The Bill Simmons Podcast - Judd Apatow on Binge-watching, Stand-up Culture, and 'The Big Sick' (Ep. 231)

Episode Date: June 27, 2017

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Judd Apatow to discuss the state of American politics (5:00), his attempt to humanize Muslim Americans in 'The Big Sick' (19:00), his return to the stand-up comedy circuit (24:00), the 'Freaks and Geeks' experience in today's TV landscape (30:30), the binge-watching culture and lack of conversation around shows (38:00), Garry Shandling's greatest comedic moments (44:00), LeBron's comedy chops (53:00), the forgotten art of DVD extras (1:02:00), and Ray Romano's role in 'The Big Sick' (1:09:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Who knows? The country's crazy right now. Who knows? Who knows what could happen to either of us? I say to my wife all the time, the only good thing about Trump is that it makes sex better because every time might be the last one.

Right. You just don't know. Exactly. Yeah. It is weird. It's definitely different. It's weird waking up every day now i'm now bored of apple news to make sure nothing crazy happened it's part of my

day now i've just reached saturation on it good where i was in like terror and frustration and and now i'm just annoyed like why can't everything be like the old days remember when obama used to sing every once in a while you're like oh wasn't that nice or remember his kids and how we were like oh his kids seem so cool and then they got older and we're like wow they still seem cool yeah i just reminisce about old obama days they were like an abc sitcom exactly they're like we had that was on the air for eight years and we all liked it well think about this you have the president not everyone liked it most people like i mean obama you know he's in there for eight years i don't think he had two days that were as weird as every day of trump there's no controversies really when you

get down to it like he wore a tan jacket once. I'm trying to think. Smoking. Smoking was a controversy. Is he smoking? Is he not smoking? That was a controversy. It was just like a hardworking president trying to do a good job,

trying to figure out how to help people. And this is just madness. I always laugh about all these meetings with Russia because I think, were they also doing all these meetings with Spain? Like, they never come back and go, we did the same thing with Peru. I mean, I met with Peru eight times. No, they didn't meet with anybody but one country. When do you think it starts trickling into the arts, the movies and TV, basically? It's hard to because it takes so long for it to

process. So will there be a couple of, will there be movies in the future that are based on all of our paranoia? I'm going to say yes. I guess, but I also think the studios want

superhero movies. So where will you see it? I mean, you might see it on like the president's show and you see it on talk shows. But in terms of storytelling, I don't know. We'll see. It's so much weirder than anything that you could write. It's just so insane. I mean, the fact that every old picture of Donald Trump and his wife has him

feeding her grapes or something. It's just too weird. It's like when you used to see those pictures of Gaddafi's apartment and how he lived. It's like our whole life is Putin shirtless on a horse. That's what our

country feels like now. That's one thing you'll never see. Trump shirtless on a horse. That's what our country feels like now. Yeah. In some ways. That's one thing you'll never see. Trump shirtless on a horse. Well, he's gaining weight rapidly. He's not going shirtless and he will not be riding horses anytime soon. And it's, I mean, I feel,

here's what makes me saddest. I feel sad that regardless if you're a Republican or Democrat, millions of people are being taken advantage of, and they don't seem to understand it, that they've been hypnotized. And they've been hypnotized into believing something, which is simple, which is if you get rich people even richer, they'll hook you up. No, no, we'll hook you up.

No, no, lower our taxes and somehow something cool will happen to you i'm not sure what but if you give me more you might get something and people believe that they're totally comfortable with that at least a large portion of people do you see the other side though i see the other side that the the uh the world chain is changing quickly. Technology is destroying a lot of jobs. You go to the airport, they don't even have waitresses now. They just have iPads. Yeah.

And so I understand the frustration and why you would think, how's the government going to help me? Why do I want to sign up for a third decade of the Clintons? Yeah. Or a fourth decade, I guess. But part of it is,

Obama didn't invent the iPad instead of the Clintons. Yeah. Or a fourth decade, I guess. But part of it is, Obama didn't invent the iPad instead of the waitress. I mean, the world is changing and it's hard for the, what people do for a living to keep up with it, with all of these seismic changes. But, you know,

the Trump idea, which is just, no regulations, let the rich people go wild and make things are going to get better i i have eight employees if i made a lot of money but i could have one employee instead of eight i would employers are always looking to have less employees yeah that's how the world works when you make them richer they don't go great i to have 20,000 more people to worry about.

They're obsessed with getting rid of employees. That's just how the world works. And it's terrible. I understand why people are frustrated. But to have a guy that just wants to loot the country be your savior, I don't get it. Because a lot of those people are mad about so many things. I just feel like he's a proxy for that stuff. But he's not even one of them.

That's what's interesting. That is definitely true. I don't think that Donald Trump is sitting at home obsessing about that women shouldn't have the right to choose. I don't think he has any issue with gay people. I think he's just in it to win and looking for what what do i say that that makes me win right and that's that to me is even scarier that was my hope for the presidency though is that he was behaving a certain way because it was going to be what it took to win and once he got in he but if anything

he he was crazier than i expected i saw the other side i understood why people didn't want to vote for hillary and people staying in their party all that stuff but hey regardless of what side you're on we've never had a president who his first and only concern the entire time is what's good for him oh it doesn't care about anybody else it's like how is he being reflected in everything and it's just such a bizarre experience to have that person be the president and why doesn't that bother hardcore right-wing people you should bother a lot of people like why don't they look at that and go just as a human being like i got a bad feeling about this guy right

what does it take for them to go i got a bad feeling that this guy. What does it take for them to go? I got a bad feeling that this guy isn't worried about me. And I don't think that he is. I think that he lives in his own dimension. Like Nixon, who has some similarities to Trump, but always was very good at publicly at least pretending he was the president and he was trying to do the right thing. And then behind the scenes, that's when he was dangerous. It's also all so transparent.

That's what's so, I think, crazy-making. When you say, I don't want anyone from these countries to come in because they might be terrorists, but we'll let all the Saudi Arabians in. I'm not saying we should bar any country, but when your logic makes no sense of which countries can't come in and which can

you're meeting with the russians what's that but he's me and he's meeting with the russians like what about that part i would say they might be a threat how about the fact that comey said that trump never once asked for information about russian interference in the election and what about that jeff session said yeah that he never talked about that with comey it's so you know there's been a lot of talk about the bubbles in la and new york and the celebrity factor and all that stuff you were one of the more vocal celebrities like what would you do over again if you could do over the last 24 months like if you're representing all the celebrities is there a move that celebrities did anything wrong i i i never believe in that part of it it's an easy thing to say afterwards like yes normal people are mad that that star that tv show thinks hillary clinton should have won

yeah i don't think people vote based on that i i i can see people saying you know screw you rich people but then why not screw you trump yeah who's a rich person so you're gonna be mad at george clooney for his opinion but be psyched about the guy that hosted the apprentices opinion there's no logic to it so i never think much about it i think that everyone did stand up and i think you know if you watch those those debates and we're comfortable with Donald Trump being the president, you're getting what you wanted. I watched him and was horrified the entire time. But I knew it was possible because I think he just didn't have a track record. When you have zero track record, it's easy to point to Hillary and say you were right about this, you were wrong about this. But Donald, you've been wrong about nothing because you've done nothing for 70 years right

and so in a way it's a guy without blemishes and only years of fun entertainment for most people and that that helped him i think it's going to start trickling in the arts within the next year because if you look at how the nixon thing played out the movies that hollywood started to make starting with like 74 75 going through view yeah all that stuff that redford was in a couple and yeah what was the redford one where the cia was trying to with the three days of the condor a classic um marathon man all these ones where the government was really up to stuff and trying to kill our protagonists. And that was seven, eight years of movies.

And then on top of that, you had all the Vietnam movies, these people coming back from Vietnam. It wasn't what you think. These guys were actually the heroes. The problem is we've made all these movies already. We made A Face in the Crowd, and we've seen Being There. So all of these entertain True, being there is a good one. Entertainers acquiring power, movies, or network

have been made and made very well. But I don't know if anybody learned anything. My guess is that documentaries are going to play a huge factor over the next couple of years. I know Michael Moore has one coming out. But I saw Hillary Clinton speak at the Code Conference and she mentioned how i think it was on netflix she said that like eight of the ten political documentaries were made

by the trump side or the right or the you know what that his side of things like making obama look bad or hillary whoever and she was saying how that was one of the faults of what happened the last couple years is that it wasn't balanced. Now, if there weren't enough, there wasn't enough hit pieces on the other side. I don't know if that's balanced, but I think that was her point was that, um, one side was just really good at crafting a narrative.

Yeah. Well, they have clear targets. I mean, you know, you have the president or Hillary, those there, they're clear targets.

And so Trump came into the game so late that people didn't have time to gather this information and it's funny that you know people don't get mad that you know mitch mcconnell said let's just make sure obama never wins no matter what on anything and for eight years they just said no to anything you wanted to do yeah and you would think that would enrage people. They would say, our country is about people coming together to solve problems. And people didn't. And that was their strategy.

We're just going to hobble him. Cock blocking him. Yeah. And then at the end, they're like, well, he didn't do anything. Well, yeah, he didn't let him do anything for eight years. And now you're saying he didn't do anything. You know, people, you know, I don't know. uh you know people uh you know i don't know i i have some of my best friends voted for trump and people i i i was shocked would lay out why they

they were doing it and i think for a lot of people they don't think of anything beyond just their taxes potentially being lowered and they think of nothing else they just go yeah i might get another eight percent and and that is important to people but i think that was a massive part of this yeah it was just a very simple new tax cut guy have uh you know they came after lena a bunch of times really for the last couple years yeah in really vicious ways and that's somebody that you've been all strong women get attacked by these people that's why when you see them in a room and they're signing a bill about health care there's never a woman in there it's you know it's men trying to control women's bodies and the thing they're most scared

of in the world is the confident, brilliant, creative woman. I mean, they're terrified. And that's why I think they say such outrageous things. They want to destroy that so quickly. I don't even know if they understand why that bothers them so much. Because what do people like Lena and Amy Schumer really stand for? Equality for women. Maybe sane gun laws so that a zillion people don't get killed every day.

Not even that much gun control. Just how about registration? Yeah. And a woman's ability to control her own body. Right to choose. Amy's another one that got... She got in the whirlpool. It's an old comedian's joke.

You pushed in there. It's an old comedian's joke. But if men could get pregnant, you think that there would be any issue with people being allowed to get abortions? Choose their own body, yeah. You know, it's... Would we ever talk about it in a million years we wouldn't when did your daughter

start thinking about this stuff about the control of your own body stuff because i have a 12 year old and all of a sudden she has opinions on it and i'm like where'd this come from yeah i guess it is a you know it's you know it comes when you're i guess when you're 13 14 15 years old and someone explains it to you i was like a year ago you were complaining you're 13, 14, 15 years old and someone explains it to you. I was like, a year ago you were complaining about Max and Ruby plots. Exactly. Yeah, I think it is a new generation,

hopefully a much stronger generation. And I think the work that Amy and Lean have done certainly has probably inspired millions of young women to speak up about anything they believe in. But I always laugh about it. You know, when people like say super mean things, I think, wow, how unhappy are you if you're going to jump online and say something like that? Like you must feel pretty bad about yourself.

And it's hard, you know, for anybody to have to hear any of that um but it really says more about someone that flips out than about lena or amy or anybody else the amy stuff that one was even that one even seemed kind of forced which part it just seemed like they the the spotlight was just kind of it's almost like outside a penitentiary where the spotlight's roaming around looking for somebody and then it's like hey there's somebody and it just and everybody started coming after it's also so silly it's also so silly because you know in six months we don't even know if donald trump will be the president but certainly within two years two or three, we'll all agree that that was a terrible, terrible mistake.

And all the things that people got in trouble for doing or saying in trying to alert people that we're in a dangerous situation with Trump will all seem justified. Do you worry about free speech at all? And creativity and just all things that we've taken for granted over the years? I mean, there's a lot of people you talk to now that worry that their phones are bugged and they don't trust him with the national security powers. And I think that freedom of speech is at risk when these mega corporations don't have anything to gain by giving you freedom of speech

yeah so it happens i think in more insidious ways certain movies just aren't green lit because they might uh bother some people and i think that's what will happen you do something too far in one direction or the other and you can't get it made yeah and that happens and no one knows it happened you know seth and evan make the movie the interview with a very simple premise which is north korea is a bad country led by a bad man and it reminds people in a very broad comedic way that there are millions of people suffering and starving right now in another country and so then there's all this controversy about it and then you think well what movie are they not going to green light now because they don't want that controversy yeah and then what do we do not say north korea is bad

so suddenly there's another way we don't talk about it or just in the way that they try to make everything equal like just having jeffrey lord on cnn every night i i watch that and i think oh they're just trying to show both sides but it really isn't it's just a propaganda it's not i mean i like when there's a good republican who can you know a senator or congressman who could stand up for a position but the the paid surrogates who are just clowns and sometimes on both sides you go why is he there he never has anything insightful to say he never has new information i know he's going to agree with trump on every single thing i mean if a third of the time he was like i don't know what

the fuck he's talking about on this one he might be worth having but he never ever does and why did cnn keep him there because he's kind of amusing i mean he looks like he should be worth having, but he never, ever does. And why did CNN keep him there? Because he's kind of amusing. I mean, he looks like he should be at the bar on Cheers. And that is why he's there. He's like a weird, goofy, idiot, telegenic guy who does not have an opinion of his own. It would be like if ESPN was showing the NBA playoffs

and just had two people, one who hated LeBron and one who defended everything about him. And just every episode of the studio show, they would just get in an argument with the same beats. And LeBron might play bad one day and then you would have the guy who was his best friend explain why he played good. Right. No, he wasn't bad. I know he missed a lot of shots, but he did this, this, this, this, this. And that's what we watch all day. And it's funny because we have our movie coming out, The Big Sick, right? Yeah. And it's Kamel Nanjiani, Holly Hunter, and Ray Romano. It comes out in New York and LA, I guess.

It'll be like this Friday. And then a couple weeks later, everywhere. And when we started it, there was an element of a guy who was an immigrant falling in love, and his mom wants an arranged marriage. And then the American woman he falls in love with gets sick and has to be put into a coma. And it's like this weird movie about this guy waiting for his girlfriend to wake up from a coma while being stuck with her parents. And it's very sweet and hilarious. And it wasn't meant to be political in any way.

But in this new environment. all of a sudden it's it's politically why because we're humanizing muslim people yeah in america and showing that they're just like you and they just want happiness and love and connection epitaph pro-muslim it's a headline so it's a weird and it's a beautiful movie and i think it really reminds people that all these people come to this country, they come here because they love it. And just because there's a few extreme people out there doesn't mean that the millions of other people aren't amazingly great people. And so this sweet movie suddenly is making a statement when we made it before any of this happened. Right. We made it before any of this happened. But it's a sad reminder that there's a lot of people who will just say, yeah, keep them all out.

That's like if we all had to leave every time a white guy killed somebody. Well, all the white people should leave America because some extremist on the other side did something. So it's very sad. i've seen it up close you know you i i never think about it but when you talk to people like kamal and aziz they say yeah no people they get hassled they this is an everyday thing people looking at you funny people judging because of uh something that is incredibly rare and comes from extreme people. It's like if you judge me because of the Jews who throw rocks at you if you drive a car on Saturday. Quick break to talk about Hotel Tonight.

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Download the Hotel Tonight app right now. It's great. You'll love it. It's great for the last-minute things. Put in the city. Hotel rooms pop up. You find out that somebody has the penthouse suite available at the last minute.

You can impress your girlfriend, your wife, your boyfriend, your husband, whatever. Hotel Tonight, check it out. Back to Jed Apatow. How do you decide which projects now? It seems like you just float around. There's no strategy anymore. You just say, oh, I like that person.

Oh, I like this. And you just float to the different projects. I just, you know, whatever's amusing me, uh, you know, when I hear it, I don't, I,

I, it is, it is, it is like being a fan of sports, except I'm interested in creative people and I'll meet someone and go, Oh my God, that, that person seems like they have amazing ideas.

And yeah. And you, you, you might meet someone and think, I'd love to see a Kamau Nanjiani movie. Yeah. And that'd be someone and think, I'd love to see a Kumail Nanjiani movie. Yeah. I think that'd be incredible. And then you realize that you have to make it

if you want to see it. It's not out there. And the same with someone like Amy. I just heard her on the radio and thought, this is a movie. Everything she's talking about, I can see it. It's a movie. But I'm not actively trying to watch anything or meet anybody.

Just, it just strikes you every once in a while. So you're like on YouTube. Yeah. Or flicking channels. I'm not like Scooter Braun looking for Justin Bieber. I just, we'll meet someone. And then usually I feel like the universe just keeps bringing them in front of you. Well, you must, you're at the point now where you where people are probably trying to get your attention, I'm sure.

Or through a friend of a friend or whatever. But so much less than you would expect. You would think that a lot of people would be trying to pitch things. But it's not that bad. Thank God, because I really don't want to do that much generally. I'm not trying to do that much. But every once in a while there's something that you like so much. But it always seems like you're doing something.

Yeah. I mean, something always fills the time. You're failing on that strategy if you're trying not to do too much. Yeah, something fills the time. Like now I'm doing this stand-up comedy tour. Oh, yeah. And I'm going to do a Netflix special. I have some dates to rattle off.

I should talk about this. End of July. I'll be at Just for Laughs. You should get tickets now because there's only 95% of the tickets available. I'm going to be in Montreal at the end of July

and then also I'm at the Wilbur in Boston doing a couple of shows. And one of them, we're going to give all the money away to after school arts programs in Boston.

And then I'm going to be in Ridgefield, Connecticut at the end of July also. I got Washington, 20, 21st, July. Yeah, and the 22nd. The Ridgefield, Connecticut, 23rd. Boston, 24th. Providence, 25th. And then Montreal, 28th, 29th. Yeah.

And that's the thing I've been enjoying the most is just doing stand-up and being in the clubs. The last time you did the pod, when I brought the pod back, I think October 2015, you were like the fifth guest. Yes. And we were talking about you dabbling back into stand-up. Oh, I love it. It's really... Reigniting it. Yeah.

It's also fun to just be around everyone. There's so many creative people around. When you make movies, you wind up just alone in your room all the time. You don't meet anybody. don't meet one editors with one one sweaty editor and and you just who's always eating chicken exactly and then you go oh i need to be around people and and it's fun you go to the comedy cellar in new york and chapelle walks in and louis and amy and and i think it really it makes you want to be funnier because you're when you see funny people up close you think i gotta work harder look at look how hard aziz is

working on his act yeah i mean there's some killers out there and i think people don't notice i mean i guess they shouldn't these people work their asses off on these sets right for years they grind so hard uh and then it seems effortless but they're in there killing themselves and uh it's really fun i had aziz on the pod last month and he was talking about just how inspired he was to go to some of these clubs some nights and chappelle walks in or rocks working on something just these guys who have had hit every checkpoint of success you can have and they're still grinding away at one in the morning at some club trying to get the wording of one joke right it's always i mean because you're always happy anytime a joke works

yeah it doesn't matter if there's four people there a lot of people they're like oh my god i thought of this joke and it worked and you're so happy. Is that why you, you want to do crashing? Cause it seems like that's like the, the bare bones of that thing. Like he's at some points he's talking to three people. Yeah. I mean, Pete Holmes,

you know, told me this story about, you know, his, his wife cheated on him and he was doing a little standup, but then he, he had to do it full time cause he, she was kind of supporting him. Yeah.

And so I thought that was a funny idea for a show. And we did the first season. People liked it. We're shooting the second season now. And yeah, it forces me to be in the clubs and to know what's going on. And Pete is so funny. So it's a thrill. We're about to do a whole bunch of new ones bill burr is

doing one and what do the comedians think of this show comedians like it and comedians hate anything about comedy i know i was gonna say they're very touchy audience anytime you show stand-up comedy or a club comedians are like that's not what it is right uh but you know we we try to make it as documentary feeling as you can when we get near the clubs. Yeah. And just if we're in the Comedy Cellar one night and we see a bunch of people hanging out, two weeks later we might go, just get those four people from that night and it'll feel like the Comedy Cellar.

Right. And the big sick, the guy's a comedian too. He is. He is, yeah. And then funny people, the guy was a comedian too. What are you trying to tell us? I was saying saying is maybe the only job i can write for i i i can never write like a wizard or something i can never i can never really write about things yeah if i if i don't do it in life i can't do it i can't write a doctor i i've i recently figured out with two kids could be your

next movie like yeah but if it was three kids i could not do it i don't know i've reached the limits of my imagination uh so yeah the showtime show which i watched the first one of about 70s comedy yes and it it makes the i actually thought it was a pretty cool show but it makes the cardinal mistake of the actual comedy is not funny it's the old studio 60 conundrum of it's this sketch show and these guys are geniuses, but then the sketches aren't that good. And you can't buy it. But yet in any other genre, I would buy it. When we do our show, you know, one of the fun things about it is we will just, you know, need some comedy and we'll just say, oh, let's just have Dan Aderman do his act. Yeah.

And it's fun to just showcase people and go, you know, it was hilarious. some comedy and we'll just say oh let's just have dan adam and do his act yeah and and uh and that's it's fun to just showcase people and go you know it's hilarious this is grier barns let's just show grier barns here uh i i'd like that the show exists just for that opportunity to to just anyone you like who's working a club you could chuck them into the show can you believe what's happened to comedy where net yeah netflix basically just say we're gonna take this whole genre except for we're taking 90 of the genre yeah and if we have there's any big comic who's thinking of a special here's the biggest check you've ever thought you would get in your life for it well the world i mean all of it has changed because there used to be no financial incentive for good television yeah it was all lowest common denominator it was all

trying to get everybody to watch hey it's still that case on some networks don't don't rule out some of the networks there's still some windows common denominator but well i i guess more more in your streaming uh yes cable world yeah um and so now when you pitch things, people want them even deeper and weirder. And if you go pitch something to Netflix or HBO, if you're not groundbreaking and buzzworthy, to them I think it's about buzz and awards. But thank God it also means do something

that has never been done before, do something that really matters to you so you don't get the same old stuff you wind up getting whatever game of thrones stranger things or you know whatever movie came on five whatever show came on five minutes ago every day there's a new show it's every day it's like every six hours 2000 2000 era judd would have enjoyed this era i feel like i think freaks and geeks definitely would have got like a three-year commitment i would have been i think we talked about this last time but it is it's just funny like there's certain shows from last decade that would have been consumed completely differently well the number friday night lights

is a great example the numbers of freaks and geeks in today's numbers it would have been a mega hit based on how many people were oh yeah i mean i think seven million people were watching every episode of freaks and geeks and that was a disaster right uh i mean that was friday night lights was like that too it was like six million people this is this is we can't keep this well what do you like the 19th highest show what do you watch what's your main binge show it depends there's like the family binge shows like we we banged out riverdale yeah i haven't seen that yet 13 reasons why which was probably five reasons too long okay i haven't watched that yet usually the binge watch shows are too long yes they it's it's almost like the uh the object

of just editing and maybe trying to be around the right length. It just doesn't matter. It's like we do 13 of these. Great. Do it. Do all of them. Like, I don't know. That show could have been eight.

But some of them are not meant to be watched so quickly. No, but I think you can tell some are now designed because they'll have the little cliffhanger at the end. Yeah. But I just mean, do you really want to watch how many hours of the same thing? I always thought it was fun that Girls was on one week, and you would think about it and talk about it a little bit. Well, we're old school, though, because I agree with you. I like the digesting and the comeback, but I think the binge watch.

It's funny. My dad, who somehow never saw Game of Thrones, and I finally convinced him to watch it. And he's watched three seasons in two weeks. Yeah. But he's 69, so it's a lot of stuff like, how about that guy who has sex with his sister lost his hand?

You know, it's a lot of like, he doesn't know anyone's name. But you don't remember anything. But he's binge watching it. I mean, you can't remember it. It's like, we'll watch like season two of Narcos. Yeah. And we'll be like,

that's good bar. Who's that guy? A good guy or a bad guy? Are we rooting for him? Are we not rooting for him? We were watching Broadchurch season two. Very good show, Broadchurch. We got, I swear to God,

eight episodes in and I turned to my wife and I went, we watched this five months ago. And it took us eight episodes to realize we had already watched those eight that's how bad it is we watched season one of Bloodline and I think we watched it like two nights

me and my wife and then when season two came out we didn't know who any of the characters were it just kind of goes in one ear and out the other it's like putting down a book it's like trying to read War and Peace and dropping it for a week and going I don't know what is happening it's too much stuff it's too much content and it's hard for me as someone who makes that content,

you have a weird relationship with the audience because the audience is moving through so much shit that you don't feel like you've had that much of an impact in their lives. And they're probably doing a second thing as they're watching your show. They're loading up Hulu as your Netflix show is ending. They're definitely doing two things. They're on Twitter show they're loading up hulu as your netflix show is ending in two things they're on twitter they're on snapchat whatever as they're watching your show that you slaved over for a year and a half because you know we do love for netflix and we do design it with the belief that people are going to watch it in two sittings yeah that's

what we always assume that people watch two four. You mean two, four, or five hours? Yeah, yeah. Five hours or four? Yeah, most people would watch it in two, three max. But you drop it, and then for a few weeks, people talk about it. And then it's like you're not having a conversation with the audience. And the truth is, I think more people are watching it than other things and in other eras. Especially in other countries, too. Yeah. Yeah. But you're not having a conversation

with anyone like the the way you used to interact with the audience has changed and i don't think it's necessarily worse it's just different and it throws you if you're used to feeling like you impact the culture in some way yeah i think game of thrones you could argue might be the last significant everyone enjoys it at the same time on the same night and then thinks about it for the next couple days and then gets ready to do it again i don't know if there's ever going to be another show like that and i don't know if it's bad it's just i think it's partly bad yeah i love the whole concept of finishing a show and then talking about it with people I like

and then reading stuff about it and people experiencing it as I experienced it. Because sports is like that, right? You watch game four of the finals and you go through it and it's live and then you figure it out after. I remember when The Sopranos was on, after every episode,

I would call Jake Kasdan and we would talk about it for an hour. Just like recap. But it was just one guy. I guess I could find, find other people, find one guy to talk about a whole season of the show. That's what I mean is I don't know if it's good or bad. It's just, it's just an adjustment.

It is like the adjustment of making movies for streaming services. Yeah. You know, we made the Pee Wee Herman movie and it was on Netflix and people really liked it. But you just didn't feel it in some way when maybe more people watch that than almost any movie I've made probably. But where do I talk to anybody about it? It's an odd feeling i think a lot of filmmakers are adjusting to it because there's great things about it too which is a lot of cool things are going to get made and are getting made because of this need for content and a lot of bad things too

a lot of bad things yeah we've a lot of wild swings and misses and then some swings and hits but but a shot i would say this as someone who's hated network tv development my whole life railed against the nightmare of the notes process and how they water everything down and ruin everything i think that like the netflix success rate is so high creatively it is it's such an argument against everything network tv does in how they develop programming they've done one thing that is near and dear to both of our hearts they pick people they want to work with and then just let them go yeah they're like for better or worse here's some money go do your thing yeah i mean it's great to not feel like you're gonna get canceled in the middle of your season or you're

gonna get notes from people who doesn't know who the fuck you are yeah or doesn't understand what you're trying to do. Well, network TV. Get rid of that character. Network TV is like making TV with a gun to your head because they do have this thing, which is I could stop you from shooting at any moment. Yeah. So if I say,

add three hot girls and you go, what? That doesn't even make sense. They basically have a gun in your mouth. Yeah. Where with Netflix, they give you a season

and they're rational and and at the end of the season they let you know if they want to do another season but you don't have that terror like oh my god we lost last night because we were up against the tony's and now you're worried your show's gonna get canceled yeah it's nice not to live uh under that shadow of the movies you made what one would have been better as an eight-hour season one of a Netflix series? Well, I think This Is 40 would be a great series. Plus, you could have done the tearjerker version of it, like This Is Us and gone for the 20 million people. Or I could have done the This Is One Direction.

See, This Is is a very popular thing. This Is is good. But we stole it from This Is Spinal Tap and I think This Is Spinal Tap stole it from like some World War II documentary or something. So This Is 40. This Is Radio Europe or isn't there some other So This Is 40.

10 episodes. That would have been good. What else? You could have done about 85 episodes of Walk Hard. But show his whole life in real time which I would have enjoyed I want to make all of them series that's why my movies are so long

you're a frustrated TV series maker yeah for me like Love is just a five hour movie I've finally gotten the time because it's weird because in a movie theater people do get annoyed at a certain length and I'm always shocked that people will sit through a superhero movie that's almost three hours Because it's weird because in a movie theater, people do get annoyed at a certain length. And I'm always shocked that people will sit through a superhero movie that's almost three hours.

Right. But you make another genre movie and it's like an hour and 58 and people are losing their minds. I think it's because they have to pee. I think it's all about pee timings. Because when you're home, you can pause. And people want to be able to pause. And so in a movie theater, there's a moment where people are like, it's been too long since I peed.

And for the last 25 minutes of your movie, they're mainly thinking about that they have to pee. But at home, they can watch the OJ documentary in one sitting because there are pee breaks. So my only counter to that would be

if it's a kid's movie or a superhero movie or whatever it's really nice to get out of there in two hours from start to finish i always when like we go to see what generic superhero movie du jour and you look and it's the run times two hours and 19 minutes and you know you have a five-year-old and you know there's gonna be 15 minutes of previews and it's just like you start doing the math, and you're like, I'm fucked. Why are you bringing the five-year-old to the Dark Knight?

What are you doing? That's true, but it's a mistake. But I remember seeing Sully last year, and it was like a minute 29, or an hour 29, and it was just like, all right. It's like a friend. And it went really fast. Great.

So I think there's room for both, but you and i are aligned because i mean everything i've written has probably been 25 too long i was like yeah i never think things are too long if i like them yeah like if someone called me and said hey the oj doc they found three more hours they there's another three hours they cut out i literally would be running home to right you want more if you'd run more. If I like it. But, you know, like for instance, I'm doing a documentary about Gary Shandling for HBO right now.

I was ready to talk about that. And, you know, we're approaching it like the Eagles documentary or, you know, the Grateful Dead documentary. There's, you know, a great story to tell. And when you don't feel the need to do it in 90 minutes, you don't have to like cut out of every moment in four seconds. You could actually show what something felt like. If you're showing the first time you did the Tonight Show, you don't show one joke and move on. You could actually show a minute of it and give people a real feel for things.

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Back to Judd Apatow. So when you came on in October 2015, which I think was the last time you were on, and we talked about Shanley. Yes. And we talked about him for 10 minutes, and then you told me that I was like, yeah, I want to go see him. And you were like, go see him. And then a couple months later, you know. But then you ran the memorial service, which I was grateful you invited me to.

And it was one of the coolest nights I can remember. And I'm sure people still mention it to you. It was as good of a celebration of anyone that i've ever seen but it started out with this great moment with uh jeffrey tambor and beverly from larry's show what's penny um and they're doing this sketch in character as larry sanders characters but then they break character near the end and Jeffrey Tambor as Hank just gets upset about, um,

Shane, uh, Shanling. And it was, uh, it was super emotional in the room. It really was. I mean,

it was, uh, it was just perfect. And then you had all these people come out giving speeches and you're like, the fucking security guard's going to give a speech. This is going to be terrible. And then he's great. And it was just awesome. I've never seen anything like it it was really memorable

and now you're doing the documentary yeah i you know the document documentary was it something that came out of the memorial because uh when we were putting the memorial together we said well let's let's let's add it together some little documentary pieces for the memorial and we we got everybody to give us all the footage of gary yeah all his tonight show sets and letterman appearances and obscure things and it was just such a treasure trove you forget how much comedy these people write in their lives you know gary might you know have some appearance from letterman from 2008 that no one on earth remembers. But when you rewatch it, you go, that might be the funniest five minutes of panel I've ever seen in my life. And I always feel bad just as a bit of a hoarder that people don't have access to see those things or don't know they should see them.

So the documentary is a great way also to show the work because you you might forget oh he did a bill maher appearance during the oj trial where i've never seen anybody more on fire and insightful and hysterical yeah uh that we found a clip of donald trump filling in for regis interviewing gary what on regis and kelly donald trump filled in for regis and regis and kelly and it's just it's just amazing to see the look in gary's eyes not knowing what to do with this human just looking at him like what what is happening in front of me here right now before he was a politician just as a human being just thrown by the the strangeness of it what do do you think Gary would have thought of that memorial service? I think he would have loved it.

Gary was trying to figure out a way to talk a little bit more about his spirituality. He was interested in Buddhism and really believed in all these ideas that he wrote about in Larry Sanders, about trying to drop your ego and non-attachment and, and it was a struggle for him, but he, he, he was,

he was seeking, uh, you know, a quieter life and a quieter mind and, and, and had been his entire life, you know? Um,

and so I think the Memorial expressed that. And he talks about it a little bit in comedians in cars right which was like his last great yes thing that he did on video i think right yeah i think that he found a way to show who he was at that stage of his life it's really funny but very very revealing the reactions he got from seinfeld too it's just like pure pure comedy joy like just seinfeld it seems like that was the recurring thing with him how much other comedians got a kick out of him he has to be like in the top five of being able to make other comedians just laugh i think comedians know how

ingeniously funny he was what a craftsman he was yeah and you know he reinvented tv two times right uh with its gary shanley show and the larry sanders show and i mean he completely changed television at hbo when you talk to the heads of hbo what they say is they're super indebted yeah you say that the larry sanders show told them what hbo should be yeah that that's how big an impact it was and someone said that david chase wrote the sopranos after watching the larry sanders show huh because he said oh we're allowed to do this now right uh and i think that you know everything we do girls fle, Fleabag, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Office, all of these things, they're all influenced by Gary. Gary really showed people a new path.

I agree with that. As somebody who grew up with HBO, it was movies and comedy specials and boxing. Yes. For years. Yeah. And then some shows that weren't very good. And then Sanders was on and by like 95 96 it was like if you cared at all about comedy or being funny or anything um you've you had to

either get hbo or have a buddy who had hbo if you're in your 20s and 30s you just had to you had to get it and it was like this this show happening not on the network that you had to see and then that led to everything else i always thought it was the first really important hbo show that had to be seen yeah and then it then it goes to sex and city and sopranos and then oz and they're off but and it was weird at the time oh it's half on video it's half on film right uh you have all these celebrities playing is he parodying letterman is this him yeah there's and and people forget gary was the the main guest host of the tonight show yeah when johnny wasn't there him and leno would would alternate yeah and gary got busy doing it's gary shanley show and said i can't do both and he gave up hosting the tonight show

it would have been interesting to see who they picked if he went for it. I don't know the answer to that. I would say it's like a dead even battle. I think Shanley probably had more gravitas at that point. Yeah, it's hard to know. He did get offered all of the 1230 slots. Yeah. Which he wisely turned down.

He wanted to satirize the world of late night more than just do it. Yeah. But I think that he also didn't like the idea of working every day. It was the type of job you would take on

and it would mean you've made a commitment to do a job for the rest of your life. And I think that also bothered him. It's a tough one to binge because i've had some young people that work for me they watched it in you know the first season and a half the two seasons of the show are so different than where the show got to yes yes and he had wives in

the first two years and it never was that logical and i always thought that gary was trying to work something out on the show like oh this is the type of relationship i should be in and and to try to write it but it's also tough to tell somebody just jump into season three it's not like season one and season two weren't worth watching but the good stuff is starts with season three yes that's when it really becomes the show that it is and i don't i don't know what i would recommend i mean i would recommend people go from start to finish but if i i think some people watch season one and they they don't quite get it why it became what it was well i also think it's not the type of show you really

should be watching three or four in a row no like if i watch larry sanders i don't want to watch another one i would watch the roast three or four times in a row. I mean, just watch that over and over again. That's one thing I've been looking for, the episode where they roast Larry. The dailies. I haven't been able to find the dailies because I think they just roasted him for hours and hours and hours. Oh, seriously? You think they ad-libbed it? Well, I think people wrote long speeches and then they cut them down.

I'd love to see the dailies but i i don't i don't have them so that could have been like a two and a half hour show oh yeah i did there's a funny thing online which is richard pryor had a sketch show and it got canceled so for the last episode they just did a roast of richard pryor and the people roasting him was just the cast and they must have just wanted to do a cheap show or something but the cast was Sandra Bernhardt and Marshall Warfield and Robin Williams and Tim Reed so it's like mid 70s?

yeah and it's online someone put up the raw footage of it and it's just them roasting Richard Pryor and Richard Pryor's taking notes the whole time then he gets up at the end, and he's 10 times funnier than all of them and destroys them and is way meaner than they expect.

Oh, yeah. He comes back at them hard. They're still kissing his ass a bit, and he is not. One more break to talk about credit-wise from Capital One. Credit is like a golf major. It's all about how well you perform against the factors that go into a credit score.

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Well, you and I, we both go on YouTube deep dives every once in a while. And the 70s roast, when nothing was politically correct is an unbelievable deep dive if you ever really want to have your jaw drop a couple times yeah i lately i've been more into searching for things on youtube i go through periods where i'm into it i'm it. I'll look up authors speaking at colleges. That's a fun one. You could just pick an author. Let's go John Updike. And then there's hundreds of lectures and Q&As

with guys like that. And current authors. All authors do tons of interviews on video. So if you like anybody. I had no idea. You know, about politics, you know, people write,

you know, nonfiction books about anything. That's a fun deep dive. Or fainting goats. Fainting goats. You know, you could do... What's that noise? Yeah, I know. I was trying to figure it out.

Or emu attacks. Emu attacks. I like any, like, version of a tourist being attacked by large birds it's amazing how much is on youtube now like you could just put in robin williams 1976 and just stuff comes up yeah it's like here's this thing you did here and here's him in comedy central with somebody filming with an eight millimeter camera no i i didn't notice that recently like wow people have uploaded everything now it is all i sometimes i'll look up like jen apatow brazil interview to just see if some

interview i gave for 40 old virgin 10 years ago jen apatow naked there yeah like and they are all there uh and i love the the weird obscure rock documentaries like this morning i just looked up neil young and there was some bbc massive documentary about neil young i had never heard about before the bbc has quietly done documentaries on everybody who was ever good at music it seems like yeah what the hell is that noise you got a bird i think the bird is attacking this place. Might be a woodpecker. Now, did you guys all just get back from the finals? Oh, yeah, we should talk about that, because your best friend LeBron lost again.

I thought he was going to do it. You guys aren't in the same friendships since you did the movie. I feel like he's not leaning on you as much. It's hard to keep those friendships alive. It's hard to stay in constant contact with the most famous athlete we have right now. I'm talking to LeBron and Romney Malco about the same amount right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Although I went on vacation to Hawaii and LeBron was there with his family. And he could not have been nicer and cooler. Well, he came off great in your movie. He actually was a good actor. Oh my God, he's so funny. The athlete actor scale is like it's definitely on a curve, but he was up there. And that's not spoon-fed. That's just him actually being funny

and me being relieved that I don't need to do any work. Right. I mean, he got that joke. He is... I mean, what do you make of the these guys who seem to reach some higher level of existence lebron it's like you can say the same thing about like springsteen yeah they're like in flow it's just one name uh yeah and they're so creative and so like like federer or something but they're also great people and it's an there's like a group of them you might even see like jay-z is one of these people i went to a video shoot uh that a guy i knew was directing and and he goes oh have you

ever met jay-z i'm like no and he's like oh come say hi he's Jay-Z? I'm like, no. And he's like, oh, come say hi. He's just a nice guy. I sit down. There's no one in the room. So it's a very funny thing. I sit down and then the video's delayed. So suddenly I'm just sitting with Jay-Z for hours. And maybe his manager pops in and this artist was there.

But it's never more than four people. He's about to shoot a music video for Picasso Baby, which they then chucked me into the video. Oh. I've never seen a guy more relaxed. He's getting calls from Beyonce. I've never seen someone with so little stress who was so amiable and smart and funny.

And I thought, how does this happen? And you get that from other people. Like Springsteen's like that too, where I've only briefly met him, but you feel a certain... Positive, just creative energy coming from him. I guess he wrote a whole book about depression. Maybe they're all crying inside.

Now that I think about it, I think LeBron's really depressed. Because Springsteen's book is all about that he was depressed and he had anxiety and that's why he liked to stay on stage because his dad was mean to him when he was growing up i mean that was like his first four years four albums at least had one song about something with that right and that he felt his dad was having some mental struggles as well but do you see that you meet all. But do you see that? You meet all the athletes. Do you see something different in certain people that can perform at that level? You know, I think most of them are really afraid to be candid,

which is why I've done three podcasts now with Durant, who, for whatever reason, is just candid in them and just kind of lets it fly and is just honest. And I think that athletes that we have today are just very conditioned to not give a lot out because they've been burned and they they just the repercussions if something goes wrong isn't worth it so they're just very careful lebron is somebody that first of all the way he's handled the last 15 years is extraordinary he's been from the moment he was 17 was really famous you know he was a high school player they're showing his games on espn and then he goes to the calves he wins rookie of the year and it just goes up and up and his

profile goes higher and everyone's picking him apart he just kept coming back it's pretty crazy he's never had never really had a scandal. The worst thing that's ever happened to him was the decision, which really, who cares? It's some reality TV show that people got mad about. But I think when you look at him

compared to other celebrities, I'm not even talking athletes, it's usually gonna go wrong when somebody becomes that famous at 18. People have trouble becoming famous when they're 35. So I think that, I don't know if he gets enough credit for that. I mean, just performing under pressure. And then the other stuff, yeah, and that he keeps getting better.

It plays tricks on you. I interviewed Jim Carrey for the Gary Shandling documentary the other day and he said people don't really understand in a moment your whole life changes from you watching the world to the world watching you yeah and I'm fascinated by the people who handle it well and have the

mental foundation to do it over the long haul but most people don't handle it well. I think Jim Carrey is a good example of somebody that almost flew too close to the sun, right? He had, in the same year, he had three monster hit movies and basically could get any movie he made. And I think now he admits he didn't like a lot of it.

Well, I think when you get that successful and you've been given the ability to be that creative that uh it just makes you start questioning everything uh gary talked a lot about this just how much do i need to do like and who am i doing it for right so if you've you know if you've succeeded and your dreams have come true and you've expressed yourself you've designed your life to to be a certain person and at some point you think well who am i really beneath all this yeah beneath this reputation beneath the celebrity like who am i and i i think that people get very interested in in that journey and i think it's very common with creative people because how much can you give of yourself?

Well, and also, like, do you hit a point where something good happens and then you go, is that all there is? It's like the famous Jerry West story where he tried his whole career to win the championship and then finally in 1972, after 13 years, they won and he was just bummed out. And he was like, I wish we had beaten the Celtics.

Like, he just, he somehow fix had beaten the celtics like he just he somehow fixated on the one thing that wasn't good about it is like oh we beat the we didn't beat the celtics so this doesn't totally count and then started hating himself again well you what happens is when you have a a good moment and say life is going well and your family is going well and then you know you make a movie or something it goes well you you discover the limits of your ability to be happy yeah because you think this is it everything's good and then that worked out so this is how it feels i am maxed out right now yeah and if you're still feeling anxious or depressed or weird, you're really bummed out. Because then you go, oh, it's me.

None of this has anything to do with me being happy or unhappy or fulfilled. It's all something else. Great. Now I got to work on that. And I think that's a common struggle for people. You hit this theme in your book in a couple of the interviews because i think both of us are kind of famous are are fascinated by the effects that fame has on and success has on people yeah i think that it's that's why we both love the eagles documentary yeah because they don't understand what it did to them there's a complete lack of understanding lack of self-awareness i

know what i love about the eagles documentary is that they love it and they don't see anything to be embarrassed about in it yeah and they're comfortable being that truthful but they also don't quite understand how people are reading it yeah uh that's a part of the complexity of the Eagles documentary. Yeah. Glenn Frey says at one point, he's whatever song they're fighting about that the guitarist thought he could sing. And Glenn Frey's like, we had Don fucking Henley. That's who should have sang. But then, then you find out like Glenn Frey wanted to sing all the songs.

Like his case for Don Henley should sing that song was also the thing that drove him crazy. Cause he felt like he had lost control of the band. It's great. It's a great power struggle. But what's fascinating about that documentary is they seem to ignore that the main struggle in the band was between Glenn Frey and Don Henley. And so they're blaming the bass player. Right.

Don felt there. It's all his fault. And that's why it's also fascinating how they've decided to tell that story because there's a whole it's like

leaving out there's a financial element to it well it's like leaving out the arguments between Lennon and McCartney yeah blaming George for everything which they do do

the Beatles sometimes like oh Ringo quit he was the first one to quit but but I love those kind of stories. Yeah, it's always interesting to see how people handle it. And that is a question that Gary was always pondering,

which is, who am I doing this for? Like, I'm making things. Is it for me? Is it to be famous? Is it to have an ego? Is it to prove I can do it? Is it a pure expression of who i am uh is it a beautiful thing is it a needy thing and why why do we do this stuff it seemed like he to me who only talked to him i don't know a couple times and

but followed his career pretty intensely it seemed like like he never got over the Sanders show. He felt like it just was everything he wanted to do. I agree with that. After the fact. The telling sign to me was when they did the DVD and he went and did like 18 hours of interviews. The interviews, I loved all of them, but they were also like 10% weird

because it was clear that he hadn't let go of the show yet well also that he in some way wasn't there fully when they made it that he was so obsessed with making it that he didn't he was learning stuff he didn't really know what happened it was almost like he went into a trance and did it yeah and and and in a way i think you almost go crazy when you're making something like that. It becomes your apocalypse now. Yeah. And suddenly relationships are weird and you're doing everything to serve this creative idea. It's not bringing out your best self some of the time.

Yeah. You know, Gary got along great with the actors, but the writing was always a struggle because he was so good no one could keep up with him. Yeah. And then he would get frustrated uh and so that's a tough dynamic when the best writer at the show is the star and he's busy acting and you're trying to figure out what he would like when he's not there and he's a genius and he's a genius so the and you know your staff isn't all geniuses so then he's has to fix everything and he's exhausted yeah so it's so i think what he did those those DVD extras, which are so great and weird.

He boxes with Alec Baldwin and he interviews him while they're boxing. And they're really hitting each other. And then he has breakfast with Sharon Stone. That's the weirdest one. Yeah. Because she was only on like one episode. And she's grilling him about why he's not married. Right.

Yeah, it's really worth going through. I think that at some point, Larry Sanders was Gary searching for some kind of truth. And then he did, he obsessed with the DVD extras because he wanted to get even closer to the truth. So it wasn't even the Larry Sanders show. It was the people who made it and what really happened right and i think that was his journey like he wanted things to get more

and more honest till you're just you know sitting with your ex-girlfriend who was on your show talking through your problems on your dvd extra i when i spent time with them usually we didn't talk to a solo you always have to be careful with celebrities because they get it a million times i'm sure you get it like i love super bad and people just want to talk about it and don't realize that people keep coming up to you and talking to you about you know the best things you've done and with him not only was he ready to talk about sanders he was he ready to talk about Sanders, he was more excited to talk about it than I was,

and we just went an hour, and he would have gone six. Sure. And it just, I don't know. That made me think, like, he obviously realized he had achieved this ceiling for something that he was just trying to get back. I think he knew that that was his Sergeant Pepper or whatever, and he was really proud of it. And I think on some level, he didn't want to do anything that wouldn't be as good and never had an idea that he thought would be as good.

There was a fear of disappointing people who think that had to be part of it. I think he was just smart. He knew. He also knew how much energy would take smart though because i would argue him not doing stuff isn't smart because he was so smart i think that it took a lot out of him and then he was not ready trying to like regain the enthusiasm and the energy to go through it again because it is like going to war making yeah these shows when you're someone like gary some people are very craftsmanlike and they're

brilliant pete holmes could not enjoy making crashing more yeah but we're doing eight episodes we used to do 18 uh yeah like standard show then he slowly reduced it to 10 but it was really hard and i also think that since that show which was 20 ago, we figured out how to schedule the production and the writing of a show where the head writer is the star in a human way that they didn't know how to do. Oh, that's interesting. So in 98, it was a disaster. They caved his head in. They were they it didn't make sense. He was he was doing a sitcom week with a single camera show when we do pete show we've

written all the episodes before we start shooting at the larry sanders show we didn't have any episodes so he was writing constantly because we had no scripts you know that's just how it was he was like a sitcom we'd read it on monday we'd shoot it through thursday and friday 17 pages a day yeah like a movie is four so that's how tired gary was 17 a day nobody does that it was a mistake of production you know but he wanted to work on a sitcom type of schedule of you read it on monday you rehearse tuesday wednesday you shoot thursday friday But that doesn't work. I'm pretty sure that I'm right on this because I'm old and I forget stuff. But the end of Sanders was what, like June 2016? 1998?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Somewhere in June, right? Because I remember right around the same time Jordan was playing Utah trying to win the third straight finals. And people were wondering if he was going to retire and i just remember having this moment i didn't have a lot going on at the time i was frustrated writer like you know um but i remember thinking like god i'm losing jordan and sanders in the same month like this fucking sucks what am i gonna replace this with i was like just bummed out

you know but that there just wasn't a lot of great tv like that back then oh yeah there was there was almost nothing they really it just when we now there's 20 shows you just move on the next one when we did freaks and geeks the only single camera comedy was the wonder years that was the only thing that was single camera wow and then we did undeclared the next year and then it was just the wonder years and bernie mack and that was it uh so and people people thought we were crazy they didn't know what what we were doing what are you going to do for this is 40s are Are you going to do a single camera? This Is 40S. I don't know. I do want to do This Is 50. The tear jerking.

I turned 50 this year, so This Is 50 is... Oh. Did you turn 50 already or it's coming? End of the year, so... This Is 50. So This Is 50... Amazon's on the phone. They're just off for $25 million.

It's my boyhood. It's my boyhood. I'm doing boyhood, but just in a series of films. We should wrap up. how long was that like 66 oh 66 do you want to sam do you want to do super bad on the pot or just for you i think just for us okay it'll be for us we need to ask you about super bad because we're doing a super bad oral history for okay so we need like three minutes on that um do we hit everything uh sure we hit big sick again and uh oh yeah all right let's let's let's hit the end all right so big six coming out when big sick uh is coming out this i guess it'll be friday and in new york and la in

june july 14th around the country. Nobody flies in it. This is like an old movie where people just talk. Yeah. But it really is a, you know, it's a gem. It is like one of those little miss sunshine movies that deserves a massive audience. Cause you know,

we test these movies when we're editing them and people like this movie better than any movie I've ever made higher than bridesmaids higher than knocked up really higher. People really love this movie and it's a strange movie to describe because it's this bizarre immigrant love story with disease. Yeah. But it really works perfectly. It's just hysterical and very sweet.

And Ray Romano just tears the house down. Just one of those movies where it just... It's everything you want in a movie, and it's everything you want in a movie that would make you go to the movies to watch a comedy with people. Because we're all so used to waiting for things to show up on cable. Do you worry about those movies working as people actually go in the theater to see them? That we've hit some sea change? You know, here's the thing.

It's tough to get me to go to the movie theater. I went to see Wonder Woman the other day. But I'm not in the theater that often. And I don't know if that's because there's less movies I want to see in the thing. It's tough to get me to go to the movie theater. I went to see Wonder Woman the other day. But I'm not in the theater that often. And I don't know if that's because there's less movies I want to see in the theater. I'm the same kind of guy. I just hate people texting. I don't like people breathing on me. People are loud eating their popcorn.

Right at the most emotional moment where someone's about to die, that's when the guy takes the first bite of popcorn. Right. You know, like, I want to kill people half the time. So I do understand why people like being home alone. This is the opening of This Is 50, I think. You complaining about people in a movie theater. I know.

But when you see a great comedy with people, there's nothing better. I think even better than action movies. I remember seeing something about Mary and the place going fucking nuts. I think even better than action movies. I remember saying something about Mary and the place going fucking. I was just going to say that's, that's the hardest I've ever seen a theater laugh at a scene when he gets his balls caught in the zipper.

Yeah. It was like almost a riot in the theater. People were dying with Stiller. We went to Santa Monica on opening night and watched it from the back of the room. And I just kept turning to him. What is going on? This is the funniest thing I've ever seen.

And, and, and the big sick really is This is the funniest thing I've ever seen. And The Big Sick really is right up there. It's a beautiful movie. So I hope people will go to that. And then you have some comedy things you're doing. And I'll be at the Wilbur. July, Washington. We said the times earlier. We told you the times.

You can find it. You can Google it. And in Richfield, Connecticut. I think that's the Columbus Theater. And we're coming up on the 25th anniversary of when you did the Young Comedian Special. Is that right? Yes, which is funny because Ray Romano and I were on the Young Comedian Special together in 1992. With two other...

It wasn't everybody... Garofalo, Kindler, Nick DiPaolo, Bill Bellamy. Diana Carvey hosted. So this is... The Big Sick is a bit of a reunion of the 1992 HBO Young Comedian Special. I hate that I was on a Young Comedian special 25 years ago. I remember watching that special, and in some ways it doesn't feel 25 years. In other ways, it feels like 80 years.

Because my jokes are fresh. No, it just seems like a long time ago. It was a terrible performance by me because it was the first time I was on HBO. So it was the first time i was on hbo so it was the first time i could curse so i would just add fucks into clean jokes for no reason yeah so jokes that never had a curse i'd go and this fucking guy and it's terrible it's awful all right thank you for coming on it's good to appreciate it thank you all right thanks so much to credit wise from capital one it's a free Let's you track the factors that make up your credit health using information from your TransUnion credit report. You can check it anytime without negatively

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And that's it for me. We are going to be back much later in the week, but we will have another podcast this week. The BS podcast coming back to you in about a day or two. Thank you.