like – Robert Smigel. Robert Smigel, yes, had started to talk to some people. And Jeff and I met with Conan, and then we wrote a submission packet. And Robert Smigel being Robert Smigel, we didn't hear back all that quickly. And then we got a job on a half hour show starring a then unknown Jeff Garlin.

Oh. And that show, as you may have guessed, didn't go anywhere. And then we got the company that produced that show also produced a show called Herman's Head, which I know you've seen all of. Sure. And so we were working on Herman's Head and we got a call from Robert Smigel and he basically just said, okay. Can you start tomorrow? And we went, what do you mean? Now?

Can you start? Exactly. I mean, it was almost literally that. And we're like, well, first of all, we sent that stuff in like months ago and never heard anything. And second of all, no, we took another job. And he was a little bit irritated. He's like, nobody told me you took another job. We sent this in months ago.

But as luck would have it, Herman's head, as you know, got canceled. I'm a real head head. Yeah. Although it didn't, it went on hiatus. So we went on a hiatus, like, you know, they shortened the order and it all but got canceled. So we called them and said, hey, we're around. So that's why we started at show 99 and not at the beginning. Right. So we went out there in February and worked for three or four months. Yeah. And then we were under option to Herman's Head. So we had to come back, but then they didn't pick it up.

Okay. And once we had moved back to LA, we were sort of waffling and we're like, ah. And you had just been through the worst winter of New York history. Yes. Yes. And then we were talking about coming back to Conan. And then we got a call from some friend of ours that worked at another show called Seinfeld, which you also might have heard of. Yes.

It's not Herman's head, but two sides of the same coin. Indicating you're going even, Stephen. Yes. The scales of comedic injustice. But so we got hired at Seinfeld. So then we had to call Conan back and say, we're really sorry, but we have this other thing. And so we ended up working there and that was the end of our. Was Seinfeld already on for a while?

And you've regretted it ever since, right? Yes. Yes, we have. Yes, Seinfeld had been on. When we started working there, it was already the number one show. Right. Oh, that's great. I don't want to say they had done all the good episodes because i was there for slightly more than half of them

but it was an established show okay yeah yeah it was it was already so you knew that that was a pretty sure event yeah yeah it was like getting made in the mafia it was a really had you not met jerry or or no we we had the very first paying job Jeff and I ever got was writing a script for a show called Great Scott, which Tobey Maguire was in. Oh. And the guy who played E on Entourage. Yeah.

Irish fella. Friends with Leonardo DiCaprio. Yes. So the guys who ran that show, Tom Gamble and Max Pross, who had been Letterman writers in the early days, they ran that show and they hired us to do a script. And then that show got canceled. But it was a Castle Rock show.

And Castle Rock also produced Seinfeld. So they had been moved over to Seinfeld. And that's how we got in the door at Seinfeld. So we got a call from Tom and Max at 9.30 in the morning. And they just said, how soon can you come over here? And it was at Radford which is in the valley and we were living

kind of near where the Grove is in LA which is something that upsets a lot of people yeah shocking

I always remember any outdoor scene where they're walking in New York I'm like that's LA son come on yeah it's funny

if you look at I mean we had one block of Upper West Side on the Radford lot and the sidewalks are about three feet wide. And they built in all these like steam grates and things so it could make it look cold. So we get this call from Tom and Max. And I say, how soon can you get over here?

And we said, I don't know, 45 minutes. And 45 minutes later, we walked into Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld's office. It was actually great because we had no time to think about it. No time to obsess. No time to plan anything. We just walked in and were kind of in awe. And, you know, just talked to them for 20 minutes.

And we walked out and... Five months later, no. No, I mean, literally like an hour later, we got a call from Tom and Max and they said, hey, they said you should call your agent. We said, call our agent about what? And then it turned out. Wow.

Yeah. And we got hired that day. Is that the big envelope or the little envelope? Yeah, no, we got the big one. Yeah, it was great. That's great. But then, you know, that day we had to call Conan and tell him good news, bad news. At least, I mean, it's good when you say you're leaving for a show like Seinfeld.

Yeah. Yeah, it definitely, it softened the blow a little bit, I think. Yeah. Yeah. No, I remember Conan was incredibly gracious about it and just said, look, I totally get it. He's always great when people leave. Being gracious. Yeah.

Oh, good to know. Yes. So, wow. So, you were there for like three or four months. Yeah, good to know. Yes. So, wow. So you were there for like three or four months. Yeah. Like four months. I'm curious, a writing team, like how, I've never worked on a staff. That probably just meant you got paid half as much, right?

I think that's right. Yes. Oh, no, no. Actually, it didn't. On half hour jobs, we definitely did because we were Berg, Ampersand, Schaefer, and we got one fee. But in Variety, because they run everybody's name on every episode, you get paid as an individual entity. Oh, cool. Yeah. We got a pay bump. And then when we went back to Seinfeld, we got a huge pay cut.

Yeah. So Conan was definitely a lot more lucrative than Seinfeld was in the early going. So you went from sitcom to a variety show back into sitcom. Did you have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to kind of get into a different frame? I don't know. I mean, to me, it was all just writing premises and jokes. Yeah. And it was pretty, like, we kind of fell into the, at that time, and I don't know if you guys still work this way, but the monologue people and the sketch people were incredibly separated. Yes.

It really was like we were literally on opposite sides of the office. Right. And every once in a while, one of the monologue people would come in and say, hey, we have this idea for a sketch. And we would sort of roll our eyes at them. Right, right, right. Every once in a while, one of us would have an idea for a monologue joke and go tell them and they would roll their eyes at us. But no, I remember that all the monologue guys would sit on the floor of this office that was just covered in, we used to have these things called newspapers. And this was pre-internet.

It was 94. Yeah. So there would just be piles of every newspaper and they would just sit on the floor reading them. But we were across the offices and when I got there, it was Louie was there. Right. Dino Stamatopoulos was there. Ellie Barancic was still Robert Smigel's assistant at that point. Right.

She hadn't been- The Adam Ryder's coordinator. Right. She hadn't been promoted yet. Michael Gordon? Yeah. Yes. Dave Reynolds.

Dave Reynolds. Yep. Andy Richter was a sidekick, but also a writer. And Odenkirk would pop in every now and again and just knock ideas around. But that was kind of the room. Yeah. And then all of us really spent an enormous amount of time waiting for Robert Smigel to come back from wherever he was. He was running four other shows.

A lot of times we literally had no idea. Like he was in the bowels of 30 Rock somewhere. Like, you know, I remember going down to the edit every once in a while. And we used to edit on these giant three quarter inch tape machines that were all super antiquated. It was a small room. Yeah. And I was explaining to someone recently. It literally is linear.

So if you wanted to, you know, put three different shots from a newsreel together, you'd have to pop each tape out and record it onto another piece of tape. And if you change the order of anything,

you had to start from scratch. I can't remember the guy's name, but the editor that we always worked with was one of these lifer guys.

Chuck Dijon. Is that the guy's name? The guy... And he'd yell at the. Shut up and listen. Yes. Audio edit only. Close your eyes.

Don't look. That's the guy. And I remember he would also yell at his tape decks. Do you remember this? Yes. Did he ever do that with you? He's like, come on, ladies. Yes.

And if they didn't work. He told them ladies. Yeah. And if they didn't work correctly, he would yell at them. Yeah. He's like, God, come on. Not now, ladies. yell at them. Yeah. He's like, God, come on. Not now, ladies. Typical chicks.

Yeah. Any new writer that came in was like fresh fodder for all his rules. Yes. Oh, yeah. And then he'd be like, now that's funny. Yeah, but never laugh. No. It's funny how comedy sometimes attracts the angriest.

Yes. There was a guy that would do the laugh track fixes on Seinfeld for our sound mixes. He was the angriest, meanest guy. And he had this machine. And all he did all day long was move these faders around and just make laughter. That's what he did for a living.

And you had to be nice to him. He was the angriest, meanest, most unhappy guy. Because if you were mean to him, he'd be like, okay, no laughs for you. Well, exactly. He had two things he would say. If you asked for a little bit more of a laugh, he'd go, they can't all be hits. And if you thought he had put too much laughter on it, he'd go, thought it was a comedy. Over and over again.

You were never right. I'm editorializing. But yeah, Chuck, was that his name? Chuck Dijon. Yes. Amazing. Dijon,. I'm editorializing, yeah. But yeah, Chuck, was that his name? Chuck Dijon, yes. Amazing. Dijon, like the mustard? Like the mustard. Yeah.

So yeah, usually Robert was hiding down there. I know. I hear stories he'd be down there massaging the show. Yeah. It aired at 1230. I think the drop dead time was like 11 or 1130. And he usually uses all the time allotted. Yeah.

So you guys were just upstairs kind of yeah like we'd shoot the show and then we'd come upstairs and we'd eat right and sit around i don't know from as i recall the show was live to tape at right was it 4 30 or 5 30 i can't remember i think probably 5 i think it was 5 30 at 6.30 we'd come upstairs and we'd eat and we'd sit around until 1am doing I don't know what

waiting and then at 1am we'd start working oh no and this is this is one of the things you know

Robert came out of SNL right and so the whole like work ethic at SNL is like look we're gonna stay up 48 straight hours and put the show together.

Yeah. Which is great when you do one show a week and you have some weeks off. And you have a lot of cocaine. Yeah. And we were doing five nights at that point and doing a bunch of pre-tapes and stuff over the weekend even. Right. So if we wanted to do any like out and about stuff, we couldn't do it during the week. Right.

Oh, wow. And it was really ambitious. I mean, it was packed with comedy. We were doing, and that was, and, you know, I'm getting ahead of myself here, but when Letterman came as a guest on the show, I remember he was so gracious. And the one thing he said is, the amount of produced comedy that you guys do on this show every night is just mind-blowing. Yeah.

And that visit to me was the that was the moment i think everybody kind of went wait a minute we might actually survive because up until that point it was on the rocks and everyone was yeah slamming yeah like when we first got there i think it was i'm i want to say it was tom shales who had visited for like a week and Conan had been incredibly gracious and given him an enormous amount of time and access. And then Tom Shales, and if it wasn't him and I'm bad mouthing him, I apologize, but I think it was Tom Shales who just trashed him. Yes. He was the Washington Post television critic. And at the time he was the last word on TV.

Right. The day that review came out, Conan was doing a satellite feed with like 50 journalists. I watched him do those. He used to do these affiliate things where he would sit at his desk and they would put one camera

right in his face and he wouldn't see who he was talking to. And they would say, okay, you're going on with, you know, WRON in St. Louis. Kelly and Dave in three, two. And they'd say, okay, you're going on with, you know, WRON in St. Louis. Right. Kelly and Dave in three, two. And they'd be like, hey, how are you?

And he'd have to go, hey. And they would do like two minutes and 30 seconds. And then it would be like 30 seconds off. Yeah. And they'd go, okay, now we're going to K blah, blah, blah and whatever. And he would have to do, and it was like seven or eight hours. I think that's exactly right. It was right when he got punched in the stomach. And you could have to do, and it was like seven or eight hours. I think that's exactly right. It was right when he got punched in the stomach.

And you could watch it on the feed. Well, he said the first question came up and the review had just come out that morning and Conan didn't know about it. Oh no. And he said he was kind of feeling good. You know, like, oh, you know, we had a few good shows. Let me at these reporters.

I'm cool. Take a big sip of coffee. Exactly. And the first question was, did you see Tom Schill's review and just read the worst parts of the review? And he had to be like, oh, well.

Can't win them all. Yeah. I remember there was a real like paw around the offices for a couple weeks. He said that day, he goes, after going through that ringer, he still had to do a show that day. And he said he just went to his office and sat

under his desk for a while and just was like, okay, and just had to put it behind. Yeah. Rumor every day that, oh, Kinnear's coming in and taking our jobs. Jon Stewart's coming in. We're all fired. We're all fired. We're all fired. Oddly, what it did in a weird way was it kind of freed us up. We were all fired. Oddly, what it did in a weird way was it kind of freed us up.

Yeah. Like we were all just like, you know what? Yeah, this is a weird idea, but screw it. Like we may have lost our lease. Like in 10 days, we may not have TV cameras. You had nothing to lose. Right, right, right. And in a weird way, it was the beginning, I think, of where the show really just went for it.

And I think that's what, you know, especially college kids really hooked into was like, oh, these guys are taking big swings. Yeah. And then when Letterman came in, I remember that was like. So you were there when Letterman came. Yeah. Yeah. And it was like, you know, Letterman was coming back to his old studio for the first time. I don't think he had been in the building since he had left that show.

Right. I think we were all just terrified that, I mean, he could have come in, he could have looked around and he could have said, oh, so this is what passes for comedy now? Right. And we were done. Right. Emotionally, if not everything else, done. He was so gracious and so generous that I think we all kind of just felt like, all right,

it's out of our hands. Yeah. But the guy who really matters. Yes. Gave us really matters. Yes. Gave us his blessing. Was beyond generous. And did things start turning around a little bit ratings-wise after that or at least critics-wise? I don't, I honestly don't remember what, I can't imagine that the numbers were, it's not like all of a sudden.

It was renewed every, like find out whether they were renewed every 13 weeks. Oh, wow. And around when you were there, when you were saying the dark days, I think it was week to week. Oh, my God. When all those rumors about our hosts. I think it was. I think we were week to week when we were working there.

It just seems awful. Yeah. I think that's right. It was like we found out every Friday if we were coming back on Monday. And then in early 95, a year later, they got their first six-month. That's some things. That's right when I started. And I was just like, this doesn't seem that bad.

Six-month approval, that's not a bad thing. It was interesting to go through that. Yeah, you were there all the time. Like that real. All the time. And, you know, we also had the Tanya Harding, Nancy Kerrigan. Right. Oh, what fun. And I think the Olympics were on CBS.

So it's funny how I have like these these time stamps of right i was there that way things like the rangers won the stanley cup with mark messier i remember right and you have a good memory snow snow snow yes uh green day was on the show and this tanya harding nancy kerrigan thing which was you know massive. Right. And it was on because of the time change. It was on opposite us. So I remember we did a show and the entire theme of the show is no one is watching. Right. And the whole joke was that anybody could do anything because literally no one is watching.

And I can't remember getting the numbers, but I think literally no one watched. Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. That became a recurring bit on the show for several years, whenever a bit called Nobody's Watching. Yeah, but I'm pretty sure, I would bet that if you look at every single episode of the show from the beginning to now, that was the lowest rated show that ever aired.

One of your moms. Maybe, yeah, but certainly no Nielsen families. Yeah. So I think we may have gotten a moms. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. But certainly no Nielsen families. Yeah. So I think we got, we may have gotten a 0.0. Do you remember stuff you came up with for the show back then? Yeah. Yeah. Some stuff.

I mean, I'm sure I, you know, I haven't seen any of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Many, many years. But there was a bit that they did for a while after we left. And again, I'm dating myself by this. One of the bits that we did was that they found a roll of film in the guest dressing room and had it processed. And so you would shoot, and I have a great contact sheet on my wall at home still that was, we shot about 40 expressions with George Kennedy, the actor, and you just put them against a wall and you go, okay, happy, sad, confused, angry.

And then we would just paint box him into like, you would shoot a bunch of photos and it's like, oh, he's, yeah. Oh, here he's at the statue. And we did a, there was just a bunch of random stuff of like, George Kennedy had a bunch of squirrels in his hotel room. It just was like dumb, goofy jokes. But the finding the lost roll of film was one that, you know, it was one of those. Oh, that's a great idea.

One of those renewables. You can refill that, yeah. There was that one. I remember I was on the show twice. Ah, I was wondering about that. Yay! Once I played the St. Patrick's Day Irish beard. I was in a giant beard suit.

And we were, because we couldn't air footage from CBS March Madness, we were reenacting a big shot. And I was supposed to take the game-winning shot in this giant beard costume. And I missed it by 10 feet. Making it even funnier. And then the other one I used to do, we needed Robert Duvall in something. And we literally went around the table saying, does anybody do a Robert Duvall? Yes. And I don't do a Robert Duvall.

Yeah. But apparently I didn't do a Robert Duvall less than anybody else didn't do a Robert Duvall. So I ended up being Robert Duvall. Were you terrified? Like, well, there's no way I'll be. What? What do you mean? I'm Robert Duvall.

Yeah. It was me and Louis C.K. And Louis was George C. Scott. All right. And I can't even remember what the sketch was. But for some reason, it was George C. Scott and Robert Duvall yelling at each other. Okay. So it was one of those clutch cargos.

Oh, okay. So I did the lips of Robert Duvall or something. Clutch cargos where, yeah, there'd be a still. And the only thing you'd see are the moving lips. Right, exactly. Right, right, right. That was like one of the longest running. Oh boy, yes.

And those would be late night writing sessions because they're always based on that day's news. Right. So that wouldn't get underway. Well, in your case, sounds like you'd start writing them at 1 a.m. Yeah, I mean, yeah, we'd start at 1. We'd get something done by 3.30 or 4.

And I remember calling and leaving voicemails on hair, makeup, wardrobe, props, like the set people, everybody's voicemail about, hey, we need this, we need this, we need this. I'll be in at 9.30. I'll be sleeping under my desk. But it was, I mean, that was a marathon. But it was like sprinting for 26 miles. It wasn't even a marathon. So when you guys got the Seinfeld call, you were like, thank God.

Easy street. Yeah. I mean, it was four months and we were wiped out. I imagine. I mean, it was all of that. And we were also literally running around 30 Rock trying to find Robert Spiegel to run stuff by him. And like, I remember that. I remember sitting in our office and in those days, we all had like a 14 inch tube television

that had the NBC feed on it. And my favorite thing to do was Wednesdays, you'd put on the SNL feed and you could see whatever the band was. Yeah. Right. And at that point, and I don't know if you ever did this, we would go down because we were, our offices were on the ninth floor. Right.

And the emergency stairwell led directly down into 8-H where they shoot Saturday Night Live. And the doors were all unlocked. Well, there were fire doors, so there had to be. So I remember Pearl Jam was there once and we saw them setting up and a bunch of us were like, let's go. And we went down and we were kind of standing at the back of 8-H. And one of the security people came in and there were like six people on one side of a camera. And there was me on the other side of the camera.

And the security guy said to those six people, sorry, you got to go. Oh. And he didn't see me on the other side of the camera. So everybody else got thrown out. So basically I was standing with the camera guys and the stage managers watching. And I think they played five or six songs. Oh, that's great.

And what's crazy is a couple years ago, I just went down an internet hole and I found on YouTube a recording of the rehearsal. What? So I can't remember the guy's name, the stage manager who was there for a hundred years was standing on whoever the host that week's mark was. And it was like, ladies and gentlemen, Pearl Jam. And there's a recording of the private concert that I saw.

Oh, wow. Which was so cool. That's crazy. Yeah. And your friends getting tossed. Yeah. Well, did you just start dressing in all black? So they think you were camera. I guess I'm just not distinctive. And yeah, you're lucky.

No one ratted you out. Yeah. I'm not sure. Hey, don't, don't forget him. I seem to remember. I recall that when they were getting thrown out, I did get a couple of looks and people were like, should we let him have this? He has so little.

Let him go. Let's give him this one. He has so little. Let him go. He's dealing with the snow. Yeah. Well, have you done a lot of other performing? Because you were also in the season finale of Silicon Valley. Yes. The series finale. The back of my head was, yeah.

Which is just the way I like it. No, I'm not a performer at all. As Robert Duvall. Yeah. No, I don't enjoy it. You don't seek it out. I don't. I mean, the only reason't enjoy it. You don't seek it out. I don't. And it – I mean, the only reason I did it –

But sometimes it seeks you out. Well, the only reason I did it on Silicon Valley is I was directing that episode. Yeah. And someone was going to have to be the documentarian who was asking questions. Yeah. And we were going to hire somebody. And then it occurred to me that I was going to be standing behind whoever we hired reading stuff off camera. And because the format of it was a documentary, it made sense that there was somebody sitting on camera with a list who could ask questions. So it just seemed crazy that

we would hire a body double. It's almost like it was a true documentary. What's the first show you directed on? Jeff Schaefer, Dave Mandel, and I wrote a movie called Eurotrip that the three of us directed. Oh, wow. But the DGA wouldn't allow a three-person credit, so we drew names out of a cup. Oh, no. Which is actually on the DVD of Eurotrip. So go home and look at your DVD of Eurotrip, which you have.

It might be in the State Deposit box. It's next to your Herman's Head DVD. Right. It's next to the Herman's Head box set. I didn't end up getting credit on that. And then Jeff and Dave and I. So you didn't get to get into the DGA. No.

Oh, no. No. And I didn't get to cash in on the massive Eurotrip residuals. What's it like having three people direct a movie? Is that a good thing? I didn't, I'll be honest. Like it's so much easier than two people because with two people, one person can say black

and one person can say white and you're stuck. But with three people, it was always. One person can say gray. Yeah, yeah. And then you're triple screwed. So you agreed to have like, if one, if two against one, then that was it? Yeah. All right, great.

You know, we'd worked together for years. Dave was actually at Saturday Night Live when we were at Conan. Ah, okay. Did you guys go to school? Yeah, we did. We went to college together. Dave's a year younger. Okay.

Dave is actually the one that hooked us up with Robert Spiegel to submit ideas in the first place. Oh, cool. So we got this job through Dave. Well, that's a nice, I mean, I think it's nice when you see through lines of like early connections mean a lot throughout your whole career. Yeah. When I'm talking to younger people, I encourage them to kind of form a tribe of creative people that you kind of all keep helping each other along the way. It's funny that you go to the positive side of it. I always go to the negative side, which is be careful who you screw over

because it's going to bite you. That's a good point. But yeah, it's, no, there's definitely, and I still, you know, I moved out here in 1992. I still run into people that I kind of think of as like my, like we were freshmen together. Right. There's like a guy who, you know, whatever, is at this agency or the studio and it's like, oh, they're like, man, we're part of the same class. Yeah. And there's a bond there. For sure. That you were all together. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We've

seen each other naked and yeah. Yeah. That is really good advice, Jesse, because early on when you're making those bonds, I don't think you think in terms of like, well, maybe this will help me down the road. No, and you shouldn't really think of it like that either. Right. But it works out. It does. Yeah. Yeah. For sure.

I mean, you know, the way I ended up getting hired at Seinfeld was I did what I hope was a good job for somebody, you know, a year before on something else. And they got a job and they, yeah. And that definitely, I mean, TV writing being what it is, you know, you spend an enormous amount of time in a small space with people. You kind of want to make sure that there are people that aren't going to drive you insane. Right. Right. So part of it is, yes. I mean, literally, if I could give one piece of advice to anybody starting in show business, it's just don't be a dick. Yes. Yeah. I mean, literally, if I could give one piece of advice to anybody starting in show business, it's just don't be an asshole. That has been ignored by many people. I'm going to get that tattooed on myself.

Can you talk to us about what you're working on at the moment? Sure. I just finished the final season of Silicon Valley, and I've also been working on another HBO show called Barry. And thus far, they've been kind of alternating. Yeah. There was a bunch of overlap. Yeah. How did that, because you were like, all right, I'm going to create one hit show and then

unfortunately created another hit show. I was working on Silicon Valley and I started talking to Bill Hader and we just started rolling this rock up the hill and it got to a point where between seasons of Silicon Valley we shot the pilot and then they picked it up which was the worst good news I ever right totally um it is funny Bill tells this story of like we got off the phone with HBO after they picked up the show and he looked at me and I just looked sick and he was like because oh, good news. Because it was dawning on me like, oh my God, we're going to have to do this.

Yeah. So then we had to write the first season of it while I was working on Silicon Valley. So I was going back and forth. Both writers rooms were on the Sony lot. And I would literally work at one show from like 8 until 2 in the afternoon. And then I'd go to the other show from two Oh five until eight at night or whatever. Were you ever crossing storylines?

Oddly, I actually found it helped in a weird way. Like that I could cleanse my brain of one show by being in the other. Right. You know? And it was like, I would lift one weight and put it down and lift a different, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. So now it's going to be great to just do it barren and not. Yes. It is a, it is a big, and it's funny. I was just having this conversation with somebody. I went to the Silicon Valley wrap party for the final one. I found myself having like an oddly good time.

And I'm like, I don't know if I've ever had like a good time. And when he's In your life. And I realized that every single Silicon Verap party for other people was, yay, we finished. And in my head, I was going, we have to start all over again. We're at zero.

What the hell is anybody celebrating right now? This is a disaster. Don't you all get it? Did you grab the mic and tell everyone to stop laughing? But I realized finally, Stop laughing! Just stop it!

Yeah. I mean, mentally, that's what I was doing the whole time. I mean, it manifested itself in my just drinking too much. Right, right. That was my interior mom life,

for sure. Right, right, right. But this time you got to drink out of happiness. I drank too much out of joy. Yeah. Yay. Yeah.

That one time, one day. That's right. Well, it seems like things are working out. Yes. I guess so. In general. Yeah.

What did Tom Schell's know? Nothing. Although I jumped off of that sinking ship when Tom Schell said that. Well, we were joking earlier about that Conan's the ship that's been sinking for 25 years. It's a very long sink. See, now you're thinking like me. Now you've gone to the dark side. That's good.

A few centimeters a year. That's the most. No, but it's all, you might even consider it a float still. Yeah. Did you, when you left and went to Seinfeld, what did you think was going to happen to the late night show? I felt like, at that moment,

it felt like we had left just as the plane was taking off. You know what I mean? Like I never felt like, oh, we got out of there. Well, you guys were the extra weight they had to. Maybe we were. That's for others to decide.

We were ballast. Ask literally anybody else who worked there and they'll tell you that. But no, at the time, I think we, I mean, we were excited to go back. And then we just got something that we couldn't say no to. Well, Alec, thank you so much. We have to wrap up. Thank you so much for doing this. Of course.

This was great. My pleasure. This was fun. Yeah, it's really fun to talk to you. That's great. And congratulations on all the good things that have happened. Thank you so much. Much appreciated.

And to you as well. Thank you very much. Thanks. We sounded so happy then. Yes. It was a different time. Still this year. That's the crazy thing.

It was 2020. Don't throw the whole year out. We'll always have January and February. Incredible months. We had a good six weeks. Yeah, we have a great way to end this week's show. We do. We put out a call and you answered.

We finally got a voicemail. We did. Yeah, we were so excited. We're going to share it with you. That sounds like me during half the interviews. It really does sound like he's doing a you impression. This is the most articulate I've ever been. Well, do you want... i thought it was done i thought we were ready to answer i'll take the first four sighs and you can answer the last three i could the last three were

definitely for me oh i think that that was i i had asked people to call it and leave heavy breathing and i think that that's, I had asked people to call in and leave heavy breathing. And I think that that's what that was. Oh, okay. What do you want to suggest this week? Go ahead. So yes, call us. The voicemail number is 323-209-5303. Or you can email us at, oh, what's, what's the email?

InsideConanPod at gmail.com. Oh, there I put my glasses on. You're correct. All right. Well, bye bye. Bye. We like you.

Inside Conan, an important Hollywood podcast is hosted by Mike Sweeney and me, Jesse Gaskell. Produced by Jen Samples. Engineered and mixed by Will Becton. Supervising producers are Kevin Bartelt and Aaron Blair. Executive produced by Adam Sachs and Jeff Ross at Team Coco. And Colin Anderson and Chris Bannon at Earwolf.

Thanks to Jimmy Vivino for our theme music and interstitials. You can rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts. And of course, please subscribe and tell a friend to listen to Inside Conan on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you like best. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Earwolf.