The Compound and Friends - Doug Ellin, Creator of Entourage, Sits Down With Michael and Josh Live From Los Angeles

Episode Date: May 20, 2024

On this special episode of TCAF, Josh Brown and Michael Batnick are joined by Doug Ellin, screenwriter and director, known best for creating the HBO television series Entourage. They discuss how Doug got started in the business and what Entourage fans have to look forward to down the road. Sign up for The Compound newsletter and never miss out: https://www.thecompoundnews.com/subscribe Check out the latest in financial blogger fashion at The Compound shop: https://www.idontshop.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/thecompoundnews Twitter: https://twitter.com/thecompoundnews LinkedIn: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-compound-media/ Investing involves the risk of loss. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be or regarded as personalized investment advice or relied upon for investment decisions. Michael Batnick and Josh Brown are employees of Ritholtz Wealth Management and may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this video. All opinions expressed by them are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. The Compound Media, Incorporated, an affiliate of Ritholtz Wealth Management, receives payment from various entities for advertisements in affiliated podcasts, blogs and emails. Inclusion of such advertisements does not constitute or imply endorsement, sponsorship or recommendation thereof, or any affiliation therewith, by the Content Creator or by Ritholtz Wealth Management or any of its employees. For additional advertisement disclaimers see here https://ritholtzwealth.com/advertising-disclaimers. Investments in securities involve the risk of loss. Any mention of a particular security and related performance data is not a recommendation to buy or sell that security. The information provided on this website (including any information that may be accessed through this website) is not directed at any investor or category of investors and is provided solely as general information. Obviously nothing on this channel should be considered as personalized financial advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any securities. See our disclosures here: https://ritholtzwealth.com/podcast-youtube-disclosures/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Without further ado, I would like to bring up the compounding friends, Josh Brown and Michael Back. Alright, right side of the room, let me hear the right side! This side, what are you going to do? Alright, just the protesters! No? Alright, alright, alright. Oh my god. We are, we are so excited to be here today. Alright, just the protesters. No? Alright, alright, alright. Oh my god. We are so excited to be here today.

I just want to, I want to say one thing about our audience. When we go to cities all over the country and we say let's do a live podcast, let's bring out the fans, we never have any idea what's going to happen. So when we said we're coming to LA it's the first time let's do it It's always a leap of faith But one thing about you guys one thing about the fans of the show you guys represent you guys show up you come out You support the show. I wanted to tell you you are the very best fans on earth. We love you so much Give yourselves a round of applause

Thank you Thank you. Thank you. I promise I'll stop shouting. I'll stop shouting momentarily. Okay. So, we have an incredible special guest. I'm so excited for you to meet him and hear his story. He's someone who's inspired me for a very long time. And we're going to have a lot of fun with this conversation. But before we do that.

But before we do that, a couple of thank yous. A couple of thank yous. So when we bought Future Advisor from BlackRock a year or so ago, we needed a tech solution to make the transition possible. And Advisor Engine powers that business for us and literally could not run that operation without them. They helped make this event possible tonight.

So round of applause. Thank you for Advisor Engine. Thank you, Advisor Engine. One more, one more. Very, very important partner for Red Holtz Walth management. And that is Canvas, which is powered by Franklin Templeton. Canvas also helped make this event a possibility for us. Canvas is the backbone of how we manage money for clients,

and they also helped make this event possible, which I feel like I've said three times now. So thank you again to Canvas by Franklin Templeton. We appreciate all the support. Let's hear it for them. Thank you. to Canvas by Franklin Templeton. We appreciate all the support. Let's hear it for them. Thank you. All right. Without any further ado, ladies and gentlemen, Doug Allen is a screenwriter and film and

TV director. He's known best for creating one of the most beloved shows of the century, Entourage. Give it up. let's go. Yeah, yeah. This is a show that I think we would all agree has been an absolute cultural touchstone for a generation. Doug also served as executive producer, director, head writer, supporting actor. He wrote, he directed, he produced the film based on the show.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Doug Allen Dog thank you. Thank you so much. Is that a big enough carton of water? How do we do I'm looking at the Knicks game here. What do we got going on here? It looks like 87-84 Knicks. How much? Three minutes to go? It's a nail biter.

So sit tight while we watch the end of the game. All right. All right. So Doug, I want to start with the Merrick connection. So a lot of you guys know Michael and I are both from the same town on the south shore of Long Island called Merrick. We have many famous alumni. Lindsay Lohan is one. I don't know who we do. Debbie Gibson.

Debbie Gibson. Amy Fisher. Yes. Amy Fisher. Shout out to Amy. Ben and Jerry. Do you know that one? I do know that one. I don't like them, but I know.

Who am I missing? Anyone? Dog Allen. Adam Schefter. Oh, Adam Schefter. Rich Eisen? Yeah. We have some stars. We have some stars from our town.

So we have that in common, and I got to say, most of the people that were a few, that were a generation older than me, when you ask them who's from Merrick, everybody says Doug Allen like very early in the conversation. So you have like a legacy back in your old hometown. So I wanted to let you know that and his picture is hanging in the high school that my kids go to. Mine is not. It's not for my academic achievements at the high school. Alright. So Doug, your story is incredible. You go out to Hollywood at first to be a stand-up comic and then you realize that you actually think that you're a better writer than performer.

Tell us a little bit about what it took to go out there and what that experience was like. I don't know if exactly happened that way. I was graduating Tulane in New Orleans and I honestly, I was not a student. And my father's a lawyer, my brother's a lawyer, and I was just planning on going to law school and trying to waltz my way through that the same way I did at Tulane. And about two weeks before I graduated, I was at a standup show with one of my friends and I tend to be pretty critical of things,

and we were watching a comedian, and I was like, this guy sucks. And my friend signed me up for an amateur stand-up night. So two weeks before I graduated college, I did a stand-up amateur night. And I don't want to say like, oh, I killed it and saw a future, but I liked it more than I liked studying.

And I called my parents up, which, you know, it's a different world 30 years ago, which is crazy. I mean, Hollywood was such a non-existent place to me. I didn't know a single person there. I didn't know anyone in the business there. Merrick, there was nobody that we knew. And I told my parents I was going to Hollywood to be a stand-up comic, and my mother cried.

Right after I paid for four years of Tulane. Right after they, and my parents, like their real goal in life was to educate us and give us a stable existence, kind of old school, and they were pretty horrified. My father said, I didn't even know you were funny, and we went from there. Okay, so you get to Hollywood, and you get a, like, it's like the classic story, you have a mailroom job at New Line Cinema?

Yeah. Okay. And you're writing when you're not working? Someone. Who were you on this tour with? It was Jim Carrey, you? On the stand-up tour? No, I was doing amateur stand-up nights, but I got a temp job in the mail room at New Line Cinema. And... Wait, time out, time out. Josh and I were talking about this today.

The mail room, that's not a metaphor. Like, what is the mail room? Well, first of all, I was, because we're Merrick guys, I was a good talker. I talked my way into the head mail room guy. So I beat out the other guys. The whole mail room is a big deal. And I had two guys working under me

who were very upset about it. They didn't understand what I had done to get this job. But I legitimately pushed around the mail. Carden handed out mail. Now I don't want to make this too great a story because I was only there for probably 12 weeks. I actually had somewhat of an incident that I ended up leaving New Line Cinema.

Okay. All right. So now you get a shot to write something, or did you get a shot to direct something before? What happened was, and my story does sound kind of crazy, and I have had so many downs in this town that I don't want to make it like it sounds easy, but my first few years kind of worked out well.

But I went to a UCLA extension class at night at New Line after I was unceremoniously removed from New Line Cinema because I had a little problem with the vice president who spilled coffee on me. That's a true story. He's here today. Wait, what's this incident we're talking about? I mean, for real, it's simple. And I did use a similar scene in Entourage, but I was pushing my little mail cart around and this woman came running out of her office, knocked into me with her coffee and spilled hot coffee on me and she screamed, what the hell are you doing there?

And I'm, Merrick, I go, what the fuck are you doing there? And I looked up and I was like, guess I better leave. And I remember being in that elevator, like just thinking about my parents, like my life is over, because my parents I think were giving me like $500 a month for like a year was the deal and they'll help me survive.

So I thought my life was over. But anyway, I went to this UCLA extension class where they said, pitch a movie to us. So all the kids got up and pitched a movie. And the ideas that I heard was so horrible, I kind of jotted them down and I ended up turning it into a script, which was called The Pitch, which is a series of characters pitching bad movie ideas.

Very simple. And I ended up getting like a pre-Friends David Schwimmer and Ernie Hudson from Ghostbusters and all these people. I was only here for probably seven months. Wow. And also what I did is I had some friends in my short time at New Line. I handed out flyers saying that I was doing standup comedy, would they come?

And I was trying to raise money for this short film. And Mike DeLuca, the vice president at the time at New Line, who ultimately went on to be Academy Award winning producer, came to my show and wrote me a check for $10,000 to go do this short film, which was pretty amazing. Did you ever at any time have imposter syndrome or feel like, how are these people trusting me with money? At that time, I wasn't even there.

I was 21 or 22. I was just out of college. So I wasn't there yet. I'll tell you where imposter syndrome kind of came up, but because this is really, it could have been crazy. And if I decided to be a better salesman at the time, it would have been a really amazing story. But I made this little short film, eight minute short film,

and this, it went around town and this producer saw it, called me up, said, you're a genius. We want you to direct this movie called The Parent Trap, if you remember that movie. Oh, shit, Lindsay. So with Lindsay, how crazy. So that movie was at New Line Cinema. Before Disney.

Yeah, well, they did it together. Oh, really? So I went back into New Line less than eight months after being thrown out of New Line, attached as being the director of this giant movie. Now, the short film that I made was legitimately a camera like this pointing at people talking because it's almost more of a play than a film. And my meeting was with Mike DeLuca, who gave me the $10,000. And I walked into that meeting. I was never on a set besides my little short film. I didn't know a single thing about making movies.

And instead of being a Merrick guy who bullshitted my way through the meeting, the imposter syndrome did kick in and Mike was like, so how are you gonna shoot this thing? And I was like, I honestly didn't know what he was talking about. I was like. You got nervous in the moment. I wasn't even nervous.

I was just, I was like, what are you, it's gonna be funny. What do you mean? How am I gonna shoot it? And he took me to lunch and said, you should go to film school. And I went to AFI film school, which the short film got me into.

And the short film also sold to Showtime, which was pretty wild for a short film to get on Showtime. And when I came out of AFI after a year, I made another short film. And then another producer saw it, hired me to do a very Bizarre low-budget comedy that I did for a hundred thousand dollars that we ultimately sold and played worldwide and still plays 30 years later It's not that's not good by the way, but uh, that's fat beach

Yeah, how many Academy Awards did fat beach when I was trying to google it before it's literally with the pH the best thing about fat beach was Chris Rock used to make fun of it in his stand-up act. And 25 years later, Complex Magazine did a 25-year retrospective on this movie that we shot in six days and somehow made it happen. So I had a very kind of easy route for the first few years and then things turned. So I mentioned before that, whenever people think about my town and they reference you, the show that you created truly became a cultural touchstone.

I feel that for a few generations of people, it's a show that people still reference, still talk about it constantly. And in the moment that it was on the air, which by the way, eight seasons, it's a really long run for any show, especially in the last 20 years. In the moment, it was like appointment TV

for a lot of people. It was on Sunday night, right? HBO. And everybody watched it, and everybody talked about it the last day, the next day. There's not a lot of shows like that anymore. What I wanted to ask you is, my impression is that it's really the characters from the show that have been the most enduring part. When you think about E and Turtle and Drama and Ari Gold, is that the way that you think

think back on it? Is that what you think is the biggest legacy? Yeah, I mean, that's what I set out to do was really make friendship. It was really my group of friends growing up. So, and when we sold it at the time, which now there's a million things about Hollywood, but doing a show about Hollywood at the time was so kind of like who the hell wants to watch that?

But this is before TMZ, it's crazy. I don't know when I get old, but I am. But before TMZ, before the internet and all of this stuff. So when we were pitching it, I was very specific. This is not about Hollywood. This is about four working class kids from New York who are in fantasy land. And really it's going to be much more about the way they talk to each other than the stories or anything else that happens. Talk to us about casting.

I'm always fascinated by stories like this person could have played that person. What was the casting process like for you? The casting process of that show was pretty insane. It took us almost a year and again, so specifically, we and I wanted authentic New Yorkers. Forget the Jeremy part. For the four guys, we wanted guys wanted authentic New Yorkers. Forget the Jeremy part. For the four guys, we wanted guys who were really New York. And it was really challenging. You're supposed to be from Queens,

and you wanted it to be authentic enough. Exactly. And we had a really hard time finding everybody. And you pass up anybody that became like a superstar? I wouldn't say we passed up anybody that I go, oh, wow. But yeah, there's a million people Red for entourage have gone on to be huge people But there's not a single person that for those five guys that I would take over they feel perfect yeah, like with the benefit of hindsight, but even in that moment and

Some of them had done things before that people recognized But they just they felt like they were the characters How much of that do you think was the acting versus the writing, or did it just all have to come together that way? I think it all has to come together, but I think it was really important what I was looking for specifically

was guys that I grew up with. So I was able to see that and see the authenticity in that. And I think that's the most important thing. Kind of when they let you kind of do your thing, because often, and it was a very difficult process, and as you guys know now, and I just will say this so we get it out of the way, obviously it's a very white show.

The first thing I sold after Entourage was, I got Viola Davis to do Harriet Tubman. That's what I wanted to do right after entourage which Variety wrote, how dare Doug Allen go near that. So anyway, I'm not trying to defend myself but the show was based on the way I grew up and you know Merrick, it is what it is. It was Jews, Irish, and Italian even though the one black kid in our high school was one of my best friends, Pat Dallamann but... It's very diverse now. We have Russians, Polish, they came from Brooklyn and we have Greeks.

So things have definitely come along. But I was trying to do it as authentic as possible. And even while we were doing it, there was pushback from people in the casting process going, you really need an African-American, you really need this. And I'm like, that's just not, it's just not going to feel the way that I want it.

And it wasn't until we got into HBO, because what happens is you bring in two or three people for every role. And then the committee discusses the whole thing. And thank God Chris Albrecht, who was really responsible for getting this show on, who's also a New Yorker, he immediately got what we were trying to do, fortunately, and that's what happened.

Is there a point in time where the studio's like, all right, dude, you got to pick somebody? It's not quite like that. They won't make the show until everybody thinks. At that time, especially, HBO was like, I mean, when we sold the show to HBO, we thought, you know, there was no Showtime. There was no Netflix.

There was no Amazon. This was like the one place where you could do the show. So I was going to say on the air at that time, there is nowhere else that was airing that show. Yeah, right. Yeah. I mean, when we walked out of that meeting where we sold it, which honestly, at the time, I thought I was a hero, but it meant almost nothing.

It meant they bought a script and now they're going to torture me for two years. But when we walked out of that meeting, we felt like we were on top of the world. But there are so many processes that you have to go through in the casting process even, you know, Kevin Dillon, who the first time I saw him, which weirdly enough, his ex-girlfriend is a very close friend of mine,

and she called me and was like, my ex-boyfriend's coming in to read tomorrow. And I remember going, yeah, Matt Dillon's brother, he's gonna be great, that's awesome into Reed tomorrow. And I remember going, yeah, Matt Dillon's brother. He's going to be great. That's awesome. And Kevin Dillon said one line. And I remember turning to my partners on it. And I said, this guy's going to win an Emmy.

We have a genius here. And then we got into the test. But in real life, he is that part. His brother is Matt Dillon. Yeah, but there's a lot of loser brothers to movie stars. Kevin Dillon really is. He's a comedic genius. And that doesn't mean he's going to do eight million other roles. And it doesn't mean people didn't see it for 20 years.

And all of a sudden they did. But he was he was that good where we would he would say my words and tears would come down my face. Right. And so after when we did one of our major casting sessions, Chris Albrecht, who again, I trust this man, like he put the Sopranos on the air and Sex and the City, he called me up and said, I don't get Kevin Dillon. He does not fit in with these guys. And I drove around for three hours going,

I honestly know nothing. That like the only thing I knew, like Jeremy Piven I wanted for the show. He didn't audition. I had him in my head from the Larry Sanders show. He's probably the most established star of the original cast at that time. And I said, if Kevin Dillon does not fit in the show,

I don't know what we're doing. And after a few days, Chris said, it's your show. Do what you want, which like did not feel good. It felt like, oh God, I'm in big trouble. You put all the risk on your shoulders. I want to talk about the music of the show. There's a playlist with 415 songs on it, all of which appeared on one of the episodes

over the course of eight years. I was going back through it and you made really great use of classic rock and music that existed before the show. But then I thought that uniquely, at least at that time, the show becomes almost a time capsule of the aught's decade. And you have like a Franz Ferdinand needle drop in there that's iconic. You have Jane's Addiction song for the theme.

And then you had all these mixtape era rappers that I kind of grew up with, like Saigon, and not only were you using their music, but you were using them as part of the show. How important do you think the music was to the popularity of the show? And what's that process like to try to get the songs that you know are gonna set the scene off?

How do you do that stuff? Well, things. I mean it's funny because one of my best friends, which is a real entourage moment, my friend who was honestly just like my stoner friend who I knew he was friends with my ex-wife from college, he came and saw the pilot. He didn't have a job. He didn't do anything and he started giving me musical thoughts. And I was like, huh, what? But I was extremely specific when we started in music that I wanted and you can feel classic rock

more certainly in season one. As it went on, I started trusting my friend who ultimately became, he's like, I don't know what you would call his exact title besides music supervisor, but he became like almost iconic in the music world because he was finding things that I didn't have, but he found me for the pilot. Like I was in his car and he played me Jay-Z Lucifer.

I think before it was even out, he had it. And I said, I know where this goes. I know the piano starts right here. So I was very specific how I wanted it, but how far, because we joke around about this because Scott likes to say, you know, the show got bigger once he really had full control of music, which by season four or five,

I was like, all right, Scott, I trust you. I'm not going to argue with you about it. But to me, you can always put good music in a show. The characters are everything. And any show that people really love, they remember the characters. And when you remember a song from your favorite movie, it's because you love that movie so much.

It's not because the song, because you'd love the song anyway, but sometimes what, hopefully if you can get a moment where people think of some of the great songs we had, and they actually think about entourage, before they think about that song that they already love. That's special, you know?

What was the most fun for you? Was it getting the initial contract? Was it season four when you were really starting to blow up? Was it like when and did it ever become not fun like a job? What was that like for you? I would love to tell you it was fun. Fun. It was never fun for me, to be totally honest with you. Never. The premieres, the parties, none of it. I mean, I talk you it was fun. It was never fun for me to be totally honest with you. Never?

The premieres, the parties, none of it? I mean, I talk about this a lot. People are like, why don't you have 20 shows on the air? I hate writing. I always did. I'm a lazy guy. I was lazy in college. I don't know why.

I wanted to be honest with you. I came out here, I wanted to be an actor. I went on one audition. I was so humiliated that I said, I'll never do this again. And I wrote a script. So things went well for me that way. But writing was really torturous to me. And I'm not, you know, people will go,

oh, it's so easy to do that. Whatever. Maybe it is for some people. I have no idea. What was torturous? You hated the sound of it when you read it back? Two things. Coming up with stories, even if they're minor,

even if they're slight, are extremely difficult. And especially when you start putting four guys who have to be together all the time, which is so, you know, people be like, is the show realistic? I'm like, this show is such a realistic look at Hollywood. What's not realistic is that four men pushing 30 are this close all the time. It's just not. Like driving around in the car together all day. You know, and again, it does happen with, you know,

but usually with real entourages, everybody's looking for what they're getting out of it. They're not all for one, one for all. The bond isn't as tight. It would be nice if they would, you know, when we started, you know, when it was based on Mark Wahlberg and his friends, I'm like, I don't know that I want to watch you and your friends. I want to see the guys who are family who really like, you know, everyone's success is more important.

And, you know, one of my favorite moments ever is, you know, Vince saying, you know, if it doesn't work out, who cares? We'll go back home to Queens and we'll be great. And that was the important thing to me. But the fun came to me when shooting and the experiences that I had, which comes back to Merrick, including, you know, Kenny, who you asked me out before this, but I had, Mark Deshera got me the run of Yankee Stadium. And I had 50 of my friends from Merrick as extras in the background with their children all there while I'm running Yankee Stadium.

And my friends are telling Mark Deshera, like he's Lou Gehrig to hit a home run. He's like, all right. And he hit a home run after we shot this scene an hour later. So's like, all right. And he hit a home run after we shot this scene an hour later. So that was things like that. You too on my birthday, Bono saying happy birthday to Johnny Drama.

I mean, these are things that aside from the work. Oh, that was the Vertigo tour. They all went to the U2 show. That must've been an amazing day to shoot. It was my birthday. Yeah, that's crazy. You know, and just the whole way we got you two to do it. And we never, we didn't know if he was going to actually say

happy birthday, Johnny drama, which I had changed the whole script to build around his birthday. And then he says it in Spanish as the lights were going out. And it was on a Friday. So now this wasn't digital. This was film. It had to get developed. So Saturday and Sunday, I didn't sleep,

not knowing if we even had it on film. And actually, if you see it in the show, the lights go down and then you hear Bono say Feliz Compliano's Johnny Drama. And it's so magical. It almost seems fake, but it was pretty special. So you had a lot of highlights, but the process was tough. Yeah. I mean, again, I'm not trying to whine about it.

I was very blessed and very fortunate, but I despise sitting down at a computer and writing by myself. It's a very awful process for me. And I talk about this, guys like Aaron Sorkin who sit down and write every single day of their lives. I write as few days of my life as I can. I want to ask you what you think of the current state of television, if there's even a such thing anymore, and what it's like now to try to be creative and entrepreneurial in the system as it currently exists versus the system that you grew up in a generation ago.

I mean, you know, there's always like the current state of television is garbage. Like that's the standard party line, but you know, the golden state of television is garbage. Like that's the like the standard party line but you know the golden age of television which was long before me which is still to me the best age of television but you know when we were on when shows like The Sopranos and The Wire I mean those are the best shows but of course there there are always amazing shows but I think the state of the business right now that the biggest difference, and I made fun of it a lot on Entrez, doing television 20 years ago was considered like you're a loser.

You're not a movie star. Now the movie stars do it. So the difference back then, which I appreciated, was the writer was the king in television. The director and the movie star were the kings of movies. Now it's kind of like, okay, we get Reese Witherspoon, we give her a million dollars an episode. You know, it took, you know, however long for the friends to get a million dollars, you know, seven seasons of the biggest show that ever was made.

And then now they just give a movie star that. And, you know, again, there's no whining about it. I think now there's more access, there's more places to go to than there ever has been. So I think, you know, there's a lot of room for content. Do you think you would have made the show differently had people been watching in a binge way versus episodic? No, I actually feel very proud

that I tried to write it in a binge way. I always was, I was obsessive with not having a single wasted second. And I, when people used to tell me, oh my obsessive with not having a single wasted second and I, when people used to tell me, oh my god, it wasn't 30 minutes, that's ridiculous, it was so short. I love that because they were close to 30 minutes usually. You turned into a 27 minute episode because that's the length of the story. I would, I would, I would get rid of every pause. I wanted it to fly like this. I wanted people

the second time they heard it to hear dialogue that they may not have heard the first time and, and I never wanted to bore people. When the movie, which again, the reviews were bad, that's fine. I could care less. But when the movie came out, Warner Brothers, because most directors hand in two and a half hour cuts of their movies. And when I walked into Warner Brothers with a first cut, directors cut of the movie, and I said, guys, I just want to apologize. The first cuts a little long. It's three hours. And they looked at me and I'm like, I'm joking. It's 97 minutes or whatever it is. And I said, guys, I just want to apologize. The first cut's a little long. It's three hours. And they looked at me and I'm like, I'm joking. It's 97 minutes or whatever it is.

And I don't think we changed one thing from that cut. So again, and I felt great about that because that's what I wanted it to be. I wanted it to feel like just it moved and you had a good time and it's over. And you don't have to spend much time analyzing it. So you're a podcaster now, like most of the people here in the audience.

And Victory the podcast was a lot of fun because it allowed you to revisit some of the stories behind making the show with some of your friends from the show. And I think like the audience looks at the cast like their friends. It was like visiting with old friends again and people really loved it. So I wanted to ask you what you're working on these days and what you think the future is for Dago and the creator. I'll get into like the podcast thing though, which I look at as the tragedy of my life

because I realized after 30 years, like when I was doing standup comedy, I hated it. I hated being in clubs. I hated being around people at two o'clock in the morning. It was just not my thing. And radio was something that I always loved and I never took one minute of my life to try to get into it. And when Kevin Connolly, who was on the show, played, he said, let's do a podcast.

I was like, I can't even listen to the sound of my voice. That was his idea initially. That was his idea. I'm like, I can't even listen to the sound of my voice. That was his idea initially? That was his idea. I'm like, I can't even listen to the sound of my voice on an answering machine message. And then I started doing it and people seem to respond to it and whatever. I started to like the sound of my voice more than I liked the typing of the keyboards. So it's something that I actually really actually enjoy and find to be easy. So I will keep doing podcasting on some level. As far as the business, I just did, I went the entrepreneurial route. I did a spec television pilot, which is somewhat of an insane thing during the pandemic with

Charlie Sheen, Martin Sheen, Kevin Dillon, Kevin Collie. You were putting a lot of the behind the scenes stuff on social media as you you were shooting it and now the fans are like yeah where is it where is that one I want it so so tell the tell I guess tell us like what's going on with the process and I mean it's an odd if you if you really know entourage it's entourage everything that happened in entourage has happened on this show from I mean again you know I'm without being arrogant I believe I wrote the definitive show about Hollywood, I'm, I'm, I, without being arrogant, I believe I wrote the definitive show about Hollywood. So I know what bullshit is and I know what this town is all about. That being said, the response to the pilot has been exceptionally good.

But at the same time, we need $60 million to go forward with season one of this show. We have like a couple hundred people here. I don't know. Exactly. The show is called Ramble On. We should have shown the trailer here. It would have been great. But the reality is when you get into the television business, you actually,

you're starting a long-term relationship with the people you're doing. And I kind of jumped over that, which is what I was hoping to do, where I didn't have to answer to anybody about their script notes, their casting notes, or anything like this. But it's kind of like it never ends because there's been so many times I'm like, all right, you know what?

This show's dead. It's not over. And then I wake up and it's, I've got the head of CAA or the head of this calling up and going, okay, why don't we try this with this? Why don't we do this? So what's going to happen with it? I don't know. But even two hours ago, I'm talking to somebody who's ready to move forward in this way, so we'll

see. So how does the business of this work? The $60 million, is that on you or the studio? Well it would go to the studio. We financed the pilot, so we made the first episode of the show and I wrote the second and third episodes as well as a Bible of what would be the seasons and stuff. And then you go present it to the studios. And do you have to raise money for that original pilot? Well, yeah, yeah.

But most people don't do that. That's my point. Very few people make a spec television pilot. That's the part you were jumping over, the normal course of things. A lot of people make independent movies, which, to be honest, is probably what we should have done. We should have done a 90-minute movie, because that's a lot easier to sell if you can do it on budget than going, hey, you like our pilot? Well, now we need to pay Charlie Sheen, who some people still worry about.

Yeah. I think the world is ready to see Charlie Sheen again. I believe they are. Give it a minute. Round of applause for Charlie Sheen. Yes. All right. So we have to keep looking for that and we don't know when we're going to get it, but hopefully we're going to get it. Hopefully. Okay.

Very cool. I wanted to end by asking you about Pickleball. So this is something that you're extremely passionate about and it seems like you're having a ton of fun. And just what's going on with the Pickleball career? Is that going to get in the way of the screenwriting? I think it's what I'm concerned for. It's 100% got in the way of all of my life for the last, you know.

I like to think on entourage. I predicted a lot of things before they happened. And pickleball was definitely one that I was way ahead of anybody on, because I was seven years ago, I would post videos because, you know, pickleball, if anyone's played, it's this game where you can do things that you could never do on a tennis court and feel extremely athletic, even if you may not be. So I used to post videos of this and people like, what in the f*** is this? Get this off my feed. But now I own a small piece of one of the professional pickleball teams and I'll never make any money, but I get to

tell people I own a sports franchise. Tomorrow I'm playing in an exhibition with three professional pickleball players. I'm no longer... What do the professional pickleball players do during the day? Is it like insurance or...? So here's like, that sounds fun. Seven years ago I would go to the Delray Tennis Center when I was in Florida and I would play with a 12 year old named Anna Lee Waters and her mother Lee Waters. Okay. Every day they were there. Every single day and I would play with a 12 year old named Anna Lee Waters and her mother, Lee Waters. Every day they were there, every single day. And I'd be like, what's the plan here? I don't know.

She will make $5 million playing pickleball this year. She's the number one player in the world. My friends who all of the ones that I was playing with four years ago are now the top people in the world. I can't play with them anymore, sadly. They were making $50, $75 an hour teaching tennis and pickleball three years ago. They're making anywhere from $200,000 to $800,000 a year now in pickleball. And this all happened during the pandemic. Yeah. A lot of billionaires became obsessed with this sport, started throwing money at it, and we'll see if it lasts. What if that's the next project?

I've thought about it, and believe me, lots of people in Hollywood are thinking about it. You can see it on tons of television shows right now, but I don't know. We'll see. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Doug Allen. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

Doug, thank you very much.