Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out - 170. Please Don't Destroy Returns: The Journey of an SNL Sketch from Pitch to Air

Episode Date: May 12, 2025

This week PDD returns to the podcast a year and a half after originally coming on. Since then, Mike and the boys have started a monthly improv show called “Please Don’t Birbiglia” at UCB. The group talks about what it’s like to improvise together, the unsparing roasts PDD did of Mike when they opened for his show "The Good Life," and the creation of PDD’s Jon Hamm pizza sketch—from Monday’s pitch in Lorne’s office to airing live on SNL. Plus, the unlikely thing that shows up in more than one PDD member’s Instagram algorithm.Please consider donating to: Housing Works

We crowdsourced my Instagram followers questions for you guys, and one of them was... You have Instagram followers? I'm surprised you figured out how to download the app. Yeah! Oh, come on. I haven't seen a lot of your sketches on SNL lately. What's going on with that? They're there.

All right, cut this! All right, cut this. All right, cut this. Cut this. That is the voice of Please Don't Destroy, Ben Marshall, John Higgins, and Martin Hurley. You may know their sketches from Saturday Night Live. They are fantastic. They're writers for SNL, and they are a sketch group that performs their own shorts on SNL that I love. This is sort of a success story of working it out in the sense that these

guys came on about a year ago or a year and a half ago and we were like hey I never met got along well similar sensibilities and we're like let's do something together which is a thing you often say to people and then nobody follows up and then we're like why don's do something together, which is a thing you often say to people and then nobody follows up. And then we're like, why don't we do something that requires no preparation? Let's do an improv show. So starting in September,

we started doing a monthly improv show at UCB here in New York City. And we call it, Please Don't Birbiglia. And it's so fun. And we just, we announced them like a day before, and if you wanna find out about those shows, just follow me on Instagram, Adprbigs, or please don't destroy.

We put them in our Instagram stories. We usually announce the day before. It's super fun. It's entirely unplanned and goofy, and sometimes the shows are ridiculous, and sometimes they're great. And this episode today is a great example of how much our relationship has developed,

because last time, I think we were sort of getting to know each other, and this time, we're all just fully making fun of each other throughout the episode, which is maybe a sign of a healthy relationship, but who knows? Big news here on the show, The Good Life, my new special, will be premiering on Netflix May 26th, which means that if you go on Netflix right now

and you'll see a little icon that says the name of my special, The Good Life, and you could click Remind Me, and that'll just show up in your feed on Netflix on May 26th. This is a fun one with Please Don't Destroy. We actually talk about the improv shows. We talk about SNL. We break down this, you know it's a great thing to watch before the episode is.

Go on YouTube or Instagram. They did a sketch with Jon Hamm. Just write, Jon Hamm, pizza, Please Don't Destroy. It's a hilarious sketch. Kind of an instant classic. And we kind of walk through the whole process of writing and pitching and going on air. And it's just like really in the weeds and wonky and fun. And I think you're going to love it.

Enjoy my chat with the great, Please Don't Destroy. I think the Please Don't Burbiglia Improv Show is the biggest success of the working it out process in the history of the podcast. Wow. No, it is. Because you guys came on like 15 months ago. Yeah. And we didn't know each other.

I was just a fan. We're mutually fans. Yeah. And then we were like, let's do something. But I don't even know who said, did you say let's do an improv show? I think it was Ben at the show, at your show. Yeah, I think when we went and saw your hour.

Yeah, we were like, let's do something. Which never actually happened. It never happens, classic show business trope. We should do something. Yeah, we should do something. Improv is so, there's zero preparation. That's the only reason we're able to do it together. There's zero preparation. That's the only reason we're able to do it together. No, I know.

Because you just show up. That's the best. I think that's so true. We do it for pure fun. And actually, my favorite improv coach, Liz Allen, who coached us for the movie Don't Think Twice, she's out of Chicago and she's so great. She gave us this piece of advice that we pretty much say before every show. Which is like, this is about not the product,

it's about the process. And I think that's when improv is its best. Yeah, absolutely. It is funny, like people really do look down on it in a real way. Yeah, that's a great one. No, they do though. It is legitimately uncool to a lot of comedians, especially.

It certainly is, and I can't even deny that it's lame. But I was just like on my way here, because I was thinking about that, of like this will come up, of how kind of like nerdy it is or whatever. But then I was like with how crazy everything is right now, I just couldn't imagine giving a fuck about people thinking it's lame because it's actually fun.

It's so fun. Because there have been the few fun things and like the past stressful work. But I even pushed back on you saying it's lame because it's actually fun. It's so fun. It's been the few fun things and like, I don't even think it, but I even push back on you saying it's lame. Okay, well that's where you're wrong. That's crazy. But you have to acknowledge that it's lame, but it's like, do we give a fuck?

No. Well no, no, let's hear your side of the argument. There's no argument. My side of the argument. Ha ha ha! You can say whatever. My side of the argument? You can say whatever. My side of the argument, okay, look. It's uncool in the same way.

Thank you, so the argument is over. So it's done, all right. So we got it, all right. So what's next? He's so good. But, um. This podcast is about to be so much looser than last time. I've watched clips of it from last time and I'm like,

we do... everything. Here's how we conceive of sketches on Saturday night. Yeah, it was so nervy. This is how when we first met at NYU, we... Martin wasn't in the group, but then later, we asked him to join our group. He was younger, but this is my impression of you. That's good.

That's very good. Okay, it's uncool. Improv is uncool the way that acapella is uncool, but acapella's cool, bro. Acapella stinks. It's the worst part. It is. You're making me take back what I was saying. I'm like who cares?

No, I'm gonna hold a candle for acapella. I think acapella... Acapella is impressive and it... Also there was a time and place for acapella too. They had four hit fucking movies. The time is now. The time is now, yesterday and tomorrow. You mean the coolest art form on the planet? What's going on with you, man?

Bring it. Real Mike is coming out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Time is now. Yeah, love it. No, but okay, so you're saying improv is kind of uncool. It is uncool, but here's my case. I wasn't gonna get into this whole theory of improv,

but it's like, here's my case. All comedy should be uncool. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I think once, I think that once you put on the leather jacket, you start to go, I don't know. Yeah, that's true, for sure. And there's been a comedy being cool thing that has happened recently.

Oh yeah. That it's like, now people are getting sick of it. Yeah. As they should. Enough. You guys opened for my show at The Beacon as a favor and it was really nice and then you went on and roasted me for 10 minutes.

Well, okay. You guys roasted me so hard. Is there anything on the cutting room floor that you didn't, that would be too far? Yeah. I feel like it was the hardest you could have gone. Really? Oh my God. We could have gone so much harder.

We cut so much. Wait, do we remember any of the roast jokes that we said about Mike? You must have them on your notes or on your phone. To get them on the record. You wanna just pick and choose which ones are your? Sure. We've been doing shows with Mike.

He's a good friend of ours. We love him. He's kind of like an older brother figure for us. Like a much, much older brother. Lay out like a father figure, yeah. Like your father's older brother figure. Yeah, like an older uncle figure. An older uncle figure, yeah.

That's how we started. Yeah, yeah. And then it was, no, we're just kidding. Actually, us and Mike all met when we were at NYU. Langone Hospital, we are his end of life care nurse. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.

Oh my God. God. What a crowd, what an older liberal crowd. Oh my God. I don't want to pander, but I have a tramp stamp that says, Iron Glass is daddy. Are we doing the whole thing? I mean, why not? You can burn it, you Glass is daddy. Are we doing the whole thing? I mean, why not?

You can burn it, you can burn it. I don't know if Mike's This American Life ass audience will know us unless you have an eighth grade daughter who's like pre-bisexual. But for those of you who don't know us, oh, I didn't do this one. We're on SNL, but this audience tonight might know us best from being over-served

at Jacob's Pickles. Why didn't you do that one? I don't even know what Jacob's Pickles is. It's like Upper West Side. He cut it, dude. Some local material. All right, I get it. No poke holes in it.

Jesus. I'm being mean now, too. This is a crowd that's like, free Luigi, but then if they see a homeless person on their block, they're like, honey, call the cops right now. Oh my God. Another Upper West Side. This isn't even a joke,

this is just a really good hypothesis. This is the kind of crowd where at least a third of you have seen Richard Kind at Zabars. Ha, I don't mean this in a mean way, but I am shocked at how famous Mike is. That isn't even a roast. That's just a bald mean thing to say. There's nothing clever about that. It's just kind of.

You wouldn't know about how Mike is dressed tonight, but the Beacon Theater is one of the most respected venues in America. Yeah. Anybody seen his movie Don't Think Twice? Yeah, Don't Think Twice is also how he picks out his clothes for his shows. Just grab a wrinkled sweater and some chinos.

Don't think twice about it. It's only 3,000 people. Michael will come out here looking like he's in line at Panera. It's like, these people are here to see you. This is a show. You're not ordering a bread bowl. Mike's outfit.

You can tag that with it, and he's eating a lot of bread bowls. You're helping us. I know, I know. Yeah, it's good, Mike. We'll tour with this. Mike's outfit tonight will have you going, damn, I didn't know all birds made pants.

Wow, I can't believe we did that. I can, it was awesome. It was so funny. Meanwhile, I'm behind this fucking beautiful painting I'm about to perform in front of. Perform a truly hilarious and beautifully touching show about like life and death and your father. My dad and all that.

It was watching the show and then thinking about all of the jokes. I was like, we set him up horribly. And then it's an audience full of people who are like thrilled to see you. Oh yeah. And then we come out and we go, fuck him. Yeah, fuck him.

Like that. Honestly, I remember the jokes against the audience were better than the jokes against Mike, obviously. Which is a lesson we've learned maybe a million times. We keep learning and relearning. Like, hey, they're here for this guy. That was actually one. But you know, and I think it's a testament

to our friendship that that is out of love. Oh, oh yeah. Yeah, I know, okay, I'm just saying that. That's how I feel about it. We crowdsourced my Instagram followers, questions for you guys, and one of them was. You have Instagram followers? Mm.

I'm surprised you figured out how to download the app. Yeah! Yeah! Oh, come on. I haven't seen a lot of your sketches on SNL lately. What's going on with that? Oh, man. They're there, they're there.

All right, cut this! All right, cut this! Cut this! No, no, this is not usable! Gary, cut. That was, believe it or not. That's great. Oh my God.

I'm excited about this. Your recent one of the ordering the pizza one killed me. Oh thanks dude. Yeah we're excited about that. Wait, when you guys, and I'm gonna get to the Instagram questions in a second, but I will say like, because it's working it out, when you guys write a sketch like that,

and I'll tell people the premise if they haven't seen it, but it's on YouTube, is it's like basically a girl has lost investigation, high estate situation, they're like, it's going to be a late night, let's order pizza, and then it becomes John Hamm and everyone arguing about what kind of pizza, Hawaiian pizza, et cetera. How, from start to finish, where's the incarnation of a sketch like that, Hawaiian pizza, et cetera. How, from start to finish,

where's the incarnation of a sketch like that? And where does it go? How long does it take? What do you guys argue about? What do you agree on? That one had a long, that one we did pre-pandemic live. At our old bar show.

Are you serious? That was a live sketch you guys had? Yeah. Well we just kind of had the term. Only the top, yeah. Of pizza! That's so funny. I actually feel like I remember you coming in

and being like, I don't know what the sketch is, I just know, like you had seen a guy do that or something, but your idea was pizza, yeah! Yeah. Yeah. And I remember us sitting together figuring out how to make that into the context of a sketch, and I think it was initially like a cyber security breach.

Yeah, it was. Where we were all like, it's gonna be a late one tonight. The mainframe has been hacked. The mainframe has been hacked. I remember I almost exclusively watched like murder shows. Yeah. So then, okay, so you have this idea,

the pizza, you have the pizza joke side of it, which is the turn. And you're doing it on stage and it's like presumably like killing on stage. That turn. In the way the sketch, like the first two moves of it worked, but then we didn't have like the Hawaiian or any of the like, it just sort of like,

we would be beatered out. Bail on it, as we did with many of our sketches back then. A lot of, yeah. Two laughs and then just like, all right, that's that, we'll figure it out. Yeah. All right, so you have that, you have the joke live. Yeah.

And then you're like. Like five years ago. Five years ago, and then you were like every week, because people don't all know this. Some people do, like me, I'm an SNL nerd, so I know the host comes in early in the week and you pitch ideas on the host. Yeah.

And it's some combination, as I understand it, of what the host is interested in and what Lauren's interested in. For the picking of it? Yeah, yeah, it's like, definitely. If the host really wants to do something, Lauren is like, great, because it'll just be better if the host really wants to do it.

But it changes every week, but that is the general thing. So Jon Hamm, you pitched this on Jon Hamm. This was a weird one because it was, there's that Monday pitch too, where it's a lot of like fake ideas or whatever. On Monday when we came in, we had just kind of gone over like a list of all of the sketches that we vaguely remember

even from like the Vaughn, that was the bar that we did it at, like the Vaughn show days. And pizza was one of them that we just like remembered. And it was like, maybe we do pizza. And Martin was like, maybe I'll just remembered. And it was like, maybe we do pizza. And Martin was like, maybe I'll just pitch that in the Monday meeting. Then pitch the turn in the Monday meeting.

And Ham came in the next day on Tuesday when we were actually gonna write stuff. And we had started writing another idea. And Ham was like, I like the pizza thing. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, we pitched him like five ideas. One that we were like, we know we're gonna write this one.

And he was like, I love all those except that one. Yeah. Oh really? Can you say what it is? Are you embarrassed? We might still use it for something. Yeah. Yeah, so I don't wanna say.

It didn't make as much sense for Ham, which we realized. You have to really tailor it to the host. Well, the pizza sketch is so perfect for Ham because he would play the detective part in the movie. That's what he said. Yeah, so he's legit like, he's central casting. Yeah, he's in those damn movies.

He's so funny. Oh, and he's so funny. He's great. So funny, so nice. And also interestingly, he loves comedy. Obsessed with comedy. Yeah, like knows comedy really, really well. So you pitch it to him, he's like, let's do that.

And then when does it get green lit? You write a version of it, and then you pitch it again in the read through? We write it. We read it. We write it Tuesday night. At like two or three a.m., we were like, I don't know if this is gonna work. Maybe we should pivot. And we basically rewrote it entirely.

Yep. And then... Can you walk me through that? I hate to be a nerd, but it's like, when did you think like, oh no, we don't have it kind of thing? It was at like 2 or 3 when... Because you split off, we write all the other sketches too. So we're all split off writing everything,

coming back together, you know, like every hour, we'll come back together, like where's everybody at that we'll pass stuff off. And then it was like, we read it at two and it was just like, it wasn't quite it. It was like the world and the turn were great. Then it was like figuring out how are we the straight men of it, do we be funny in it? How does it all work?

Right. And then... Yeah, I think a lot of it was just kind of being like, oh, this is like a character sketch for John. That was the realization. And letting him take the lead in that. Yeah. Because I think it felt like maybe we were all fighting

for the center of it or something. Totally. And once we accepted that, is kind of when we found it. This puts you on the spot, but can you pitch it to us like you pitched it to John? I mean, it, Yeah. I'm just curious.

I've never been in the meeting before. So we're sitting on the ground, I just pitched something, probably bombed. In Lauren's office, everybody's sitting on the ground, the host is sitting on a chair, so they're physically above you. We have to sit kind of behind their chair, so they're turned around like, yeah.

And we're like, hey. Oh my God. And then I don't know, do you remember how you pre-? Yeah, yeah, it was like, you always are like, maybe it's to start. So it's like, maybe it's a, there's a girl who's gone missing and it's a meeting at the police station

and all the detectives are gathered and the chief of police comes out and says, all right, we got this girl missing, it's been 24 hours. We need to, and I was really nervous because I knew it had to have this big, straight bill. It was a long walk. So I was really nervous because I knew it had to have this big straight It was a long long. Yeah, so I was like, you know it's been 24 hours if we don't find her in 48 like our chances of finding her go down exponentially we've got divers out in the lake and

Yeah, we're just gonna lock in and order some pizzas and work through the night We're gonna find this girl and then you play a homicide detective who's like pizza and then you play a homicide detective who's like, pizza! Ha ha! Did you get a laugh on that? Yeah, it was a big laugh. Okay. But yeah, I was like, I love kind of doing those ones in there

where it's like, makes me nervous. Like a big, long, straight, laughless top, and then a pause, and then like an underplayed, like, act out. If that bombs, that's horrific. It actually hurts your soul with one of those where it's just like a long buildup and then some like charactery voice that gets nothing.

It's like you get kicked in the nose. Those I feel like have a high hit rate because you're like lulling people into it. Some people just do one sentence and they're like, just get through it, I just don't wanna. Do you guys ever feel like, I'm horrible at it. When you're doing them, if people aren't laughing, you're thinking to yourself, your inner model is like,

yeah, you just don't like me. You know what I mean? Like this is personal. I think that it's probably easy to feel that way, but you also kind of know if the joke is. Oh really? It's a pretty warm room. And so like.

People are fake laughing at it, they're giving it up. So it's like, if it makes sense. Because the documentary on SNL 50 writers. Yeah. You guys were great in that. And I thought it was an interesting key into that universe of sketches that don't go. Yeah.

And they're funny. Yeah. And you're like, this is good. We were so paranoid that whole week that it was gonna be like, we were like, did they mic the writers room? Like, they were hiding mics around, and it was like an NBC sponsored thing.

So of course it wasn't going to be the hit piece. But everybody was freaking out about it. Yeah, by the way, it's on Peacock. If people want to watch, it's great. Thanks, dude. I thought it was a really good insight into what that is like. It's great.

That director is awesome. I feel like it'll be a thing that's fun to have when we're much older and look back and see what our life was like. When you're my age. Or even. I mean if we're alive. Even younger.

What do you mean? No, I'm just saying. How are you like, you're 100, right? I'm 46 years old. It would be so weird if I had died from natural causes at 46. Like people do it and it's sad, but like I want to be clear that what you're saying

is a joke. I literally thought you were like 100 or 101, I didn't know. So that's- You thought that that was normal that we were doing improv at UCB Theater in the East Village? That's what I thought. That's the lore of the shtick. I know it was gimmicky, but it's like.

You thought I was older than your dad? Yeah, I did. I know it was gimmicky, but it's like... You thought I was older than your dad? Yeah, I did. I think you're twice his age. Who gave me my first job in television? No, I didn't. It's greenlit on Wednesday night. Is that the full pitch? Sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's the full pitch. And then, how do you know it's thumbs up to write it? You can just write whatever you want. Okay. Basically. So even if that didn't hit in the pitch. Yeah, because sometimes like, I mean, like, you know, like pitching an idea, sometimes the intense pressure and the 20 second version of it is like,

I'm not going to be able to sell this idea sell this idea, but even if it is funny. So sometimes you're like, I know that there's something there. It's a very informal thing, the Monday pitch meeting. It's mostly just to make the host feel comfortable, like hey, they're funny people, we're working on some things. It's not like approve or deny this idea,

and 90% of those don't even get written. So you write that sketch and it's like five pages maybe? I would guess. It's double spaced there. It's like the multi-cam formatting. It's like 10 pages? So like nine. Nine pages?

Yeah. And then, oh. But you know what? It's like Monday, you do that, and then Tuesday, Ham comes in, which is the writing day, so we'll get in at like one or two or whatever, Ham comes into everybody's office

and actually hears what you're working on. So that's when he was like, that's when we pitched him the idea that we thought we were gonna write, and then he went, you know, I actually like that pizza thing. So that's when we started to go like, okay, we'll write that.

Write that. Let's pivot to that. Yes, yeah. So that's at like 4pm. So you hadn't written? No. No. Wow, yeah. So that's at like, So you hadn't written. You hadn't written. No. No. Wow. Yeah.

So then, you're like, oh fuck, we gotta write that. So you're up late Tuesday night, probably writing that. And other sketches, yeah. Right, and then you show that at read through like Wednesday or Thursday? Wednesday, yeah. Wednesday.

And then did that kill the read of that sketch? It did well, it wasn't a lock though Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of funny shit. So it was like it could or could not yeah We didn't have that Hawaiian pizza chunk in there. Yeah, and I think it was described the Hawaiian pizza turn It's the the chief of police says that he's you know, everyone relax about the pizza, it's not a big deal. I just got three cheese. John relax, yeah. It's not a big deal, I just got three cheese,

three Hawaiian, and then everyone goes, what the fuck? Yeah, it sets it off. And a lot of those lines were just kind of like, improvised, like that section. The whole gun? The whole gun? Oh my God, the gun, You shoot the gun in the air? The dude gave us these prop guns

and then it was like we were just rehearsing it. And it was like, I just did it in a thing. And it was like, duh. You gotta, you know. Yeah, if you got the gun. Do you think that's part, goes back to our improv roots? Kinda. Cause our improv shows are unhinged.

Yeah. Yeah. A lot of guns in our shows. And that's the kind of shit you would do in an improv scene for sure. No doubt. No doubt. That's like my fresh water. That's your move.

Yeah. ["The Last Supper"] All right, I'm gonna ask some of these questions. Okay, so here's the questions from the internet. Who's the best improviser in the group? Please don't forbid me. I would probably say Martin. We're kidding.

Martin also shows up half the time during our shows. Martin usually skips it, but that's okay. I think it's actually a close call. I would honestly say that the individual, when we have a good show, it's usually because we're all great. No, but you know what's interesting, you know what I will say is interesting is

that every now and then we don't wrangle a big crew. And like we had one recently where it was literally no Martin, it was Ben, John, me, Chloe, Trost. I think it's the best show we've ever done. It was. It's always, no, no, no. Martin, I wanted to bring this up to you outside of the context of the cameras

and the microphones and everything. But we need you to just hang back and just take a hiatus. If you're a people you're gonna have no problems with that. No, but you know what it is? I think this is like a thing for all the improv groups out there listening. Four people in an improv group's a good number.

Great number. Because it forces everyone to be in every scene. There's no hiding. Sometimes multiple characters. Yeah, certainly. We had like a handful of scenes where we were each two or three people. Yeah.

What I'll say about improv, and I always say this, wherever you are in the country, if you want to do comedy, gather some friends, get an improv book, get Truth in Comedy, get the UCB Comedy Manual, and just like do the games, do long form, do the exercises, like it's so fun. You don't even need an audience. No.

It's just absurdly like pure, just like, just pure fun. Yeah. Oh, this is an interesting one from Taylor Grayson who says, how is their process different for writing for your shorts versus live when you guys are touring this summer? Oh, our live sketches? Yeah.

I think with the live thing, because we're doing a full hour, we like, if someone is like, has, if it's their sketch, we'll defer more to each other. Everyone kind of has their like 20 minutes of the show that they're like in charge of, you know what I mean? So if your 20 minutes isn't good, it's like, come on. It's kind of like how SNL works.

So just like if we're writing live sketches for the host or whatever, it's like there's usually a point person on it. Like I'm talking about all of SNL. Like somebody is on the, you know, their name is first and they're in charge of getting it Yeah. going. Yeah, I would say we're less precious probably

with our live stuff, because we can just kind of try things a million times and see how it goes and adjust but with our SNL stuff it's like We're really diligently going through like line by line trying to figure it out So okay, so for our improv shows at UCB lately. We've been doing gossip Yeah, so which was actually our, Mabel Lewis's idea, because she had done college improv a few years ago, and I was like, what do you do for inspiration

from the audience? What's a good one? She goes, I do gossip sometimes. And that's what we've been doing, it's been great. So we do gossip in our shows often as the inspiration. And what's the best piece of gossip that we've gotten? Well, multiple times we've gotten? I... Well, multiple times we've called on somebody who is...

He describes himself as an artist and a lawyer. Oh, my God, you're right. I mean... Oh, my God, the artist and the lawyer guy. Three weeks later, we were like, and you, sir, what do you do for a living? Oh, I'm an artist and a lawyer. We go, oh, we're not doing this again.

Yeah. The other one that was notable, and I won't say the company's name, because we always say to the audience, we're like, this stays in this room, and we believe that, we're stays in this room, don't repeat this, because it is gossip, but one person works at a chain retail store, and everyone, everyone steals from, everyone steals from...

Everyone. Everyone steals from the chain re... And it's not Zara, but it's something like Zara. Yeah. Is it Zara? No, it's not Zara. I know what it is. But it's like Zara.

Yeah. And it's like... She was literally like, we all steal from them. She's like, I'm doing it, my coworker's doing it, some of them are getting arrested. And then wasn't it like a story in like the paper? Like it was like, it was like right after that, it was like crackdowns. I was surprised at that one.

I'm like, is everyone stealing from every job all the time? I think so. Probably. Have you guys ever stolen from a job yet? I don't think so. Probably. Have you guys ever stolen from a job you had? I don't think so. Not money, but certainly like food. Food, Martin used to like feed us with... Ice cream. Yeah, ice cream. Oh wow.

What ice cream star? Van Leeuwen. Oh nice. It was awesome. When we were doing that old bar show, he would leave during his break, do the show, bring a bunch of ice cream go back finish out come back What would it be a big leaf flavor of Van Leeuwen ice cream be? Would they give me a flavor when my special comes out? What's the candy that old people eat like those caramel?

Where there's original ice cream? Yeah, which would be really good. It would be really good. They kind of have that. It's called honeycomb. Yeah, that's right. Honeycomb. Right. Honeycomb. And then maybe there's dentures in the ice cream. Yeah.

Maybe. And a cane? Sure. If it could fit. Yeah. Martin, yes and. So funny talking about improv the whole podcast and then as soon as you do a riff being like,

uh, maybe. I don't know. All right, do you think I should do slow round or jokes? You know what, I have jokes that I'm working on right now. And then slow round too. Yeah, we could do slow round, but I don't know if we'll have time. I guess jokes or slow round.

I have a- Do you have somewhere to go? No. Yeah, we're doing slow round. I have a- Do you have somewhere to go? No. Yeah. We're doing slow round. Continue. All right. I have a,

I have a murder documentary show. Maybe Martin can help me with this. Yeah. Oh. I always watch these murder documentaries and there was this one I was watching where the wife cheated and the guy kills the wife. And if you analyze it, it's basically that the guy felt like a loser,

but I would argue everyone knew he was a loser before he killed his wife, and now that he has killed his wife, we definitely know he's a loser. And they're at... Nobody looks at the guy who kills his wife and thinks that guy's great in bed. They just think you're the worst. You're the guy at the pick-up basketball game who lost the game, took the ball home,

cut the ball into pieces, threw the ball in a fire. No one's like, MVP! That's really funny. And then found that you would use the Balls credit card to buy one from Jetski. What? You would use the Balls credit card? Yeah, that was just a murder documentary's joke.

Basically, I just filmed a special, so I'm like, literally, all the walls are like joke. There's joke premises, and it's like, I'll just do that, and I'll just go like, well, what does that have to do with the other things I'm talking about? These are all new? I'm in the process of taking these down,

the old ones down and putting new ones up. Oh my God. Yeah, yeah, yeah. By the way, the show's amazing. Oh, thanks. And we can't wait to see the special. Thanks. How's it been going?

May 26th comes out. It's great. Thanks. How has it been going? May 26th comes out. It's exciting. Like it came out, it's really gorgeous. The set design was by Beowulf Barrett. It's all that huge canvas painting is amazing. Painted by this woman named Irina who came in from Eastern Europe just to paint this canvas. Yeah, it's like incredible Seth Baer's directed it.

It's Aaron Coppolite, it's just gorgeous. And yeah, it's the most, I think it's the most me that of any of my specials. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think you're- You look gorgeous. I look gorgeous. I think early in my career when I was starting out,

I was a little bit like, always like a little bit of a character of myself. Yeah. I think as the years go on, I think the veneer falls away if you keep working at it kind of thing. And I feel like this one is just like, I don't know. It feels the most like I'm just kind of like spilling.

Yeah. Totally. So yeah, so that's Murder Docs 1. I thought you guys might have something on this, which is I got an email from a director of a movie, a small independent film, Mr. Birbiglia, there's a role in my movie that only one man can play. I truly believe that man is you. And then the description, she sends the script, the description of the log line is, when a 40-something wild child splits from her punk rock boyfriend,

she gets over it the only way she knows how, by seducing a mediocre dad bod cuck of a husband. Oh my God. So I'm like, am I the punk rock boyfriend or? Yeah, right. You don't know. I don't know. No.

That's so funny. You are the only one who can do this. Can we be honest? You're the only person who can do this. When do you shoot it? It's gonna go in the fall. Fingers crossed for waiting on financing. No, but it's funny, sometimes,

and I'm sure you guys have this with bits, and this is where I am with this thing. Sometimes something is so funny on its own, I don't know what the jokes are. Where do you go with that? Yeah. I've read it on stage and people laugh, but then what?

There's a part of it that's like, to me, whenever I get those self tapes for something where it's like, fuck, what do I think I look like? Do you guys have guys who you are often up against in casting stuff? There definitely are. We were up for something as a group and it came down to us or Kiki Palmer.

Kiki Palmer, wait, what was that? Really? It was a commercial. This is another commercial. Paul told us. Kiki Palmer. It was like, really? It was a commercial. It was another commercial. Paul told us. And he was like asking the guy like, what is this commercial to you that they can both be selling?

What role? All right, this is a slow round. Love it. What is the most embarrassing video you get served in your algorithm on Instagram or TikTok? For me, it's all like posture correction. Yes.

Which is such that's just what I'm like anxious about all the time that it's like all these crazy stretch. Oh my God. Mine is like, you know. Butts and then like clips of Jack Black on a podcast. Butts and Jack Black? Or any podcast of comedians. What's yours? I mean, the most embarrassing thing,

you're lying if the answer is not. Butts. Yeah. You think everyone just has butts in their algorithm? I think it's not. It's not a wall of butts. No. But there's a butt, you know, every once in a while. What if I told you I have no butts in my algo?

Well, better man than I. You sound like you have sex when you're in your babies. So, who would that be pertinent to? Oh, right, right, right. It's always like five, like, Mets, like, reels and then a butt and then five more Mets reels. What do you have?

What do you have, butts? This is a shirtless guy. It's a loose carpenter shorts are a staple this summer. What's something you believed 10 years ago that you don't believe now? Climate change. Okay. Just kidding. Do you guys have anything where you imagine yourself being comedy writers and you didn't imagine this part of it?

I definitely didn't assume that I would be in any capacity like front facing, like performing. Oh really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're not only front facing, you're in movies. Like you guys wanted to be comedy writers, like for a decade ago, but you didn't have the success you have now.

Is there anything you didn't foresee? Yeah, I mean, I don't think I foresaw any of it. I don't know, like if I told myself ten years ago that I would be, like, writing for SNL and have a movie and stuff, I would think that's insane. Yeah. But I don't know what changed. Like, and my beliefs have changed.

I'm sure they have. The weird thing to me now is thinking about how ten years ago, it wasn't as long ago as I think. Like I'm thinking about like myself in high school or whatever, but that wasn't 10 years ago. It was college. Yeah. 10 years ago you were in college.

Yeah. At NYU. High school for me. That's great. Wow. Thanks a lot, Martin. I'm turning 30 in a couple of days. Nice.

I'm going. You're going to my birthday? Tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. Sweet'm going. You're going to my birthday? Tomorrow. Yeah. Sweet. Yeah, that is, yeah. You can only come if you have a certain amount of Instagram followers.

Yeah, and you fucking hit it. You barely made it. You're right there. You have that thing at the bar for your birthday where you have to be this tall to enter. Yeah. Me and John aren't gonna get in. Yeah.

How tall are you? Five nine. Nice, I'm six feet tall. You't gonna get in. Yeah. How tall are you? Five nine. Nice, I'm six feet tall. You are? Five 11. Yes. You always play the short character in the sketches? I don't play the short.

I play the short character. You play the short character, you get big fun from your height in like the Charlie XCX one. You do. I play into it because I'm next to these guys who are super tall. Doesn't Charlie burn you for being short? Oh yeah, that's one of my favorite jokes

we've ever done. Wait, what? No, no, she burns you, John, for being short. Yeah. And then it cuts to the reverse shot and John is lowered. The frame is the same, but he's lowered. And his voice is higher.

I fell for it! Yeah. Well, you do look... What's wrong with being five? What is it? What's wrong with being five too? My favorite joke. Oh my God, I fell for it. I fell for the sketch.

I lowered myself in frames on barely- That's a banger of a sketch. That's a classic. Yeah, that was a fun one. Thank you. With Charlie. I love Charlie, dude. She's the best.

Oh my God. I love the Charlie XCX. What were we talking about? Ten years ago. What belief system? Did you have anything? No, I definitely do. That's what I mean of like, I was like, whoa,

because it's like, I have so many things that I thought that are so entirely different, but it's weird because they are now just my new beliefs. So it's like hard to, you know what I'm trying to say? It's just now just natural. So I'm like, what was opposite like hard to, you know what I'm trying to say? I'm just like, now it's just natural. So I'm like, what was opposite back then? But there is stuff. It's funny, one of the questions

that the Instagram followers had was, do you guys think that Don't Think Twice is an accurate depiction of what it's like to come up in comedy now? Wow. You know what? I bet the general truth of that movie is real. Yeah.

But they would all have Instagram. It would all be modernized with followers. Which think that it's not. That's such a better movie because of that. 100%. Because all of those movies or whatever shows or sketches or shorts about followers and stuff,

they're just so, it's just the same. Yeah, I know you're right. What's the best, and the other question that a lot of people have was what's your advice for people starting out? I think we said it last time, but do live stuff for comedy for sure. It's gonna be so tempting to put everything that you do

on the internet constantly. But it's like... And if you can wait a little bit before you start putting stuff out. Yeah, especially if you're really young because it's like, look at the landscape of those people that you loved when you were 18 or whatever and look at them now, it's just like either huge crash outs

or just like they're not what they used to because they got famous for one specific thing. Yeah, it's funny, my advice, and I've never said this on the show, it's kind of similar, it's like, it's thinking of your career not as a five-year comedy career, but as like a 15 to 45-year comedy career, but as like a 15 to 45 year comedy career. Process not brought up. It really is. If there's one thing I could tell my younger self,

it would just be like, no, it's gonna be a while. And just keep, we have this thing on the wall. It's like a Japanese script that is the word new me, N-U-M-M-I, which means continuous improvement. Wow. And I always think of that. You embody that in a way that I really admire.

Thanks. To be earnest for a second. I really do. They're not brutally mean about you. Yeah, after roasting you the whole episode. I think that you are so dedicated to finding new things that excite you creatively and trying different things. Nice man.

Yeah. That's part of the improv experiment that we've done. And I think it's worked and also I think the four of us are gonna work on a movie together. Oh, certainly. I don't know which movie it's gonna be and I don't know when it's gonna be, but I feel like this collaboration and friendship that's loose is going to form towards a crescendo.

Yeah, I think so too. That's why I'm involved. Yeah. That's what I'm doing too. Career is the movie, the big movie. And you, Martin? Yeah, the eventual career payoff. That's what all of doing too. The movie, the big movie. And you, Martin? Yeah, the eventual career payoff. That's what all of my relationships are based on.

Romantic, friendship, family. What, can you get me? Wrote Billy Madison. I actually think that doing the shows with you, a reason why I love it, and Ben was just kind of saying this, is that we get to get a little bit of that from you. What's the surprising thing that you've learned about me

or any of us from doing improv shows? That you're only in the game this long if you love it. Because I don't think that you would do these shows if you didn't love it. And I mean that in a positive way of like, it's been a super big long career for you and a lot of people don't have that. And for you to like be like, you know what, doing these little stupid improv shows is actually filling the well in a way that leads to bigger, better things. I have that with you guys, kind of the inverse,

which is because you guys are at the beginning of a kind of a career explosion, and you're a lot younger than I am, and that you are genuinely interested in trying and failing. that you are genuinely interested in trying and failing. And you have this like, you know, cream of the crop job already at SNL. You don't need to come downtown and do improv

and try and fail and try and fail. And it's like, you're there. And it's like, I do think that is the common thing that the four of us have in common with those shows. that is the common thing that the four of us have in common with those shows. Yeah. Yeah. It also speaks to the ceaseless void inside of all of us. Broken. We're all broken.

Unfillable. We need constant reassurance and laughter to feel whole. Yeah. Which I'm not saying is good or bad. In fact, I think it's good We're broken the way Martin's glasses were broken by bullies in middle school What if we find out that Martin was a huge bully That is so weird it's like maybe having an unfillable thing is actually good I like at least I least you're waking up

trying to get something. I think most people have an unfillable thing and the fact that we have ones that result in a career that is rewarding financially and otherwise. At least it's not like, yeah, like love. Yeah, very unlucky. Yeah. Love?

Like filling the hole of like, my dad didn't love me or something like that, which is like an unfillable like... Yeah, but if he was the announcer on The Tonight Show, then that's a career. He fucking helped us to other holes. Bingo. And it worked out fucking perfect. Fuck yes. The final thing we do on the show is we're coming out for a cause.

Is there a nonprofit that you like to give to? And we will contribute and link in the show notes. You know what? This is localized, but I thought a bit on my way here, which I go to all the time, is Housing Works. Oh yeah, it's a great one. Yeah. Housing Works is awesome.

Because I just went to one in the West Village, which I didn't know that they're everywhere. I was like, oh dude, Housing Works is where I've dropped off so much shit. And then they just like fight for homeless against homeless, fight for homelessness. They fight for homeless, yeah. They're I think creating homelessness.

Yeah, dropped off so much shit there. Just dumps on there. The other day I was like, wow, housing works. This is like one of the main- Housing works is great. Cause you're not, we're not at the level where it's like we're working with a thing or the face of a charity yet.

So I was like, what's a localized thing that people could like actually just go to today? Yeah, great. Anything else you guys wanna plug? Before we wrap. Yeah, great. Anything else you guys wanna plug? Before we wrap. Yeah, actually. We're dropping at some point this summer a tour documentary slash special of the show

that we toured with two summers ago. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah, we filmed a bunch of the shows on the road and we cut them all together. Wow. And it's taken so long, but it's gonna finally come out this summer and we're super pumped about it.

Wow. Yeah, and it was edited by my wife, wife Emily who at the same time open for us all tour with her material about how she Got rejected on X Factor when she was 15 and that special is coming out April 29th at 8 30 p.m On YouTube nice. Thank you guys for doing the podcast and and doing these improv shows And I can't wait to see your tour this summer, dude We love you so much. Love you Mike. It's very hard to make friends as an adult and I'm really Glad that I made a new one with you right back at you and Yeah, you guys rock That's gonna do it for another episode of working it out. Cause there's no.

That's going to do it for another episode of Working It Out. You can see Please Don't Destroy on Saturday Night Live and also on tour this summer. Find out all about that on their Instagram at Please Don't Destroy and catch that tour. You can get the tickets at

pleasedontdestroy.com. Check out for bigs.com to sign up for the mailing list to be the first to know about my upcoming shows. Our producers of Working It Out are myself along with Peter Salomo and Joseph Burbiglia and Mabel Lewis. Associate producer Gary Simons, sound mix by Shub Saron, supervising engineer Kate Molinsky, special thanks to Jack Antonoff and Bleachers for their music.

Special thanks to my wife, the poet J. Hope Stein, and our daughter Una who built the original radio for Made of Pillows. Thanks most of all to you who are listening. If you enjoy the show, rate us and review us on Apple Podcasts. It really helps. If you're new to the podcast and you enjoyed this one, we have over 169 other episodes we've done. This is our 170th since 2020. They are all free. No paywall. We've had some incredible guests. Last week we had Ira Glass. We've had Sarah Silverman. We've had Roy Wood Jr.

Check out our back catalog and comment on Apple podcasts. Which one is your favorite? Thanks most of all to you who are listening. Tell your friends, tell your enemies, tell your acapella group. Let's say you're in an acapella group and you're on a big bus headed to your next acapella competition.

Put the podcast on. Be like, hey everyone, some people may not think we're cool, but this comedian Mike Berbiglia thinks acapella is cool. He used to judge acapella competitions for cod sakes. He hosts this podcast called Working It Out where he works out jokes with other comedians. I think we could listen and learn a little bit

about ourselves and others and maybe sing a song about it. Thanks everybody, we're working it out. We'll see you next time.