The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - South Beach Sessions - Bill Lawrence

Episode Date: September 20, 2024

Scrubs, Ted Lasso, Shrinking, Bad Monkey… Bill Lawrence had a hand in creating some of the funniest shows on television. From his WASP-y upbringing, to surviving a plane crash, Bill opens up to Dan about his lifelong struggles to examine his own emotions and understand why, even in the most challenging moments, he can’t help but find the humor in everything.  Dan and Bill also explore the unique pain of losing loved ones slowly, through illness, and how they’ve both found support systems to guide them through the darkest of times. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Go to kraken.com and see what crypto can be. Not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. See kraken.com slash legal slash ca dash pru dash disclaimer for info on Kraken's undertaking to register in Canada. Hello and welcome to South Beach Sessions. I'm a giant admirer of this man, not just because of the things that he makes, but he seems to be one of the rare Hollywood people who's not a phony asshole. He is, well, I'm assuming that most of- I hide it, yeah, yeah.

You hide it? Okay. Bill Lawrence is the creator, I love creators of Ted Lasso, Shrinking, Spin City, Scrubs, and now Bad Monkey on Apple TV, which is an homage to Carl Hyason, the Miami Herald columnist, and I am thrilled that you are here with us,

and there are a number of things that I wanna talk to you about, because I am genuinely odd that and and flattered and moved that people like you and Adam McKay and Mike Schur who have conquered creativity in Hollywood to successfully make a number of different things that you gravitate over on your own and volunteer that I love the thing that those guys make and do. I don't have a professional flattery that's better than that. I want to talk to you about a number of things but when you text me that you're listening to South Beach

Sessions and that you appreciate the vulnerability of South Beach Sessions, I wanted to come in here and talk to you about both what our relationship is and why you sought it because I am really genuinely moved by the fact that someone with your skill set would think any silly thing we do was worthy of your time and interest. That's so crazy. You know, look, I think the artists, and I'm going to call Dan an artist. I'm not sure if he's going to like it.

I think artists that I admire, they have a self-deprecation level to them. You just talked about Carl Hyacin, but I would put you in the same vein of people that do something that they almost find it pretentious to say what I'm doing is art or it's changing the medium. And I feel that you guys have done that here and I feel that it's not a surprise that Adam or Mike or I have liked it because what you've done is created the world that we all as frustrated performers that kind of live

behind the the wall and just write and create. We wish we could be a part of it and even to just peripherally come in here and touch on it for a second and to be I think I texted you randomly I'm like to be around this ridiculousness gives me such joy you know even to be sitting out before we started today while people are eating Indian food and joking around and being around young people who don't realize how good they've got it I call it how good you got it disease I'm really grateful and I'm really impressed by what you do and it's been really neat for me,

an icon of mine as a comedy writer was Howard Stern. And to see that world created from a different path in the world of sports, the same kind of, you know, wild, ridiculous world that you can't believe has found a way to kind of create a footprint and exist in modern media, man, it's just so fun. Well, this is the thing that you and Sher and McKay all articulate to me that I was totally naive about.

One of the things that pulls you over to us, and you articulate this in a way that I just didn't have any understanding of the business, Bill, there's a genuine curiosity and bewilderment from all of you. How was this not stamped out at some point along the path? Like it's super weird to me that you would think that a joyous fun different thing that you're like how has this not been extinguished? How is it allowed to continue to exist? I don't get what you know that I didn't know that

would make the three of you arrive and say I don't understand how Disney didn't kill this thing. Yeah well we you are obviously working at least peripherally in a corporate world I would imagine in that there are parent companies and and and there there's bureaucracy. Mike, Adam, me, we all grew up just wanting to make goofy stuff that our friends would laugh at. Me too. Right? And what we realized early on,

all the people that are successful in Hollywood realized early on that there's no magic card that allows you to skip the business of it. And so you have to learn to navigate what is the way that things are done? What are the things that you have to do? What are the rules that you have to follow? And if you're lucky and have some success,

you can push the envelope a little bit, but you still live in those parameters. I do, you know, I'm grateful for all my success, but I still live within them now, depending on the company I'm working for. And at least here, even though I know behind the scenes, it's probably not true, it has the vibe that there are no rules.

But that's what I want, I don't want rules. Why would this thing, this silly sports thing, like think about that. Why at this point in my career would I want this to have rules? Like the rules in sports are stiff, they're rigid. It's not, sports should be fun. Like why would corporations get in the way of that?

Well, you know, that's a, that's an argument, that's a logical argument, okay? And I would tell you that the lesson that I learned early on in Hollywood, right or wrong, is there are no rules if you're paying every bill. If other people are paying the bill, they get to at least, in their minds anyways, put structure and bureaucracy around you and stipulations and you get to choose whether or not you adhere to them.

But like we were randomly talking about Trey and Matt, the guys that created South Park. And I'm always interested in talking about them because they're the closest ones for me that have come to establishing a world of no rules because they've essentially built their own studio, gotten outside investors and said you know you're investing in us to do what we do. I embraced early on in my career that you know right now I don't even know the company name anymore it's Warner

Discovery or Warner Brothers but right, Warner Discovery is paying all the salaries of my employees and paying for my projects. And I am not self-funding. And I think they're a great partner. And with that partnership comes, hey, here are at least 10 or 20 things that you might not love that you have to line up with. I think that is part of capitalism.

That's why the Pike dream is to live kind of an autonomous creative life that you do your own thing. I think it's also not to get, you know, way in the weeds, but I think it's the reason that you're seeing so many interesting things happening on YouTube and personalized where people aren't answering to anybody. The sweet spot, the reason we're gravitating to you, Dan, is we know that you're still playing within a system

and yet it seems like the Wild West. Well, DraftKings has been an extraordinary partner that way. They are a startup, we are a startup and they do leave me alone, which is all I wanted. I would have still been at ESPN. When Skipper was running ESPN, they left me alone. I get suspended every we are a startup, and they do leave me alone, which is all I wanted. I would have still been at ESPN. When Skipper was running ESPN, they left me alone. I get suspended every once in a while, but it was usually- Yeah, yeah.

Those are my favorite parts though. Yeah, but it was usually to please, like I wasn't actually against Skipper. Skipper was trying to start fires and influence the culture at ESPN. Couldn't do it with a million employees, so just hired like nine or 10 people and said, can you just set some things on fire And let's see if other people have permission But the moment he left the whole thing collapsed on me like the moment he left I didn't even realize how much he was protecting me there And I guess I should be more gratitude. I have more gratitude for what DraftKings is doing because they are leaving us alone

It's really all I wanted. I wanted well, I wanted money Yeah, and to be left alone and therein lies the conflict. Yeah, and by the way, I think, look, ah, this is gonna sound awful. There's nothing wrong in America with wanting money. And I have this conversation a lot with young writers and, you know, a lot of my company's projects aren't just stuff I write. We do shows that other young people come in and pitch,

and I say, we can help you get through the system. And I literally will say to people, hey, what are you chasing here? You chasing art? You chasing commerce? You chasing something in the middle? And if you're a man or a woman with a husband or wife and children,

there's no wrong answer. You just gotta at least be honest with yourself up front of like, oh, I'm chasing commerce. Then that's a different show. You know, that might be even now, that might be a network show because network's coming back and it's ad supported and it can syndicate and it can be worth a lot of cash. And if it's art, it might be, no, I'm cool doing a limited series

that's six episodes and, you know, not a ton of people see, but I'm proud of it till my dying day. There's no wrong answer, but I think we've reached the point in doing what you and I do, that you should know what you're chasing early on. How many employees do you have? It's a very weird question because I have about 15 full-time employees, but then every

show usually employs about 120 people. But all of those people are paid for by whoever it is you've partnered with, right? So you have the 15 that you're responsible for. Because I have an overall deal, Time Warner pays all my employees. And I can bonus them and do that stuff, but they've literally said, we want you to do, here's how, Hollywood is like professional sports. You know, you have a good free agent year,

you get a bigger deal. If, I wouldn't have a lot of employees if I was just saying, every year I'm gonna do one show by myself, they wouldn't hire me any, you know, any kind of network to support. But I said, no, I'm interested in doing multiple things. And so they kind of surround you with the people

that they think that you can not just do your own stuff, but do other shows and have four or five things on at once because you have that kind of scaffolding underneath you. The reason I asked the question of you is because we have a little over 45 and it terrifies me. I'm responsible for these people. I, it is the antithesis of joy to be feeling terror all the time because you don't want to let down people you care about.

Yeah, but you got to find the joy in it, man. I can, I can, all right. I don't want to be somebody that's telling you how to think or feel I used to get caught in that all the time that the greatest thing about doing what I did is I I I Became a little bit Teflon when it when it Was about the success or failure of a show because I would say you know I'm gonna I'm gonna try and make something that's a noble failure at worst and

That I'm not embarrassed for my friends or family to see it, and if it doesn't work, I'll be fine. And when you add to that, well now if it doesn't work, there's some people that don't get paid the way that you get paid that might suffer for it and might be in trouble looking for work and might have trouble paying their mortgage. It adds a level of stress and pressure. But the other side of that coin is how great is it

to do something fun that you can hire people you would want to spend time with anyway, and they can make a living for them and their family doing it. And I would argue that they know the roll of the dice, to get involved in anything that's an artistic endeavor. And as long as you make it a great experience for them to be there, and as long as you're doing your best,

you have to learn that it's not on you. The success or failure, as it applies to them, as long as you're working your hardest, there's no guilt in failure, you know? There's, just for me now, there's the joy of people having come along, you know, for the ride with me. I'm really trying to get to that point. Well, you say this, right?

Because I'm not gonna tell you how to live or feel either, but you came in here and you felt my environment, and you said to me, I needed this joy so badly. And I'm like, what are you talking about? You have hit shows all over the place. You're working with your friends. You're giving me teaching advice. And I'm like, what do you mean? My environment is the joyous one and I need to feel joy. When you're coming in here and you've got like 12 hours in town and you're dealing with all sorts of, all sorts of garbage. I got two things to say about that. So the first reason I was looking for joy is,

I wrote it, the show Shrinking is about grief. And you and I have peripherally texted about this because I think every human being right now is, whether it's you with your brother or me with my father, is at most two degrees, most likely one degree separated from tremendous grief. And I am so close to my dad. He was very young. He was my best friend growing up. And you know, and he's truly suffering with something called Lewy bodies. That's what Robin

Williams had, which is a kind of dementia that comes with crazy hallucinations and the person disappears very fast and Every time I come to Florida. I'm lucky enough to see you. I'm always here spending time with him and it's it's hard you know and so That joy, you know that that that kind of dealing with grief is why I think I needed some joy and some brightness in my life now as opposed to the grinding and working because we talked about those two things I was gonna bring up a topic

to you that I'm I was gonna ask you about. I am complaining about how much I'm working. It's a high-class problem and you whether you know it or not have the same high-class problem you, in this world right now, to be on any level dealing with the stress of success is a great problem to have. I read this great article about something called Superagers. And it was, I was talking about Harrison Ford, who's on my show, Mick Jagger,

who I saw play with the Rolling Stones And he's 81 It's basically talking about men and women that have that vibe that they are young and vibrant because They're still working and still engaged, but the B side of it is don't you feel like for some of those people if they stopped That they just fizzle out, disappear, die, right? Do you have that vibe of,

are you somebody that could ever imagine yourself not working? When my brother was dying, I needed to not be working, but I had to. Yeah, I get it. Let's take you one step removed from that and say, is there a fantasy in your life?

Yes, I'd love to be working differently, better. I'd love to be on an island somewhere with my wife writing a book somewhere because, and that's still working, but it's- That's what I mean though, okay, because you have the vibe to me as a fellow artist, as someone with a distinct voice, that I think that if you weren't finding your way to put that voice out there, and for me, by the way, I don't think I'm gonna be running a TV show, Dan, when I'm 65. You're my age, you're 55,

and you're putting it off in the distance, and you're saying, yeah, I'll get there in 10 years, and you might get there in 10 years, and I'll be right there in another 10 years. Yeah, right, right, yeah, but by the same token, there are some people that you'll say, and there's no shame in this, yet they'll say, I can imagine myself in 10 years doing nothing.

And maybe I enjoy golf, maybe I enjoy traveling, but otherwise nothing. And I know if I did nothing, that I would age 20 years in a year. If know, if I did it, if I retired at 60 and then did nothing for a year, I'd look like I was 80. So maybe it's writing a book while you're with your wife. For me, maybe it's teaching at Sarah Lawrence College. Maybe it's writing, you know, one show or helping a young person write something. But the second thing you embrace,

that putting my voice out there is what sustains me, I think all the hassles and negatives that come with it that you and I have been talking about, they don't sting as much. You know, they're just part of the journey, if that makes sense. And maybe it's because I've been dealing with them since I was very lucky to hit it very young.

So I've been dealing with the stress of, you know, letting other people down, you know, hey, the show's not coming back or hey, the writing staff is smaller, you know, the things that are horrible. For me, they've just become part of a journey that there's so much joy in it. The reason I vibe here is it reminds me

of when I have a staff writer on a TV show. And for those of you that don't know a staff writer on a TV show and for those of you That don't know a staff writer. It's the lowest position. It's usually someone in their early 20s and When you have a staff writer on a sitcom, they're still they still come into work They're like wow a TV show and that is so drastically different Than my contemporaries who are like we've been doing this for 30 years. It's old hat The bureaucracy sucks. The rules suck.

And when I come here to visit this show, out there eating Indian food or a bunch of people that are, I think, if you put a flashlight in their face and chained them to a desk and were really doing an interrogation would say, I can't believe that this is what I do for a living. And maybe you don't hear that enough, but I sense it. I'm not good at being vulnerable. That's why I compliment you all the time on being vulnerable on your show. Um, but I have at least in the last five years of my career, occasionally, I'm

not going to brag on myself because I'm not great at it. Told some of the younger writers or younger people that have worked for me for a while that I need to hear that they're enjoying their job, that they're invested, that they care, and a little goes such a long way. No one needs their ass kissed, right? But I would be remiss if I didn't tell you that I would, I'm quite, quite sure

that Roy, Tony, Chris, that they're, Jessica, that they're all super proud of and excited to have this as a gig. And that we never take the time to think about what they're thinking. I'm sure they all have friends that don't get to do shit like this for a living. And maybe you don't hear it enough. All right, guys, the NFL season is finally here and I like to play a little

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keeps it simple with undeniable quality, great taste, and only 96 calories. You don't have to choose what's best. Miller Lite has great taste and is less filling and it tastes like Miller. Time to get Miller Lite delivered right to your door. Visit MillerLite.com slash Beach B-E-A-C-H or you can find it pretty much anywhere that sells beer. Celebrate responsibly Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories per 12 ounces, fewer cows and carbs than premium regular beer. Why are you bad at being vulnerable? Um, I'm a Wasp Dan.

Um, my name is William Van Dusen Lawrence the fourth. Uh, there was a joke cause the guy that ran Warner Brothers is named Peter Roth and he's at Hollywood's full of huggers and within three weeks of working for Warner Brothers when I was 30, he had hugged me more than my father. And not because I didn't love my dad, but it's I grew up in Connecticut and that is not what you do. You don't talk about your feelings. And so where and how have you gotten help with that? I had a band. I'm a therapy guy now.

I wasn't. I don't think anybody in my family had ever, I think probably still weird and taboo to some of my family to talk about having to shrink and talking about that stuff. I think what, the way I walked out was, I vibed on crazy women when I was a young guy. I don't know your wife, so I don't know if she fits into the mold,

but mine, right? No, my wife, God almighty, she's been a tether here. Like she's cracked me open. I've cried more in the last five years. I mean, my brother's involved with that, but just, I needed the lubricant. Like, I was so pushed down, repressed, in ways that I didn't even understand. Culturally?

Yeah, yeah, male, Latino, like my dad, and my dad, yeah, and my dad, I mean, yeah, my dad didn't tell me nice things. That's not any, and it's not that he was telling me bad things, it was just very hard to get out of him that he was pleased about anything I had done My dad broke the mold in his family is from a super wealthy American family and anybody that really dives in knows that with money Comes just absolute dysfunction a lot of the time, you know at Sarah Lawrence College is my great-great grandmother and and and

That admissions building was you know, at Sarah Lawrence College is my great, great grandmother and that admissions building was, you know, their house. My dad made the mistake of marrying someone from central Florida, you know, where all my family are largemouth bass fishing guides. And he started at least the trend of saying, you know, saying I love you, talking about feelings, he's great with it, especially later in life. I vibed on crazy damaged women, and I was very lucky that I met somebody when I was 28

that had that vibe, but had done all the work and been in therapy for 10 years. And you know, as somebody who grew up very hard with addiction in their family, and a sister that had been killed, in therapy for 10 years and you know as somebody who grew up very hard with a addiction in their family and a sister that had been killed and so I got the crazy vibe I wanted but with somebody that said there's nothing wrong with getting a little help and talking about all the stuff that you're bottling up. What it is that you're saying about the stuff that your parents leave on you.

And I've gotten, one of the things that therapy helps a great deal with is they did the best they can and so forgive them because when they're gone, you don't wanna have guilt and anger and all of that stuff. But my dad was also, he's in exile, he's in this country, he's fighting every day to make sure that he can keep freedom.

There wasn't time to sit around. He's filled with fear at all times. The responsibility of failing me. There wasn't time to be an evolved, introspective dad who's gonna be something other than fearful exile who has to make sure to take care of this small family. Historians would call your dad a win, okay? That's the therapist that said that,

you know what I mean, to me about my dad. So if they looked at the hand he was dealt, where he got you to, come on, it's a win. A miracle, no, it's not a win. It's a massive win. It's a miracle, he got me to freedom. It's hitting on 19, right? At a blackjack table. I would say it's not a win. It's a miracle. He got me to freedom. It's hitting on 19, right? At a blackjack table.

I would say it's hitting on 20, and getting an ace. You're coming from communism, and you're making sure that both of your sons work in the arts, like where freedom is paramount. That's crazy that you both did. I forgot about that, man. That's nuts.

That must have just rocked him to his core. Well, he wanted me to be an engineer. Yeah, no, I know that. I mean, those are the safe paths, right? Doctor, lawyer, architect. This is the immigrant story is the parents say, you do these careers, whether they make you happy or not. Yeah, that's how it works.

Well, but Bill, how many people do you get this from? Because I get this all the time, unhappy lawyers, unhappy doctors, unhappy people who went to go and had success in big things. And they're like, oh my God, how do I do what you do? How do I get to do that? I wanna give my opinion on pardon the interruption. That is what I wanna do for a living.

That's, well, tough, tough shit, right? The, uh, I can tell you, one of the things I admired about, I talk about my father past tense and I should not, uh, one of the things I admire about my dad, um, is that he worked for, uh, corporate America his whole life. He started at 21 as a salesman for Pitney Bowes, which is an East Coast company that made postage,

I don't know if you know of it. If anybody has ever gotten a letter that had ink on it instead of a stamp, that's from a postage meter invented by H. Pitney, Pitney Bowes. And so it was like Xerox and IBM, Pitney Bowes was a Fortune 15 company. I think it's almost obsolete now because of the internet. But he worked his way up to being the director

and vice president of marketing for the whole company. And I remember after he retired, I said, do you miss it? And he's like, selling office equipment? No. And he though had rationalized, he's like, I'll tell you what I loved about it. I loved the people,

I loved being able to provide for my family, I loved being able to provide for my family, I loved being able to take vacations with you and other people and doing that, but I rationalized early on that my job was not my passion. The results of my job enabled me to enjoy my passions. And I think that the world is divided in half between people that are lucky enough to get to enjoy what they do for A living and I'm grateful for it every day I can't believe that I get to do this and hopefully the other people don't get to enjoy what they're

That what they're doing But that hopefully most of them get to enjoy the spoils of what they're doing and I think that the people that fall in between Man, they they got to be careful. Well you say. I think a great deal of the unhappiness everywhere in the world is that a lot more than half of people are marching to eight hours, 12 hours a day to a place that makes them feel lonely. And furthermore, I would say that our audience, our customers love us so much because we drag them through at least half that day

with something that is laughter because we pump out so much stuff that they're like, well, at least this will be slightly less miserable because I can just laugh for four hours in the middle of this drudgery. I guess the harsh truth, and I think you're right, and I think I'm looking through rose-colored glasses too much, I think that the trap is to say,

I have to find my joy in what I do. Because even if you're lucky enough to enjoy your job, if that's your only joy, good luck to you. Well, this is the interesting thing, right, before I met my wife. And I'm crawling there now, right? I've had to crawl through some shit to love myself correctly, to love her correctly, uh, to be more joyous.

Uh, that one has been interesting because, um, and athletes talk about this all the time, Bill. It's so competitive to get too successful that sometimes you forget to enjoy it because you got to beat the next person or and so I'm Cuban and coming up in this business and there's no what it's sports writing like there's like it's not I'm not imagining any of this I'm just like I want to write about sports dad I don't want to be an engineer that looks like more fun You seem to come home every night you sit at the dinner table my entire childhood is you railing against your boss so when my mom asked me hey Dan what do you want to do for a living my answer is well I want to make a lot of money and have fun and my father's like good

luck with that kid good luck with that like there was there was no belief there like how all I saw though he had never known why would he right right and but I just I wanted to make sure that what he was feeling at work, all I had with work was that as the model and that worked hard and the only thing that got us to freedom is you have to work and I'm like,

I don't wanna work like that. He doesn't seem like he's terribly happy. He seems like he's really afraid all the time of the responsibility that he has and he has to like get up and go to work every day to something that doesn't satisfy him. I would argue though that you're more similar than you think because I think that you would not be

where you are had you not witnessed, inherited, and been inspired by his work ethic. Not necessarily what he's doing, but how he's doing it. For sure, like I would say that my parents, what they taught me more than anything was work. You get to freedom through work. That's like, I mean that's land of opportunity, that's stuff that communism sort of denies you, right?

I was talking about this oddly last night because Pugula won the quarterfinals against Ega Switek in the US Open and I, this is gonna sound incredibly odd, but I found it so interesting that the daughter of a billionaire had gotten to the point as a 30 year old that she could work so hard as to arguably be one of the eight best tennis players. Where does that work ethic come from? That sport's so lonely. If you've been gifted the safety net of no worries about finances

and about even if you don't push yourself, you're gonna be fine. How did that young lady find, I'm gonna work harder than anybody and make that super impressive? And I don't know her from Adam. I was really fascinated by it. Where does your hunger come from?

My father was the first person in his family to work for a living. He and his brother, first generation. Because the earlier William Lawrence, there's a, I didn't go to Sarah Lawrence College because there's a giant painting and a statue there of William Ben Dues or Lawrence the first and he looks like me, but he's bald and he has mutton chops

It's very weird a statue that you'd be on campus and you'd be looking at William Ben Dues or Lawrence the fourth That's the first Anybody that's bored can look up a picture because he's a historical figure. It's it's ridiculously goofy Ford can look up a picture because he's a historical figure. It's ridiculously goofy. I think the editors of this should put it up right now. Oh my god, it's bad. William N. Duser Lawrence, look it up. Anyways, my dad and his brother broke from the family

a little bit. And by that time, money corrupts families, and lack of ambition corrupts families. And he and his brother, who passed way too young, decided to grind it out for themselves, partially because they wanted to make their own mark, and partially because money does corrupt. And I wouldn't say the family was an example

of what you would hope success would do to a family. And my father instilled in me, I tell other buddies and parents this, he called it ITI. And I'll tell you what it is. I remember growing up, still having to work in high school and my parents still making me have jobs to any money I wanted to spend on my own.

But in the back of my head, I always knew that I wanted for nothing. I grew up comfortable in the mean streets of Fairfield County, Connecticut. But I told my father, you know, I think I want to go to Hollywood right after high school. I want to try to be a comic and a writer. And he told me in retrospect, he was worried about me being too young and immature that I would probably suffer and not do well as a teenager. Last time that we talked on South Beach Sessions, you had mentioned that he had a job waiting for you

back home as a painter or something, right? Because he didn't think you were gonna succeed. He thought it was gonna be bad. But the point is he told me at that young age, if you go out as an 18 year old, you'll always have our love and support. If you go to college, we'll help you a little more. If you go out as an 18 year old, you'll have our love and support. If you go to college, we'll help you a little more. If you go out as an 18 year old,

you'll have our love and emotional support, but you have something called ITI. And I said, what was that? And he said, it's instant total independence. And it's my favorite thing. I wanna do it to my kids too. And I'm like, oh, maybe I should go to college then. He's like, but no, you can build an enjoyable life

for yourself in college, but you're still, you're still when college is over, it I should go to college then. He's like, but no, you can build an enjoyable life for yourself in college, but you're still, you're still when college is over, it's ITI, my friend. And the lecture I got was, you don't have to be in fear if there's a crisis, you don't have to be in fear if you have an health issue. We love you, but there are no handouts. And it really mattered to him, and I think it mattered to him because of the road he had seen traveled by his family before,

you know, with money. And, you know, it was really fun for me. Sorry, I got emotional because my dad's struggling a bit. It was really fun for me when I made it in Hollywood. My dad flew out to congratulate me and my mom, and we went out to dinner, and then afterwards, my dad and I were having a drink, and he said, I just want you to know that I plan to die with nothing. And he said, you're getting nothing.

You've made it. It is on you for the next generation, and I'm so proud of you and happy about it. So he really instilled that kind of, that drive in me, but they also provided a safety net underneath that I didn't have to live in fear. You are a writer. You don't do well with vulnerability.

You have admired this project because you think it is vulnerable. When you use the verb struggling to describe what your father and you are going to, that word is doing a lot of lifting there by merely calling it struggling. Yeah. My dad, you know, look, it's a bummer in the world right now

that everybody knows dementia and Alzheimer. My dad has something called Lewy bodies, which is, it's what Robin Williams had before he passed and it's a type of dementia that comes with these crazy hallucinations. One is called, main one's called Capgras syndrome and Oliver Sacks wrote a book about it called The Man Whom Has Stuck His Wife for a Hat and Capgras Syndrome is My dad takes a nap sometimes he will wake up and he's convinced that my mom Your capgras syndrome means you will be convinced that your principal caretaker in this case

My mom has been replaced by an imposter. And so I will get a call from my dad once in a while that he says Hey, how you doing? I'm like, I'm okay, what's going on? Everything's okay, but there's someone here wearing your mom's clothes and cooking me lunch that's pretending to be your mom. And I don't know if I should run. And it's such a weird thing, Dan, to watch someone you love disappear a little bit.

And we try to laugh about it because our families always thrived on comedy. I'll tell you that the darkest funny moment You know doctors have told me the hardest part when my dad calls me You can't say dad. That's mom. You're hallucinating You're having delusions because it's like if I told you hey, Dan You only have two fingers you'd be looking at your hand and going I have five fingers, you're having delusions. Because it's like if I told you, hey, Dan, you only have two fingers, you'd be looking at your hand and going, I have five fingers, you know, it just would make you angry.

So the only way to trick him sometimes is your auditory stuff will work better. And so I can go, hey, dad, I think mom left, you know, but she was having someone help out, why don't you call her to the other room and see if she's back? And sometimes they'll say Sue, and she'll be like, yeah, oh, oh she's back but it's definitely messed up but the darkest it

got was my dad called me really upset and said Bill there's a woman in the bedroom and she's lovely and she's been taking care of me all day but she's not your mom I don't know where your mom is and and he said and she's been taking care of me all day, but she's not your mom, I don't know where your mom is. And he said, and she's got designs on me. And Bill, there's not gonna be any hanky panky, because I've been married for over 50 years. And I go, dad, I think mom would give you a pass on this one. You can only laugh, right? You have to laugh.

I'm like, I think mom will let this one go if you want to hook up with the mom and posture. You talk to her about it tomorrow, dude. I don't... Oh, it sucks, man. Oh my God, Bill. I'm so sorry. That's okay. You know, it's okay.

It's, uh... You know, I think, um, I had a... The reason I don't mind talking about it and being sad is one of the greatest things about therapy if you aren't getting it, or about talking to a friend like I'm talking to Dan, is I talked to my therapist about some of the stuff I'm dealing with.

And I said, like, have you ever heard a story, you think you're isolated on an island, I'm sure you did with your brother. And I talked to a therapist, I'm like, have you ever heard anything like this? And he said, you mean today? Because today I've heard it a hundred times, but my career I've heard it a million billion

trillion times. And so one of the reasons I'm compelled to speak about it is I assume that one out of every four or five, six of your listeners is dealing with something like this. Somebody they care about slowly disappearing. Bill I will tell you that the evolution of this particular platform it's caught me off guard the producers have encouraged me to be vulnerable here publicly because they think that people need it and it's become obvious that they do because everybody here wants some lessons, wants anything

that feels like medicine or soothing because... ...Or authentic. You know, I mean it has to feel like... That's why I was so moved by your stuff. I think it has to feel attached as a writer to something that you've experienced or actually felt yourself. of your own? New DraftKings customers bet $5 to get $200 in bonus bets instantly. Score big with DraftKings Sportsbook, the number one place to bet touchdowns. Download the Sportsbook app and use code DAM. That's code D-A-N for new customers to get $200 in bonus bets when you bet just 5 bucks. Only at DraftKings Sportsbook. The crown is yours. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. In New York, call 877-8HOPENY or text HOPENY467369. In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling.

Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org. Please play responsibly. On behalf of Boothill Casino and Resort in Kansas, 21 and over, age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, How long, when you say you talk about your father in the past tense and you should stop doing that, how long has, because that part is, I got with my brother, even though it was half his body and it was just super horrifying to see someone

that vibrant, their body deteriorate rot over a year, but he was always there and his mind was there and I got to say all the things and there was goodbye. I don't know how that process has worked with you over how long your dad hasn't been there and how long you had to prepare for grief because you've been dealing with grief already for a long time and I don't even know

if the finality will resemble something, what is it, terms of endearment where there's, in the movie, there's a character that shouts, I thought this would feel like relief, or some form of, I can't even imagine how long you've been dealing with all of this. It's not specific to me, Dan. It's the, I'm sure, I'm sure there are other people

that have had dark thoughts of the grimest thing that you could ever think is how lucky it is for some people to lose a parent or a loved one quick. And I think that's the darkest thought that I've ever had. And I'm really working on that because, you know, if your father doesn't remember you or recognize you but he feels loved and you get a moment here there you know where there's a spark of recognition or a memory it's hard I've been really working hard to find the

joy in that rather than to find the constant sadness in What you've lost so I'm working on it It's a work in progress. It's You know, I'd be full of crap if I said I'm crushing it. It's really hard. But you know, I think for me to have grown Not to take it back to this by listening to this show, watching things that move me, talking to people that have gone through the same experiences to feeling like this is a communal thing that a lot of people out there are dealing with.

It's really, really, really helped me to talk about feelings in ways that I maybe didn't until I was in my 50s. I don't know what the most brutal part of this is but in there intertwined is the way you talk about your dad is heroically. He's the best. But it's it's clear it is it is obvious that you articulate this as if he is your hero. He is, man. I got very lucky and one thing is my, we were talking about it,

my mom and I were talking about it a couple days ago, my parents live in Winter Park, Florida now because they both went to Rollins College and they moved back to somewhere my dad finds really familiar and safe and he has memories there. And they got married the summer after my dad's freshman year. My mom was a senior, my dad was a freshman, they started dating. They got married after, imagine if you got married after your freshman year of college. They got married after my dad's freshman year and she lived off

campus. They lived off campus in a house and she taught high school. She taught French in a high school in Winter Park. And my dad was, my dad was still in a fraternity and married. Gave up, gave away all his freedom right off the bat. But the, your hero was a fool, Bill. But the end of that story is my dad was, I don't think a lot of young people get this, my dad was my contemporary.

So when I was 18, my dad was only 39. Oh, I see, you have that relationship with your kids now. It feels like you're the older brother. I'm drafting off of it. I want it so bad. When I was a 21 year old guy, I had just as much fun drinking a beer with my three buddies from college or from work as I did with my dad who was, you know, only 42 when I was 21 years old and still a young man at heart. And so

he was more a contemporary in my adulthood than my father. And he's always my father. But to have that combo, I don't think a lot of people get that. Do you have any lessons to impart here? I know you're saying it's a work in progress, but I find myself craving from the people who are willing to go to the most vulnerable places with me. Let's get Bill another drink here so that. So he doesn't crunch ice?

No, no, so that we can go, so we can go into further into the self-medicating because we're going into the deep end of the pool now. I need it when we talk about this stuff, man. Have you learned anything or what have you learned? Because you say in your darkest time, a parent going quick, but I would say that I didn't think this was possible,

what I'm about to say, but I have such extraordinary gratitude that in the middle of the horror that was watching my brother die, that I got those 10 months with him to talk lucidly about, oh my God. Like if you had taken that from me quickly, I just know that right now I would be spitting acid,

guilt, and anger in the stages of grief because I didn't get to like see it coming. I saw it coming and didn't see it coming because it wasn't something I could ever possibly imagine. But it doesn't sound like you got that entirely. No, I would like both. You know, I think that the, for those of you out there dealing with

people with dementia or Alzheimer's, it's this slow progression that them not being able to have those moments you had with your brother, them not being able to have those with you had with your brother, you know, them not being able to have those with you, it sneaks up on you. And because you don't want it to come to an end, you know, I think one of the mistakes I made was my dad worked so hard for the last five years of, you know, not, I mean, he's

done so well with this disease. He has a cognitive therapist that he sees twice a week. He works out with a trainer. He's in the best shape of his life. He's been doing everything he can to slow the progression of just losing who he is. And the bummer is if somebody's working that hard and you see them, I try to see my dad every six weeks

at the longest and he lives here in the East Coast, I live in the West Coast. And I FaceTime with him twice a week and we talk every day. But the way you trick yourself is to go, maybe he's special and maybe it'll never come. And so I never do those deep conversation, I didn't do enough of them.

And then you snap your fingers and he's not able to do them. And so if you said there were lessons, I would say the lesson for me is why wait until the person, two things, one is why wait until the person has to hear that stuff to say it. I don't think I'll make the mistake with my You know, I don't think I'll make the mistake with my own kids, I don't think I'll make the mistake with my spouse or my mom or any other relatives.

I think I will take great time to say how I feel long before I feel a ticking clock. That's the biggest lesson, because I'm saying it all the time now, and I will always go to bed wondering if my dad is really hearing it, if that makes sense. And then the other thing, you know, being a jocky guy that loves this world and that grew up in a slightly waspy family is sharing the stuff you're going through, though it was hard at first, it felt like opening a

floodgate for me. And the biggest surprise I had, I don't know if you've had it was not only friends that you would expect an open vulnerability from but my closed off, you know, stoic friends, guys and girls when you finally say, whether you need self medicationication like we're doing a drink or two, or just a walk and say what you're going through, who not only get it, but open up their world to you about how they're suffering or what they're dealing with.

There's comfort in it, you know? I find comfort, it sounds so shallow, but I find comfort in it, you know. I find comfort, it sounds so shallow, but I find comfort in listening to you talk about the struggle of it. You know, because it makes me feel not as alone. Thank you for that. I would say that where you struggle with vulnerability, I don't know that this one's an absolute. I'm not going to say that you can't have love without vulnerability, but there's no way to go to the deep end on love without just leaving yourself flailed open. Like I think, I think,

right? Like you, so where you connect with all of these people who all of a sudden are there for you and then you really feel them because you're in pain and they somehow understand it or soothe it or love you up somewhere, like that's where the deepest relationships are. Yeah, it's the turning point. I don't wanna say that I didn't become an adult till I was 52, but it's probably true. That's true. How old do you think you are?

I think I'm like 27. I was about to say 28. That's so funny. No, I mean, we all do that. Men do that, we all do that. Men, men do that. Men are idiots that way. Men always think of themselves like, well, first of all,

women know that we're children. Like children, they are deeper, more spiritual. Still crazier, Dan. I don't care if it's a stereotype. They're still crazier. That's fine. They can be crazier, but they have access to things that I don't think we have access to

because we're too busy elbowing people in the paint in a pickup basketball game on a Friday morning, and then burying ourselves in the identity of work so that we don't have to look at where the uncomfortable things are. Yeah, valid. Are you gonna be able to get to ITI with your children? Because I don't believe you are. Like you're saying you aspire to it,

but I can't even imagine you making your kids Hey, you're on your own here. Daddy's gonna spend all his money. I Know But I'm having great success with my daughter. I remember talking about her last time with you An actress, right? Yeah, she's a touring musician first. She I'll tell you the double-sided coin. She I think I told you guys last time she dropped out of high school. My daughter had never graduated from high school. A bunch of music people descended on our house when she was a senior in high school and said she's got a hit song in Brazil. We aren't involved in the music business. She was just putting music out

online. They said she has to leave now. There's a story I might have told before, but it's a testament to my dad. And I told her, they said she has to go on tour. People go on tour this young now. It's where the business is. And I said, no, she didn't talk to me for six weeks. My father called me up. I thought he was gonna say good on you

because she should finish high school. And he said, if it was your son, and they wanted him to go play basketball in Greece or Germany or Spain, you'd already be gone. Because it's your daughter, you're being a wimp. And I let her go, and she has never asked me for a penny since, and one of my dad's last great memories is we took the whole family and him.

My daughter played Radio City Music Hall, and he lost his mind because he grew up in New York. And he still remembers it, and he still his mind because he grew up in New York and he still remembers it and he still talks about it and it was super cool. She's never asked me for a penny. She pays her own way, she's made a great living, but even though I said ITI, because the second I said you're leaving,

you're not getting anything from me, if you're gonna make this choice, you gotta grind and work. She did it and she did it from age 17 till 22. And then at 22, I was doing Bad Monkey, and Apple said, hey, for the young daughter, you should get somebody with a huge social media following, you know, just to get young people into the show.

And I immediately was like, my daughter doesn't act, and she's got a million social media followers. I'm casting her tomorrow. And I'm gonna put this out there, I don't care about nepotism, if you can work with your kids, do it, who cares? The worst case scenario is you get to spend, I got to spend three months in Miami with her, it was awesome.

So I talk a big game, I don't know if I'll be able to do it. Holy shit though, what a gift from your dad. Like how often, you strike me as the type that when you have conviction about something, you might be stubborn. I almost blew that, yeah a gift from your dad. Like how often, you strike me as the type that when you have conviction about something, you might be stubborn. I almost blew that, yeah, I messed that up. You strike me as the type that also loves pretty hard. So when you've convinced yourself,

my daughter's not gonna go do this, and you get a call. She should graduate high school, right? But your dad calls you and you flip on that? Like how long is that conversation? You believe in your dad that much that... I tell it in a romantic way now. I told him he's wrong and then thought about it for a few days and then water split.

And she swore to me she'd get her GED and she told she didn't. Not only did she not get her GED, but I'm saying this on a national platform. We were playing code names the other night, and she gave the... There was two things. Las Vegas was one, and Ohio was one, and she said the clue she gave was states.

And I had to say, Las Vegas is not a state. Please go finish high school. Please. She's killing it, though. She's great. I want to know when you gravitate towards Please She's killing it though. She's great. I Want to know when you gravitate toward laughter and You you say that performers or you called yourself. I think a failed performer. Yeah, you wanted to do stand-up comedy comic, but I'm a good writer I think and you are a good writer bad monkey has Like it's I sent you a note the other day. It's just the comic, but I'm a good writer, I think. And you are a good writer. Bad Monkey has, like, I sent you a note the other day. It's just the writing is crisp.

The jokes are funny. Writing funny is hard. It's the hardest. I can't write funny. I fancy myself a good writer. It's a place that I have confidence. But I can't write funny. I think it's the hardest kind of writing.

How did your funny arrive? Oh, that's nice. I think there's two types of comedy, and one is pain, and I don't think mine's from pain. I think we all know the sad clown trope, right? And I think the other type of comedy is, I've always been an observer, you know, I love to sit back and watch and listen and soak that stuff in. And I talked a little bit about it today, but the crazy dichotomy between the two sides of my family, between the ultra wealthy, blue blood side, Sarah Lawrence College, and having manners practiced before you went

to Thanksgiving at my dad's parents' house. Put that statue up on the screen again, please. The statue of Bill Lawrence, bald and goofy. Between, you know, butlers and all that, and my mom's side of the family where we'd all, for Christmas, go to Deland, Delightful Deland, and my mom's mom's house was called Little House, and all seven cousins

would sleep on cots in the garage. And living in that world of just comparing and contrasting these people and how batshit they, you would never be able to predict who was the most emotionally healthy, who was the most messed up and Just kind of living in that world. I think shaped me and so I've always been kind of an observer Of such so I would say

In a flattering way. I hope to the people that I steal from I Mostly listen and write things down that I think I just think they're hilarious I was stealing stories from people out there today, and I will put them out there. I was stealing a story from my son that will be on TV, and it just happened in our life, I'll tell you, and we'll see if it actually ends up on the show. My son goes to NYU, my middle son.

Tony knows him because he plays ball. And he is a senior at NYU this year. And all these colleges now, Dan, have year abroad programs in America. It used to be, you know, you could do a year abroad in Paris, you still can't, Paris, London, whatever, but because there's so much unrest in the world, like USC I think has a campus in Chicago and I think UCLA has one in Miami. You know, they bounce around. So my son came home a couple weeks ago

and he said, I got into NYU's year abroad program for my senior year. And we're like, oh cool, where are you going? And he goes, Los Angeles. Which is where we live. And by the way, the whole family now is going, and by the way also he's like, it has nothing to do with my girlfriend

who's beautiful and cool and lives here. I'm like, no, of course not. And so the whole family is just doing the joke right now of, hey, make sure you really immerse yourself in the culture, learn the language, you know? Try the food. Make sure you like really enjoy the real food in LA. But I will, without a doubt,

steal that knuckleheads life outlook and put it in a show and hope he doesn't hate me for it. I'm not going back to university to be your friend. I'm going so I can get Uber One for students. It saves you on Uber and Uber Eats. I'm there for zero dollar delivery fee on cheeseburgers, up to five percent off smoothies and five percent Uber cash back on rides. Just to be clear, I'm there for

savings, not whatever you think university is for. Get Uber One for Students, a membership to save on Uber and Uber Eats. With deals this good, everyone wants to be a student. Join for just $4.99 a month. Savings may vary. Eligibility and member terms apply. How were you changed? I don't know whether you started thinking about mortality differently when you were in a plane crash. Oh man, you've done your work, man. The only thing that it really, really, really made me focus on, and I think it probably wasn't only this, we were talking about this a little.

When I started, I worked too much. I still worked very hard, but on Spin City, I worked, we joked, we worked 45 days in a row, including Saturdays and Sundays, 16 hour days. I would go out and drink too much late night afterwards and had no life. And even on Scrubs, because it was my first show of my own, luckily my daughter was only one. So she doesn't know how absent I was. My daughter was on that crash with me. And the one thing that I remember thinking

was that things can change in an instant. And you can't keep waiting for some other time to take the time for yourself and your family. So even though I grind, if I could give you another lesson, I still I don't care how much work there is to do. I still leave in time to see my son's water polo games. I still show up at my daughter's concerts around the world even if I'm gonna get absolutely crushed business-wise. I still show up for my middle son even if it's just an intramural basketball game in

Brooklyn. I leave work and I didn't have that skill set necessarily until probably soon after that. What are the details of the plane crash? Oh, it was such a shit show man we were it was it was a seaplane Remember those blade things going out to like the Hamptons. Oh high-class problem the only thing I remember out there was so funny my daughter was on it we we took off in the East River and Got a couple hundred feet up in the air and then the engines failed and the thing crashed back in the East River and got a couple hundred feet up in the air and then the engines failed and the thing crashed back in the East River. And you know, one of the pontoons shut off.

So there's one of those water rushing on the plane. You have to get out and get into the East River and the Coast Guard comes and picks you up and stuff. I remember the fear, not for me, but my daughter was way too young. And then I remember being in the water and how quickly my daughter transitioned to fear for her life, to holding her phone out and taking a picture of herself. That's going to make its way into something too, is it not? Yeah, like the idea of-

Oh my God, you guys, Justin, a plane crash. Oh my God, can you guys believe it? And then the thing I remembered afterwards is that we should all take joy in the immortality that all the youthful people around us feel, because I still had to fly out to meet my wife in Montauk the next day. And so the company was very nice.

They sent another plane, but with a helicopter, actually, with two military guys. And I think Mr. Lawrence, I know, probably still apprehensive, but were, you know, as two pilots, I was former Air Force, I was former Army. How are you? I said, I'm okay. I just hope my daughter is okay. He was through the earphones.

And the guy was like, I think your daughter is fine. And she was already asleep with her face against the glass because she had been out the night before telling everybody, I was in a plane crash and I was on the news. And she was on the news. She's more famous than anyone in our family now, and the only reason we still show her that sometimes,

you can look it up, uh, on, uh, Channel 4 news here, it said, Bill Lawrence and his daughter Shirley. BOTH LAUGH Makes me so happy. I went to where it is you guys were doing, uh, some of Bad Monkey, a warehouse in Doral, and when you talk about balance or getting to your kids' things,

when I walked into the place and just sort of saw the size and scope of just staggering amounts of space and things and a lot that had to be done, on your behalf, I became overwhelmed. Because it looked like a sprawling nightmare, far less glamorous than anyone would imagine it to be, because Doral is in the middle of nowhere, this was a giant warehouse, and it seemed like there were,

I'm gonna say, millions of dollars of toys to play with in order to make this thing that you made. And it all seemed overwhelming to me. Well, look, it would have been, but we're talking about family. I don't think I would have done it if I hadn't, well, I would have done it, but I would have made it other people's job to run it,

which would have been bad because I love Carl so much and he's such an icon for me. But just remember, at the end of the day, I got to go home and live in a condo, although Jessica mocked me because I said it was hard living in a condominium and she knew where I was. Well, you were in one of these Russian,

you were in one of these Russian oligarch places. You were telling me it was all 80-year-old men, people with machine guns, and 24-year-old women. That's all. It was just Miami. Everybody lives in a condo with its own restaurant and cold plunge and spa and all that stuff. But I would not have done it had I not... I was living in a condominium with one of my best friends

and my daughter, and then one of my son came out and visited for... both my sons came out at different points to visit, and I'm sure behave horribly in Miami. Had I not been able to create a family environment, which is a luxury at this stage in my life and career to get to do, I probably would not have done so. One of the reasons I'm saying that it seems overwhelming to me is I'll give you an example that Rob Delaney, who is terrific in this and I urge Everyone if certainly how great that book by the way

I mean Carl Hyacin is exceptional like I tell you I admire writing funny because I can't do it and Carl Hyacin I mean I grew up on the Miami Herald So I'm reading the the absurdities every day and they're making me want to write because him and Dave Barry here in Miami were the funniest. Dave Barry wins a Pulitzer Prize. It's pretty good newspaper when Carl Hyacin is your second funniest columnist. Was he respected? He was massively respected. Well, I mean, among other things, he called the publisher of our

newspaper in print all the time, his boss, our boss, publisher loco, because he was just, Carl Hyacin was fearless. He went after everybody. our newspaper in print all the time, his boss, our boss, publisher loco, because he was just, Carl Heisen was fearless. He went after everybody. He was enraged by greed and corporate corruption and the things that have ruined Florida because, yeah, still, and turned it all into funny, turned it into something amazing.

But in, so the characters in Bad Monkey are wildly authentic to what it is that Carl Hyacin wrote up, dreamt up in his imagination. And you did an extraordinary job. He must be proud. Hollywood has burned him a couple of times where his books become really shitty movies. And so he has to be thrilled with this

because it honors him. Even if he doesn't like the plot points, it's obvious that your characters are taking, you've taken great care in making sure Carl will like them. Yeah. Like, as- I worship the guy, man. How lucky are you when an icon for you as a kid not knowing if you could do this turns out to be as cool as you would hope you would be in real life, right?

I mean for me there's a direct line between Carl's surreal satire and the stuff I did on scrubs and stuff I did a lot of you know use a huge influence for me and I said this once before it's How weird is it to go to somebody that wrote one of some of your favorite books and go? Hey, I love this book. Can I put like six chapters in the middle? It's so insane. And that he let me do it. It's probably the first time I felt pressure

in my career in over a decade, because we said, I don't give a shit if things succeed or fail. But if I had let, I didn't care if this succeeded or failed, but if he thought it was crap, I would have been devastated. And he's been really happy.

It's been a career highlight for me our relationship. But to make it great has all sorts of obstacles like this one when I tell you that I find all of this overwhelming as someone who's running a company and of course Apple has all the money in the world and you had such success with Ted Lasso that I can't even imagine what the budgets were on this sort of thing but I remember talking to Rob Delaney who plays a character and I don't wanna spoil Bad Monkey if you haven't looked at it, but there is something that happens to that character

that you guys evidently had not accounted for how expensive it would be in order to make sure that that looked right on camera. So how much did, just give me, this one problem cost how much that you had not accounted for? In the millions, over a million dollars. The one problem. One issue, yeah.

So you've got a budget, and you've gotta meet that budget, correct, you're not allowed to just do whatever you want, right, and now you've lost a million dollars. A million dollars, which is, no matter how you slice it, it's a million dollars. It's crazy. A mistake, an oversight. Yeah. That becomes a million dollar oversight.

Yeah, we just had not, we just, it's hard to talk about without it being spoilers. We just had not predicted how hard it would be in modern times when you, by the way, hey, AI, can you fix this? No. You know, it's still, it's nightmare fuel, yeah. That's where I get overwhelmed is what I'm saying. Like those kinds of things would get in the way of joy.

I brush it off at this point, man. I've had too many, I think the one thing I can tell you is you become an inured to it as it happens over and over and over. And you must realize by now that there's no adventure with your show, with any of the other shows that you're doing, any of the ancillary material without just disasters and stress along the way.

It's inevitable. And so once you accept that it's inevitable, it's just another thing. I mean, just keep sitting around going, there's definitely a Shangri-La version of this where there's no speed bumps. Well, that's the crazy, you know? For me, I'm just like, hey, what's it gonna be?

And in this one, it was Rob's arm. Don't worry about it. Spoiler alert. You have learned so much. I'm only interrupting. Please read Rob's book if you're interested in any of the things that Dan and I are talking about as well. It's so good.

I helped him edit it. He was nice. Did you really? He was nice enough to let me take a crack at it. And it's a beautiful book. It's a really, really beautiful book about the worst kind of loss, the loss of a child and, but this perspective that he got after that. So he makes this great show, Catastrophe. It's exceptional. He's doing it and he's consumed by it. And it

represents great success for him and the arrival of great success and all the things that he wants. And it's a hard journey for him from where he came from with it. I mean he's very open about it with addiction. Yeah addiction and a drunk driving accident, but also as the catastrophe makes it over in Britain and he's watching a bus go by with his face on it, this is the arrival of success, and his wife tells him some form of, you're kind of a shitty husband, you're never around,

you're always working, you've arrived at success, but that's not success, and he changes his entire life. That dude will not work unless he can bring his family or go for two days and make sure to get back to his family. I will tell you lovingly that it was a nightmare to work with Rob. I wanted him to do this show, but we had to go, hey, I can only be here for these five weeks. I can't be here for the first three shows.

I can't do this. I have to go home to my family this. And I think it only worked, I have to go home to my family this, and I think it only worked because I had the perspective with age that we've been talking about that like, oh man, I love that the guy is prioritizing that. So we jumped through the hoops. But you've learned so much. We had Ron Funches on recently. I don't know where you learned some of this stuff, but he told us that you just paid for a year of his physical training because you saw him in the gym all the time and he wasn't losing weight. Like, and so...

He had a boy, you know, Malcolm, and I don't want to talk about it. It sounds too self-aggrandizing. Wait a minute. He volunteered it a couple of weeks ago. I didn't even ask him about it. He volunteered it as an act of grace from you, and I'm asking you about it. He's a great father,

and I felt that he seemed unhealthy unhealthy and I kept thinking about how sad I would be if he was not around because he was very unhealthy and if he was not around for his son who he loved very much and so what a cool easy thing to do to say, hey, there's this guy in my life that's made a lot of people really healthy. Why don't you just go do it? It will cost you nothing. And it, um, I did it selfishly because it made me very happy. When I ask you about the things that you've learned, because I'm sort of

floored by the wisdom you have in a lot of different places. And I will tell the story that early on. And when we were doing this, uh, I called and asked you for some help. early on and when we were doing this, I called and asked you for some help and we got on a zoom with I think it was Jessica, Billy, Roy, and I think I have everybody that was on the call or maybe it was four. And the amount of wisdom that came out of your mouth in one hour about how to run a writer's room, how to be a leader, how to successfully create art. I thought as I was listening to it, good God, I wish I was having a place

where this could be a Ted's talk so that people could hear how to do this, because everything was brilliant and it was like these cubes of things that I'd never considered that you've already learned. And you told me that you had only done it for one other show ever. That you had only done it for one other show ever that

you had only done it for the Howard Stern show and I did not I did not know why you were doing it and I certainly didn't understand how you were doing it because I've been around creators for a long time and I didn't know whether you know the amount of wisdom that you have in this realm? I don't. The thing I know is, it's very hard to decide what really matters to you unless you're like really in some weird retrospective stage of your life and looking back on who you are.

But I realized very young that mentorship mattered to me. And Hollywood does not have a lot of mentorship generally. It's a cutthroat business but I will say that I was mentored by a guy named Gary David Goldberg who created Family Ties and Brooklyn Bridge and we created Spin City together and he taught me how it works how Hollywood works how to run a writers writer's room, how to edit, how to deal with people. And he did not have to. And you could argue that, you know,

he did it for the reason that he was able to still live in LA while I ran Spin City, but he still did it. And so the reason is I've been so affected by that. I think Hollywood gets a bad rap. I think sports sometimes gets a bad rap. I think sports journalism, what you're doing, podcasting, all gets, you know, the bad figures in this stuff are bigger than life.

And it's because it's public and we all, we all know them. You and Mike Schur have told me of a writer's room and I don't know which ones you've run in your life, if it changed over time or how you learn this, but there's the cruel competitive one that gets results because everyone's trying to outdo each other. And then there's the other one that is kinder, and does it get the same results? Yeah. I mean, I've been in both. I'm trying to have empathy.

That's a weird sentence. I'm trying to have empathy. Everyone should have empathy. And I think empathy is only something that you can try to do, because it's not actually feeling what another feels, you're just trying to. Well, here's a good example. So some TV shows do not let comics and comedians riff. They will say, do the line exactly as written

and don't you dare change a word. And that's Aaron Sorkin's reputation, right? He's got the worst reputation, not to get you to rip him, he's famous for don't change a syllable of what I've written. Right, now here's what's interesting. I used to judge that, and because my shows are, hey, now do one for you,

make something up Vince, make something up Neil Flynn, make something up Sarah Chalk, you know, and then if it's better, I'll put it in, and then I realized if you were an actor and you went to do Romeo and Juliet, you know, and then if it's better, I'll put it in. And then I realized if you were an actor and you went to do Romeo and Juliet, you know, at the Lincoln Center, and you're like, hey, tonight's show, I'm just gonna riff a little,

they would fire you immediately, right? So I'm really, really, I think I'm trying to understand both sides. So the point is, there's things to learn from a boss that says, we're doing this, we're not here to have fun. It's a competition, the winner gets more money, the loser gets less, and guess what? There's shareholders in this company

and there's 110 other crew members that aren't in this writer's room. And if it's good, this works for me, it's gonna kick ass and those people are all gonna have great lives and make great money. I have to empathize if that works for those people and if people fall in that system, as long as it's not toxic, I think it's okay.

It's not for me. I enjoy, that also has a downside, the familial relationship that kindness in a writer's room brings, where people feel protected and not, you could say, what's the negative? No one thinks they're gonna get fired. You know? Well, that's what I have.

Sometimes a driving force, right? Well, I don't know. I would say that our place would suffer from the affliction. In fact, I'll say it this way. I would love for Dominique Foxworth to be working with me every day and to be doing the equivalent of running my company and I'd just run with him wherever he took us. And he will not because he comes from athletics

and he's like, Dan, you won't fire anybody. I'm not doing that. Like you will not fire anybody. And it causes a good amount of problems to have a comfort in your environment that no one actually fears being, no one would have reason to fear being fired. The meanest thing that was funny

that one of the writers said to me on, when Scrubs was some show that failed, ground floor, he said the only way to get fired by Bill is to steal money from him, and even then it won't happen right away. Mm-hmm. You know, and... Stugatsa's been doing it for 20 years.

And a hard cut. Thank you, everybody, for being with us. I love Bill Lawrence, admire him for many different reasons, and I hope we have you back. And I'm going to lean on you a little bit on the path toward joy. I need to do some learning from you I think it's a happy life out there you you've been galloping towards something

You you tell great stories that we didn't get to this time about Harrison Ford drinking you under a table at 81 years old Drink you and your wife under the table I wish to follow wherever it is where the same age and I hope to get to some of the same Joyful places you have arrived at I am confident when I say that you're on the path And I always divide people up in my head. This is for real into two categories People that will always keep themselves from being happy and people that happiness is within their grasp and I definitely See you in the latter not the former. Thank you sir you have been a part of bringing that happiness to many and to our show for a long time now. Bad Monkey is excellent and especially excellent if you're a Carl Hyacin fan

because he really did a wonderful job of honoring one of his heroes the care shows and what it is that you guys made That means the world to me. You don't have to watch the show go read some of his books. They're awesome. Thank you, sir. Thank you, buddy Alright guys, the NFL season is finally here and I like to play a little game called Old Face New Place. This happens in the first couple weeks of the NFL where you're like, oh, that linebackers with Seattle? Huh? A lot of change happens in the NFL year over year, season over season. But one thing that hasn't changed, the great taste of Miller Lite.

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