Inside Conan: An Important Hollywood Podcast - The Sklar Brothers

Episode Date: August 14, 2020

Comedians The Sklar Brothers stop by to talk with writers Mike Sweeney and Jessie Gaskell about their first appearance on Late Night with Conan in 1999, the joy of doing bits with their kids, the first experience where they realized they were funny together, and how Andy Kindler helped them early on in their stand-up career. Plus, Mike and Jessie talk about the origin of The Interrupter character. 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. We haven't talked to people all day and now it's time to talk into microphones. Welcome to Inside Conan. There couldn't be a better intro than that. We're two shut-ins who host a podcast from time to time. My name is Mike Sweeney. I'm Jesse Gaskell. And we're writers on The Conan Show on TBS.

I hope we still are. I kind of like the excitement of who knows what's going on now in showbiz or in anything to do with the economy. They would have told us if we weren't, I assume. Right. I haven't heard anything from anyone in a while, but. You know what? We're not used to having a hiatus that is this long.

And usually it's coming after Comic-Con, which is always. Right. A huge push. And we're all really tired at the end. And so I think we're just really happy to not see each other. Yes, exactly. And it's in San Diego. So it's a double hit. No, San Diego is fun. I like San Diego. It's all the Comic-Con grownups walking around or puzzling.

I know. Yeah. I don't think I have a good read on what San Diego is actually like without quite so many Batman riding razor scooters. Have you been doing anything interesting? I hurt my back. Oh, I'm sorry. It's on the mend. I hurt it doing a slightly larger jigsaw puzzle. I'm not kidding. I had to reach farther over the table consistently.

Well, did you finish the puzzle? Of course. What have you been up to? I taught myself how to hand pollinate my squash plants. I literally held my breath. I was like, shit. I thought you were going to say you learned a dead language. Oh, no. Much more useful than that. How do you do that?

I know what you're imagining. Right. And it's not exactly that graphic. You plant squash plants, but then if they don't get pollinated, so normally bees do this, but if you don't have enough bees in your yard, then you might have to do it yourself. You put on a bee costume.

And then you go jerk off your plants. I learned all of this. There's a male flower and a separate female flower and the bee goes from one to the other and they have to take pollen from the male to the female. But if the bees aren't there that day or they just don't get there in time, and the female flower doesn't get pollinated, then there's like a little tiny vegetable and it turns brown and withers.

Oh. So it has to be pollinated to keep growing. Wow. So I went out there with a Q-tip and I took the pollen from the male to the female. Really? And do you know if it worked yet? It worked because the vegetables are now growing and they look bulbous and gourd-like. This is such basic life stuff that it's crazy how you can go through your life and not even know about, you know, the fruit on your tree. Every single one of those flowers has to be pollinated.

Yeah. And that there are male and female flowers. And when you look at the parts, it's like, it's really obvious which is which. Oh, that's good. I was going to ask how you knew the male flower, but well, what a great segue into this. We interview people on the show, right? So we should probably introduce our guests. Two guests.

We do. We have a two for this week. They're brothers. They're twin brothers. The Sklar brothers. We did this interview pre-pandemic. So honestly, I have no idea what we talked about. We talked to them just before they were doing the show.

We did. And we don't usually do that because we're worried that we're going to psych a comic out if they have to come talk to us first. With our bad attitudes. But they seem to, I think, get relaxed to them. Yeah. Yes. And actually, our engineer, Will, ran into one of them in a supermarket. And he actually mentioned it and said, oh, you know, that kind of warmed us up for the show. And so we provided a fluffer service. We did.

We fluffed them up for their comedy appearance. And I used a Q-tip for that too. I was going to say, I didn't feel I was in a position to bring up the pollinating aspect. You are the expert. Here they are. The Sklar brothers now there's audio so you'll have to each identify yourselves

before you start each sentence oh yeah this is Randy talking right now this is Jason I agree with Randy you too

no you're discreet we're here with the Sklar brothers hello Sklar brothers hello Jason and Randy thank you you two have been together for a long time yeah on an audition with the Sklar brothers. Hello, Sklar brothers. Jason and Randy. Thank you. You two have been together

for a long time. Yeah. I met on an audition. I met on an audition and then you know how you start to look like the people you're going up against? I'm sure you've heard it.

Yes. I know. We've been working together for a while. There's no material we can do with you. There's no, no. It can't be done.

Heard it all. Although it is really weird when we walk because we are grown and we have families and lives separate from each other, which is really the thing that allows us. What you mean to say is the healthy thing. Right. That's the thing that allows us to continue to work together. But when we're on the road or we're ever in a city together, just kind of walking around.

And if you're twins walking around, people are still beyond fascinated with the fact that they're seeing twins. Yeah. Yes. It's like a circus act. It's exciting. It never goes away. Well, it makes you feel they want to like

infantilize you, I feel like. Yeah, yeah. Treat you like babies in the store. Oh, you guys. Oh, you guys. Well, you also dress alike, right?

We do. We dress exactly alike. When we're on the road, it's sailor outfit, giant lollipops, pants, you know, short rompers. And we are big God guys. So we will start talking about the Bible in front of anyone together in unison.

It's pretty powerful stuff, guys. Well, you're a great agent for God. That's right. Just like Jacob and Esau, guys. We are, people have compared us to the Jacob and Esau comedy. That stick on every set of siblings. I love it. The Jacob and Esau comedy. That we're trying to stick to. That stick on every set of siblings. I love it.

The Cray brothers. Come on, guys. Let's go. We don't do many impressions. We do, all right, so the one impression we do is the Menendez brothers surprising their parents. All right, ready? You do it. You do it.

Happy birthday. When I met you guys, it was New York City, right? Yes. And you started to do standup. Yes. Yes. And, but before like several years, four years before you guys came along, there was another comedy team that was identical twins.

Ooh. The Darling Twins. Did you ever- No. No. We never knew that. Really? Did you murder them?

Well, we did murder them, but we never knew them. It's easier that way. Literally disappear the week before you do it. It was the most intimate murder, too, because for a few weeks we were wearing their skin and auditioning as them. Just trying to tank it so that a new one could emerge. We had to play the whole thing out. Right, you had to make them fail on their own accord. So it didn't look like we took them out. We had to make it organic. No, you had to make them fail on their own accord. So it didn't look like

we took them out. We had to make it organic. No, I had never heard of them. I mean, there were a couple other sets of twins, but nobody who, the Lucas brothers are really the only set of twins

that we, that have like gone on to kind of do stuff. Right, right, right. Yeah, it's. It's a bizarre thing because I think you, there is a limit

to how far you can go. We either very wisely or very wrongly, and we don't even know yet. I don't think that's a word. We either wisely or stupidly decided not to lean into being twins as like the whole enchilada of what we do. Right. Which probably most people are like, well, what is this? I'm expecting it to be this. And then we try and deliver something different, which is both good and then at times maybe not great for us.

Right. Well, you could touch on it slightly and then go off. The delivery is interesting. You have to acknowledge it. Sure. Yeah. And have you guys, do you ever, one of you go, I'm going solo? Well, that's a good question.

Going rogue is a good question. It is a good question. We've done stuff on our own. Yeah. Like Jay did a phenomenal episode of Curb that was. He said it. He said it was. I thought. He did a good question. We've done stuff on our own. Yeah. Like Jay did a phenomenal episode of Curb. He said it. He said it was funny. I thought.

He did a great episode. You thought it. I said it. It was a great episode. Wait, what season was that? Season three. Three. Crazy Eyes Killer.

Crazy Eyes Killer won the Emmy. Yes. Not because of me, but no. We argued in a store. Larry and I got to do an arguing scene, which was great. Yeah. In a store, arguing over the folding of a sweater. Because he was trying to get the jacket, the Scorsese jacket, for the reshoot.

And then he gets it and then he picks up a sweater and starts, he didn't like it and starts folding it. And then I try to say, I need to fold it for you. And then he tells me it's not difficult to fold a sweater. It's really fun. That sounds like a fun scene to shoot. But it was one of those things where people are like, I loved you guys on Curve.

And I'm like, well, we both want to go. Then after a while, I'm like, thanks. Did they think you're like the Olsen twins? You were in the other aisle. Yes, I could only work four hours. I had to be offset after four hours. Jay's got very specific working restrictions. And then you have a school tutor.

I do have a school, even though I'm done with all my schooling. It's graduate school. Right, well, I've got a PhD tutor. Yes, PhD in psychology and a tutor. I've got to go away to school. I'm getting a PsyD while I'm doing this show. Look, I want to have patience and I want to have my own private practice. Why is that a bad thing?

That's right. If you switch careers, you'd have to do it together. That's right. Oh, God. We love to ask people their connection because the show is inside Conan. Sure. So we love to find out your initial connection to Conan or the Conan show. Your first appearance.

Yeah. First appearance was 1999. 99. You did stand up on the show. On Late Night. On Late Night. Late Night. At 8H.

Or was that? 6A. 6A in Rockefeller Center. You probably did 8-H also. Yeah, I don't know why we did it down there. We weren't getting many laughs because there was no one in the audience. It was a Thursday. It was great.

I mean, it was a really special. I just remember the night of. So we were so excited to do it. And we were living in New York at the time. Had you done a TV set yet? Yeah, we had done Premium Blend. And I think we had done Louis Anderson's stand-up special that was aired on

I want to say the CW or wherever. Syndicated. And then this was our first. This felt like the first legit thing that we had. Back then doing a network show was like, wow. It's a big deal. So I remember we stepped down on stage and I had the first line in the set

and I totally blanked, looked straight at Randy and then he picked it up but we were very lucky that we both kind of knew. I just remember watching it so we went down into like the East Village and we made this like very quiet bar turn it on and

we watched it with David Wayne, Michael Showalter, like all the Stella guys who we were you know, doing shows with and whatnot. And all of our friends came out and we all watched it together that night, which was just, it was like comedy community in New York. It was just wonderful. That's great. And did they know Jason? Could they tell he forgot the first line?

They couldn't tell, but I told everyone. Randy made a point to say, turn down the TV, watch him, forget it. Look at it. They might have pulled it up. Maybe. They did pull it up a little. Yeah, yeah. In the editing, they made Jason actually remember it.

That's what editing can do. I know. There's like three cutaways to Andy. Amazing tool. Yes. But that was really fun and just a great show. And through the years, we kind of threw just everything. We kind of got to know Conan and have done various other things with him.

And he's so funny, funny. And he's one of those guys who's funny in his bones. That's the thing. It's like, you just, you get around people. You're like,

they can make anything funny. Conan's like that. David Spade. We've worked a bunch with him. He's just a funny dude. You hang out with him. You're like, this is going to be a joyful time.

Yeah. I hate when people are deserving of their success. I know. I know. Cause there's a whole list of deserving of their success. I know. I know. Because there's a whole list of people that aren't. I know. Starting with us. I like people who just sit there silently when they're offstage.

Yes. Just getting into it. We turn it on. We're comedians like that, where you're like, why? Why are you? Well, and sometimes you talk to those guys, and they're like, you know, I could have worked for my dad, and I might still do that. But, you know, I'm making good money doing this comedy thing. I love that comedy is the stable thing.

Yeah, exactly. I could go crazy off the rails and go take a job working for my dad as a CPA. But I'm going to stay in this really solid. I will say this, though. I think sometimes before sets of comedy, we do get like smaller and kind of quieter and introspective a little bit and like we started to meditate

separately obviously but like I think that helps but like how long do you meditate what's 22 yeah I'll do it

in the mornings yeah but sometimes like before something like this where you're nervous you're just nervous but you don't know

what to do is to just calm yourself because Kim we just want to go do it like now that we know that it's happening I just want to walk out

and do the set right yeah you meant by this Conan show not this podcast I meditated for three hours

before I did this podcast inside Conan so nervous hey you guys what are they going to ask us do you guys live near each other I live on the east you both live in LA right so I live in Silver Lake What are they going to ask us? Do you guys live near each other?

You both live in L.A. Yeah, so I live in Silver Lake and Jay's over in Laurel Canyon. Oh, so you never see each other. Right, hardly ever. We see each other all the time. For listeners, that's over three miles. And 33 minutes is hours of travel. It's 20 feet.

Our kids love each other. Oh, that's great. And when you guys all get your families together, do you find yourselves, do you have to like turn off the bits, you know? We like doing bits with our kids. Do you? Okay. Oh my God. That's the most fun. So I have a 14 year old who's in high school now and she, I took her to go see a concert at the Roxy, like on a school night.

Whoa. On a school night. What a cool day. On a school night. Yeah, guys. Just soak it in. But our favorite thing was across the stage from us was the most intense dude either of us had ever seen. And he suddenly became the most fascinating person there.

And I'm like, what's intense guy doing now? To the point where the next day at school, I just texted her. She's at school, which you probably shouldn't text your kids probably at school. I'm like, what's intense guy doing now? She's like being so intense. I'm like,'s intense guy doing now she's like being so intense I'm like his hair was intense she's like every follicle and suddenly you're now doing a bit with your kid which is great which like

that's the joy of trying to raise kids because they understand that in the house comedy is currency right if you screw up and you are actually funny about something I'm like alright she got detention for texting in class, but not a thing. It was a funny chain.

As far as chains go, it was a funny text chain. I will remember what our dad did one time and we weren't bad kids in school or even like class clowns, but I had a home economics teacher in eighth grade who was terrible. This woman was... Don't say her name because we know she listens. Home ec was a subject. That's crazy that I never.

Home economics. Home economics. Yeah. Also very important things to learn how to cook and learn how to do that stuff and great that they were. It is.

It should be a required class. No, that's true. I mean. Learn how to do your taxes. Well, for males. It's more practical than shop for me. Yeah. Okay.

So the teacher was terrible. She was an awful person and this is in, this is how much she was bad. This is on Halloween. So I've only been to school for two months and I already hate the woman. Right. And this is how much she was bad. This is on Halloween. So I've only been to school for two months, and I already hate the woman. And she shows up on Halloween wearing a gorilla's mask. Ha, ha, ha, ha.

Which was funny. Not gorillas, the rap group from England. No. An actual animal. That would make her very cool. Yes. Which she had worn, and it was very hot. So two-thirds into the class, it was too hot for her to teach the

class continuing to be in the gorilla's mat. So she took the gorilla mask off. And when she took it off, I screamed. So I got in trouble and- Did she, you got in trouble? Oh yeah, I got sent to the principal's office and the principal like called my dad and explained what happened. And I had to explain to him what happened. And my dad was like, that's hilarious. Yes. That's great. You're quote unquote in trouble. So what'd your dad,

what'd your dad do? He didn't care. He said, that's really funny. Oh, that's great. It was great. He was just like,

all right, all right. Don't, don't do it again. Is he a funny, or I mean, he was a really funny guy, but not in a comedy sense.

He was just like a jolly, hilarious fat guy. What did he do for a living? Like he basically, when we were born, he was working for a place like Dunder Mifflin. It was a place called Tension Envelope. Oh, yeah. Tension in the name. You're famous for the envelope.

You know how you want to have a job that has tension in the name? You can brag. It was Tension Envelope. Tension Envelope. I don't even want my envelope. Did you say envelope? Did you make mine sound like a rube? Yeah, you bumped his. Jay's a rube. Envelope. You know, envelope. Tension envelope. I don't even want my envelope. Did you say envelope? Did you make mine sound like a rube? Yeah, you bumped his up.

Jay's a rube. Envelope. You know, envelope. So he worked there and he was a salesman. And so he'd connect with people. He used to take us down there on Saturdays, give our mom like a break a little bit and would take us down to work with him. And everywhere he went, wherever we were, he would always talk to someone. Or he'd like leave us in a running car, like, you know, back in the 70s.

You can leave your kids in a car that was running outside. In drive. In drive, right? It was on a hill. Anybody want these kids? Anywhere he went, in the cleaners, the gas station, wherever, he'd talk to someone for a second and they'd instantly be smiling or laughing or something. So he was a very connective guy. And you're like, oh, that's important.

Yeah. Making people laugh is like a good thing to have, a good quality to have. So when did you guys first, I bet you remember, or maybe you don't, your first experience being funny together and maybe having that go, hey, like I want, we want more of that. So we were huge comedy fans. Yeah. And I don't know why. I think we had cable earlier than most folks.

You can brag. Yeah. It's that tension envelope why. I think we had cable earlier than most folks. You can brag. It's that tension envelope. 1949, we had HBO. Tension envelope, scratch. So we were watching like the Rodney Dangerfield young comedian special, the one with Robert Townsend and Sam Kinison and Seinfeld. That's a famous one. It wasn't the time. Dommerer was in the other one. Dommerer was in the, oh, Dice.

Dommerer was in the Dice one. Guys, guys, please. Guys, we don't want to fight. Stop fighting. Right? This has become a thing now. So we learned all the bits for those. We just studied it, taped it, watched it, learned everything.

We're like, God, this is so funny. And then our parents' friends would come over, and they didn't watch it, because this wasn't like, because it wasn't Carson, no one even watched it. Right. It was like this wild, weird, odd comedy. Right. How old were you guys? We were probably like 12 or 13.

And the parents would come, friends would come over and play like bridge in the basement or play cards and whatnot. They'd be like, what's going on? And then we would just, and talk to them, how's school going? And we're like, what's the deal with the shower radio? You're screaming like Sam Kinna Sandwich. Yeah, like, ah, ah, move out of the desert. It's Sam. You think the film crew could give this kid a sandwich?

So we did all the bits, and people would laugh. And we're like, mm-hmm, we're going to steal other people's material. Now I'm addicted to this feeling. Oh, so you would literally do their material. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's great. But also like trying. That's the beginning.

That's the first step. That's the end life. You ape the things that you loved. I mean, I remember being a huge Seinfeld fan before his TV show and our biggest lament was like, people just aren't going to know him. Yeah. It's such a bummer that he's so funny

and no one knows who he is. We're the only ones. We're the only ones that know him. We get it. We get it, Jerry. As prognosticators, we were terrible. As like- Talent pickers were pretty good.

Talent pickers were pretty damn good because he was great. And so, again, learning all that stuff and just spewing it out. And it taught us what we liked about comedy. And then we would try and be funny in those ways with our friends. And then right away, even in the beginning, you probably had to, like, how do we divvy this up? Right. So we did a show at our high school.

We were 15. We were freshmen, I think. Oh, that's awesome. 14. That was the first time we stepped on stage. That's so ballsy for freshmen.

That's 34 years ago. We were like, we want to do stand-up. And it wasn't even like a, should we do it on stage together? Should we be? It was just like, we want to do stand-up,

so we're going to go on stage and do stand-up. It wasn't even like we planned anything out. Oh. We just, oh. No, we did. Well, we had jokes.

Okay, okay. But I'm saying we didn't say, oh, should I go up and then you go up? Or should we go up together? That wasn't even a discussion. It was just, we're going up. And then we wrote some original stuff and did some bits that we pilfered. Yes. Which I'm not proud of.

But, you know, you're 14 years old. I did the same thing with skits at the high school assembly. And it was like, we'd do SNL skits. And then people would. And it was like, we do SNL skits. And then people would congratulate us and be like, you guys are seriously so talented. You guys are brilliant. I go to bed at 1125 and you guys are brilliant. Yeah, we did that. I mean, and we wrote a bit.

I remember our first like sort of original bit that we really liked. And it was so specific to our school, but it was about the math club at our school. You knew who to go after. Yeah, let's take them down a peg. These kids have suffered not nearly enough. I think it was actually a positive bit. The math club's name was Moo Alpha Theta Math. Okay.

Our bit was that they could attract a larger audience if they used like truck and tractor pull style commercials to promote their math class. So then that was our bit. So that was the premise. That's great. That was the bit. It's funny because, you know, I still think we have similar sometimes constructions of bits where we think of a premise and then we give each other something to do and we kind of bounce off each other. And that's what was and it did great and it felt really good and we were like okay i don't know maybe something yeah yeah felt really good yes and you put the math club on the on the map it was a way to like differentiate ourselves from grew up in st louis missouri right it wasn't like we had even a relative that went out to la to try

and make it as a comedian there was no, let alone for twins to try and create something, but for anyone in our family to go off and try and make it in this business. It was so foreign to anybody in that area that we were just like, well, this is a really cool thing that differentiates us. It's like we already had something that differentiated us when we were twins,

but we're like, we need to differentiate ourselves further. We need to be in comedy as well. Were your parents supportive? Yeah. I mean, they were. I mean, initially they were sort of like, what are you doing? But when we were in college, we, again, became huge fans of and started doing it a lot. So we started between our junior and senior year of college.

We were home in St. Louis. We started working at the Funny Bone in St. Louis. We went and applied for an internship at HBO Downtown Productions, which was producing stand-up, stand-up, and short attention span theater. Which you did, though. I worked on short attention span. With Maren? Were you writing for Maren? No.

Oh, no. Stand-up, stand-up. For Laura Keitlinger. Yeah. So that show, those were shows we watched on Comedy Central. We found out

who the production company was. We reached out to them and said, we want to get in. We want to be interns. We're in college. We sent them a fax, probably. Yes.

I mean, we made a fake publisher clearinghouse thing that they won these people. We got super creative. Did you tell me you had cable at home?

We said we had cable probably earlier than you. Early adapters. So we went to there. Did you tell me you had cable at home? We said we've had cable probably longer than you. Early adaptives. So we went to there. I went to New York, interviewed in the thing. And then we told our friend, a really close friend of ours in, who was in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. We said, hey, apply for this job.

And the three of us will go to New York. We'll live in NYU housing. Maybe we'll start doing standup in New York. How great would it be? We're all 20, 21. It'd be like a precursor. And so he's like, I'll do it. I promise I'll do it.

And we're like, great. And then he got the job, and we did it. So we're in St. Louis, and we're like, we better just start doing stand-up as much as we can in St. Louis. And we started to do it that summer a bunch. Then we went back to college in Ann Arbor, started doing it in Ann Arbor, started doing it in Detroit at Mark Ridley's Comedy Castle. Then we came home over New Year's.

This is so great, because this person is so special to us in comedy. We go home and on New Year's Eve who's performing at Catch a Rising Star in St. Louis, Missouri? Andy Kindler.

Oh, wow. Kindler favorite. Who is one of our favorite people, one of our favorite comics just like at the time too because he was so, he was the only comic

who was commenting on a joke that he just did. Now everyone does it. Yeah. But he was in our eyes the first person on a joke that he just did. Now everyone does it. Yeah. But he was, in our eyes, the first person to deconstruct what he just did. His joke about Crock-Pot. Yeah, if I'm hungry 18 hours from now.

Where are the crackers? And then he's like, eight years of mime school and I still open the cabinet into my face. So he was our fan. He had us on that. So we go, Andy Kindler is coming to do a show in St. Louis. We got to go. So it was New Year's Eve, which is like typically, I don't know if you've ever worked to New Year's Eve. It is the worst.

Oh, yes. It is the worst. They couldn't be there less for comedy. That's awful. They're just trying to get to midnight. It's more money, but they know. And so poor Andy is in a city where I doubt there are a ton of people who are like, who are aware of who he is clamoring for who he is. Just you two. Just

us, a table of us and our friends. That's perfect for him. Oh my God. You got to see him on a New Year's Eve show. So he walked of like half the room. He yelled at some woman as she was leaving, where's your HBO special? It was great. He was so funny. Let us start by saying he was on fire and hilarious. The crowd was just so dumb. We were getting angry at the crowd. So after the show, we go up to him and we said, Andy, we're enormous fans.

How would you like to come to do a show at University of Michigan, which is where we were in school? And there's no way he thought after that set he would get work. off of that set. Like a great gig. Because we like empty the budget of this thing. Kind of a couple thousand dollars.

Did you know you could act or were you just bullshitting? No, we were part of the committee that was bringing it. And we would like help put on the shows. And so he came out and we opened up for him. We said, look, please watch us. And we're all on our way to law school. Separate law school, separate cities. We might not do this, but we really want to do comedy.

We just, we don't know. We don't know if it's worth our while to do this. Would you, as someone we respect, take a look at us and see what it is? So we took him out for pancakes after the thing. And he said to us, I think you guys are funny. I think you have to get rid of all of your material and start over again. But I think if you move to New York or LA and just sort of immerse yourself in the scene. I can tell by hanging out with you guys, you are funny. I think you have to get rid of all of your material and start over again. But I think if you move to New York or LA

and just sort of immerse yourself in the scene, I can tell by hanging out with you guys, you're funny. So if you're amidst a really good scene of people that push you to write

great material, it's within you. He's like, I bet you guys get on TV by the time you're 25. Like, that's all we needed to hear. That was all. That was it.

We were kind of looking for an out to not go to law school. Yes, but it was, you know what? The fact that he criticized our material and said, you got to? The fact that he criticized our material and said you got to get rid of all of it,

not even like, I like this joke. It was like, scrap this crap. It was so brutally honest, but then that mixed with I have faith in you was the best thing

we could have ever heard. It was real. And so we took it as real. And he was, by the way, if he was having a crappy night, if he just like, in his own mind was like, I don't want to talk to these assholes yeah if he just like blew us off or didn't or was like

a lot of guys might have done that i'm sorry i missed you yeah i'm i already had pancakes yeah i'm really tired i'm just gonna go back to the hotel anything he could have said but what that was he took he took the time and then he came to new york when we were there we moved to new we decided right you moved right after graduate school. Yeah, after school. And we're like, we're going to try it. So we're like, guys, Andy Kindler said it. Yeah, Kindler said it.

But, you know, Rebar and Luna Lounge started up. I mean, we were at the third ever Rebar. And Andy's like, come with me to this show. It's like too long. First of all, he was like, come down to the Boston Comic Club. I have to run my Conan set. He was doing Conan. Oh, great.

He's like, I got to run my Conan set at the Boston Comic Club. walked down and meet him at this thing. There's the guys, Masavi, Masavi and the other guy. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Who ran Boston comedy club. And Kindler's like, you know, these guys, you should put these guys up. All of a sudden we had an in at this club. We're all out of nowhere. And so, yeah, they're like, yeah, we got booked. We started to get booked at the Boston comedy club. It was really cool. I mean, we had a lot of those kind of nice, and Kindler kind of brought us along in the alternative comedy scene as it started,

which was a huge, we were at the right place at the right time for that. And now Kindler doesn't talk to you guys. He hates us. He said, I've seen no money from this transaction. You guys still owe me. He thought he was going to be your agent. Right.

Do you see him a lot? Yeah, I mean, not a lot, but when we do see him, it's just like he's as avuncular as it gets. And I will say that we have taken upon ourselves, I think, in a honor- Hilarion way to take people under our wing and do things for them and help them as much as we can. Oh, that's right. Yeah, if there is like to give a sports analogy, it's like a coaching tree. You feel like we came down and learned it this way and we were going to teach these kids and hopefully. Also, it's like comedy is hard.

You guys know comedy is hard. The community is hard. There is no formal mentoring program. Because if you're helping someone, then all of a sudden like they're way past you and you're like, fuck. You know, like, wow, that sucks. I need help too. Right. You know, yeah, we all need help. Yeah. But need help too. Right. I'm, you know, yeah, we all need help.

Yeah. But so that doesn't mean you can't give help to other people. This is what happened with us and the Darling Twins. Yes. Not to bring it back. Full circle. Not to bring it back. Well, you can pay back Andy by teaching him to meditate.

He doesn't seem like a meditator to me. He would be great. I don't think he is. Yeah, he should meditate. He's so funny as a meditator. He's just, everything he does. I'm saying my mantra now. Yeah.

I remember him being on Conan. I swear I've told this story before. I don't know. It was an awful crowd. He was on with Jerry Van Dyke. And he did a joke. He just pointed at someone in the audience, in the studio, and he goes, that man hates me. When did you guys move to L.A.?

We moved to L.A. in 99. So we were in New York from 94 to 99 and then moved out here in 99. In 97 and 98, though, we started coming out here to do – 98, really. 98 and 99. We had a deal to develop a show for us and we would come out every month for a week and write with this writer out here but then like we would come do shows at like Largo and just around LA improv Largo and we'd go to Luna Park and you we were like oh there's a scene out here yeah comparable to the scene there and it's just different people really cool people it's you're watching Tenacious D you're watching Karen Kilgariff, Patton. Patton and Greg Barron.

And I mean, Paul Tompkins and all these great people that have become great friends of ours through the years. And I think seeing that scene out here said to us, oh, we should come to LA. Yeah. If we're going to do it, we have to move out here. Yeah. There's still a tension or not tension, but a lot of comics in New York. So many are like, oh, I've got to move. And so many comics from New York are moving to L.A. still.

I think there's that. I mean, I remember having that in our brains. I remember for a whole year of being like, this isn't New York. We're not. What is going on here? Right. Yeah. It's like, yeah, it's not.

It's not New York. It's a different vibe. It's a different thing. There's more stuff being made out here. If your attitude is to be a writer or a stand-up, yeah, there's like a handful of shows in New York that you can write on. They're really tough to get on and really tough to be a part of. And we know great people who have submitted packets to Colbert four and five times. We're like, you should be writing for them.

But you just can't because of the numbers and what it is. That's tough you come out to la there's a little bit more going on i think it's harder at times to be out here because you're reminded more of what you're not doing or accomplishing when you're out here so there's a perception that everyone else is doing things that's right it's not real i mean instagram has like taken that up times 10 if you follow so now people in new york and if you're an Instagram, you can sort of, which reminds me, can we post this on Instagram so that other people are jealous that we're on there? We're doing this.

I just would like to do that. It's your career. Yeah. Hey, I can't tell you. They're jealousy. Yeah. Stoking.

But you know, I mean, it's to go back. And when we were in New York, this was such a great moment. We were doing like a sketch writing class in Chicago city limits. If you remember Chicago, yes. They were like side. We were doing a sketch writing class at Chicago City Limits. I don't know if you remember Chicago City Limits. Upper East Side?

60th. Yes, they were the big... The only improv group. Andy Daly? He was teaching there and he came out of there. But we had a guy teaching us a starting sketch class. And he was such a good teacher. And he was so funny. And he had written

on an Australian radio show for years. And he was so funny. And he had written on an Australian radio show for years. And he was so funny. And we're like, why is this guy not? Right. Again, like Seinfeld. We're like, why is this guy not getting? What's the deal? What's the deal?

He should be getting bigger work. You know who that was? Justin Stangle. Of the Stangle brothers. Oh, get out. Who then ran Letterman for 20 years. With his brother. With his brother, Eric.

So it's like. But they're not twins. They're not twins. But it was a moment of like what a great thing to rub elbows with this guy

who would of course have the talent to go on and run Letterman for that much wow it was awesome yeah because when we came to New York

we couldn't just drop our act we would have had nothing to do right so we were sort of doing remnants of this old crappy act I think we dressed alike

it was awful and it was just terrible there was a ventriloquist part. There was. There were two ventriloquist dummies that were exactly alike. I spoke for his and I spoke for his. No, but so we did this terrible act. That's a great idea.

I want to do it on this show. So we very much needed a break and so we quit stand-up for a while and took this sketch writing class and then started going down and watching shows at surf reality and at Luna lounge and rebar and all that stuff. And we started to realize,

Oh, you know, we're looking at standup, like in this tiny little box, like there's two of us on stage. We can do these crazy conceptual bits that kind of expand us out of what we've been doing. And it took stopping doing the same crappy standup.

Andy was right. We had to like kill it and lose it and then go in a completely different direction. And that class at Chicago. That really helped us kind of get into that mindset. Oh, wow. Do you still keep in touch with Justin? We did keep in touch with him. We reached out to him a short while, a little while ago.

We've been following each other from afar, but like, you know, and of course, we root for him and his success. That's great. Yeah, it's awesome. And it also reaffirms like, oh, you know, we, like you were saying before, you recognize somebody who's good. Seinfeld. And why isn't this guy working? No, it's like feeling like there's just it. I mean, me, you were like.

No, but we give him a wide salary. Did you guys all do stand up on some of the same shows? Yeah, I mean, we did stand up at the clubs together yes I mean I remember just I always think of you in the same breath as like Mike Royce who has gone on to be like a fantastic writer and Kylie Brian Kylie is working here

he is one of our favorites he's so good he's so so good but yeah we I's so good. He's so, so good. But yeah, I mean, I feel like that time in New York was really like a special time. Like Dave Attell was coming up. Yes. All these great comics in New York who we just, Mitch Hedberg was in New York doing stuff for a while. Yeah.

It just was a very exciting time for comedy. Zach Galifianakis. All of them. It was really, really a special time. And I just love that we came out of that period. I feel like that was so meaningful for us. We do always ask our guests,

and you kind of touched a little bit on this, but if there's one piece of advice you might give to someone who's aspiring to do what you do. That you both can agree on. Yes. I was going to say, we might give different pieces of advice. No, you can each give a separate piece. Jay, what would you say? I mean,

we always say to people create, don't wait. That's like a big one for us, which is like, if you're waiting for one piece of news to come down, it will be bad news. I can't tell you enough that like, if you're like,

Hey, if this show gets bit, it won't, it's not going to get picked up. Maybe it will. And that'd be awesome if it was, but if you sit there and wait for that news, when you don't get the thing you want,

you will be miserable or all the things. I'm waiting for my opportunity on this. Don't. Just go make stuff. Go. That's why standup is really exciting because you could have the worst day ever. But if you write a new bit

or the worst run for like three weeks, if you write a new four or five minutes or a new sketch or something and you put it on its feet and it does well, you feel like you've done something. You've created something. Whether it means

anything in the grand scheme or not. So creating is your... Keep the momentum going. You can create your way out of being stuck. And try to have irons in the fire.

Yes, so you're not... And I would, to that end, I would say it takes a long time to develop your voice. It takes a long time to develop your stand-up.

Just be willing to take that time. Don't cut corners and don't sit around and say, I wish, why is that person here? We talk about this all the time. We're like the ladder. We say it's the ladder. Like you, in order to climb a ladder, you always have to look up above you because that's where your attention has to be, right? You don't have to worry about your feet. You're worried where your next thing is. So naturally you're going to be like, that guy's doing this, and this woman's up here, and how is she doing this, and he's getting this stuff. They've been doing it 10 years less.

That's very easy to get into that game. Every once in a while, not all the time, you need to look down and realize all the people who are on the ladder below you. Then there's a line to get to the ladder. Then it snakes around the corner to people who don't know what they're waiting for. And then there's people who are like, I wish I had the courage to get into that line. Yeah. You got to remember that every once in a while. And just not, we, again, encounter people on various parts of the, of the ladder, so to speak. And just, you can't say it's just, things are going to happen when they happen

and you have to sort of give yourself over to that. And it's like, okay, this opportunity comes along. I'm going to do it and do the best that I can. And if it actually means, if people see it and it's a great thing and it sparks this other thing and it moves forward, then great. But I can't be sitting here saying I should be doing this. I should be on this because that's not going to get you anywhere. It will happen when it happens. Create a groundswell so that it's undeniable that you need to, that people are like, have

you seen? You deserve it. Have you seen, like you want all these people. Sarah, that people are like, have you seen? That you deserve it. Have you seen, like you want all these people. Sarah, we have a friend, Amy Miller, who's a great comedian. Have you seen Amy's latest set of comedy? She's, we take her on the road with us. We're like, she's amazing. And if enough people start saying that, people are like, you know what?

She should go do Spade's show. Tell the bookers to go put her on the show. And suddenly they're like, have you seen Amy? And this person's like, she's great. And this person's like, she, and then she gets on the show and she does well. And it's like, that was her time to do it. Yeah. Yeah.

Word of mouth from your coworkers. That's right. That's really what it is. It is that groundswell that can cause it to happen. Yeah. Well, thank you, Randy and Jason. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you so much. This is awesome. One other tip, seek out Andy Kindler. Where and whenever you can. Feed him pancakes. Wait till the show's over. Feed him pancakes. Wait him out.

He's a hungry guy. Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you guys. And that was the Sklar brothers. They were fantastic. They were, and they had,

and they did have a great set on the show afterwards. Thanks to us. Yeah, man. They owe us. So we have a fan letter. We do. We've been getting a lot of fan mail. And fan questions. I know. We've been getting a lot of fan mail and fan questions.

I know. I guess people really are bored. The pandemic's playing right into our hands. Yeah, this one's all the way from Israel. It says, hi, my name is Yuval from Israel, and I'm a longtime show watcher and a slightly less long podcast listener. And my questions regard my favorite Conan character, which is me, the Interrupter. Seriously, I went as him to a Purim Jewish Halloween, in parentheses, party once. So, my questions are, how did he come about? What's your favorite Interrupter moment?

Thanks, and I like you too. Ah, that's nice. Yeah. I wonder how that costume went over for him. I know. Dude, you need a name tag. Here, watch this clip. Yeah. The Interrupter is, yeah, one of my favorite characters. It was played by a writer named

Brian Stack, who played many, many, many characters on the old Late Night Show and on the current show and on the Tonight Show. Brian Stack created this character with Michael Komen, who was a writer at the time, who's also hilarious. We've interviewed both of them. Yes, we have. I think this came about, we used to do after a lead guest, we'd always do a little comedy bit. We called it an act three. And a lot of times it would be, Conan would announce a guest the next night and we'd think of a character to kind of help Conan present who the guests would be on the next night.

And so they came up with the interrupter to do that. And he just simply, Conan would say, wait, aren't you the guy who interrupts you all the time? And it would just be like that for four minutes. Right. So we did it this once and it killed so much that it was like, oh, all right, we'll bring it back and run it into the ground. Why do anything else?

Exactly. And so, yeah, that character is on right till the very end of Late Night. I lost track of how many times we did it. And they had to keep coming up with new variations on it which is always the worst part yeah when you have a bit you like writers the second it becomes a regular thing they get angry and depressed and resentful that they have to keep ringing try to get moisture out of the sponge and go back to the well yeah and compromise their artistic integrity exactly you're making me kill this character.

Did anyone ever interrupt the interruption? Ah, I believe so. You know, like maybe his kid came out and the kid's kid, I'm sure it turned into like a cat in the hat bit at some point. Yeah. I am just guessing. But Brian Stack played so many great characters. He played Hannigan, the traveling salesman. Yes.

Who is like a 1950s character and he also played the ghost crooner who i don't know if we can ever put any of those online because the whole idea was by 1990s standards what he was singing about was outrageous i think he was like a nazi sympathizer from the 30s well that's come back into style again so that's right it all comes back but yeah no uh brian's tax rate and uh right now no one asked but he's uh working on uh the late show the steven colbert show now and performing on that yeah and he plays god there sometimes he played god on late night wait a minute anyway thanks for the. And if you have more questions,

please email us at insideconanpod at gmail.com. Or you can leave us a voicemail if you still know how to use that feature on your phone. The number is 323-209-5303. That's it for this week. We will see you a week from now. We sure will. 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 Blaire. 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,

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