The Daily Beast Podcast - Patton Oswalt Thinks We’re About to Hit a ‘Dangerous’ Point

Episode Date: November 6, 2022

Patton Oswalt has a sneaking suspicion that things are going to get ugly in America and people, like Republicans for example, are pretending otherwise. On this bonus episode of The New Abnormal, he tells host Andy Levy where these feelings are coming from and how he really feels about the comedians crying cancel culture, including that they’re “failed open mic-ers.” Plus! Oswalt unpacks the one issue that he thinks scare Evangelical conservatives the most and gives us a peak inside the life of his middle school-aged child. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN HLN guy and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty comfortably on the left. And I'm producer Jesse Kennett, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some great guest co-hosts, as well as some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try to make some sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. Hello, and welcome to another bonus episode of The New Abnormal,

and we like you so much for being here. Joining me now as someone whose credits I can't list because it would leave me like literally no time to talk to him. He's been on more TV shows that I can count, in more movies that I can count. He's been the voice of a rat, for God's sakes. His most recent comedy special is called We All Scream. It's available on Netflix as I am speaking.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's Patton Oswald. Patton, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for let me come on the show. show. I'm a fan, so this should be fun. Yay. Feel free to tweet that. Or Mastodon it or wherever we are next week. Yeah, God knows. I do like to start off these sort of Sunday interviews with some politics because the

new abnormal is a political podcast, as you know. And some of the Sunday guests get into it and they're really into it. Others, I can kind of sense they just want to get it over with and move on. So we'll see what happens here. All right. So my first question is politics. Am I right? Oh.

And also ladies take a breather. Guys, back us up. Yeah, politics. The word politics should have the, in parentheses, after it, heavy sigh, unparatheses. I have to start putting asterisks instead of the vowels in it or something. Yeah, exactly. Oh, boy. We've got a big midterm elections coming up. We were saying before we started taping that there's a bit of a feeling maybe that something bad is coming down the pike. It's not that I have a feeling something bad is coming down the pike. People seem to openly want something bad to happen. It seems like we now live in this age of everything has to top whatever came previous. So, well, what came previous was an insurrection on the capital. So for the midterms, well, something crazy has got to happen.

It has to keep. And a lot of this, I think, is fed by various media outlets, both legacy media and a lot of this, the quote unquote, independent streaming media that are all fighting for the same, you know, I forgot who said this quote, but we've got video games and movies and the internet and books, but everyone still has the same 90 minutes. So everyone is competing for that 90 minutes. And if you're in the news business, you want reality amped up because you're competing with some gorgeous video game imagery, some astounding blockbuster. movies, some, you know, nonstop Twitter content. You're just constantly competing with that.

So you're almost like, hey, reality, you need to catch up with the fake spectacle. And unfortunately, reality seems to be doing that lately. Yeah. And in particular, I think you're right. And I think it does go overall for all of the quote unquote media when I'm talking about journalism, et cetera. But obviously there is a particular side of the media that really does amplify the worst. kinds of voices and itself is made up of the worst kinds of voices in our country. Yeah, this is me being my most paranoid. It feels like a certain, how can I say this, a certain chunk of the intelligentsia and influencers and establishment has seen what's coming in terms of the environment

or some bigger collapse that can't really be articulated. So what they're doing is gathering and amassing as much wealth and influence as they can before everything shifts. Because some of the actions of people in entertainment, in politics, in the media, it's the actions of someone who's like, well, I'm starting a diet next Monday. So this week, I'm just going to eat like crazy because all that's about to go away. And that's what some of the, I mean, you know, the fact that a lot of wealthy people I know or suddenly, you know, buying up land in Montana or Ireland or New Zealand, it all seems to be like boltholes are happening.

Again, I'm trying not to be paranoid and jumping about it, but when you see other members of the herd starting to twitch and jump, you're like, oh, I think there's something nearby that's coming for us. It's weird. Especially if it's the people at the front of the herd. Exactly. And also, there's just this, there's this embracing of nihilism as a sign of privilege and access of, in other words, in order to show how powerful and privileged I am, I have to show that

I don't care because this stuff ultimately won't affect me. And so when you see anti-Semitism on the rise, there is a section of Gen Z that's like, well, and I understand this, it's so horrifying that their only reaction is to laugh at it and wink at it and go, well, who cares? Because there's such bigger, massive things going on in the planet, I think we're wired in to the death of our own environment, that that's why we're reacting the way we are to a lot of the stuff. See, this is why I love having comedians on. It's just nonstop laughter and light-hearted. Well, Andy, I just love to come on and give you a couple of laughs.

You know, we're all wired into gaya. And because it's dying, our souls are dying. And that's why we laugh at Nazism. I love your gaya chunk. It's always always kills. The thing is, I agree with everything you just said. And it is really hard not to fall into that sort of well of nihilism. And I know I get tempted a lot too. And you just sort of sit there and you're like, well, maybe nothing matters. But I don't ever do it as like, oh, I'm happy about this. It's like that I recognize that that is sort of a sign of defeat. I try to stave it off. It's a mutated version of that thing you do in your 20s when you're like, I'm so afraid of not looking cool right now. If I like something and that thing that I like ends up not being cool, I could lose cool points.

So I'm going to take the safe position and say that everything sucks. And that's a thing that you do in your early 20s. But then as you grow older, you're like, well, first as you get older, and I'm paraphrasing something Bob Hope said. As you get older, you're like, well, I don't care what people think of me. And then when you get your 60s and 70s realized nobody was ever thinking of me. I could have just done whatever I wanted. Why wasn't I doing that from the get-go? But when you're facing, I think, literal environmental catastrophe,

this isn't an existential idea right now. This is an actual, there might not be water in a few years. Like there literally might not be water. So because of that underlying fear, and it's almost like we're hardening ourselves to this brutal world that's coming. And our rehearsal for that is to scoff and laugh at racism, homophobia, violent attacks on people. You know, the fact that there was a violent attack on the husband of the Speaker of the House and no Republican has condemned it, no one has, like, they're laughing at it and making jokes about it. Like, we really are, we're about to hit a really dangerous point right now.

No, I think that's absolutely true. On a slightly lighter note, something you just said, yeah, one of the things that I have sort of realized in the past, I don't know, a few years, maybe more than a few years is one of the nice things about getting older is sort of aging out of the need to be cool. Yes, it's the best. On the other hand, I've also noticed that, A, this doesn't make me any less cool. And if anything, I think it makes me cooler. I mean, again, you know, the opposite of love is in hate, it's indifference. And when you truly, when you reach real indifference, then you're free.

But a lot of people that I think right now, this is the age of cruelty for clout, where because they never had anything creative to say or anything genuinely cool or anything that they really liked, they just are turning to performative cruelty as a form of, you know, don't you like edgy comedy? Don't you get it? Oh, I see what you're doing. You yourself aren't funny. you're just going toward cruelty because that's all you know. That's what you think comedy is.

And that actually leads me to a question that I've been asking. I've been trying to ask all of my Sunday quote unquote Hollywood guests, all of you mucky mucks. Right. So the question is, what do you think of when you hear the phrase cancel culture? Like what comes to mind almost instantly? All I hear is consequences. First off, I love that people have completely muddled the term cancel culture

in that cancel culture started out with people that were actually committing crimes, rapes, and assaults, and that were powerful that weren't paying for them that are now having to pay for this kind of stuff. And people are trying to go, well, I'm being canceled for what I'm saying. It's like, no, you committed some rapes. I don't think this is a Lenny Bruce situation. I think that you are an actual criminal. Most people that say or do things that are controversial or hurtful or demand an apology that doesn't really seem to affect their career. If anything, It seems like if you lean into it, you have this guaranteed audience of, unfortunately, they're orcs, but they are an audience and they will, they'll buy, it's almost like they'll buy your product at the woke and the left wing just to show them. They don't necessarily like your product, but they'll buy it just to.

To on the lips. Yeah, they'll review bomb your movie, even though they'll never see it, even though they don't really like movies or appreciate music. But if that's the kind of audience you want, if you're purely in it for comedy, sake, then that that's a path to go. But for the most part, I've never understood this. Like, I will never apologize. I will never. No regrets. I regret tons of, you constantly make mistakes. And then you go, oh, man, my bad. And then you learn and you move along. I've never understood this. I will. Like, I think I saw someone saying, at least my kids will know that their father never apologized. Like, that's a legacy to leave. My kids will know that their father never learned

never grew. Like, that was their thing that they were so proud of. It's like, oh, dude. But again, because everything is now saved and, oh, I got screenshoted. If you make a mistake and that, then you're supposed to be defined by that mistake forever. People have screenshot bad things and stupid stuff I've tweeted and go, yeah, that was a stupid thing. I made a mistake. You just apologize and roll on for it.

But I come from that world of, I did, you know, years of open mics where I just had horrible sets. and you ate it. And then you went up the next night and got a little bit better. Because a lot of these people, they're not going to ever stick with anything. They're never going to actually build or grow. Their whole thing is, well, I'm just going to own, I'll own you. Here's a photo of a shitty tweet you sent. So there it is.

That's you forever. It's like, sorry, no, I actually apologize for that. I'm just moving on. You know, that's where you're living. Yeah, it just seems to be the easiest thing in the world is to not apologize for something. apologizing can be difficult. Yeah. It's real.

Hey, trust me, apologizing is really difficult. Yeah. And also, it's something that apologizing is, is something that insecure people really can't do. It's terrifying for them.

Right. So the people that are like, I've never apologized. That's just a way of going, I am terrified 24-7. Yeah, which, I mean, basically describes any person who self-describes as an alpha male

or something like that, that's what they are, a terrified little boy. I mean, we know that. that's just obvious. It's funny. You mentioned that you started with open mics or whatever, because there seems to be now, there's like this unholy pipeline of sort of failed comedians to, you know, alt-right and whatever personalities. And I think I figured out, I was just thinking about this the other night. Like, one solution to this might be go to a bunch, we all need to

start going to a bunch of open mics and applauding wildly and making these people feel good so that they don't sit there. I want to amend that. statement. I remember I made that statement failed. I said something like, you know, the failed comedians often become right-wing trolls or, you know, alt-right guys. But the thing is, here's one thing I was wrong about. They're not failed comedians because they were never comedians to begin with. I would almost respect them if they were like, I slugged away for eight years. Right. And got nowhere. Like, okay, I understand your frustration. When you look into these guys as CVs, they did open mics for two months and they weren't immediately stars and then they their brains fritzed out and they metastasized

that initial failure, which every comedian has. By the way, if two months of failure makes you alt-right, then I should be a Sturman commando or something because the first eight years of my career was just death, but I stuck with it. And these people, they can't stick with things. And of course, they're the first people that yell about participation trophies and. Right. And entitled And entitlement. So they weren't even comedians to begin with. They're failed open micers. They tried for a couple of months. It didn't work out. They got scared. And then they realized, oh, but there's this other audience that I can, in other words, a bad comedian doesn't ever want to take risks on stage and go, I don't know if this joke will work. Let's see. A bad comedian wants to know, I want to know the eight or nine things. And if I say them, I will get applause and laughter. And I don't need to think about that. And that's, and I want to. And I want to. to know where that audience is and that's where I will go. And so I think that's what leads to, there's a really chilling thing in the book, Cultural Amnesia by Clive James, where he talks about when the Nazis annexed Vienna. A lot of the hatred for the Jews came from their jealousy

of the cabaret performers of people like Egon Freidel and Peter Altenberg and the Cafe Wits that were sitting there. And one of the lines is, the Nazis wanted their jokes to be the funny ones. And the only way they knew how to get that was to kick these people to death. When they annexed, Vienna, the first people they went after were the comedians. They went after the cabaret performers. Because a lot of these guys were the people sitting in the audience going, my jokes are funny. And those are the first people that they went after. And it really shows you that a lot of these alt-right personalities then end up going on stand-up tours where they pack the audience with just their fit. Like, they're not going in front of an indifferent audience.

and winning them over. Like, they already know the audience is on their side, thinks the way that they do. It's like a play school version of a comedy club. Right. Or a Nerf version of a comedy club where they can be safe and I can, good. I can say my eight or nine ideas and that will get laughter and good. I don't need to worry about any controversy.

And then, of course, they paint themselves as we are the balliest, most risk-taking comedians. Like, then go into a regular comedy club and do that. Right. but they can't. In the same way that it's easy to just say, I'm not going to apologize as opposed to doing the work and, you know, apologizing if you've done something wrong, it's easier to, instead of bombing at an open mic and saying, okay, I need to work on my jokes. These aren't funny. Clearly, nobody thinks these are funny. But it's easier to just say, you know, oh, they didn't like me because I'm a white male or I'm a straight, I'm a straight guy and nobody wants to hear from me anymore and isn't this horrible. It's just so much easier to do that. Yeah, and also the thing that people forget is the way to become a really, really good comedian. And I was very lucky to have this when I was coming up is you surround yourself with people that are, A, funnier than you, which I think a lot of these people's ego can't handle.

And B, people that are kind of harsh. They're not mean people, but they're very, very truthful to you. When you first start as an open micer and you're not doing well, the other comedians will let you know very, very, very quickly. And that makes you funnier or you flinch from that. you run away from that. I've luckily always had people around me, friends like, you know, Blank Patch and Brian Possein, people like that that were able to go, dude, come on, that's so lame. Work a little better on that one. Oh, and they are so much funnier than you too. I openly

say they are so much funnier to me. And I was always lucky to come up with around people like Greg Proops and Karen Kilgariff and Paul F. Tompkins and Zach Alfenakis and Andy Kinler and Dave Attell, people that were just so much that I always had to strive to. to be at their level, and that made me good. And a lot of people, unfortunately, they want to be the quote unquote alpha in the room, and they will surround themselves with betas and failures just to have that because they're so insecure. But really committing to comedy means you hang out with really funny people who are kind of harsh in their assessment of you. And that harshness is a blessing.

That saved me so much embarrassment. Being around people that were like, dude, come on. Right. No, lame. And you can tell when comedians lose, when some comedians get so big, they don't have those people around them to go, come on, no, just please work better at that. That's lame. Yeah, that sounds like some people I know in the news comedy business. I rewatched last night your most recent Netflix special, We All Scream. And I watched it when it first came out and I remember loving it. And then I watched it again last night. And I was just, I was shocked at how. often I was literally laughing out loud. Wow. Thanks, man. I think it might be my favorite special of yours now. Damn, thank you. But of course, if I watched another one tomorrow, maybe that

would take its place. But it's so good. But you said a whole bunch of things that I really like. You said one thing that I loved, and I loved it for the best possible reason, which obviously is that it was similar to something that I've been saying. And you talked about being woke and that, you know, you think you're pretty woke these days. And then you said, but I won't be someday and basically you said because progress steamrolls you and what i've been saying is that every one of these guys and it's pretty much always it's a white guy it's a bill mar it's someone like that all these guys who say i didn't move right the democrats move left or something like that that is exactly what they're going through yeah in their heads they're still progressive because they've always thought of themselves

as progressive right then they don't understand that by definition progressive is constantly changing and evolving. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it's okay to get to an age where you're like, I've done my part. It's time to,

I wish more people could be like that character who's a, by the way, is a horrible racist, psychotic character, but Ethan Edwards at the end of the searchers,

John Ford's the searchers, where he's like, I have helped create a more progressive world, but in helping to create it, I need to step the fuck aside. And like I did my part, I need to step aside

and go wander the winds for a while. Again, especially if you get into comedy, you have said yes to a very ephemeral art form that that has the shortest shelf life that spoils quicker than anything else. You've said yes to that. And part of that is you will get to a point. I mean, some people, true geniuses like George Carlin managed to, I think, overcome that.

But that's because he was George fucking Carlin. Yes. But a lot of times you're going to get to a point where it's like, oh, okay, you're not the edgiest, funniest person in the room anymore. You can still be funny, but always wanting to be the new thing. There's a certain disease that certain comedians get. I'm not going to name them where they get to an age. And what they'll do is they'll go, the last time comedy was funny was,

and you can almost go, let me guess when you were like 23 or 22 years old, when you were the new thing. And there were certain comedians that it's like, yes, you did help create something and you did help move it forward, but the thing itself will keep moving forward. It won't stop at you. And it's a very, very, I think very boomer attitude of like, it should all end with me. Like, there should be nothing beyond me. It's like, no, sorry, there's been better music since your music.

There's been better movies. There's been better books. And there are way better comedians now from when I was coming up. And I came up with amazing comedians. I came up with Mr. Show. I came up with Zach Alfenakis and Sarah Silverman and, you know, all these incredible minds. but now there are even better people out there doing it. And that's good.

Wouldn't it be horrible if you were the last innovative new thing in your art form? What a miserable life that would be. I mean, no, it would be good for me personally. But yes, overall, I agree with you. It would be a bad thing. And it's never going to be an actual thing. It's just going to be, as you said, it's a very boomer mentality. And in the special, you do a, you know, I guess what Andy Kindler would refer to as a chunk.

A nice chunk. A nice chunk. I love that word. And I love it when he uses it. You want to hear my impression of, here's my impression of Andy Kindler as Ben Franklin. You want to hear it? Please. Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and a third thing that you would put in there and it would be the kicker.

And I didn't, I haven't written that one down yet. I will get to it. That's amazing. He is, I love him so much. Andy Kindler in a very, Andy Kindler in a bizarre way. I also think Maria Bamford might actually be two of the comedians from our generation that actually don't age out.

Yes. Because Andy is actually embracing that I'm old and I do not. There are certain things I cannot go along with. But it's so honest that it's actually kind of bracing. And Maria is so absolutely present, almost to a fault on stage, that and because she is so absolutely present in all of her insecurities and all of her faults that I can see her being

just this person you will always go and see do stand up. Yeah, she is beyond amazing. And the thing about Kindler is one of the other reasons I think he's aging well is because he's always been old. Yeah, he was 83 years old when he was 15. Exactly. God, that'd be an amazing show. Young Kindler.

Do a show called Young Kindler, but even then he's like, this, you know, this Rolling Stones' black and blue album, I'd rather be beaten black and blue. This is temp. What is this? Like, he's just already angry and everything he's listening to. It's a really hard thing as you get older to embrace that there's shit that I don't get,

but say it in a way that you're not condemning what's coming up. I see a lot of people that when they get older, it's like, well, I'm condemning whatever's new and saying it's stupid and it was only good. It's the classic 80s road comedian, you know, non-fat latte, what the hell happened to a black copy? It's like, well, because lattes are actually tastier and something better came along, it's okay. But then there's people like Eddie Pepitone and Tom Papa that actually, it's not that they're putting down what's new. They're just, they are showing you, there is a certain generation that is, I am, this is beyond my understanding. and I cannot handle this right now.

And it's so refreshing to see someone comfortable enough to do that. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, a thing I've said on the show a bunch of times is I see, you know, I have nieces, one in her early 20s, one in her late teens, and I see how comfortable they are with just talking about their non-binary friends. And it's a way that at my age, I can't be as comfortable with it, even though I'm all for it. And I don't want to see any bigotry against it.

it and, you know, but they are just so comfortable with the language because of their age. In the same way that I think I always say our generation, Gen X, I think we were the first generation to be comfortable with gayness for lack of a, you know, or for whatever you want to put it. Yeah. My daughter and her friends are in middle school, very, very open. Some of her friends are binary. Some are by.

They literally do not care. It's not like a, oh, my God. Oh, my God. Did you hear about it? It's just. And some of them were like, I thought I was. by it. Now I think I'm straight. And to that, that's not a big deal either. That was another big thing, I think, from boomers and even from Gen X, which is like, you were gay last week. Right. Yeah, I was

experimenting. Like, now it's so fluid with these new kids. And I think that's one of the things that's scaring a lot of these evangelicals and conservatives is there won't even be a battleground about it in 10 years. Nobody will care. And they're going to lose a big part of their voting and election power because these, I think in 10 years the idea of, I remember about 10 years ago, or maybe 20 years ago was when gay, lesbian, buy, and trans clubs started showing up in high schools. I think gay, lesbian, buy, and trans clubs are going to become archaic. Because kids never like, wait a minute, why did you have a club? What did you just go to the club and be gay? Like, because everyone's going to be so open about what they are. They're just going to go

do what, you know what I mean? Like, they're just going to go do whatever they want to do. You know, maybe it'll be there for a historical sense, but the idea of like the gays need a special club, it's like, uh, A, I'm gay. No one gives a shit and I play football. I do theater and I like, no one's going to care. No, look, that's obviously the ideal world is gay people, queer people, whatever, don't need a safe space. Exactly. I definitely used to believe, as you believe that in 10 years, none of this will be an issue anymore. I'm a little more nervous now seeing how things have been getting rolled back. Well, you're right. You actually, yeah, let me, let me take that back, I am actually nervous because of this, like you and I were talking about, because it is so fluid and because kids are so comfortable, the backlash is becoming very violent now, very violent. And there's a lot of, unfortunately, a lot of kids that are being, Ken, the group that is always yelling about where you're indoctrating kids into gay, but they're indoctrating kids into gay bashing and of course, LGBTQ hatred and, you know, applauding violence.

against these people. So, you know, it's going to, we'll see how this, I hope it turns out well, but I think it's going to be ugly for a while. That's the thing. I mean, at least in the short term, you know, I see what's happening to trans people and queer people. Oh my God. It's just, it's so frightening and it's. It gets up to every day. You talk about doubling down. It's almost like the transphobes and homophobes are trying to outdo each other for cruelty. Yeah. And it's almost like they're like, you know, that's not cruel enough. Here's what I'm. doing. So, I don't know. It's that scary. Yeah. To me, it feels like it's the most Nazi-ish of all the, all the fobs and hatreds. It seems to be, to me, what's going on, you know,

with the transphobes and queer phobia and all that stuff. The one hopeful Beak and I have is historically, a large percentage of leaders of hate groups, whether they be anti-Semitic, anti-LGBQ, a big percentage of hate group leaders end up getting killed by their own followers because their followers cross a line of hatred that even they can't cross. And then the followers were like, you've betrayed us and then they attack them and kill them. There are certain hate leaders that I would love if that happened to them. Not that they'd be killed, but that they'd be exiled and turned on by their own people because that tends to be what happens to these people. Yeah, I'm not going to pretend that that would, uh, without actually saying

certain things. I'm not going to pretend that I would shed many a tear if such a thing happened. I do want to move to some lighter type stuff and stuff that's sort of about your career. Oh, okay. I did not realize that your first acting job was on Seinfeld. And obviously, I, you know, I've seen enough Seinfeld episodes over and over and over and over again to know that you did play a video clerk in an episode. But I was doing a search because I wanted to see if I could find anything else more about it. And I saw a tweet of yours from 2020. Can you tell the story? Yes. It was my first act. It was how I got my after card. This is back when there were after cards. And I was just nervous. I literally had three. I'm sorry, sir, it doesn't work that

way. Right. And I had worked those words over in my head a million times and I'm freaking out. And Jason Alexander, God bless him. He could tell, like, he could just sense like, oh, this kid's really nervous right before they called action he like leaned forward and goes not too late to be fired patten and then um he he leaned back and it made me laugh so hard and it loosened me up so that's why i seem so loose because he gave me the gift of laughing at what was this really horrible moment and it yeah calm me down and i've heard more stories about that of people like giving someone else that gift of like making them laugh when they're that nervous. And there was a great one.

I think Amy Poehler was on SNL and they were getting to it. I think one of her parents had died and she was just devastated, but she was trying to be a professional and get through the show. And John Hamm was the host. And he went up to her and he was like, look, I know, I can't even imagine what you're going through right now. And I'm really, really sorry. But this is a huge shot for my career and I can't have you fucking it up.

and she laughed so like it laughed and then also cried like it just it like saved her and that's what that's a great thing that comedians can do for each other as they guess we know exactly how to get each other to laugh when things are bad it was a moment after my mom my wife passed away when I was went out to dinner with a couple of comedian friends and Todd Glass Todd Glass who was a force of nature yes one of those guys that when he's on your show and I've had this happen on my show and I know Seris everyone does this was like yes this is Pat and I was wanting friends. Todd, you're going to go on last. I'm not following you. You will be going on last. There's no, no one's going on after you. He gave me this. He gave me this

envelope. He's like, you can open this later if you want to. I just wrote something. I think, I hope it'll help you out. You know, I know what you're going through right now. Like, okay. And then we're in, he's like, if you want to open it now, you can read it. I won't be embarrassed or anything like that. I'm like, really? He goes, yeah, yeah. He's literally torn the corner off of a piece of legal paper. and it just says, I patten. And it made me laugh so hard. It was not even an attempt at helping me. That's what made it so hilarious.

But again, you have to have that absurdist if you were to know how to get away with that. And it was just, you know, Jason Alexander had it. John Hamm had it. Todd Glass has it in spades. He's the master at it, you know. And Jason, he didn't know you at all, right? Because you were just.

No, but he's such a pro, and he's been, you know, he'd been acting for so long. He's just that thing. He can just tell, like, oh, look at this kid. Oh, my God, let's loosen him up. And then he just helped me out. It was perfect. This is really getting in the weeds. In that episode, you mentioned the line you said, you know, that that's not how it works.

But you say it as kind of a question. Like, you inflect up at the end. You say, that's not how it works. And I always wondered why. Like, I love it. It makes me laugh every time. But I was like, I wonder if he chose that or if that was he was told. No, what happened was when I, the way I got the part was I auditioned for Jerry and Larry.

And I didn't realize I did this, but when they were reading the lines and he's bothering me, because I'd worked in retail for years, I subconsciously did this thing where, and Larry told me this later, he's like, I kind of looked up and looked around for another employee to hand this guy off to, which is what you do in retail when you have someone shitty. And then I also said it when that, that's a retail person's way of going, kind of doesn't work that, like, you agree with me, right? It's work that like you make them a colleague in your dismissal of them. So if you make it like, it's almost like I'm now giving a mini seminar in how you're fucking up.

And that's a way to get complicity from the person that's being an asshole. And it's very helpful. Wow. Okay. Let's move on to your next line. And I want to analyze that one to death too. No, that's just one of those things that has always stuck with me because I, obviously, I have seen Seinfeld way too many times. And so I know these weird things.

Anyone who's ever worked retail will tell you that. Those two things. First, who can I give this guy to? Right. Who to pass them out to? And then you agree with me, right? Doesn't work this way. Doesn't work that way.

That's years of trauma, my friend. Now jumping to something slightly more recent. Is there any chance we're ever getting more modoc? As right now, no. It is not coming back. But, I mean, I know that Modoc is in this quantum mania film. Can you explain to our listeners who Modoc is and what the show was? Because it was so good.

Thank you. Modoc was a Captain America villain in the 60s. And I call Modoc Jack Kirby in a bad mood. It's a giant floating head with little tiny arms and legs and this little power sliding. He had a little jewel in his head that would shoot beams and kill people. And he, it was so clearly like Stanley was like, we need a new villain. And it was like 4.51 p.m. And Kirby's like, I was going to fucking leak.

God damn it. And he just drew. So he's just all angered. He's just this giant floating mutated head who's a super genius and resents not only the heroes, but he resents all the other villains for treating him like crap. And that's what that's me and my co-writer, Jordan Blum, who we do the comic minor threats I do with. He's an amazing writer. And he just, we really come up with the idea of, well, Modoc, the ultimate, because his thing is, these ruled conquerors have to sacrifice family and love and relationships to conquer the world. Modoc does not compromise. I will rule the world.

I will also have a family that loves me and I will live in the suburbs with them. And that tension makes everything go haywire. And his family doesn't love him. Well, his family has been tolerating him, which he thinks is love. But no, we really wanted to embrace the idea at the end of season one that the wife is like, this isn't working and we're getting divorced. And they actually are getting divorced. And then that was going to be, season two was going to be him dealing with being a divorced dad.

We were not going to do that thing of like every week the sitcom husband completely fucks up. And then at the end, the woman's like, I love you. Like, no, these people should be divorced. And that's what the show is going to be about now. We should also, we should mention that. So the show was, it was like stop motion animated, right? Yeah, stupid buddy, Seth Green's company did it. Great.

Yeah. It looked so good. Yeah, it looked amazing. And it had that big curby shapes, big curby colors. And again, huge Kirby emotions about regular everyday stuff like, you know, planning your daughter's kinseniera, trying to help your son get a date for the prom and helping him be more confident, but done at Kirby levels of emotion. And at the same time, also fighting to keep his company aim, advanced idea mechanics and

rule the world. everything's going wrong. Like just, we just wanted to make it the biggest mess that we could. And we succeeded. It was really fun. Yeah. You absolutely did. And Hulu, I think, made a big mistake, not renewing it, but. I agree. What do I know? Well, it was also bizarre. At Marvel at the time, I think it was going through some kind of shakeup. We would ask for certain characters who were like, well, they're not going to give us this character. And they would give us to us. They would let us use Madame Mask and Mr. Sinister and Iron Man and Thor and these huge A-list properties. And then we would ask for Stiltman.

They were like, no, you can't have Stilt Man. They were like, why? Like, are you saving him? Like, did Joaquin Phoenix say he would play Stilman? Why can't we have Stiltman? Like, we had to fight. It was the shittiest characters we had to fight for. Like Tattered Amalien, pound cakes and people like that, these minor, minor villains.

They were like, I don't know. And then, but the big ones are like, Absolutely, go ahead. We're like, what is happening? So that was, that was very bizarre. That's so weird. So maybe, so you're saying, maybe we're getting a Stiltman Disney Plus series. I don't know, but I mean, but Stilt Man's the stupidest villain.

He's so dumb. You can't do anything with him. That was the, we were going to use him for one joke. That's all he's good for. Sorry. Well, the thing is, like, I, you know, I get some research and I discovered, I didn't even realize, you are halfway to an EGOT. Oh, yeah, that's right.

which is an Emmy Grammy Oscar and Tony. And so I now want to start an Egot for Modoc campaign. Egot for Modoc. Oh, that would be delightful. Oh, he deserves it. If you need a hashtag, yeah. Please feel free to use that.

That'd be great. So you are now the second guest I've had. Paul Tompkins was the first who has a little role in Weird, the Weird Al Yankovich. Oh, yes. I was supposed to play Dr. Demento, and I broke my foot the week before they were supposed to start shooting. And they shot that brilliant film.

It is a brilliant film, Andy. I can't wait to see it. It is brilliant. They shot that thing in 18 days. There was no extra time. Like, you're on a cart. Like, we can't. There's just no way we can pull this off.

And luckily, Rayne Wilson stepped in, who's great. But I have a little cameo in a nightclub that was really, really fun to shoot. And you'll be able to spot me pretty easily. According to IMDB, you have a key role as I think it's NBC reporter. Oh, no. that's not me. Oh, that's not accurate. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm a drunken heckler. Yeah. Oh, okay. Excellent. That must have been incredibly fun to shoot, even just to be a small part of it. It was amazing. And Daniel Radcliffe, again, the movie absolutely embraces how completely stupid it is.

It's like those early Abrams Zucker Brothers movies where it's just reveling in how stupid it is. but his performance is genuinely Oscar-worthy. Like, he gets to some real moments of pathos, even though he's going over the top. It is one of the best performances of the year. Like, I was stunned. Radcliffe is fantastic. And he has just made, like,

the most interesting career choices of anyone that's come out of, like, this blockbuster series of movies has ever made, I think. Right now, him, Elijah Wood, Robert Pattinson, have all taken their massive franchise bucks. And they've just turned. turned it into, now I get to do just interesting stuff for the rest of my career. Right. That's all I get to do.

And all they're doing is weird, interesting stuff that they're into, clearly. Elijah, I mean, Elijah barely is in movies. He's, like, producing stuff and running a spectrovision and putting out, like, the most bizarre, edgy movies you've ever, like, like, and he has a real eye and a brain for it. Like, he's going to be, I mean, he's still a great actor, but my God, the stuff that he's doing, in terms of getting movies made is stunning. He did that movie. I'm now blanking on the name of it. I'm trying to quickly look it up.

Was it come to Daddy? Are you familiar with this? No. It's a little indie film, and it was really, really good, and just really, like, it's like a horror movie slash comedy, and it's like you said, like he's just making, this is Elijah Wood, he's making incredibly interesting choices, and I totally agree.

It feels like he's doing what George Harrison did with handmade films, which is, I just want to say, see this. I don't care if anyone else even comes and watches. I just want to see how this gets made. Right. That seems to be how he picks. Yeah. It's just a, and so much, just so much credit to him and Radcliffe. And Pattinson, too, I always, I don't think of him that way because I wasn't into the Twilight movie. So I only know him from the more interesting choices that he's made since those. But that's why he did, he did those. Right. So he's like, well, now I got freedom. I can go work with who I want to work with. And that's clearly all he's doing. Yeah. And he was a great.

Batman. And it's fascinating. And he was a great Batman. Yeah, I love that movie a lot. That's the one Batman that really leaned into that, oh, this guy's mentally ill. Yes. Like, this isn't heroic. He's a rich guy dressing like a flying rat and beating up poor people. This isn't, something's wrong here. And he really embraced that. It was pretty cool. No, it's really good. So before I let you go, one of the things you talk about in We All Scream is how you had so much stuff planned to do during lockdown. And then like most of us, you never got around to it. God. One of the things you talked about was exercising and you talked about how you bought something called a rebounder, which is this little trampoline-like thing and then you basically never used it.

I just wanted to commiserate with you by saying this may be even worse. I bought the Nintendo Switch RingFit Adventure game. Oh, no. Oh, no. And believe me, it was hard to find because during lockdown, everybody wanted it. Yeah, everyone wanted that thing. And you had to buy it and it came with a sensor that went around your leg and another one, I think went around your arm or you just used a...

I don't know. And I searched everywhere to find it. And finally, after like a month, I think, I found it at some store in North Carolina online and ordered it. To this day, it has not moved out of the package. Of course not. That's our lives. That's it.

My very last question is, earlier you were talking about boomers and you do a thing, you have a thing in your special where you say that, you think that of 2016, a sort of boomer's last gasp, which I hope to God is true. I sometimes, I sometimes, I used to think that, and now I'm not so sure.

But the point I want to get to is maybe just because every generation thinks this, but I really thought Generation X, I thought we were going to be better. And I still have some hope for that. But as you put it in the special, you said, hold on it, you know, you said, our temper tantrum is going to be off the charts. And that got me really nervous. Yeah, I mean, well, the one hope I have for Gen X is, we're the one generation. of all the, although I think Gen Z and the millennials might even be better, but we do have programmed

into our DNA the idea of aging out and stepping aside gracefully. We might not actually have a temper tantrum, or we might actually do the classic, oh, when it's time to go, I'll be cool about going, and then when it does come time to go, we'll be so uncool and we'll do something even worse. I don't know, because there still is a big section of Gen X that has that whole jam the culture, man. Smash the system. The quicker we smash it, the quicker there'll be a revolution. You're like, no, that's not how it works. But I'm holding out hope that we will actually live up to our, when it comes time to go, we're just going to go. Yeah. And it's probably helpful that we were never really there. Yes, exactly. In a lot of ways. So it's not like we can go, oh, I mean, oh, my God, what kind of mark have I left from the world? A lot of us didn't want to leave a mark. That was the whole, that was the status was like, no, I didn't. I wasn't really here.

Something kind of cool about that. Right. We made some good music in the 90s. Yeah, we did. So there you go. We made some good music and we stayed at everybody's way. That's a good legacy. Exactly.

And let's hope it ends with that. Yeah. God, please. Wow, what a way to end this podcast. Let's all hope we die quietly. I know. That's what you look. When you're Jewish and you host a podcast, that is how you end.

Right. All right. Thank so much, Patton. I really appreciate it. People, if you haven't seen We All Scream, go check that out. Please watch Modoc, even though it's apparently too late to get a second season. Please watch it. Like I said, there's that movie where he does the voice of a rat that I think was mildly popular. You can't escape him. He's everywhere anyway. You'll see him whether you want to or not, but you should want to. Patton, thank you so much. You'll never escape me. All right. Thanks, Andy. Hope you enjoyed checking out this episode of The New Abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday,

Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going. See you next time. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at the Daily Beast.com slash podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, consider becoming a daily beast subscriber. Subscribing is the best way to feed the beast and support all of your podcasts as we cover what might become the darkest timeline. Head to the DailyBeast.com slash membership slash podcast and sign up today.