Inside Late Night with Mark Malkoff - Inside Late Night: Robert Smigel Returns Again

Episode Date: May 5, 2026

Robert Smigel returns to Inside Late Night for an extended conversation about his SNL years, from writing iconic sketches like “You Like-a the Juice?” and the Steve Martin “Not Gonna Phone It In Tonight” cold open to navigating the writers’ room and collaborating with legends like Jim Downey, Adam McKay, and Will Ferrell. He also discusses his new podcast, Humor Me with Robert Smigel and Friends, upcoming projects including a Leo sequel, and this week’s Night of Too Many Stars benefit in Los Angeles.

from late-nighter.com. It's Inside Late Night with Mark Malkoff. Welcome to Inside Late Night with Mark Malkoff today. Robert Smigl, the greatest sketch comedy writer, is with us. We're excited to talk about SNL, Conan, so much more. Joining us is John Schneider, my producer from the Saturday Night Network. Let's do it. Robert, what are your top three if you had to pick from when you were there?

Well, definitely. Oh, when I was there? Yeah, or past. Well, the ones we nominated for Emmys, like Alec Baldwin, his first show. Yeah, Alec Baldwin B-52s. That one came in at like 37. I think it was for sure, like a top 10 to 50s. I'm just talking about it from my ear.

And then McCartney and Alec Baldwin was unbelievable. The whole show. You wrote the French sketch. They did the Chris Carly show with McCartney. They did The Mimick. They did soap opera Digest, Tim Meadows. Yeah, it's, I mean, all of his shows were great. he was an amazing host.

I guess but that first one was amazing and also let's see well I'll always be partial to the William Shatner show that was very strong that Stark Star Trek sketch

was very funny with the restaurant yeah that made the top of it. But there was also very funny it's a wonderful life parody at the end of the show that was amazing. That one

Joe Pesci was a favorite of mine Joe Pesci and was it Spin Doctors Yeah, Spin Doctors and Joe Pesci Yeah, it was the week after Sheneade I also like the Tom Hanks show that happened With Springsteen where it had the It had Mr. Belvedere in it Yeah, the Fred Wolf sketching, they had Sabra

And it had the better Sabra sketch. And it had a very funny sketch with Julia, Sweeney. I don't know. There's a lot. No, it was solid. I mean, people make the argument that 91, 92 was the greatest season of ever with cast and writing. It was really, that's when you did the Tonight song for Steve Martin. It's not the best argument.

I've heard a lot of people that are wrong. Really? In terms of writing and cast together. That's after Jan Hooks had left. Yeah, it was right after. It was the season after Jam, but she was still coming back. Well, more of the season after. A little bit. That was like a very crowded cast, Mark.

Yeah. It was. Michael Jordan's show was another great. And that was that season. It was Michael Jordan. The curse the alley with the sketch that Ewan Schneider wrote. It was Christian Slater. I guess I would say the year before is the year I would.

McCulley Culkin. Massive Headwood and Harry was that season. I think most fans would say that. But 14 from that era was the one that people feel is that 89, 90 or 98 to 89? It was very good year. Yeah, that's like you start off with that Hank's episode with the election, like great sketch, the the Lovitz and Carvey. I can't believe I'm losing to this guy, that one.

Yeah, that whole thing. That's good. That's brilliant. I mean, the penis sketch, like all that. Yeah. I mean, I was good. I just think the show got better when Mike Myers became a real factor and Sandler and Farley. Like, you know, Farley wasn't, I mean, I'm just thinking about like the year that we're Farley debuted and it's the Chippendale's sketch is in there.

That was the same episode as that you, when you did that sketch that pissed off Johnny Carson with Chris Rockplay and Arsenio with. Yeah. You and I have talked about that sketch. No, we have, but that episode's brilliant. They did dirty square dancing, cold open. And then you wrote with Conan, it was a ghost sketch. It was a parody of ghost with Victoria playing, Jackson playing Demi Moore, and Patrick Swayze being grossed out as the- I don't remember.

It was probably Conan's idea. I don't remember it. Long time ago. For anybody that's been listening, we're with the, in my opinion, the goat, Robert Smigel of comedy, random sketch comedy, certainly of Saturday. Night Live Mount Rushmore at Smigel, Downey, Jack Handy, and probably Davis and Franken and Davis, my Mount Rushmore. So, Robert.

Ben, that's your era. But I mean, like, I just, I have a new podcast myself and we can talk about later, but Mikey Day and Streeter or Seidel. They are very good. And I told them, I told Streeter when I had him on. I mean, I don't think I did any better than they've done. I think they've written amazing volume of great sketches and some incredible classic sketches. So I would put those guys up there and there have been other great writers in the last 20 years.

Like I felt like my sketches, I felt like I did great. I had a nice career there. But I did feel like, and I always say this, that a decent amount of my sketches somebody could have thought of. Whereas Jack Handy, like who, there's nobody else in the world who would ever thought of most of his sketches, I would say. Certainly, you know, imagine someone thinking of Unfrozen Cape Manloire. It's not going to happen. So that's, there's a little bit of that. And, you know, I think Jack stands out in that regard.

Did he write the young superboy? It was like young, young, young superboy for McCulley Culkin. I don't know if you remember. I think that was me and Conan, maybe. Oh, really? That was you and Conan. Oh, and me? Wasn't it just that he's adorable?

Yes, that was you and Conan? Because Conan had left the show by then, but it might have been... Really? Yeah, but you might have had that for Fred Savage, and it might have gotten cut, and you might have received. Maybe, maybe. But, I mean, that didn't feel like a jack piece. That was more of a behavioral piece, the kind of stuff I could write with Conan and other people sometimes. I have to ask you.

did you think of the Jim Downey, Doc? You're in it. What were your thoughts? And seeing that footage, the footage of yourself. You know, they had me talk to Jim for like three hours. What they should do with that show, they should make a podcast out of that. He interviewed Conan for hours and Malaney and numerous people. And they should just make a mini-series podcast of the conversations he had because they're very interesting for comedy writers. It's not something for the general public,

but there was a lot of stuff thrown out that was way more inside baseball than what you see, like the SNL writers documentary that they did, that's not nearly as interesting to me as the Downey documentary. because the Downey documentary really got into, you know, the styles of comedy writing as opposed to we come in on Monday and, oh, boy, we got a pitch to Lorne and we don't say what we're really going to write. It's just, I just watched it feeling like, and why I didn't watch the whole thing, but I felt like, hasn't this, haven't we been here before?

haven't they done this documentary whereas Downey's really got into an appreciation of his style of writing and that sort of beget people talking about what makes a funny comedy sketch

and I thought it was really comparatively very interesting. I love that Malani mentioned Johnny Canal because I always thought that was all Jack Handy but I think that was. I mean too. And I'm sure I got to say, that's a little weird

and Downey made a point of saying that he wrote it with Jack Handy. And what I'm guessing is the part where, the part, what I'm guessing would be, because Jack usually wrote by himself. But in that case, what I'm assuming

is that Jack had the idea for Johnny Canal and the absurd plan to have a million canals connect the world, you know, transportation, whatever. and then Downey wrote, I'm guessing Downey wrote the part where they explain it to Johnny Canal in that very deadpan way and Johnny, and, you know, Malcovich's face goes blank trying to absorb it. And that's the length and the detail. That sounds like Downey.

It was such a brilliant sketch. I mean, and they kind of, and yes, that's over-explanning. And they kind of, the only thing I didn't like about the doc was that some people were kind of pigeonholing Downey like, oh, that's his thing. He over-explained something that's obvious and that's his joke. And yes, that's a recurring theme in some of his stuff, but he's had a million amazing ideas that go way beyond that joke. You know, if you look at something like dissing your dog, that's just incredibly funny. idea that has nothing to do with over-explaining something dumb or the George Bush-Al Gore debate. She wrote entirely by himself.

And I think launched the show into the decade in a way that it desperately needed in terms of relevancy. It's one of the most important sketches ever on the show. I remember being in middle school and changed bank. My friends and I laughing so hard. Well, that's classic over-explaining something obvious, and that's really funny, and that's what that is. And Downey was brilliant, and it is one of the best, one of the best commercial parodies ever. Did you read Susan Morrison's book, Lauren?

And if so, what did you get out of it? You've known Lauren for decades. I didn't read it. I don't have time. I have kids. I have work. Yes. And if I was going to read a book, it probably wouldn't be that book, because it's,

I mean, I guess I'd feel less claustrophobic reading that Saturday Night Live book than most because at least a lot of it would be about Lauren's life. And that would be really interesting to me, stuff I haven't known about him for years. But no, I haven't read it. I just hit the index. I was given a book and I hit the index and looked up everything that was said about me or that I said to make sure I didn't say anything that hurt anybody's feelings or said. sounded, you know, off. And that was it. And I put the book down. You were so nice back in the day you'd get me into Conan his first and second year. And I was looking through one of your early scripts like the first year. And you did in the year 2000 and you were handwriting notes.

And for one of the jokes you wrote to Sagity, was that a term like Bob Sagitt was doing? I want to know what joke that was. I'll find it. But was that a term that you would use? Because He was the host of America's funniest home videos. And I'm guessing the joke was very like that sagget, not the dirty Sagitt, but more. I have no idea. Okay. Or it might have been, um, gratuitously dirty. And in my mind as a comedy snob, I would have thought maybe Sagitt was doing that at times,

like going for shock value over. Two Sagitt. That's funny. I will look for it. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if it was a turban. When the Conan submissions that summer launching, you launched the show in the fall of 93,

what were the submissions that came in because people really didn't know Conan's sensibility other than the Simpsons. And I know you were even looking at unsolicited stuff that was coming in. What were these submissions like? That's a really interesting question because I don't remember if we, I don't remember if we established any kind of template of, of comedy style that we demanded of people. Man, I think there was some word that might have gotten around that we didn't want to do letterman.

I mean, you know, I had a very clear mandate of what I didn't want to do back then, going with Lauren always used to say, you're young, you define yourself by what you don't like. And it wasn't that I didn't like it. It was the opposite. I revered everything Letterman did. But I desperately didn't want our show to be within, you know, sniffing range of anything he was doing. Because I just feared that our show would be defined by comparison. So whatever he didn't do, I wanted to do.

And a lot of it had to do with my initial idea, which was to do sketch comedy on a late night show, which just hadn't been done since Steve Allen at that time. You know, now Jimmy Fallon does it a lot. But, and even Colbert a little bit. But back then, that's what I wanted to do. do. I wanted to, and I got to meet Steve Allen once and I said, we stole the stuff that Letterman didn't steal from you. It was like, who? By all means, help yourself. And we, but that was,

and we might have, maybe, maybe we told managers and agents like that we're looking for silly stuff and, you know, maybe we listed some of the sketches we wrote at S&L. I don't know. I don't have recollection of that, but what I do remember is getting a lot of stuff that was attempting to approximate a sensibility that we were interested in. So I have a feeling we did send something out that established some kind of guideline. Yeah, I just wondered about that early days. I wanted it to go back to the 85, 1986 SNL season. You wrote the cliffhanger fire sketch where the cast Uncernate Lovitz is coming back. Who in the cast was upset with you?

How did you know? Did they actually... I'm not going to mention who specifically was upset because... It's been 30 years. I know, but I just don't know. You can guess. You can guess. Did they come up to you or did you hear through the grapevine that they weren't?

No, a couple of them came up to me and were pissed. And a couple of them were pissed that didn't come up to me, apparently. I know Terry Sweeney went on record on that show, that documentary about that season, saying that he was upset. But, you know, I made a point of having the writers in there, too. Because if anything, the writing was reviled more than the cast. Now, Lauren didn't think so. He ended up rehiring more writers than cast members that year. But the writing was certainly ripped apart by whatever critics were looking at the show that year.

So I would never have done that sketch if I couldn't have put the writers in there with. You know, it was really not meant to be personal. It was really just like John Levitz is the breakout character and he's this. adorable schlobby guy that Lauren pulls out and everybody got it immediately which tells you that you know we were on the right track like that got an immediate laugh when he pulled when he when he brought the writers in you know writers you know and he and he said there's chocolates and whatever in there that got like applause I think it was the same extras from the Coppola episode yes it was that Downey had established some joke about the writing staff being represented by male models.

And we just connected, we just, we just lifted that and kept it as a runner for this joke. Wasn't even Jack Handy fired for like a moment from that season? He was. He was, wow. I mean, but a lot of writers were brought back. to Lauren's credit, but no, I think Jack Handy sketches had gotten, you know, it was a tough year audience-wise, and Jack's stuff doesn't always kill even though it's hilarious. And so anything that wasn't like murdering was vulnerable. And I, you know, I've told you that I was very

close to being fired. I thought I was fired because Al called me, Al Franken called me in July or something like, yeah, it's not looking good. I mean, I'm sorry, you know, you did great, but it was a tough year, and you know who stuff was really funny?

Swartzwell. I remember that he's, yeah, I remember. And then for whatever reason, well, I know what reason. Dennis Miller, John Lovitz, and Whitney Brown all spoke up for me. And that's why I was rehired. No other reason. And then Lauren called me like a weekend before, like the Friday before the season was starting.

And he grilled me about the previous season in my work. What are you most proud of, Rich Ritcherote? Well, I'd say the cliffhanger. at the end of the season because I feel like it helped the show by, you know, calling out the elephant in the room and the fact that it worked at the same time

made me feel good that it was a good way to end the season for the show. And then he just, I remember him saying, you had some trouble writing for women. People said you couldn't write for women. I was like, yeah, I wasn't great at it. I'll just keep back.

at it keep trying you know uh i was you know as a nerdy guy from barely out of college and just hadn't lived life so i didn't you know i wrote one sketch about a couple that got on the show tony danza and joan kusack and i don't know i wrote a couple of funny things for joan kusack because she still one of the funniest people i've ever met um but no i wasn't great at writing for women i never became a master at it. But, you know, people like Jan Hooks, when I could write them as characters or, you know, broader celebrity impressions, that kind of thing, that was never a problem. You've contributed to the Pat sketches with Christine Zander and Julia, Sweeney, correct? I would not say. I would call it. I...

They put your initials around the scripts, I believe. Yeah. The one that deconstructed the sketch. The Harvey Kytel one, maybe? the one with, wait a minute, I might have done two. One was, but they were both not, they were not constructive contributions, they were deconstructive. One was the one where Christopher Walken over explains the premise where he's just like, I cannot,

I'm discombobulated for I do not understand whether or not this person's identity is what, It appears to be. And he just, he just, I don't even remember how the sketch ended. It was one of those ones that deconstructed the sketch. And so everybody at Table Read just was dying with laughter. I think he jumps out of a window, John. Yeah, he can't handle it. Yeah.

Something like that. It's the last two that have your names on it, the Walkin and the Kytel one. Okay. So the Walkin one, that's why I deconstit. constructed the sketch in a way that delighted the staff, but perplexed the home viewer, or at least the studio audience. It really ate it on live TV, at least. The Keitel one has Sandler's character in it, right? And that's probably my contribution where I used to love writing for Adams' little nerdy sweater character in the audience. It was his

idea. I thought you would bring him back for the 50th. Oh, the Michael Keaton. He did it with Michael Keaton. I think Kevin Klein. Yeah. Well, on my very last show, I played like his brother or his doppelganger on the Willie Nelson. Yeah, that was Kevin Klein, Willie Nelson. So in the closing credits, he's like, wait a minute. How are you ending this season? And you can't. And then I come back behind him And I say, if you love something, he said it free. And, you know, if it doesn't go, it was never meant to begin with, something like that. Yeah, I thought during Tina and Amy's Q&A at the 50th, that would have been a good spot. Oh, yeah, he's too old for that now.

He only does Emmy-nominated songs. You mentioned, we were talking about Terry Sweeney. Can I say something about Terry? I think Terry should have the opportunity to play Mary Todd Lincoln on Broadway. I think he would kill it. I think he'd be hilarious. And I think his Nancy Reagan was a very, very funny characterization style impression that was one of the few hits of that season. And, you know, Coles Goulders.

as Mary Todd Lincoln stands on the shoulders of people like Terry. With the premiere of S&L UK, Jack Shep got a lot of Terry Sweeney comparisons where he was playing Princess Diana. I can see that. Oh, I didn't see it,

but I heard he was very funny. I was asking John if the UK version, if they stayed up all night Tuesday to write and they did not. They broke that. I wasn't sure if that was going to be, if they were going to use the same process to put the show together.

I thought that was interesting. They didn't need to stay up all night Tuesday to make a comedy show. Yes, that was very interesting. Well, they're only doing like eight, right? For now, hopefully more. Right, right. Are they doing them once a week, or are they taking breaks? I think they were going to do six in a row,

and now that it's been extended to ace, they're going to take break. Yeah, how are they going to get sleep if they're doing six in a row? That's brutal. It's easy to say that before the season starts. I was going to ask you, Robert, do you think it would ever be possible to do Saturday Night Live, like your show of shows with six writers? Maybe Herb Sargent takes update,

and you have six writers around a table and write the sketches. It would have been. Okay, that would have been doable. I mean, sure. It's not easy. And I'm sure that I don't think they wrote everything that week. They probably had weeks before production started, where they, you know, I never,

never I've never known that answer to that actually and I've seen like interviews with those guys but 40 shows a year they were doing at city center Jesus I can't even imagine I can't imagine I mean I'm just like yeah Jackie Gleason the honeymooners how many isn't it 39 they didn't do many no yeah what the original that one season mm-hmm I thought they did 39 episodes oh did they do 39 oh I didn't know that one season I know that they did that one season I know that they're there's those famous honeymooners that are the one, that are, they call them the Golden 39 or something. It's all from one season.

And I think they were done live. I mean, Johnny Carson was doing an hour and 45 minute show when he started in 1962. In my day, which night show lasted all night long. Getting back to Terry Sweeney, when you were there in the host meeting when Chevy was there hosting in 85. When Chevy made us remarks about Terry Sweeney, did anybody laugh? Obviously, Chevy was doing like a Michael O'Brien.

A lot of nervous laughter. And that one, I was just nervous and like, yeah, oh my God, that's crazy that he's saying that. that, but, you know, at the same time, it's like I'm in the same room as Chevy Chase. I couldn't believe it. Like, yeah. I mean, I had such reverence for the show. I didn't know how to act.

And, you know, it was all new. I mean, Jesus, there's so much stuff that people did over the years that's just as bad, practically as bad as that, that people just kind of gloss over. Can you give me an example? Well, I'm not going to name names, but like, for example, like, if you go back to like the 90s where I think the damn burst because, you know, HBO had exploded and networked TV was under a lot of pressure to be relevant by, um, by me, by becoming more outrageous. So at Saturday Night Live, suddenly you're allowed to say words like retard on, on, um,

in living color. They went way further than S&L and they did like the handyman sketch, which I don't know if you remember, but Damon Wend, sure. Yeah, a handicapped guy. And I remember that like people casually at parties, I would see people like imitate quirky from life goes on. Life goes on. Wow. And it was, they didn't think they were being cruel.

They just thought they were being edgy. And that's what people were going for, just being edgy, just crossing a line of what's appropriate with the idea that, hey, we're all thinking it. and now we're finally allowed to do it. And I remember that was like the line that I was like, whoa. And that was before I had an autistic kid. I always had a thing about things that were beyond people's control. Like I remember when Nick Nolte had that horrendous drunk driving incident, I think it was. and he had that famous, that famous mugshot.

His hair's to shuffle. His hair was akimbo. They wanted me to do a clutch cargo of that, which for anybody who didn't serve in the Vietnam War, clutch cargo was a bit we did on the Conan show where I would do celebrity impressions behind a photograph and the lips were cut out, and I would provide the lips,

and do the impression that way. And Conan would talk to the person on a monitor. And we did it all the time. But in this case, I was like, really, do we want to do this to Nick Nolte? It's like, you know, isn't it kind of sad? And Conan looked at me like, you? You have a problem with this? The guy who did all these, you know, Michael Jackson cartoons and triumph bits.

But I just, I did. And then what was really funny was that literally like a couple of months later, Steve Martin, my hero, who has the highest standards of anybody in comedy as far as I'm concerned, was hosting the Oscars. And he ended it with like a giant, there was a giant like as big as the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion or wherever the hell, Kodak Center, wherever they do it. the back wall was just entirely Nick Nolte's mugshot. Got an enormous laugh from the room.

And I'm like, okay, so the Oscars were okay with it, but I somehow wasn't. Steve Martin's doing it. When Nicholas Cage hosted the show, you wrote the baby naming sketch with Julia. Yes, I love that sketch. I love, can you talk about how you... I wrote it with Bob Odenkirk. Odin Kirk was gone by then. So...

Well, then he, I called him up. I don't know how I got him in. involved, but I did. Can you talk about that sketch? Well, I had just become an uncle in April of 1990. And it was my first nephew. It was my sister's first child. And it was a gigantic moment in our family's history. And what to name him was a huge issue of debate. And a lot of it, they wanted him to be named with an R. It's a Jewish tradition when a relative passes away, a close one. A lot of times they'll get their Hebrew name, and sometimes you'll name them after the person, and sometimes you'll just use the first letter. So my grandfather's name was Roman,

and they weren't going to name him Roman because that was considered too weird. And then it just, and they weren't going to name him Robert because that was me and they don't do living relatives. And nobody really liked any other names. And just, we would come up with names and I just realized that it was a fun game to dismiss names for the craziest reasons, the most paranoid reasons. Like Ronald, are you kidding me? Ronald McDonald? There you go. What's up, clown?

I'll take a Big Mac with, you know. And that's just it. It's just a game. and I just thought Nicholas Cage would be the funniest person to represent that paranoia. And he was amazing. And I love him so much. He's one of my favorite actors anyway. When he's my favorite.

When he's not broad, he's my favorite. He's like an Al Pacino type that way. I just love him. And I loved working with him on that show. I was going to say when Rob comes in with a delivery with a big laugh, was that in the original table version or did that come in during the rewrites? No, I think I had that in there. I was like, I got to, the payoff's got to be.

Can you tell the audience the payoffs for the people that haven't seen it? I believe, you know, so Nick is the dad and Julia is the expected mom and Nick is rejecting every name possible and it gets into insane stuff. Like she's like, what about Ben, Ben, Benjamin? Oh, Ben, gentle Ben, yeah. Oh, want some honey, gentle Ben? Well, we could call him Benjamin. Benjamin, Benjamin, Benjamin, Benjamin, Benjamin.

Hey, how's that tariff going? Nice beard, Benjamin. It's just stuff no one would ever come up with. And then finally, the doorbell rings and Rob Schneider's. I got a delivery for an ass wipe Johnson. The name is Ozwee pay. The audience lost it. The audience lost it.

Yeah, it was one of those payoffs that it just demanded that payoff. Was that a callback to a little bit of a sketch with Jason Priestley, Johnny Hildo, where everyone was calling him. It wasn't okay. No, I had a similar joke. Okay. Similar. All good. That was Rob's piece.

Rob wrote that, and I think with Sandler's help, but that was a Schneider piece. Schneider was a great writer on the show. That's what I tell people, Ed Glosser, Trivial Psychic. I mean, yeah, it's killer. That's amazing. Yeah, no, Rob was really, really good. Massive Headwoundary. Yeah.

You know, I mean, the funniest part of it was Tom Davis's joke, but Rob, Rob premise was still very funny. Schneider and Downey wrote that whole thing. It was like the Gulf War and people were like, what would be the worst? sketch and yeah about mocking the paranoia of the I'm not not mocking the paranoia I'm not mocking the media's refusal to acknowledge that some information is classified they just had a blind spot and kept asking the same questions and it was a brilliant very satisfying not obvious idea and to this day I still don't know which person had the idea because they both claim it They both claim that it was their idea.

Such a good sketch. They're both great writer. Obviously, Downey's the greatest. To your knowledge, is the only cold open Jack Handy ever wrote was when he did the Anita Hill Cold Open, where it's all Chris Rock and Ellen Claygordon's playing Anita Hill, and it's all the senators for Kirsty Alley. I know that Handy had that idea, but, I mean, he definitely wrote it with Downey at Franken. It was a great sketch. Oh, that's a great show.

I'm sure Handy had other cold opens here and there. I don't know. I mean, I'm sure he never wrote George Bush cold opens, but. And, you know, he gets like pigeonholed in his own way. Like people say, oh, his stuff was always on at five to one. That's not true. He had some classics that murdered a happy fun ball. He had his

Whitmaster, his sketch, that was early on the show with Bill Murray. I thought that was, yeah, he had a nice amount of sketches that played early. Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer was never, it never killed, but it was always in a prominent spot because it was just so smart, so funny that Lauren didn't care, nobody cared whether it got a single laugh. Jack Handy said that Lauren in the beginning really wasn't a fan of the sketch. And I know Lauren was never really into Mr. Peepers, the Catan sketch and didn't like, apparently goat boy with animals.

Were there any recurring sketches that he didn't like during your tenure at the show that he would put on? I never heard that he didn't like Un Frozen Game Man lawyer. That's what Handy said just initially. It was like kind of like lukewarm and then saw it. Well, all I can tell you is I'm almost positive that it played after update. even the first one. Because I think I was in it. I think I was in the jury of the first one.

And I'm almost sure it was right after Weekend Update, which is not a place you put a sketch you don't like. Especially back then. Yeah, I was going to ask you, other than the Michael Jordan autographed basketball when you worked with him when he was a host, did you save anything from people that you work with host, script, anything, SNL, proper?

I wish I had. I really didn't have that mindset. of like, you know, it wasn't until my kids that I, until I had kids that I was like, I got to photograph everything. I got to hold on to every memory. And, you know, maybe it's because the digital phone cameras didn't exist back then. Maybe I would have taken pictures then, but I was just so focused on the immediate job. And it's not that I didn't enjoy like there i had my own ways of um expressing my reverence for the experience like every sketch i ever wrote i would watch on the floor of studio eight h live i would never sit in

the writer's room like the majority of writers and watch it with their peers on that big couch on the one monitor and people are talking. To me, the experience of having a sketch in that studio was so special that I would never miss it. And I'm like, I'll never be able to see it this way again.

So I would always watch the performers do it live. And even when I had just pre-rolls like cartoons, I would watch it on the floor because I just want to feel the audience. There's one small shot during, Steve Martin cold open from December of 91, the Tonight song, my favorite cold open of all time, where I think you can see you and Franken and one other person standing on the floor off to the side.

It's very possible. Yeah. Probably when Steve is coming around to Lauren, maybe. Yeah, I think when it's going up, that cold open still. I would never have known that. Now I have to look back at it and see if that's true. Well, a couple of friends of mine at the show said afterward that they were watching me, watched the sketch because I was right under the central monitor by the doorway, the entrance to the

studio. And they told me that like when something would get a laugh or a beat would complete and work because it was like this kind of segmented bit where there's this joke and then there's that section and this. And every time when that I would like jump and down, jump up and down like a five year old. It was killing. I mean, still to this day, best cold open of all time. Yeah. I mean, I can barely talk about it. I certainly can't watch it without getting emotional because it's, you know, besides just seeing Chris running around and going for it and knowing that Steve Martin's like, you know, maybe my all-time favorite person and, um, um, uh, S&L history and just the sketch itself and how it represents just the insanity of that place,

just putting on a live show and how it romanticizes it and makes fun of it at the same time. It's just, it just means everything to me. It's just, it's my favorite. I've probably watched it. That in Christmas time for the Jews are probably, probably the two sketches that I've, two things I've written in my life that I've watched the most, probably because they're musical and they're fun to watch over and over. But they're also, I mean, the Steve Martin Cold Open especially,

and I didn't write it by myself, just to make clear. Like, I wrote it in that it was my idea. I wrote a lot of the melody and I had a lot of jokes in it, but Franken, Tom Davis, Christine Zander, I think Schneider, the turner's had a beat i believe in it as well um i do not remember that but i believe it i mean a lot of people were sitting around i i remember that we i pitched the idea on an afternoon like on a tuesday afternoon or something and there were a fair amount of riders there and they were throwing out like i wouldn't do that phil that's i think that was frankin i think um that was one of the best

lines and um you know tim meadows i don't have any lines i'm not in the show that was mine that was one of my favorite moments actually something tells me that if i did i'd be raring to go but uh yeah that that one really got me but um but yeah that sketch and i didn't come up with the tony mendes joke either i don't remember who did oh man that's killer I think that was Franken and Davis, too, one of them. Line. Yeah, that was the button of the sketch, and I think that was either Franken or Davis.

And that was an amazing, you know, that just, that was the icing on the cake for that sketch. Robert, I've always wanted to ask you this. I know that Weekend Update has a dedicated writing team. Do you think that the cold opens should have a dedicated writing team? I don't think anything. I think, no, I think, the show should be wide open to anybody who has an idea.

Sometimes I think that the cold opens get too repetitive. I was frustrated back in the day when, you know, we kept opening with Dana Carvey doing George Bush. And in retrospect, I get it. It was really, really, it's maybe one of the best political impressions ever because I give him extra credit because nobody could do George Bush. Bush, like everybody could do Nixon, everybody could do Ronald Reagan in some form or another, you know, the whale and all that.

But nobody had a handle on George Bush. I remember Rich Little was really struggling with it. He was like the impressionist guy back then. And I remember he was struggling with it. And then Dana came up with a couple of moves, and Downey and Franken wrote around that. And it was amazing because after Dana, did it, everybody could do it. That was George Bush. He just told the country who George Bush was. And that's an amazing thing to achieve. And there are not many impressions that I could put in that

category where nobody had a handle on the guy. And then one person showed everybody how to do them. Robin Williams went on with Carson and did Dana's impression. He said, Robert and William said, this is how you do George Bush. I figured that Mr. Rogers and John Wayne and you put them together. I combine them. That's what he said. That's what Carvey would say. And then, yeah, it happens.

The reason I asked was because it feels like in modern times, we sort of like pigeonhole writers into writing politics, whereas it felt like in older eras, there were writers who were more political. And so we better suited them to write the cold opens. Well, I think Downey and Franken, when I was there, they just gravitated toward writing those, especially because they got a handle on George Bush. Like there was no big handle on Ronald Reagan.

Anybody could write a Ronald Reagan sketch because, you know, again, he kind of, there wasn't anything original to do with him. He'd been made fun of by everybody. So there wasn't any exciting, you know, the closest thing was the one I came up with. Masterbine. Yeah, but that was a one shot.

Like it wasn't a character that, you're going to do over and over because the whole joke of it was the surprise element. So it worked great for one episode. But that was like the only real original take that we ever had on Reagan. But Bush, they came up with, you know, this collaboration between these two guys and Dana was really exciting and easy to produce. So it became, but that's what happens at SNL. anytime anything's a hit everybody else at the show is like another one of those another it's pat another

bush cheerleaders oh yeah that one i got it i mean i made fun of that at one point i did a howard stern making you know fun with real audio and i fucking started it with a xerox machine i can't even remember this it was like a xerox machine and it just spitting it just spitting it just spitting out a cheerleader sketch that came to life. And I can't fucking believe in retrospect that I did that. These nice young actors, Will Ferrell and Sherry O'Terry, you know, it's not like it's their fault that it's on every other weekend. Will was saying near the end, he didn't want to do it,

but host would come in and said, I want to do a cheerleader's sketch. I'm sure Will. I'm sure both of them felt that way on some level. But to have somebody on the show call it out, you know, it probably didn't bother them, but it could have. And like in retrospect, I don't know. Like back then, I just was like, whatever's funny I'm going to say, unless it's, you know, like I said,

I had a few weird lines that I would draw like handicapped people or, you know, addiction. But if it was making fun of the show, I was as ruthless as anybody. But they, why don't you think in the last 20 or 30 years they make fun of the show anymore? You can't make fun of the quality. of the show if it's a bet if it's the season's off you can't make fun of keenan for being on for 20 plus years um john lovitz they made fun of um in that cold open with dennis miller's last show about love it's coming back and being pathetic and i guess love it's got upset at that i thought that was um when was that george went

cold when carcinio was a cold open with dennis that's like 30 years ago mark it was but i'm saying that they won't do that anymore they won't make fun of the show well they made kind of love it's on the 50th. It's like he's just become, he's just become like a safe target. They do it a little bit with, with James Austin Johnson's Trump where he,

he will get meta. Yeah, he makes, that feels like Jack Benny's show kind of stuff. Like those kind of, or Bing Crosby, Hope and Crosby kind of like, sort of cute inside jokes. Speaking of meta,

you like the Jews. Was that in your original table read where it's, you, oh, you know, it's so funny. I saw, I saw a clip of Jason Alexander. You were a guest on his show.

That's right. Yeah. And he tells this story, and I had no idea that Woody Allen had blacklisted him. Not for that sketch, obviously. I'll talk about that sketch in a second, but I got to talk about this because what floored me about the Woody Allen revelation, which was just for people who aren't ardent fans of Jason Alexander's podcast. Mark was on and he asked Jason about a sketch that I had written with somebody, probably Spade, I don't remember, about a Woody Allen fan club. And this was at the height of all the allegations that were being tossed about.

And it was in the aftermath of the scandal at the time as it was described where he left Mia Farrow for her adopted daughter. And so, you know, it was about Woody Allen fans commiserating about it's been a difficult year. We have to, you know, and whatever any, I was even in the sketch because like I was like, they needed like a fourth guy who could do Woody Allen, so they put me in there. And years later, Jason Alexander apparently directed a movie that Letty Aronson, Woody's sister was producing with Gene Dumanian, the ex-S-N-L producer.

And he asks Woody's sister, you know, I'd be a great, Woody Allen type, wouldn't I be perfect for Woody Allen movies? You know, that kind of naturalistic and semi-neurotic Jew thing. And she's like, not going to happen. And then she's like, remember that sketch you did? where you were on the Woody Allen fan club, and I think Jason was just thrown for a loop. He couldn't believe that Woody Allen would have cared about that sketch.

And the reason I bring it up is because, so a couple of years after I'm at Madison Square Garden, Lauren Michaels was very generous with his Knicks tickets. Took my father to a Knicks game, and it was a big game. It was like a playoff game. NBA finals, I think. They were playing Houston. It was a crazy night.

because the OJ Simpson chase was happening at the same time. And Lauren's seats were amazing. They were right behind like Marv Albert and Ahmad Rashad was there, the former NBC. And Ahmad Rashad used to play football with OJ at the Buffalo Bills. And he was in tears. He's like right in front of me and he's looking at the Bronco chase. And he's literally in tears.

So it was a crazy night anyway. But at one point, I don't know if it was halftime, my father spots a guy who's like in the third row, Irwin, come on up, he says to my father. He's a guy who owns a health food store than my father frequents. And turns out he's close friends with Woody Allen for some reason. So he's there sitting next to Woody Allen in the third row at this Knicks game. Come on down, Erwin. And Woody, this is Dr. Smigel.

He, you know, he's an old friend who comes to my store all the time. Woody Allen does not make eye contact with him. Just. And the weakest handshake you could ever imagine. It's just like literally handing him a dead fish. Here, have a dead fish and shake that. He's like an old man. And then he did the same thing.

Then this is Robert Smigel. his son and he does the same thing to me and I was just like what the hell is with this guy he I remember like 13 years earlier I had seen him at Michael's pub and he was not only nice but he would in between everybody would go to Michael's pub where he would play the clarinet it was like a thing people did. Everybody had to do it once. Watch Woody play clarinet at Michael's pub. And then, but what I didn't know was that in between his two sets, he would sit at the edge of the stage and anybody could come up to him and say hi. And he, and I did. I came up to him and I said, hi. And it's just, it was a crazy coincidence. I happened to have been an extra in a

scene from Broadway Danny Rose the day before took place at a funeral and I told him that and he was like he ended up cutting the scene but he was very nice and I was like what happened to this guy in my head and I had just assumed oh he's just been beaten down by all the bad press and he probably just doesn't trust anybody and maybe that's the case but when I heard the Jason Alexander story I was like is there any iota of possible? that he knew who you were who i am like that would be crazy i hadn't done anything like to merit i hadn't done my cartoons i you played dershowitz in a cold open nobody knows who the fuck those people are and like why would but i was like maybe he was so angry about the sketch that he

knew different details about it i don't know like there was a part of me when i saw this interview you had with Jason where I was like, is, is it possible that that's why he was so rude? Anyway, I just, either way, I felt bad that the guy's taken, you know, taking it so hard that he can't, you know, make eye contact with people. But anyway, that's that. And then as far as you like it, a juice, I forgot what you were going to ask. I was just going to say in the table, Was it meta where you're like, the sketches, we say the same thing over and over again. And then you mentioned GE Smith, like cut to GE. So it was one of those sketches where all I had was I had gone to a place in Chicago.

And I love Italian beef. And so when I would go there, I would ask for extra juice. And nobody ever said you like the juice. But in my head, I would just imagine the guy behind just savoring the fact that I like the juice. and you like the juice, eh? The juice is good, eh? I get you more juice. And that was it.

I had nothing else. And I pitched it to Jason that Monday. And in the story he tells, he says that I played Rob's part in rehearsal. I don't remember doing that. I do remember him saying to me, you should play the part. That's really funny. but I thought Rob was great. I thought Rob was hilarious doing it.

For me, it was fun to just be the fifth guy in it or whatever the hell I was. But all I had was that. I didn't have a sketch. I just thought, oh my God, that really makes me laugh. It's so stupid. And all I could think of was to go meta with it, to just take it until it got so repetitive that we had to start commenting on it. And Downey helped me with the meta jokes, I remember.

Spade comes on and as a customer, maybe himself, and starts. Yeah. You guys want to wrap it up? Yeah. And then you want to, these sketches too long, yes? Audience is getting feast. Yeah. And then it was like, the best part was, and he's like,

you want to see blonde guy with guitar? I show you blonde guy with guitar. And he, like, gestures over to G.E. Smith. That's really fun to hear from Jason Alexander, David Mandel to the monologue that day of Peter Pan. And it was fun hearing from somebody that hosted the show. I really liked your comic book with Adam McKay. And I know you and McKay wrote that O.J. Cold Open.

It was the second when Will Farrell came in. It was the second episode. And that was the famous I did it with Tim Meadows. So that was a funny one because... Believe it or not, so I wrote, I actually wrote the first cold open that year, too, the evidence card one with Johnny Cochran. Yeah, Mary L. Hemingway Premier, I remember. Yes, and I was like, there was a, I had this little tinge of guilt that I, because Lauren had offered me to be basically the Steve Higgins of that show. And I wanted to do the Dana Carvey show. I wanted to do something new.

but I was like I knew how much was at stake and so I was like I'm going to try to help them these first few shows if I can if I have any good ideas so I submitted a few things and they did my first

the first cold open of that cast was and then the second one so my brother-in-law of all people my brother-in-law Mitch just the next week, or I don't know, maybe that's Sunday after the show. He's like, what if you did something where OJ's already back on, or after the trial?

Maybe it was right after the trial on Monday. I think, yeah, OJ was acquitted that Monday. And I think maybe, I don't know, we had dinner together the next Tuesday or the next day. And my brother-in-law is like, what if he's already back on NBC Sports, like right away, and he's, and he's wearing one glove. Really funny thing to suggest. I was like, oh, that's really funny. And I, so I ran with that, and I wrote it with McKay, and, you know, I come up with the I did a joke, but there were a lot of

great lines in that one that McKay came up with. And what's his name? I was very impressed. I thought he did a really good Bob Costas. He didn't know how to do Bob Costas. Daryl Hammond and Kekner were both in that. Yeah. Kekner played somebody like Bill Walsh or some coach that. I thought it was Dittka, maybe. Oh, maybe he played.

Maybe. Was Dicca? It was Dicca and Daryl was doing Bob Cossus. Yeah, but Dicca was not like the kind of impression yet that everybody knew or cared about. Whereas you really had to nail Bob Costas. and he just worked his ass off. And he only had like two days or something. And I thought he did an amazing Bob Costas.

So, yeah, that turned out to be the sketch everyone remembered. Did you and McKay write anything else together sketch-wise for the show? I mean, we really bonded very quickly. I just thought this guy's really. He's another one of the all-time funniest writers at SNL. and I've never seen a writer dominate a room like he did in that era. Like people were talking like McKay and just glowing when he would come into a room and riff. The Chicago people, Tom Giannis, they were, the Chicago people took over Tina.

Yeah, Tom Minas came up with a lot of good ideas that he wrote with McKay, like, wake up and smile. It's one of the all-time great sketches, I think. Agreed. Agreed. That's Tom and that's Tom and Adam together. You know, I'm not sure why Tom didn't stick around, but they wrote some really, really great stuff together.

They wrote a great sketch about Lassie. I can't remember what it was. Oh, yeah. It was, well, yes. Is that the one with Alec Baldwin? Yes, it was an Alec Baldwin. Politician. He's a politician.

and all these things are going wrong. Something about, yeah, sensationalistic headlines. That's the Buckwell's Folley's one. He took a baby and wiped his behind with it. That was one of the beats. And then it would get, something like that would happen. And then it would get in the newspaper. And he would just dig himself in a deeper hole.

Yeah, it was the Buckwell's Follies public opinions. That was 96. It was the same season. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Smile. 95, 96. Yeah. Yeah. And, but anyway, McKay, I don't remember.

I'm sure I wrote a couple more things with McKay, or he would help. He definitely helped me with some of my cartoons. She was in one of your pieces that you wrote for El McPherson. It was the supermodel sketch with Molly Shannon as the evil feminist advocate with Adam. And it was a swimsuit. Adam was in the opening. I think he might have been an,

extra. I don't know if he had a line or not, but it was Kekner and McHaid. Is he supposed to be just some loser wacky? Yeah, they're just reading the sports. It was like a holiday special. It was like we treat it like it's a holiday. Yeah. I don't remember much else. Funny, man. I always wanted to ask. So you convinced Lauren to take the initials off for the read through so people don't know who the writers are going to be, which you think that would be a good thing. Get rid of the politics. Why did they reversed that and put the initials back? Almost the second I left, it was like the clouds parted, we can put them back.

I think people just like the convenience of not having to guess. I don't know. And I swear to God, I didn't do it for me because I had a pretty good reputation of getting laughs, but I just felt like I could feel a bias in the room toward different writers. And especially, I remember there was a period when Jack Handy wasn't doing, there was a stretch where he had a few sketches that had killed at the table and then bombed. And I could just feel like the cynicism of people like, oh, this is going to be one of those weird ones that. And I just didn't like it. I didn't like feeling like I could read the room before the sketch was even read.

And so I, in retrospect, it's hard to believe that they did it, that they listened to me. You're a producer. I wasn't. I don't think I was a producer at that point. I don't know that I was. And then the other thing I did that I was very proud of was that I quit being a producer, which I must have told you about. You told me it just got so political.

You'd be in the room and people would be pushing for their own sketches. And it just, you're not just pushing for their own. They actually weren't pushing for their own sketches. It was this hilarious kind of passive-aggressive thing where, you think? Yeah, but I think yours, you know, and mine, okay. Like, what it was was I felt like they had promoted so many people that there were like six writers in the room. And what I felt was like nobody would trash a piece that was written by someone in the room. And everybody was comfortable shitting on out of the room riders.

And that made me very uncomfortable. And I think I lasted like a year and a half. And then I was like, this isn't right, Lauren. I don't want to be a producer anymore. It should just be you and Downey. You and Downey are all we need. You have, you're both, you both smart in different ways. And, you know, Downey slightly favors writing,

but he appreciates actors. You love performers, but you certainly appreciate good writing, and it's a perfect balance, and it's all the show needs. And they went back to those two. They got rid of everybody, not just me. And it made me so proud.

The first time we met, it was the day after I saw Wayne's World 2, and you and Odden Kirk had that really funny cameo, and that was December of 93 we met. But I was going to ask, when Wayne's World was such a craze, made like $180 million the first one. Was there any noticeable change with Mike Myers and Dana blowing up in the other case?

Phil Hartman said he was hurt. He was asked in an interview, does that hurt it all? And he said, sure. I mean, it was, he said it was hard. I mean, see these guys blow up. That was Phil. But did you see any of that at all? The place is so crazy that it would make a guy like Phil Hartman.

I think it probably hurt for a second and then he kind of, Because I remember laid in his run, he was like, I'm Mr. Potato Head, and I'm very grateful that I can do that, that I have that value to the show, that I can, you know, I'm very bland looking on one hand, but I can, you know, I'm also very malleable. And the fact that I'm, you know, that I provide so many functions for the show, it's a blessing. and I'm very grateful for it. And I guess he just got over it. Yeah.

I feel like people do that more and more nowadays. Like I don't feel like that people have the same expectations anymore. First of all, there aren't as many comedy movies anymore or sitcoms. Almost none. There aren't the same level of vehicles. I mean, there's one group of people that just continue to kick ass and work and work at series or something. they're always doing something and that's in my opinion the most

talented cast ever and the zeros basically, the mid to late zeros that were at Samberg and Hater and Fred and Will. A cast was good, the writing was better with when you were there, but the cast was very, very good.

There were some amazing writers there. I would agree with you, Robert. I would put, you know, I mean, I know this is half Will Forte. Will Forte, some of the cast members were amazing writers and they had partners like John Solomon and John Malaney and Colin Jost was there writing

Seth Myers was an unbelievable writer certainly one of the all-time great writers and you know I would put a sketch like potato chip that would be in my top 10 of any sketch in Saturday Night Live History and I would put Is that your all-time? Will Forte sketch that potentially?

Probably and Sondacus. I mean, they're just, they're just amazing in that sketch. And the sketch is so silly. And it only works because they're so committed to it. There's not a single wink. They're not playing to the audience. They are playing.

They are playing to their character's reality. That's fair. I would give it to sex offender, potentially, the one that that orte yeah the will fortee sex offender sketch where he shows up to john ham's house and he's asking for like us to he says it's a Halloween costume but he's actually it's very very funny will forte was amazing in in so many sketches and he was just an amazing mind i mean the spelling be that was he did that i guess he did it at the groundlings but he did it at night of too many stars in 2005 before he ever did it on snl and actually gave him the was it z there was one point where i said just have to do the same you the same letter q q that's the only that's the only or was it q yeah yeah that was my only contribution i just said just keep saying q until you get tired of saying it uh which may never

happen but um you really like the bouchemy sketch stea bouchette buchemy is the coach the football coach i know that's one of your favorites said that set wrote for him to write something about something so tragic and make it that funny. This was the Jerry Sandusky scandal, the pedophile scandal, which was like at the time, really graphic descriptions, and it was not something you wanted to laugh about other than the word horse play, which just the fact that they tried to, you know, describe it as horseplay, which is just so insane. but you just you didn't want to touch it it was it was so awful and tragic and Seth came up with

this idea of a school board reassuring parents that they were going to be that they were going to be extremely mindful and care and and and and vigilant to make sure that no one in their school ever has to suffer this and and then they immediately start going after Steve Bishamie just because he looks weird. He's the coach, right? Coach Pete and they just, I don't even remember the structure of the sketch anymore other than it was a press conference. And the only reason they were investigating him was because he just, he's got to be a weirdo.

just by the way he looks and the way he acts. And then they uncover certain things that are weird about him, but nothing about pedophilia. And it's just... Sadecas is very good in that sketch. Sadecas is another genius from that cast. I'm telling you, it's mind-boggling the talent and Maya Rudolph and... It was a good cast.

Kristen Whig. Toler. I haven't even mentioned Kristen Whig. Like is there- I mean, yeah. Can I say one thing about the current cast? Yeah. I think Ashley Padilla is maybe the most original cast number

I've seen since Kristen Wigg. She's very good. She's impressive. She's a featured player. Can you believe that? I'm sure she'll be a cast member since. Sarah Sherman was a featured player for a couple of years, even though she broke out really quickly.

Yeah. Yeah. My take Robert was, I think she's the first. First cast member we've had in a long time that has a chance at the goat conversation. Ashley Padilla. She's very good. If she does like a good seven, eight years and she keeps up her pace, like she's definitely in the conversation.

Yeah, who knows, who knows? But I do feel, I'm glad you feel the same way, though. I'm just like so excited. And this is the reason, you know, people try to act like the show's not worth watching. You know, we get it. It's the same shit. No, every year, you know, you may not like everything or even most of it sometimes, but it's a place where there's always a chance you're going to just be blown away and

inspired by something that's just so fresh that you haven't seen. And, you know, it happens with sketches sometimes, you know, and sometimes with cast members. And she, man, that haircut sketch she did. and the Trump supporter sketch she did. And even little moments within sketches, like when she played that, when she had that PowerPoint display. Yeah, she was.

And she clearly doesn't know what she's doing. But then they have that moment within it where she starts fast-forwarding through the rest of it. I can't remember why she had to do it. But you get to see all these visual jokes, these corny things that were going to be part of her display, and it was just such a beautifully written and performed and conceived moment that we've just felt brand new. She's phenomenal.

John had a question about what did you want to ask Robert about his pick for greatest of all time? Yeah. So I feel like we always have like every sport, it has like Barbershop talk, like LeBron Jordan and all that. I feel like SNL kind of has that conversation right now in the fandom of who the greatest of all time is. And I think there's a good argument in the fandom of is it Phil Hartman, is it Will Ferrell? Eddie? Well, I mean, I think Eddie Murphy deserves consideration. And I think I think Dana Carvey does deserve consideration.

But for me, it's Will Ferrell. I told you, John. I told you. I've said it many times. Okay. I've said it one of the time. It's because he's like a, you know, in baseball, they call it a five-tool player where you can run and hit hit and hit for power and field and something else.

Blow bubbles. But a Will Ferrell could do really funny impressions. He created amazing characters and he could really be hilarious just being himself in a sketch. Good point. And that is something filled in there are many people who did all three of that. I don't know if there was a fourth tool that I'm forgetting about, but I mean, I would say that he's an amazing writer too. I mean, he wrote the, although in the documentary about it, it was called a woodblock originally. Oh, the more cowbell.

Yeah, yeah, cowbell. No, the more cowbell sketch. But like I, and I actually looked it up on the database and it was a, called a woodblock for like a long time. And even the same week that it was submitted with walking, it was still woodblock in the read-through. And they didn't really address like when they changed it to Cal Bell, but it never would have been the same sketch had it been called Woodblock.

I mean, it would have been funny, but Cal Bell is a thousand times funnier word. That is very true. I think the only argument really is just that no one did more consistently in a single night than Phil. Like you just, if like, I look at a lot of the like sketches per episode, like stuff like that. I mean, he was just like. That's a different skill. That's a different skill. That's a skill of like, you know, versatility and utility. You know, he was called the glue.

And Dan Aykroyd did that for the original. and a lot of people, I think, I know Jim Downey has a lot of reverence for Dan Aykroyd, and he would definitely put Dan Aykroyd in the same class as Phil Hartman, I think. And to be honest, like Bill Hader was close to that. I mean, if you had to pick someone from that era out of all those geniuses, well, Kristen and Bill would be side by side, I think, in terms of... For what it's worth. You named my top six, so you got all that. Okay.

John's going to slip. Well, wait, Kristen, Bill, Phil, Will. So my, my Mount Rush,

where I got, I got Phil number one, I got Will number two. I got Kristen number three because I just think she changed the game for women. I think Kristen's absolutely worthy of being a number three. Yeah. I got Dana number four.

I just think just, just incredible person. Dana had a huge positive effect on the show. Yeah. Dana influenced more people than almost anybody. in terms of like doing impressions but never losing your own persona within them, creating a certain type of caricature impression that I think has influenced a lot of people since. Yeah, he definitely deserves to be way up there.

Who else was it? Then there, I think there's like a Bill Hader, Eddie Murphy debate of like, well, Eddie didn't really like love the show for a long time, so I have trouble with that. But, well, I don't know. What matters is what they did on camera. Three seasons. Can you imagine getting over that big as a movie star in three seasons? Can you imagine if the show hadn't had him?

Would it have even, would we even be talking about? No. No, I'm not sure we would. I don't think we would. He'd say, no, no, we wouldn't. And I don't discredit him for it. It's just that had he never come back to host the show again, I feel like it would have been like a stain on his legacy.

He doesn't have that anymore. So I feel like the argument probably means to him. So yeah, I would do that. And then I think there's like a second tier of like Amy, Kate, Keenan, Gilda, Danny. Yeah, then it becomes like very subjective. Murray, Bill Murray, I would put up there. Bill Murray is that I would put Bill Murray in the first tier. He was one of the most influential people in comedy in the last 50 years.

And I also think he might be the funniest person I've ever met. Really? No. Yeah. Just in terms of like, I mean, Conan's obviously up there and Sandler and other people, but there's something about him and how he's just so effortlessly funny and quick-witted. Other than frequent flyer, did you write anything for Murray that you remember? Yeah, I wrote a hunker sketch for him.

Oh, yeah. In the backseat of a, or he was the cab driver. And it was one of the few, like, kind of dry character pieces that I ever got on the show. And that's one of the reasons, like, somebody like Kristen Wigg is such a hero of mine, because honestly, like, I've wrote so much broad stuff and I love writing broad, silly stuff, and I've made a career mostly out of it. But really, nothing is more pure to my mind. own real comedic sensibility than the quieter stuff. That's more my personality. And there's like,

it's very rare that it's come out successfully in my career compared to all the loud stuff. But so when Kristen came on the show and did that first Michelle Dyson sketch where she's interviewing Jamie Presley and she's just playing it with such subtlety. but she's come up with an operative joke that is so strong that she can get away with playing quiet and it's just so rare to see that pulled off on Saturday Night Live. From the gate, she was good right from the gate. It was remarkable.

There was no learning curve for her. She was ready and yeah. Before we started, we were talking about, you wrote a piece for Chris Catan on Update. You were doing TV Funhouse And you wrote, Carrie Strug, the gymnast, he was playing her brother, I guess. He was strugs, yeah. Did you do a lot of things that weren't Funhouse back then?

I thought you were just doing Fun House. And how did that come up? I would write stuff occasionally for the show. And, you know, I was writing in a void, you know, and faxing things in a lot of times. And a lot of stuff, some things that I thought were great, and I just couldn't get them on anymore. because it was a different era and I was like there's nobody in your corner

when you're just faxing shit in you really better murder and then there was like then I was told one time I was told this twice once by Tim Meadows after a sketch in mind that I thought

was a sure fire sketch it was called the Oscar Challenge I think and it was it was four actors who were famous for playing mentally challenged people competing to win it. It was back before that was a cliche joke. Anyway, Tim Meadows was like, Robert, I'm telling you, people freeze up. They don't want to laugh when they read your pieces, man.

They see your name and they don't want to laugh because you're not there and they want to do their own stereo right now, you know. And then I let it go and then a couple of years later Jimmy Fallon's on the show. He's like, man,

when people see your name on a piece, man, it's just, it gets nothing. You know, if you ever want to write a piece and just put my name instead and then afterward we'll tell them you wrote it. Just because they're insecure because you were writing better stuff than a lot of that they can write.

I don't know if it was better, but I think it had more to do with like God damn it. Why is he submitting shit? We're here breaking our balls, you know, and he's just like, fuck that, man. It's our show now. Why do we have to listen to this shit? Why would they have a problem with that, but not a problem with Downey mailing in cold

opens and not being a show? People did have a problem with Downey mailing in cold opens. Not Lorne. Because he owned the real estate, basically. And there were other people that wanted that real estate. Yeah, I mean, once he wrote it. wrote that sketch, the Bush Gore debate, which like I said, brought the show back into irrelevance in a way that it really hadn't been for a few years, at least with political

humor. I mean, there were bits. There was, you know, he did a great Bill Clinton, Daryl, and Norm had some juice playing Bob Dole, but it wasn't the kind of thing where people were like, that was amazing, you know. and the bush gore cold open was that and so downy kind of just had carte blanche after that and a lot of people resented it partly because they didn't like downy's sense of humor they thought he was too dry you know and he was getting away with stuff that loren wasn't letting anyone else do including like long sketches. Like, I remember being in a certain office at dress rehearsal watching Downey's

Bush Gore sketch. And I'm with a few other people, and I'm like practically jumping for joy again, like a five-year-old, like the Steve Martin cold open, just because I had had developed such a hunger for this type of writing that I hadn't seen in so long. Like I felt the show had gotten very, the political writing had gotten very pointed and very, you know, kind of just too clearly, obviously on the liberal side. And even though I'm a tree hugger, I just, I didn't, you know, Downey always was like never,

that's not our job our job is to point out shit that people aren't noticing and make fun of that on either side and you know that's something that nobody does in comedy anymore in political comedy anymore practically it's like the whole point is that you're just exploiting what everyone's already talking about but that's what downy taught us and that bush gore debate was just just new uh new observation after new observation with those two guys and, you know, especially the gore characterization was just so fresh. And Bush's, and, you know, Will had played Bush before, but he'd never really studied him. He'd played him like a frat boy up to that point because that's the way they were writing for him.

You know, the more obvious, like, oh, it was almost like the way I would do clutch cargoes with Bill Clinton. But that was a photograph. The whole point of our bit was to be broad and as silly as possible. and kind of apolitical, but Downey wrote Will Ferrell's Bush really precisely and Will performed it completely differently than he'd ever performed Bush before. You know, just like squinted eyes and, you know, studying the camera and as he's trying to think of what to say. And it was amazing. And so, yeah, after that. And then Downey just overstayed his welcome for some writers

where they're just like he's too conservative, people felt, or his sketches go on and on, and they're very dry. And why does he get to do that? But, you know, Lauren told me that there were people who resented that I got to do cartoons,

even though they were successful. And Lauren said Robert earned it. Those were Lauren's words. Robert earned that. Yeah, which I didn't really want to hear. I just wanted to hear that they were good. They were funny. That and Norm MacDonald always on update.

I could count on you and you and Norm. When you were watching that Downey sketch that you were mentioning, you said there were other people in the room, were they not laughing as much as you were? They were not laughing as much as I were, but I'm sure they were more familiar with the sketch than I was. You know, they'd probably seen it rehearsed where I was just walking in to dress rehearsal. Sure. I think I probably had a cartoon on. and I knew nothing. And I was just giddy.

And I saw one of them doing this. Oh, my goodness. Oh, gosh. It was a classic sketch. I mean, that was as good as anything. Yeah. And I was, it was, and I told Downey in the, it's like the only thing that I said that got in the special was like, it was so exciting that you were schooling the staff on political

comedy, which he was. He was reminding me, too, what great political comedy is supposed to be. Before we talk about your podcast, John, did you have another question for Robert, and then we're going to talk podcast because I'm excited for this. Well, he sort of goes into the podcast, but I know you said you interviewed Streeter and Mikey. Did you talk to them about Brad and his dad in some of the cartoons that they're trying to

you on the show? I talked about Brad and his dad off camera with him. I didn't bring it up because the podcast really isn't a conversation. It's like something I don't want to do. Not that I don't like it. I'm enjoying this. I enjoy lots of podcasts when I'm interested in the person, but I just feel like a lot of people are covering that territory.

So I was never interested in doing that kind of podcast. My podcast is mostly like a concept show. But I do talk to the guest for like 15 minutes at the top just because there are things that I could talk to them for an hour. But also because I want the audience to, you know, a lot of times I'm spotlighting a writer as well as a performer. And I want people to appreciate, you know, a big part of the joy of doing this show I'm trying to do is to spotlight great writing. Not only spotlight what people have done, but allow the audience to see people be funny on the spot, people in action. and Streeter and Mikey, you know, I mean, Mikey's had a great career at SNL, but people don't really talk about their contributions as much as they should because honestly, they're up there with anybody, in my opinion. So it was really a pleasure to have them on, and I'm going to, that's going to be my.

first show because it was a really funny show too but but I really admire those two guys when does it premiere this is humor me with Robert smigel and friends your new podcast when does it premiere premieres May 8th I can't wait your Dino was on Dave Attell you had yeah you know David Tell we're on and we have so for people the premise of the show which my wife came up with Michelle shell came up with this premise all I had was I wanted to do, so during the pandemic, I did a show called, the hell was that puppet show I did?

Oh, on Fox? Let's be real. And it was the pandemic. And all we could do was have writing sessions on Zoom. But they were so much fun. And I hadn't really done a sketch show. I really hadn't done a writer's room in ages. You know, I did some triumph specials on Hulu,

and writers would assemble a little, little bit here and there, but I hadn't done a sketch show in forever. And I had great writers like Andy Breckman and Todd Levin and Josh Comers from the Conan Show and David Cyrus, who writes with Pete Davidson, wrote for S&L, and a bunch of other great people. And Brian Rich, the late Brian Rich, who's one of the all-time great writers I've ever worked with, one of the early Conan writers. So I just thought if I ever did a podcast, if I could just do something where I could recreate the fun of that.

But I didn't have a great idea. And then Michelle said, do an interactive show where people need help punching something up, you know, if they have a wedding speech or they have a job interview or, you know, a eulogy or what anything. It could be crazier stuff. And so we sold it to I-Heart. The idea was so good that we just, I would have done it independently, but I knew I'd never do it. I knew that I had to have some, you know, overlord that had invested some money in it or I would never bother.

I just wouldn't be able to motivate myself. But I hard bought it. And Jack O'Brien, who runs their podcast, it's a great guy, funny guy. And we have had, so we set up a website where people can call in. It's speakpipe.com slash humor me. You can still call in. And you just leave a message on, you know, you go to the website and you just hit play or record and you leave a message.

And we've gotten some very weird requests. Some of the best shows have been strange requests, like an a cappella band that wants help with their between songs banter. Or there was a mom who wanted to break up gracefully and humorously with her mom group. And there was a guy who wanted to make a eulogy for somebody, a father-in-law that he hated, that he said everybody hated. and he wants to be able to make jokes about him and get away with it. Premises like that were really interesting to me. You did one at the Sketch Fest, right? Sketchfest in San Francisco?

Yes, we did wanted Sketchfest that I don't want to give away everything, but the Kazoo Kid called in. Do you know who that is? No, tell me. Educate me. It's more funny. It's like younger people. My sons knew who he was.

He's a guy. There was a kid in the 80s. there was a CD or something that you could buy called You and the Cazoo or something. And this really cloyingly cute kid with blonde hair is the star of this show, and he's just so over the top that it's pretty hilarious. But it was just a thing that happened back then, and everybody forgot about it. But then it became a meme like 10 years ago. And when I said the Kazoo Kid wants to do my show, my 18-year-old boys were like,

are you kidding me? That's hilarious. They knew who he was. And so there's an audience. But anyway, we play a little bit of who he was and you get the idea. He just wanted to get back into show business somehow. He wants us to help him get back into show business. So me and Bob Odenkirk and Bruce McCullough try to come up with vehicles for him, TV, TV shows.

shows or movies and it's one of our funniest episodes um and a lot of times you get to see a payoff in other words this is a hard show to make because i interview the person with these guests and we we pitch stuff but then like the acapella group we actually filmed an ensuing show and watched what they incorporate that it's kind of like shark tank there's a pay off yeah you get to see and then i bring back the original guests and we all analyze like how they did is there video component as well as they're just oh good no to be on youtube as well yes how many episodes are you doing you do in seasons 10 for this first season and uh i have a 20 episode order but we're just trying to knock out these first 10 and um yeah david tell did it Colin Quinn uh and great writers like

Dino and Mike Sweeney. Yeah. And Ellie Kemper and Michael Coleman who were married. Sure. They helped us with somebody who had marital issues. And Jim Downey's going to do it with somebody that I don't want to say. I don't want to jinx it. But somebody who's as huge as you could get.

I'm very excited about it. I think I know who it might be. He pals around with, I don't want to say it. Yeah. You can, you can, I can guess. I'll be, yeah, that'll be, we're taping that in April. Really excited for the podcast. And I have to ask you how Night of Too Many Stars is going, because that's going to be

on May 7th, Hollywood Bowl, produced by our pal Jill Lederman. How is that going? We love Jill. How's it going? Jill is, I got to watch Jill at the Kimmel show one night. And, man, her mind. is a steel trap. Yeah.

And she's also incredibly great with people, incredibly nice. What a combination. I've never had worked with her before. I've just known her for like 25 years. Always wanted to work with her. But, you know, Michelle and I put the show together to a large degree. But Jill will be, Jill's doing it right with us this time. And we got a great lineup.

John Stewart's coming back, of course. and a lot of old friends, Samhler, Steve Karel. Odinkirk, Bill Burr, Nicky Glazer. Nikki Glazer, Sarah Silverman. Johnny Knoxville has joined us. Trevor Noah, Noah Wiley, Leanne Morgan, Matt Rife, Bill Burr.

Yeah. You know, and there'll probably be some drop-ins and some musical surprises. So those shows are always great. And we don't do them on TV anymore, even though it's for the Netflix as a joke festival. It's not for TV. So it's a little more relaxed than the TV ones we did, which I'm very proud of. But these are easier for me to do because literally like seven people do stand up.

So there's less time. It used to be like the most we could get was like two or three tops. and there was a lot of comedy to fill. And now we just have amazing stand-ups. And then we have like a few comedy bits that are mostly the crazy live auctions that we always do on those shows. You know, things like Chris Rock

will call up your ex and chew them out on the phone. Or Steve Carell will hold your hand and simulate an orgasm. Seth Rogan will take a pee with you. I remember it was one of the people. In the bathroom with Seth Rogan and take a pee alongside

I'd Donnie Deutsch actually bit on that. I remember. And then that restroom, a stall open and it was, was it Paula Dean and Harvey Keitel who had both done bits, separate bits earlier in the show. They come out of the same stall. They come out of the same stall, yes. Remember that. Well, I'm looking forward to all that. Robert, thank you so much for being a pal.

We've known each other forever. And I just, I value your friendship. and I'm so grateful, excited for your podcast and everything you're working on. So, yeah, thanks for doing this. Thanks. And I'm also, you know, the Leo sequel will come out at some point. I didn't know we were allowed to talk about that. I know you were.

Well, there's definitely going to be a sequel. Yeah. It made my wife, Christine, cry. She loved it and was so emotionally moved by it. And I'm glad we can mention that. You were working on that earlier today. So I wasn't, didn't know if we could say that. Yeah.

No, I'm excited. That's very nice to hear. It's funny. It's like, you know, that's like my major job nowadays is writing movies for kids. This is my fourth big movie for, I have two hotel, two Hotel Transylvania movies and now two Leos. And they take up most of my time. But, you know, it's very satisfying in a different way and kind of crazy that. And Triumph is still doing shit for the daily show now and then.

phenomenal. How do you take an IP from NBC to different networks? Well, when, when, not to, not to extend your podcast much longer, but when when I was at Conan in 2000 and the Pets.com sock puppet became a big thing. A lot of us thought it was a rip off to some degree of what Triumph was doing because they had the sock puppet interacting with lots. animals and people on the street. And John Stewart noticed this and invited me on the Daily Show to call it out. He was also calling out the corporate synergy of ABC using the sock puppet on Nightline because they bought Betts.com or something Disney had. I don't know. Anyway, so we talked together about what a ripoff it was.

And then Pets.com sued me and sued NBC. You don't remember this, Mark? I think I was maybe, I don't know, I was sleeping that day. I don't know. I was sued. And NBC would not back me, would not, what's the word? Oh, shit. It's when they'll take care of your legal expenses.

Wow. I'll think of it in about an hour. But they wouldn't do it unless I say, signed a deal admitting or admitting in their minds, conceding that triumph was owned by NBC. Because up to that point, I was contending that I owned it because I did not give them triumph when I was a writer there. I was never paid as a writer when I performed triumph. I was only paid as a performer. So I didn't think it was considered, I didn't think it was a work for hire. They obviously wanted it.

It was a hit character by the year 2000. And that had been a point of contention up to that. I had introduced this idea at some point earlier that year. Then I got sued and they're like, we're not going to, you know, indemnify you. Okay.

Unless you sign. And then I just got my manager or my agent, Mike Rosenfeld, to negotiate. I had, I felt I had some, I felt I had some leverage Yeah and some leverage because of my argument

A and because they like Triumph. They wanted and they liked my cartoons and I had a lot of leverage at NBC at the time. So what I negotiated was what I really cared about was that if I want to do a movie with Triumph, I want to do a record

album which I'd already thought of with Triumph, I don't want NBC to interfere with it. I want to have the right to do it, and all NBC gets is like a tiny percentage of revenue from it. So we negotiated that. And it was because I had written an ambiguously gay duo movie where I had wanted to, for Alec Baldwin and Jimmy Fallon in 1999, I wanted to do a live action. And Paramount wasn't interested.

And Lauren had no other place to turn. so I was screwed because it was NBC property or whatever and they were tied to Paramount at the time and I was like I don't want to be in this position again with my shit so especially triumphs so I got that done and to this day

I've done a million different things on pretty much every network imaginable no it's amazing Robert it's so good to see you I really appreciate this my friend great to see you again. Very nice meeting you, John. Thank you. Wonderful to meet you.

Thanks for listening. Please subscribe so you never miss an episode. On Apple Podcasts, please rate it and leave a review. Be sure to go to late-nighter.com for all your late-night TV news. And you can find my podcast at late-nighter.com forward slash podcasts. Have a wonderful week, and I'll see you next Tuesday.