The Bill Simmons Podcast - Will Ferrell on his Favorite Movie, 'SNL,' and LeBron on the Lakers (Ep. 226)

Episode Date: June 16, 2017

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Will Ferrell to discuss the NBA Finals (4:00), the cable TV domination of 'Step Brothers' (13:00), the amount of denials before 'Anchorman' was made (19:00), working on 'Old School' while on 'SNL' (26:00), flubbing his first line on 'SNL' (34:00), his favorite 'SNL' sketch (40:00), the modern 'SNL' format with big-name actors (48:00), filming a Lifetime movie with Kristen Wiig (53:00), the way his kids act with Will Ferrell as their dad (1:01:00), Lonzo Ball on the Lakers (1:11:00), and the chance LeBron comes to L.A. (1:15:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Jonathan Charks, Danny Chow, some Mark Titus, maybe in there. I, who knows, who knows who's going to show up next week, but I'll tell you this much.

I did a ringer NBA show podcast. If you're hoping for basketball from me this week, you heard a Kevin Durant podcast that we taped on Tuesday night and ran on Wednesday at his house hope you listen to that one right now we have Will Ferrell coming up but Chris Ryan and I did a whole ringer NBA show that we put up yesterday we talked a lot about the differences between LeBron in 2010 and then a decision and KD in 2016 and how he handled that because I a big question I've been getting the last couple months is,

why did I take the LeBron thing so personally as a basketball fan, and yet I didn't take the KD thing personally? So we did a deep dive on that, and we talked about the draft and some trade rumors we've heard, Blake Griffin, a whole bunch of things. So check that out if you love basketball. The Ringer NBA Show, definitely subscribe to that. Right now, Will Ferrell is coming up first pearl jam All right, we're taping this on Wednesday, June 14th. So it's running tonight.

June 14th. Will Ferrell, first time ever we've done a podcast together. We've circled each other for a while. For a while. Yeah, there's been circling. Like two pit bulls. Yeah. I knew it was bound to happen at some point.

Neither one knowing who's gonna strike first yeah it was like we were both waiting for one of us to make the first move and then i don't even know who made it it was like a third party maybe gonna do your hbo thing yeah and some was gonna happen and then then that show oh that show that show literally fell through fell through i've i've been on the end of that. Yeah. When things fall through. Yeah. So what's going on with you?

You got a movie? I got a movie. Which I watched on my iPad, which made me laugh. Called The House, which I'm going to get out of the way. Yeah, let's get it out of the way now. Right? Yeah. Funny movie. Yeah.

Myself, Amy Poehler. Yeah. Jason Manzoukas. We are a couple who is trying to finance our daughter's college education by running an illegal casino in the neighborhood. Who wouldn't want to see that? It had a lot of things I like. Gambling, chicanery.

Who wrote the movie? A bunch of people? Andrew Cohen and Brennan O'Brien. Because there were a couple parents. They were the guys who wrote Neighbors. Because there was a couple hidden parent things that I really enjoyed about the daughter going away to college. And they were like, let's put her in a sandwich.

And watching The Walking Dead. That's all stuff I identify with. We definitely wanted to build up the fact that we were a tight-knit family and actually have it be, dare I say, sweet. Yes. And the moment, we do a scene at the movie where we literally go through all this crazy stuff and finally it's the day where we drop her off at college

and amy it was a legitimate acting scene for amy and i to to come to grips with saying goodbye to our daughter but also realizing that we we aren't going to be alone that we are each other's best friends and and we were like literally crying that day yeah at beautiful long beach state That day. Yeah. At beautiful Long Beach State. Doubling for Bucknell University. Yeah. So. Bucknell getting Patriot League, getting some props. Getting some Bisons. A lot of Bucknell love.

The Bisons. Might drive the admissions up. Buck. They will see such a spike this fall. So. All right. Let's go backwards. Okay.

Backwards. The. We were talking about the NBA Finals. Anyway, it's your show. Let's do that first. Let's do that first. You're a diehard Laker fan. Yeah, and you're asking me if I've been into any final games. And I'm in a wonderful position where I get these invites to come fly up

and come to one of the state, you know, one of the games up at golden state and, and any other rabid, normal sports fan would be like, of course I'm going in a heartbeat. But then I always feel, I'm like,

okay, but I'm not going to wear a golden state swag. You're not wearing the yellow t-shirt. I'm not going to, you know, going crazy. Yeah. I'd be there for enjoying these two teams and these great athletes and this back and forth but i feel slightly disingenuous uh uh only because yeah and you're i'm a laker fan you're a lifelong laker fan lifelong since i can remember watching the lakers on KHJ Channel 9 with like sweet Lou Hudson

passing to Kareem before, I think even before they had Jamal Wilkes. And they would kind of, you know, Kareem would score all these points, and they'd barely make it into the playoffs and lose to the Denver Nuggets and Dan Issel in the first round. He would have like 39 points a game, and they would still lose. Yeah, but no one else could score.

Well, they traded everybody to get him. That was the problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a bad move to go to a new team that has to trade everyone to get you. I'm a legit born and raised in Southern California, you know. So, no, my answer to this was I didn't go to any of the finals who's your favorite laker then i'm gonna it depends on the type of play i mean overall overall i'm gonna go with magic okay that's the right answer eccentric choice yeah like kurt rambis i just loved loved that this guy with the glasses

could actually play ball obviously he was a thug and he came in to kind of be the enforcer but if you left him open in the corner he'd actually hit knockdown a 15 foot shot and he could fill the lane and readjust his glasses yeah readjust his glasses on the break

and fill the lane that's a cool player they always talk about the technology and the advances with like dieting and surgeries and stuff they never talk about glasses poor ram has had to wear like these old school buddy holly glasses you know it was superstition probably he probably was like i good. Yeah. I can't play without. Kurt, here are contact lenses. No, no way. Yeah. Yeah.

So Magic's now running the Lakers with Rob Palenka, Kobe's agent. Right. A lot of weirdness going on here. What do we think about that? How do we feel? I think Kobe's agent is a smart dude who's going to do a good job. I think that guy's pretty shrewd. He convinced them to give Kobe $25 million a year when he was like completely washed up

that's pretty it was pretty smart i know it was such a bizarre year that year one time i was with you i'm gonna say we ran into each other at a king's game i'm gonna say like three or four years ago with your kids i was with my kids and you started doing a kobe impersonation and i was dying i can't i was i would make you do it again but i can't remember what you impersonated yeah it was it was i think there was some sort of argument at that point about whether he was being uh you know he's shooting a lot and he was past his prime and about him yelling at the about him being a role model for the younger players or something but yeah but you must have met kobe a bunch of times right i well he came and he did a cameo in daddy's home movie i did with mark walberg where he like like

i have a 12 year old and nine year old like i haven't daddy's home hasn't been on my house like 20 times you never know i always like to preface no uh but no he came on and there was such a feeling of like it was like kobe can only shoot for an hour and and be ready and the director was like i know you're not in the part of the scene with him but would you come and be on the court at the same time anyway i was late getting there because they were they they didn't tell me that he had gotten onto the the court yet and they're like wait kobe's there oh let me go you know make sure and apparently you know he was he could not have been nice he stayed like as long as they wanted and he was he was great of course that was the game where he tore his rotator cuff oh no

against new orleans so okay um but uh and still play oh that's right you filmed that whole movie yeah yeah there was even uh an extended pelican scene i mean in the arena yeah um yeah that's the scene that got put on youtube that people thought i literally was drunk and had run into the crowd. Oh, they thought it was Will Ferrell as a drunk person? People had, extras who were in the crowd had posted, were filming it. It got on YouTube and all of a sudden there was this huge thing like, people like Will Ferrell, like he should be thrown in jail. He's got a problem.

I never liked him from the beginning this just confirms it how dare these people think they can run on the court at halftime of an nba game and peg a cheerleader in the face with a ball it's like no it's for a movie yeah what do you think for i mean netflix and all the streaming services have just completely changed the rewatchability of movies for kids. Yeah. Like, I have a 12 and a 9. Right. I sound like you don't remember.

You got a 12 and a 9? Yeah, it's like with the- I got a 13, a 10, and a 7. Remember when announcers just stopped saying injuries? They would just say the body part? He's out of the leg. He'll be back later. Now I just say the numbers. But's out of the leg he'll be back later now i just say the numbers but yeah so or they watch hockey lower body lower body yeah

um so like the problem for like when you do something like daddy's home yeah and they and itunes is just an evil beast they'll do the buy it now before it becomes available for rent for like a week right and kids don't understand money i mean it's like a ten dollar it's available now right now it's like well let's wait a week we'll rent it no no we're buying it yeah and then they watch it like 12 times so and they're intimately familiar with daddy's and are you finding they're watching it the whole way through or are they just sampling no it's on yeah it's on the movies because i'm curious if people are going to start watching movies the way they listen to music just scenes just scenes well i think stepbrothers is probably guilty of that right because there's

some of the youtube scenes there's just like crazy amount of views i think they'll all you know anyone can dice up any of this stuff now and figure out what chunks they like. Step Brothers was your lost great comedy. I talked to Adam McKay about this because it's had this resurgence the last three years. And I asked him, why was this a belated, now to the point it it's at why didn't that happen at the time and he was like probably some fatigue like you had done a lot of comedies right you'd put out eight straight years of of comedies at that point that was the only explanation we could come up with i don't know what do you think it was? Why did that take five years to become this?

Now it's like a staple. I feel like that's one of the defining comedies the last 10 years. I mean, Adam and I have discussed how there's always been a bounce with any of these movies, though. Yeah, Anchorman was probably the biggest one, right? Yeah, because it's happened with,

even in Anchorman, same sort of deal. It was like once it got out two years later and they do those insane Turner runs where they run it a bunch. Yeah. And there's this whole second wave. Yeah. And then obviously when DVD was huge. But it happened even for like a movie that, you know, like evenga nights it had a massive theatrical existence yeah there were still it still kind of had the second bounce um but i i think stepbrothers was more acute because we got some of the more punishing reviews that we

ever had and it might have kept people away really one of which is the best you need to look up the uh roger ebert review of stepbrothers he was upset about it it's not only upset he lobbies his readers to not watch it to not buy it when it goes on DVD to not encourage studios to, to keep creating movies like this, because it's literally the fall of Western civilization. The fact that this type of behavior keeps, you know, getting, uh, uh, supported. Oh, AC went on. That's Roger Ebert. Ebert's coming to shut this whole thing down that was spooky jesus uh but uh it was that seems like an overreaction it was it was an amazingly he yeah he got really spun out did that hurt your No, because when the movie plays well and does well, you kind of actually love those.

Yeah. Because they're really fun to read later. Right. But yeah, it kind of keeps growing. I don't know. Yeah. I had, you know, the parent dilemma is, do you let them watch the version they shouldn't watch?

Right. Or do you let them watch the TNT Comedy Central with the bleeps and all that stuff? Or the weirdest one I stumbled across was a version on Lifetime. Of Step Brothers? They aired Step Brothers on Lifetime. Oh my God. that stuff or the weirdest one i stumbled across was a version on lifetime they aired stepbrothers on lifetime oh my god and i was watching it with my wife and my 13 13 year old we're in some hotel room on a trip somewhere and we're flipping around we're like lifetime what stepbrothers and they literally made it lifetime friendly yeah we either Either by bleeping language or, yeah.

And we were just laughing going, oh, this is an amazing version. I decided to go unedited with my son because he's degenerate. Like, I can't stop it at this point. He's going to find it either way. And it hit his funny bone like I've never seen in comedy. I was really pleased and happy.

And I'm a terrible father. But the drum set scene,'s funny i mean it's just the irony that we're talking about it today i literally my assistant today dropped off um what are those cases called that you you know you get a black a plastic case made for memorabilia either put a baseball in it oh yeah yeah i know what you're talking about there's a name for it yeah i can't remember we can research this you can have the automated voice come in later and go but she just today she's like how does this look and she we made a special display case for my prosthetic testicles that i used in the movie which is my one keepsake from that movie that's

very smart yes it's a good one to keep so brennan's ball sack so it's the plaque so when they're making prosthetic $10,000 worth of prosthetic balls i was gonna say is that a lot of trial and error i are you deciding whether the balls look good there were a couple there were a couple of yeah i think there was just i'm trying to remember because i've had two instances with prosthetics what was the other one uh get hard or had to show a prosthetic penis or matt walsh did yeah um and we had a couple meetings on how that penis looked the balls i feel like it was a home run right out of the right it was just like the first time i saw like yep those will work great which which movie if you had to pick your favorite of all the movies um oh but i was gonna say back to your point about what why movies have the second and

subsequently which we can't figure out why anchorman 2 isn't mentioned i don't get anyone coming up talking about it's gonna happen it happen. But we figured out it's because Paramount, I think their little subsidiary cable thing they own is Epix. I'm like one of the five Epix subscribers. Exactly. And so it

repeats on Epix, which no one has. It repeats that and Creed. It's just Creed and Anchorman 2. It's getting that second viewing of Anchorman 2 it'll happen it'll happen it's like

it's like wine you just don't know what year what year's gonna be the right year to drink it that movie's good enough to be mentioned again yeah

I'm with you I think so what's your favorite one of all of them what's if you're counting them as all of your children

the all of the what um what's what's like the a-list student of them the the one that stands out as the favorite and it's a hard choice um is uh anchorman because of the journey that it took right and and it's it's kind of the cinderella story of the the movie no one wanted to make and is that true yeah yeah we we literally had uh adam and i talk about this all the time that we had i think 10 rejections in one day of people wanting to make, we even had, if you notice, if you notice David, David, David Russell is a producer on the first Anchorman, partly because he was just, we had kind of struck up a friendship with him at that time. And he was like, this is, why doesn't anyone want to make this? Look, I'll be a producer on it. And he even tried

to get people. And we just literally, um, in fact a what was the company there was a financier we even did a read-through for them and we filled the room and we got uh i think john c reilly was even in the read-through we got a bunch of great actors to do it and this guy who runs uh uh he was kind of the cfo of the company it It was Arnon Milshin's film company. I don't know who that is. He's this Israeli arms dealer who also did films. And the guy was like, oh, that was the funniest read-through I have ever sat through.

But we can't make the movie. That was it. They had already determined that for whatever reasons the the they were just weren't going to make any money off that subject matter uh and it took it was stuck at dreamworks and it took old school coming out and being a hit and dreamworks realizing they had anchorman to all of a sudden be like, wait a minute, what about this? We'll make this. And we're like, okay.

So the fact that it had, you know, it was kind of three years, and then even once we were shooting it, we felt like we were playing with the house's money. We were just like, I don't know if this will work. And McKay had never directed before, right? First time directing, and we were just like i don't know if this will work mckay had never directed before right first time directing and we're just like trying the most bizarre stuff and and and even then even

in the testing that you do in the movie it it kind of had a bizarre audience was once again some people got it right away other people were like what people were just reacting in such a they didn't know what they were watching we We also had to reshoot the ending. So all of those things and to kind of walk through that fire and to have it be what it's come out to be was... Sometimes it's just on for a month straight. Yeah.

It'll be like a TNT run or TBS run and then it's on HBO and then all of a sudden AMC or wherever, and it's just odd. I even had one of the marketing people at the studio at that time say to other members of the press, oh, you don't even have to watch it. It's not that good. We found out later. Yeah. Yeah, and I had a buddy of mine who witnessed a fight in a theater breakout, like a verbal fight where the movie was in its end credits

and someone yelled at the screen, Will Ferrell, I want my money back. And someone went, screw you. That movie's great. Like, what are you talking about? It's a piece of shit. What? Who are you talking to?

Huh? I was like, who? It's like this stupid comedy so um anchorman's number one uh all the movies i've done with adam or that those are always that's such a special thing you guys have like 20 years now yeah going back to 1995 yeah when he used to pop out of the audience in the monologue? Yeah, exactly. Good. He was good on those. He was great. He was always

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With Rocket Mortgage, skip the bank, skip the waiting. Go completely online at quickenloans.com slash Bill Simmons. That's my name. Equal housing lender, licensed in all 50 states. NMLSconsumeraccess.org, number 3030. Back to Will Ferrell. When did you decide that, at what point during the SNL experience, did you decide you wanted to do a potential movie with him

or that that would even make sense? I had like a weird deal coming off of doing one of those SNL movies, uh, doing the rocks night at the Roxbury. Don't seem sad about night at the Roxbury. I'm not sad. I'm just saying. All right.

Yeah. I'm not, I'm a defender. I'm not gonna. Yeah. Don't. Yeah. All right.

I am pleasantly surprised at how that has grown into a beautiful oak. It's solid, solid oak, a California oak solid solid oak a california oak um but i had i had i owed them two more movies that i had to either be in or it was a great deal drugs yeah yeah i owe you two more movies man uh and i said to mckay i'm like because we were getting to know each other we're writing sketches and i'm like would you ever want to write a uh a feature together he's like yeah he's like you mean like a character from the show i'm like no yeah something completely different but that was the 90s that's what people did you had a character you wrote the movie i'm like no

let's let's let's uh let's make a lemonade out of lemons here and let's just write something totally different. So we sat down and on spec wrote this script called August blowout that was never made. Uh, but it was kind of, it was like a Glen Gary, Glen Ross meets a car,

car dealership. And it was kind of, uh, it was just kind of going back to those comedies that we had grown up on. Right. Oh, like used cars. Yeah.

And just where you had big funny ensemble cast yeah and it wasn't this one single funny person and everyone is a straight man and just reacts uh we thought let's just get a bunch of people being funny at the same time and so we wrote it and we went through lauren michaels really liked it he liked that it was such a different move. It was going to be an R-rated comedy. But once again, no one wanted to make it. It was stuck at Paramount. And the regime at that time just... So does that mean the movie goes away or it can still make it? They won't put it in turnaround.

They wouldn't give it to other places. But it became this script that everyone read in Hollywood and was like, why won't they make that? We're like, they won't and they won't put it in turnaround. But that was our, but that was our first experience of just being in a room, having the best time, just kind of. That sounds like every terrible Hollywood story.

It does. That everyone has like three of. That's why it's incredibly cliche, and it's, and it's. But couldn't you just take that script now and go to Netflix and be like, here guys, and they'd be like, oh, here's 50 million bucks.

We could, but we've now pilfered so many moves from it, it would just seem... Oh. Yeah. You picked the carcass. Yeah. And that's what it would be. Grab the liver, kidney. That would be Ebert's review.

This is a carcass. This is a picked over carcass of a movie. Not even the toes were left. This might as well be dust. So then you did Old School without him. We wrote that. I went and did Old School, shot it during my last season of SNL. Did you know Old School was going to be big?

No. No idea. In fact, it was supposed to come out in november and they held on to it till february yeah uh which is usually not a great sign um but in hindsight they were right they didn't want it was actually supposed to open up against eight mile at the m&M vehicle which I think it did well crushed yeah and then we

Paul Thomas Anderson came and guest wrote for a week on SNL I remember Seth Meyers talked about this once on my podcast and he came

and bizarre he like loved the show he wanted to see kind of the mechanism of how you know we do things and I think he maybe things and i think maybe it

was two weeks maybe it was back-to-back weeks and he sat down with us and he's like i just once again he's like i read that august blowout he's like what if you guys wrote whatever you wanted to write and i would shepherd it for you and uh and you know kind of figure out how to make it. We're like, we'd do it. Yeah. We'd do it in Harpy, and we'd write it on spec. And so that's when we wrote Anchorman. Oh, so he was one of the guardian angels?

So he was one of the guardian angels, even though I think the first incarnation of that was maybe a little too weird for Paul. That's saying something. He made Magnolia. Yeah, I know. Was he the one who introduced you to John C. Raleigh? Did Adam ever tell you the first version of Anchorman?

No, I don't think so. The first version of Anchorman is basically the movie Alive. The year is 1976, and we are flying to Philadelphia to celebrate the bicentennial, and also all the newsmen from around the country are flying in from their affiliates to have some big convention. And Ron convinces the pilot that he knows how to fly the charter jet, and he immediately crash lands it in the mountains. And it's just the story of them surviving and trying to get off the mountainside while part of the they they they clipped a cargo plane that's what caused them and the cargo plane

crashed as well close to them and it was carrying only boxes of orangutans and chinese throwing stars so throughout the movie we're being stalked by orangutans who are killing one by one the team off with throwing stars. Oh, my God. And Veronica Corningstone just keeps saying things like, Guys, I know that if we just head down, we'll hit civilization. And we keep telling her wrong. She doesn't know what we're talking about. Anyway, so that was the first version of the movie.

And it was in Paul's defense. It was kind of too weird. Still too kooky. So. All right. Back to SNL. I feel like I'm talking way too much. Well, you're the guest on a podcast.

That's what I'm supposed to do, right? That's how it works. All right. Good. John C. Reilly wasn't in Anchorman, right? He wasn't. He'd have a conflict of scheduling conflict? He'd have a conflict with Martin Scorsese.

Oh, wow. That's a good conflict. Yeah. A little movie called Gangs of New York. Yeah. So we were like, we got it. But that's why we'd circle back to him for Talladega. Yeah.

And then eventually. And then eventually. Step Brothers. Step Brothers. All right, so going back. Yeah. SNL, you show up. It's the year after the season that,

I mean, this happens like every decade. Saturday Night Dead. Yeah. Chris Smith from New York Magazine goes in. That was not a great season. I mean, I always feel like SNL, when it's got the individual stars that aren't like the glue guy cast members, if the balance is off, you end up with a season like that one where you have great big personalities, but it's not a sketch show.

So your season comes, and I actually remember where I watched the first episode. I had no idea who you were. Sure. Pre-internet. What was it? 95. Yeah. No YouTube yet.

Right. People showed up at us and I'm like, who's that? You just don't know. Yeah. And you did get off the shed. You did the, the Merrill Hemingway.

Uh, you keep interrupting her on the phone, exactly. Right. Right. Right. Good. Which is a great one

yeah and then one other one and i was like buying stock that guy that guy i don't know that guy's something he's gonna yeah but so to get off the shit guy that was a character that you had had in the past right i had done uh i had written a sketch with another uh friend of mine at the groundlings here in la yeah basically about two suburban dads who are just having this benign conversation in the backyard at the barbecue and for whatever reason they're obsessed about these off-camera children playing on a shed whatever i guess it's a lawnmower shed i don't even know what it is but it's always we never see it it's never clear and that keeps escalating and they keep returning back to their benign conversation right so uh i auditioned with that i auditioned with a monologue version of that

uh and then put it into sketch form to do it on the first show so yeah so i was i was the first sketch of our cast uh of that new cast for that first show nervous of that season not nervous at first because if you've ever been to have you ever been yeah you've been right so you have the dress rehearsal right so you bang out some eight to ten which feels exactly like the real show got through that it's like oh this is gonna be a piece of cake yeah and then we were gosh 95 so we were still doing oj sketches oh yeah yeah and norm was on weekend update right and so i was the once again in the cold open we did some sort of oj sketch and i was playing a news anchor

that began the sketch so i was going to be the first thing on first person on camera basically yeah and i'm sitting out there and they count it down and Lorne Michaels walks by. He's like, no pressure, but the whole show's riding on you. And which he meant it to be funny. And I took it as very funny and it totally cracked me up. But then as I'm sitting there, I look out in the audience. I'm like, there's my mom. There's her friend Roberta.

There's her friend Roberta. Yeah. There's my brother. And all of a sudden, it starts, in that one moment, adding up that, wow, I'm actually going to be live on Saturday Night Live, this thing I've thought about, dreamed about, whatever you want to say. Yeah, I mean that. And it comes up, and I had just a simple four-line exchange, and I totally flubbed the first line. So if you watch that first show, I flub. The first time I ever speak on SNL, I totally flub. And then he came back, and we were getting ready for the get-off-the-shed set, and he was like, are you okay?

I was like, yeah, I'm fine, I'm fine. And then I was fine from that point on but that was my one yeah that was a good season you know they showed up yeah we slowly found our way yeah Chris Cornell died yeah

like a month and a half ago and they re-ran the Jim Carrey episode which I think's in the conversation there's no greatest SNL episode ever no but I think there's probably like

15 or 20 that are just at a higher level Jim came on that was a great, he's at his apex and he jumps in and does night at the Roxbury with you guys. And his head is going in seven different directions. And we did a cheer.

Yeah. Oh my God. The, the, yeah, every, he was just amazing in every single thing. Yeah.

Yeah. He was at all the people who weren't actually on the show. He's got to be one of the people well he kind of was in living color so it's you know lauren has this ceremonial tuesday night dinner yeah where which is odd because tuesday night's the night you write right all the sketches you're supposed to get to five in the morning and then you get tapped on the shoulder to go to the dinner which you're like oh cool i get to go to the dinner with the host. But it's right in the middle of your writing.

So you're like, but I remember he literally said to Jim Carrey, well, you're one of the few people I can't take credit for. Like, I totally passed on you. Because he did. Oh, wow. Jim auditioned and remembered it. And Jim was like, yep. And that's all they said uh but yeah he's kind of he's he's one of those those guys who can kind of step in and do whatever seth seth always said those were the

the greatest guys for the show it like was such a relief for everybody when you had somebody who could just do anything a host that you wouldn't have to i think that but then i the you you can't underestimate the steve buscemi's of the world the those actors that would come in and also just they weren't worried about being funny yeah so subsequently they became so funny because they would just commit to whatever the premise and whatever the character was and they ended up having amazing shows. Because they were like, oh, yeah, just I'll play this one little thing, or I'll be the big thing.

But anytime there was a legit dramatic actor, like Billy Bob Thornton, I remember we had an amazing show with him. I remember that. You never know. That's one of the best things about SNL. Yeah. I remember Ariana Grande was really good, and that surprised me. Oh, I about snl yeah i remember uh ariana grande was

really good and that surprised me it was a couple years ago wow you just sometimes people you don't expect tom hanks one of the greatest hosts of all time we wrote like such a terrible show for him uh but anyway and and he just he's tom hanks he He walked off. He didn't even complete the show. He left halfway. Out of all the sketches, which one do you think, what was the all-time kill of all the sketches that you had? The one that just, the all-time home run. The Aaron Judge 500-foot homer. Aaron Judge.

By the way, that guy's crazy, right? It makes me so mad. I thought we buried the Yankees. I thought it was over. And now they have 6'6", Aaron Judge hitting 500-foot home runs. And he's chiseled out of stone. Yeah, it's like the natural. Beautiful-looking man.

It's so upsetting. What, it's June 14th? Yeah, he's got 20 homes. And he already has 22 or something? Yeah. His rookie card is $1,500 somehow. He's autograph somehow he's autographed refractor rookie card on bowman oh my god yeah um that's a hard i'm trying to remember well they're they're just weird flashes yeah i remember the first time in that first season we were on where the audience went berserk.

And it was Molly Shannon when she first did the Mary Catherine Gallagher sketch. Oh, really? To watch a female do physical comedy like that, the audience, not only were they gasped, but there were shrieks. They were the combination of how intensely studied that character was and how small it was at the same time. Yeah. Smell in the armpits. So well observed.

Yeah. And nervous and really, if you think about it, a quiet character and then exploding into all this madness. I was like, oh, I've never heard anything like that. That was a moment.

There's a moment, once again, in that first year, a McKay sketch. The sketch, Wake Up and Smile. One of my all-timers. When I lift the severed head. David Allen Greer. The weatherman is dead. Those were shrieks. I was like, whoa. Did you guys ever see that one? Yeah. The weatherman is dead. Those were shrieks. I was like, whoa.

Did you guys ever see that one? Yeah. It's a top seven. The weatherman is dead. See, I got young guys. These guys were like babies when this happened. That was a classic. The weatherman is dead.

I will say my personal favorite with you was the Sarah Michelle Gellar one with the family eating dinner. Oh, yeah, yeah. Just because of the silences of it and just like the audience didn't know what was going on. Like that one unfolded about as well as it can go. Dodge Stratus. Yeah. Dodge Stratus, guys.

It led to the Dodge Stratus. Yep. No, that was a great one. And she was really good in that one, too. She was amazing. And then I wrote another one with Amy and Gwyneth Paltrow. And I think that went really well too. Another sketch that just was the first time I did Harry Carey with Jeff Goldblum. We had a show about space.

I just took my time with that. And Jeff Goldblum, like people think he's breaking in the sketch, but he's not. He's actually just doing amazing acting. Reacting to the audience like who he's playing it very real as as as if am i supposed to laugh at this guy right is he really an expert on science he played it like a scientist who didn't know who harry carey was uh what about cowbell what was the reaction for cowbell in the studio? Cowbell was pretty huge too, but I think it wasn't as huge in dress as it was on air. Yeah.

Yeah, which that was a sketch that I put up and didn't really get picked, and then I resubmitted it and rewrote it for Christopher Walken, and then it worked. Yeah. Yeah. That always gets mentioned in the uh greatest sketches ever conversation it's got a

lot of elements to it it's got Walken's like out of his mind in it you're great in it it's so people are cracking up and I can't help it and Lauren was like apparently in the room where they picked the sketches, she was like, is that a thing? Is the cowbell a thing in that song? Is that a thing people talk about? And I had to go like, no, no one talks about it. Every time I listen to Don't Fear the Reaper, I just hear the cowbell, and I was just driving the car going, what's that guy's life?

What's his moment of greatness? What did he ever speak up? And yeah. So then I wrote that. Yeah. Hey, quick break because you might be getting hungry. The podcast is so good. It's activated your salivary glands, salivary glands, salivary glands. Uh. I want to talk to you about a legendary sandwich that's actually more than a sandwich. It's a sub. It's a damn good one at that. Jersey Mike's. I'm so excited.

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Get in, get out, get eating at jerseymikes.com slash BS. Back to Will Ferrell. Was it hard for you to think about leaving or the movies? Do you feel like there's a shelf life? What was the process? It was not hard, but I wouldn't, I don't know if i would say it was easy because you know it was uh it just kind of felt like you you kind of have to just pick your moment of like

you know i i don't begrudge anyone for staying there as long as they want to stay yeah at the same time if you uh if you feel like you want to do other things, you kind of have to just take a flying leap, which is, you know, old school was in the can, but no one really knew if that was going to do anything. And the only other thing I had kind of quasi in development was a really bad script about a guy who was raised by elves at the North Pole and was like, okay, this could work. Yeah. I see the poster.

Yet another one that's been watched by every child under the cast of Friends where you're on primetime and they know every single thing about you. It went from like, where do I know you? To, wait, cheerleader guy. Yeah. To. George Bush guy. I love you on Saturday Night Live.

To George Bush guy. To Will Ferrell. It took seven years just to even get name recognition. You have a couple of years where you become Saturday night lives. Will Ferrell. Yeah. And that's just your entire name. Now I'm so thankful for it at the same time.

Cause it just allowed you to not have anything happen too fast. And well, you also had an abnormally great writing staff when you showed up. We had such, yeah. I mean, a lot of those people have gone on to big things. You know, which. And we had a fun, we had a fun group who, who wasn't, I mean, I really think it was, it was a group of comedic actors who.

Right. Not to sound corny, but we got thrown into it at a time where we would joke like well we're either gonna make it through this year or we'll be the last cast of the show yeah and they'll just pull the plug uh so to kind of be galvanized in that way what's interesting about that is the the first phil hartman cast was in the exact same situation exactly yeah this could be it. And they were, that was another legendary cast. Hartman's, I mean, I would say,

even though you're different than Hartman, but the role you filled on the show is very similar to what he was doing. Phil Hartman and Dan Aykroyd were my two heroes. Just, I loved how they would be equally, they could equally be the funniest person in the sketch. At the same time, they could also be the 10th executive in the boardroom sketch who has one line. But when you cut to them, they nail it. God, that's so funny.

Yeah. And so I made it a point. I told Adam when we all first started, because there would be this, because you don't know, it everyone's first job so people approach it different ways some people are a little shy about things other people are like okay i'm big time now yeah i'm not gonna do this i'm not gonna deliver the pizza in your sketch no way give it to someone else and i was like i'll take any of the pizza boy parts like i'll i'll take one line parts i do. I remember getting tons of laughs being an off camera voice in a sketch where they were just playing volleyball on the beach. And I was just of off camera voice that would just intermittently throughout the sketch just go beach volleyball. And the sketch would go on. Yeah. And I go, that's right.

Cause it's beach volleyball. And I just said it like four times and it would get a laugh every single time. And I thought, Oh, that's, that's something to remember. You don't have to, you know, so we carry the show every single time. Were you watching it during the Belushi Akron era? I'm trying to remember if I didn't start watching it until they started doing the reruns on a, and like nine o'clock,

10 o'clock in the late seventies. That's when I caught up on all that stuff. And from that point on, so everything I kind of have probably towards the end of their run, I would have been like eight or not. Maybe I have some memory. We're pretty much the same age. Yeah, I have some memory of seeing some of that stuff.

But I also got the, were you a member of the Columbia House Records and Tape Club? Oh, in the 80s? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 13 albums for a penny. For a penny.

Which really was $1.99 because you had to throw in postage and handling. But then you ended up owing like $700 for now. Oh, yeah. It would bite you. They just kept coming after you. Yeah, it was a three-year contract. Yeah. But one of the things I got was a Saturday Night Live album.

So I just listened to the sketches on an album. Yeah. So, yeah. an album yeah so uh yeah so who would have been the most fun out of all the cast for the for 40 plus years who would have been the most fun to be in the cast with that didn't overlap with you uh i think bill murray um i think uh definitely akroyd and Hartman. And, uh, you know who, obviously he's one of the Kings,

but he's still not talked about that much on an SNL level is Eddie Murphy. Yeah. He is by me, but a lot of people don't bring him up in the way that I think you should. I mean, Eddie, it's cause you have to be in our age range or a little bit younger to even remember or you just you just think of delirious or you think of the movies yeah you don't you for some reason you forget that he started and the fact that he started at 18 or yeah 19 yeah it's so nuts so yeah and was carrying basically carrying the show when he was

21 every time he was like the franchise dude so crazy so i mean eddie murphy for sure yeah he was he's the only cast member i remember that like by year two it was like oh this guy's leaving but i also love i also loved the season with with harry sheer and crystal and that was the yankees free agency yeah they just went out and Crystal and all those people. And Chris Gass. Yeah. That was a good one. Martin Short. What do you think about now with, like, this season was really interesting because I feel like the show is as big as it's ever been culturally.

Yeah. And yet the cast, you know, they really relied on non-cast members more than I've ever seen. It was, I mean, very fun for the viewers. I thought they wrote some really funny stuff, had some great observations, and there were great performances, but you were cognizant of the fact that like, oh, you're not watching the cast here.

It was unorthodox. Yeah, yeah. And so I don't know what that means for next season. I don't know. And for like someone like Alec Baldwin, is he... Is this just who he is then? Does he just keep coming back because I know at a certain point he's probably like oh gosh I guess I should go do Trump um right

but I have other things I don't know like he's kind of on call one of the reasons I liked your Bush so much was because it wasn't really Bush. It was the twist on Bush, which I think sometimes the SNL impressions where it's just a dead-on impersonation are never the best ones. What would you do with Trump? Have you thought about that? Could you put a twist on him, or

is he just so twisted already you can't even tweak it? I don't know. I mean, I think yeah, everyone kind of... always i get asked that question about uh oh now i feel like a loser no no i asked you a question you're getting all the time that i hate it's the question i hate the most no no i get i get i'll get like, what would you do?

Like, what was your take on Barack? Or what would you do on this? And what would you do? And it's so funny because I don't really view. I view kind of those moments of where I did Bush or any sort of impersonation in quotes. Yeah. I'm not really an impressionist. Right.

I would just find some weird. I'd find an excuse to do, like there was no reason to start doing Robert Goulet. There's no reason to do Janet Reno. There's no reason, you know, Bush was topical. And Harry Carey, like, so I would just find people that I either had a handle on or thought, oh, this would be funny to force the audience to have to watch.

Right. So my long-winded point is I don't really view myself as someone who was sitting around thinking like, oh, what would be my thing? Yeah. I don't even know if I have that skill set where like Daryl Hammond was like a genius at breaking down people. It seems like haters like that, too. Yeah. Picks up some vocal take or a voice thing. Incredible.

And just goes. But with Trump, yeah. I mean, I think Alec Baldwin's done it. You exaggerate those kind of features of his. But it's a bizarre impression. I don't even know what the right word is. Yeah, because of the content of what he's saying, and it's so bizarre and damaging that it's not even funny to comment. When you comment on it it was kind of it was

funny during the campaign and now it's now he's running the thing so and you can't even tell the difference between yeah right yeah we forgot the strategery sketch that that murdered in the audience that murdered yeah that one that one killed that one murdered that was an all-time kill we had a couple of, when during the runoff, the missing chads, all that stuff. Yeah. That period of time, there were some ones that murdered. Like we did an odd couple sketch with Gore and Bush. We did a couple sketches where I would start out giving.

And I think they use this move. And I don't think they did it knowingly, but where I'd start out giving an address at the Oval Office at the big desk, and then Chaney would walk in and go, get to your little desk, and I had a little tiny student's desk. Those things would murder. And McKay wrote a soap opera, too, like West Palm Beach Nights. But anyway, that was in the zone. Hey, you did that Lifetime movie.

Yeah. You snuck it in. Another one of my favorite projects ever. You snuck it in. Another one of my favorite projects ever. You snuck it in. Nobody knew what was going on. We were just in Austin. You played it all straight. Yep.

I've been watching a lot of Lifetime movies the last six months. My daughter likes them. It's a safe space, right? It's a horror movie, but it's not really, and it hits the same beats every time. So I'm guessing you just became fascinated by lifetime movies is that what happened i did in not a uh because we just we we actually just screened the movie in aust for the austin television festival yeah last week and had a q a afterwards and someone asked me like what's your favorite lifetime movie i'm like oh i couldn't even tell you but i would just you know channel surfing

stop on lifetime for 10 minutes which is all you need to do to stay there beats every time pick up the tone and the and and it just it hit me like oh it'd be so funny to get a cast of either comedians or or maybe just one or two and just do a lifetime movie and play it straight the whole way through uh and that's that's how it happened it was good i mean it was it was up there with some of the other and it's really fun to watch it with an audience because they're the first five minutes they're like what the fuck is happening here and they're not and then they slowly kind of catch up to it and then they're laughing like really hard and then then they're not because they kind of get wrapped up in the story yeah and uh what was the plot i only saw it once the plot was kristen wick i'm a famous financial book author. Yeah.

Best-selling. Yeah. Robert Benson. You know, the Robert Benson. Kristen Wiig is my wife. We have a wonderful little daughter named Sully who's a diabetic. And something's tense around us yeah and uh she suffered we found out that she had a miscarriage with our second child because

she fell off a crumbling dock that we had we live near storm lake yeah And the dock crumbled. And I was always like, be careful around the dock. And lo and behold. Dock crumbled. Dock crumbles. Right. My wife's okay, but she loses the baby. Cut to,

we decide to house a surrogate who wants to give up her child for an adoption. Half of the Lifetime movies involve a surrogate of some kind. We find out later that the surrogate who's living amongst us is actually just a stalker of mine. Yeah. And she's wearing a fake baby bump the whole time.

Was there a concerned friend who was onto her first? Yes. Okay, good. The concerned friend's always the best one. The Concerned Friend, played by this comedian, this guy, Brian Saffy. Yeah. Who does this show, Throwing Shade, that we did for Funnier Dive. Anyway, Saffy plays, he helps Wig with her organic bakery kind of roadside stand

and he's kind of like huh something's not right here so he dies about the one minute one hour ten minute mark he lasts a long time he is murdered execution style which someone brought up and

we we find our daughter gets abducted at one point of course everything everything's fine in the end obviously of course we're back as one big happy family i've lightened up and we do this corny scene we're dancing for two minutes in the kitchen to this bad song and someone in the q a was like you. I remember. And someone in the Q&A was like, you didn't seem very concerned about the death of your friend who got murdered because he went snooping around their hideout. And we're like, that's a great point.

Yeah. I go, it was six months later. Maybe we're just past the mourning period. But those are kind of the rough beats of deadly adoption. What year did Funnynier die start uh two 10 years ago 2007 and you're still how involved so what how involved are you with it now uh i am because originally it was you, McKay, Little Appetite. I had my fingers on the pulse. Okay. It was just you and McKay? Appetite was involved? It was McKay, myself, Chris Henchey.

Yeah. And a couple writers, and that was it. And then we kind of started, then Judd kind of came in towards the end of year one, maybe. And then, but now it's an army of people. Yeah. And so I don't. And you guys have never, like, you never sold it. You never really did anything with it, right?

No, we had a couple of potential things that never quite happened. We're now, we have now a partnership with uh um i was about to say lifetime uh with um ifc yeah so they now have uh a stake and if we hurt if we hit certain thresholds that become that could become a bigger stake but uh but yeah it's um you know it's kind of it was one of those things where because of the business model where we just were like come and do something just for shits and giggles yeah have a platform where no one's going to tell you what to do or how to do it uh we're not going to pay you um but you're giving them the platform but we give them platform at the same time that you know uh while it's been a great success story it's also

a hard thing to figure out what to do for the next step in a way yeah how many people do you have we kind of we we did a little bit of doubt but there's there's it got really big at one point um but i i think there's at least 50 60 80 people something around there do you walk in people i don't you walk in every once around just shake some hands wave hey pass out candy bars and does anyone want to use my king's tickets tonight so you still have the king's tickets i do i gave them up this year really it's the regular season hockey is just too much the 41 games it's a lot and it's so easy to get tickets now in the secondary market that i just feel like yeah anytime i want to go i'm gonna be able to get tickets i love going but i know you've done some good scoreboard uh jumbotron does some good jumbotron work and

then they um then they took me down did they replace you or they just took you down they don't have really much jumbotron action happening but had a couple nice moments there and then all of a sudden so i don't know i don't know if you know they fired their coach who's something i said well they fired their coach and his son was the star of the jumbotron i don't know if... You know, they fired their coach who... It was something I said. Well, they fired their coach and his son was the star of the Jumbotron. I don't know how they replaced him either. I don't know how, yeah. Maybe they're going to bring him back. Maybe they need you.

Maybe you guys film some more stuff. More than ever. Yeah. But between, yeah, I have like 10 to 15 Laker games a year that I'm... Do your kids care? They're sports fans or not really? They kind of... They care, but then it's always on a weeknight,

so it's hard to... Yeah, once the homework starts. I'm always jealous of... I can't believe... My son's finally getting into baseball, but I just can't believe my son isn't like this sports freak. I really feel like the iPad ruined it for me. Once they,

once they have the iPad and they can just like go call up YouTube clips and all these different things. Everything. It's like, why is he going to sit through a baseball game, a basketball game, anything? I was thinking of just how much basketball has changed in the sense of the way the game is played.

Yeah. And like if I'm playing in a pickup game, I still run down to the block. Right. And post up. Old school. Because I was, that's what I did in high school. And I was trying to teach my 10-year-old, who's really big for his size, like, that's all you have to do. And he's like, uh-huh.

Gets the ball, immediately goes to the three-point line. Right. And launches it. That's every big guy coming into college now. And then I start, now I'm like, oh, gosh, will that have a revival? Will someone start playing more? Will there be some revolutionary new coach who's like i want two guys down on the block yeah we're pounding them down low wow or or is that gone now because guys just

have to run and defend and the problem is because of aau and yeah all these games that these kids play if you're the big guy who's on the low post and you're not getting the ball because the point everyone on the perimeter and they just freeze you out why why do i want to play so you're the big guy who's on the low post and you're not getting the ball because everyone on the perimeter, they just freeze you out. Then you're like, why do I want to play? So you're going to start shooting threes. That's the one way to get shots off. Right. And that's it.

It's a bummer. Yeah, I miss the old school McHale type of. YouTube is ruining a lot of things. This phone. Not YouTube, but this thing right here. Yeah, that thing. I'm holding up for the listeners one more break to tell you about spotify you've heard of spotify did you know you can

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Or download the Spotify app and just search for our podcast. Either way, we're all winners. Back to Will Ferrell. What about your kids having Will Ferrell as their dad? What have been some of the landmines with that one they are we've we've done we've made a concerted effort to kind of not really talk about what their dad does so much as it is just uh it's a job it's a job. It's a really fun job. I get to do some crazy stuff, but they kind of have, I don't know. I think it's just growing up, seeing, occasionally seeing me on a poster,

you know, on Fairfax driving to school. Yeah. It's been this slow integration of like, oh yeah, there's dad. And, you know, occasionally getting to visit a set and see what i do and see the mechanics behind it and that uh they're definitely slow workman-like parts to it and and the fact that i've never coerced them to watch anything i do yeah like i was just laughing today one of the boys were like dad what's what's your, or what do you do? Are you, what are you doing today? And I'm like,

I'm like, oh, I'm just doing, I'm doing some press. I didn't even dawn on me to say, oh, I'm going to do a pre-tape with Drake and DeMar DeRozan. A,

cause I don't know if they even know who DeMar DeRozan is, but like, like I don't know who Drake is. And they'll DeRozan is. They'll know who Drake is. And they'll be so mad at me that I forgot to tell them. Drake, why couldn't we come? And then Bill Simmons, forget it. Oh, yeah. Me and Drake were rivals for a long time.

With these three kids just staring at you. Yeah, seriously. That would have been really awkward for me. With tons of things for you to sign. Is the 13-year-old a boy or a girl? He's a boy. There are three boys. Okay.

What changes in 13? They all kind of take it in stride. But I've caught them in moments kind of like, yeah, Wilfredo's my dad. Just so you know. So when they need to play that card, they'll be like, yeah. But the older boy, he's at a new school this year he just started seventh grade and we were touring the school doing the touring of all the schools we saw him take his name tag off he didn't want he noticed kids treated him

differently if they saw it was feral as last name and he just wanted to be, you know, approached as a, he's, he's Robert Benson. He's right. He's Robert Benson. Acclaimed business book author. Robert Benson Jr.

Another insane scene. Yeah. In the lifetime movie is the flashback of where I'm piecing it together, that I've met this woman before, and I have a flashback to a crazy after-party at one of my book signings, where it's like disco lights, and we're kind of hammered, and then she takes me into the rainy alley behind a bar, and we start making out. You know, it's a sordid world of financial book authors what happens in seventh grade age 13 what should i be ready for what's how old is my daughter's

sixth grade age 12 with their their people in our class are fake dating now like they start texting and it's like oh they're dating it's like have they been on date no yeah but they're dating it's all confusing i don't care yeah well for the boy it's pretty much it's the typical thing of like snapchat it's snapchat yeah snapchat was a big deal to get and then he now feels like instagram is kind of i don. I don't really feel like he's talking about it so much. Well, it'll be the bar and bat mitzvah tour next year. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's schedules for it and stuff. He's been to like 20 of them this year. Yeah.

Yeah. Just same suit every time, or did you buy him like three suits? No, he mixes it up. Yeah. But then there's a lot of like, do you want to go to so-and-so's parent is asking me, are you going to go? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Come to the day of.

Let's get ready. What? You got to go to so-and-so's part of Misfit. I barely know him. Why did you say yes then? You got invited? Yeah. Yeah.

So a lot of negotiating next year. A lot of negotiating. Okay. But see, girls are different you might already be age 12 is a lot of exasperation which really breaks my heart it started like four or five months ago i'm just exasperating now i used to be like her favorite person now i'm just just exasperated that'll get dad jesus dad you're gonna get the heisman constantly. Yeah, it's going to hurt my feelings. Drop them off. Also, too, I don't know what school you're at right now,

but that whole elementary school vibe of be super involved in your kid's school. And the next school, they're like, drop them off and just leave. And send us a check when we ask you for money. A healthy check. Yeah. Drop them off, that's it. Drop them off. So it's going to off, that's it. Drop them off. So it's going to be, it's a huge point of separation.

Yeah. My daughter plays soccer, so I have her trapped in the car a lot, driving to games, which is good. Yeah. Because if you have them trapped, eventually you can break them down. All the time? I take it when we drive. So good for you.

Yeah. Because I make you talk. Then I find out all the gossip, the sixth grade gossip, which is very important. See, I can't get any. You can't get gossip. The boys are there. Out of the boy. Yeah.

The boys are rocks. The girls will break. The boys won't say anything. I have to ask strategic questions like, hey, I forgot to ask you. Yeah. Remember how you said, whatever happened with the thing about the thing? Oh, well, you see, and then I can get him. Right.

It's my little trick. Right. Otherwise, anything going on with your friends no nothing they're he's your son's probably just he's two years away from just dying for you to be working late at the set right but he's already dad's dad's in filming something in canada this weekend and my mom's out party oh. Oh my gosh. That's happening. Yeah. He's already lobbying to be left alone at the house. What's the age to do that? I don't know.

There's no handbook anymore. What's the age to put your kid in an Uber? Because I'm the exact wrong person to ask. Yeah, me too. I was a latchkey kid. I was letting myself in. Me too. And making my own snack.

That was our era though. We were like the Kramer versus Kramer era. Turning on Bonanza with my PBJ in fourth grade. With Karen, the neighbor, checking on me. Right. Making your Stouffer's macaroni and cheese in the microwave. Right. Yeah.

That was our generation. There's 20 bucks in the pot. Take your brother, walk down to Carl's Jr. for dinner tonight. Yeah. You know who ruined that child molesters and murderers it was all funny amber alert yeah amber alerts it was all funny games until they started grabbing those children really found a voice yeah i was sixth grade seventh grade i was alone every day from like two to six isn't that crazy to got myself home did everything had the key never be you would be chastised for that oh you'd

be the worst parent of all time yeah yeah now i think we're too overprotective the other way i think there's probably some sort of a middle ground that's closer to that's why we, every summer we go away to Sweden. Not for that reason. We have a connection. My wife's Swedish. So we have a place there. And we're in the middle of nowhere. And it's literally, they get autonomy.

They get to go. We're waiting for that other shoe to drop where the older guy's like, why can't I stay here with my friends? But he really loves it. They get to go ride their bikes. They get to go and we're like go for it well pretty soon he's gonna like the uh the woman if he doesn't already i'm gonna guess there's some swedish keep up the swedish because they're because my wife speaks swedish too and i'm like you guys are gonna be the california kids who speak english and sw. Oh my God. Forget it. That's great.

Yeah, our era was... Is that good parenting? Our era was you'd go to the... Forget it, kid. Game over. A lot of my parenting, I'd just give in that voice. Kind of like a Jimmy the Greek type voice. Jimmy the Greek. Yeah, our era, you just went to the dump.

Went to the dump, saved that anybody threw up Playboys. That's how we entertained ourselves for two hours. I can't believe all the choices they have now. We had a place called The Jumps. The Jumps? It was an undeveloped piece of land that had bike jumps for kids riding their bikes.

You're like, well, I'm going to The Jumps. But it was a good quarter mile away. It wasn't close by. Nobody had to, you're just going to leave? Your parents hoped you came back? I ran away once. I was so mad at my mom,

I ran away for what I thought was an eternity. Yeah. I just ran to the end of our apartment complex. But I, I purposely and aggressively packed a backpack full of clothes in front of her that later I realized she didn't notice. Yes. And stomped out and was gone for what I thought was like, I thought I was gone the whole day.

Now it would be an Amber Alert. Well, it was probably just a couple hours. I came back and my mom was like, oh honey where were you like i ran away okay it's like oh sorry i didn't notice but so the house yes coming out friday friday press are you doing coming out friday june 30th friday. June 30th, Friday? Yeah. I thought it was this Friday. No. June 30th, Friday. We're on the early.

That's good. Yeah. You avoid? Well. Do you avoid? What are we up against? No, that's a good weekend. Despicable Me 2?

No. 3. 3. Stop it. Come on. That's different. It's despicable. And there's some other movie, I think, with that Jamie Foxx, something about the baby.

Baby Driver. Oh, yeah. They've been Foxx, something about the baby. Baby Driver. Oh yeah, they've been, I think you'll be fine. Baby Drivers, looks like one of those. Cult hit. Cult hit.

Yeah. So you have to, do you, when you have these movies, do you, do you decide how much press you're going to do, or do they tell you? They tell you.

Yeah. And then you kind of, even now they, then you kind of decide. Because you want to support the movie. You want to play ball. I mean, it's kind of the, it's that one component of the business

where you're like, okay, I got to go do it. You try to make it as pleasurable as possible. But I have, from the amount of stuff I used to do, I've been able now to kind of scale it down slightly. All right. Will Ferrell. I'm glad we finally did this. I know, this was such a pleasure.

Last question, do you want Lonzo Ball or not? Because you get LeVar Ball too. You get the whole Ball family. And the biggest question is, is that problematic in the pro game or not at all? It's fine. It's fine, right? I would take Lonzo.

Would you? I would. I would. Over the kid from Kentucky? I would take Lonzo. Okay. I think he has the kid from Kentucky? I would take Lonzo. Okay. I think he has the highest ceiling. I'm thinking that he's got the way he sees the court.

Yeah, it's special. It's pretty incredible. It's special. But it'll also, a lot of it depends on who his teammates are and what his situation is. Completely. Him with D'Angelo Russell seems like a strange combo to me. They'll have to figure out. They're so guard heavy. They'll have to figure something out.

And also, too, is Ingram. Yeah, what is he? Is he for real? He's like a year older than your son. I know. So that's a hard one to figure out. 6'11", 120 pounds. But if he can kind of...

I think you're in good shape. I think LeBron's coming in a year and everybody will be happy. I think that's happening. Really? I do. I do. I wouldn't bet my life on it, but I think it's in play. We'll know more this summer by what kind of moves they make.

I finally met LeBron a month ago, a couple months ago. And I told him he should think about running for president. What did he say? He just laughed. Yeah. I said, thank you. I appreciate it. I thought he would have said, like, I can't beat the rock.

Nobody's going to beat that guy. But I just said, look, I have to say something to you. I was talking to my wife, but I had an epiphany. You need to start thinking about running for president. President LeBron. You're articulate. You're from the Midwest. Yeah.

You know the plight of the forgotten Rust Belt. And you're incredibly popular. And you have a huge social media presence. Yes. Which seems to be the most important thing now. And most importantly, you have a massive social media presence which seems to be the most important thing now and most importantly yeah you have a massive social media you're big on instagram which is now the number one determining factor yeah isn't it funny with all the trump stuff all the pundits you watch who talk about every various issue yeah there's i've seen 20 to 30 to 50 people who

all would do a better job. There's just so many smart people out there. Yeah. And you listen to them talk. Anyway, these two guys voted for Trump, I can tell. I don't even think they're allowed to vote yet. All right, Wolf Farrell. I'm glad we finally did this. That was great.

Thank you. All right. All right, thanks again to Wolf Farrell. Thanks to the Ringer NBA show. Once again, if you want to hear some basketball talk, go there. I talked to Chris Ryan about hoops for a solid hour. Thanks to Hotel Tonight. It's an app that helps you find amazing hotel deals at the last minute

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NBA free agency coming up game of Thrones. NFL is starting to lurk. Some good pop culture tech is never been crazier. Check it all out. The ringer.com. Enjoy the weekend. We'll be back next week with a whole ton of stuff coming. Very excited for the NBA draft.

Enjoy the weekend. On the wayside On the first sun never on I don't have to ever