The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Stephen Merchant

Episode Date: August 5, 2022

Stephen Merchant is an actor, comedian and director. With Ricky Gervais, Merchant was the co-writer and co-director of the British TV comedy series The Office, and co-writer, co-director, and co-star of both Extras and Life's Too Short. His show, The Outlaws is available on Amazon Prime. 

This is Live from the Table, recorded at the world-famous Comedy Cellar, coming at you on SiriusXM 99, Raw Dog, and on the Laugh Button Podcast Network. This is Dan Natterman coming at you from the island of Aruba, approximately 20 miles north of Venezuela. I am zooming in, but in studio is Noam Dorman, the owner of the world-famous Comedy Cellar. Present. Yes, Periel Ashenbrand, who is our quote-unquote producer. I put that between quotes because Noam has some issues with that designation, which we discussed on previous episodes. And with us as well, English actor, comedian, co-creator of The Office, along with Ricky Gervais.

Stephen Merchant is with us. Good, good, good. Hello. Hello, Aruba. Thank you. I'll give Aruba your regards. Please do. And Stephen is with us to discuss his latest project, The Outlaws, and whatever else we might get into. Yeah. Can I just say before, it's just a thought,

but, you know, I'm probably a little bit older than you. I don't know. A little? Well, I'm 60 years old, whatever it is, of a particular generation. I just, for some reason,

I had a flashback to some point in my childhood. It was the first time there was like a live broadcast via satellite. Maybe it was Elvis or something. I'm thinking of Elvis from Hawaii, was it? Yeah, that might have been it. And what a huge moment it was technologically to, that's live at the same time.

And here we are, just how we take these technologies, we're tracked from satellites in our pocket. I mean, it's just amazing. I don't remember life before the internet, certainly not before email. I mean, I remember it as a child and that moment in time where suddenly we had, we could, we could find out, you know, who played, I don't know, Richie Cunningham's cousin in like season four of Happy Days. You could suddenly find that out, right? Whereas previously you'd have had to have got a copy of that season and like fast forwarded to the credits, right? But suddenly there was a moment where you could

just, every piece of information was available. I had to go in a nightclub for this event recently and I saw a bloke who ran it and the average person in a nightclub now, 21 years old. 21 years old. Any 21-year-old lads in? Where are you, lads? 21 years old. Do you know when they were born? 1990. Who the hell was born in 1990? I got tinned food older than that. I was in this club, surrounded by people born in 1990,

I realised, this makes you feel old, I realised I was the only person in there who's ever watched porn on VHS. That makes you feel old, doesn't it? 21 year old lads have got no idea, they're up in their rooms, they've got laptops and computers, surfing the web for internet, global pornography of all creeds and colors. Girl on girl, man on girl, woman on toaster,

I don't know what you're into, whatever you want. Wasn't like that for us in the 80s. You had to somehow get hold of a tape from a bloke. Couldn't choose. Just had to get what you were given, you know, and take that. In my case, in West Country porn, the privates of Penzance.

And I don't remember life before. I don't remember how we lived before that. It's such a fundamental change. And you'll like this along those lines. Judd Apatow says that when he was a little boy, he used to sit and try to transcribe SNL. Right. Because he felt he would never see it again.

Absolutely. Oh, I used to tape Fawlty Towers the same way. I would put a microphone to the TV when it was aired. Oh, wow. And record it onto a cassette and then transcribe it later. Like somehow that would unlock the secrets of comedy for me. You know? It's just maybe a good typist.

That was all it is. The technology is certainly amazing. Are we happier? I don't know. I'll leave that to the researchers to discuss. The answer is probably not. I think that there's a lot of studies to show that people, the happiness, human happiness,

doesn't seem to be terribly linked to technology. I definitely feel I was, that there's something about life being much more 24 seven now, right? Like your emails come in, texts come in at 24 seven and you are expected to reply. Oh yeah. No one's giving you a couple of hours anymore. It's like, why haven't I had a response? He's ghosting me. This is a big problem i mean i'm i'm you know i run a business and and are you married i'm not married but i have any any

internet marriage like you used to be like i'm going out and you come back and the would hit the fan where were you i was out like what do you want from me like i was out like oh i'm sorry you were out like it was and now you're never out and you're expected to and and it's um yeah that that part doesn't make me happier at all. I don't think it makes anybody happier. It makes me more efficient in certain ways. Definitely. Yeah.

Although I do quite like being able to know who played Richie Cunningham's. But the flip side is for people who love information and to read and to constantly keep their minds active. And this is like from heaven. Like, you know, I don't know how I did without it. Yeah. But it's an addiction because, you know, you did fine without it and you did other things and you, maybe you just read more books and I don't know what else you did,

but were you, were you any less happy before all this stuff? Well, I'll tell you one thing it was definitely easier i think to write dramas and thrillers pre-internet pre-text because it feels like how many movies have you seen where it's we don't have any signal because you know that's going to be useful later right because i always think that was romantic comedies it was always the cheat you've got to get to the airport and tell her you love her before she gets on that flight and he would race across town whereas now you just send them a text i love you um don't get on the plane just come on back you know it's just and obviously i mean the the outlaws which we mentioned is has a thriller dimension to it and the number of times

where you know a quick phone call a message a google would solve a problem that your characters are experiencing and you have to find some reason why they don't you think the solution i guess is to is to set things in the 80s and 90s you know back when back when uh you know you didn't have all that so i mean are we seeing more more things set in in previous decades i think we are i think for that exactly that reason i think there's a combination of nostalgia right that people just like the nostalgia of seeing something set in the 80s with stranger things and now as you say the 90s like the idea that the 90s is nostalgic really upsets me yeah that's insane it's really weird but yeah i just saw a movie the other day called i think the black phone with ethan hawke which is set in the 70s because again it's about a missing child

and a phone in a mysterious basement and things. And again, technology would sort of make it too easy for them to track him down. So it has to be set in the 70s. Can you tell us a little bit about the outlaws? And then I was actually told that I was going to be able to take the reins here. Thankfully, I got one more comment of the technology thing before we get into the show, because this is such an interesting topic for people of our age. Like when we were kids, okay. So I was like a kid in like in the seventies, the idea of like being super into like Glenn Miller, like music was so absurd, right?

Just so it was like another era entirely, even the fifties, which was only 10 years, you know, more than 10 years from 76, but 10 years prior to when I was born, this was also like a totally another age. And now, if you read about it, old music is still the majority of music sold today. Yeah. Music from the 70s and 80s outsells music, rock music of today. It's as if we fixated in many ways on a particular

golden age i don't know of culture and music and everything in a way that never quite happened before but time just even my music music from 20 years ago yeah is the same genre of music as music today, but music from the fifties before rock, before the modern music era was just a totally different ball game. Right. But that's, that's kind of my point. So movies, if I, if in the seventies, if you show me a movie from the sixties, I could tell you right away, it was from the, not from current or from the forties. You could tell that was not even from the sixties. Yeah.

You show me a movie today. I can't tell you it was in the 90s, 2000s, 2010s. They all seem basically the same, except the plot might have a cell phone. But other than that, in many ways, things are standing still. I'm only able to date a movie by the size and brand of the laptop. Yeah, exactly. That's the only marker. So that's a weird change, right?

It's just a weird change in the natural. Things just don't keep moving forward in certain ways. A law of diminishing progress. I don't know what you call it. Okay. Go ahead. One brief point for those who are interested in these sorts of things. That accent that you have seems to me to have a touch of Irish in it.

Well, I wish it was that glamorous. No, it's I'm actually from the West country in it. Well, I wish it was that glamorous. No, I'm actually from the West Country in England. Now, the West Country, the most famous association with this accent is probably pirates in movies. Because when they first made the Treasure Island, or the 50s version of Treasure Island, the actor playing Long John Silver approximated my kind of accent. Yar, Jim Ladd.

And so, yeah, I'm annoyed in a way that you spotted it because most Americans can't identify that I have an accent. To most Americans, I just sound like Prince William or Hugh Grant. But actually, I sound like a yokel or a pirate to anyone from England. Is that true? Could you do a quick impression of a proper London accent for us? I don't know if you do those. Well, it's hard because I'm not very good with accents.

But for instance, you'll notice then I said hard and I pronounced the R. Whereas if you're a posher, you'd say hard. You would barely hear the R. See, now you're talking and I can only hear a pirate. Yarr, arg. Okay, go ahead. Ask him.

Anyway, Periel, the floor is yours for questions. Thank you. Okay, so first tell everybody about the outlaws, because that was the promise that we had. That lured me here. My parents, when I was growing up, were involved with community service. They themselves were not criminals, as far as we know,

but they supervised criminals who had, you know, done various crimes that didn't send them to prison, but made them have to pay back the community in different ways. And I always thought that was an interesting backdrop for something because, you know, my parents would tell me about the unlikely people that sort of came through the doors.

I remember there was like an old guy who used to sort of steal vegetables from people's garden patches. And there was a teacher once who got caught doing DUI. And I just thought, and then a kid selling a bit of weed. And I just thought what an interesting combination of people that could be. And I remember there was even a kid I went to school with who for the purposes of this we'll call Tom. His real name was Jeff, but Tom, I remember was the world's worst thief. And I'm not making this up. My mother told me once that she said, what are you in for Tom? And he said, oh, well, I was caught stealing a TV from a house. And they came and they went, Tom, what are you doing here? The homeowners. And he went, I'm not Tom. And

they went, yes, you are. You live next door. And he was stealing from his own neighbors, like the laziest criminal. And I remember thinking, like, if Tom met the teacher, met the old guy, like, what would that dynamic be? And so, anyway, I've had that rattling around in my head for years. And so, finally, you know, I teamed up with this American writer called Elgin James. And we made it into a show and so it's a kind of thriller drama comedy hybrid um about these seven characters all doing community service who get sucked into a kind of crime that's happening behind the scenes um plus there's Christopher Walken so it's sort of everything that absolutely everything I need from a TV show

that sounds really fun yeah so anyway we ended up uh shooting two seasons back to back because we uh had a very problems with covid so yeah so the second season is about to drop as they say um but yeah we ended up shooting two seasons so we already aired one and now we're airing this where is it airing on on uh prime video on amazon that's another huge difference between the current era and the 70s and 80s is that people shoot the whole season up front rather than in the old days where cheers you would shoot the season as the season was happening I don't know how you certainly didn't shoot two seasons in advance well I also like the fact you can watch all the episodes you know in one evening yeah I'm a real sucker for that you know that old I mean like I noticed with

some of the other Apple I think you have to watch week to week. Yeah. What is this? The 80s? HBO does that. But what fun it was to and to to that that that anticipation. You know, I remember when L.A. Law would come on every what day of the week was L.A. Law. Does anyone remember? I could look that up, but I think it was Thursday, but I'm not sure. But we'd all get in my dorm room because I'm old, too. And it would be a big deal to gather on TV when LA Law was on, as opposed to now, where you just watch whatever you want, whenever you want it.

And again, the question is, are we happier for it? I mean, we're addicted to it. So you can't take it away at this point. I certainly cannot. I can't remember the cliffhanger of the show. If it was a week ago, I need a big recap to tell me where we are. I'm juggling a lot of shows. That's why you had previously on LA Law, if you remember.

The beginning of every episode. Which itself was about six minutes long. I don't think I'm making this up. I think I saw this, maybe on Marginal Revolution or something, that there's some study, of course, they study everything, that says that when you binge watch a series, in the end, you don't remember it as well. Really? Six months later or something, as you would if you watch it serially, for whatever that's worth. I just find it exhausted because I'm up until like four in the morning watching like every episode. The cliffhanger, by the way, is,

I'm not gonna say it's brand new, but the idea that every episode ends with a cliffhanger is kind of new. I don't think you had that back in the old days. Well, I'll tell you where you did have it. Do you remember, I don't know if they showed them here. They used to show them on British TV during the summer break.

And it was, I think it was kind of, it was like Rocketman and there was Flash Gordon. And these were like serials that were made in the thirties and forties for movie theaters. They were like 15 minute, 20 minute episodes. And I remember it was the first time I remember seeing an episode. It was the first time where I became aware that, that they cheated with these cliffhangers. Cause I remember there was one, Rocket Man was in the back of a car and he was tied up and the car went over the cliff and it's like well rocket man's dead and i was like you know 10 years old i don't believe it rocket man's dead he's definitely dead

and so the next day they show the next episode and it's the same thing again this and then suddenly close up on the door of the car thrown open and rocket man jumps out i'm like but i saw it go over the cliff yes i definitely because i remember paying attention thinking rocket man is dead and i remember it was like it was such a revelation to me oh you can just do that with your storytelling and i ever since i've always been i get really angry when people sort of cheat right you know and even as a writer myself i really get i've worked very hard to not cheat the audience so this is very interesting to me by the way this is i think buck rogers was uh an influence on george for making Star Wars. That's right. So you're already indicated in two ways that as a young person, you were already showing like very granular interest in the building blocks

of what became your profession. Yes. As opposed to, and I want you to comment on that, but just as opposed to something I commented on before, I was reading Keith Richards' autobiography. And it had never even occurred to him to write songs. Never occurred to him that he was good at it. Like, it didn't, his manager said, listen, you guys got to write songs.

The Beatles are writing songs. Yeah. And turns out the guy was one of the great songwriters. Yeah. And had all this talent. this talented didn't they locked him they locked him and the manager said you and and uh mick go into that house and you don't come out until you have a song and then they came out with as tears go by i think was something like that but just like so paul mccartney was always writing songs i wrote this when i was 14 when i was 13 i dreamed it like this is the kind of more what you're

describing like a guy who was always meant to write songs but there is another group of people out there who are very, very talented, maybe not as talented, I guess, but very, very talented. Don't even realize they have that talent they're walking around with. It's undiscovered talent all through planet earth, I guess, in a way, just never in that position. I think when I first started working with Ricky Gervais, it seemed to me that we were an interesting combination because I think Ricky was a lot more instinctive. You know, he had not, he was not a student of comedy in that same way. He was a fan. He was just a naturally funny man with a sort of untapped comic talent. And I think I, who's,

I'm slightly younger, but I think I was a little bit more of a sort of student of comedy, a professor of comedy, if you like. And so I think the combination of my more sort of structured analytical approach and his kind of quite spontaneous sort of natural gifts, I think that was an interesting combination. And I hope we sort of shared a bit of both, you know, as we partnered together, I think that I sort of learned a bit more to be a bit more instinctive and a bit more and less theoretical and a bit more sort of go from the gut. And I think he learned some structure and some sort of some of the discipline of writing particularly. So if you have a 10-year-old and he shows any kind of adult level insight into something, that might be a good indicator that that's a way for him to go. Right. So you just said something that I think is really interesting for everyone to hear about. So I

started, well, I discovered Steven, I mean, when, what year was in the beginning, beginning when you had your first radio show with Ricky Gervais and Carl Pilkington before anybody was really doing podcasts? I think it was probably early, I say early 2000s, maybe, maybe sort of 2004, something like that. We were, we, we won, we got, we got, we won, we got the most downloaded podcast and we, we like got a world record, but it was because there were like three other podcasts. I've often, This is a sore spot for Dan because he thinks he invented podcasting,

but just, I don't think I invented it much like Isaac Newton. And, um, who was that German guy that they both came up with calculus at the same time? So I think an analogy is to be made. I started podcasting and I think 2005. Okay. And the word podcasting didn't exist yet. Right.

I think probably I can't remember exactly. Yes. 2005, 2006 seems about right. But it wasn't that we invented it. It was simply that for some reason, I think Ricky had heard about it. And I think it sort of coincided

with the rise of the iPod. It was, yeah, you had to, it was like this whole cockamamie thing that I remember I had to do. I had to like download it, but I had to go on the computer. Yeah, it was a real pain in the ass. But it was, so backtrack one step.

I grew up listening and being obsessed with Howard Stern. Right. And so that little glimmer of what you're talking about, if you show an interest in something at such a young age. And then that didn't really happen again until 2004 or whenever you guys started. Yeah, we just suddenly, I think it was that it just gave you a freedom that we had done traditional radio shows, but there were always kind of rules. The BBC and other places are quite regulated in the UK. And suddenly with a podcast, you could just, you know, the gloves were off and you could say anything and everything.

I don't know if that was true here. I mean, I think I don't know when Sirius began, but certainly there were so many regulations about what could be said. And we were always kind of skirting what was allowed. And in the end, it was sort of, oh, hang on. You can just go on there and you can just say absolute filth and no one's going to police you for it and it was a sort of liberation but my anger now is that we didn't do it later because it feels like everyone's just cleaning up financially now with podcasts making millions yeah i mean we can have a huge spotify deal you can yeah yeah you can still do it i guess but i

feel like the moment's gone well steven also said downstairs he has no idea where any of these episodes are, where they live. No, I don't know who owns them. I don't know. They're just floating out there in the ether. Is Ricky Gervais doing something with Sam Harris? I think he does something with Sam. Yeah, I'm not sure. That's it.

I mean, people are just doing podcasts left, right, and center. You're probably doing like half a dozen each. Where's Carl? Carl, I think would prefer to be retired. Okay. Well, he preferred to be retired even in the beginning. Yes. He never particularly wanted to get involved with radio or TV or anything. He just drifted into it. He was a producer on our radio show and yeah we started asking him questions and just the most extraordinary answers and you know just those people that i remember asking him we remember him saying um what were those things in the movie gremlins called well gremlins are definitely gremlins and uh he was telling a story once and

he was like blah blah blah anyway my next door neighbors and they were the ones who had a house that lived in the living room anyway and that wasn't the story and he was like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, my next door neighbors. And they were the ones who had a house that lived in the living room anyway. And that wasn't the story. And we're like, no, no, no. Go back to the horse that lived in the house with the people. And it was like the stuff that he thought was interesting was not what was interesting. And he would come in and be like, oh, I just saw a bee have a heart attack. Oh, you did?

You saw a bee have a heart attack. How were you aware it was having a heart attack. Oh, you did? You saw B have a heart attack. How were you aware he was having a heart attack? And so he was just like a kind of gold mine of just the most odd esoteric things. And then, and so then it essentially became the Carl show. Right, right, right, right, right. Now, where are you? I know that Ricky Gervais is like full on the front lines, and John Cleese, you know, against this woke culture and all that stuff. And you just made a TV show, so you have to deal with the pressures for diversity and plot lines and all that stuff.

So that's just a general thing. Where are you on all that stuff? Well, coincidentally, this show has been sort of originating and floating around for a long time. And Elgin and I, when we first started really seriously going at it on the project, it was kind of Trump. It was a rise of Trump. It was Brexit in the UK. And it felt like we were in a very divided time, culturally, socially, as you say,

the kind of feeling of sort of culturally things clashing. And so we tried to reflect that in the show. So we would deliberately have sort of made a dynamic of characters. So we have the kind of right wing blow hard. We have the sort of left wing liberal, and we deliberately mix them together in order to sort of see the sparks flying away. So I feel like the show has tried to address some of those ideas within the

characters. I prefer to sort of not come down on a side, you know, and let the show, let the characters be its own thing. I love the idea that you watch the show and you're not sure where our politics lie. I always think that's quite tantalizing. But again, with standup, I love it when I'm not quite sure what a comedian's politics are. I always think that's kind of-

That's a huge talent. You know, I saw Do the Right Thing not long ago, the Spike Lee movie. I think that was his high watermark. And that's really what was so great about it. He really did a good job in that movie and never again in any other movie of really hiding or allowing you to take any side and think that reasonable minds could differ on how you should feel about what happened in the movie.

That's very hard to do well i'm not a big fan of preachy comedy you know i i feel like you know i don't know why i think there's part of me that feels like i don't always agree with my dad on everything you know i mean he'll be like yeah brexit we're taking back control and i'll be like dad you're a plumber from bristol all right you don't have control you never had control you're not taking it back and so we might clash on that but i still like my dad i'm not gonna i'm not you know i mean i'm not gonna i'm not anti my dad and so to me i like the idea that you know that we can kind of see both sides of any argument and play with that that seems interesting and i think by seeing both sides of an argument

that's a position in and of itself. Your position is seeing both sides. But there's a tradition, I think, in recent years in British comedy, which I think some of the kind of anti-woke stuff is reacting against, which is that there was an assumption that the audience was very liberal. And that was a sort of, certainly in comedy clubs in England, you'd go in and the assumption was you hated the conservative party and you hated Trump. And that was your, and that was taken as read. And that was often the case with the audience, but I think it sort of started to make it feel a little bit kind of preaching to the choir,

you know, and preaching to the converted. And I think it can make comedy in particular feel a bit, like I say, a bit preachy and a bit dry and a bit sort of sanctimonious. And I think it can make comedy in particular feel a bit, like I say, a bit preachy and a bit dry and a bit sort of sanctimonious. And I think it's more interesting. I mean, I'm a big fan of Bill Burr. Now, I don't know Bill Burr and I don't particularly well and I don't know his politics, but I like the fact that on stage, I'm never entirely sure. Right, right, right. What position he's going to take on an issue. And I think that's kind a lot of like what happens with Louis here, right? That people just assume that everybody's horrified. But in fact, he walks into the room and he gets on stage and everybody's thrilled, right? Most 98, 99 percent of people are thrilled.

Yeah, you can't just I mean, that's not enough to just agree with me and be like, yes, Perry, you're right. Well, I, I mean, no, it's not because, because to a listener, it's interesting for them and precise for them to understand that there are still a, there is still a regular, but small contingent of people who don't want to see Louis CK and we'll get up and walk out even five years later. But 99% of them do. Yeah. yeah that's a question i would say something like that yeah but are you as someone who you know runs a comedy club and and sees comedy regularly all the time are you seeing a real sea change i'm interested in that are you seeing does do acts feel

different do they feel like they're reacting to the sensitivities well i'm I'm an act, so I can speak for myself. Yeah. For myself, but I was never a huge political act. I never, you know, you might be hard-pressed to know my position on things if you saw my act. That's mostly true cowardice because I have to, I don't have my own audience. I have to take the audience that happens to be

there, and I don't know what they're thinking, and you could potentially run into trouble. Certain things are a no-go nowadays. You know, the days where you could make fun of gay people in a kind of a mean way, I think, are gone. I mean, at least in New York City, whereas Eddie Murphy used to go on stage and says i don't want no fags looking at my ass when i'm that just would not fly andrew dice clay was here just the other night and you know he's he's not the same guy that he was because he's evolved personally but also because i think he's aware of what of what the audience they're not going to tolerate yeah um what he was saying in the late 80s, I guess it was.

You know, they just wouldn't tolerate that. I don't think that what he's talking about, the Japanese, you put dental floss and they can't see, you know, how are they dry? I don't know if you remember that from his act. Right. That just wouldn't fly nowadays. No, right.

Now, I don't know, is that a bad thing? I mean... But it was controversial at the time, though, wasn't it, as I recall? Yeah. He was a choir taste even then, right? taste even then. Yeah, you're right. You're right. You could talk about jokes that wouldn't fly now, but you could still kind of sneak them in and get a laugh from them. But that's just great. Well, I there was no way around it.

Well, there's no I had to. Yeah, I mean, but he would also you're right. Even then. And Noran uh protested by not doing snl with him so even then it was a little touchy but now i think it would be a complete no-go uh and i think he's aware of that and and um yet here we are by the way dice dice clay he was on stage holding a cigarette it was not lit yeah he was holding a cigarette the whole time and i'll do you one better he was talking to Esty upstairs in the restaurant and holding an unlit cigarette. He couldn't

like it wasn't even on stage. You could say maybe it's part of the character, but he's like Jim Carrey playing Andy Kaufman or something. He was talking with Esty at the table holding an unlit cigarette the entire time. Why isn't he lighting it down on stage, though? I don't know. Well, he's not allowed to. Why? You he lighting it down on stage, though? I don't know.

Well, he's not allowed to. Why? You let Dave smoke on stage. He's not allowed to either. He does it anyway. I mean, we're not going to. If he lit it, I mean, I wouldn't have told him to put it out. But maybe he doesn't smoke anymore. I don't even know. But then why is he holding the cigarette? Because that's his character.

Why is he doing it when he's talking to Esty upstairs in a private conversation? I don't get him on the show. I would love to. I don't know if I could talk to Andrew Dice Clay other than Howard Stern. He's how I really fell in love with stand up. Nice. Dice.

I used to buy his cassette tapes and listen to them. And I bought it for my father as a birthday present. And it was the first time I ever saw my father laugh so hard. He cried. Really? And my mother was horr first time I ever saw my father laugh so hard he cried. Really? And my mother was horrified. I was like 15. But let me give an answer to your question

if you didn't fully get one. I think in general, no. There's not a big sea change at the club. The club audiences. Now, Dan, I think it's Dan, but other people told me that the Comedy Cellar

is not in this way representative of clubs throughout the country. But at the Cellar, the seller itself selects for people who are not that uptight and, you know, don't really care so much what they hear. It's true that certain things are a no go, but there's a irony like you can't do the gay voice anymore and you can't make the overtly gay jokes anymore. However, there's a lot more gay comics now. And I will say without, you know, I don't mean this to be a value judgment. They will make very often the same exact jokes and even do the same voices that a straight person used to do. Right. But I guess that's the they're appropriating those cliches in order to sort of. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I understand why they do, but it's still interesting. So, and I, so for instance, also there was this Netflix show, Queer Force,

it was like supposedly a Netflix animated gay superhero thing. And they had all these like really almost, you know, sophomoric adolescent gay jokes, right? About in the ass and blah, blah, blah. And for the same, the rationale was the same. Well, we're all queer writers. We can write this stuff. However, the people watching the show had no idea who wrote the show.

So they were literally just putting into the bloodstream these very same gay trope jokes. It's all very interesting to me. But in general, no, I don't think people are that uptight. Yes, some shift, but not like it is in corporate America where you can't say anything. Right, right. Dan, would you agree with that answer, Dan? Well, again, I don't push it.

Not you, just as a viewer of what's going on in the cellar every night. Yeah, I think that's more or less the case. I do think, I think there are things that you probably wouldn't say, but I think it was always the case that like during the Vietnam War, you probably wouldn't, most comedians probably didn't,

you know, pick a side. There's always something. There's always a third rail that that you know um and then the other yeah i don't know if there's more third rails now than there used to be the other issue is and we all wonder about this and i i'm sure you do and i know ricky gervais does um we don't really know how big the population of people who are actually offended even is i mean chappelle said all these things that upset, you know,

the entire trans community and whatever, and, and even got disinvited from that venue. However, the show was wildly popular. Right. And, and I mean,

I've compared, I don't know if that's necessarily a mark. I don't know what, you know, I think it's popularity doesn't necessarily, that only reflects its popularity. You know what I mean? It doesn't, I don't know. I don't know if it you know, I think its popularity doesn't necessarily, that only reflects its popularity. You know what I mean? It doesn't, I don't know if it reflects, if you like, the acceptability.

We don't know is what I'm saying. So like on Rotten Tomatoes, I'm not, you know, this is not an original observation. The critics score is very low. And then the public score is like a 99. So maybe the public score represents the overall general public. Maybe it doesn't. I don't know. We just don't know because I've compared Twitter to like the Wizard of Oz.

And a few tweets really give the impression that this is a groundswell of opinion. And it intimidates business people and corporate owners and decision makers. I know when I was dealing with my Louis CK thing, if you would just read the papers and I looked at Twitter, you would think that we'd be facing empty rooms down here. You would think the whole public had risen up against us. But the reality was we saw no change in business whatsoever. I mean, zero change. Well, say what that was, what you're referring to. Well, we allowed Louis to come back nine or know, nine or 10 months after his scandal broke. He performed here.

And that was really, I mean, when it first happened, I was worried, am I going to lose everything? And then it turned out, well, whoever were the people who were really offended by this, they weren't a big part of our audience anyway, not enough to feel feel i don't know if it's the true here but it seems like in the uk that idea you mentioned of you know an outraged vocal group on twitter gets picked up it seems by the mainstream media in the uk certainly

and so it because so they sort of if you like elevate those comments so that it so it feeds into a kind of national conversation and a national scandal. And as you say, again, it's not entirely clear, you know, how representative it is of what people are thinking, or even the people that, that the, the, the, the tweets claim to have been the fed, you know, to, to be representing how many of them are also offended. Right.

Joe Rogan, not only did he use the N word, but he compared black people to planet of the apes. Right. Joe Rogan, not only did he use the N-word, but he compared black people to Planet of the Apes, right? Wow. And there was a scandal about it for a few days, and then it just, it's gone. And Joe Rogan is, you know, unscathed. Well, do you think that certain people

are above sort of that sort of backlash? Like if you are somebody like Rogan or Chappelle, I mean. No, Cosby. Well, I mean, come on. Harvey Weinstein. Well, that's right.

But I'm saying there are certain things where the outrage is deep and real and I think represents an overwhelming majority of the public. I think if we if you put Cosby sold tickets to Radio City, I don't think he'd sell many tickets. I don't actually. People are genuinely outraged by Cosby. I don't think. I think he'd fill the place, to be honest with you. Maybe people are looking for perversity. But I think people are actually genuinely outraged.

But I think there's a lot of people that think he was set up, that this was, you know, that he was unfairly treated. Really? Who knows? Who knows? That would be incredible. Can I ask you, this is a question that interests me if it's not something, I don't mean it to be a sensitive question, but it could be. Listen, I don't want to scare you. But one thing that fascinates me is the idea of two people responsible for something,

and yet in the public, because one person appears in it, is much more associated with that guy. So, for instance, in Seinfeld, for years, I thought Seinfeld was just a Seinfeld thing, you know? And only much later, I said, oh, realize that Larry David not only was a co-creator of it, but after seeing Curb Your Enthusiasm, you're like, oh my God, this is so much of what I loved about Seinfeld was from him. And I was wondering like, how does that dynamic affect their relationship and all that? Now you're in a similar kind of relationship

here. Do you want to duck that question entirely or is there anything you can tell us about that? Well, I think in the case of The Office, you know, I was, what, 25, 26 when we did that. And so the fact

that I was making a TV show and co-writing it and co-directing it and, you know, just all over it and, you know, editing it and everything, it's sort of, the fact, just all over it and, you know, editing it and everything. It's sort of the fact that Ricky was in it and kind of his profile was high. It was sort of,

it was, I don't know, it was just all so giddy and kind of exciting. And you're just so proud to be associated with something that was being well-received. I didn't really analyze it. You know, I wasn't, it wasn't sort of like like there was no space for kind of jealousy or anything else because it was all just so exciting you know i mean it was just like you were doing what you wanted to do um and i think i've always i've always felt sort of credit you know i've always felt i've had enough credit i've certainly you know been lucky enough to receive you know sizable paychecks you know thanks to it so i don't feel kind of robbed of glory if you if you like well there's a lot to be said for anonymity too not everybody wants to be uh harassed as they walk

down the street or or in restaurants so i don't know how you feel i mean there's really uh fame it doesn't really is it's only really valuable for picking up chicks. Well, I think, I mean, I feel like I have enough celebrity, certainly in the UK, that is pleasing. And it's a very nice level of celebrity. It's a kind of respectful, big fan of your work, and then they move on. It's not tearing your shirt off because you're Harry Styles. So it's a very pleasing sort of sense of celebrity.

And also, I think I'm not someone who craves validation. I'm one of the few people involved in comedy, I think who can survive without a sort of nightly dose of applause. Um, I don't know why that is. I mean, I clearly, I enjoy it to some degree because that's why I'm doing it. But yeah, if I haven't done standup for six or seven years, I went back to it the other night, lovely response from the crowd. And I was enjoying it, but it wasn't like, got to get up again tonight, got to get my fix. You know, for me, the laughter that I get, Noam, please no.

Noam is known for... Anyway. No, finish that. There's an opportunity for Noam to say, what laughs or something like that. But the laughs that I get are pleasing because that means that I've done my job well. Yes.

But after the show, I have no need for anybody, unless they're a hot chick. I don't need anybody to come up to me and give me further value. I just want to know that I did my job well by getting the laughs. I don't need anything beyond that. I don't need anybody coming up to me and saying we loved you. That doesn't do me a whole lot of good.

I know you're a way bigger people than me. I, if I, if I was like, for instance, Neil Brennan, who is a brilliant comic. I don't know if you know.

Yeah. Yeah. And, and he, he and Dave Chappelle are a very good friend still, I believe. And, but Neil was a co creator of the Chappelle show and a key,

like he wrote all the episodes along Dave, and he's had flare ups where he was like, fuck, I'm the you know, I did that, too. Like, well, nobody remembers Neil Brennan, you know, and that's very human. I mean, Neil seems to be doing just fine. Yes, yes, he is. But but his his perhaps most profound contribution to the culture is not credited credited to him in the way it probably should be.

Well, you know, if everybody knew the details and, you know, I don't know. I was very grateful about it. I don't know what went on in that writer's room and how much each party brought to the table. To whatever extent the reality is, it's got to be less than what the general public knows because the general public doesn't even realize he exists for the most part. Yes. Well, yeah, I'm with Mr. Merchant.

Just give me the paycheck and I'll be on my way. Well, no, I think, of course, it's nice to be credited for the things you've done, but I don't feel short-changing i feel particularly among comedy fans and aficionados of comedy i feel like i get a lot of lovely response and feedback and praise yeah i was going to say that i would imagine even with neil that everybody who needs to know knows right you really need everybody knowing or the people that whose opinions that you want. I would not forgive

myself if I didn't tell you that the British office and extras to this day are one of my very favorite shows. Thank you very much. Yeah. And she's not saying that, by the way, for this. This is something she's said to me a million times. The British office. Yeah, it's true.

Thank you very much. Yeah, yeah. And my husband is a huge fan of yours. He generally takes very little interest in what I do. I'm just kidding. First, I'm hearing about that. No, the British office. I've said it's one of the best shows

that was on television. Thank you. You're welcome. What went into the decision to do an American office? Well, for me, it was the... The money. Yes, clearly, clearly that was an incentive. But also, for me, I was always a big fan

and remain a big fan of American comedy. And for me, a lot of my influences were things like Cheers and MASH and Roseanne. There's a Roseanne. And so the idea of a sort of my influences were things like Cheers and MASH and Roseanne. There's a Roseanne. And so the idea of a sort of American version seemed very exciting to me. And the idea of, of the kind of infrastructure that American comedy has with the big writers room, you know, in the, in, in the UK, it was just me and Ricky,

but here obviously, you know, teams of 12, 15 writers. And that sort of idea of kind of multiple episodes. And that was always thrilling to me, the idea of, you yes there was the kind of you know winning the lottery aspect if it was a hit but at the same time just the creative process the idea of an idea the idea of our british idea being remade and a success was thrilling to me i mean it must have been so wild at the time right and. And then hasn't it? Isn't there like an office in like 97 countries? There's offices all over the place.

They did an Israel, an Israeli office. They did a French office, a French Canadian office. A Polish one. There might be, there was a German office, which they, where they didn't ask permission. I'm not even picking that up. Not like the Germans would just take something without permission. The Israelis ask permission. And so, yeah, so it just clearly there was something in the kind of DNA of it that made it translate all over the place.

But yeah, so the idea that there's this American version of our show. Well, what is the DNA? Is it that these types of relationship dynamics are universal? I think that's what it is. And I think also it was the first thing we did. And I think sometimes when you're not being scrutinized, you're most free, aren't you? You're most adventurous, you know,

and nobody knows who you are when there's no expectations. You can kind of just follow the muse and you're not intimidated by what the critics are going to say, what the fans are going to say. And that was certainly where we were. We were just, you know, a couple of chances really. And so I think there was a truthfulness to it. And, you know, we were just sincere.

And our observations, I think, were accurate. And it translated. I know nothing about all this stuff and British comedy ever is. But I do know that All in the Family was also based on a British comedy. That's right. And the Archie character is similar in certain ways to the Ricky Gervais character in the office. Is that a common type of British character?

I think there's a tradition in British comedy of, I'm loathe to say the loser, but I suppose almost like the anti-hero as the subject of the comedy of the sitcom, right? Whereas traditionally the argument was always that American sitcom leads were likable. The Friends cast are likable. Hawkeye is likable and so on. Ted Danson's likable in Cheers. Whereas in Britain, right back to the 60s, there was a comedian called Tony Hancock

who was so famous that they used to say that the streets would be empty when his TV show was on because everyone went home to watch it. He played a sort of misanthropic, kind of vain, sort of would-be actor who's not really successful, who was always, you know, trying to get one over on life. And then that subsequently, like you say, the kind of Archie Bunker equivalent, there was Sanford and so on was based on a British version as well, Steptoe and so on. Again, a kind of loser character trapped with his dad, Alan Partridge plays by Steve Coogan, Basil Fawlty played by John Keyes. These were all kind of middle Englanders, you know,

with sorts of strident views and a sort of inferiority complex. And that was a, that's, I think a long tradition of, I would also add to that list that Three's Company was based on Man About the House. There you are right wow yes which is uh which i which i used to watch because we got that uh on i think it was on channel eight uh out of uh waterbury or something but in any case um so so that was also based on well you know there was i always think i don't think this is interesting or not but when when mash was shown when i was growing up on british tv it did not have a laugh track the laugh track was removed

when it was aired in the uk whether it was a mistake or not i don't know but anyway so you'd see this thing every week and it was like a kind of half hour existential drama about like men on the front line like using humor to kind of to cope with the horrors of war right you know and then suddenly i come to america and it's got like a canned laugh like the flintstones and you're like this is weird like suddenly hawkeye goes from this kind of vulnerable hero struggling in the darkness to like this kind of like wise ass sort of stand-up really and and i'm sure you probably know this but they actually tried it without a laugh track in america one time oh and it didn't yeah and it flopped right and they went right back to the maybe that's maybe that's why they tried

are the english more tolerant of american show i mean they they they make these versions of these american versions of british shows because presumably the american audience prefers those uh is the british audience more tolerant of American shows I think we always just grew up enjoying them you know and so they were always popular and so uh just just they were popular alongside British shows I think it was a for a long time I think it was a one-way street because I felt like British shows very rarely kind of were a big success coming the other way um I think for as I recall the last British show to be shown on network tv in america for many years was uh the avengers the 60s kind of spy show and that was like oh yeah yeah so um

patrick mcneil with patrick so um so yeah clearly there was not but i think now it feels like what's great about streaming services and even with my show which is you know comes out of the uk although it has christopher Walken in it, is it feels like it can find its audience, that there's a kind of, there's an audience for everything now. And that streaming just sort of, the audience finds it, they seek it out. They're more active maybe in finding. I think it was interesting. I mean, when, when Squid Games was the huge phenomenon, it was an all Korean cast and it's like something that you just just never, ever would have would have happened in the old days.

Absolutely. Yeah. And it was a phenomenon. How is Mr. Walken? Right now, you want me to give him a call or feel free? No, he's terrific. Yeah. I mean, it's it's you know, it's a thrill to have him in the show. Yeah. Came all the way to the UK to do it. And what what role does he play in the show yeah came all the way to the uk to to do it and what what role does he play in the show well i like the idea when we were developing it of this sort of american guy who's you know it's set i actually set the show and film the show in my hometown of bristol which is you know kind of a couple hours outside of london and i like the idea of it feeling like kind of a provincial show that has these thrillery tropes underneath and so these lives become grander

and more exciting as the show unfolds and we like the idea of sort of dropping a kind of American, an older American character into this world. Why is he there? What crime has he committed? What sort of mysterious past has he got? And sort of peeling back the layers of him as you watch and so we wanted

a kind of iconic American actor of a certain vintage and Welcome welcome was our first choice. And I went to see him. So charismatic, right? It's like William Shatner in that way. Just like unbelievable. Yeah.

National treasure. He is a national treasure. And my big anxiety was we were filming during COVID and I did not want to be the guy that gave Christopher COVID and heaven forbid we should lose him. Oh my, because can you imagine if, you know, that's my reputation that you'd bring me on the co-creator of The Office

and the guy who killed Christopher Walken. That would be my thing. By the way, I do have one question. It's funny you're talking about what you pick up on when you were a kid.

It's something you said before reminded me of something I hadn't thought about in years and you can probably explain it to me. I used to watch Monty Python and I don't think it took that much observational skill

to notice that the indoor scenes were video and the outdoor scenes were film. That's right. Why did they do that? That was because at the time they didn't really have the sort of lightweight, portable video machines that could go out and about and shoot stuff on location. That was all in studios with those big kind of big ass studio cameras. So they had to shoot stuff on film and then play it in, you know, afterwards. So, yeah, that's why it was always very jarring when they were such a drastic change.

Yes. Which kind of worked in a way. It kind of like it even exaggerated the outdoors now. Right. Right. That's right. That's right. But I used to I used to watch Benny Hill, but I found I couldn't really understand half of it. You know, just the the accents were such that that a lot of it found I couldn't really understand half of it. Just the accents were such that a lot of it I just couldn't understand. Well, supposedly people used to watch the British office in America with the subtitles on. Oh, that's so funny. Yeah, just to make sure they could follow it. Yeah. My wife, when I first met her,

I tried to have her watch a Monty Python on the Holy Grail. And she said, I can't understand a fucking word they're saying. I can't understand a fucking word. They say, I think she'd do better now, but there was, there was an SNL sketch where, um, they're in a plane. Like these, these guys are in a,

in a plane there and they're, and they're having an emergency, but they're, and they're Americans and they're over like Wales or they're over like Scotland. And they have to talk to, they had to get talked down by air traffic control. I don't know if you saw that sketch, but they're like, you talk to me, listen, and they're over like Scotland and they have to talk to, they had to get talked down by air traffic control. I don't know if you saw that sketch, but they're like,

and they're like, but in any case, you mentioned you haven't, you've used to do standup. You said you hadn't done it in about six years or so. I haven't done it for about six or seven years. And then I just went back to it just, just literally two or three weeks ago. Do you want to perform? I would love to, if I was here for longer, I would love that,

but I'm leaving tomorrow, but hopefully I would love you to have me was here for longer, I would love that, but I'm leaving tomorrow. But hopefully, I would love you to have me back. Next time. Oh my God, that would be such a thrill. Well, I was saying earlier before we came on the air that the first time I came to New York was 2001, ironically, July 2001. And we came to the Comedy Cellar because we heard such good things about it. And I remember coming on. We were here for hours just enjoying

the shows. And then Chris Rock came on and tried out some new material. And someone who was a comedy fan first time in New York, that was a buzz and a thrill and the crowd loved it and i just remember the atmosphere here was so electric and and obviously i've seen it on tv many times and i've been here since as a fan as a viewer as an audience oh we'd be honored to have you he has a wonderful special called hello ladies hello ladies yeah which uh so anyway yeah this is this is the face of the first tour that i'm trying to work up at the moment since then okay um and i just find with stand-up i don't know if you guys feel the same way that it's just it's such an anti-social thing right you know

you're you're going out when you know you're going out at night and and and uh you know it's just it's so easy it's a bit like exercise it's so easy to not do stand-up well i just to sit at home instead and i think the cellar is very social because all the comics hang out here. Right. So it actually feels like everybody congregates. It feels like very family. It's a little bit,

my impression is a little bit reversed from what you're describing vis-a-vis the cellar. People like Chris Rock will actually come down often just to hang out and not go on stage. Oh, really? Okay, right.

Correct, Dan? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think he's been here and not gone on. Oh, really? Okay. Right, right, right, right. Correct, Dan? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah, I think he's been here and not gone on. I do have to say. I mean, you know, it is, it is. Look, I'm in Aruba. I think I'm done with Aruba, by the way,

because it's lonely out here. Oh, well, I do want to say that I was sitting outside with Dan the other night and Chris walked in and he looks at Dan and he goes, the great Dan Natterman. And I go, oh, my God, Dan, that is such a big compliment. Yeah, especially because Chris Rock doesn't throw compliments around. And what did you say to me? Are you saying that sarcastically now or he doesn't?

No, he doesn't. Oh, OK. Well, he doesn't. I don't know what I said. I probably said something like, say it with cash. Or what I said. Who cares? I was like, oh, my God. I look at the bottom line. And, you know, I mean, it's nice to get a compliment.

But it's only doing you so much good. What was the line about a cynic, Dan, that I always quote to you? The line about what about a cynic, Dan, that I always quote to you? The line about what? A cynic? No, it's the value of everything and the value of nothing. Yeah, that's Dan. The price of everything and the value of nothing. I was thinking of you to say.

Oscar Wilde. Oscar Wilde. You know, we got to go. So I say, this is a dumb thing, but it is interesting. Whenever I try to think of Oscar Wilde's name, I always think of Orson Welles. Obviously, the initials are the same. But that's an insight into how the brain remembers things, which is so weird. Somehow, it's listed under OW. Right, in the Rolodex in your brain.

Yeah, it's very strange in how recall works. Anyway, Oscar Wilde always comes out, Orson Welles, I would say, stop and go back. When we first went into the BBC to talk about doing The Office, we'd never done anything, like I say. And I remember going to the BBC and they said to us, and I was very young and Ricky was much older. And we went in and they said, OK, so you want to you want to write this together? You want to direct this?

This guy's going to be in it. I've never seen him before. Why should we let you do this? And I said, without any any irony we might be the next orson wells and in my brain i was thinking none of us know right we i might be we might be a genius is or we might not but none of us know in this room because we've never done anything obviously it came out sounding really arrogant but in my brain i'm like yeah we could be orson wells who knows and you were and it turned out for that one at least we were uh i think that's it we're out

of time i just also wanted a quick question you had said you had about 20 minutes ago you would you referred to your father as a plumber from bristol yeah so i assume that bristol is uh not considered a uh fancy place how big a dump is bristol is what i'm asking no it's a lovely city it's a lovely city it's's a lovely city. It's just it's just you know, it's just another it's just a provincial town in England. So why should his view on whether or not we should be in the

you know, economic union, the European Union? Why should that hold any credence? Right. You know, it's I guess people would argue well, everyone's democratic. I was just about to say, you sound like a fascist. Well, you should meet my father. I mean, I feel like... Men with property.

If you wanted to pick a town in England to make fun of, like Cleveland in America... I don't think you'd choose Bristol. No, you wouldn't choose Bristol. It's nice. It's nice. And it's the backdrop of my show

and it's actually a very beautiful city, very visual. It's the home of Banksy. He's where Banksy first started. Cary Grant was born in Bristol. My grandmother used to, she said her claim to fame was that she worked in a boot factory with Cary Grant's father. And she always used to say,

he was better looking than his son. I love the idea that she would talk about that constantly. We have to talk about Banksy for a second. I'd like to talk about Cary Grant. Go ahead. Banksy, go ahead. I'd rather talk about Cary Grant. Okay, well, you guys told me that I was going to be in charge of that. Go ahead. That was a revocable.

No, no, no, no, no. Banksy. So I've I have emails from Banksy corresponding with him 20 years ago. Yes, because I was obsessed with his work even back then. And my nine year old is now a huge Banksy fan. How funny. I actually got in trouble at school for writing on the wall and didn't cop to it. And when I finally got him to admit it and write an apology to the principal, he said, I wanted to be like Banksy and he never reveals his identity.

Does anybody in England know who Banksy really is? No one knows who Banksy is, but even more interestingly, I hope this is interesting. At the end of season one of our show, The Outlaws, available on Amazon Prime, we had a gag where they're renovating this building in Bristol and they're repainting it.

And the joke was they're going to paint over a Banksy. Oh, I love that. So what we, but instead of doing a fake Banksy, we reached out through intermediaries to the real Banksy. And we said, would you paint something for real? And we will have Chris Wolkin destroy it on camera and it will only exist in the show.

And we got this reply saying, yes, he would. Of course. And so we never knew when he was going to come. And then just one morning we come onto the set. There is a Banksy, an original Banksy.

It's painted in the corner. We covered it up. We kept it hidden from cast for six weeks. One morning I went to Chris Walker and I said, do you know who the artist Banksy is? He said, yeah, I'm a big art fan. I said, do you mind painting over one this morning? You have to do it in one take because it's real. And so Banksy had climbed the fence in the middle of the night. We never saw him. He never announced himself. And he did the Banksy. We destroyed it. We've managed to keep it hidden from the press, from everything.

And then it just exists. How did you get a hold of Banksy? That is the best story ever. Ever. How did you hold that back? And how come Periel, of all people, was the one to elicit that? I'm never going to live that one down.

How did you get a hold of Banksy if no one knows who Banksy is, he has representation. We just went through intermediaries. We were meeting in car parks late at night. I will tell you this. I do have- So there are people that know who Banksy is. Oh, okay.

Well, we should have come to you. That would have been a lot easier. So obviously there's people that know who this guy is. Clearly someone knows who he is, yes. I mean, I don't know, though. They might know sort of vaguely.

I think you can have a manager who's never met you. What was that like famous author who had that huge scandal here that was writing books

that nobody knew who they really were. Anyway, that's the best story. And of course, Banksy agreed to do that only because it was going to be destroyed.

Right. Yeah. Now there's no security camera. I mean, this doesn't make any sense. He wears a hood. I know still, but I just wish that I had been more sort of diligent when we were shooting, you know, and just and if there was any kind of suspicious looking street sweeper, you know what I mean? With a fake beard.

Yes. It's like scoping the place out beforehand. Somebody could even if he's wearing a can't somebody tackle him and take off his mask. Oh, you don't see that. It's like scoping the place out beforehand. Somebody could even if he's wearing a can't somebody tackle him and take off his mask? Oh, you don't see that. It's not a Batman movie. But OK, we got to go. Just I'll leave it with with this last thing, just because I'm an Amazon prime. It outlaws season two. In the paper today or the Internet, I saw that the Mega Millions, is that the name of the lottery, is worth one point two billion dollars this week. One person can win that?

One person can win that. And it occurred to me that people are less bothered by the idea that somebody would win a billion dollars in a lottery. And by the way, lottery is basically funded by poor and underformed people buying tickets, right? Then they're less bothered by that or not bothered by that. And they're outraged by somebody like Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates or Elon Musk, who's absolutely transformed the world, right? And given us things that we all use every day, making a billion dollars. And I just think that's it. I think we know where your politics are. Finally, they've revealed themselves in that comment. You're fully behind the billionaires over the common Joe who's got a chance to become a

billionaire. Yes. Well, no, but where I am is I've, and Dan knows I'm very against the lottery. Oh, you are? Because I think that no government in good faith would encourage its citizens to buy lottery tickets, especially knowing the group of people most likely to buy it. That outrages me. Interesting. On the issue of billionaires, I'm torn. You know, nobody needs billions of dollars. On the other hand, these people do great things and I don't really see how to avoid it once the market is the entire world. I mean, every book that Bill Gates, I mean, that Jeff

Bezos sells, he's entitled to a penny. There's no way to control as well. Hey, listen, they're bankrolling my show. I'm not complaining. I'm glad he's doing well. They're selling my books too. I'm not complaining. I feel like there's an awful lot of envy and I don't know what you want to call it. I don't know that there's anything terrible about people making billions of dollars. I don't know. But if there is, I'm against it. And where can I buy a lottery ticket near here? It seems like a great opportunity.

All right, sir. I bought lottery tickets, but then when I don't match any numbers and you kind of realize just how insanely unlikely it is to win, I stopped buying them. But maybe I'll buy it. If nobody wins, I'm in Aruba, so I can't buy it. But if nobody wins this week and it goes up, and by the time I'm back, maybe I'll get one.

Get me one too. The thing about both sides of an argument is that for, I would say this for most arguments, I wouldn't say this applies to Hitler. But for most arguments, there there are parts of each side which have merit. And really what it comes down to is what that particular person prioritizes about that debate. And, and that's why it's usually wrong to assume that the person who feels differently than you was somehow evil or bad intention. They're just valuing a different part of that overall picture, even on something like abortion. Right.

So no, no, I know you, you can't see it that way, but not on that. All right, whatever, without getting into abortion.

And that's why I think it's, it's great to do these things that to expose both sides of an argument, because they usually are some, they're usually something to think about on both sides of the argument. Anyway. Okay. Let's put a goal on this. Cause I think it was a, it was a nice, concise episode. Thank you, Stephen Merchant. My best to Paloma. Thank you so much.

And thank you for coming on with us. And please podcast at ComedyCellar.com for all of your comments, questions, suggestions, and constructive criticism. And we'll see you next time on Live from the Table. Thank you. Woo-hoo. Thank you.