The Delta Flyers - Mike McMahan

Starting point is 00:00:00 All right, everyone, welcome to another episode of the Delta Flyers, and this week's special guest is none other than Mike McMahon. He's the showrunner for the animated version of the franchise show that we all know about the whole reason why the Delta Flyers exists. And so thank you, Mike. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. I'm excited.

Starting point is 00:00:30 I can't believe in delter flyers. I know. Yes. Yeah. You've made it. You've finally made it to the top. You guys made it back from the delt, from things I can't talk about. Right.

Starting point is 00:00:41 I'm getting on the podcast. This is exciting. Okay. So we kind of want to talk about your formative years. And to be perfectly honest, Wikipedia has the smallest little section about your before. And all it says is McMahon, a native of Chicago, first worked in production as an assistant at Second City. From there, he was hired by Scott Rudin Productions as a production assistant.

Starting point is 00:01:03 That's it. So, can you take it? Were you born in Chicago? Are you always a bit less guy? Okay. I was born in Chicago. Island Park? Like, where in downtown area?

Starting point is 00:01:12 I actually grew up on Astoran Division, which is just like two blocks away from the lake. Wow. And when you see like a skyline shot of Chicago, that's where I live, you know. Oh, my God. Little city kid. And you went to private school, public school? Mostly a private school called the Latin School of Chicago. and then I went to Canyon College in Ohio.

Starting point is 00:01:32 Oh, wow. Great school. What was your major in Canyon College? Drama. I tried to be an English major, but I'm not a good enough writer. And those guys, I guess, end up writing a theater. So that's where I went and loved it. It was a much better fit for me.

Starting point is 00:01:47 To talk about Kenyon for a second, Kenyon is, like, world-renowned for liberal arts and particularly like literature and philosophy and social thought and you know it's it's a really amazing small school but incredible super small yeah super small school that's amazing what drew you like just because we're talking about creativity and kind of what inspires this like how did you end up choosing and that's very competitive by the way the fact that you got into kenyon it's not easy I'd written a play in high school. I had a great drama teacher who, you know, saw that I was writing at home.

Starting point is 00:02:30 Like, I was one of those kids who didn't do great at the, at writing essays in English class, but I was going home and writing creative stuff on my own all the time. Not great stuff, but I was driven to, like, to figure it out. You know what I mean? And so I had a drama teacher, Anne Hardigan, who, uh, who, when I was a senior, was like, why don't you write a play? I'll help you learn the format of it. And it was the first thing I'd ever, a play I'd ever written.

Starting point is 00:03:00 And then the senior directing class, somebody will direct it. And the senior acting class will perform in it. And it was the first time we had done that. And I think they either did it for years after or might still be doing it. But like, it really was the most amazing crash course in collaboration across all of these different all of these different parts of the medium you know actually knowing the actors and like the the play being created and not just picked from from you know a a bookshelf like and adapted like it was really interesting and going into college like I still thought I wanted

Starting point is 00:03:42 to write I find this with a lot of writers and it's been true for me too that like I was like oh I want to write I'm going to write books you know and then but then I was like but I was like but I love writing, like writing books is hard and I want to do it. But it's very easy for me and I love writing sketch comedy and plays. And then as you're growing up, you're like, hey, stupid. Like, if that's what you love to do, because people get in your head and they tell you what you're supposed to want. And then slowly over time, you're like, what about that thing you like? What if you can do that? Like, why not do that? You know, and that's what I learned in theater at Kenyon college and uh theater is amazing there like in a beautiful theater uh paul newman went there and

Starting point is 00:04:23 and you know a lot of his legacy was helping them get set up and um alison janey went there i i've gotten to hang with her a little bit in town uh you're talking about paul newman and immediately you know how he has all those food items the paul newman you know uh spaghetti sauce and it's always says all these proceeds go to charity i go what if the charity is just canyon college maybe that's where all the most kids go to. They wish. Yeah, they wish. They wish, right?

Starting point is 00:04:50 Okay. Continue what you were saying about Canyon. Go ahead. So it's, and it's Kenyan. K-E-N-Y-O-W. Kenyon, excuse me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's okay.

Starting point is 00:04:57 It's like 2,000 kids, all grades combined. Like, it's really small. Yeah. Very progressive, very unconventional school. Reminds me about Bennington. The education I got there was great because, you know, you're not siloed into one part. Like, I was taking Humanities,

Starting point is 00:05:15 classes and anthropology classes and all of these all of these different science classes and like like I was really building kind of a general like general knowledge of all these things that even though they weren't my focus like I'm really glad that that I had that and it wasn't just sort of sitting and finding my voice because like as a writer I've been finding my voice ever since you can do that for the rest of your life but like when you're in college or in high school like utilizing even if you want to be funny or if you want to write or you want to tell stories the more your experience and the more educated you are, like the more of that stuff that you can add to yourself,

Starting point is 00:05:53 the more interesting your voices when you're writing anyway. You know, so like the more jobs you can do, the more people you meet, the more places you go. I had a lot of great opportunities and I luckily wasn't stupid enough to squander them at that time because I look back and I'm like, I could have been high and drunk and just playing video games,

Starting point is 00:06:09 which I did as well. You know what I mean? But like I think that, you know, the structure of Kenyon really expanded me into classes that I wouldn't have thought of taking and that I really like have really stuck with me. Yeah. Can I go back a little bit? I know we're talking Kenyon right now. Can I go back a little bit? That high school teacher when she told you, I think you should write a play. You were a junior, sophomore, freshman. I was a senior at that point. You were senior also. Okay. But I had been like working with her on a bunch of right.

Starting point is 00:06:37 Like I had been acting for a really long time in high school and I didn't know. It's very rare to find any non any writing opportunities in high school for stage or screen you know what i mean it's not a lot of people that want to learn it and it's not a lot of people who know how to teach it exactly um especially in chicago like there's some schools i'm sure have like you probably go to harvard west like here probably has the most amazing uh right yeah yeah it's like broadway broad yeah yeah exactly like you know it it was a weird that like the first thing you get told in drama class in Chicago is this is a thing to understand

Starting point is 00:07:19 yourself and these characters and to enjoy doing more, but don't think this is going to be a career. Really? You're very much warned. You're like, this is a part of your education. But we really have to warn you that like it is very unlikely

Starting point is 00:07:36 that you can make a career out of this. So like don't be doing it for the wrong reasons, you know? Okay. It's funny that you say that, Mike, because my mentor in high school, her name was Linda Wise. She was so inspiring to me, an amazing drama teacher. She taught at a state level. She taught in high school. She taught the summer governor's honors program.

Starting point is 00:08:01 She directed incredible productions and was inspired so many people. But same thing. She would tell everybody, like, this is not a career. This is a life-enhancing. life-enriching, you know, exploration that's going to benefit your real career, but this is not a career. And I remember having a conversation with her where she said, there's only been a few people. She said to me, I remember, there's only been a few people that I've taught. And she taught Holly Hunter. She's taught a lot of very people that went on to succeed and do very well. She said, you know,

Starting point is 00:08:37 there's not a lot of people that I think could succeed at this. I think you could. But I still recommend you not pursue this as a career she said only if there's absolutely nothing else that you could ever be happy at if this is the only thing you could ever be happy doing yeah then give it a try she was really cautious it sounds like kind of like you know your kenyan teachers we've all experienced how brutal this stuff can be you know what i mean and like there really has to be you do have to find happiness in it even if you the failures of it you know like and i think that i think that it's really smart to tell because you can get completely obsessed with it like i you know it's smart to tell kids and and give them a

Starting point is 00:09:27 real expectation of it because like you haven't learned to not be optimistic yet when you're a kid you know but this is one of those industries where like it is it is really hard unless you're ready for a really long time of not getting to be able to do what you want to do. Like you have to put in an inordinate amount of it. And you also, there is a luck factor to it where you have to hope that the thing you want to do and the chances that you want to take and the people that you've built trust with that when the opportunity arises that you can strike it. And it's like, you can't control that. And as a teacher, it's like there's a lot of things in life that you can control that can bring joy.

Starting point is 00:10:11 Like, why subject yourself? Like, you guys, you know, you're talking to Mike McMahon as a teacher. I'm not going to be on screen. You know what I mean? Like, look at that Wikipedia of me. I look like a thumb that wished it was a real boy. You know what I mean? It's my place in the industry.

Starting point is 00:10:29 My place in the industry was going to be making people laugh behind the scenes. And, like, another thing I learned at Kenyon in just doing sketch comedy was like, gosh, I love putting together a show. Like, I love writing it. but I also love casting it and directing it and finding everybody in the nitty gritty of it and even down to like, it's all the producer stuff we all end up learning that like we all have to wear these different hats

Starting point is 00:10:50 and it's like, now I'm in this part of my career where I do 10% writing and 90% producing. You know what I mean? And it's it's something you don't, you can't teach that because it changes every year. You know what I mean? Like, you know, when I first moved to L.A., it was like, go to the back of variety

Starting point is 00:11:08 to see what productions are going to be starting. And I think that advice advice anymore, you know. And so as things changed, I think the most important thing you can learn early on, no matter what is, are you making something that's cool and that you like, and then other people will like it? Like, are you making something that do you believe in these characters? Is this worth doing to yourself? You know, because Kenyon was great, but it had no TV or film department when I was there. You know, all this stuff, like you can learn that stuff over time through trial and error and through trying. And the hard thing to learn,

Starting point is 00:11:41 is your own taste what you like to write like why you do it like you know what makes it worth it and then that leads to producing too like every conversation I have they'll be like what's the right thing to do here

Starting point is 00:11:53 and I'm like I don't know but this is the thing that makes the show the best so let's see if we can do that you know what I mean and then you go from there so yeah I I'm really glad that I got that kind of warning at the very beginning too

Starting point is 00:12:06 yeah it's also when I couldn't get there fast enough yeah it's also interesting like in my life having seen, having done work as an actor, as a director, as a producer, as a writer, to see the differences of those jobs. Like as an actor, I remember someone saying to me early in my career, they said, you know what is the worst part of being an actor is your credits don't really accrue. You have to go back every time and win the job, almost like you've done nothing.

Starting point is 00:12:38 the credits don't really add up maybe for some super famous celebrities who are super rare like that's that's like a dot off of the yeah yeah yeah so the acting i feel like and i felt like this when we finished our sci-fi show 25 30 years ago yeah garret is that i felt like oh wow i'm starting over again like this has been a fun seven years but now i'm back to sitting in the waiting room with all the other guys that i recognize you all their faces, and they're doing the same thing. It's the same. I tell young writers, when they're going into pitch, you're pitching yourself, right? Like, nobody's ever bought a pitch because, wow, that guy had it all figured out. Right.

Starting point is 00:13:23 Because they're like, wow, that made me feel good. That made me laugh. I want to see what working with this person, where that goes. And with writing, you can build up that credibility. Yes, you can. I was going to say, it's a little different for writers and a little different for directors. too. Yeah, and producers. But the acting thing is a weird on its own in my experience. Was anyone in your family, Mike, in the industry, your mother, father, any uncles, nobody

Starting point is 00:13:50 did anything in Hollywood or anything like that. Okay. So my grandfather was an American Airlines mechanic in Boston. Wow. My mom was a history teacher in Glen Ellen, Illinois. My dad was a industrial litigator and constitutional specialist and a partner at a law firm in downtown Chicago. But now my sister, my kid's sister, works in costuming and we're both out here. I love it. Wow. Like growing up, like I think we may have gotten some of my dad's smarts and a lot of my mom's deviousness. You know what I mean? Nice combination. Yeah. And like we both like our whole family loved watching stuff together, you know, that really brought us all together. And I think, I think that drew us to wanting to make the stuff that we all love. You know what I mean?

Starting point is 00:14:43 Like that's, that was the bridge for that. And then I think like, you know, being a nerdier guy, all of my nerdy pals, like back in like the 90s and the 80s, like finding the buried treasure of like a VHS of the thing, you know, back when it was harder to find stuff a little bit. And like having these like, oh, I want to do. I want to make something like that that somebody finds, you know? I don't think any of us get into this to make something that has mass appeal.

Starting point is 00:15:10 It's like something that makes 15 people you like love it. And then, oh, you accidentally made something that a lot of people like. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's funny when you mentioned, you know, Blockbuster looking at videos and stuff, sidebar.

Starting point is 00:15:24 But I just saw some guy had taken his basement and recreated a Blockbuster. Did you see it? Yeah. I haven't been there. Oh, genius. I know, but you know, let's go one step further to the pre-blockbuster, the places that, like, sell alcohol and rent a couple, you know, movies.

Starting point is 00:15:44 Love those places. That's where you found the best, where you're like, you're a little kid and you're like, if I see the cover of that one movie, I'm having a nightmare, the one coming out of the toilet. You know what I'm talking about. Oh, yeah. It's not chug. Goolies.

Starting point is 00:15:57 But, yeah, that feeling of, like, discovery, like, now everything is available for the most part, like everywhere, but all of us making stuff, we still want to make the thing where you're like, ooh, this is weird. This feels like it's for me. Like, this is cool. Yeah. So what, when did the acting bug hit you? Like middle school, grade school? Like, what was the first play that you did? I was a middle schooler that was brought in to the upper school production of once upon a mattress as kid who carries mattress. And off stage, I was the right height for older kids carrying a mattress to bean me right in the face with a mattress by not seeing me because I was shorter. And I remember just getting like almost blacking out being bean so hard at a mattress

Starting point is 00:16:41 being rushed off stage that I was like, I really like this. This is the thing. This is great. This is happening in a school. Like I love this. Like, um, and then I, uh, I'm a big handbone. Like I, we would do, uh, school assemblies. And if you had something you needed to announce about like, you know, hey, you know, we're doing like a charity event or like, oh, we're doing like a fire drill this week or whatever, like students could line up and like address the whole school at assembly. And I would get up there with nothing to say and just get up and be like, hey, everybody, I just wanted to say, I think we're going to have a great week. And like, this is me talking to like the entire student body and the teachers are like all tensing up being like,

Starting point is 00:17:23 the fuck is he going to say. But like, I just liked being in front of a big crowd of people. and I never got in trouble for it, which in hindsight is probably a bad thing. Did you ever think about doing stand-up? I tried stand-up once. You've got to be like a poet. You know what I mean? It's hard. It's the hard is hard.

Starting point is 00:17:38 It's terrifying to me. I can't imagine doing it. You have to have such ego armor too. Like you have to have like, you have to have somehow no ego and the highest ego simultaneously. But yeah, I tried it once and like just truly was like, wow, that was a good thing to try once. Because now I know for sure if I ever do that again, it's because I'm in hell. and I'm dead. But then I actually,

Starting point is 00:18:02 I used to want to do on-screen stuff, and when I moved to L.A., I found out really fast that I couldn't do things that I had to depend on other people at first, at first. Because, like, you move out here from Chicago or Ohio,

Starting point is 00:18:17 and you're like, whoa, all of the funny weirdos are out here. All of the people that wanted to do you out here. This is awesome. Finally, Nobody's going to be weirded out that you're like, I want to make this stupid thing, you know. But then starting to make stupid stuff,

Starting point is 00:18:35 I realized like a lot of people have different definitions of what they want to do or they're not available or suddenly you're waiting on somebody to edit something for a month and a half and like they just never get around to it. And I realized like the only thing I have control over is what's on a page. You know? So I just stopped making it's the obvious. of what I tell kids to do now because like we didn't have iPhones or YouTube when I first remember down here by a couple years. I missed it by like one or two years. And now I tell people

Starting point is 00:19:04 produce stuff all the time. You know what I mean? Like even if it's rough, if your spirits in it, people are going to see it. But like I didn't have access to those kind of tools. So I just fully drilled into the page because that's what I had control over. And I'm really glad I did because it meant every day I was going home and writing the stupidest shit and slowly it became not the stupidest shit. Got it. Slowly, it became the shit is what it was here. It was not the shit spectrum,

Starting point is 00:19:35 but it wasn't at the bottom of it anymore. When you said, okay, I'm not going to depend on people, I'm going to focus on this writing. Did you have a routine? Like, how much would you write every day? I would at least write an hour every day when I came home.

Starting point is 00:19:47 And I still have, my rule was, there was one day where like, I used to be like, and I think a lot of people make this problem, or make this problem for themselves is it used to be like all right what's on the market what do people like i got to make something that's that proves i can do this and that was a big mistake because if you're reading stuff that's been produced it's gone through 100 drafts it's gone

Starting point is 00:20:11 through an edit it's been like the thing you're reading isn't what was read that made somebody go oh we should pay this guy to make this right you know what and so i i i was smart enough in my like 20s to put that together and I was an assistant at a 20th television that makes in the animation department. I asked one of the assistants in comedy development, not animation. I said, hey, can I, do you have any scripts that made you want to meet with people but then never got made and weren't fixed up? Like we're just the first thing you got. And he was like, yeah, yeah. And he gave me 12 scripts and I went home and I started reading through these totally full of spelling error. like raw pieces of work than had been submitted

Starting point is 00:20:58 but had never gone through a copy edit, never had had assistant or like a script supervisor like fixed up, hadn't been filmed. And three scripts in, I stopped and was like literally sat back in my chair and said, holy shit,

Starting point is 00:21:14 I've been doing this wrong. These are all short, really funny, character driven and a total mess. All the work. I'd been putting into to making it right was a complete waste of time. And then I started changing, I was like, you know what, if it has to be effortless and if my problem is you can see my effort on the page, then I needed to create a system of

Starting point is 00:21:41 coming home and I would start a new pilot every day. And I would just see how far I could get into it. And it resulted in a folder of hundreds of bad unfinished ideas. But also a couple finished effortless feeling funny and fun things that I otherwise never would have would have come across. That's great. And I still do this thing where you know how L.A. gets snarled by traffic during the marathon? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:22:13 So I used to live right in the middle of that. And my girlfriend at the time now wife would be like, well, we're not going out today because we just sit in the car. You know what I mean? And I decided that on marathon days, this is going to tell you something about my health, gentlemen, on marathon days, instead of training to run in the marathon, which would have been healthier, I decided that I was going to marathon write a pilot every marathon day. Oh, my God. And so I would sit down and I wouldn't let myself get up to go to the bathroom or to drink or anything. I would marathon writing.

Starting point is 00:22:50 Wow. And I would have these marathon scripts that were. were finished. And then I'd give them to my manager, who I was hip-pocketed with at the time. Yeah. And some of them worked, you know. Wow. I love that. Marathon a script. That you should write a book. Well, I wish, but the Kenyan guys told me not to. The, uh, marathoning a script, you know what happens is, you get to a point where you have to pee so bad, but you can't until the script is over. Yeah. You start the seconds. Just putting anything on the page. Just go. You're like the scene naturally ends. You're fucking out of it. You're not.

Starting point is 00:23:23 overwriting anything anymore because you're like I need to get out of this and what you end up with is you sit down and like I started getting notes for my manager at the time being like I love this I just wish it was two pages longer that's no you could possibly get right yes and it was like once you remove all that stuff yeah all you're left with is the good idea you know I also tell because this is a note I would ask for is whatever script you write, it doesn't matter if the last act is the best thing ever written. People, if people have stopped before, if you've lost somebody before then, it doesn't matter. They'll never get there. Yeah. The only note I ask for people when I send something out now, if it's brand new, is what page and what line did you wish you could

Starting point is 00:24:15 have stopped reading this and why? And then if I get that note and I erase that like that problem, them, you know, if they're like, I'm confused or I didn't think enough what's happening here or whatever, I solve that. And then the next note I get is five pages later. And then finally, you just hand somebody the thing and they're like, I don't have any notes that that was cool. You know what I mean? Like, you don't need deeper notes than that. You just need a first audience, you know? Wow. So when you were doing your marathon pilot adventure and and writing an hour a day, every day coming home where would you get your ideas like where is there kind of a way that you found in that repeated sort of practice that you go okay i like to start my template was usually i like to start

Starting point is 00:25:03 with a first scene that's confusing and then you slowly start understanding as it's going so i would purpose and it's probably a symptom of starting of writing something every day and needing something new so like like i would just start writing a scene where there was some sort of conflict or interesting thing happening. And then the next scene, I wouldn't know what it was because I wasn't doing a marathon outlining, you know? Right, right. I was doing a merit because, like, I was never going to get a job with best outline.

Starting point is 00:25:28 I found, like, I was, the way I write is like, we can make this smart later. Let's make it awesome now, at least, you know, a little different when you actually have a show show sold. But so, for instance, like, I remember sitting down and I've never come up with a thing that this is, but it's, you're in the woods and a car comes screeching up. And a mom and two kids come running into the woods, start digging a hole really quick, put car keys in it, cover up the hole, and then go running back to the street. And then a guy on a bike comes up, huffing and puffing, jumps off the bike and goes, where are the keys? They go, we don't know, we don't know, we don't know.

Starting point is 00:26:05 And that's the opening, then the opening credit start. You know what I mean? And I was like, I don't know what the fuck that means, but I'm in for the next scene. You're watching that scene. Yeah. and so that was one way of doing it was you know and then other times I would have ideas like I had written a like like I love 90s sci-fi writers and the whole like world of like you know oh somebody somebody wrote this but then eventually got old and passed away and then this guy's writing sequels now and do we like the new ones or not like all of that stuff and yeah I'd been reading Game of Thrones at the time and I wrote a script about uh George R. Martin's family keeping him alive in a sitcom form at so he can finish the last book. And it was, you know, it was like home improvement, but instead of Tim Allen building a car,

Starting point is 00:26:53 it was, you know, George R. Martin trying to go out and have fun, but his family, like, demanding he'd be healthy and, like, work out, you know. So he could make it to the end. And the nice thing about doing a new thing every day is nothing has to be good. It just has to be done, you know? Yeah. And then your definition of what's good doesn't matter anymore because we're all wrong and it changes every day.

Starting point is 00:27:12 Yeah. Yeah. To put things more into context, how many years difference between you and your younger sister are there? Three years. Okay. I was born in 81. Okay. What years you're graduating high school year? You graduated in 2000. Okay. So your sister's 84. Is that right? Okay. So, all right. Eighty-four. You are year of the rooster. Your sister is year of the rat, actually. Yes. Oh, I knew that. Yeah. And then when you went to, so right after you graduated high school, you went right to kindergarten. Kenyon immediately? Correct? Okay. When you graduated or did you graduate Kenyon? Did you graduate? I graduated and then I went back to Chicago for a year and... Second City happened then?

Starting point is 00:27:52 Second City and I wasn't on stage. I was just in the theater. I was like setting up seats, cleaning up, drinking and getting high with the cast, like I was part of the crew. No workshops or anything with those guys at all. Okay. Second City was really competitive and I thought I was going to be writing action movies. I still didn't know that I was a comedy writer then. you know got it got it yeah i suspected it but like and i didn't know about i'd never the first time i wrote tv was after i'd worked in the industry for four years and read enough tv there was nothing i i never learned before that it was all action features you were going to be the i wanted to do like big funny action movies and like you know yeah like richard donner like you know

Starting point is 00:28:36 Like funny characters in big situations. You know, like, you know, sort of like what we think of as like Marvel characters now. You know what I mean? And then like I interned at Scott Ruden and I was like, I don't want to make movies. This is crazy. Like I love those movies. Well. I was like, wow.

Starting point is 00:28:53 This is, I mean, who knew that I was in the most intense? Because Scott Rune is legendarily bonkers. He's the biggest hothead in Hollywood, right? Yes. Is it not anymore, baby. No, yeah. but then I ended up working in TV and seeing

Starting point is 00:29:11 like showrunners get to make so many decisions and it really comes down to them whether it's you know what I mean like it's different movies where where it's all the director and the producers to some extent and I lied and said I went to Northwestern on my resume because they were looking for

Starting point is 00:29:25 PAs who went to Northwestern and I knew I could lie enough about it from being in Chicago and I got a job as a PA on this show on Comedy Central I had a blast there and then that got canceled and the business affairs department was also the same one that would do the work for South Park. They needed a PA. So then I was, I went over and got a job for like two years.

Starting point is 00:29:47 Like I was a PA there. That was a blast. I bet that was amazing. Made lifelong friends just wild. Like production is insane there. Working there felt like working on a boat that was like just moving and couldn't stop. and like you're like doing the rigging and just like running and staying all night

Starting point is 00:30:08 and it was quite no other production I actually loved being there but I'm really glad I got out because you learn how to make that show and no other you know it really came down to Trey Parker a lot like the writer's room would be coming up with stuff and then suddenly he was like it would just

Starting point is 00:30:22 they would get it and he would go and write it you know and I've never been I've never seen a place do it like that where the show runner and show creator has technically written every episode of the show. Right. Instead of like doing, you know, like when we launched somebody to draft, like, we'll

Starting point is 00:30:42 have gone through and like gone through the outline a hundred times and then like have the master million questions and like sending a writer out to write an episode to me is armoring them with answers to everything so that then they can write their version of it the best, knowing that they don't have to figure it all out. like instead they just get to how to express it and write the dialogue in a way that like pops the most instead of always being like oh wait what detail is going to be this like nobody gets into it because and if they want to if they're inspired they can change stuff but like you know you always want somebody to go off and feel like their job is to do the best version of something that has been figured out you know what I mean and then it comes in and if it has to change or whatever like then I can do a pass on it and we can we can shore it up and make it sound like like like all these different people working on stuff, I can make it sound like the show at the very end, you know? But it's wild they skip that step and it goes right to Trey doing it.

Starting point is 00:31:42 Trey and Matt didn't have the word delegation in their dictionary. Like they just did it on their own. Yeah, but you bring up a, I think, an important creative point for talking to a writer on this podcast. And that is the idea of a voice of a show. Shows have a voice. Like the creator of a show has a voice. and the writing staff will try to imitate that voice.

Starting point is 00:32:07 They'll try to, you know, they'll try. But how successful do you think that that is, in your opinion? Like for a beginning writer, medium experience and lots of experience, do they find capturing that voice better than others? Or how does that work for you? It's the ultimate question. It depends on the show. It depends on the team.

Starting point is 00:32:31 It depends on the experience. has like you know for me I really lucked out so like I really looked out going into Rick and Morty because in at the very beginning of Rick and Morty they made the pilot and they got a pickup and they needed to write two additional scripts so they had you know they had known me from being an assistant at 20th in animation and so they were like hey we need a writer's assistant it's the two show creators and one writer and you and we're going to figure out So it was us for like three months and like Harmon had been like kind of on hiatus from community and this was like a silly thing he was doing on the side.

Starting point is 00:33:12 But I mean, you guys can clearly tell like I love sci-fi and I love comedy. And Rick and Morty just spoke to me in a way that a show hadn't since Futurama. You know what I mean? Like it was it was so up my alley. And I went into it just happy to be. part of it at all like being in part of the writing process at all as an assistant was going from being the assistant to an executive versus the assistant to a writer is so different yeah and i was just so excited to be there and like very occasionally if if they were really up against the wall on something

Starting point is 00:33:48 pitching an idea that like that ungummed it and they could keep going like never taking over but just trying to be trying to assist in a way even creatively very very occasionally but not not trying to step on anything and that show just happened to be a really good fit for me and harmon is one of those writers who really wants to help other writers you know and so by the end of the first season he gave me a script to write and then he liked that script enough because i had mashed his voice enough from having worked with him for so long and because i'm just i love sci-fi comedy that i got up to writer full writer the next season and i got to hire the writer's assistant the season after that I became a producer and hired the writer's assistant.

Starting point is 00:34:32 I hired to be a writer. Then I became showrunner. So now we're like, we went from writer's assistant to showrunner in four years. Wow. And I sold Lower Dax and Solar Opposites. Yeah. And I wanted to do that. And the guys I hired to be writer's assistants are now producers, executive producers on the show.

Starting point is 00:34:48 So like, it's rare to do that. But I wouldn't have been able to do that in King of the Hill. Yeah, because you knew the voice. You knew the voice of that show. and that is such a key. The other thing I noticed in what you were describing the story you told was when you were the writer's assistant and they were stuck, that you would very carefully and very politely or politically know when to speak

Starting point is 00:35:14 and when to shut up. Yeah. Because that is also a part of the creative process in a writer's room is there is a bit of a pecking order. I hate to say it. Starts with the person with the voice of the show, the creator of the show and kind of works its way down. And so knowing when, how to read a room, literally read the room and know when to speak, when to not.

Starting point is 00:35:38 Yeah. That's important skills and you seem to naturally have it, whether you got it through your internships or whatever. You learn it to like, being an assistant to an executive is brutal, you know? And so like, I so appreciated being there. I was just, I wasn't coming in with ego. I was just like, God, I just really love this show. And I think that for me, part of the trick of it is, and I tell people, you don't want to be a showrunner.

Starting point is 00:36:02 You just don't. Like, a showrunner is like, you're pitching a funny idea to a showrunner. And they're thinking, how are the actors going to perform this? What will the producers say about this? Are the artists going to be able to draw this? What will promo say about this next year? Did we do anything like this before? Is it stepping on something I want to do later?

Starting point is 00:36:23 did any of the 800 episodes of Star Trek do this? And then is it something that I like that feels like the show? And if your showrunner, you're thinking about like budget and you're thinking about the poster and you're thinking about the animatic editor and like all of that. But if you're just a mid-level writer, you're just having fun with ideas. Yes.

Starting point is 00:36:46 All you have to do is like, that's the best job. The best job. Get paid to be funny and have fun and to come up with character stuff. And nobody gets into writing because you want to, like, you want to be sitting and giving approvals on the funco pops. Like, it's fun for a while, but it's also like every hour of the day gets filled. I've made this joke in my working life where I, when I talk to my wife, I'm just like, well, you know, today was the longest day of my life. And I say that every single day.

Starting point is 00:37:16 I'm not complaining. Like I learned at Kenyon, I love doing all that. And it's really fulfilling. and I didn't know I could do that until I just started doing it and it could all go away. Like, I really appreciate getting to do it, you know? Good for you.

Starting point is 00:37:32 Most definitely. Good for you. I think we could probably talk to you for another four or five hours, but we need to wrap this up. Oh, because I talk to me. No, no, because we love. So we just want to say thank you to Mike McMahon

Starting point is 00:37:44 for joining us for this episode of the Delta Flyers. And I feel like you can go on to your own Wikipedia page and remove the thumb-face photo that you don't like. They won't do it. Seriously? Wow. I would literally be happier with a photo of like flounder the fish or something on there. Anything would be an upgrade in the one they chose.

Starting point is 00:38:05 And once again, thank you, Mike, for being with us. And for all the Patreon patrons out there, please stay tuned for your bonus material. Mike will be with us to answer a few more questions. All right. Thanks, everyone. And thank you, Mike. I'm gonna...

Starting point is 00:38:23 ...wouldn't know what I'm gonna... ...for... ...that... ...that... ...whatin... ...you know... ...the ...that... ...and...

Starting point is 00:38:36 ...the... ...and... ...you... ...and... ...but... ...you... You know,

The Delta Flyers - Mike McMahan

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