Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster - John Mulaney

Episode Date: April 8, 2026

US stand-up superstar, ‘Saturday Night Live’ alumnus and ‘The Bear’ star John Mulaney has a table booked this week. But does he remember John the Mouse? John Mulaney is on tour in the UK and Ireland with his show ‘Mister Whatever’. For dates and tickets go to johnmulaney.com Follow John on Instagram @johnmulaney Watch the video version of this episode on the Off Menu YouTube on Thu 9 Apr.Off Menu is now on YouTube: @offmenupodcastFollow Off Menu on Instagram and TikTok: @offmenuofficial.And go to our website www.offmenupodcast.co.uk for a list of restaurants recommended on the show.Off Menu is a comedy podcast hosted by Ed Gamble and James Acaster.Produced, recorded and edited by Ben Williams for Plosive.Video production by Ben Williams and Megan McCarthy for Plosive.Artwork by Paul Gilbey (photography and design). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is James A. Caster. I'm on tour with my show. James A. Caster. We've added some extra London dates on the, I want to say, first and second of August at the Royal Festival Hall. And also, the Blackpool dates, which are pretty soon, actually. What? They're not sold out. Come, please buy tickets to the Blackpool one. And there's some offers as well that still aren't sold. Glasgow Springs to Mind. Newcastle springs to mind also.

So come and see the show. I'm very proud of it. Ed's yawning. Tickets at James A.caster.com. Welcome to the off-menu podcast, taking the white bread of conversation, layering in between the slices, the ham of fun, the cheese of chat, grilling it in a pan of cheeky butter, and then sprinkling with the icing sugar of friendship, James. Thank you, James Gamble. My name is James A. Kasser.

Together we own a dream restaurant, and every single week, we inviting a guest and a after the favourite starter, main course, dessert, side dish, drink, not in that order. And this week, our guest is John Mullaney. John Malaney. I was doing a Monte Cristo sandwich there.

Do you know of these sandwiches? I love a Monte Cristo's on the menu. I have to order it. It's one of those things that, that's the rule. Yeah. Always get a Monte Cristo when it's on there. Triple Decker diner in Greenpoint. The best Monte Cristo I've ever had.

And that is just basically icing sugar on like a fried bread sandwich, isn't it? Yeah, it's like French toast. with the Monte Cristo at Triple Dicodina is loads of ham and turkey and just like, I think there's a third meat in there with this French toast and when I had it, I was not having a good time that week.

No one is eating one of those things if they're having a good time. Well, I'm having one whatever. That's the rule. Sure, you're having it when you're eating it, but no one goes, I'm going to have that because I'm in a good mental place. I think I might do it.

But yes, I take your point. Yes. But it was delicious. It was so good. And that is the best Monte Cristo I've had anywhere. This is the first time we've had to do the intros on camera, by the way. If you're just listening, we're doing this intro on camera for the YouTube. Don't like it.

I think we're fine now. I think me doing that down the barrel felt uncomfortable. I didn't know what camera to look down when I was doing my bit. I think I got the food out of order. I'd sit it in a different order than I've ever said it in because I was so in my own head. Yeah. You never know what camera to look down. That's why Ghostbust's Frozen Empire.

That's it. You're always looking at the wrong guy. They're like Pinfield. What are you doing? I insisted on getting referred to you by my character. Because you're like Daniel Dayloris. Exactly. Yeah, you're in character all the time.

Don't you mean Daniel playing for you? Oh, yeah, no. Yeah, yeah. I've just seen that film. Have you? Yeah. Good coincidence. Great film.

Real good film. Great film. I honestly wish someone had told me because this film, there will be blood, by the way. What a movie. What a movie, man. It is good.

Oh, I watched it on the plane. Yeah. Yeah. If we had him on the podcast, It was literally my plane view. That is good. That is good, Ed. We can have it on the podcast,

have secret ingredient milkshake. Do you think you'd like that, Daniel Day-Lewis? You'd love it. Well, I drink it up. Yeah. I love that bit. One of the best, probably my favourite closing scene of any film. A lot of my references are out of date now

because I've only just started watching popular films. Sure. You only just getting into films. So I'm coming off the plane going, I drink it up. Yeah. I'm a long straw. Everyone else is saying a few small beers.

Yeah. Ed's their glues. I'll drink your milkshake. Don't spoil anything for it. Sorry, Ed. I know that would be in a few years' time. Yeah. Two decades time you'll watch them.

Yeah. Anyway, John Maloney's brilliant. John Maloney's fantastic. I mean, we're very excited to have him on the podcast, with huge fans of his were. Great comedian, may I say. I, of course, have benefited before we've talked about it on the podcast many times. John had to pull out on it.

So I do want to hear. I've never spoke to John Maloney's. about Cinderella. No. And when I got to play John the mouse, named after him, of course. So I would like to see if John is aware that I've replaced him at all.

Like, I don't know. Maybe he's angry about it. He might have accepted our invitation in order to settle a score with me. Yeah, like Stephen Graham. Like Stephen Graham did. And we saw how that worked out for him. Yeah.

So we'll see what happens to John. Well, it'll work out well for him as well, I guess. Subjective. John is touring the UK and he's doing a show in Dublin as well Mr Whatever is the name of the show in April. April the 17th of the 27th UK tour

Go and have a look I mean he's brilliant be quick because it'll sell out very quickly I think Now we love John Malaney But if John Maloney says a secret ingredient Which we deem to be unacceptable We will be forced to kick him out of the dream restaurant Yes and the secret ingredient is

One Black Coffee It's very funny John Maloney I really love the John Mullaney routines about his dad. And there's a routine about when he was a kid and his dad is driving them down the highway in the car. They see him at McDonald's. All the kids start chanting McDonald's. So his dad pulls into the McDonald's drive-thru and then orders one black coffee for himself and drives away. Yeah. It's on the comeback kid.

Yes. A great special. A great special. So like, yeah, one black coffee. And if he does order that, then, you know, he's become his dad. Yeah, so that would be a big moment for him. We're all doomed to. Yeah, yeah.

So, yeah. We're all doomed to become John Maloney's dad. Yeah, we are. At some point, we'll all be Papa Malaney. And if you're watching this on YouTube, that's tomorrow. Yeah, and if you're listening to this, not on YouTube, this will be on YouTube tomorrow. Yes.

Unless you're listening to it, not on the day it went out, in which case it's on YouTube right now. Unless you're on YouTube doing stuff and listening to the YouTube and not watching it. Which a lot of people do. Yeah. And in that case, it's tomorrow now. Yes, already tomorrow.

Don't just relax. In fact, you might want to know there's just an audio version of this and that might be better for you. No, do both. Ed, you're on tour? Oh yeah, I'm on tour as well. I'm doing my new show, Fresh Hell,

all across the UK and Summer of Ireland starting at the end of January, 2027. I think this is my favourite show title. Thank you. Of a Gambles show. Thank you. Fresh Hell is a great show title. Thank you very much.

And it's going to be a great show. This is the off-meny menu menu of John Mullaney. Welcome, John, to the Dream Restaurant. Thank you. Welcome, John, my lady, to the Dream Restaurant, but be expecting you for some time. Thank you, sir. You're the first guest who's found Ben's clap that he does before a record as funny as we find it. Yeah.

Well, he's not doing it in front of the camera. Yes. Like some people do the fake clapboard, but he was just clapping behind at us. We've questioned this with Ben before, because I always thought the clap was to sync audio and visual, and he gets really annoyed when we mention it. when we mention it. At this point in the show, has there been a preamble before we got to this part?

Yes, we'll do an intro. That's great. Yeah, yeah. That's really fun. Yeah, yeah, we'll have baked you up big time. Yeah, there's context to what's happening. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and also, the listeners understand the context of the show in general.

100%. Yeah, yeah. Hopefully. Some people will be their first time, to be fair. It's always going to be someone's first time. Well, you're going to bring in a lot of the Malaney heads, of course. Yeah. Sure, yeah.

Do you have a name for your fans, actually? Millenniacs. I just came up with that. Oh, yeah. That's perfect. people. They're good people in extraordinary circumstances. Yeah.

They're just ordinary people thrust into this fandom that they really they didn't know they were signing up for it. Yeah. And they can't help it either. They can't help it. Yeah. And they have notes. What do you think your fans will think of myself and Edgar? I bet they're already

way into this. Yeah. This is a very big podcast. I know that. And I think we have a lot of similar in a Venn diagram, I think we grab some of the same people. Yeah, I think so. Very much so. Yeah, I hope so.

Absolutely. I'd love a slice of your crowd. I love the millenniacs. Yeah. Same. It'd be great to have as many audience members as possible. Yes. From all different walks of life, paying a common price.

Yeah. You don't destructured audience prices? No. No. It's one agreed upon price. Yeah. By you, though. A lot of haggling with the whole lot.

audience back and forth outside the venue. And then we agree. A lot of them are saying free, though, aren't they? There's some of that 60s crap. Woodstock crap. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're all climbing over the fences. They're all climbing over the fences and tearing him down. But no, most people can agree

on, sometimes they will agree on regular pricing and then platinum pricing. It's odd when they suggest that. What about platinum pricing? I go, that's kind of gross. I don't even like to think about that, though. I know it happens. They go, we'd like it. Yeah.

VIP meet and greets. VIP meet and greets, all of that stuff. It's really nice to meet someone right after a show. They're in a really good space. Or immediately before. Some people do the meeting group before. Very good time to meet people. Yeah.

Yeah. That's weird. We've had people win like raffles for, like, off-menu stuff and then coming to the live show and then come to see us either before or after. And I mean, I don't know if we really give them what they want. No. I think, I bet they love it. I bet you do.

Well, I mean, a lot of the time when they've come for like a charity raffle or something, they'll come and meet us on the stage before the show, and it's just before, like, our foods arrived. Oh, that's good. So we're a bit, like, we're a bit antsy. Like you're in socks with a clothing steamer going and foods just arrived. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've got a UK tour coming up? I'm going to be doing some dates here in April.

April 17th to the 27th? Yeah, yeah. But not just in London, all over. All over. Yeah. The United Kingdom. Is this the first time you've done all over the United Kingdom? Or have you done that before?

No, I've done Manchester a few other spots before. But it's the first time doing Glasgow. Nice. It'd be very fun. Glasgow's brilliant. Yeah, it is brilliant. You'll have a real, really nice time there. I should.

What do you enjoy about being in the UK that's different to the US? Because I always look forward to it when I go to the US, I'm like, I'm going to go Trader Joe so fast. Why do you like Trader Joe's so fast? This is what Americans always like, because I love Trader Joe's. Really? Whenever I tell an American I love Trader Joe's, they're like, Why? Why? What are you talking about?

Now, you know, Trader Joe's is owned by the same parent company as Aldi, which I believe is a German company. So do you have a Trader Joe cousin over here? We have Aldi. Aldi, but like it's not, I guess now you've said that. It might be the same stuff. The layout is similar, but it's not the same stuff. It's not the same stuff.

I know it's not called the same, but it might be the same product. No, if it was. We'd know. If it was, I'll be in there all the time. Trust me, John. Trust me. Okay. Okay.

I'm saying not packaged as well. and maybe truly, truly different product names, but I've heard it's the same stuff. They did not have... I've never investigated it my entire life. Aldi, as far as I'm aware, do not have roasted salted almonds covered in dark chocolate and turbanado sugar.

Right. Which is the thing I go to straight away in Trader Joe's. In Trader Joe's? I'm straight away, get a box of those for my rucksack. Have you ever had an Uber or taxi stop at Trader Joe's before getting to whatever hotel or apartment you're saying? Yes, I have. Yeah, 100%.

Yeah, I'll say you've got to go there, by a Trader Joe's, I can't wait a second longer. Right. I can't wait a second longer. I'm dying to be there. Yeah. I go in there and then you rush out because it feel bad for the taxi driver. I'm carrying all these different kinds of gummies and, like, chocolates and stuff.

I'm so excited. What's your favorite Trader Joe's thing? I'll go for the Scandinavian swimmers, which are basically their version of the Swedish fish, but they taste better than Swedish fish, do. They have a jarred something garlic crunch that I encourage anyone to stock up on. It is, you can put it on anything. It's a real, is it like a crispy onion garlic crunch? Oh, is it like the sort of, yeah, like crispy onion sort of?

Yeah, but it real oily and you could put it on anything and you'd be home free. And do they have an English, you know how they have different ethnicities at Trader Joe's? Do they have an English one? There's an English coffee that I see there. There's a box of English coffee. And do they try to brand it with like a... No, there's no like football hooligans on it. Football, yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, it just says English toffee. Yeah. And you think, yeah, we'll see about that. Trader Jose's English Toffee, deal with it. Yeah, yeah, deal with it. We couldn't figure what about, yeah. First thing I do when I come to London, it's really, you know, people think New York is very diverse, but it's not. Right.

Yeah, it's people pretty priced out of it. London is a very diversity. It's very nice to just walk around and be among diversity. You introduce yourself to everyone? I didn't know how to end it. The sentiment started out really nice, but then I didn't know how to end it. It's nice to just be among diversity. it. Yeah, yeah, sure. And add my own, add my own self to it. Yeah.

Certainly, yeah. Put yourself in there. Even more diverse now, John Mullaney's. A little bit. Yeah, or maybe less, depending on how you see things. Yeah, you were meant to come to London once, and you didn't, and I benefited from it. When was that? Well, we're going straight in. I'd never be able to talk to John about this. It's really nice to meet the both of you. Yeah, well, it's lovely to me. We've never met. Not even like, not even in like, Kill Kenny in 2009, I saw you once in a corridor. In a corridor? In a corridor.

Where? It was a... What if we didn't even explain where? We both had an understanding. Yeah. You didn't see me. The corridor. Yeah.

You didn't see me. I was at right angles to you. You didn't see. I was in a waiting area and you went down the corridor. You were just done a... Sounds like a hospital. We were doing back-to-back episodes of James Corden's late, late show. Oh, so that time.

Yeah. a while ago. And you'd just done the one before me. And I just happy to glance over. Zoe de Chanel. I can't, yeah. I was on with like... I was only on once. I think Ty and Keaton was on my one. Andy Garcia.

Yeah, that's great. Me doing some stand-up. Do you still talk to Andy? Yeah. All the time. We know what these talk shows are like. You make friends for life, right? Well, on a group one like that,

so what James did was he made it a group. Yeah. And those do get pretty tight. Yeah. Sometimes when it's one guest after the other, there's not really a lasting friendship. There's no what's happening. The panel ones are super tight.

Yeah, yeah. We didn't invite like Cordon or Reggie Watts onto the group because we know that they can't be on all the groups. Exactly. I bet they get added sometimes. Like, guys, this is a job for us, you know? But yeah. Yeah.

We could actually have a good time. Don't real life me. Yeah, we can't be on this. But yeah, yeah, me, me, Diana. Okay, I was coming to London. Wait, how did you say it? So, you were meant to come to, this was in, during COVID.

We've talked about this on the podcast a lot, by the way. So this is a huge moment for our listeners that you're finding on the podcast. A huge part of the off-menu law is that I've benefited from you having to pull out of something. So it was a film. Oh. And I replaced you two days before. Yeah. And it's the role of a lifetime.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And my character, or James Corden's in it again. This is another anecdote, James Corden. Me, James Corden, and Rommission, Nathan were the mice. Right. And in the script, I get there, and there's a character of James, but that's James, the Mouse,

Rames the Mouse, and I was John the Mouse. Great, yeah. And in the credits on John the Mouse, even though I requested, please could we change that? Because I'm not called John at any point during the film. They don't say my name is John. Now, they could have gotten out of it.

Now, they had some wiggle room. They could have said, we wanted you to be James, but James is already James. Yeah. Yeah. But I said, I was like, look, no one says, I think that even crossed their minds. No one says the names of the mice.

They just went right to, look. John the mouse. I said, if it's just in the credits, and no one's actually saying our names, can you just call, I mean, I guess this is a hard sell, but I said, could you call my mouse? Mickey. A-Caster.

Yeah, why not? I said, what I call A-Caster? Right. And they were like. And credits, by the way, is just typing. Who can? Yeah, exactly. They can change that way.

There's almost no one. Yeah, truly. Whereas, like, I might as well be called John Mullaney the mouse. Right, yeah. It's like, that wasn't meant to be me. You're leaving out my favorite detail. What's that? The hair?

Oh, yeah. I get there, and they go, we've got to get you in the hair and makeup. All right, fine. And Ramesh and Chordon were in and out of hair and makeup. I'm there for a long time. They're doing my hair for ages. I'm like, why are they doing my?

Ramesh and James were just like, yeah, there you go, you're done. Why are we spending ages on my hair? And what are they doing to it? It makes me look like your hair. They're darkening? It's your hair. It was how your hair was.

at the time. Sure. So by the end, I'm like, and I'm looking at it, and he's got a piece of paper, and I look at it, it's just a photo of you, and just directions on how your hair's meant to look. Because I was such a last minute replacement. Nobody pivoted. Nobody pivoted even a little. It was like, no one thought to tell the hair guy.

It's a different guy now. So was he quite stumped because he kept going like, look, I can, I can't make mirror. Yeah. Yeah. Just doesn't look. If this is what he looked like before. Yeah. That's what, how is it brought to you?

though, did you know that someone had dropped out a couple days before? No details, just like, John Mullaney can't make it now. I want you to know there was no details. No one was blabbing, John. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. He can't make it. He can't make it. It's COVID.

He's coming from America. He can't make it. He can't get it. Yeah, he can't make it. And that was it. What a fitting? Did you get the full fitting? Like, groin in seam, all this stuff?

No, he was wearing your groin. They just gave me. Like, you better have the same body type as John Malaney, because otherwise... Are we this... There's nothing we can do about this. Yeah, we're kind of like... It doesn't feel like it would be like a crazy. It's not a crazy stretch, yeah.

Yeah, and it was just like the guy playing the prince. Do we have the same heel to groin, though? Because that was big with the mouse costume. We can find out now. Yeah. We can try and sort it out. You know how you do it. You lay on the floor.

Yeah. Like brothers do, yeah. What brothers do? Yeah. Oh, that's wild. So that was my first film role. Never been in a film before. Huge. That was going to be my first film, too.

Really? Live action film, yeah. Well, you've done much cooler ones since. I've only done one. Really? Yeah. Oh, live action. I'm thinking of the Spider-verse.

Yeah, that was animated. Fantastic. That was animated the whole time. But they still did your heel to groin, right? Yeah, they did heel to groin, and then they do once around the skull under the armpit to waste, and they ask you to really stick it out. Yeah. Yeah.

For Spider-ham? For Spider-Ham. Yeah. Peter Porca. Did it fit the mouse costume, the footman costume? Yeah. You look great. You look great. It fit.

To be fair, I was pretty happy with the hair. That was out at Pinewood Studios. The Pinewood Studios. I was looking forward to that. Oh, yeah. I was really excited, yeah. What the stories that made you excited about Pinewood. You strike me as the kind of, I've seen a few interviews with you.

And you really like the history of places, like, especially showbiz places like showbiz stories. Yeah. You know some stories that I don't think I would have heard, well, it not for you, talking about it on a podcast or in an interview. You got a good nose for the kind of stuff. Yeah, like a little boy who lived with an old aunt and rode away to movie magazines.

Yeah. Yeah. I think you would like James Cameron telling them all to go fuck himself at the end of whatever film he did there. You know, there was a film that he did there. I think the alien, maybe aliens. Yeah. But at the end, he was like,

I don't want to work with any of you ever again. That's really funny. The end, Tim. That was an end. When he's rapping out of your chack. Hold on, quiet, everyone. Yeah. It was basically that. That's a production wrap on Linda Hamilton.

I don't want to ever see you again in my life. All the other actors who haven't wrapped yet being like, God. Yeah. Mine's Thursday. Pinewood, now I'm blanking, but was it some Alachina stuff? Was it some David Lean stuff? I was very excited for whatever it was, yeah. Yeah, the movies, I mean, obviously all the bonds that were filmed there as well.

Oh, were they? Yeah. Yeah. Loads of. Bonds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great British Bakeoff. Pull over, I'm James Bond.

You know? Or what is it? That's the guy. Yeah, that's, I think it's basically. Get out of the car, freak. Yeah. Right? Shall I read James Camvons?

I like that you're reading it. Here we go, it's Jim Cameron. This has been a long and difficult shoot, fraught by many problems, but the one thing that kept me going through it all was a certain knowledge that one day I would drive out the gate of Pinewood and never come back and that you sorry bastards would all still be here. That's great.

But he definitely would have had to have worked with some of them in the future at some point. Yeah. Maybe even like the next project. By the way, I did a segment on this Netflix show with stunt doubles specifically that had worked for James Cameron. And it is a pretty tight family. They've done most of the films. So it's kind of the same folks over and over. Yeah, yeah.

And he says that to them every time. Yeah, drove out of minewoods. You saw him bastards. That day he brought up. car. They're like, why is he bringing, why is his car pointed to the outside of the studio? What's he got going on? I was excited for that. Yeah, Pinewood. And that was going to be like right when, they wanted to film it right when COVID started, right? That was a script that this should take place at the beginning of a pandemic. Yeah, yeah. They wanted it to be like that. Yeah.

They wanted a lot of people to be sick outside the movie, but the people working on it to not be sick. Yeah, yeah. Which was, yeah. The bubble. Did you learn the song for it? No. No. I think the official reason was I didn't have a passport. Right. Okay. Right. Which is imp-you know, they're impossible to get. If you don't get one early, you're never going to get one, right? There's no way to expedite. Yeah, yeah.

Like there's no such thing as an expedited passport. There's no official thing called-examined. I've never had that word before. Yeah. I go, look, this, it's just not going to happen. Yeah. Well, it's in six weeks. Right. Yeah. You can get one in two. I know, but it's too late. Look, you really don't want me to show up at Pinewood.

I guarantee you in 2020, you did not want me showing up at Pinewood. Get James A, Castor. Yeah, get James. Yeah, I did. I put in a ton of names. Yeah. I appreciate that. Yeah, Milton Jones, everyone.

I said, get Milton. Well, obviously, the last name. He'll open with before I go. And how do you know, Milton Jones? You know, Melbourne, maybe. Yeah. I love Milton. Jones.

Oh, he's amazing. Yeah. When I started, I was a stand-up. That was my first year being a professional comedian was because Josie Long and then Milton Jones took me on tour with them. Josie Long, yeah. So like, yeah, Milton took me on. Literally, there was a, in the January, I was going to have to go back to my day job if

Milton didn't take me on tour. That's fantastic. And he did take me on tour. And he did an hour. Because I only saw him do shorter sets throughout that. You do an hour and I'd do like 20 at the top. And like, and because he kept on, he was just starting to get on TV here. So the tour kept getting extended.

And it was just. absolutely saved my life. That's fantastic. I would have had to go back and work at the school. I wasn't very good at that. It is amazing how much you own Milton and you still took away his part in Cinderella. Yeah, yeah.

I know, yeah. No, I think it was a costume thing. Oh, right. We are actually, a lot of people don't, yeah, we are different body types, Milton Jones. Yes, yeah, yeah. So how was the experience? Oh, great for me.

Yeah. I mean, obviously everyone had to keep being reminded what my name was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because everyone else's characters were just their name, and people would point in me and go, We just need you to move. Can you move?

Because that's not even an issue with it being a different actor. That's really just bad form on set. Yeah, I was last minute. But like, you know, I loved it. I loved to do it. We got to do green screen. I got to do a song. Yeah, the song.

I remember reading that and not having to rehearse it. Port and had to really carry the song. Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Me and Rom. I'd imagine he was fine with that, though. Yeah, he was fine with that. It was, it was, it was,

Rom says that when he went in to record his part, the guy at the piano just had his head in his hands and was hammering the key and asking Rom, in a very annoyed tone, can you hear that? So, it was pretty rough. So everyone behind the camera was quite unreasonably. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was the opposite of a gym camera. The crew were just like, you sorry, bastards. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get out of here. Oh, that's fantastic. Do you like being on set? I don't do much acting at all, so whenever I've done it, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I don't get to do much, but when I am. So it's always a novelty. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think as a stand-up, you kind of feel like that. You feel like I shouldn't really be here. I keep commenting on how it's early in the day. But all the things that are different, yeah.

Yeah. I go, no, I'm good, I'm good. It's, you know, it's 10 a. So many snacks. Yeah, so many snacks. Yeah, we're the only ones at the snack table. All the actors. We don't have any, yeah, we haven't, we've never,

it's so clear we've never gotten into a rhythm on set. Yeah. we're just constantly wandering around following different crew and eating snacks. Eating it like his last day. Really thinking we should be standing there in case a setup suddenly changes and we're in it, as opposed to waiting, which they're begging us to do. Yeah. It's very obvious on camera we're the ones who just ate a bag of skills and everyone else.

It's fine. We always start with still a sparkling mortar, John. Do you have a preference for your dream? It would have been sparkling for years, but I'm still now. What happened? Yeah, what was the change? I started getting frustrated with how, at a, meal, I'm going to the restroom three times minimum.

And they had a long meal, a sprawling meal, right? And some folks are just not getting up once. Yeah. We would have these dinners at Saturday Night Live and two and a half hours. And just from the Pellegrino, I'd be like, I'm going to the bathroom. Nothing's been served yet. So there's a first bathroom just to kind of stretch your legs. Then I'd have to pee again halfway through.

And then before we'd leave if we were walking back. to Rockefeller's center, I go, I have to pee again, like fully. Not a little, like a full urine. Not like a sickness where like there's a muscle weakness or something. It's not like a drizzle. You're not drizzling. It wasn't that. It wasn't, oh, you know, there was some hesitation and lack of completion, which is fine also. This was just like full bloated belly of piss. Needed to get it out again. And folks in their 60s and 70s weren't getting up. But to me, that's been more worried about the people who are not urinated.

at all. It is really weird. Yeah. Two and a half hours of drinking water and wine. Yeah. There's a blockage. Also, if it's SNL, I'm guessing when you're saying 60s and 70s, we're talking about specifically Lorne Michaels, and I imagine he never urinates. That's it. I think it might be that. I think he did, if he had to learn it, he learned it or he naturally had this gift of just like, it's quite, it's quite a thing to be with your boss and get up three times. It'll be some old school entertainment thing where he's like, I never. You go under the table and that's it. Yeah. And you call ahead and, yeah. I don't have time to be getting up.

Everyone knows how to do it. All the greats know how to, David Geffen, everyone knows how to not get up to pee. Yeah, they all get up in the restaurant that just pulls underneath the tables. Yeah. And you call ahead and put a card down for it. And they cover it. But I started to think like this Pellegrino stuff, this is just inflating me like a balloon, but not air of your... Yeah.

Yeah. But that's interesting. I've never heard anyone say that sparkling to make some piss more. Yeah. No one's ever said that. Because you would have thought there's so many bubbles in there that there's actually less water. I think I have a bad body. Not sick or, you know, anything major.

But just kind of like doesn't, just like, oh, what's this? Just really not equipped to handle anything. It panics. Like a bad maintenance crew. Yeah. What does we should get this out? Like, no, it's okay. It's okay.

It can stay in there. Like, no, the last time we got her out. Just like, yeah, just leave it in there. It can get bigger. Yeah. Yeah. And you were saying this in the bathroom as well out loud, aren't you? I say it out loud.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I don't want to get up, right? So I'm still the day. Yeah, yeah. You're at SNL, you're overlapped with Will Forte? I did, yeah. Did he ever do the prank I've heard about that he does to people in the bathroom where he just puts his hand in front of the stream of piss?

No, but I've been in near and around it, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I just wanted to verify that that's true. It's funny that it's a prank to other people because he's covered in his hand. Yeah, he's covered in piss. So someone's pissing, and then he just puts his hand in front of it. hands in front and going, hey, hi, hi, John, Salman, whoever it is, yeah. That's not a prank on that person?

It's more of a, yeah, it's just, it's like a, it's an action. So I've heard a few things about him, those kind of pranks. And they're all stuff that I think, if I did them, I would not execute them very well at all. It would go badly. He seems to have this thing where he just fully commits to the point where it is so funny, and I've never heard about him doing something like that. Yeah. And then everyone goes, oh, well, that was weird.

So I was in Colin Jost's office, and we were working on a sketch for a long, we were taking way too long, and we were eating teddy grams out of a box slowly, individually. I remember he was taking them out one at a time, so I was self-conscious to dump. So I kept also opening the box and taking one up. We were taking a long time to write this piece, and Forte is waiting on Jost to be done. And so it's, uh, Kalian, are you done? I'm waiting on you. Like, we just need a few more minutes.

And we're going to, a few more minutes in a few moments. And it's lasting like two hours. And he comes in, he goes, are you done yet? He goes, Will, I need a little more time. And then we'll be done. And he goes, oh, a little more time. There's a baseball bat. And he picks it up and he goes, who makes this bad?

Easton smashes it through the wall so loud. And it hit the, Eric Kenwood was in the next office and all this stuff flew off his shelves. And people came in and were like, what, Will? People were really mad. Yeah. It was very upsetting to people. So was that, would he consider that a prank then? So I don't know.

So it's interesting we're getting into the word prank. It's the first time I've really thought about it. Yeah. These acts of like destruction. That's not a prank. Like Will wants through someone's dinner out the window. Good prank. I guess that's a prank, but there's no tension.

Yeah. It was just one big thing. You think pranks should, after the prank has done, everything is the same as it was before the prank started? That's a good question. Does a prank involve, planning and misdirect. Yes.

Because there was no misdirect. Because just throwing someone's dinner out of window. Pretending to be upset at the name of the bat brand, I guess. Who makes this bat? Yeaston. That's what made of that. That was a bit of a misdirect. Yeah, yeah.

Poppins or bread. Popponzo bread, John Malang. I go popping off bread. Yeah. Crisp, pack a little bits. You know, I told you the Teddy Graham story. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

I have so many butter issues. Mm-hmm. that bread would be just, I don't want to get it. Talk through the butter issue. Is your bad body again? No, this is just cold butter, overly salted butter. I have lots of cold butter mainly. And I just feel like I just keep getting rolls with cold butter in the United States.

Not to put it on the states. They're going through enough, obviously. But even at a great restaurant, you go like, how can you fucking do this? This little coin of, this cold coin on paper. Yeah, horrible. It's really bad. We got a butterbell at home, which I enjoy a great deal. Sorry?

A butterbell is, I'll just describe it because I don't know why it's shaped this way, like a jar, and then you take it and upside down is this bell where you've stuffed butter, right? It sits out on the counter. It's not an image. You know, so you could do stick on dish with lid, right? Or you could do butterbell. It's a new thing in our life anyway. If it changed your life for the better?

It really is a good thing in my life. What percentage is it made your life better the butterbell? Okay, I'm going to give it because of the current raisin toast craze with my kids, I'd say this is 30% life better. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Fast sliced.

And how many sort of slices of raisin toast are your kids getting through a day, would you say? Meme can do two and a half. Nice. Yeah. So you need that production line of just. The production line's great. Yeah, yeah. I mean, smearing cold butter on, and messing up,

toast, scraping off the, it was really, it was really lousy, and my kids knew it was lousy. Yeah. Yeah. Is breakfast your, your forte? Forte. We're back to Will, isn't that interesting? Is that your specialty? As a dad, you're the breakfast guy?

No, I'd say breakfast is, we're sort of in between. Our kids really like savory, soy sauce and rice and cucumbers with salt. Breakfast is a, we're not quite nailing it with them. It's a lot of, you know, we like the idea of making pancakes and French toast for them and, you know, for the visual more. And, you know, there's music playing and I go, this looks like a home, you know. You're a family and a family and a thing, yeah. And we're the family stone. But they're much more like, let's skip to lunch food.

Let's have seaweed paper, rice, let's have diced peaches. Let's just have the stuff we like, yeah. I'm trying to get them into the traditional breakfast and it's not quite working. The toast, you're probably about to ask, what about the toast? You're just talking about it. That's like an afternoon thing. Oh, okay. And also, May really likes to hold a whole thing and rip bites off of it.

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. So when they're older, I mean, that's good. So much to look forward to. A burger. Yeah. I think a slice of pizza will be May's real thing. That's the ultimate.

And you learn a shape with it, which is rounded triangle. Let's get into your dream menu proper, your dream starter. So I was thinking a lot about it. It's French onion soup. Lovely. And yet I'm mad at French onion soup every time. You're mad at it? Because it's wonderful French pizza, and then underneath, was there a flood?

Like, one of the least fun things underneath the most fun top. You've just made it so American somehow. You just want the pizza topping. Yeah, no, but not just the pizza. I want, and it's a brown. bowl, it's a special bowl, they don't put anything else in. And it's colored, it's painted brown. It's like a glaze fired and a kiln thing. And there's the cheese on this rim. I don't need to tell you

this. I assume other people have picked this in it. But scrape that, break through, cutting through pizza with a spoon. All of it's super fun. And then you go, like, as if you're renovating a beautiful house, fucking water damage in it? What is this? Hot water? Yeah. Yeah. So the soup is what surprises you when you get fudge onions. Yeah. Yeah.

So enjoying the French. I'm not raised by wet bread. That's almost like the insulation under the pizza. Yeah, yeah. But then at the bottom, I'm like, get this out of it. This is onion water. So you don't want the, well, it's the onion soup, right? So you don't actually want the onion soup at all in the dream meal.

Or do you just want the topping? It's got to, I mean, the topping is part of the soup. Sure, but you only like the topping. I don't want onion broth. That's fair. But I'd say that's mainly the soup. Well, that's a good question. Would French onion soup exist without the top? Do you think people would order onion broth?

Yeah, it's onion soup. There is? Yeah, it's onion soup. That's what it is. I don't know what he's talking about. Is there onion soup without the cheesy top, with the bread, with the pizza? The French pizza? I reckon, surely there is. I've never seen it. I've never seen it.

Why would you have it by itself, though? Yeah. My issue is all one thing. Yeah, yeah. On the opposite of you, I forget about the top every time. Every time I order a French onion soup. You pop it off of that. looking. I'm like, oh, yeah.

Oh, that's funny. They've done this. They put this on and I can't get straight to the soup because I've got to deal with this first. I always forget about the top. Yeah, yeah. Wow. I think because my mom did make French onion soup when we were kids, but it was just a soup. Yeah. No bread. No, so that's my memory of French onion soup. It was onion broth? Yeah, it's at home. We were eating. I know. We loved it. A minute ago, you were challenging me and saying that you've never seen the soup without the to offer. I've never seen it. She'd ladle onion water, brown, brown, brown onion water.

You'd all be there? Yeah, but not like, you're making it sound like Charlie Bucket and stuff. It wasn't like Charlie Bucket and not picturing that. Yeah, it wasn't like Charlie, wasn't in bed of my grandparents? 1938, 39. Yeah. I agree with you the best bit is the cheese, but I think it goes with the... I think everyone would agree with that.

Yeah. And I think people like the soup underneath it. I like the soup underneath it. My issue with it is, is so hot all of the time. It's so hot also. Soup is so hot. But that soup, especially, the hot brown water. It is because I think there's like in other stews, I feel like potato carrot absorb heat.

Yeah. Does you ever bite into a potato in a stew? You're like, this is criminally hot. But the onion can't, it's just, you're just dealing with hot water. Yeah, it's just boiling water. And then I'm so hungry that I end up eating all the cheese off the top because the soup's not ready. Yeah. To be eaten because it's so hot.

So I'm always doing extra scrape around the bowl. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Are you scraping the outside. rim as well in eating that cheese. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So bubbling over, yeah. To me, that feels like illegal cheese that I shouldn't be having.

Why illegal? Because in my mind, they might not have washed that bowl properly, and some of that cheese might be left over from the last time they did. It's really weird. I have total trust in the sanitation of restaurants. I've never been like, you know, people that have all the apocryphal, like, oh, they rub their body parts on these things. I've just, I've never bought into them.

Yeah. Yeah. You can't be found terms like illegal amount of. I reckon guests. Sorry. They don't. It doesn't mean the same thing over there. Okay.

It's a lot more flexible. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, we have a pretty strict. Yeah. As you know, we follow it pretty strict. Your dream main course. Oh, you know what? I forgot.

Let's go. Let's go. Come on. No, but I was going to do it before the start. I thought it'd be fun because we never done it with a guest before. We could do it with John and get him to say grace before the meal because of when you're in the bear and when you say grace in the bear, it's a very good moment. Oh, yeah, that's fun.

Yeah. And I thought, oh, great, we've got a guest on who said Grace in a very iconic episode of television. Yeah. We could get John to do that. But now I've just remembered it as we got into the main course and that's annoyed me. Do you ever edit the podcast? Never. I mean, what I'd like to throw out is the to maybe do something and then put it in earlier. Ben will never edit it to make us sound better. So he would leave, he will leave this in. Oh, that's right. You're quite serious. You wouldn't, yeah.

Here's a question for you. Why couldn't you drop out of that two days before? That would have been nice. That episode's crazy. That would have been great. That was, in 2023. Yeah. Things were a lot.

You had a passport. I had a passport. You could get over. I had over two years of passport. Yeah, you could get up to Chicago. Oh, man. That episode's so funny, man. What was the phone of TV?

We were all around that table on the stage in Chicago. There were few interiors at a house in the suburbs, and then we were around that table on the stage for two days. It was great. Oliver Platt kept ordering milkshakes. Abby Elliott was pregnant, so she wanted one, but he would kept drinking her milkshake by accident, and he was nodding off from them.

And everyone was yelling at him. And then John Burnthal, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jeremy Allen White, Sarah Paulson, these people know how to act. Yeah. And I mean, there were times when I thought, I think they think they're the characters. And they were really yelling.

And I felt unsafe. Yeah. It turns out, James was a great replacement for you in Cinderella, because you're like that around actors when you're watching them going, I can't believe it. It's like they're pretending to be this person, but really well. I can't believe it. Yeah.

And like, I just... I can't believe it either. I know I'd never be able to properly become an actor, because, like, I just can't... I could convince myself I'm one person if I had a ton of time. But the idea of, like, getting a note from the... Re-calibrated. On set, first time you've ever done it.

And being like, I'm this, I'm this. You know, person's mind. I'm saying you're pretending to be this person slightly wrong. Can you change how you're pretending to be this person? Yeah, okay, I'll do it a whole other way and it'll also seem like I think I'm a person. Yeah. Why don't I change the type of person I am and I'll fully believe it also? Okay.

Yeah. That episode, every time another person popped up, I would just laugh out loud because the cast was so amazing. Oh, that's funny. It's so funny. He saw it before me. And I was like, I'm watching this, Susan the Bear. He went, let me know when you get to, um, Fishes, it was called me.

Yeah, let me, if you even told me what the episode is. There's an episode, and when you get to it, you'll know which what it is. They just tell me how much you're laughing all the way for it. When people, we keep popping up. Yeah. Because it was second season, right? Second season, and then later, Olivia Coleman. Yeah, people started to really appear in there.

It's because I think that first season did so well. It was like the writers had got all of these voicemails from everyone's age and just gone, absolutely. Great. We're going to make it work. So that episode just made me. Yeah. Well, the thing about that episode that's, yeah, I'm sure loads of people told you how good this episode is,

but one of the things is at the top of it when, because there's like a bunch of, I think you and a bunch of other people all suddenly walk across the camera. Yeah. And you're like, are they going to do loads of cameos in this show now? I don't know if this is going to work.

And then by the end of that episode, that's one of the best episodes of TV I've ever seen. So the fact that it kind of, there's that experience as a viewer where at the beginning you go, oh, I'm not sure about it. That's cool. I like that you had that experience too. Because, yeah, it's nice to go, okay, one of these shows.

And then they really did, yeah, they really did write the shit out of everybody in that. At one point, I'll tell you about the acting thing, you know, where you really are in it. There was one moment where I wasn't thinking about, you know, something else. I was really in it. And Jamie Lee Curtis is yelling at Sarah Paulson. And Sarah Paulson interjected something unscripted when she's fighting with John Bernthal. And Jamie Lee said something like, Why don't you shut your mouth, you little bitch?

And I went, hey, hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey. And she went, don't you, hey, hey, hey, me? And I'm like, okay, I'm so sorry. I walked in the kitchen once, and she was yelling at Abby's character. She was yelling at Sugar, and I just turned, I was so scared. I just turned right away. Luckily, that is your character in the episode.

For sure. In the episode, so you're okay. Yeah. The only people you don't respect to the facts, and that's it. You're laughing at them, which is also a great look. We could talk about that episode for ages. It's brilliant. Yeah.

It's good stuff. And food-related. So, absolutely perfect. I've never been to one of those seven fishes dinners, have you? No. Didn't even know about it until. Didn't even know about it either. But I'm not Italian at all.

I don't know any of that crap. No, I mean, really. I've never been my whole life. Yeah. And I've met him. Yeah. But I've never been a part of that. Italian-American stuff, mafia stuff.

I've always been like, truly no judgment. Yeah. That's definitely not. Yeah, yeah. You like the food, though? Yeah, a lot. Yeah, yeah. Especially the fish.

Talking about the main course. Yes. Chicken Parmesan. Yes. Lovely. Can't shake a stick at it ever. Now you're like, what's with you and hardened cheese? Right.

For sure. I don't know if, and I thought about it. I go, would you order them one after the other? And I went, John, embrace the spirit of the paragraph you were sent. That these are, you know, each item is the dream. Yeah. And I could also see having French onion soup and then chicken parm. Yeah, I love this.

I mean, if there's something with melted cheese on it, I'm more than likely going to go through it. Because it also might have a scrape. Now, you're wondering, do you like the spaghetti on the side? A little. It's really not, I always think I'll need that too, right? Because it's going to be such a pure protein meal. Yeah. Chicken pizza.

And then I get to it and I go, the crusted bready cheese on the cheese on the cheese on the chicken is enough starch. I'm good. And also, it's such a savory thing, chicken parm, that whatever marinera they have, and I'm talking at a quality, again, Italian-American place. And I've never been interested in that at all. That sauce is just not going to measure up to a chicken parm. Yeah. So I'll order it. 100%. Yeah. Not going to say no. But rarely do I go, I'm really going to dig into this with the whole fork and the swirl. The spaghetti, I kind of, I was just in New York and had chicken farm with the spaghetti. Yeah, where'd you go? Do you remember?

Frank. Oh, great. It was fantastic. Fantastic. They have another restaurant called Lil Frankies that we've been to. Yeah. Yeah. And we speak about the aubergine quite a lot. I love the obergen. Yeah. Try to recreate it many times. What is obergen? They just, that mean... Eggplant. I guess... Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Oh, fantastic. Yeah. But they just grilled the hell out of it.

then just mix it all up in the middle of. So they put salt and pepper and garlic and all sorts in it. And just like for a dish that on paper just sounded quite boring, it rocked my world. I really don't always, I don't mess with eggplant parmesan. And I really don't mess with chicken milanase. So I'm not, you know, yeah, it's interesting.

I've wondered, you really love chicken parms so much and it has these, you know, cousins, do you want to mess with them? So is it mainly the cheese that you're invested in in this course as well? an eggplant parm have it as well? Yeah, it would. I just can't imagine getting through that cheese and seeing eggplant, not chicken. It's just expectations management. Yeah.

I'd want to see chicken. Millenades is crazy. That's like a crazy. I think it's like just chicken soaked in white wine or something. Right, yeah. That's crazy. Come on. Joe, I was given recently.

So there's a comedian called Phil Dunning in the UK who is from Middlesbrough and a local delicacy in Middlebury. Now, what does that mean? It's in the North East. What connotations would it have? I don't know what. What would the connotations be from Millsbys? In the northeastern area, near Newcastle.

Okay. I guess Phil Dunning really likes the, I think Phil Dunning really likes the working class element of Middlesbrough. Okay. And he likes a dish, like the palm that they do there. Chicken palmo. Chicken palmo that has Bechamel sauce in it. But so much Bechamel sauce on top, it was insane.

I had me eat it on a show that he was. doing. And it was a tough, I mean, also, obviously it was on TV, so it's gone cold for the time they got it to me. It's covered in Bechamel sauce and then cheese on the top. And they serve it in, they'll do like late night places. So you go out drinking and then go to like what would normally be like a kebab shop or a chip shop.

Yeah, yeah. And serve for your massive chicken parmo in a pizza box. It's like a huge bit of chicken bashed out, breaded, covered in Bechamel sauce, cheese, pepperoni sometimes as well. That's that northeast stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if you go.

I don't think you're making it up to the northeast of England on your tour, but it's worth to stop on the way to Glasgow. I'm not sure. Where would one go if they were going there? Yeah, you're not going close there, really. You're passing through it to Glasgow. So, like, maybe on your way to Glasgow, you can stop off at Middlesbrough. And see Phil's chicken parmo. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I've served late night at a kebabbblis. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you have to ask for Phil's as well, no matter where you go. They'll know what you mean. Phil Dunnings, yeah. The one he eats. Yeah. Phil Dunning. Dunning. Not Phil Dunham like Jeff Dunham. Thank you.

You love. I could have, we could have glanced by. I did the thing of I didn't hear the name clearly. Yeah, yeah. But you wanted to get it right. And I appreciate that. Yeah. Jeff Dunham, when I started,

it's one of those things where we had no idea what the real problems were in America. I remember 2005, people were just taking me leave Jeff Dunham. He's a racist puppet, you know. And I was like, I was like, yeah, this is one of the biggest racists we're facing. It's a bit like Scientology. If you asked me in 2014, what's the biggest problem facing America?

I would have been like, I think we're good, but we got this ideology. This Leah Remini stuff. Like, if we could get rid of this, I think we'd be fine. We had no idea. But Jeff Dunham, I remember I was at Go Bananas in Cincinnati. I was featuring. Jeff Dunham, it's 2005. It's like the biggest comic at the moment.

Just that we laugh there because every time we hear the name of an American comedy club, it makes us laugh. Yeah, and that's like... Because go bananas. Go bananas is pretty crazy, but it's not even anywhere near. Rooster T. Feathers, I think, is... Because nothing about Rooster T. Feathers is a comedy pun. And it's not even a pun. It's not a play on words. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Is there a mascot of Ruster T. Feathers? He would be it. Yeah, yeah. Sounds like a guy. It has a separate mascot. It's called Rister T. Feathers. It's home of Rodney Rooster. Did the rooster, like, come out to greet people at the club or anything?

Or is he just on the logo? It was a pretty good club in California that you could do on that sweep, you know? But what go bananas in Cincinnati? I'm at Go bananas, and on the wall. Monkey Masker? Is there a monkey mascot? No, almost nothing.

A really solid club with like a great... I mean, Cincinnati had a really good homegrown comedy scene, really good comics, and, you know, a sign that says Go bananas, but not leaning into it, just a nice, low-ceiling, good acoustics club. Just happened to be called Go-Banans. And on the wall, you know, people would sign the wall.

And Jeff Dunham was so popular and someone wrote, I fucked the old man puppet while peanut watched. I just remember thinking that they didn't look up the name of the old. Yeah, they didn't look at his name. They didn't look at his name. Jeff Dunham, that came from Phil Dunnon. Yes, that's a chicken parmo. You covered in chicken bar.

Which is chicken vegetables. And chicken palms. And chicken, chicken palms are your main. Which is not even technically recommended. You just said you had it. I had it. It wasn't very nice when I got given it. I was giving it cold, though.

I'm sure it's nice when it's hot. Where's Yorkshire? Is that up there? That red riding. It's not far. It's before there. All that. Remember those events?

Yeah, yeah. I'm familiar with Red Rider with the TV series Red Riding. Yeah, yeah. You pulled that out. Really lousy place from what I saw in the show. Sure. It's a beautiful. Get over.

You know, really like, guys, everyone relax at once. I think there would be a lot of people in the UK who have no idea what you're talking about, even though it's an English TV show about Drew Garfield. It was a three-part, a massively sad and disturbing thing. I watched it in all one sitting. I don't think you're doing any shows in Yorkshire either. No, you're not. Is that because of red riding?

Probably. If I got booked in Yorkshire, I'd go, like, you know, they're very violent. And I'll probably be in some underground network passed around. But honestly, don't believe what you saw. in red riding. I've never been there, but like, I think Yorkshire's super bounce back from that time. Yeah, like doing really, really well since then. Yeah. Your dream side dish. Hen of the woods mushrooms doesn't go with chicken parm. But that's not how I'm viewing this podcast. You don't have to do. I think it doesn't go with it. I don't, actually, I'm saying that because

I'm trying to beat some audience member to the ick thing. I don't care. Yeah. And you shouldn't care. You don't at home go like, this will bounce you. I, you know, whatever I want. Some people will attack you online for this menu. I bet. That's just going to happen. But that's really good because you have very activated audience, like activated cells.

A lot of it's me as well, though. I'll go on and attack you. You have a variety of accounts? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's really... That's cool. I mean, that's one way to get stoke it, even. If you have a slow episode, even, you're like, I'm going to drum up some stuff.

But you can tell it to me because I always end every message with who's with me. You know, I love a decent roast chicken. too. So Hand of the Woods is probably coming from that. Yeah. Because often at your, often at your very good steak place, I'll also get the roasted chicken. Hand in the woods, I'm just always happy to see. It's a vegetable? No? No. A mushroom. Is a mushroom a vegetable? No. Yes. Yes. Fungus? Yeah, I think fungus is not vegetable, is it? Wow. We've got a food podcast, man. We should know this straight away. Yeah, we should be on this. It's a fungi. It's a fungi.

So that's not a vegetable. When was the first time you heard about hen of the woods mushrooms? Because I think they've only come into my life maybe in the last couple of years. Yeah, that's fair. I feel like I became this sort of like, I'm going to have the roast chicken. 2011? 2012. I got sick of salmon.

Everyone in the United States at that time, and this was Obama years, was eating salmon. And I thought, this is fine. But I didn't like the ordering of fish, save that of Dover's soul. I just, it's not fun. And people would also give the temperature of the salmon. I like it pink. It's like, it's all pink. Yeah, yeah.

It's very pink. You're going to be, don't worry. Yeah. And so it was a bit like, I'm done with salmon. Wasn't anything I announced. Wasn't anything I like, you know, no publicist, no agent, just like me. Just like me in my own. Me on my own.

Was started to be like roast chicken, maybe mashed potatoes. Yeah. Hand of the Woods mushrooms. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think they are the best mushrooms. Yeah, for sure. Portobello is a different kind of mushroom.

It is. Yep. But that's old, like, I've, I'd heard about that ages ago, I think. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Portobello, button. They're the classics. Red with white dots. Yeah.

A large red, a large red with large white dots. So big you could sit on it, maybe. A hundred percent. Yeah. And maybe it's candy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Like the Wonka thing. The Wonka thing. The Wonka thing. The Wonka. One of those big Augustus Gloop. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland.

He died. He died. Yeah. He died in that ring. All of the other kids don't die. If you read the original Roaldol book, but they say at the end, Augustus Gloop did die.

He did die? Yeah. In the Chocolate River. But Blueberry Girl and Mist thing. Mike TV as well. Mike TV, all fine. Mike TV, the best. Yeah.

Mike TV the best and always doesn't get remembered. Everyone remembers Augustus Gloop. No one really ever remembers Mike TV. That's a big moment, isn't it? I think because... Grooops the headline, I'm aware of that. That's like the final destination. You're basically punishing gluttony with, I mean, gluttony and greed, sort of, with the first three.

And then his is just, he wants to be on TV and likes TV. It's not that bad of a problem. Nor are the other kids, sorry, I think he's hard on the other kids. Yeah, it's hard on all the kids. Was he a Yorkshire guy? Because he had hate in him, right? I think he was quite a bad guy, actually. I've got Stokel in my head, but was he for a while?

Of a new book. What? Stop writing this. stuff, man. It's too mean. He was quite bad. Yeah, he's a pretty bad dude, actually. And his thing with larger kids, he really didn't like- hated him.

He really didn't like, big kids. He really hated him. Was that a war thing, I wonder? Because it was a large kid in the 40s, you'd go, you're not saving margarine for bombs or whatever it was supposed to be happening. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what he's supposed to be doing. Yeah, yeah.

Saving butter to make bombs. That was just in general for ages, though. Every, like, there's a whole run of Spielberg. films where there's just an overweight kid in every film who just gets absolutely punked out. Because like, Spielberg's like just gay. And he's normally a little wealthy too. Like, there's this feeling of like you're only big because you have too much. You could never be below the poverty line.

And he's always like dragging the gang down if he's in a gang, right? Because they're having to run around and stuff and they're all like keep up fat kid and stuff. Yeah, you've got chunk and goonies obviously, which is Spielberg produced. and then we'll go through all the films and then we'll edit it in later. Yeah. I was a fat kid and I think I watched those films being like, at least he's got like friends.

He's got people to hang out with, you know. I guess the group seemed to have friends back home. Yeah. He has to understand he's a German in England. He's a chunk had friends. I watched a documentary about the Goonies recently just on YouTube as a YouTube one. But the guy, Chunk now grown up, and he works.

He's an entertainment lawyer. Yeah, he's a lawyer. Quite successful. And he was saying like, pretty dark because like during the goonies they just wanted him to like maintain the weight and it's not that much weight when you look back at it he's just kind of a round-headed kid yeah so he turns up at his trailer one day oh no and there's just just donuts this muffins it was muffins just for the and these muffins that no kid like just so much like good stuff in

these muffins and just trays of them and he's eating them and then but then later on was like discovered no one else had those trays of muffins in there trailer. Well, I guess, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to advocate for what they did, but kids lean out so fast that I don't think it was, like, I don't think this was like, we permanently want to keep you in an unhealthy state just to get the shot. But it's like 11, 12, you're just growing every year. And I can understand what they were doing. And also, what I will say is it's the opposite of what you hear about the entertainment industry most of the time. That's fair. It's quite, you know, you know, right? It's not, you know, making actresses eat cotton,

wool or whatever, you know, you're giving a kid some muffins. It's fantastic. Chunk out, baby. He doesn't seem to like it these days. No. He's an adult and he's a lawyer and he's like, that was weird when they gave me all their muffins. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That got him into law. Yeah, he goes, this has to be wrong. Yeah. He sued them. He sued the muffin company. Yeah. People v. muffin. We're going to move on to your dream drink now. As we leave the savory courses, I am sad that we haven't had a plain plate of noodles with a little bit of butter on it.

Oh. I love that special. You do, thank you. It's what I'm, I've got the vinyl. You do? I've got the sack lunch bunch vinyl. James, that means a lot. Very much, that's my favorite thing I've ever done.

I love it. And people really loved it, but it is not the most widely seen thing I've ever done. I'm very, very happy you like it. It's my favorite thing you've done, actually. I love it and I'm a fan anyway. But like, grandma's got a boyfriend. Grandma's got a boyfriend. Sing it all the time.

And her boyfriend's name is Paul. What a song. Yeah. Based on my nana and her boyfriend, David. Yes, I didn't know how much, because I knew that you had to take to social media to clear some things up afterwards, but I didn't know how much of it was real.

Yeah, that was 2020. You had to talk about the story with the brooch and stuff like that. But like, so I didn't know how much was genuine. There's been a lot of. Yeah, no, what happened was David, David took my nana, to a formal of some kind,

and she wore the dress she'd worn the last time she went out with my grandfather had passed away. And they lit into her. I mean, they went after her. My aunts were not happy. And one time, David, you know, and they would clown on David a little.

David had not served in World War II. But I'm sure he had a good reason. David was a really nice guy. David had written the first SAT test, which is a big thing in America. So that was interesting. And David loved crosswords. And he had have a martini and he'd call my Nana at night.

And he, my aunt picked up one time. And he didn't realize it was her and he went, Bonsois, my cheery, and they went, oh my God, it's David! They're all screaming laughing at him. Poor David, man. Yeah, I really was like, guys, David's a good guy. Yeah, he's not the reason Grandpa isn't here. Like, let's relax.

That's why the song is funny, is how much the kid likes Paul. Yeah. He's a decent guy. Despite the fact that his aunt and his mother hates Paul. They really don't like it. I'm just the fact that he's so fond of him.

I was sorry, David did once intervene. We were on a trip. Yeah. No, I was not on this trip. They were in Ireland. And there was just a regular ass fight between daughters and mother. And David was like, now ladies, ladies, ladies.

I was like, oh my God. Yeah, that's a big move. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Really bad move. Yeah. Really bad move. I mean, I'd never shout out for Nish here,

but I'd line for. from the song that we will text each other sometimes is Paul, this is not your fight. Yeah, yeah, yeah. These women would love a reason to destroy you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a great verse. Yeah.

It really is a verse where every line is funny. That was, we weren't, I was really happy. I've never had a thing that I, in the pitching, and even in, you know, Marica Sawyer and I were really on the same page, but it was kind of hard to describe it in total. And yet we just knew what it was, and when it came out, it was exactly what we wanted. That kid is a great singer. Jacob, who did, Jake, Ryan, who did Paul.

He's a great singer. And that had a kind of midnight train to Georgia feel, which was fun. Plain plate of noodles was very carolking chicken soup with rice, that song. So we're really excited about that one. Plain plate of noodles, I think a lot of kids had that my little sister, Claire, was very, plain pasta at every restaurant. My mom would order for her and explain it. It would be like, just noodles, you know.

So, and my dad used to have these ridiculous steaks of like, are you going to order it? You'd often go, are you going to order that when you're invited to Buckingham Palace? The ultimate test. Also, I don't think you would order if you were in Buckingham Palace. And from what I've seen, I don't think it's a sit-down dinner. It looks like you all line up in one room. It was pretty quick.

But even if they were having... We're having pasta. If someone had you over for dinner, would you be like, would you order something when you arrived? Probably not right. They'd just bring you stuff. I think it was getting to that stage where we'd be at like a wedding and my mom would be like, she can't have this? Can she have noodles?

What's going to happen when the Buckingham invitation? And when I would cut my spaghetti, he would say that. What are you going to do? Yeah. What are you going to do on a date or at your wedding or at Buckingham Palace? He was always adding wedding. At your wedding, you're going to look like a fool if you're going to look like a fool if you're don't learn how to eat better.

Well, just, you know, a groom, just eating the whole time. So you met eating in general rather than there's going to be spaghetti at all these places. Yeah, not like, hey, I could show you how to eat spaghetti better. It was like, in the next 20 years, an invitation is going to come and that you can't pass up. Your dad is such a great character when he crops up in your stand-up. What's his opinion on how he's portrayed? I think he really likes it. I found most everyone's happy to be mentioned.

The only times I've had any static or when people who are not, mentioned. Yeah. He likes it a lot. I think it's added to this vibe he was very happy to put out of like cold and unapproachable. He liked that at work a lot. He had no family photos in his office at his law firm. He had one photo of a federal judge named Ed Weinfeld that he had clerked for who was like a look man looked like a bird. He had bald head with a big bowtie. And that was the only photo he had. And I asked him, I go, why don't you have any pictures of us? He goes, I don't I don't want anyone who walks in there to know anything about me. Wow.

Wow. And the seats in his office were too narrow so that people wouldn't stay for long. Well, I love that. Yeah. Yeah. It's what we're trying to do with the studio, actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So your dream drink, John?

Pretty arbitrary. I'll go cherry Coke. Lovely. Yeah. Lovely. Yeah. So carbonated, right? Yeah.

So obviously, at that point in the meal, I'm okay with it. You're going to be up and down to the toilet quite a lot. Yeah. Do you drink wine with dinner? Sometimes. If I'm out, I'm not drinking wine at home with dinner. It's funny, when I drank, I never did. So when I see people doing it, I'm like, I wonder, does that taste good going back and forth like that?

Yeah. Okay. That's why it's so. But is it, when food makes your mouth dry, is it like refreshing wine? Depends. If you're having like a cold white wine, it might be refreshing if it's a hot day. Right, but a hot red on a hot day. A hot red and a hot day does not work.

Yeah. I'd say, now you've got to go. It always looked to me like, is that helping the fundamental reason you have a drink is to help with how dry food can be? I wouldn't say food necessarily makes my mouth dry when I'm eating it. Then you're not doing it right. Yeah. Yeah.

Because my saliva's like in there and stuff as well. So I'm not like, I need a drink. I've made my mouth dry with all this food. What do I not? So help me with what I'm saying then. I don't mean dry, but... You just mean like your... What is the condition that food leaves our mouths in where we're...

need to drink something. Yeah. It's really... It's wiped out. It just feels like... You need to refresh it with something. You need to refresh it, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think wine does do that, and also you compare wine to food and, you know, it can become a whole new sensation. Right? And they'll talk a lot about it. Yeah. And they have people that serve wine. Yeah. Exclusively. Yeah, the wine guys. Yeah. And they'll tell you all about it. Cherry Coke is just... In fact, I'm going to have one as soon as I can. I haven't had one in a while.

We've got some cherry Pepsi Max in. the fridge. Oh, yeah, I'll have that. Is that good enough? Yeah, 100%. Cherry Pepsi's really fun. I don't drink a regular Pepsi, but cherry Pepsi's really fun. Cherry Pepsi Max is up there for my favorite drinks, I think.

What's the max? Is that more caffeine or something? Less, I think. Less? No sugar. It's basically... Oh, it's like a Coke Zero. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. But I don't know why it's called Pepsi. They had no Coke Zero on the flight today, and it was a real thing. Yeah. Yeah, they were like Diet Coke. It was just everybody was ordering Coke Zero and they didn't have any. And so is a lot of, we have diet, we have regular, oh, no coaxia. It was like the same conversation happening, as if no one could overhear what had just happened at the

car. Yeah. What did you watch on the flight? Nothing, 50-minute flight from Dublin. Oh, of course. It's from Dublin. I thought it's from America. What did you watch from the flight from America to Dublin? I watched a documentary about the move group in Philadelphia. They were kind of a back-to-nature and also semi-revolutionary, not not. Not quite Black Panthers, but they were, you know, an African-American group in Philadelphia in the 70s that the police just destroyed.

There's an HBO documentary about some of them who are still in prison 40 years later. I watched some of that and then fell asleep. Yeah. Fair enough. Yeah. And then woke up with just about the nicest code zero you've ever had. When I was in Philadelphia, I really wanted to go around and see the, there's lots of famous graffiti there because there's a whole thing in the past of like, like, yeah, like graffiti and got like kind of. of was illegal and then all these people got punished for graffiti in and then now those same

people are basically the people designing the murals and stuff around Philadelphia. And I wanted to go out and see these like historical bits of graffiti. But I forgot and then I was really gutted on them play at home because like I understand that one of them, it probably still isn't there, but they graffitied the side of an elephant at the zoo. Oh, that's wild. Yeah. And he stood still the whole time.

Yeah, they made to tag it. Just tag this elephant. Wow. Did you have a graffiti? No way. Not in any serious way. Yeah, I did a couple. I tagged up a couple garages.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's pretty... A couple. That's good. That's pretty big. What was a spray can? No, not with a spray can. What was your tag?

I've never known how to operate. I'll tell you a second. I've never known how to operate a spray can. No. Like, I've never done it where it's always just gets all over my hand. Oh, yeah. I just really spray and make letters. That's an art.

You're pointing it the wrong way. So the hole needs to be facing towards the wall. It does? Yeah, yeah. No, shake. and then get a little, oh, you're right. With a marker, I wrote, we are the fuckers on us.

We are the fuckers. We are the fuckers. And we've been here and we might come back. And this is pre-meat the fuckers? Can't be. We Are the Fuckers was before Meet the Fuckers, yeah. We had the word before meet the fuckers. We are the fuckers.

Yeah. Kind of like we fuck, we're 12, we fuck, we've been here and we might come back. Yeah. You didn't even know we were here. Yeah. I found some liquid chalk pens once on the street. Wonderful.

And I was like, I'm going to do some graffiti, but I didn't want to do it on any public property. So I went and did it to my own bedroom and wrote Slipknot lyrics on my chest of drawers. Oh, cool. And then wrote Anton Sanzel LeVay on the inside of my wardrobe, who was the Satanist? The head of the Satanist church, yeah. Yeah. You know, it's funny about Anton LeVay is there was a Manson girl who rolled with him for a little bit.

Yeah. And she was so intense. he went, you get, like it was during some orgy and Sam, he went, you gotta get out. Yeah, this is, we're not actually doing this. Come on. Yeah, and he kicked her out, being too intense. Yeah. He was the same the whole time, that guy bald and loved the devil. Like, it wasn't like, yeah, I have a new way, it was just always the same.

Like, woke him, just all the same. Yeah. Same every day. Every day got up. Yeah, I'll wear dark clothes again and do that. Yeah. Devil. Goths are consistent is what you find about them. Yeah, I just, I wondered. was he like year four?

Are you like, are you bored of this? Because it feels like it was just like to escalate nasty behavior. And now you're just in it. And like, you know, having people send self-adress stamped envelopes and stuff. Your dream deserves that. You were into him, huh? Yeah, fair enough. I was like a metal head and like loved all of those bands and stuff

and then, you know, read up on Satanism and stuff. I was never into it in a sort of real way. You more liked the music and wanted the bands to think he was cool if they ever met him. It's scary, Satan. Yeah, yeah. I remember that, you know, that time, yeah. You see, like, at a head shop with sold bongs, it'd be the pentagrams. You go, no, I'm not even, I don't even know if I believe, but no, I'm not going to mess with that.

I still like, I've got a little devil on my, on my chain, did I see? Oh, yeah, there he is. You're right. I love that guy. Well, that's the devil. Yeah. And Satan feels like a different kettle of fish. Yeah. That's serious.

But I think they're the two sides of the same coin. 100%, but devil feels like, you know, like, you know, like, ding. Yeah, yeah. Satan is like, you know, I'm the father of all lies. Yeah, he's like that. Devil's like, you know. Yeah, he's like prodding people in the butt. Yeah, steal that.

Yeah. He's the guy on the shoulder, the devil, right? Yeah, Satan's not on the shoulder. Jesus. Yeah, Satan's on a big... Satan's on the back. He's a big goaded beast, you know? Yeah, yeah. You've been dessert.

Speaking of missing, what was the movie? Cinderella. Yeah. While in rehab. a bag of Sour Patch Kids and a cigarette outside in the cold Pennsylvania snow. See, now I'm going to come across as an absolute superfan, but again, this is a line that Nish particularly likes while here all the time is eating Sour Patch Kids and repeating gossip. That, I really appreciate. That's from an S&L monologue. I've never heard anyone mention that story. I like it. Thank you very much.

If you don't know Nish Kumar, I know of. That is one of his favorite SNL monologues. Oh, fantastic. He talks about it a lot, and he references that line specifically. Yeah. I was really happy with that mom. Because it's about being your kids to work, is it? No, it was a make a wish.

We haven't, yeah. And this young woman Elizabeth wanted to meet me as her wish, which I was already thought was like, I was like, oh man, she doesn't have to make a wish. You know, you can make a plan to meet me. Like, you can just ask to meet me. It doesn't have to be a wish. And then she said, I want to see how you spend a day. And I said, I wouldn't wish that on.

a healthy adult, don't want to have her just watch me eating Sour Patch Kids and repeating gossip. Yeah. Repeating gossip is lovely. Yeah. Just so good. Really fun. Yeah. So for your dessert, are you repeating gossip before? Are you having Sour Patch Kids in a cigarette? Yeah. Just a very nice candy memory. Yeah. If I were to give another answer, banana cream pie at this restaurant, Joe Allen. And I like sticky toffee pudding a lot. What's the cigarette? It would have been a camel light or camel blue, I guess.

Or maybe a parliament, whatever we had. And there's different times of sour patch kids, right? This was a regular bag. Definitely not the watermelon kind. I don't like the watermelon kind. I'm really surprised they make it. Yeah. It's really like, I can't believe this is enough people's jam.

Yeah, enough people must love it that they still make it. I guess. I mean, look, they obviously know what they're doing. This is a big company. I had a Back to the last bugger Sour Patch Kids I had Last month I had a very very bad

Hangover in San Francisco And I just My body just wanted some Sour Patch kids For some reason And I only ever had Sour Patch kids In the UK before So I got them from the hotel lobby There was some Sour Patch kids

Open it up They're so much smaller here The kids Yeah and in fact We sell Wait in the UK Sorry in America They're smaller

Diddy little kids I know You open it up We even sell a thing called a big kid, which is its own pat, its own rapper, like a prophylactic inside is a little, is a larger Saur Patch kid. But I totally agree. Spielberg would hate that guy, the big kid. For sure.

Roll Doll would hate him, chase him out of his little hut. He probably wrote it. He'll give him a lecture and drag a razor across his... You've got to be like the little kids. How tight did Roll Doll keep it that he could criticize other people's weight? Yeah, I mean, I've seen pictures of him. It doesn't... He wasn't ripped.

He wasn't ripped, yeah. He's pretty... Could he have dropped seven pounds, though? I mean, I bet he could have. Yeah. Yeah. Sour Patch Kids, yeah, they're getting smaller. We also have Tate's cookies.

Uh-huh. And that was a wonderful, large, salty, crispy cookie. You know, sold in stores, but you'd get it at like a Dean and Duluca. Now, they're everywhere. They're getting tinier, less crispy. It's a real shame. I think they got a co-packer, and that's what businesses have to do to survive, but it certainly isn't great for those

that knew how big the cookies once were. Look, when you're hung over and you don't expect the sour patch kids to be that small, it is. Were you doing a show in San Francisco? Oh, it was the night before, yeah. This was just, this was a travel day, so it was even worse. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And the whole day, I'm just in the lobby. I was going to go out and do a bunch of stuff in San Francisco, and now I can't. Stayed in the lobby the whole time. It was Valentine's Day. I was just sitting in the lobby, and they were having a Valentine's Day mixer. And I was sitting there eating sourpatch kids

and hung over and everyone else is in their 50s, and they got loveheart cardigans on and they're sitting around and like mingling You're at the club quarters? Where are you staying? I can't remember what the hotel was called now I mean it was near the Masonic

Oh, you're near the Masonic So I was near there And at one point like a man and a woman Just sat next to me basically on a first date And they, for some reason Whoever's running the Valentine's mix was giving everyone these biggest sandwiches I've ever seen then so dry

Like there's no mayo or anything in them Like a jibata bread? It's just the, driest bread, crustiest driest bread. It's so wider than anyone's mouth, taller than anyone's mouth. Yeah. And full of just like dry cheese. And both these people are trying to be on a date together while eating these free

sandwiches that they've been given that are awful. And obviously I'll just hear everything. They're torn on top of me. And first of all, it's just trying to break the ice with. These sandwiches are so big. Yeah. And then they're so dry. And the guy said like, to a, well, we're in it.

together, and then she did a really big laugh, way more than it deserved, because it's like a date thing. I'm not glad she gave him the laugh. And then eventually, like, they've run out of things to say. And she just went, I'm scared of AI. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I was in the middle of that. Yeah, that was out of nowhere, I'm scared of AI. And that wasn't, like, teed up or anything.

It's good to be open on the first day. But he wasn't scared of AI. What did he think? He said, I think it's basically going to be fine. I don't think you need to worry about this sort of stuff. There's no point worrying. You can't control it. You're like too much for a first day.

No, no. It's the end, there's no relationship forming out. No, relationship forming. I thought it was going to be, we'll find responsible ways to harness it. No. We just need to get ahead of it. He was just telling her. Don't be worried, don't be worried because we can't control it.

You're stupid for worrying about it. You can't control anything. There's no point worrying about stuff you can't control. You're not, this is bad. You're not meeting up again. No, not at all. And I'm there in my tiny sour patch. Did they acknowledge you at all?

Talk to you? No point. Yeah. At no point. I think they could tell. I was, I was having a rough time. Maybe she said I'm scared of that guy. Oh.

You can't do anything about it. You're scared. There you go. Sounded like AI. I don't read your menu back to you now. See how you feel about it. Okay. You would like still water.

You would like popadoms. You want a French onion soup as your starter. You want chicken palm as your main. Side dish, Hen of the Woods mushrooms. Drink a cherry Coke and dessert. A bag of sour patch kids and a cigarette. That's right. How do you feel about that, John?

You know, looking back, I went with Hen in the Woods, and that's what it is. Yeah. It sticks out as maybe there could be work. on that, you know, on that part of the menu. But we open in two days, and that's going to be what we go with. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's going to be good. That's going to be good.

Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's really fun. Thank you, Jim. Thanks very much for having me. Thank you, John Mulaney. Thank you. Well, there we are, Jimmy. A lovely menu.

Lovely menu. I think we got to talk about all of my favorite John Malaney things. Yes. I always remember just. We've not been recording for a while. I always remember that someone's going to come in. You're going to pitch all your memories, everything you know about their work, everything you enjoy about the work.

I've seen all of it. I ain't remembering stuff. Yeah. And I'm just going to tell them what I remember. I've got no follow-up. Got no questions about it. I was very lucky that John used those as springboards for anecdotes. Yeah, and also he was delighted that you were, you know,

there was very specific things that you liked, and he liked those things as well. And occasionally you look at me for reassure. and I'd go, I'd just sort of nod at him. That's nice. It's good to have a nod. Could have someone nodding at you. Look, he's great.

He doesn't need my reassurance. You know. No, I mean, you know, this is obviously on YouTube so people can watch and see if, yeah, if John Mullaney needs your reassurance or not. I don't think he does. He's an assured guy. Also, a lot of your compliments were via Nish, I would say.

Oh. There wasn't, there was a lot of like, I like that, but then a few of them, you went, Nish likes this. Yeah, well, A, it's true. Nish loves them. Is that more comfortable for you than giving a direct compliment, would you say? No, I think that like, I,

tell what, if I was on a podcast, if I went on an American podcast, and when the American comedians was saying, like, I love your stuff and there's another American comedian and he loves this bit you did, it would make me feel even better. Yeah, yeah, but if you go on an American podcast, there's no way they're saying they like your stuff. No, none of them know what I've done at all. But, you know, so I guess I'm just like living, living,

I'm going to give John Mulady the experience I wish I had. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, telling him, it's not just me who likes your stuff, this other comedian likes it. He quotes it all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Must feel pretty good to be John Mullady right now going home from this. Oh, I bet.

Especially because he didn't say one black coffee. Yeah, he stayed in the restaurant for the whole meal. Yeah, didn't say one black coffee. Which is a dangerous one, because it could have come at the end of the meal. Could have. Yeah. He said, by the way, to round off the meal, one black coffee, please. Get out. Get out.

Get out. All right, I was going anyway. Yeah. And we would have said, we're not going to promote your tour, Mr. Whatever, which is happening from April 17th to the 27th, around the UK, and in Dublin. But as it is, we can promote that now.

And that would have been like, I'm going to promote my tour instead, John Mulaney. Yeah. Fresh hell. Brand new stand-up comedy show. By a gamble. 2027. End of January, 2027, 3 to, God knows what, probably 2030 or something. Sounds pretty happy about it.

I'll be happy about it for the first year. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So see him in the first year. And then if you like seeing a comedian, you know, regretting being on stage, which can be fun, then see him after the first year. Yeah.

Although normally then I'm fresh again because it'll be like international shows, so it would be exciting. Yeah. And if you like that sort of stuff, you like seeing a comedian regretting their decision, see me any time in my show cycle. Well, I'm like, off.

From show one to show 300. Yeah, on stage going, why don't I do this again? I mean, I love it. Yeah. In theory. I do think you should just write the shows and then never perform them.

I should find someone else to do him. It's a good idea. Should get someone else. That could be, you know, after this show, moving forward, I just find someone who will. Franchise it. Who will, yeah, I'll franchise it. Like Tapeface.

Exactly like Tapeface. Maybe I'll get Tapeface to do it because he's not doing his own shows anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's franchised it. Yeah. So I've got tape face to perform my shows. Yeah. Take the tape off.

Take the tape off. Try out some words suit him. Yeah. Thank you for listening slash watching. We'll be back next week with another great episode of our very funny podcast. See you like. Go ahead.