The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Matt Besser

Episode Date: November 12, 2019

Comedian and UCB co-founder Matt Besser talks with Andy Richter about wild improv parties from their early days in Chicago, foraying into stand-up via a college contest, humiliation as a driving force, and overcoming the inertia of being unknown. Plus, Matt discusses the steady escalation of the Upright Citizens Brigade, his new special Pot Humor, and the big picture lessons in comedy he’s learned over the years.Check out Matt Besser’s new comedy album Pot Humor here.This episode is sponsored by Betterhelp (www.betterhelp.com/threequestions code: THREEQUESTIONS), Mack Weldon (www.mackweldon.com code: THREEQUESTIONS), and Linkedin (www.linkedin.com/threequestions).

hello podcast world it's the three questions with andy richter and um i'm friendly with most of the people that come on this show i mean some of them I don't know very well, but I don't know that there's been anyone that's like an absolute stranger that's been on. But this is, I'm actually talking to somebody who's a very dear friend of mine today and whom I've known, I feel like since birth, Matt Besser. Comedy birth.

Hey, man. How are you? I was listening to Scott Thompson's episode and you called him an old friend. I'm like, oh, I'm way older than that motherfucker. Yeah, yeah, you are. Comedy birth. Hey, man. How are you? I was listening to Scott Thompson's episode. You call him an old friend. I'm like, oh, I'm way older than that motherfucker. Yeah, yeah, you are. You are. You're like, no, really.

You and I knew each other before we were even slightly grownups. I think we were still kind of like kids, I would think. Well, I think we're about the same age. Yeah, I'm 52. What are you? I'm 52. Yeah. well I think we're about the same age yeah I'm 52 what are you? I'm 52 it's funny because when I you were born in Chicago

or raised there and I moved there and you were already part of the whole improv scene when I moved there and to me you were like an elder and I treated you like you were 10 years older and you'd been around forever

and people tend to do that even when you're like even when they are only a year more in experience right it's like no i like you were like an elder to me i was like a sophomore or a junior in improv terms and you were a freshman yeah it's kind of like and yeah but you know what you seem not more like a senior though because it was such a small scene at that point see i didn't feel like a senior i felt like there were other people that were like but when you're a freshman you don't know yeah yeah everyone's older than you right oh i know and it's also it's also funny to be like they were the guys that like oh that guy's been around a long time when you first start out and then and you sort of see him perform a few times you're like yeah and he's not very good you know there was like a few of those that i was always

like it you know it is true you come into this new thing and you think and i had been through the same thing in film school like i'd come and started film school in Chicago and felt very like I knew nothing and I was very self-conscious and very naive and innocent and then you just kind of figure out oh no no we're all nobody nobody knows anything nobody I mean that's and that's it carries on through life too you know there was so much uh am I jumping into the, No, no. This is where I come from, right? Yeah,

but no, whatever. The questions don't matter. They don't, oh really? I thought there was a right answer. It's a gimmick. I've been really working on it.

It's just a way for me to just ask people personal questions. You don't score us at the end and tell us if we were? No, no. I just ask personal questions and then I hide my erection from hearing the answers. I could talk a lot about you, so I'll give you extra hard. Oh! But as you know, it was such a small scene.

Think about it. Yeah, yeah. It's so, and I think we were so lucky that it was so small. We were so fortunate, because that improv scene will never be that way again. Yeah, yeah. Well, improv in general will never be. It was still kind of a weird little niche thing that you had to explain to people. Without question.

Yeah, we're making this up. And they'd be like, no, you're not. Well, I want to ask you, since you were from chicago did you grow up knowing what comedy improvisation meant no when did you first know when i must have gone to second city i never went to second city until i was that was not a i grew up 60 miles 50 miles west of chicago which might as well have been 200 miles west of Chicago. We went to the, we went to Bears games, Cubs games, the occasional White Sox games, because for us, White Sox games were, the South side was scary. It's all just white fear. It was all just like rural white fear controlled everything. And like, and also the notion of going to concerts. Like we, when my

brother and I started going to concerts and we started, my brother's three years older, but we started doing that together because my brother had a terrible sense of direction and needed me to navigate. didn't know how to get to like my stepdad's plumbing shop where he'd been going you know for like five years of his life or he didn't know how to get to the mall that's nuts it's crazy and i i mean at the time i thought it was crazy so he'd have to take me with him to remind him how to get to the mall which he has that my dad has that same year his gps absolute lack of direction my dad had my dad's a brilliant absolute lack of direction. My dad's a brilliant, incredible, one of the smartest people I've ever known, but you can't find his way around. Like, he just gets lost constantly.

So I overestimate your knowledge. Oh, absolutely. When we started going to see concerts when we were like, I was 16, maybe he was 19, it was, you know, going to the aragon ballroom terrifying like absolutely terrifying to us and you know and then you get used to it's like oh this is no big deal you just find parking you go to the shows and especially because the i'm surprised the same way though you probably went to the aquarium at some point you weren't taking a second city because it's such a staple in Chicago. No, no. I was aware that there was Second City.

I was aware that John Belushi was from Chicago. I was aware that Cheeseburger Cheeseburger was a Greek diner in Chicago. But it was still a mystery to us. Wow. Okay. That almost gives me comfort to know that like because in little rock where i'm from i certainly felt isolated from that yeah and i wasn't even getting to go to the aragon ballroom on occasion but anyway i didn't know improv at all until i came there i came to chicago for stand-up which was booming yeah in the early yeah i remember seeing you do stand up yeah i

think that was like one of the, yeah. You and McCann were about the only people that I knew that did both. Yeah. And I would sometimes go with you and or with McCann to like stand-up parties. And there was very much a difference between improv and stand-up. Totally different vibe. There was very much a difference between improv and stand-up. Totally different vibe. And man, I was like, man, improv parties are loud and fun,

kind of weirdly competitive, and stand-up parties are sad. And everyone kind of quietly off in their own thing. And it occurred to me, oh, yeah, they don't play with others. Everybody's their own little self-contained deal. My first improv party. Like everybody's their own little self-contained deal. Dude, let me tell you my first improv party. So it must have been after one of the first times I saw Harold, period.

And I just must have glommed on and said, there's a party. I'm going to go to it. And for people that don't know, Harold, Matt and I are both students of Del Close. Harold was his long-form improv game. It was just, it basically, it was a group game that involved scenes and games, and it all was supposed to kind of wrap up at the end, basically. Now, I'd say at this point, the entire improv scene was probably 60 to 100 people at best. Probably. Right?

Yeah, I would think so. And once you were in it for three months, you kind of felt like you knew everybody. Yeah. Pretty much. I mean, there were people at Second City who were actually making $600 a week at it, which was astounding and mind-boggling. And you kind of would get to know them. But yeah, but no, in terms of like the regular plebs of improv. Yeah. So I went to this house party, and the best group at the time was Blue Velveeta, and they were indeed amazing. Terrible name, but good group.

They were like one of the last pun name groups. Yeah, yeah. But anyway, a really great group. But anyway, a really great group. Jay Leggett, who passed away a few years ago, but big personality, really funny guy, could be a bit of a stage hog, but could definitely just rule the stage and rule a room if he wanted to.

And then Noah, of course. Noah Gregoropoulos. Who wasn't on a classic team at that point that I remember as much. He has been on some, but at that point, I can't remember that. But was like, next to Dell, was like a general of the theater. Yeah. He was a teacher. Yeah. And also has this razor sharp sardonic dry wit,

which he could use to cut a friend or a stranger to the core. And I delighted in watching him. But that night, I didn't know either one of them. They were just two huge guys. And they're both really big guys. And when I entered the party, everyone was gathered around, peeking into a small bedroom, smaller than the studio we're in. Like, everyone was looking in the door, and those two guys were on a mattress that was on the floor,

facing each other, and both red-faced and sweaty, with beers in their hand, taking turns insulting each other it was just a snap battle but and i didn't know either one of them so i didn't even know the personality that they were yeah yeah snapping on at that point right but i could tell it was so ruthless and hilarious yeah yeah and the whole house was watching it. Both these guys were clearly really funny. Yeah. And it was all done in good humor. Obviously, it wasn't a fight.

Right. But still, the whole point of that is to say the worst fucking thing. Yeah. Like to push the button or the buttons. Yeah. And it was King of the Mountain, too. Yeah, yeah. And it was very fratty in in maybe a

negative way too but still it was exciting and uh people don't and people will hear that and think wow that is mentally ill like what a sick thing to do to each other and what a sick thing to revel in what a sick thing to crowd around a bedroom door to watch. And they're not wrong, but it also, in your young mind, being serious about doing this thing, not even realizing how serious you are about this thing. It is truly thrilling, truly exciting. I felt I had found my crowd for this reason. I've been around parties where we're all chugging a beer and we're all looking into a room or whatever.

Or it's beer pong. Right, right. Or two guys are wrestling or they're literally fighting and angry and we're all hooting and hollering. Right. Or some dude's taking his clothes off. That's not quite my crowd. Yeah, yeah.

Like I was there. I've been at that party in college and high school. But then I found a crowd where, oh, we're all being funny. Yeah. Like that's where all that energy is coming out. Yeah, and it's not just one person being funny and everyone standing around. It's the whole crowd. It's everybody can fucking add to it.

It's like you're not just, you know, it's a kitchen. It's not just one guy cooking. It's a kitchen full of talented chefs making a lot of fun. And I, at the same time, because I went to film school, and this was like very shortly after film school, and I would have mixed parties of film school friends and improv friends and my film school, like, you have mixed parties of film school friends and improv friends. And my film school, like, you know.

Are we talking Columbia? Yeah, Columbia College. And, you know, it'd be like my film school friends, you know, kind of gothy, you know. A few of them are kind of gothy, and a few of them are kind of just like young, sensitive artist types. And they would just be sitting over in a corner, miserable, while like a bunch of guys in Bears jerseys

are screaming at the top of their lungs. And I'm enjoying the screen, and they're saying funny, funny shit, but it is like really fucking loud. And my film school friends would be like, why are they so loud? And I'd have to be like, well, it's because you kind of got to be.

That's sort of like part of the joy of it is being loud. Sorry. Yeah, doing the bit and the bits never stopping will really separate a crowd. Who's enjoying that and who's like, I cannot fucking deal with that. Yeah, yeah. And at that point in my 20s, that's all I wanted to do. I just wanted the bit to go all night long. There also was a lot of, I think a lot of it,

there was a lot of mushrooms and acid and ecstasy and stuff. And I think that that was, you know, that's, as a parent, I doubt my kids are listening to this. Maybe they will someday. But, like, I couldn't, like, if my kids said to me, you know, of course when they're, like, 18, but, like, you know, should I do mushrooms? I couldn't tell them no, don't. Oh, at 18? Yeah, I'd be like, yeah, you probably should.

You know, like, i found them to be really useful and really fucking awesome and showed me like i i just remember there might direct somewhere to do it right right of course yeah but but i just remember there being parties where there was something involved some kind of substance involved. And they were like, we're not talking, there's no heroin. There's no cocaine. It's just. I never did cocaine. There was some cocaine.

Was there? I never was around the cocaine. I don't, it was just more people tripping. Yeah. And I just remember there being parties where I was being funny in a way that I didn't even know I could be funny. There was stuff coming out of my mouth that was like standing, screaming in my underwear and being like, wow, who's this person that's in me yelling this stuff?

And shrooms can do that to an artist. It can open up your mind. And for Jimmy Hendrix or uh a comedian yeah it can flow sometimes i definitely remember that too i vivid memories of that we used to party at the annoyance theater had this uh theater that was right on broadway uh and you could get up on the roof of it and the parties would be up on the roof and you could overlook the whole street. It was such a good time. And I remember, I think it was like an ecstasy party

or a shroom party, it doesn't matter. And everybody was going, once again, I was the freshman. This is a very freshman story. And because I wanted to fit in because you're used to that's the other thing we're all class clowns we all were the funniest person

in our high school and now we're all together and it's like oh no now I gotta amp up my game to have people pay attention to me especially when I'm a freshman so I remember this party I believe it was yeah it was

howard's birthday and uh and there was a cake and someone had already taken a piece out and he had eaten it we were past that and the cake was still sitting there it was like an hour later and everybody's going nuts people were throwing beer around and and throwing water balloons off the roof and shit. And I got the cake, and I'm like, this is going to be funny. And I smashed it into Howard's face. And I'm the freshman. Yeah. And he's the most high status guy at the theater.

Yeah, he actually was salaried at the theater. Yeah. And it's his birthday. I've barely done probably six shows at this point, but I'm a funny guy. I'm a crazy party guy. So I smash the cake. There's the knife still in the cake.

I didn't see it. This big old sharp knife that they used to cut the cake with. I smash it to his face. It doesn't cut him, but the knife clank. And I remember, I think it was his wife started yelling at me. Someone started yelling at me, and it stopped the whole party. Like, you just smashed a cake with a knife into his face. It was such a freshman moment.

I was just trying to be funny. I just want to fit in. We were all being crazy, and I just thought of cake in the face. Yeah. Well, you guys, too, at the time, it was you, Horatio Sands, Adam McKay. Rick Roman. Rick Roman, who passed away tragically. Very funny guy.

Rick Roman was kind of new to the scene and had a very kind of Andy Kaufman-ish vibe to him. Yes. I would say he made Andy Kaufman look tame. Because I've never heard stories of Andy Kaufman in real life. Yeah, yeah. Like pissing people off. Yeah. Like Rick's, the world was his stage.

Like earlier when you're talking about drugs and Columbia, a story that popped in my mind is I went to a, the reason I said, oh, there was coke around, I went to a Columbia party. Columbia College. College party. And there was coke around, I went to a Columbia party. Columbia College. College party. And there was coke, and it was one of those things where coke is in the one room, and everybody files into the room and comes out, and not everybody's invited.

Yeah. And we were definitely not invited in the coke room. Yeah, yeah. And we were just drunk. Yeah. And being assholes. And Rick was going around touching people's hair and brushing it like a dog and then walking away. And we were going up to them saying, oh, don't worry about our friend.

He's on Super Cool. And he's just a made-up drug. Right, right. And eventually this guy wanted to kick his ass. And it was one of those, the whole party stops, and the room clears for these guys to fight, and Rick is all wide-eyed, acting like he's on some crazy drug, and he's just drinking beer.

Right, fucking around. Yeah, yeah. And we had to talk the guy into it like it was a weird acid trip. Sorry, dude. This is when Special K and shit is floating around. We're like, it's this new drug called super cool. And he doesn't know what he's doing. And yeah.

See you guys that you guys represented that kind of energy, which is a pranking kind of energy. And you would come to parties. And I, and to me, it always seemed like, because you guys were sort of still like the freshmen. Yeah. Like Adam McKay, who's got one of the biggest brains in the world was still he was in the same kind of boat where he was coming from

i believe pittsburgh philly yeah coming from philly had done comedy but like is this new guy starting to do stuff and very ambitious very brilliant obviously but but also kind of like you got all these guys you know all these different Mike's and Jeff's in hockey jerseys you know and it's a very specific Chicago comedy guy

kind of thing and those guys don't prank like there was no pranking there's a fight story yeah remember this yeah and that's why I say like you guys would come

to these parties and I just sort of I don't know I just I thought you guys were funny the pranking shit was always like oh it makes me so nervous i'm terrible at pranking like i did they had me do cranky anchors once i was terrible at it because i just identify with the poor person that i'm supposed to be pranking and end up going like i'm so sorry goodbye and hang up you know. But you guys would come to these parties, and I liked you guys, and I would hang out and talk to you guys, and it'd be funny, but you guys were like, you did have this very combative group ethos. It was always like, hey, man, you want to go?

And you guys would sit around with each other talking about fighting, never fighting, but just like talking about fighting and what kind of fighting you would do and i just like and i remember that huh you guys would do that all the time you'd be like i'd be ready to go are you ready to go yeah and i and i would and i just remember like one time sitting with you guys just being like this is all right it's kind of funny but it's really boring guys like come on there's so much better things to talk about than fighting. But it would carry over.

Talking about fighting. I don't remember that. You would do that. You guys would sit around and you would talk about, like, I would have your back. It was just part of the whole thing of, like. Here's a story. Because there were, like, guys. There were guys from the Chicago Improv Group who i remember being at parties being like we should

go over there and whether it was you or adam mckay or horatio you'd done something here's one like so it was uh broken a lamp or something or i don't know it was an annoyance anniversary of uh coed which was a long one of the longest running original shows in Chicago, possibly still running. I don't even know. Probably. And it was very special as it should have been. Event for that theater, the Illinois Theater. It was like the flagship show for that theater.

A very funny show. Yeah. And it was some kind of anniversary for it. So they had bought a big layout of food. And I remember there was like shrimp and oysters and that is not usual no that's that's like spreads for us at that time that's jaw-droppingly expensive yeah we're a hot dog at that point would have been amazing so when there was oysters yeah so anyway they're doing the 25th anniversary,

and they're doing a special show, and everyone who's on the theater is up in the theater. We walk in late. There's not enough room for us to see the show, so we go down to where all the food is. We start eating food. Oh. I'm remembering.

While the show is still going on and you guys ate everything right? I don't know about that but we're definitely getting into the shrimp and oysters and we're last on the guest list if at all I think I was the only one invited and I think I brought that whole crew you brought your hillbilly friends

and none of them were invited and Rick was putting, was wrapping. Was wrapping shrimp and oysters and napkins and sticking in his pocket for later. Beyond just eating, like, I'm going to take the other stuff for home later yeah so uh so then the show ends and everyone comes down there and sees us little rats down there this little fucking wet rats eating all the shrimp and oysters and shit and uh i you can guess who said I'm gonna kick your fucking ass and I think it came down to

Horatio and Mike and I was in the middle and it was gonna be a fight and it had cleared out and it was in the front lobby and it was like we're sick of you motherfuckers coming in here and then I got called out as sitting on the

fence bester i'll never forget bester you're talking out of two no you're you're talking out of two sides your mouth because i wouldn't choose because i did annoyance shows and i did uh were you dating somebody at the time i probably was dating susan i that point. I think so. Yeah, yeah. I think so, yeah. So I was between gangs. Yes. And I was like, come on, everybody. We're just trying to have a good time. Yeah, yeah. We're just filling our pockets with oysters.

Who among us? So, yeah, I'll always laugh at that one, of the two theater comedy crowds in such a small scene. Yes, yes. Coming to blows. that one of the two theater comedy crowds in such a small scene yes yes and also and it's not and also to one aspect of the story is that the person that was on the side of the house wanting to fight horatio is a formidable oh formidable fighter yeah the biggest guy in the scene the biggest guy and and also well versed in fisticuffs so yeah uh it was it yeah it was not like just some it was going to be some tussle you know it could have been there were fights out on the softball fields that i remember yep absolutely theaters it was a lot there were a few people that had anger issues in those days. You know, including myself up until now.

I was including you. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that's maybe the story of my life. But yeah. I remember at one point saying something to you. I mentioned something about that I've never been in a physical fight in my life and you said like oh my god i've gotten punched a thousand times and i was like okay

yeah i can see that i can see i can see matt besser throughout time not being able to not being able to hold it in and getting smacked uh i don't think I've ever hit anyone first. Especially in fucking Arkansas. Except for maybe Pete Holmey. That was a great fight. Well, down here I brought it up. Arkansas. You're from fucking Arkansas.

Yeah, man. You're an Arkansas Jew. I know. Yeah, man. You're an Arkansas Jew. I know. That's crazy. That's very, that's formative. Yeah. For my dad even more so. Yeah, yeah.

And your mom, there's all kinds of crazy stuff about your mom being ostracized for marrying a Jewish guy. Yeah, she was Christian and came from Harrison, which is up in the Ozark, still a very conservative place. And she married my dad, who was Jewish, and that did not sit well with my grandparents, and they pretty much disowned him. They were at the wedding. I wish I had this on film, my grandmother crying at the wedding, but usually people are crying with joy, and her crying with just straight-up grief. Grief over, yeah. Loudly. Oh, it's crazy.

After the wedding was over, my grandfather took my mother's car from her that he had given her. Wow. In the parking lot outside. In the parking lot of the wedding? Yeah. Oh, my God. He gave me car keys.

Oh, people are great. Now, was your dad from Little Rock originally? Were his people from Arkansas? It's interesting because I'm about to do a show in St. Louis, which I've never done before. But that's where all the Jews, we came from the Ukraine into Iowa briefly and then into St. Louis for a while, the Besser clan. And they had business that went back and forth between Little Rock and St. Louis.

There was a lot of, well, we're opening up a clothing store in Little Rock. You can go work for my uncle down there. Now there's a jewelry shop up in St. Louis. So there's a lot of that. Yeah, yeah. So he was born in St. Louis, but mostly raised in Little Rock. In Little Rock. And what did your dad do for a living?

He was an investment banker. An investment banker. Yeah. And did your mom have a job? No. Yeah. She didn't. And you have one brother, right?

An older brother? A younger brother. A younger brother. Yeah, he lives in Boulder now. But yeah, not many moms had jobs back then. It's funny you even asked that. No, I know. I can't even think of a mom who did have a job in Little Rock.

Well, my mom ended up having a job, but it was sort of out of necessity, and it was like an offshoot of my stepfather's business. But yeah, I don't even, aside from a couple of teacher moms or librarian moms, like the librarian, I knew her kids. But other than that, yeah, you're right. I didn't know moms. I say that obviously from a place of upper middle class privilege, but that was my neighborhood and that's who I knew. Right, right, exactly.'s who I knew. Exactly.

Most of the mothers. And what was it like? I mean, growing up, were you a funny kid? Did you get along well in the neighborhood? It's funny because I was funny to other kids, but never to adults. I was so shy to anyone not my friends. Yeah. I think I was very funny to my friends.

Yeah. It was comfortable. But like when I finally got into comedy, it's so shocked my parents and my brother and people who weren't, they were like that kid who just so introverted. Yeah. But I was, but in my,

but in the class that I was the class clown. So yeah. Yeah. It's, it's kind of a typical story that way. Was it college that you started to do comedy? So that's what I was saying about you are interested when you were saying that Second City was just a whole other universe that you weren't aware of because you know we're talking being from a pre-internet uh coming of age is such a different story and i almost wonder if our brains are going to look different you know what i mean yeah no i know because because growing up in little rock i i really i think if you had asked 12 year old matt besser like how do you become an actor i would have said well you have to be born to actor parents in hollywood and that was my viewpoint how do you become a rock and roll

star uh rock and roll parents in new york like i and i thought i was gonna be an investment banker like my dad yeah and oh maybe in in high school i'm going crazy now i'm thinking about going into advertising that's how nuts i was thinking yeah yeah and then you go to college and the whole And, oh, maybe in high school I'm going crazy. Now I'm thinking about going into advertising. That's how nuts I was thinking. Yeah, yeah. And then you go to college and the whole fucking world opens up. Right. And it did.

College, my whole world opened up. Yeah. And I didn't really think about anything outside of a – You had a chance to play soccer in college, right, didn't you? I don't know. I saw that. Like, they do research. Is that that true i guess it's not true it is true but in a funny way because once again pre-internet if you're you didn't play soccer and

you lied i did play soccer but pre-internet there's no youtube clips there's no how do you tell a coach how good you are and how do you know how good you are? What are you comparing yourself to? Yeah, yeah. I played soccer in the 80s. You know that. Barely anyone played soccer at that point.

How would I know, compare myself to a 15-year-old from Philadelphia? Yeah, yeah. We couldn't. I went to state in Arkansas, the state championship. My high school team was one or two the entire time I was there. I started every year.

Well, and also two. I was great. I mean, I don't know if people realize. For in that, what year are we talking? 88, 85, 84? Yes, 85. I graduated in 85. 85.

So, for there to be a high school in Arkansas that had a soccer team means it is the richest high school in Arkansas, probably. Yeah, yeah. Are definitely one of them. Very few. So, we're talking about. Because there is, in little rock especially there is a a fancy class of people you know like there is definitely like a kind of old southern aristocracy in little rock yeah so you are coming from like the best soccer player in arkansas is kind of a very rarefied air and And I didn't even think I was the best. I just thought, but I was also going to a small school.

I was going to Division III, and I thought, hey, for Division III, I'm fucking going to be awesome. Yeah. So when I'm going around doing the schools, I'm having the coaches walk me around the facilities like I'm good. They don't know I'm not good, and I don't know I'm average. Yeah, yeah. It's hilarious in retrospect, because they were treating me like a I'm good. They don't know I'm not good. And I don't know I'm average. Yeah, yeah. It's hilarious in retrospect because they were treating me like a star.

Yeah. These are our fields. Because you were on the team that won. Were you one of the best players on your team, do you think? Well, I wasn't even the top five on my team. Oh, wow. But in my mind, the top five were gonna go to a Nebraska or a real college yeah yeah great yeah and I felt like oh I'm going to like Ivy League type school I'm going to Amherst

this very small school so I felt like I'm gonna be great there yeah but I get there and the real athletes were playing with muscular bodies were playing I tell this story, but I was on the same floor as them, same dorm, and some dude was like, let's go down the first day. Let's go down the fields and play soccer. And I'm like, great. And in my mind, here we go. I'm about to show off and get my first feather in my

cap at how great I am at soccer. I'm about to find my people. And I go down there, and I'm like, why are all these football and rugby players running down here with us'm like why are all these uh football and rugby players running down here with us and why aren't there any skinny guys and i realized they're all soccer players and they check you and they meaning they fucking use yeah sure no i know they knock the shit out of you and i'm like oh i've never even played like this before and we're playing pickup soccer i cannot hang with these guys. Wow.

So it's funny. I got recruited in Amherst for soccer. And did you play, or did you get cut? I played JV and sat the bench, and then I started getting high and played intramural. Yeah. The funny thing is I was one of the best in intramural. It's like I found my level. Right, right. You always find your level.

You still got to be the best yeah well you know what everyone should find that level yeah why not and whatever yeah so did you and is that when you started you like did you was it stand up that you started to do and i mean and i have a weird story that way yeah because how do you get the nerve to do that like that's stand up i i hear these people say friends dared me too and i just am always like it was almost like that improv i needed other people on stage i did radio first so i did a punk show and then doing the punk show i just get drunk on mad dog and start being funny and have people call in and think I'm funny.

Yeah. And that kind of gave me the bug. Oh, people think I'm funny. And I think we literally had a 30-mile radius. Yeah, yeah. I was like, people in Heath, Vermont, can hear me. And they are very selective in here. But it would always be like, hey, it's Mike from Heath.

Hey, Mike from Heath. And I have a fan. And then you kind of are hooked. You're like, I have fans. And Mike would call back every other week. Yeah, and go, do the anchovy bit again. And I'm like, oh, they like my prank calls. So now I'm like hooked.

But stand up. There was a contest. We have a mutual friend, Eric Zicklin. He was my roommate or one of my best friends in college. And he was very writerly funny and uh and he's a successful comedy writer out here today yeah and today yeah but at that point he was known he like wrote in the newspaper and he like did the senior speech so he was known for being funny that way i was still just i only had my radio show so that's how i was funny he heard about this contest at

umass which was like a stone throw away if you win you go to jamaica i think it was sponsored by it was like cool ranch doritos and uh sticklets gum i think was the sponsor and uh at umass and we i know i'd never done stand- up I think he might have done it once or twice in Northampton but we both did this contest we show up the audience is like two to three thousand people it's like one of those

big college rooms this is my first time going on stage usually you go in an open mic with five other comedians and so it's packed with UMass students. The host, I won't say the host's name yet. So the host was a funny guy from LA, and he was definitely a notch above us and doing material between us.

I went up. I was so nervous that i was stuttering captain kirk i'm three-breasted i couldn't get the fucking microphone out of the mic stand which is such a classic first-timer thing yeah so i was stuttering and trying to get the microphone out, and I was killing because people thought I was doing a character. A bit. Oh, wow. They thought I was doing like Bobcat. Yeah.

Anyways, that whole nervous energy thing. And then I just kind of went with it and just kind of just cranked it up. Yeah. I was just loud and energy. And I had this script of material in my head and I was kind of just skipping around. It was almost kind of like, probably sounded like free form poetry of punchlines. That setups. Like I never, but I have so much energy.

It seems like confidence. And I think that's why it killed. That's why I'm going to chalk it up too. But I did so much energy, it seems like confidence. And I think that's why it killed. That's why I'm going to chalk it up, too. But I did the best. Eric did the second best. Yeah. And there was like 12 people there. I read that a review came out in UMass paper that gave us both a good review.

Then I was hooked. I'm like, now I'm getting compliments from the press. I'm hooked. Right, right. now I'm getting compliments from the press. I'm hooked. Right, right. You saw your name in the paper, yeah. Zicklin sent me that review like years later, like 10, 15 years later. The host that night, his name was misspelled in the review. It said, Judd Apatow did too much time in his in-between sets.

It was critical of how much time he did. It's insane. And I was like, holy shit, Judd Apatow did my fucking, and I sent him that article. I was like, Judd, you know you introduced me the first time I was on stage? Wow. Isn't that weird? Yeah, yeah.

What was he doing? I mean, why was he doing it? He was doing some national tour. Oh, and he's like a stand-up doing a college date. Yeah, and he was barely, he was probably two years into doing stand-up himself. Yeah, yeah. Wow, that's hilarious. Yeah.

That's great. But then I had the bug. Well, so when you get done with done with amherst well what did you study at amherst anyway american uh studies which is basically history and uh english and was that was that going to be end up going into advertising was it going to end up being into my mom god bless her uh it was so important to her that I get a liberal arts education and not worry about spinning it into my job, whatever that was. And I didn't really have a fucking clue. I thought I was going to go into advertising or something to do with investment banking.

I took econ 101 my freshman year year i was like holy shit just like soccer i was like this is fucking not for me and i'm a dumbass yeah yeah like all these i thought i was good at like i was one of the best guys in calculus in my school and then i get there i'm like oh my god i am so dumb compared the rest of the people in this class yeah no i i stopped taking i think the last math class i had was sophomore year of high school and then i just took i knew i could get away with just doing science like i could understand science but math fuck it numbers no thank you i do not they do not agree with me so it's weird when you you you're you're good at

a skill or interested in a skill up to a lot because I feel like I've told this – I've mentioned this twice or three times now. Like, I enjoy the skill, and then I'm all of a sudden realized, oh, I'm not as good at the skill as I thought I was. And then it's time to move on to a new skill. Right, right. But isn't that kind of what life is, I guess? A little bit. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean – yeah, but it is a personality type too.

Kind of what life is, I guess. A little bit. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, yeah, but it is a personality type too. I mean, there is certainly like, there are people who are okay being okay at something. And then there are other people that sort of insist on being really good at the things that they're going to do. And I think I'm kind of that way. Like, I don't like, I don't enjoy doing shit that I'm just okay at, you know. I play golf.

And like, I definitely had to get to a point where i was better than oak like i'm not great at golf and i can whatever but it's like when i sucked at it it really bugged the shit out of me that i sucked at it and i didn't just quit which is unusual because that's like me and playing a musical instrument has always been this is frustrating somewhere between the brain and the hands i can't get the guitar to do it fuck it i quit yeah um but yeah no i think that's a definitely a personality that's weird you say that because jut and that's bringing two thoughts together but judd judd's the one who made me learn how to play guitar. Oh, really? For Walk Hard. And it's something that my mom had also made me do, and I had hated it because of that.

I rejected it because it was this thing I had to do every Wednesday, and then I had to practice my scales. Yeah. I grew up hating. I didn't hate guitar music, but I'd hated the whole process of learning to play guitar. Of learning to play it, yeah. But when it was for a movie, and Jake Kazan and Judd are saying, you have to do it, it's like, you have to do it.

Yeah. And once I had to do it, I was like, oh, I'm so glad they made me do this skill. Yeah, yeah. Forced me past the point where I normally would have quit. Yeah. Well, you're getting paid. Yeah. Getting paid to do something is always a good incentive to learn.

Humiliation, I'll tell you though, humiliation was the. Yeah. Getting paid to do something is always a good incentive to learn. Humiliation. I'll tell you, though. Humiliation was the driving force. I think. To not be humiliated on set when you had to play. Yes. And with how big a movie and how many pros were around, I did not want to be the guy everyone was staring at.

Yeah, yeah. What are you doing with your fingers? You look like a spaz cut and then when you finally see the movie it's like 100 yards away you barely see my finger right right you motherfuckers well now how what makes you go from massachusetts to chicago and how soon was that well first i went to boulder just randomly because a friend was there. And I started doing stand-up there in Denver. For how long?

For just three months. Oh, okay. Just a summer. And then I went to Chicago basically based on, do you remember how many stand-up clubs were in Chicago in 1989 and 90? It was Chicago and Boston. It's crazy. Chicago and Boston.

Guys, there was like 12 clubs i'm talking just in the city proper yeah it's nuts yeah and and it was at the beginning of the conan show it was chicago and boston the writers and you know it was chicago guys and boston guys and it really just seemed to be like and the boston guys were mostly stand-ups and chicago guys were mostly improv you know kind of guys were mostly improv, you know, kind of improv guys. So I think, you know, that was like a, but yeah, those, those were the centers at that time of comedy. Yeah. How's, how's your family feel about I'm moving to Chicago to do standup comedy?

They were good that way, especially from where I came from. Because I'd say most young adults my age were moseying into their first job. Like that whole year abroad thing. Because this was like less than a year after you graduate from college. Oh, it's immediate. Yeah, yeah. So my parents were good with go find yourself a little bit. Not to mention my dad, he'd been in the Navy, and he'd done his service on a treasure island in san francisco do you know treasure island that weird little island

and he was a radar guy when radars were as big as this window right here yeah anyway he was a alan ginsburg ernest Hemingway wannabe. He grew up in that whole beat scene when he was in his 20s. So I relate, I think it's in my genes a little bit. Yeah. He instilled some of that. Even though he was an investment banker, he loved art and he loved writing and and i think he always like he i after he died i found these uh short story submissions he did to the new yorker magazine that got rejected so i saw that he had a dream yeah in his 20s too yeah and that's why i was saying earlier we were so fortunate and to be in chicago at that time when it was it was so

that that scene was so small and vital and easy to nav easier to navigate since it was so small and i just feel lucky maybe i wouldn't have met dell if there had been 500 people instead of 100 or met you yeah people uh i ended up i also think too like there wasn't i mean i think i've mentioned this on this thing before that you know my first improv class was just because i was working in film production and i knew i kind of wanted to write kind of wanted to act but it kind of was like i couldn't sit down and write because of my fucking attention issues and acting i was like and i've been i've taken some acting classes and they just seem so artsy fartsy bullshit and like why are we doing this and so improv a friend of mine started doing

uh betty cahill elizabeth cahill started to do improv classes at Improv Olympic and sounded good. And I had actually – I had one – at one point because I heard – I'd started hearing about improv. And it sounded like something that would be good for me. And I started acting in a lot of student films. And I actually looked up Second City in the white pages and called at one point when I was working in film production to say like, how does it work? What is it? What do you do? And they told me like, and I was like, okay. And then it's so funny. And it sounded so, but it sounded so complicated and expensive and stuff. And ImprovOlympic was just easy and I already had a friend doing it. So I went, and actually when I started there too, Tommy Blatcha, who was my roommate at the time, who ended up being a Conan writer and was a creator of Death Clock Metalocalypse and still working in lots of really funny, weird animated shows.

He came and he tagged along with me to the first improv class. And actually, Kate Flannery was in that first class too. It was all of our first thing. But a couple of weeks in, I realized there's, I'm sitting next to this kid who's come, moved here from Denver because he wants to be on SNL. Like,

so he came to Chicago to take improv class. And these were like things I was doing on a lark. So it was very weird to me. I wonder who that person was because that's exactly where I was coming from almost at that same time yeah that weird did I say I can't remember I but you couldn't believe that like I was like yeah I was like oh this was just like I say this is just like and even when I was doing it like I remember there were different there were different groups that we had like we had a we were in a group of us from the improv olympic had been

we were established in the improv olympic and uh the improv olympic at that time was in the basement of an italian restaurant and a couple of the guys in the group befriended these owners these two brothers that owned the restaurant they got sharna kicked out and then we took over the space coup d'etat yeah it was it was it was it was quite the quite the quite the coup and we were called the comedy underground yeah we and it was a really great it was like it was a great but do you know how much that moved helped me i dare say my career but my con my comedy evolution like that was one of my first opportunities right because you guys it was like 10 people the best 10 people arguably the funniest the top of the group left yeah and all of a sudden uh sharon and provalimp was like what the fuck

all my best guys just left and then we were there there we were those little wet rats yeah ready to prove ourselves so that was a huge opportunity yes but we but within that even within doing that i remember at a certain point a couple of the guys in the group were much more career oriented held a meeting we sat around outside the italian restaurant they said, these two guys are like, look, we said we'd give this thing, I don't know whether it was six months. Yeah. And if we didn't have jobs and if we didn't have agents and if we weren't getting casting people in here to a fucking basement of an Italian restaurant in Chicago that we decided we weren't going to do it. We weren't going to do it. And we all went around the group

they're all set you know talk about yes and we went around it went around the group and all these people are like yeah well okay i guess if that's how everyone feels and it got to me and i said i don't have anything else to do right what are we gonna do in six months what the fuck i was like so if we if we end this, what am I going to, you know, next Saturday or next, you know, Wednesday through Saturday, I'm going to sit around on my fucking ass. Like, no, we're still having fun. We're doing shows. What do we care?

Like about this. And then it went back around the group to like, oh yeah, I think that, yeah, that sounds good. If that's what, yeah, if you're into it, I'd still like to do shows. And like the two guys that were really the ones that were like, we got to end this thing, were really upset that we all said, no, no, we want to continue doing this. And why would it matter to them anyway? I don't know.

It was manic. It was crazy. And one of them, when I said said like look we're having fun and and he actually said to be like yeah enjoy your time in dreamland and i was like it's a fucking improv group in a basement of an italian restaurant like wait what are you talking like the steaks like sounds like you're singing a billy joel song oh my god and then but then the two guys that sort of ran the thing ended up getting us kicked out anyway. So it was like one of my first experiences of somebody with some power saying no.

And you're going like, no, I think yes. And they go, no, no, no. And then everyone around goes, well, how about yes? And then the person with power eventually tells the brothers that run the italian restaurant kick kick them out and then they took over the space and we went and we went and started another group uh gabrys king of beer gambrinus king of beer terribly named group but it was because we picked the name at a at a german place and on the, there was a poster of Gambrinus King of Beer, who was apparently some German king who passed the first beer purity law

in like 1200 or something. And that became, and I was like, no, guys, they were also drunk. And that became the name that we picked. There was a lot of beer on stage. There was a lot of beer on stage there was a lot of beer yeah but um but yeah that it to me i was at that time too to me was like struck by we're just doing it to do it you know like i don't know were you thinking like i gotta i'm gonna be on tv or you know well yeah but not us now i very much had the goal of let's us be kids in the hall.

Yeah. We were, because we haven't really talked about the UCB because this is all improv. Let's. But that was the family I was talking about there. That was ImprovOlympic. We never even really did the UCB at the ImprovOlympic. Yeah.

But the whole time I was like, I want to be kids in the hall. I love those guys. uh and they did it why can't we do it yeah so that's what we said and that's why we started doing shows how does ucb start and originally this place adam's in it right adam mckay's in it ian roberts amy they're used well amy's not as old as us but we you remember the roxy there was this place uh that had a great open mic i'd say probably conan started there and bob odenkirk and a lot of people started yeah uh and andy dick and dino there's a lot of people once again it's like looking back on that room where I just named what could have been the lineup on an open mic, you know,

and now look at all those people, you know, and to think. But anyway, I was doing bits there, and it was like, you just see people with a similar sense of humor. McKay's like, that's funny. Can me and Horatio do something with you guys next week it was me and walsh and yeah and then you see ian improvise is like hey you want to do something with this so it was like that at first and then we did this show called virtual reality which at that point no one even knew what virtual reality was it was like this cyberpunk kind of concept but we did this whole virtual reality show and it got good reviews and uh that people

it actually brought people to the show and it gave us confidence of hey maybe this thing will work but in short that's how it started was just one show that actually worked because in chicago it's like there's so many different shows to get more than 20 people in the audience. If you achieve that, you're like, oh, I got something going here. Yeah. Yeah, because you're also too, you have to go out and stand on the fucking street in front of the L stop and hand out two for one drink tickets to try and get people to come to these shows. I mean, that's like a whole added extra side to doing these fun shows in places is that

it's tough to get people to go there and see it. You know? And I mean, I remember- How do you overcome inertia? Yeah. No one knowing who you are. Well, we had a rule too at the Comedy Underground. Like there couldn't be less people in the audience than there was on stage.

And there was a couple of times where we had to not do a show because there were fewer people in the audience than there were on stage. And that just no you can't do that so uh what happens when you uh walk half the audience and then in the middle of the show there's less audience than people i think once you commit to start you gotta you gotta start now you guys so did you then was it pretty much at the roxy did you had different look because i remember i i had left i had left town at that point i was in new york doing a show and you guys did some show with and i remember it like involving walking the audience around yeah yeah and was that was that was that was like one of the first we rarely did the same venue twice yeah and we shut down a few venues too in what sense first venue we were to cabaret voltaire

we got kicked out for putting our beer in their lettuce crisper and giving the audience uh alcohol good punch distributing it okay so your place you're you know you're prejudiced against they're prejudicing its hospitality i mean come on some of the things we did were like what are we doing there's this place called kill the poets do you remember that i remember the name yeah uh that place a very very funny name we're like that name says comedy that name is like are you just trying to get people not to come to your place then there's a place called rudely elegant that's where we did virtual reality see that just sounds like a furniture store you know that was on uh like north of milwaukee i think yeah and then uh the one you're talking about we called

the virtual tour where we would we had a map and i it started downtown we'd walk down uh what's it called the miracle mile yeah um and at certain stops we would it'd be like i think there's like a church down there and it'd be like we do a church scene and then we'd walk in front of a uh you know a jewelry store and do a jewelry store scene or whatever we on the sidewalk in front of the place yeah we incorporate the world into uh the scene and and are they improvised are they written or are they sort of loosely written i think it was loosely written yeah yeah that that that show in particular yeah the point of that show was wouldn't it be cool to walk around with an audience yeah do scenes yeah yeah and it actually it got people i'm almost sort of amazed

in retrospect i know how hard it is to get an audience in la and new york it's like wow in chicago we were unknown and we had people walking around with us like 30 people how do you get them to do that now how does that happen and at that point this is you and Walsh and Horatio and Ian and Adam McKay Walsh went in and out yeah Ian was in every show McKay was in every early show Horatio was in and out because Horatio got on a second city and then Walsh was doing a lot of annoying stuff in second city uh and then Amy came to town at some point you know she was the freshman and we'd always needed a little uh female influence in the group we'd asked every group did it was such a white boy

game at that point yeah yeah there just weren't many women period um but anyway she when she joined us and about that time she joined us mckay got snl and that kind of gelled the final four and and horatio got snl so he couldn't do it anymore yeah and the final four and and Horatio got SNL so he couldn't do it anymore yeah and the final four of like let's go to New York and make this TV show that's how that kind of did you sell the TV show before you came to New York or did y'all decide to come to New York we started doing back then maybe it's still this way but uh showcasing was so important and it really was like waiting for Guffman it was like is Guffman going to be in the audience and if it was waiting for Guffman. It was like, is Guffman going to be in the audience? And if it was in Chicago, Guffman was rarely there.

So you had to go to LA or New York. So we would do these showcases in New York where you'd get a lot of industry there. It was really intimidating. Yeah. And then the Aspen Comedy Festival was around back then too. Yep. And they really did scout the whole comedy world. They really did get the cream of the crop.

And then you get there and it was highly competitive and we did really well there. And then Comedy Central pretty much based on our performance there bought us. And that was soon after we moved to New York. Oh, it was after. You know what, guys? Yeah, because I remember you guys came to New York. I had been in New York. it was it was after you know guys yeah because I remember you guys came to New York I had been in New York I had been in LA and then I was back in New York and the Conan show I think was just starting at that point and or it had been on for maybe a year and I remember I think your first show was in a basement somewhere down yeah Tribeca lab yeah it was like in a

basement and I remember seeing and I had because I had missed out on this, that particular evolution. Like I say, I had just heard about these shows that you guys were doing. And so it was really fantastic, you know, and different, really, truly different than a lot of stuff that was happening on stage in comedy. And also, there's just the four of you are just brilliant, brilliant people. Amazing performers. And we at the Conan Show immediately took advantage of that to bring you guys in. And it was me. And I think maybe, I don't know if Stack was there at the time, and it was me and i think maybe i don't know if stack was there at

the time but it was me definitely saying and i didn't know amy and i didn't know ian really because they were sort of the newcomers after i'd left but i was like i got funny people here because one thing that fucking blew my mind i got hired on the conan show and i i didn't know anything and i didn't and all of a sudden I'm like, and I was improv. So now I'm writing sketches for, you know, for the show that's replacing David Letterman. Totally fucking daunting. You have to just kind of like, okay, I'm doing this. And I'd write sketches.

They would bring in and I would think, okay, this is New York City. Well, I'm going to see some talented fucking people. write sketches they would bring in and i would think okay this is new york city well i'm gonna see some talented fucking people on funny motherfuckers one after the other and just be like look i'll just get dino to do it you know we ended up just having the writers do these bits because there was a logic to it and it's why our theater succeeded there there was no improv there at all yep uh but the improv that was there was like literally 20 years behind yeah um to do comedy you had to be pretty much established stand-up to get into a legitimate on a legitimate stage. Otherwise, you're just doing a bar open mic. No places to do sketch unless you're going to rent the space for $300 to $500 a night.

Yeah. So there was nowhere for that talent to find itself. Yeah, to foster itself. Yeah. No, we were just getting people that, like, you know, equity actors that come in that, like, you know, because they had been in Kiss Me, Kate, they said they could, you know equity actors that come in that like you know because they had been in kiss me kate they said they could you know do comedy and then you guys came and i was like okay

we got to bring these in and everybody on the show immediately all the writers on the show realized okay i wrote a bit it is this amount of funny and we can hire any one of these four guys it'll be guys and i include amy as a guy yeah it's a gender thing yeah or it's a gender neutral thing for me um and you'll add percentage to the top of being funny you know like you bring in you you bring in amy bring in walsh and the bit that you've written is made funnier as opposed to hoping that the person that you hire will at least ring the amount of funny that's just there on the page out of it. And it was a huge change for us. And then as you guys, at what point did you start teaching classes right away? Yeah. we started asked like

sauce to an ass cat that we did just for fun another long form improv show yeah and they were like how do you do that just like i had asked at one point yeah how do you do that uh so then and we had no jobs i was about to say to you that without getting those jobs from you guys and our teaching work, I would have had to get, I know, I'd have to go back to waiting tables and be a substitute teacher. Ew. I didn't have to do that. Thank God.

Hey, man, I did that all through my 20s. Believe me, I know. I know. So anyway, it was good to have those kind of jobs in New York. Yeah. Rather than have to scour for jobs I enjoyed less. Well, then, and you guys started taking these classes, and then that opened up to, all of a sudden, there were people that were taking classes for you guys that then we could use

on, people like Andy Daly, and Rob Riggleiggle and Rob Corddry and – There are other Robs. Yeah, all the Robs. Thousands of Robs we brought to you. It's like you guys somehow like sent out a signal, like a bad signal to people that were going to be funny in that particular way. Yeah, I'd rather credit Del here, but he, because that's the same epiphany I had with his, like, and you were talking about acting classes earlier and how boring they were. And when I would take- Again, this is Del Close, who's like the improv guru I had taken all those acting classes too and been so

not inspired by them it felt like either I'm not getting this or I'm not a good actor it made self doubt and the the techniques and methods never made sense to me and all of a sudden

I got in a class with this guy, Del, and he started talking about, however he talked about finding the game, just talked about how comedy works, how comedy can come from real life. And all of a sudden, I was like, holy shit, this makes sense to me. Yeah. It's clicking. He's not making me funny at all yeah but he's giving me a method of working with other people and us all raising our our level of comedy yeah

and all those people you just named is same thing they all existed out in new york and they were all funny they didn't have any place to do it together right system to do it right with each other so uh yeah i completely dell changed my life in that way yeah yeah for sure can't you tell my loves are growing now when you say self-doubt, I mean, in that early part, is it just – is there so much stuff building that, you know, that self-doubt doesn't creep into it? That you feel like, okay, we're going to start this school and we're going to – because, I mean, you guys – and I've said this before. You know, you guys have created one of the most vital performing we had we had no we had zero goal to as you know we didn't come to New York for a goal of opening a theater or even a school it just all came organically so I guess there's no doubt when

every move you make is being forced upon you even for better and for worse even up to this year that's been a nightmare for me like everything that happened to us was like wow we sure spent a lot of money renting class space it'd be better if we got this space for a month instead of every three days oh wow we spent a lot of money renting it for a month it'd be better if it was just hours yeah like we're we're every show in this guy's theater right now the soul arts project yeah yeah it's like look all this money we're spending we're being stupid if we just we could rent it from this much less across this you know that's how every decision happened yeah oh we got closed down when you sign

a lease for a thing how do you i mean i wish it my lesson of this year is i wish i had felt the fear i should feel i should feel with leases yeah yeah but that time oh my god andy all the stuff we did in that first theater and how much a fire trap it was. And so many theaters in New York are. There's no alleys in New York, folks. Yeah, yeah. How do you get out the back? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. You could say that of a ton of small theaters in New York. Yeah. And also the fire department shuts you down. Then you're like going oh yeah oh yeah the landlord told us they get out the landlord told us they get out by getting on the next building's roof and this is how you do it and the firemen come in and go what that's not a plan escaping to another roof you guys can't do a theater here anymore so then we had to get a

bigger theater so you know what i mean it wasn't like it didn't come from hey let's go get a bigger theater came from you guys get the fuck out of here yeah now i gotta make a new decision and all of us wanted to be and remain wanting to be comedians we don't want to be theater owners we didn't have that goal uh so everything that's happened to us for better and for worse is like someone working for us telling us hey it's gotten to this point do you guys want to do this uh yes or no yeah it's usually yes it's like okay that's what you guys think we'll do it yeah like you said wasn't intimidating signs leases it wasn't and then all of a sudden that caught up with us of like wow we should have been looking at these leases in the york arter

yeah because yeah they are scary well now you you have a special coming out right yes it's called pot humor it's an amalgamation of all these 420 shows i've done at our theater through the years and festivals i do i got a ton of weed humor um but uh you're the cheech and chong yeah baby i i went up to portland there's this northwest cannabis club it's one of the very few places you can actually get high and watch a show yeah this whole audience just baked out right and they were so high i do a lot of interactive stuff at the beginning of the show where they could barely like i've done this a lot with interacting with audiences talking to them in this 420 show this is the first time that they're literally baking during the show these guys could barely talk it was almost funny

just for that reason i had my wife there in the audience uh who does not smoke weed does she on occasion but not much but uh not all the shows about weed and i get into this riff about uh eating pussy and i'm like you can't you know i used to be able to say that in front of i would say it in front of my wife in the middle of the day, but now we have a kid and I can't say that anymore. So I'm going to this riff about, you have to talk in code. And I talked to the audience, like, what code would you use to say it? And then I go to my wife and I'm like, well, does any of that work for you? And everyone didn't know she's there up until that moment.

And they're all freely just saying, eating at the bakery or whatever. It's like, let's ask. And everyone went, ooh. She's actually here. Yeah, yeah.

The woman we're talking about. That's the pussy being eaten. Yeah, yeah. It's become real. It's not abstract anymore. I'm not sure if I've ever seen a stand-up go,

and this is my family I've been talking about the whole time. Yeah, yeah. Well, I know it's, yeah, because it's very fucking uncomfortable. Knowing stand-ups who do bits about their family, it makes my fucking skin crawl sometimes. It's ridiculous.

There's this guy, please watch it, folks. You can get it on Amazon or Xbox, all those VOD places, Apple TV. But when you do watch the scene with my wife, there's this guy sitting next to her whose eyes are closed. And when I start doing the bit that night with her, and I know it's all being filmed, I'm like, oh, my God,

this dude is sleeping right next to my wife. And how am I going to edit him out? Yeah, yeah. But then as the bit goes on, I see he's not sleeping. He's so high. His eyes are closed. And he's kind of grooving. You know, like when you groove to a jam at a concert

and you kind of just close your eyes? Yeah, yeah. And he was grooving to my comedy. To the comedy. Dude! You got to see it. And he does groove to it. I'm not even making out because you can see it. certain you kind of just close your eyes yeah yeah and he was grooving to my comedy dude you gotta see it he does groove to i'm not even making out because you can see it he's like rocking back and forth i'm like oh yeah this is what i wanted man an audience that gets so high. They find the rhythm of my jokes. They can't look at me. Oh, man. Well, now, I mean, UCB is now such a big – and like I said, the most – I think one of the most vital performing educational institutes in the country now.

You've got – well, I mean mean there's been some growth issues you know you've had you were on both coasts and you had to didn't you have to close one of those theaters on the well when you brought up leases like yeah at least that was a son of a bitch in the in the east village that the reality of it hit us suddenly and it was like oh this thing that i signed yeah it made me stop signing things like that yeah yeah it was a suddenly and it was like oh this thing that i signed yeah it made me stop signing things like that yeah yeah it was a big life lesson of like wow you trust people and people say it's this way and then you realize oh it wasn't that way at all and this is a bitch is it like continuing pretty well i know there's been like lots of controversy yeah even even that venue that closed,

we found a new, better venue, at least the way the stage is, uh, and location it's called subculture New Yorkers. Check it out. Our new second venue. And we're still in hell's kitchen.

Yeah. In New York. But yeah, we've gotten back on our feet, but this has been a year of me being involved in the theater way more than i want to uh i do just want to be a comedian and do my pot humor special and talk about that yeah i don't enjoy all the bummer parts of running the theater at all well but i, all four of you have going careers that don't allow you to just like run the theater. So it's kind of a.

And from the beginning, we've always said that. It was like, we did not get into this. So we are hiring people to run this theater. To run the theater. Yeah. But now how do you supervise? How do you supervise like just the basic ethos of what's going on there that you you still agree with it or does it just i mean you check in with shows is the one thing i think i've

i have always kept my my foot in the in the river on um because i didn't want whatever the types of shows we wouldn't have or even stuff like stupid shit like pre-show music like it bugs me when we play mainstream music when it's like i want the music to be like the comedy we're putting up yeah uh that kind of thing and uh but i i was never into monitoring the business side none of us wanted to do that yeah but when you say ethos that's more like the philosophy behind the the school and the performance i'd say so i've always been interested in that and kind of fascinated by it in a way right so i'm interested in comedy that way well how do i mean how do you guys handle though having to make sure that it's that the business is the business and that the money is,

it sucks, man. I don't handle it. This year has been awful. I'm not handling it well at all. Yeah. Or I I've handled it as well. I should say I've handled it as well as I could,

but it's like, it's like the death of a parent. It's like, you don't want to have, it's awful. And then you, you don't want to have to deal with and then you you don't want to have to deal with it but you you have to and it changes your life and you have no choice yeah versus

having a job that you can walk away from that you don't like or something like that right there's certain things in life you can't walk away from and this is one of them. Yeah. And it's been a bummer of a year that way. Yeah. But it's been positive in that our staff is so great, and we have turned ourselves around. Yeah. And ongoing, is it just kind of keep it going the way it is? Are there any more growth plans for the theater?

Or are you just, I mean i i'll be honest this year has been about simplifying it more than than growing in that we feel that we're the best comedy school and the best comedy theater and we were doing stuff like uh worrying about making branded content videos like we were in you know everyone was into that game yeah yeah and the body i was i was in one of them or you know the oh oh the cso thing in particular yeah yeah well i'd like to still be in that kind of bigger game but we were in the smaller like just making whatever ads for a company just like everybody everybody. Oh, I see what you mean. The funnier guy kind of model. And then that market kind of just dropped out for everyone. And we had put too much into that.

And then, and we felt like, why were we, that wasn't us. Yeah. Like, let's get back to the school and the theater. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I guess the growth comes in making opportunities for education to the rest of the country like we have an online sketch class we just started oh cool we do uh one-on-one tutoring with uh sitcom scripts that you can do in the middle of the country stuff like that our improv manual stuff like that so that's where we see the growth right now we're doing an audio book that you can hear anywhere in the world versus just the united states where our book is only available now so i guess that's where the growth

is is with the education now for you personally when you you know like ongoing like you said you just want to be a comedian but you kind of have this business you're running i mean yeah i even hate answering questions about ucb like i i like like it gives me well then you shouldn't have started a school asshole but that was the thing i didn't start a school i tried to save money by not spending as much on class space i was renting that's the way we started a school you started the best comedy school in the country, asshole. You have to fucking follow it now. But I want to be, if you're asking what I want to do moving forward,

I like doing comedy experiments like what you're doing with me later this week. Yeah. Like I've invited you to do so many times, and I thank you for doing through the years like i like doing shit like that i like trying something going i've never done a musical before i'm gonna try that i've never done a movie before i'll try that you know whatever it is i like doing that like challenging myself that way yeah you're not always giving every opportunity you want and that's showbiz but uh that's what i want yeah and uh what's great about this world we're sitting in right now the podcast world you greeted at the beginning of the show is we are in an affordable world where i can

do experiments i don't have to wait for ted harbert at nbc yeah to approve which you've been doing improv you've been doing an improv podcast and for many many hours of improv comedy yeah yeah improv for humans improv for humans yeah so uh yeah i'm glad about that because back when we started once again before the internet just to think that the only way i can be seen is to get on that stage tonight yeah and now there's other ways so you can create your own uh reality your own career to a degree you still have to find fans and stuff yeah that's where i'm at yeah and now and and going into the what have you learned part of these three questions, I mean, I'm sure that you get lots of, I mean, I get people sending me, I'm a comedy writer, I'm an aspiring comedy writer in Lincoln, Nebraska. What do I do? You know, I mean, and I don't necessarily mean like the advice aspect, but I mean, what's the point of what you've been doing i mean what where do you come out at the end of this very very amazingly diverse experience and career

yeah it's like when you're talking about what do you learn um because we have been talking about comedy but uh it could be about life too. I was going to say... You're just so notoriously private. I didn't want to tell people about it. Well, both my parents are dead and they both passed on too early. And it was in recent years relatively.

And there's no doubt they both, for different reasons, and what happened afterwards. To me, that's what changed my life. Like having just big picture lessons. Like one lesson I learned in life was you never know what's going on with people. Yeah. So I'm trying to give an example. Here's one that connects the two world.

My mom committed suicide. So that's a topic I didn't even think of before she did. And I wouldn't care. Because it wasn't in my life. And that's the way most people move through life. If something isn't affecting your life, you're not thinking about it too much and you probably just don't really care in a true empathetic way uh and especially we're going back to uh 20 year olds who are like in comedy and you just i'll fucking say anything i'm just gonna i

just want to be funny i'll be outrageous outrageous. I'll make fun of anything and everything and go anywhere with my comedy because I just do not give a fuck. I think at some point, as you start to mature as a comedian, you find an empathy where you have to realize my audience isn't me.

And I can affect the way they feel beyond comedy. I can make them sad by offending them or making them feel less than about themselves. Maybe a better way to put it than being offended. Yeah, alienated because you're just you're you're not thinking about their needs you're only thinking about your needs right so after my mom committed suicide all of a sudden everything on stage was suicide i started noticing and people making fun of it and being glib about it and cavalier and it being in comedy it's like it's like when you learn

a word that you hadn't. Yes. And then all of a sudden you start seeing it everywhere. And you're like, how did I not notice this word before? Yeah. It was the same thing with suicide. And I was like, but then that opened me up to like other things that maybe didn't affect me. I'm like, you got to start thinking about that. Yeah.

That you don't know what's going on with people. And that can apply to an audience or that can apply to someone you're working with who seems really dark for six months and you're like i think i used to would either write them off or go what an asshole whereas now it's like i don't know who knows what they're going through because i know people didn't know what i was going through and how it affected me so i try to be empathetic to that yeah uh and then that can go into comedy too like i don't know who's in the audience what they've been through i really got to know that whatever i'm going to say i would be comfortable with the whatever topic i'm talking about whatever type of person i'm talking about life experience type of person I'm talking about,

life experience, if a person that has that life experience or is that type of person in the audience, I should be comfortable saying this bit in front of them without feeling bad that I might be offending them. Yeah. So that doesn't mean no jokes about suicide, but it's like,

realize some people in the audience might either be contemplating suicide or know someone who had it or so just be careful yeah um but that applies to everything well that's that's why i think that you know this controversy about pc culture killing comedy and that comedy is supposed to be free and not have any concerns about offending people that's just you're talking about a grown-up attitude and you're saying like yeah sure say whatever you want but you gotta you gotta accept the consequences you gotta accept the responsibility of what you're saying and i think that this notion that comic comics should say whatever the fuck they want a it's usually a

it's usually a a cover for being not particularly original and just being boring and saying offensive shit because you think you know just stupid bro humor but it also too is a very unevolved very immature way of communicating and well you know that i i'm right in the middle of this of when i read all these opinions on this yeah no i know because i don't like to censor people i mean either and uh but i i and that's why i don't like to say certain topics are off are off limits i don't like to say certain words are off limits it's all about context and that's why i feel like that test I'm saying is, you want to do that crazy Asian accent?

Would you do that in the face of an Asian person? If you would, then that means you're either a sociopath and you hate Asian people, or you feel that your joke is crafted in a way that it isn't offensive to them yeah and that they should realize that yeah that's the way i'm putting it it's like and i could go back through my own material and take out a lot and go i don't know if i would say that in front of that person and so that that's that's me tying real life to comedy i guess in a lesson. But I don't know. I'm still learning.

How many lessons do you learn that you don't follow, though? Right. No, I know. I got a few of those in my pocket. Or that you forget, too. Like, I'll be, I constantly be like, oh, yeah, right. I remembered that thing. And I learned that thing a while ago, and I was just fucking it up over and over.

And now I remember I learned it again. All right. Well, we've talked for a long time. I know. We're such old friends. just fucking it up over and over, and now I remember I learned it again. All right, well, we've talked for a long time. I know, we're such old friends. Because I love you, and this is really fun. Okay, I hope I scored well on the three questions. Please grade me, folks. You did. At Matt Besser, send me my score.

You got a seven. I don't know out of what but you got a seven seven yeah alright well that's it you people have heard enough go outside now

you podcast listeners yeah but watch my special while you're outside yeah yeah get a virtual on your Apple TV

put your put your VR headset on and go sit in the park and watch pot Humor. All right, well, thank you, Matt Besser. I love you. Thanks, Andy. And thank you, listeners.

I love you, too. And we will. Yeah, sure. I love them. There's that one guy. But we will see you next time, hear you next time, be with you next time on The Three Questions. The Three Questions with Andy Richter is a Team Coco and Earwolf production.

It's produced by me, Kevin Bartelt, executive produced by Adam Sachs and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Chris Bannon and Colin Anderson at Earwolf. Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair, associate produced by Jen Samples and Galit Zahayek, and engineered by Will Becton. And if you haven't already,

make sure to rate and review The Three Questions with Andy Richter on Apple Podcasts. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Earwolf.