Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - John Mulaney

Episode Date: February 16, 2020

Since leaving Saturday Night Live as a writer in 2012, John Mulaney has become one of the most popular stand-up comedians in America. In this week’s “Sunday Sitdown,” Willie Geist talks to the Emmy winner about his time at SNL and his run of hit Netflix specials, including his latest, John Mulaney and the Sack Lunch Bunch. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks, as always, for clicking and listening along. I got one I'm very, very personally excited about for you this week. I think you're going to love with comedian John Malaney. Seth Myers once said of him, he is the funniest man in America, and I think I agree. His stand-up specials most recently, Netflix special Kid Gorgeous, live from Radio City Music Hall, was made on one of his seven sold-out dates at that famed New York City venue. It was his third Netflix special, wildly successful. He started, as you may know, as a writer on SNL. He auditioned in 2008 to be on the show. You'll hear him talk about that moment. Got a phone call from Seth Myers, who was then the head writer on the show and said,

come work on the show, but not to be in the cast, to be as a writer. And he was cool with that. He created, along with Bill Hader, the iconic character, Stefan. Need I say more? You get some origin story on Stefan in our interview. he went on from there to pursue his stand-up career after he was a writer on S&L. He had a sitcom for a while on Fox called Malaney, only lasted one season, but then he went on and blew up as a stand-up comic. He has since leaving the show as a writer on SNL hosted twice, and he'll be back in a couple of weeks now for his third time in three seasons as host.

The musical guest will be David Byrne, he of Talking Heads famed, and also David Byrne, A special celebrity guest on Mullaney's latest Netflix special called John Mulaney in the Sack Lunch Bunch. It's inspired by Sesame Street, the electric company, some of those classic old children's shows, and it has a bunch of child actors, young actors, very funny actors. And it's Malini interacting with them. And at first you're not sure because you know who Malaney is if the whole thing is ironic. Is it a spoof of children's shows? and it turns out it's maybe not. They talk about anxiety and fear and death.

It's very funny. Jake Gyllenhauls in it as well, but it's a little deeper. So I think if you haven't seen the Sack Lunch Bunch bunch on Netflix, you ought to check it out. And if you've already seen it, you're going to get some backstory. And as I said, a great conversation with one of the funniest men on the planet Earth for my money. John Malaney right now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. John, thanks for doing this, man.

Thanks for having me. Good to see you. It's really nice to you. I think this is the first time we've worked together since we did, oh, hello at the 92nd Street, why? A few years back. To rave reviews. To rave YouTube reviews.

To a segment that I did not know was filmed. And at first thought, oh, no. And then people enjoyed it. And you did an excellent job. And because of that, we did a Broadway show. So thank you very much for doing that. Here's what I did. I read your introduction,

which was great. I actually was watching a bit of it last night. And we introduced Nick as, I think we said, Gil Faisan also is a model for mashed potatoes. A stand-in model for mashed potatoes. Yes. So they put him in to get the lighting right for mashed potatoes. Then they swap them out. Did we make you explain what that means?

Yes. Yes. There was another beat we said, let me be clear about what I mean. Yes, yes, yes. I remember that because we landed on he's a stand-in model for mashed potatoes, which made us laugh. And I thought, well, then I don't really get that, but it's making me laugh. So let's have Willie explain just exactly to a T that his body shape. Well, the first joke got a laugh, actually.

Yes. And then it just grew with the explanation. You grew? Yeah. A lot of times I'll get a laugh and then I like to descend. I like to, what is it called, in weightlifting with the negative? The negative. Yeah.

I'm big on the negative. Because you don't want to have big muscles. No. Make sure you kill the laugh. Yeah. Kill the laugh. Never get strong. There was also a line in there.

There was a drunk group up in the balcony yelling down. Yeah. And George... And George yelled up to her. What do you been? At Dorians for a couple of gin and tonics. I hope Robert Chambers was there. George.

It's like an altered state. George. I'm going to say George as well, even though it was me. Totally, George. With a wig on. You would never. Dorians? Were you at Dorians?

Yes. And then a Robert Chambers. Yes. And it was like that. Yeah. And it was like an hour. and a half and I remember just watching you guys being like the quickness because it wasn't scripted some of your bits were but you were reacting to people and we were so unprepared with robert chambers

jokes amazing a robert chambers joke and and yet i i spent so much time this morning looking for keys that were that are so big the key ring is so big and it was in my pocket the size of a baseball and yet robert chambers at the ready it's there yeah it's a different kind of brain the preppy Murder. Yeah, there he is. So we're not about, oh, hello for the moment. Especially in the Roberts. Well, I never found that preppy. That's what that was why it started. I was like, come on, post. Yeah. Yeah. They needed a brand. They just threw some out. Do they know? If you're the Post, you need a brain. You know, a murder. Yeah. I guess it's not good enough.

Let's talk about the SAC Lunch Bunch. Okay. It's been out for almost two months now on Netflix, end of December, right? Yes. People are loving it. I think the truth, and I told you this, earlier, people didn't quite know what to expect. They knew your stand-up specials on Netflix. They knew exactly what they're going to get. With the stand-up. With the stand-up. And with this, people were like,

now, what's going on here? So what was the idea behind doing something completely different for you? Well, I was one of the people saying, what's going on here. I would say that in private to myself in, like, the bathroom, sometimes late at night when we were rewriting and had an early call, and I'd sort of stand there and think, what am I making? What is this? And then I would go, just let's see. No, I would think to myself also that

I would go, what exactly is this? And then I would say, it is a children's special that is also a musical and it's an examination of existential fear. And I'd go, okay, so I could pitch it to myself. So the network in my brain was happy to give money to that. And what did Netflix say to that? Netflix, I don't know if they were on MDMA, but they not only supported it, but there was a moment where, see, what I like to do is overspent. And we did need a budget increase because Reese Thomas, our amazing director, and damaged studios, our set designers, did such incredible work that we needed a budget increase and Netflix was there with it. And this is a, remember, I did not know what the show was, nor could I explain it to people. Even on the eve of shooting it, you didn't quite know. I actually think I knew, but I couldn't articulate it, which is just as bad.

And I actually, it was nice to have David Byrne in the special because I had read a quote of his from how music works, which is sort of a memoir, but, you know, it's ostensibly about music and, you know, sound and music venues. But in it he said, sometimes I'll be working on something and I don't know what it is or how to explain it, but I kind of know what it'll feel like in the end. And I was like, oh, man, that's exactly right. That's not going to help me at the moment with everyone on set. But theoretically, it's right. Yes, no, but it really was a guiding principle. And what about the kids' angle of it?

Why did you want to work with a bunch of young kids and actors? What did you want to do with children where that's obviously not been your act previously? I wanted to talk to them because I don't ever. I don't have any children. I have some nieces and nephews, but they're like, we'll edit in later, me getting their ages correct. We'll put it in track, I'll say it. Yeah. Oh, that's a great age.

Yeah, they're all different ages, yeah. And they ascend, yeah. Let's say they, at the time, were 8, 6, 4, and 0. Sure. Those are good ages, right? And so I hadn't spent a lot of time talking to them because I also don't visit my family enough. I go on holidays, but we're all in different rooms. Anyway, I wanted to talk to kids because I occasionally would talk to someone who was like 12, and I found it kind of fascinating. I was actually at a Nick game and just, John Stewart was there, and he was sitting like courtside with his son.

And the jumbotron cut to Gene Simmons in the audience. And Gene Simmons, I don't know if you know this, enjoys himself. And so he kind of milked it and was like dancing and like, like, it went on for a bit. Do you do the tongue? No, he didn't do the tongue. Interesting. Because he didn't have full kiss makeup. Right.

So he had to kind of come up with a equally large Gene Simmons persona on the spot, which hats off to him. for doing it. And everyone's cheering, and John Stewart's son was staring at it, and then he went, Dad, who's that? And the way he said it, I just, it was so correct in a matter of fact. And I thought, like, I find that a very interesting age. I'm just like, who is that person?

Yeah. Why are people cheering for this? Yes. It's a fair question. This man doing a half macarena, yeah. And I had a, this is, this is, the part where you as a journalist or any sociologist or anyone who does any real research might think I'm unqualified to even say this. I kind of wanted to see if kids were talking

about the things that adults say they are talking about. And if kids were afraid of the things that we read and consume and hear that they are afraid of. And I thought, yeah, I thought they would be. I thought it's a very different world. It is, but at least in my research, conducted throughout this past summer with 15 kids, a lot of them are still afraid of tarantulas. Really? Yeah. It's high on the list. It's still high on the list. Yeah. Drowning was the opening fear. Yeah, yeah. But to be fair, Jacob, who was afraid of drowning, did clarify that he doesn't want his life to be over. Right. So he's afraid of death. but the worst death would be drowning.

Right. Broadly death, specifically drowning. He realized mid-sentence that he doesn't want to drown because he doesn't want his life to be over. Which makes complete sense, actually. It's kind of profound. It is profound. I like that you pointed out that it is the opening of the special. Because for those who wondered what is this, it was a lot of fun to just have a smash cut to Jacob in a sweater covered with snails saying he doesn't want his life to be over,

but he specifically hates drowning. And in that sweet voice, too, of Jacob. I have a lot of big fears, like an asteroid hitting the Earth or other stuff like that. It's the first line. Stuff like that. Things in that category. Yeah.

And I also really enjoy it. You know, we have about 40 minutes of interviews with each kid. And they would, many of them would say when I was a little kid, to preface the story. And I totally remembered that. Like, yes, they're the oldest they've ever been. Right. You cannot talk to them. Like, come on.

They're like, no, I'm, I am, that is my past. Yeah. I am not eight. I am ten. Right. When I was little, eight, I used to do this. I am now ten. It is over.

There's also a very important moment early in the special where a little girl looks at you and asks. So, John, tell me, is this an ironic show? Or is this an earnest show about kids? So now, and you go on to say that let's see how the reviews are, basically. So now that we know that people have received it well, what's your answer to her question? It was earnest. And yes, I think she asked me, what's the tone of this show? Right.

And I ask, how do you mean? We're still in the opening of the special. No, I thought the artifice of it. having it look sort of like Sesame Street, 3-1 Contact, the electric company, that that had a throwback look that you could say, oh, we were lightly parodying these things. But I was sort of not.

It's interesting to me watching it because there are certain sketches that were written in the spring, and then there are pieces that were written as the summer went on, and we got to know the kids, and there are then these interviews with the kids and the way we chose to leave them in the special. So you're kind of watching a person soften from let's make kids say funny things I wrote

to these kids are far more profound than me and let's let them do the talking. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, because at its core it is about like fear and anxiety and things. Death, even death. Death, yeah. It's about real stuff. Which I don't have children,

so I don't know how much they should hear about death in musical specials. But I will say, my childhood, like, did you read Roll Doll? Parents would die on left and right. They'd go out to the opera and get eaten by a rhinoceros. That's a real example. I think that's how the witch is open. Did you find it having children dark? The special?

Yeah. No, I thought it was honest. Those are questions kids ask. And you say, oh, we're not ready to. to talk about that, but they want to talk about that. And actually, they probably should begin to understand what it means to lose when your grandma dies, what happens then. And you have to figure out what you're going to say exactly to that.

But they also are so, they have so much more culture in front of them now because they've got iPads and phones and all that that I think they're confronted. Like, I had to go to the movie theater if I wanted to see children of the corn in the 80s and watch people die. You know what I mean? Oh, I see. That was a harder thing to accomplish. Oh, yeah.

Now, they just see people die. These things pop up as ads. Yes, exactly. And I won't name any websites in particular. Go for it. You know, various tubes will have, like, they'll have just clips. Like, it was very interesting. They would just watch, like, a clip of the Wizard of Oz.

Yes. And before it, there'd be a pop-up ad for some nightmarish thing. Right. That I don't even think is a show. It's just like, what if a clown killed you? And then it disappeared. I know that ad. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know who's making those, but they're not good people. No, it's not. So, yeah, I always had like a sense of people die, get ready. Your parents could be eaten by a rhino. And my parents would go out on the weekends because they were human beings. Sure. They'd go see a movie or something.

And when they left, I'd watch them go, and I think they might get eaten by an escape. There's a reasonable chance. Yes, and then my adventures will begin. Were you sort of looking forward to it in some odd way? Of course. Of course. Because I knew that my adventures would begin. I had to have adventures.

Sailing around on a peach, whatever. And they were in the way, I felt, with their schedule. With these summer camp, you know, the summer was filled with camp the rest of the year, schooling. I really needed to get out there and do my adventures. Flood around with the peach. Yeah, I was trying to release animals from the zoo left and right. You also obviously had to write a bunch of music for this. The songs were great.

Thank you. You've done that before. On SNL, you've written musical numbers, right? Yes. Well, I've written lyrics. Right. Let's be... Okay. I should be very clear that...

Yes, yes, yes. An excellent composer named Eli Bolin wrote the music. Right. And Marika Sawyer and I, who collaborated a lot at Saturday Night Live, wrote the lyrics. And the reason we did that is because I at least do not know how to write music, nor do I know how to play anything. And for a while, it was debated whether or not I was completely tone deaf or was just a terrible singer. And an opera singer that I met, my wife believed I was tone deaf. I said, I'm not tone deaf. I'm a very good singer. So we had

different perspectives. Sure. Okay. And I met an opera singer and she, I said, my wife says I'm tone deaf. And she said, well, sing any melody. And I went, bar, pa, pa, ba. Because I'm a very cultured person. You like McDonald's. Of course. It was the first melody that came to my mind.

And she said, you're not tone deaf because you can follow a melody. Oh. And she said, what you are is a terrible singer. She confirmed it? Yes. But she did not comment on how that was the first tune that came to mind. And it was fast. She said, sing anything.

and I went, ba-da-pap-pah-ba. It might have been too heartbreaking for her. She just, let me just let that go and focus on the sound. This is an opera singer. Yeah. This is someone who has studied the greatest sung melodies of all time. Oh, that's too good. That's too good.

And I did a jingle. So you talked about pitching it to Netflix. How do you pitch this to David Byrne? How do you pitch it to Jake Gyllenhall and that Richard Kind and the amazing group of people that you got to show up for you? Because they do some weird stuff. Let's just call it what it is, right? Like Jake Gyllenhaal.

What do you think about this character? Yeah, from if you were looking at it from, oh, what would be the best use of my time financially or definite broad appeal, you'd pass immediately, quickly, yeah. You'd probably type pass, and then someone, an intermediary, would make it sound more polite. But I have to say that David Byrne, I was very nervous to approach, even though he had been a guest, as you were very gracious to be on, oh, hello, when we did it as a stage show. And when he was a guest, I screwed up his introduction. And as George St. Giegland does not make mistakes. He remembers Dorian's. He remembers every detail.

And Gil turned to me and went, you're nervous, aren't you? And I was like, I'm very nervous for this one. And I was really nervous, the talking heads. And I mean, David Byrne just means a lot to me. So I emailed him and there were several drafts. And I explained what the song would be. And then I just said what I would tell myself, which was all I could say, which was it's a children special with songs and sketches that explores their fears. And he wrote back, I was afraid of volcanoes when I was a kid.

I grew up in Baltimore, so I don't know why that was. But it got it into my head that there could be an eruption. And that's word for word in the special. And I wrote back, he graciously agreed to the song, and then told me about his fear of volcanoes. And I said, thank you so much. We're so excited you want to do the song. Would you like to talk to the kids about your fear of volcanoes?

And he said, yes, that's fine. Wow. Yeah. For a hero to give you a yes that quickly. It's got to feel crazy. It really helped me feel less crazy. And it also helped because then I could go, David Burns doing it. Right. Right.

That's how you get people, by the way. You get one. That's it. And you go, you know, like David Burns going to be there. It's going to be great. And that's it. I don't have a script. I have an outline of sorts.

It's going to be great. Jake Gyllenhaal, I will. I will never not smile thinking about his agreement to be in it and his magnificent performance, which was better than any actor's performance in the calendar year, bar none. He really leaned into it, too. He's like, if I'm doing this, I'm doing it. Mr. Music, and that's his character's Dan. Yeah. About what you call, Jake?

Mr. Music, a very clever name I came up with for a guy that teaches kids about music. It was written sort of like Sebastian, the lobster and Little Mermaid. He had a bit more

woe, like, oh, no, you don't want me to make music. You know, sort of a little melancholy. Jake, Jillanall,

was given the demo. I did not first write him an email where I apologize for emailing him. I normally apologize in the first paragraph.

I'm very sorry to email you. I know you're busy. You are having to read this And I am so sorry, and I feel terrible because I do. But he heard the demo, and he said, I really like it. And so that greased the wheels. And he said, how do you want me to play this?

And I said, Jake, Reese Thomas, the director, you've been our first choice since forever. And we would like you to make whatever choice you think is best. And he paused and he said, oh, okay. Because I've always admired him and found him not only an excellent actor, but comedically and dramatically, will make hard choices in his, like, performance. And they're great. I love them. I had just seen him in Okja, where he, like, chooses to play the character with a real, I guess, visible alcohol problem.

I don't know if that was in the script. But I just really admire that. I think coming from Saturday Night Live where big choices are what is what... I think coming from Saturday Night Live where big choices are what the show is all about. You know, we're doing close-ups of faces and people hoping that people will laugh. But I specifically knew that Jake Gyllenhaal might, if we were so lucky, make, let's call it an insane choice. and he showed up and I remember he was sitting in makeup

and I walked up to him and I just couldn't believe he agreed to do it and I looked at him and I said you agreed to do this and he started laughing and he said how should I what kind of accent should I have and I said well

in a perfect world this would be Harry Belafonte but we couldn't get it and he said did you try and I said no we didn't try we assumed you know if I'm nervous to email People I've met, I don't know, I could approach Mr. Belafonte. But now that it's been successful, the sequel, you'll get Belafonte. He saw the first second launch.

Did he? You heard? I assume. That's the word? I'm hearing that he saw it. Your researchers know this? He's all but in for the sequel. Okay. That's great.

Although now I have a guy who does Calypso, so I don't think I need him. Oh, really? Yeah, it's Jake Gyllenha. You've moved past him. Yeah, I moved past him. So we had a, when you're preparing an actor's performance, you do a lot of process. So we talked for about a minute and a half. And he started doing a voice that to me sounded like someone who might be from Europe,

but had spent time in the United States and was familiar with Calypso. And we decided his character's name was Jeff. And that was our process. It was a lot like the 10 years it took to make the Irishman. On set with Jake Gyllenhaal, he began playing Mr. Music. And I had that thought of, and this is, I believe this is true, when a great actor chooses to do comedy and commit strongly, it is funnier than anything any comedian could ever do.

And boy, oh boy, does he commit to Mr. Music. So every take was different. Every choice, every take was different. And each of them made me laugh to the point that I was going to throw up on the floor. It was so funny. And midway through the second day, he agreed to do two days of Mr. Music. Wow. And he had a Broadway show at night.

That's right. This was a bad decision. Midway through the second day, he came up to me and he said, I feel like this is sort of a, my character is almost like the guy in Oakja. I went, it's funny you mentioned that. because in our minds this is the character from mocha but three days sober and struggling which shows you got to ask sometimes you know you didn't think jake would do it you just ask so maybe with harry bellifonte send that email i you know what that's a good lesson sometimes you should just ask i have many other counter examples of people i have asked to do things who have said i'm not

going to do that because that would be not advantageous to me in any way. Including on this, right? With Stevie Nix, she was a... She did pass. Yes, she did. Sorry, for the viewers. She is with us still, but... She passed on the project.

So, okay, I imagine in terms of what you're going to do next on Netflix, the easy thing is, you're coming off Kid Gorgeous, you win an Emmy, goes huge, would be to do another stand-up special, but you decided to do this.

Yeah. So does this now give you a taste to do more of this sort of like not stand up, do something offbeat, not obviously maybe not with children again, but just to kind of keep exploring different ways to do comedy? It's funny that you say maybe not with children because I definitely only want to now do things with the Stack Lunch Bunch bunch. Will there be another? You got editors, right?

We're in furious negotiations about it. Well, the kids now. Oh, no, they don't know yet. Oh. Yeah. They don't know that scale, which is a lot when you're a kid. Sure. He's not what I made.

Nor, you know, Jacob, who opens the special, I posted on Instagram that the album is now out. And his comment was, I didn't know there was going to be an album. But I'm not trying to Hal Roach these kids. Right. And your viewers know who that is. But Hal Roach, you know, why am I even saying this? He was, I think, a bad person who had a group of children played our game. Yeah. And they were a little, they had a, they had a wagon.

And I don't know what happened on the show. But he didn't pay any of the kids. But I'm going to, we're going to make sure that all of the money from, you know, I mean, the platinum records that we're going to get off Dufel flowers exist at night. That's all going to be in a trust and these kids are going to be billionaires by the age of 15. That's good. Put it away for them. Put it away and then just surprise them with it. So you're not going to be like one of these managers of a boy band in Orlando who just takes all the money and leaves? I've always tried not to be. From a young age I thought,

you know, I don't want to be like one of these managers of a boy band, specifically Orlando. No, I've never wanted to be from Orlando in any way. And I say that with love to the people of Orlando. And they won't take it with love because it is a dig. But I don't want to be from there. Hey, guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Stick around to hear more from John Mullaney right after the break. Welcome back to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Now more of my conversation with John Malaney.

So we talked about David Byrne. You're going back to host SNL. Yes. David Byrne as musical guest. Yes. Was that orchestrated or coincidental? Orchestra. I'm saying, like, did you say, yeah, that would be great.

I'll host the show. I wonder if David Byrne would do the music since we just did this. project together. Well, his show American Utopia is, you know, such a smash that I am, I am sure he was going to be on the show at some point. Did I... No, I don't mean did he have to beg to be on the show? No. I just mean, is it like, because you guys have a thing now.

I lied. I lied and I made it happen. But I truly mean, of course, he was, of course they would have him on. Yeah. Yeah. At a show like Saturday Night Live, there are lots of different choices. So I wanted to make sure that the David Byrne, the possibility, the hope, the dream, that I would be the host that would be paired with David Byrne, that that could somehow come true. The way I did that was I kept saying, I hear David Byrne is the musical guest when I'm hosting. I'd say that to different people working at the show. And I thought if I say it enough, it'll just be true. And then it became true.

And I learned that from a guy named Lauren Michaels who would say, they'll be here about anyone. And that person would show up. There'd be like a blizzard and somehow, you know, Butros, Bootros, Bootros Ghali would make it for the walk on. Oh, he'll be here. Full confidence. I did not see a Butros reference coming in this interview.

I know. That's an amazing. I don't know where you dug that from. I'm like a 96 Dennis Miller, baby. I got them all. So what's it like for you to go back there? That place where you were a writer for those, was it four seasons? Four to half seasons?

I call it five. Five seasons. Five and no one ever leaves. Right. Right. But you're, so you're, we're there as a writer, obviously. But now to be the guy who walks through those doors and comes down steps and stands on that stage and gives the monologue, what's that feeling like?

I'm still a writer. Why am I hosting? This is great and this is thrilling. I can't believe I'm hosting. But this is a mistake. because I'm a writer here. You never shake that. No.

No. And it's the best job in the world, by the way. I think someone once asked, you know, was it disappointing not being on the show, being a writer? And I couldn't stress to them enough that when you're a writer at Saturday Night Live, often you're hired very young. I was 25. And I was hired in August. And by mid-September, I was producing live network television.

Because when you write a sketch, you write it, and then you put it to the read-through table, and hopefully people laugh, and most of the time they don't. And then something gets chosen. But when you're the writer, you also work with the set department, which has Tony Award-winning set designers. You work with our amazing costume department. You work with every design team, and you, like, put the whole thing together with them. They do the work, but you go, I was thinking that he'd have an alien head. But that's still involvement on every level.

And so it's such an engaging and amazing job that I loved it. But it is the kind of thing where like it's, I was like a great waiter. So I thought to myself, I'm a great waiter. I know everything about this restaurant because I'm a waiter. So I know the backstage stuff. I know the on stage meeting serving food in this metaphor. And then they're like, you're going to be the major D. And I was like, great, I know how to do that.

And then I walked out and I was like, oh, man, I don't know how to do this at all. I never, I've never greeted the people. Right. I just give them things and then quietly talk about them behind their back. Right. But have you gotten past that a little bit since it's your third time now? This third time coming up, I bet when I walk in, I'll go, I'm a writer. I wonder if they are having me here to make fun of me.

So it truly never changes. No. Yeah, no. In a nice way, though. Yeah. I ask them about the show as if I'm not the host. Like, how's it going? Because there's a common thing with our host, and all of them were wonderful.

None of them were ever difficult, and no one was ever in any way put their ego before the business of making the show. And I couldn't believe it, that that happened. every single week. And I certainly would never remember anyone who ever crossed me when I was 25 years old, because they thought I was insignificant. And they all come with great ideas for their own sketches, right? And you know what I appreciate? Some of them would say at the Monday meeting, hey, I really want this to be one of those great episodes. And we would always thank them because we really appreciated it because we would forget to. do those and then someone would remind us. Yes. I want this to be one of those great episodes.

And they'd cite an episode that was great. And we'd say, oh, of course, let's go write one of those. And it worked. It just worked. Oh, you want one of the good ones. Okay. We can do that. We were going to write a forgettable episode where later in your life, people will go, you hosted Saturday Night Live. But why don't we make this as big as Tina doing Sarah Bailen. Let's go work on that right now. Thanks for telling us on Monday. We have the whole week now. It's a good pitch. It's a good pitch. So everyone has some version. I interviewed 80 Bryant a few weeks ago. About me? It was all about you. It was weird. I didn't even ask you. Oh, you were doing it right around it first? Yeah. You couldn't get me for a while. Yeah.

Stepping stones, right up to you. But everyone has some memory of that phone call. So you do the audition. Yeah. And then you get a phone call from. someone at the show who tells you your dream has come true. In your case, you're 25 years old. You're going to be either on SNL or writing for SNL. So what was the audition first and phone call second for you? Well, first off, I very much like how you paraphrase what the phone call could be. Your dream has come true. You are on SNL, which would be a beautiful and clear way of telling people there on the show. Occasionally, it would be, can you move to New York? And people would say yes, and they say, okay, you should.

Talk to you later. That was often a style. Literally, that's another thing I've heard from every single person. They hang up and go, am I on the show? Oh, Lauren would call people and say, do you look good in wigs? And I don't think he was trying to be, I think there's sometimes this perception that he's trying to be cutting or mess with people's heads. he's truly not. He has so much to do that what he wants to know is,

you wear wigs, great. I have a billion other things to you. I don't have to tell you this is your dream. I don't know. He does know it's your dream, which is sweet. Right. You know, because I, so I was a stand-up comedian, and I still am.

Fun fact. Good catch. Still something I do every day. I really loved S&L as much as you could as a comedy fan since the earliest age I could remember. But I was doing stand-up more and I was writing for other little sketch shows. And I didn't really think like, oh, I'm going to be asked to audition because I didn't do impressions and I wasn't good at doing characters. and I did stand up in a sort of outdated way, which I have now made even more outdated.

Great recipe to be on SNL. Yes, I was aiming always for a type of irrelevance, which is almost frozen in amber like the mosquito in Jurassic Park. So I thought this weekly show that's always in the zeitgeist might not need me, but I still love it. And I was called on a Tuesday, I was called on Tuesday, August 5th, 2008, and they said, can you audition for Saturday Night Live? And I said, what?

And they must have thought I said, when? Because they said, Thursday. And I said, what? And they said, can you audition for Saturday Night Live? It's Thursday, August 7th. And I said, okay, because I mean, I wasn't going to the right answer. Yeah. I think it's the right answer.

So you have two days to prepare for this? Oh, were you thinking it was? the morning of Tuesday? No. It was late afternoon, L.A. time. Right. So I had two days notice. In the world of Saturday Night Live, the less time you have, the better, I believe,

because the more you think about it, the crazier you'll go. Right. So I said to myself, I looked in the mirror, and I said, you're a white guy with brown hair, and they have a lot of those at the moment, who are all brilliant. I mean, Will Forte, Bill Hader, Fred Armisen, Andy Sandberg, what if I named the whole cast, and then kept updating it every year. But all I mean was there was no possible way you would ask me to be in the cast. You know, if it's like you could have Carol King sing the song or you could have Aretha Franklin.

Like, oh, well, Carol wrote it, huh? That's interesting. Aretha? So I did think they don't need me. But this will be a really cool experience. And of course, I just want to do it to do it. So I said to myself, I'm not going to try to write a bunch of characters one day, which I thought was more of a be at peace with yourself decision.

It's also a very practical decision. Right. Don't ever try to do that. Like, don't try to just suddenly do a Gordon Ramsey impression. And why did I name that? Because I did try it for a moment. Yes. I watched a clip of it and I said, I can't do this.

So I decided I'm going to do four minutes of stand-up and I'll do my favorite jokes and I'll just try to be funny in front of Lauren Michaels and one day I'll tell my children or children I run into on the street that I once met Lauren Michaels. And that was truly the plan. And I walked down the sixth floor hallway because, fun fact, 8H was under construction. So I auditioned on Conan O'Brien's sixth floor studio. Wow. Yes. I know that floor well. Which is now the Dr. Oz studio because they flipped it were Jimmy Fallon.

Right. Right. Okay. Yeah. And then your editor can cut there. Yep. That description of how the floor works. And Dr. Oz isn't there anymore.

So we'll just cut all around it. Do you not? We do one hour of the Today show in there a couple days a week. And otherwise, I don't know what they do all week. Yeah. Right? Nothing. It's empty.

It's empty. It's empty. Thursday. Oh, yeah, Christine. Yeah. Oh, he's in. Manhattan? Yeah, but he just does Friday night in there so we can have a live audience. Oh, yeah. But wasn't that MSNBC that in Paramus, New Jersey for a while?

It was in Sycoccus. Sycoccus, yeah. No, years ago we moved into the big city. It wasn't that long ago. I used to reverse, no, it was like 10 years ago. Yeah, that's what I mean. I used to reverse commute through the tunnel at like 3.30 a.m. and go to Sycoccus. And it was an old warehouse, like a Liz Claiborne outlet that they turned into a television studio. I went on a date with a girl who worked at MSNBC, and fun fact that you can't use, her father was the prosecutor in the Jean-Beney Ramsey case.

What? We did not have immediate chemistry, but because of this fact, I asked her out on the second date. Did it come up on the first date? Yeah, she brought it up casually, and I thought, don't spit your food out immediately. Just hold, hold, hold. And I said, ask her out again. and then let's get as much information as we possibly can. So the second one was an interview.

The second one got what you needed. Yeah, I said, can we love you? I need to know everything about it. We've digressed terribly. So you go into Conan's studio to do your audition. And they had us all waiting in one room. And it was Donald Glover. I think he was, yeah, Donald Glover auditioned that year.

Ellie Kemper, Nick Kroll, I believe Jordan Peel had auditioned earlier in the year. Wow. Everyone who's very, very, very, very, very good at comedic acting and also doing characters and also impressions. So they were all there and I was there too. And I saw Seth Myers in the hallway. I'd met him at UCB before and he was immediately like so nice and gracious. And you go in to do the audition and right before you go in, I think it's tradition sort of.

if someone does say to you, just so you know, people don't laugh that much because it's just a few people at a table and, you know, it's just a strange atmosphere, so don't let it throw you. You go, okay. And I went out and I did four minutes to stand up and I would advise anyone doing anything in front of anyone to never make it longer than four minutes. So with you on that. Yeah. People really like things to be over. More than anything else, they just want things to be done. Separated birth. I said that to my wife. Yeah. Everyone just wants to go home. Everywhere. Everywhere everyone is, they just want to get home.

Why do you think plays end with a standing ovation? I never thought of it that way. They're up on their feet. And then they go, oh, oh, I'm up. Take my jacket. And fight it. Fighting again. You see the greatest performances in the world. Everyone's forcing themselves down the aisles. Are the theater doors open yet? Yeah. Can we go out that one?

Oh, that's the stage door? So I walked out and I did four minutes. and I got a lot of laughs. You did? Yeah, I got a bunch. And I was very happy. And I walked out and I thought to myself, that was so cool. I got laughs.

I didn't know if Michael's laugh, but because they had lights in my eyes, which they do intelligence. They use lights. Yes, they do. And I couldn't see who was there, but Seth and Steve Higgins and Mike Shoemaker and Lauren and Marcy Klein, and they were all there. And I walked out and I thought, that didn't go terribly. And now I'll get to say that.

to my kids or kids I run into on the street that I didn't do terribly in front of the Lord Michaels. And then I thought, very cool experience. Like when you go to a six flags, you know, you're like, that's over. I doubt I'll be back tomorrow. So two days later, I'm at an Italian restaurant with my mother, who I dine with. And my cell phone rings, and I take the call because that's what you do when you're with your parents. As you go, oh, shut up. And it was a 2-1-2 number. And I was in Chicago at the time.

And 2-1-2 is the area code for New York City. And that means it's more important than your family. So I answered the phone, and it was Seth Myers. And he said, hey. And I said, hey, I was excited because he was famous. And he was a very nice guy. He said, we would like to hire you as a writer. And I said, really?

What? He said, I want to make it clear that this would just be writing. You know, like, your audition was hilarious, but like this wouldn't necessarily be on camera. And I was like, I'm going to be a writer? You know, like that was so crazy to me because my dream since I was maybe 11 was to be like Conan O'Brien. My mom actually knew that. I told her when I was 11. I want to be like this guy.

He was on the cover of Rolling Stone. I said, hey, mom, I'm going to be like this guy. And she was like, what? But she actually told me later that she took it as that I wanted to work as hard. as he did to get into Harvard. Because I said you were like, he was a comedy writer, and then he worked at The Simpsons, and then he had his own talk show. And all she heard was that he had been a comedy writer at Harvard.

And that name stuck out to her. She told me later that she was disappointed. That it wasn't about the Harvard? Yeah, it really wasn't. It was more about the funny late-night show. So I go back to the table, and I sit down, and I say, that was Seth Myers, and I just got offered a job as a writer at Saturday Night Live. And my mom said, what?

And I suddenly felt this burning in my stomach. And our food came. And I couldn't eat any of it. And that burning lasted for five years. It was a type of exhilarating fear that really didn't go away. So they set our food down, and my mom just turns to the waitress and says, my son just got hired as a writer on Saturday Night Live. And the waitress went, that's how Conan started.

No. Yeah, it was like a bad play I wrote. Are you serious? Yeah, if I wrote that called My Life, you'd go, John, please, first off. Rewrite. Yeah, we don't need to see the whole needle. That's how Conan started, yes. That's crazy.

Yeah. So I went to, they said, come move into your office as if I had things. So I went in with a T-shirt and, I guess, keys. And they said, kind of impromptu. Oh, Lauren's in the office. Do you want to meet with him? And I knew that there was not a question mark at the end of that sense. So I went in to meet with him for the first time.

And I think I apologized for being underdressed. T-shirt? I don't think. I know I apologize for being underdressed. I came in and I said, hey, I'm sorry because I had no idea. Because, you know, he's never seen anyone in a T-shirt before. A guy who has only hung out with comedians his entire life. And he said, you're very funny.

And I said, that means a lot coming from you. And he said, no, I know. Because in the most wonderful way, he knows that you love the show. And he knows you're excited. And he has a lot to do. He's not wrong about any of that, by the way. No, yes. If you're there, you love the show.

Yeah, I don't think a lot of people have come in and been like not a fan. Yeah. Look at it changed the place a little bit. Yeah, there are those people, and that's fun to watch that happen. But he said, you're from Chicago? And I said, yes. And he said, and now you're here. And I said, yep.

And he said, is your family there? And he said, I said, yes. And I said something like, yes, they're all back there. I'm the third of four kids. And he said, oh, I know everything about you. And he didn't meet he looked me up. Like, he, I know everything about you. Yeah.

I did not need to tell him I was the third of four an Irish Catholic family. And that's the type of confidence and wisdom that could be totally grounded in no information and just bravado. But I've always thought like, yeah, he knew. I walked in and he was like, third of four, north side of Chicago. So Catholic, it's crazy.

He was written all over you. Yeah. I mean, I did walk in apologizing for being underdressed. That's a good opener. It's the power move. Asked for forgiveness immediately. I won't make you go through all your characters because we'll be here all day. But I'm going to go back to another SNL friend of yours, right?

Of course. Hater. Oh, yeah. About the origin story of Stefan. He gives you all the credit. He says you've got a leaflet for some nightclub party. where they said this place has everything, including like broken glass on the floor,

whatever it was. Yeah, it was more debauchos than that. Yeah. Broken glass. Yes, Bill and I wrote that character together, and it was, I can't stress enough how,

I don't know if it was, I think there was a small thing to him, maybe not even a significant thing to him, but like the fact that he always would mention me as writing it with him was really incredibly generous. And like, I don't mean to say that other people at the show would not do that. But writers on TV shows are not often cited. And this is in the writer, TV writer community, this is infuriating.

No, but it was like really, really cool that he always did that. And it just meant a lot to me because I was, you know, doing something like backstage and it was exciting. But people would know that I had worked on this thing they liked. And so Bill just like really, really. shared credit. It all trickled down from Seth and Mike Shoemaker who made the place a really like communal environment because there are books about the show you can read where it says that sometimes it was not. I've read those books.

Yes, yes. A lot of people will say people were not nice to them. But the character came about... The soundbite thing I used to say was I met someone who promoted clubs. This was not a friend of mine or a good person. There were during the Bloomberg years, and he was mayor of New York, for those of you watching, and he would do fun things like cover the city in beige carpeting and be like, take your shoes off, that's a new law. We'd be like, what?

And we'd do it. And he's about to lose any presidential nomination. Do you think so? I do, yeah. What do you think? I wouldn't count them out. I definitely wouldn't count him out. I like him.

He's in a fight currently today with Donald Trump on Twitter about their height. I got a high-level stuff. Yeah. Trump is taller. That's the debate. He wins that round. You got to give it to that. Donald J, you're right on that one.

are taller than Mike Bloomberg. But will a mayor of New York be the president? I think if Democrats think he's the guy who can beat Donald Trump, they'll be like, sure. Yes, and why am I even asking those old political hypernecical? Yeah, exactly. But can a mayor, it's like, well, who's the president now? Right.

We should be asking ourselves, could Garfield become president? If enough people wrote it in, could we then sort of animate Garfield in some clips of the overall? and say he was the president. Sort of is like nothing can surprise you anymore. So, yes, I think he has a chance. I think he has a chance. Yes.

But you were talking about your club promoter, your dear friend. Briefly, it does make me mourn for the chance that Ed Koch could have been the president. He would have been a great president. Well, I remember George St. Giglin loves Ed Koch. I, John Mullaney, loved Ed Koch. Because I knew who he was in Chicago. Why did I know who the mayor of New York was?

Because he was so annoying that everyone in the country knew who he was. and he would yell at people. He was the mayor. He had to get reelected. And he'd be a... He'd be a... He'd be yelling him on the street. Like, why are you closing down the hospital?

He'd go, lady, you're not going to get what you want to. You're out of your mind. You're out of your mind. He'd say this to his constituents. Yes. And he'd win. And they'd get reelected. Yeah.

God rest his soul. And yes, he was... He was our first openly annoying mayor. And... Was that a George line? St. Giegland, didn't he say that? I'm sure I said that before. That's a good one.

But what were we talking about? We're talking about your, Stefan, the club promoter that you met. So, yes. So this guy's, so during the Bloomberg years, there was a program called Silent Nights. This is true, where they were shutting down a lot of bars and clubs so that it would be quieter, I guess. Right. Which, would that make the streets safer? I don't know.

But Michael, do whatever you want. It's your city. You don't like us drinking 24-ounce cherry-cokes? By all means, take our soda from us. But there was this thing that happened because of these Bloomberg laws where there'd be pop-up clubs. Yeah. They'd be like, there's a boat on the Hudson River. It looks like it's abandoned.

There's a party there. Go there now. And so I knew a guy that would promote these. And by that, I mean, I bet he was a drug dealer. Right. We all know that. Yeah. And so he would describe them.

and what I liked about it was he would say, you know, it's that thing where, and then he would say things that are not things that happen. And he would always say this place is going to have everything, or they're going to have everything. Because it's like that thing where there's like old men in wedding dresses and just like goats. And it made me laugh every time of like what shared...

Right. What shared memory he thought we had of what human existence was like, that there'll be everything there. Everything? Old men in wedding dresses? Yeah, it's that thing. So he'd tell me about these crazy debauchers parties, and I would not go because I am boring.

And so I always thought he was a very funny person, and I would do that cadence with Bill a lot. This place has everything. And Bill lived near a coffee place he would go to every day where the barista had a lot of the mannerisms of Stefan. He would cover his face a lot with his hands. And then one time Bill said, where do you live? And he said, I live on the lower, lower, lower east side. And Bill said, how are you one day?

And he said, my parents are in town. So that guy and the, let's call him a drug dealer than I knew, were merged. And we wrote it as a sketch that actually aired late in the show where Stefan has a brother and they're pitching a movie together. And one brother's ideas are normal and Stephons are Stefan-esque. And it went fine. It didn't do terribly. At the end of the season, Seth Myers and Doug Ables from Update said,

would you try that character as like a timeout New York almost, you know, recommendations guy? And I thought, okay, you know. And we worked on it. We thought it was really funny, but it was so weird. And everything was in it was, you know, culled from trying to get inside the mind of this twisted man, I knew. So I remember thinking, like, this is really funny, but this is just absolutely insane. And I asked the headwriter of update, I said, when this gets cut, could we try it again next week?

Because we'd put a lot of work into it. And then the first time Bill did it, it killed. And he started laughing. And so people got excited about that. And I do too. It happens. It's just fun. Some people criticize it.

Those people, I mean, I understand. There's other things to be upset about it. But he would say, and you know that's part of the reason he was laughing is because you would write new material that he had not seen. Yes. So he's reacting like the rest of us. Absolutely. So we never wanted it to be that thing where you're laughing and then you realize people like it. Or at least I didn't want that.

Bill just walked off and was like, I'm so sorry. I laughed. And I went, no, no, that was great. That was perfect. That was perfect. And I just started thinking, how does one make that happen without being a lot? unethical saying, pretend to laugh. And what you do is, you take someone who is very busy and has to do something on live

network TV and you throw new things at them right before they walk out. And that was really fun. It was so, so fun. And the thing that was also great was there'd be new lines in. But I would tell Bill right before he walked out, because your eye has to read it off a cue card. And I wanted him to get the thing that I just told him about word for word right. I'd be furious.

But the other thing was, once the cards were loaded, Samberg would stand next to the camera like this, just staring at him. And once Seth knew that we were changing things, he would make him repeat them. He would go, I'm sorry, I missed that. Would you tell us again what's going to be there? So the best part of it was was that Bill has this great work ethic, that's child of Oklahoma, the great plains of this great country. And he would always come off and go.

I'm so sorry I laughed. I mean, every time he apologized, I said, Bill, I'm making sure that you're thrown off every single time. I'm deliberately trying to mess with and sabotage this just enough so that you laugh. But he really was like, I'm so sorry I laughed and I blew it. And I was like, it's perfectly fine. One that comes to mind is when you had to do the long list of things that this place has. Because the place had everything.

Yes, that is everything. You closed with my son. that one just it was so deep and wrong like oh Stefan has a son and his son is at this club my favorite

which was New York's hottest club is your mother and I are separating or the other one the other line that I have used in other projects since was a doorman who high fives a door man who high fives the children of

Yes. Yes. Which was a real sense memory. Like, hey, little man. You know. Yeah. Oh. Yeah.

That's why it worked because it did strike a chord with some people. We all remember that. That wasn't a good time. So what's the character that you're most proud of that's not Stefan that you created? You think people didn't like? No. Could be a well-known character. But Stefan gets all, rightfully so, gets all the love.

And people know you and Bill did that character together. What's the character as a writer you love? maybe just writing the best? One of my favorite things to write, and if this comes off badly, maybe you don't use it, but Colin Joseph and Rob Klein and I would write the former governor, David Patterson.

And it was, Fred looked so much like David Patterson. Fred had actually once almost played him, so he'd put on the beer. before. We were asked to write a Governor Patterson update. We did. Fred called me that night. He said, hey, I just want to let you know that I'm going to look exactly like David Patterson. He said, I'm going to look exactly like David Patterson. He said, it's pretty weird. I look a lot like David Patterson when I put the beard on it. And I was like, okay, great. So, we wrote these

David Patterson's. There were a lot of jokes in them, and some were as, as, you know, as to quote the New York Times, to call this humor, sophomoric, would be an insult to sophomores. Is that an actual quote? Yeah. Really? From the New York Times. And you remember that. You don't forget that line.

It's great. There are a lot of very stupid on the line or over-the-line jokes. But I would also say that very, very quickly, meaning the first time he went out there, David Patterson became an insult comic who made fun of New Jersey. Jersey. So Patterson making fun of New Jersey, which was not a thing that was real, was one of my favorite creations, was that he just wanted to hammer New Jersey, no matter what was going on.

My other favorite character to write was, and this only made it on once, was a character named Riley that Fred and I wrote, where Riley was a 12-year-old boy who kind of talked like Harvey Firestein, and he had a lot of anecdotes. and he was just a kid over at dinner with Andy's Andy's his other 12-year-old classmate and he's at dinner with his family and Jason is the father

and he says something and he's like, oh, shut up, look at her and he poises at the mother and he goes, isn't she gorgeous? If she did a split kick because he's a little boy in a red wig he said if she did a split kick and a skirt with a slit up the side, I'd faint.

And I think his catcher phrase was, oh, you, bitch. And he's 12. And he's 12, and he had freckles and he had red hair. I can't stress enough that it was only on once. Writing Riley was a lot of fun. It was critically acclaimed, if not popular with the audience. Do you know what actually happened? Is they made a t-shirt of it. I think someone at NBC thought like, okay, because we gave it a jingle. Right. You know, hoping that that would like manifest more appearances of it. Yeah. And I think they thought, okay, well, that was a sketch. I guess they'll bring it back. And there was a Riley T-shirt sold at the NBC Experience store. Wow. Guess who bought all of them? This guy. You got

him? You still have some at home? Yeah. You get those up on the internet. That's a collector's item. I've tried. I just give them to people sometimes from the show. Stick around to hear more from John Malaney on the Sunday Sit Down podcast, including where he got his sense of humor and his dream job as a kid. Welcome back to the Sunday Sit Down podcast, now more of my conversation with John Mullaney. I want to ask you about where all the sense of humor comes from growing up in the north side of Chicago, watching I Love Lucy when you're five years old. How'd you know that?

I know it all. I know it all. Where's that written? It's right on your Wikipedia page. It's great. It's a one-stop shop. I like that you went to Wikipedia. But it seems, I don't know, it seems to me like you knew from a,

an oddly young age at five that you wanted to do, I don't know if you knew you wanted to do comedy, but you wanted to be in show business in some way? Is that fair to say? I say around age four, I knew I wanted to be a nightclub entertainer. By five. Yeah.

Why would you not at age four? Because I wanted to be like Ricky Ricardo, the husband on I Love Lucy, which had gone off the air by the time I was born, a solid 30 years previous. But back then there were no streaming services. And so the TV was just like, you'd turn it on, and it would be nothing, or it would be like, I Love Lucy.

And then McNeil Lera would come on, and then there'd be news. And then they would play the Star Spangled Banner. Didn't they do it? Overnight, yeah. Yeah. Just to fill the air. Yeah. It was better than color bars.

They just ended up. How about this? And there's no knock on our national anthem. How about nothing? Just turn the TV off. But lest it be left on, there was so little programming we would just play the national anthem. But I watched I Love Lucy because it was like I was just a rerun kid. I watched a lot of I Love Lucy, the honeymooners Dick Van Dyke, and what's happening with a character named rerun.

So I said, I like his life a lot, Ricky Ricardo's, because he would be at home all day and then he would work for like an hour at night at the club and then he would come home. And I thought that's the best life you can have. And doing it now, it is. To kind of thumb through a magazine in your apartment for most of the day and then go work for one hour and feel very validated by it and then come home and have your day free is an excellent choice. Good choice. Now, he was a Mambo bandleader.

So my first instinct was, I need to be a Mambo band leader. So I took drum lessons and conga drum lessons. Didn't work out. But I loved comedy so much that I'd say by the age of five, I transitioned from wanting to be Ricky Ricardo to being a comedian who lived exactly like Ricky Ricardo. And I am now 37. I have never had another goal.

I have never had another interest. I'll read books and things. Or I'll read half an article and then recite all the facts as if I know them at dinner with other couples. But there's not a time I had another goal. I find that sad. No. I think about it sometimes.

But what person, we all thought we were going to be something at 5, 99.9% of us are not that thing. So you're in a very select group. What did your parents, who are both lawyers, think about this plan of yours? Especially as you got older and said, this is what I'm going to do for a living. Did they worry about it? Well, I have a memory. kids would say, like, what do you want to be when you grew up and they'd say a lifeguard? Because they just met one, you know? Do your kids do that? Like, were their first job choices?

Yeah. That looks fun. Yeah. Twirl the whistle. I want a hose off fruit. You're like, oh, did you just see that today? So that's what you want to do? That's great. They have much wider view of what jobs they could have. Not you so much, though. Not me. You're right here. No. But, but when kids are saying, I want to be a lifeguard, I want to a fireman. I want to be a spaceman who's also a rapper. I'm saying, I want to be a nightclub entertainer. And they're like, okay. And I was like, I'm serious. I was obsessed with comedy and collected comedy albums. And my parents, who are lawyers and were very funny people, but were very serious people. I guess you can call them stiff and terrifying sometimes. They actually showed us a lot of comedy, like Mel Brooks and old radio shows.

So my dad first showed me the Marks Brothers, you know. Now, when I was 17 and he said, so what are you actually thinking of doing with your life? And I said, I'm going to be a comedian like I've been saying since I was five. We were at a restaurant. This happened. And my dad went, what are you talking about? I said, I want to be like a comedian. He said, what do you mean?

What are you going to be like Steve Martin? No, I don't know what he meant, as if I couldn't be like Steve Martin, which is totally appropriate, that no one can, or that that was like a silly person. I still don't know, but he said, I think he knew so little about entertainment that he said, what does that mean? You're going to be like Steve Martin, as if that's the only part you had. So then my parents were baby boomers, and they still are. And so they knew enough pop psychology, not real psychology, because why actually look into that before you raise children? They knew enough anecdotal street psychology not to not say you can't do that profession because then your child will do that and they'll be mad at you. So they said, okay, go to, okay, bye, go to New York.

And later they told me that they were going to give me two years, which is funny. They'd give you two years to fail. And then I don't know what, they'd have me put to sleep. I actually never asked what happens at the end of the two years. They'd say, you can't be a nightclub entertainer. I'd say, I don't think you're listening. I'm going to be a nightclub entertainer. So they never totally took it seriously.

Until I told them I was doing it. Right. And then they took it seriously. And, you know, it was like when you disappoint your parents. but well they were more I couldn't read their faces you know I thought like well I haven't murdered anyone

you know I'm just and I'm and I gave up Mabo and I swear to God mom and dad there are people who do this and I know they make a living you know like look at this article this guy he was a comedy writer but he went to Harvard you know right so

later my parents told me my dad told me you know it's really hard because I couldn't give you any advice and I thought That was maybe what was going on, because they were both lawyers. My older brother is a U.S. attorney, so he's a lawyer, because you have to be a lawyer to be a U.S. attorney. You can't just walk in there. That's a true story.

And it was just out of their element. My mom's a law professor. My dad does mergers and acquisitions. Neither of them were in the nightclub scene. And they said that we had no advice to give you. And I thought that was kind of sweet. That's why they seemed so disapproving. It's because they knew nothing about the world and wanted to be in charge of what they did.

And so how do they feel now about being the subject of so much of your stand-up material? Let me say this. I read a Philip Roth quote once, which was, when a writer is born into a family, the family is finished. And so I have a guiding principle, which is, if you don't like that I am saying it, you shouldn't have said it to me when I was a kid. Now, that's not trying to be hostile. It's just kids are tape recorders. Yeah.

And you reap what you sew. It normally doesn't happen. It's repeated to thousands of people in a theater, but in my case, luckily it does. Do they ever say to you, John, come on. Special was great. Radio City was packed. but did you have to tell that story? These are people that are concerned

with how we come off as a family and reputation. I remember one time I was a kid and I said, yeah, and my dad said, the word is yes. So he was slightly concerned with appearances. And so I tell these stories about them where I try to point out how just deeply bizarre, smart, thoughtful, interesting, but deeply bizarre and strange

and intimidating people they were. And they love it because they're mentioned. Oh, really? Yes. People really like to be talked about. No matter the story. I have yet to run into a problem. Wow.

Yeah. I told this story in my last stand-up special because my last special was singing with kids. But the one before that, this is Kid Gorgeous. I told a story about the one and only sex talk I had with my dad, which he came up to me and he said, you know, Leonard Bernstein was married,

but some of the time he would be gay. And when he was holding back the gay party, he did some of his best work. And then he walked out of the room, I did. That's literally the story I was thinking of when I said, do they ever ask you? I wish you hadn't said that. And I wondered that every night on stage,

that would get a laugh. And I thought, John, it's coming. You're about to film this, and your parents are going to see it. And he didn't say anything about it? I get to Chicago, which is where they live. I'm performing the Chicago Theater. They're in the audience.

It's early in the show. And I tell the story, and it got a nice laugh, which was great. I go backstage. My dad goes, there he is. He gives me a big hug. And I said, I gave him a hug. And I was like, you like the show? He goes, that was awesome.

And I hugged my mom. And I said, is that okay about the Leonard Bernstein thing? And she said, yeah. And he said that. And my dad said, oh, no, I never said it that way. I was more elliptical. She said, it was not elliptical. It was quite oblique.

And that's... Is that the right word? Your family. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, that was the conversation. No complaints from him.

No, no. It was like, when I said my dad, he was like, that's right. I don't mean they're obsessed with show business. It's just, it's a fun thing to be able to do. I was at, I was doing a Boston Symphony Hall and it was really exciting to be at that venue. My Nana, my grandmother lives in Boston. And so she was there. and she had just had surgery on her hip,

and she had a cane and was moving pretty slowly. And I said, you know, my nana is here. And before I could finish, is here tonight. She was already standing and waving like Willie Maze's funny. That's amazing. They're throwing us out of here. I have to show you one last thing. What are they going to sell?

Yeah, they've got to, like, open the restaurant. So I like to keep up with John Mullaney News as closely as I can. And I came across this on the Internet. You posted a photograph to Instagram. Here's the headline this morning in the Huffington Post. Wait, I posted a photo of you and Sandberg before the last Second Chance Theater. Oh, and we did Seth. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. So the headline reads this way in the Huffington Post this morning. John Mullaney looks like a snack, and the whole internet wants a bite. Does that speak to your level of fame, John, that you've got people... Can I see it written down? Yep, there is. Look at that. Big, bold headline. How does it feel to be a snack?

Please feast your eyes on this objectively. sexy photo of John Malaney. All right. How does one feel about that? Maybe not about that, but how do you feel about being... No, no, no. You stay here? Okay, good.

Um, yeah, I was like, uh... What? Well, where were all you when I was 12? You know? Dirty, these little kid running around, rollerblading and being an idiot. Like, my first thought was, I, uh, I, I thought was I had that high school thing of like, nah, everyone likes Jerome, you know?

Right. Right. So I thought that. I just, you've gone from Mr. Behind the Scenes at SNL to the fact that now you're. A snack people want to eat? Yeah. Is that weird? Not this specifically.

I just being a well-known person. I find it kind of nice. And I don't, this might just come off as an uneneworthy. attractive quality. But I find it nice because it makes life kind of like a small town. And this may sound very strange, but people going, hey, hey. And he's not everybody, by the way. We're all aware of my level. I'm like Lewis Farrakhan. I mean a lot to a small group of people. But I've never sat across with someone who reminds me less of Lewis Farrakhan than you. But now I see it.

Dude, watch my stand up. I'm in a bright suit. and I am yelling and I am certain of what I'm saying and I'm often wrong actually Chappelle one said like he said the greatest speaker in America is Louis Farrakhan and then I watched some clips on YouTube and I was like yeah it's just

it's like this captivating rhythm and then he gets anti-smart gets bad fast yeah it gets bad fast and then it's a good level you're saying it's a small town you yeah yeah one out of uh walk around new york city huge city most of the time people don't bother me on the two train as i'm uh as i'm reading a sally runy novel and crime

uh but there's areas there's there's there's hip areas of uh Brooklyn yeah where you walk down the street with me and i am robert f kennedy to these people and it's about 30 people but i'm a big deal in that narrow audience yeah yeah And I am Jesus of Nazareth on the good day. You're really jumping around a little bit. Yeah. They were Catholic. Although, you know what?

For the record, Jesus was not Catholic. He was Jewish. That's right. But Catholics, believe he was Catholic. And with that. And with that. Thank you, man. Thank you so much, dude.

Appreciate it. It was great. My big thanks to the Robert F. Kennedy and yes, Jesus of stand-up comedy. John Mullaney. His new special John Mullaney in the Sack Lunch Bunch is streaming right now. on Netflix. And I'm joined right now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast by the producer of this fine podcast, Maggie Law. Hey Maggie. Hi, Willie. And the producer of the interview with John Mullaney for Sunday

today, Sylvie Howler. Hi, Sylve. Hello. So here's where I was coming from in this interview. We love John Mullaney in our house. And when I say we, I mean me, my wife, my 12-year-old daughter, and particularly my 10-year-old son. We went on a road trip this summer and almost all we listened to or Malaney stand-up specials. I was telling Malini that beforehand. He's like, you know, it's funny. I hear that a lot. He's like, and I don't think of myself

as being like a clean comic, but he doesn't use a lot of profanity. He uses it occasionally to punctuate. But it's so smart and so perceptive and so good that Christina and I have been like, you know what, they can hear a couple of those because it's worth it for the rest. So I was a huge Malaney fan coming in

and even bigger Malini fan walking out. Me too. I listened with my son. who's 20, so he can take some of the, you know, saltier jokes. But what I love about him is like, and my son and I sort of analyze this, is how he throws this thing out there, this weird observation, and then he does this really sort of twisted look at it, and then he brings it on home with this thing that's so familiar.

And you're like, that does relate to my life. Yes. I love that, like the quicksand thing. Yes. Like who, as children, I did worry about quicksand as a problem. anvils and quicksand. Every cartoon made you worry about anvils and quicks. And truly, it's not that big a problem.

No. But his observation of that, like, I just love that familiar, like, oh, God, you get me. You get how I think. I like when he talked about his family, too, because I asked, are they okay with being brought into it? And he's like, it turns out people like being famous. Yeah. People when you're saying things that don't reflect terribly well on them. I think the bit that people, if you don't, even if you don't follow him closely,

the bit you may know is the horse in the hospital bit, which is how he explains the Trump years, which I thought was a clever way to go at it. If you don't want to be seen as a political comedian or partisan in some way, he's explaining the phenomenon of Donald Trump running the country as like a horse loose in a hospital, just to say, we've never seen this before. So no one knows how to react to a horse being loose in a hospital. Sure. Which is a good bit. So Maggie, you listened to the whole thing, getting it ready for the podcast. What jumped out at you? So I am one of those people, I think, who was a little bit unfamiliar with John Mullaney, but after listening to it, I'm 100% going to go watch all of his Netflix specials now. His hilarious conversation.

But I think my favorite part was probably at the very end when you brought to him a headline and you had to read that he was being called a snack on the internet. Now for the kids, Maggie. What does it mean to be a snack? It means to be physically appealing, I would say, to the general population. So I immediately went out and looked at the photo myself. Sure. And I would say he's looking like a snack. Was it snackish?

Yeah, I would say especially for him. I think the whole point was he's. No, I mean like he's this sort of, you know, like stand-up comedian. Nobody really sees him that way. And then he was in this like black t-shirt. Yeah. And it was sort of, yes. We should explain because you obviously couldn't see it if you're just listening to the podcast.

It was a Huffington Post article as I was doing research that I just made me laugh because, as you say, it was so counter to his whole thing. I love it. And he posted something on Instagram. He's in a T-shirt with his hair, t-shirt with his hair, t-sulled, a pair of glasses, and his arms in his pockets. He thought was, you know, normal. He didn't think twice about it. He's with Andy Sandberg.

And the Huffington Post wrote an entire article about what a snack he looked like. Yeah, I think my favorite part was probably you reading to him. You're looking like a snack. And let me just say, in case you couldn't tell listening, he was deeply uncomfortable. I thought he'd be like, oh, no, I'm a whole meal or something. He was like, I don't like this at all. Yeah, it was not as funny to him. No, no, please stop.

Please stop reading. So, yeah, he's, I think, I also love Sylvie, his story. His hero was Conan. Conan started as a writer on The Simpsons on an SNL and then got his own late night show and became Conan O'Brien. So he was a hero to writer types because he, like, broke through and made it. And Malaney actually has done what Conan did in a different way. He was a writer.

You know, he got that phone call from Seth and said, I want to be clear. you're just a writer. You're not going to actually appear on Saturday Live. And he was fine with that. And now he's John Mullaney in the same way that Conan became. My favorite part of that story was he went back. He was like with his mom at dinner, went back. And the waitress said, that's how Conan started.

Isn't that amazing? It's just like so serendipitous. Yeah. There he is. But he is kind of living the writer to star dream, which I thought was cool. But I think he kept referring to when he goes back as the host on SNL that, and you were saying like, how does that feel? You're walking down the steps.

you're walking on the stage and he kept saying, I'm a writer. I'm just a writer. I'm just a writer. Right. Like he has not, in his own mind, entered into some other realm as far as who his, what his role is there. Yes. And I just have to say the Stefan origin story is so good. Amazing. Because we had Bill Hater on this podcast. So we got his side of it. And then to hear Malaney tell the story about the club promoter slash drug dealer. Yes.

And the Starbucks barista, wherever the barista was from. I mean, that's like, to me, that's the essence of S&L. You and another funny person in a little room. How do you make up those characters? Dreaming something up that becomes this pop cultural phenomenon and sharing it with the world. Funny dude. All right, guys. Thanks very much.

Thank you. I enjoyed this one, especially with John Mullaney. Thank you both. And thanks to all of you. As always, for tuning in this week. If you want to hear more of the full-length conversations with all my guests every week, be sure to click subscribe so you never miss an episode. And don't forget to tune.

Tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down Podcast.