The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Mike Schur

Episode Date: August 10, 2021

Writer and Producer Mike Schur joins Andy to talk about writing on Saturday Night Live, Harvard, not overstaying your welcome in showbiz, and more.

hi everyone uh you have tuned in once again to uh the three questions with andy richter uh i am andy richter i continue to be unfortunately. And I am talking today with a very prolific creator of television, of laughs, of good times, Mr. Mike Schur. Hello, Mike. Hello. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. How are you? I'm good. We say, how are you? Just completely lying about the fact that we've actually been talking for about eight minutes now before you started recording. But that always feels weird to be like, how are you? And I know how you are because you just told me eight minutes ago.

I know. But but yeah, we have to like that. That way, then people don't know that we were talking shit about people for those full eight minutes. And, you know, and that like the the sort of, you know, update on our states was just incidental to us trashing people. That's right. So let's do it one more time. Ask me, introduce me and ask me how I'm doing. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, the very talented Mike Schur. Hey, Mike.

How are you? It's been so long. How are you? It's been so long. How are you? I'm so excited to be talking to you anew for the first time in years, right at this moment. I'm starting to talk. I'm so excited that I've erased my memory bank of ever having met you. So it's all new and fresh. Wow, Mike, sure. You're going to be so disappointed.

Wow, Mike, sure. You're going to be so disappointed. Are you working as much as you would be normally, or is COVID still sort of curbed what you are capable of doing? No, we're kind of still, we kind of never stopped. Yeah. And I say we meaning everyone around me, not the royal we. Sure, no, I know. But like the staffs that you work with and writers rooms and everything

yeah yeah i was in the middle of the show the first season of this show rutherford falls that i produced and created for peacock and we were uh we were just about to shoot the pilot when everything shut down and then we just seamlessly transitioned into a virtual writer's room and then the show hacks that i produced on hbo max that was 100 of virtual writers room but the you know the when we started shooting again in september it was like all right we're just gonna do this the way the best we can everybody wore masks and face shields and everybody got tested a million times and so we never stopped it i mean it it shut down when everything shut down and then once it got back up and running a few months later, it's just been pretty continuous.

And yeah, it's pretty wild. It's weird. I mean, I don't know whether it's because I know that about Hex, which I loved, by the way. And it's not it's not something that I would normally, you know, when you tell me it's a show about comedy, I'm usually like, you know, no, thanks. You know, because it's always like I this one of the cringiest things in the world is in a show that's about people doing comedy and somebody is doing comedy. That's really hilarious. And you can tell it's really hilarious because everybody there is laughing really loud. But when you as you sit there and listen to the person doing the comedy, it's like, it's not that good. What are they on? It's so awful.

It just feels so bad. Yeah, there are many examples of shows in the past that have been set in the world of sketch comedy or stand-up comedy or just comedy in general that you're watching it and you're like, you just can't help but feel like you're lying to me. These people aren't actually funny. And you don't have to be a professional comedy writer or comedian to know that. It's actually part of the reason that I tend not to like multicam sitcoms, because multicam sitcoms have live audiences, and in some cases, laugh tracks that are sweetened or in some cases, unsweetened. But there's this rhythm to them where every single thing that every single person says gets a huge laugh from the audience. And I always, when I watch them now, I feel like that's not even a joke. That thing that person said isn't even a joke.

And I don't fault the audiences because if you've been to a multi-camera sitcom taping, it is really fun and exciting and you're there and people are making jokes and they're doing stuff on stage. And it does, I think the laughter is almost entirely sincere. I really, at least the first time that they do it. Maybe not take seven, but it's not their fault. It's just that like they're, they're just excited to be there because it's fun. And they want to help. Yes, exactly.

They want to help. They feel like this is my job. I got it. You know, everybody here is spinning plates and they've given us a plate to spin and it's just a laugh every time the seven times that we see this kind of lame entrance, you know? Right. And, but when you're at home in the sober light of your own living room, you're like, well, that's not, that isn't funny. And that's not even a joke. And then you start to just feel like you're being lied to. Yeah. Gaslighted by television. Yeah. I remember, especially coming from New York and coming from late night. I mean, I'd done other things, but I had never worked in sitcoms. I'd never worked in primetime comedy television. I'd done a couple of movies

and stuff like that. So I came from seven years of late night to LA to do sitcoms. And one of the first things I did was a guest spot on Just Shoot Me. And it was like the second or third day and Brian Posehn and I, it was after we were waiting for the run-through that was after lunch. After lunch, Brian Posehn and I are sitting kind of in the darkness behind one of the sets, you know, reading a paper or something, just hanging out quietly. And George Siegel and David Spade come, and they start to do – they start the run-through just on the other side of the flat that we're sitting behind. And it's the third time we've gone through this and it's just writers and just producers.

There's no studio, there's no network. And you hear, you know, door open, door shut, ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba. And then this shriek of laughter from the people that wrote the bit that have seen the bit now at least four times. Right. A shriek of laughter that literally jolted me, like made me jump like up a little bit. Like, what the fuck?

Like a gunshot. Yeah. bit like what the fuck like a like a gunshot yeah and i just it's so i can't just i can't imagine doing i just can't imagine like how can you do that you know i understand a little bit of a little bit of grease you know a little bit of ha ha ha sure just to help them i mean i'm and to keep the studio network people feeling happy or whatever yeah Yeah, sure. And I mean, and I'm a fucking talk show sidekick. I understand where a little bit of manufactured laughter just to keep things going, how that works, you know, I mean, you know, Conan will say like, I never laughed fake. I've I'd left fake all the time. You know, I mean, I just would amp it up. You know,

it'd be something that would be kind of funny. But then again, I also, too, if I'm screaming with laughter, it's because it's funny. It's not, you know, it'd be something that would be kind of funny. But then again, I also, too, if I'm screaming with laughter, it's because it's funny. It's not, you know. And when I did Andy Riker Controls the Universe, some of the writers would say, because I was in the writer's room from the beginning of that, and they would say, you're really a tough laugh. And I was like, not really. You know, not really. Well, here's the thing, too, is that you and i both started in late night yes and late night is a is a cauldron man it is a boiling cauldron of intensity and you have to

earn you really have to earn laughs in late night there because it's you know in your case you're on from originally 12 30 to 1 30 in the morning snl is from originally 1230 to 130 in the morning. SNL is on from 1130 to one in the morning. There are live audiences. You go out. I mean, I have never in my life experienced the kind of pain that came from bombing at SNL. Like at bombing at SNL is the worst shame because it's a live audience. You've got all these talented actors. You've got will ferrell and molly shannon and chris parnell and unicast or whoever what more tools could you want yeah like it's very clear whose fault it is right the sketch bombs and but like that audience that new york snl audience is not is not gaslighting anyone they not fake laughing. They're not giving it up. They're

not greasing the wheels. And so when you bombed either at a read-through at SNL or live with a sketch, it is excruciating. And I think, and I don't know how you feel about this, but I think it's the best thing that ever happened to me. Like bombing in those read-throughs or bombing at SNL because it drives the ego right out of you like if you think you're good at what you're doing all it takes is a couple stony silences during things you've written to to like just give you a reality check on how hard the job is and how difficult it is to make people laugh for real and i really am so grateful i had that and how ultimately when you're doing it it's not not about you. Like it's not about,

like it's this other thing that you're all doing together. It's not, it's not the players, it's the team and it's the game, you know? Yes. A hundred percent. And I always like, even beyond SNL, I feel like the thing about Conan that was sort of, you know, like you said, it's, it said, it's hot and heat galvanizes. You know, it makes it strong. And just that we had to do it every single night, too. We were on, you know, we were on initially five nights a week and then four nights a week.

You can't even if you bomb or you do like he used to. Conan used to. Like he used to, Conan used to, like it's partly our temperament, but it's also partly I could sort of sense like early on in the relationship, I'm the one that's supposed to keep things calm. Like when things get elevated, I got to be the, you know, I got to keep my feet on the ground. I can't freak out with him. So we would, early on, we'd do a bad show. You know, a show that just didn't work. And it wasn't that great. And the guests weren't that great.

And it was, you know, it was kind of a dull hour. And it didn't feel great being out there. But you're done. And he would be like, oh, my God, that was terrible. Oh, my God, that was awful. And I'd say, yeah, it's a shame we don't get to do another one tomorrow. But we did. You know, it's a shame we don't get to do another one tomorrow. But we did. You know, it's like you get to reinvent yourself.

SNL too, you get to reinvent yourself every week. Last weekend wasn't so great. You're going to come back and do it again. So it's like, you know, the other thing too about the compressed schedule that isn't here, you don't have time to massage rejection. In the Conan room, you come up with an idea and you say, what about this?

And everyone goes, eh. And you go, are you sure? What about, no, but this, let me restate it. Now, then you let it go. You move on. You move on because you don't have time. You're laying tracks for a train that's moving yeah and and you can't that's why and when i got to la and somebody would pitch

something i'd go like nah it's not that good it's not you know it didn't grant and people would be like oh my god like you're supposed to you're supposed to like butter them up first before letting them down easy and i'm like what the fuck we're why yeah why we don't have all magicians doing card tricks for each other we know their tricks what the fuck there's also there's you know there's a flip side to that which is i remember the first snl that i ever did a good job which is like a year in to oh wow i i sucked for a very long time and and again this is not false modesty i legitimately objectively sucked at the job and about a year in i had a show that

where i just i i was getting better i was figuring it out and finally i have the show where like i get like two sketches on and a bunch of like weekend update jokes and i just was like i was the guy that week like i, you sort of take turns. Usually when I was there, it was like, well, Tina Fey is always going to have three sketches on the air. She's the guy. Adam McKay always is going to have three sketches on the air. But then everybody else was sort of taking turns.

You'd have, oh, this person got two sketches on. Good for them or whatever. So that week, I was the guy. I don't remember who the host was. I don't remember what was going on. But I did a great job. And for the first time in my life. So that week I was the guy. I don't remember who the host was. I don't remember what was going on, but I did a great job. And for the first time in my life.

And the sketches went on the air and they did pretty well. And the jokes that I got on Weekend Update like did pretty well. And I was just on top of the world because I was like, finally, I figured this out. And I went to sleep and I woke up on Monday and was like, oh, I have to do it again. Like that's gone now.

No one cares. Everyone has forgotten. Obviously, a five-show a week or four-show a week show is this times four or five, but the disposability of what you're doing really gets hammered home all the time, where it's like, nobody cares what you did last week. We're starting with a blank page, and we have a show to do. And so that's another thing that drives the ego out of you. Because the second you think you're a big deal, or that you're good at this, or that you figured it out, or that you can coast, it's like, we have another hour or another 90 minutes we have to do right now. Get your ass in gear and figure something out. I um will ferrell's last show at snl um he uh he was leaving and everyone was miserable and it was a sort of the the very last show of

the year was this sort of like this victory tour where he and mckay wrote like seven things yeah all of which were amazing and they were some of his old best characters robert goulet maybe and you know harry carrey thrown in there perhaps harry carrey who had i think been dead for several years but but um so you know of those you know four or five of them get chosen because it's like this is will's last show and then after the dress rehearsal like two of them got cut because that's what happens at snl is you do a dress rehearsal and they cut a bunch of stuff and one of the ones that was cut i don't remember what it was was a thing that like he had really wanted to do and i remember i went up to him and i was like

well i am so sorry that this is happening this way and he kind of shrugged he was like that's snl you know like that's what happens you write sketches and they get cut yeah and he he had such a more evolved attitude about it than i did i had no investment in it at all except that i loved him and wanted him to be on tv more yeah yeah and probably wanted to see that sketch again of course it was funny i bet it was funny yeah but that he had just the right attitude which is like yeah this is the deal with this show like If you're looking for something else from this show, you're in the wrong place. This show is about grinding it out and disposable tissue-like comedy that we do every week

and then we start again on Monday. If you want something else, you're in the wrong place. Yeah, yeah. Improv teaches you that because you can have, like, really a mind-blowing show where literally things come out of your mouth that you don't know where they came from. Right. And you leave there on such a high and then it just goes out into the night air and never to be seen again.

Maybe Brian Stack will remember it word for word because he has a weird photographic memory for every sketch ever done. Right. as a weird photographic memory for every sketch ever done. Right. And the other beautiful thing that happens and that I started to notice early on, and improv does this, repeated strip TV does this, the feeling of, well, I can make more. You know, like me thinking of funny things to put on TV

is not a dry well yet. You know, I mean, like me thinking of funny things to put on TV is not, there's not, it's not a dry well yet, you know? I mean, there's still stuff there. And I think there are so people that, people that get so, like this idea, this, and it's like, it doesn't matter. It's just, it's not, you know, it's not a poem. It's not a sculpture. It's a sketch idea. And in five years, nobody will think it's funny anyway. You know what I mean?

Odds are. So, yeah. But the reason I bring it, I brought it up initially to say that one of the things about watching Hacks was it had a COVID feel. It had like I could feel like and like I say, I don't know that that's just because i you know have like an insider look at how things are shot because i do and i often say things about the way things are shot that my daughter is like shut up like don't care yeah don't care dad um like man that i bet that took three days to shoot that thing. Shut up, dad. But it felt like it had like an isolated feel to it.

You know, lots of scenes in hotel rooms and things and in big, fancy Vegas-y places, which are already alienating. Like the fanciness of Vegas already makes me feel sad and lonely for some reason. It's the saddest and loneliest place on earth. Yeah. But it was – and it didn't hurt it in any way. It made me feel like kind of coming out of COVID and seeing the show that I knew was made in COVID, it was kind of nice you know because you know it ultimately the show is about broken people making connections and i mean that's like you know that's kind of it's a great theme if yeah if covid wasn't a like a reset of that for you know like so many people and made you think about the ways in which you're broken and the ways in which you need to connect.

Yeah. You know, so, but anyway, I loved it. I loved it. Well, I'm glad. I mean, some of that stuff is coincidental. You know, that was always the pitch, the pitch which we took out, I think in, I don't even remember when, 2019. I don't even remember when, 2019, that loneliness, that alienation, that feeling of like, I'm in, you know, Hannah Einbender, who plays Ava, the young girl who, you know,

ends up sort of like becoming a mentee slash daughter figure to this, to Jean Smart's character. Been a guest on this show. Oh, excellent. She has, her character has this, you know, love of LA and all things LA, and she ends up in Vegas. And part of the pitch was, you know, Vegas is this bizarre place that is so close. It's 45 minutes by plane from Los Angeles and couldn't feel farther away from Los Angeles. And she's just, she just wants to get back. She's just in this weird place

where she doesn't understand the rules or the way that the hotel work or where to go to get her dinner or lunch or whatever. And she just feels like, I'm trapped in this weird purgatory. And it just so happened, I think, that that is how a lot of us felt even in our own homes during COVID. It just was this weird, isolating, alienating thing. And a lot of people were talking about how Ted Lasso came along at the perfect time because the world was just in need of this kind of optimism and positivity. But I also think that Hacks did the same thing in the other way, which was like, we're all feeling this way now. And it's about, the show is really about, like you said, these two women who just need, they're missing something. They're fundamentally missing a piece of their soul or their constitution or whatever you want to call it.

And in the most unlikely possible way, they find it in the other one. in the most unlikely possible way they find it in the other one. Like no 24-year-old would ever think, you know what I really need is a 70-something comedian to help me fill my soul or vice versa. But that's what the show is really about. So I think it sort of struck a chord for that reason. No, it's really, it's just a beautiful story. And I love how both of the characters are like, you know, like Hannah's character is fucking tiresome a lot of the time. You know what I mean?

Just like you guys did a good job of of portraying a young person who yes is correct like you're correct in what you're saying but jesus christ you're annoying you're oh my fuck just yeah yeah no i agree with you but shut up and just you know live a little too like well that's the so i first want to say that this is i did not create the show it's it's uh jen statsky who worked with me at parks and rec and then in The Good Place. And Paul Downs and Lucian Yellow are the three creators, and they deserve 100% of the credit. I just always feel like I need to say that. Yeah, but I'm not talking to them.

Yeah, exactly. Where are they right now? Yeah. Right in the show. Have fun, guys. Fun guys. So, you know, Jean Smart was the known quantity and deservedly has gotten this tremendous amount of praise for her performance. It's a stunning performance.

It's a wonderful, there's no other way to say it. It's a Jean Smart-like performance in this show. She's been perfect forever. For 40, 50 years now, she's been doing this. And I'm so happy that people now see her in this different way because she's legitimately hilarious. She's an incredible actress. She deserves all of the awards that exist in Hollywood. Yeah. Hannah Einbender, who was a relative unknown, or to steal Conan's famous line, she is a complete unknown. Conan's famous line. She is a complete unknown. When we put her in the show, to me, it's equally as impressive a performance for exactly the reason you're talking about, which is her character's

really annoying. And it's really hard to play an annoying character and not actually be annoying yourself. And she has this magical quality about her, which is that she can say annoying things, and she can take annoying stances, and she can be condescending and lackadaisical and infuriating and all of the things that people who are our age sometimes complain about people who are her age. Yeah, yeah. And yet, at the end of the day, she's so sympathetic and she wears her wounds on her sleeves and you can tell how damaged she is and how much she deserves happiness. And I just think it's an incredible acting performance. I'm so happy for her that people are seeing that no i i really i just was so so happy to like it so much and because i also too like i'm not i don't i don't people ask me like what comedies are you watching and it's almost nothing i don't yeah i don't watch like you said ted lasso i have not watched

ted lasso because i have a feeling it's probably too optimistic and feel good for me to be straight up honest i just feel like it's gonna be all of you know it's gonna be you know like there's gonna be a whole lot of sports stuff and the way sports bring us together which you know i'm making the jerk off motion folks um but i you know i just and i will get around to seeing it but i just haven't seen it yet but well i think that when you when you work in comedy the last thing you want to do at night is watch comedy it's just it's just the deal like i i'm i don't know if drama writers or performers are the same way but my wife who's also a comedy writer and i almost exclusively watch either uh dramas or or dramatic movies or reality

shows where people get matched with their with dogs from shelters those are the only two things that we watch that's all we want to see we don't and and part of it is part of it is exactly what you're saying which is like you see the matrix code behind yeah the stories and you're like okay they're doing this thing where this is going to happen. And once in a while there'll be a show that's genuinely new and fresh and exciting and kind of like, I don't know if you watched the great, the show about Catherine the Great. I watched a number of them and it was, it was sweet.

Yeah. And it also has a tone that I think I've never seen before. Like I don't even know how to describe it. And I became interested in it. I loved it. And I became interested in it in a way that like an anthropologist would be interested in discovering like a new culture in like Antarctica or something of like, oh, this is fascinating. Let me examine this.

So sometimes really something like that. But generally speaking, you just just you know what everybody's doing because you've done you know if you work in a slaughterhouse you don't want to uh at night you don't want to like cook a sausage because you're like i know i just know how this is made the one i metaphorize is like a plumber doesn't come home and watch hd tv you know right exactly yeah yeah i did that all day no thank you uh yeah aren't you supposed to ask me three questions, by the way? Yeah, we're getting there. Come on.

Jesus Christ. What the fuck? Who's hosting this thing? I just want to make sure that I'm not derailing you. I don't want to derail you. I know you're used to producing things. You're used to being in charge. But this is mine.

Listen. I have so little. If you're happy, I'm happy. I just want to make sure that I wasn't going off on some tangent that was going to cause you trouble with your producers. Oh, no. There's no producers. Nobody. I mean, listen.

Matt's recording this, and then beyond that, there's tumbleweeds. There's no one. There's nothing. It's like one of those boiler rooms where you go to the offices of your podcast, and there's just phone phone cords empty phone cords sticking out of the floor no furniture exactly exactly yep that's my podcast no uh you know the whole gimmick of of the three questions was because i wanted to i did i do like to talk in in a i like introspection i like figuring out what happened and how it affected you. And that's just kind of, you know,

the, the, the three questions is just a way to get into that. Sure. But a lot of times too, it's just, I mean, I know people will want to,

people are dying to hear what you and I think about comedy. I think so too. Let's talk, let's make this a five hour podcast. We just assume that everyone is dying to hear our every thought about the world of comedy. Yes, people don't hear enough white men talking about the way things should be. Thank you. It is about goddamn time that somebody asks two white dudes about comedy.

Yeah. God, poor Whitey. That's all. I'm getting a t-shirt made. Poor Whitey. Oh. Don't get that t-shirt made. Even as a bit, I'm getting a T-shirt made. Poor Whitey. Don't get that T-shirt made. Even as a bit, don't get that T-shirt made.

You're from the East Coast, yes? Technically, originally, I'm from Ann Arbor, Michigan, but I grew up my whole life on the East Coast, yeah. Was somebody going to U of M there? My dad went to U of M Law School. Okay. Technically, actually, he was in grad school in linguistics, and he got his, like, master's in linguistics or whatever, and the people were like, congratulations, you have a master's in linguistics. You've qualified for the PhD program. Don't do it.

There's no jobs in linguistics like anywhere. You're going to die. You're going to starve to death and die. And so he at the time had married my mom and my older sister had been born and I had been born and he was panicking. And so he switched over, went to the law school and got a law degree and was miserable his whole life uh he was he had two kids as a grad student yeah like you know nerves of steel well that those that generation our parents generation man that my mom got married when she was a junior in college wow yeah i think my mom did too yeah now it should be noted the marriage didn't work so i don't think it was like, don't take any advice from her on that.

Right, right. But yeah, they got married. She was 20. My dad was 22. My older sister was born two years later. I mean, it's a completely different thing. I can't even imagine. No.

I have a 20-year-old son, and I think about that fucker getting married right now? Jesus Christ, what a mess that would be i mean i and you don't even have to do it by proxy like i think about myself yeah when i was 22 and what a moron i was yeah and how incapable of of sustaining a relationship much less getting married making that kind of commitment or being a dad like Like, I mean, my goodness. And it's happened. That's happened in one generation, really from their generation to ours, that stuff kind of went out the window, I think for a lot of people. Yeah. I was 27 when I got married and it, it, I was still stupid. You know, I still was like, it still took years to get to a point where like i was i wasn't just making big mistakes all the time just

and i mean not like not like you know not sexy wild mistakes just like communication mistakes like yeah continually talking in a way that's not productive and that's hurtful and that you know if you change the way that you talk to the person you're with, oh, wow, it's a lot better. And I didn't lose anything. I just changed the way, you know, I still, I'm still me. I'm still thinking, I'm still feeling, but I'm just saying it differently, you know? Yeah. I got married right before I turned 30. And I think I probably got married at the earliest moment that I wasn't a total moron. Like, I was a total moron like two months before the wedding.

Right, right. And I think I just slipped in into non-moron. Right, right. Right before we actually got married. And even then, of course, you make mistakes forever. You'll never stop making mistakes. I just can't imagine making the kind of mistakes you make when you're 22 and being married. I mean, what a mess you are. What a mess you are emotionally and just

everything, you know? Yeah, I mean, utterly ill-equipped for the kind of responsibility that marriage or parenthood puts on you. Yes. So did your folks split up and then that was what predicated the move to, Was it Connecticut, was that what you said? Connecticut, yeah. They moved when I was... My dad graduated from law school, got a job at a law firm. He and my mom had both grown up in the Northeast, so we just sort of drifted back there. And I grew up in central Connecticut for all of my childhood. So this town called West Hartford, which is just west of Hartford and is a very quiet, very boring suburb, a perfectly lovely place to grow up, like good schools, low crime, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. Upper middle class or?

Yeah, like sort of a little bit striated, like some super richies up in the hills and then the normals are down in the flats. Right, right. It's one of those places. And then, yeah, the people that work on their houses live below their houses. That's right. And also compared to other towns in the area, it was more middle class then at least. I don't know what it's like now. I haven't been back in a long time, but there were some really wealthy suburbs around there. If you watch the show Parks and Recreation that I co-created with Greg Daniels, there was a town called Eagleton, which was the rich, nice version of the town of Pawnee where the main characters lived. And Eagleton was just the waspiest, fanciest.

Everyone was decked out in Ralph Lauren and that sort of thing. And the whole town smelled like vanilla because they had a vanilla extract plant or something. And that, that was based on this town called Simsbury, which was right next to West Harvard. And it's where all of the, like, all of the like upwardly mobile yuppies in West Harvard, like dreamed of moving to Simsbury because it was like more elite and,

and rarefied. yeah yeah that that suburban world was um was where i grew up and and it i guess that town has actually changed a lot since i left like i mean my family's been gone for 25 years but it's apparently now much more sort of bustling and exciting and it was pretty sleepy when i was there but now it's like a it's like there's a like a shopping center and there's all sorts of fancy stuff that's moved in. I guess because, I don't know, ESPN is in the area. It's nearby. And I think all the Richies from ESPN live there now.

So I was there when it was very sleepy and sort of boring and fine. Connecticut is weird because, well, coming from the Midwest and then you're like living in new york city there was there's just this kind of east coastness that i was just not even aware of and like uh a friend of mine uh that was from was from new jersey but he went to amherst and he was friends with matt besser that's how i ended up knowing a guy named eric zickland do you know eric i don't think so he's a he's a writer and but he was like he and i were friends in new york when we both didn't know a lot of people in new york and we would you know he'd say oh we're going to a party and he'd say but i should warn you know i should tell you it's all like it it's all uh you know yale people and And I'd be like, what does that mean?

He's like, well, it's just, you know, they're all people from Yale. Or it'd be like, oh, this is a Rutgers party. And I just was like, nobody gives a shit about where you went to college in the Midwest. Nobody cares. Yeah. So this notion of Connecticut to me was always that it was just like one big country club, but it's not. There's like a lot, there's a lot of really poor people living in Connecticut, you know?

Yeah, it is. It's, it's both, you know, it's, it's like there are more kind of famous like prep schools in Connecticut than anywhere else. Like all those, you know, Connecticut and Massachusetts, that's all the Andover, Exeter, all that, all that, that kind of world, that country club, old new England, blue blood Protestant world.

And then also it's like a manufacturing where there's, there's like towns that are like just really blue collar. And my town was a little of both probably more white collar yuppie ish. The only things that Connecticut has really are the insurance industry. Like it's almost the, one of the saddest things, I defend my state

because again, I like Connecticut. I like growing up there. But one of the saddest things about my childhood was Hartford wanted to be known as the insurance capital of the world. That was a title that they actively sought. And the problem was that technically speaking, as I remember it,

Des Moines, Iowa had more insurance people in the insurance industry. So Hartford and Des Moines were locked in this like death struggle of who could be crowned the insurance capital of the world. So that's the kind of like white-collar-ness. It's not Silicon Valley. It's not, you know, that's the kind of like white-collar-ness. It's not Silicon Valley. It's not, you know, it's this kind of old, everyone is an insurance agent or a lawyer.

It's that kind of white-collar-ness. So, you know, I, again, like I didn't, I liked growing up there. It was real, I always, I went to public schools that were great and got a great education for free. And the people were really nice and i could ride my bike around in a sort of stranger things kind of a way uh and and with my friends and not worry about either real crime or or stranger things type demon crimes yeah and and so i have nothing against it at all it just wasn't it's not a place that i particularly wanted to stay i wasn't like i can't wait to get back there. You knew at a point,

like, I'm not staying here. Yeah. Yeah. Like, how old do you think that was? I think that by the time I was looking at colleges or maybe a little earlier, I was like,

I'm, when I go to college, I'm leaving and I'm not coming back. Like I, I just, I didn't see, I didn't see the future for me and what I was interested in, in Connecticut.

And also with New York so close, I just knew that's where I'm going. I kind of always knew I'm going to New York and I'm going to be in comedy somehow when I graduate and that's what happened. Yeah. It's like you're in a bottle and somebody pulls the cork and you're just going to float down there. That's right. And you're not like, let me get back in that bottle and try to squeeze that cork back in. Yeah, yeah. And you went to Harvard, right?

I did. You did. And were you like, obviously you were a good student. I mean, Conan went to Harvard, but he didn't talk about Harvard much. And I think most people that went to Harvard that have a healthy attitude about Harvard never talk about Harvard very much. It's always like the people that really talk about her, you know, are like, you know, Dinesh D'Souza, you know, like, and I don't even know if he went there, but, you know, but it's always like some asshole that's got something to prove that's really like Harvard,

Harvard, Harvard. Yeah. Dinesh, I think, went to Dartmouth. Don't, don't pin him on, like some asshole that's got something to prove that's really like harvard harvard harvard yeah dinesh i think went to uh dartmouth don't don't pin him up harvard has too many evil super villains to have to have another one forced down our throat we've got i can't keep them and oh right and mark zuckerberg we got we got it we have our fair share um so don't voice Dinesh D'Souza. All right, all right. Sorry. But I think you're right. I think that there's two versions of this, right?

Because one is there's a lot of Harvard people in the comedy world. And so it comes up a lot in the comedy world. But that just in general, I think that it's weird to talk about where you went to college if not asked by someone, no matter where you went to college. Right. It's so long ago now. mean i'm 45 matter for it to really mean anything yeah and and you know my i have a son who's 13 now and he's start college is just like floating into his consciousness a little bit and my son would be so much happier i know this already would be so much happier at like the university of wisconsin or or oregon or ucla or any place than he would at harvard that i'm desperately

hoping he has no interest in ever even trying to go to harvard and i don't know if he could get in if he tried but i just know i know the kind of person he is and the kind of person he is is not is like he's going to be happier somewhere else. And so the thing that's always seemed the strangest to me is when wherever you went, the idea of forcing your kid or being invested in any way in your kid also going there is so crazy to me. I don't understand that. College can be the greatest thing that ever happened to you. It can be the best four years of your life if you find the right place.

And the right place is a different place for everybody. So I'm just, I just think of it as like, that was the right place for me. I had a great time. I loved it. And I rode on the Lampoon, which Conan also rode on. And that was a huge thing for me in terms of my life and career.

And that's sort of the end of it. And then I graduated and I don't think about it that much anymore. Did you set out to go to Harvard because of the comedy aspect of it? I wrote in my application that I wanted to write for The Lampoon. That was a thing that I knew about, I had read about.

And I knew that that was like a thing that i knew about i had read about and yeah i knew that like that was like a was like a a place for me i just felt it in my bones so yeah that was a huge part of it it's almost like an unofficial comedy major you know what i mean like yeah like that it's like because there's a couple other colleges like uh university wisconsin and madison kind of has a bit of a reputation as an improv comedy kind of place. But there's not a lot of like colleges that teach you how to be funny. You know, you go to Second City or you go to the Groundlings or UCB now. But I think that Harvard did it. It's like unique in that sense.

Yeah, it has this weird thing, this weird magazine that was founded 150 years ago and that's an extracurricular yeah yeah and the thing i really liked about it is there's harvard has their version of um what do you call them at princeton the eating the eating clubs is that what they're called i think that's what they're called at princeton they eat they're like they're like they're fraternities but they're not it's not like animal house fraternity it's like these sort of like rarefied you know small clubs where you like it's just this sort of weird social status thing of like which eating club are you in and harvard has uh or at least at least used to have their own version of that which were called final clubs and it's just pure like in the movie the social network there's one called the porcelain that that's real that the

winklevoss twins are in then they take them they they're like it's just the marker of like you have a certain lineage your family was on the mayflower you had you went to the right school you have the right parents whatever it's that there's that that kind of bullshit that happens at all these ivy league schools the lampoon is not that the lampoon is like you write pieces of comedy or you do you do art and then it's just like it's a meritocracy like the people take you or they don't and that that really appealed to me because i don't have the right name my grandfather was like a jewish immigrant from uh from the from east east germany slash russia yeah like like he i don't i'm not gonna make it if the if the world is lined up even as a white dude from East Germany slash Russia.

I'm not going to make it. If the world is lined up, even as a white dude, I'm not going to make it into your fancy clubs because I just don't. I'm not the right person. But the Lampoon didn't care. And I submit. I was like, that was part of their selling point was like, this is a meritocracy.

If you're funny enough, you'll get in. And to test their theory, I submitted all my stuff anonymously. Because I was like, I want to know. Because I didn't know. I was like, I want to know really if they're telling the truth. If this is truly blind admission, then if I'm good enough, I'll get in. If I'm not, I won't.

And I got in without them knowing who I was. And that was pretty cool. I was like, all right i mean how were you able to do that i mean you just i wrote i wrote my own i only wrote my i wrote like my first initial and then i can't remember what i did for my last name i might have just written my last name because there were there wasn't like the internet then this is yeah yeah so like yeah i didn't they didn't know whether i was male or i mean eventually they learned because i you had you had these like you had these like interviews basically to try to get in there and physical examinations that's right right conducted by

medical professionals sure sure uh so but i so yes you're right i didn't get all the way in without them knowing but i made the cut of to get to the election without them knowing whether i was male or female or who I was or what I looked like. And it just made me really happy because it was like, all right, like, I'm, I don't know if I'll get in or not, but I know that they don't, they're not basing this on anything other than what I'm writing, which is. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, that is good. Yeah. That's good. Good on you, Lampoon. Good job, everybody. Good on you in the year 1993 a lot has probably happened since yeah yeah uh well i mean you were you were the president right that's kind of like yeah yeah and that's uh that's more sort

of like being uh chief editor really more isn't it kind of yeah i mean essentially yes it's like i mean the lampoon is a is a completely student run, and it's a mess. And everyone, I mean, it goes in waves. Like sometimes it's, you know, sometimes they're really on top of everything. And they publish a ton of stuff. And they do all these cool pranks. And they do all these parodies or whatever. And then there's like fallow periods where like nobody really is minding the store. And it just kind of almost falls apart but yeah it's basically like being the chief editor or something and writer yeah head writer yeah and you do it for usually a year although conan very famously yes for two years um and there's been a couple my friend matt murray was president for two years which is very rare because you have to get on like he too has a hole that can't be filled that's right yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He has a, he has the part of his soul is missing and he'll never, he'll never repair it. Sure.

Sure. When you're not enough, you know, I mean, you're damaged, but not like them. No, not anything close to Conan.

I mean, God. Can't you tell my loves are growing? So, uh, what do you do when you get out i mean is it just comedy or are you kind of like oh boy you know yikes i might have to write advertising it's that yeah i i um so i'm extremely practical person I'm very risk averse. And when I graduated, I thought like, okay, I want to do this professionally, but I'm not going to roll the dice forever. So I basically gave myself a year to become gainfully employed as a comedy writer. And if I didn't achieve that goal in a year,

I was going to go to grad school. I was going to go to graduate school in English. So I got the applications ready. And I moved to New York right after I graduated in June of 97. And I couch surfed with my friends. And I found a friend of a friend was leaving town. And I apartment sat for her for three months and took care of her 23-year-old cat. And I sort of scraped by, and I got some temp work, and I did some stuff just to pay rent when I needed to. But I was basically like, I'll take a year, and if I don't get hired in a year, I'll go to grad school or I'll get a job or whatever. And so I got interviewed. So I wrote a packet packet for snl i wrote a letterman packet i think i wrote a conan packet um pretty sure i did and then i and i got interviewed by snl that summer

uh like in august july or august of 97 and i guess so I got interviewed. So I went into 30 Rock for the interviews. I was very nervous. And we went around in pairs to meet the producers and then eventually Lauren. And I was paired with this woman who I just chatted with amiably. And I immediately felt very strongly that I wasn't getting hired because I was like, this woman is a hundred times funnier than I am. And if this is what it takes to get hired, I don't have a chance. And it was Tina Fey. And I was like, wow. And, and she got hired and I didn't. And when I heard that news, I was like, yes, that's absolutely the right decision. Like good work. Like just having talked to her for 20 minutes it was just incredibly clear to me that i was not ready to work there um so they hired her and she immediately like took over

the joint and started running everything um and then in january december so then i was like i was trying to do other things i got a job pitching jokes to john stewart which was really great and um he didn't use any of them and he shouldn't have because they weren't good and uh and i sort of just was like i felt like i was on the right track but i wasn't sure whether it was going to actually happen and then in december they fired some people it was the summer remember when norm mcdonald got fired from update yeah because he was telling too many jokes about oj about oj and then made old meyer mad yeah that's right so he got fired and they and there was this big shuffle and in classic snl fashion i got a call from mike shoemaker the producer of the show that said hey you start monday basically

like we're hiring you and you start monday wow and yeah and so like january 3rd or 4th or whatever right after the break i was my first day i started mid-year and like i said before like i sucked at the job like the the feeling i had when i was interviewing and talking to tina fey and and meeting adam mckay and steve higgins and tim hurley he and all the guys who are running the show at the time i should have i should basically should have said no to the job i should have said no i'm not ready uh because i was like, I don't understand this. These people are operating at a level that is five levels above me in terms of how fast they are, how quick they are,

how many ideas they have, just how funny they are. And so I started in January, and I sucked for a good straight year until I figured out how to actually do the job. straight year until i figured out how to actually do the job and uh well i mean you always that's something you learn when in show business when somebody can you do this you go yeah and then whispered is something yeah like hey how do you do this um it's totally true. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I learned that doing film production in Chicago. I'd get hired as like I I remember one job specifically. I got hired as a second AD. I think it was Frosted Flakes and it was it was like one of those Tony Tony the Tiger teaches a kid how to play baseball.

So there was lots of baseball stuff and it's all extras wrangling. That's what second ad is sure in that and so it's just handling the extras moving the extras making sure you know they're you know like like it's an ingredient that's ready for the chef um but one of the things is getting contracts done and it was this out of of town coordinator and I got hired as AD. And then she, you know, like the first day she's like, she's like, okay, so get these contracts to the, you know, get everyone. It was like, you know, 30 extras. I was like, I don't know how to do that. Straight up. Like, I don't know how to do that. And she's like, oh, well, you took the job. I was

like, yeah, but I said said I bet if you told me you know if you took five minutes to tell me I bet I could figure it out you know right and then did she yeah of course of course and it was all fine I mean I realized I realized early on though that like because I did I ended up in props which I liked because props was very it was suited to my personality in that um you're just you're kind of left alone right like you know they send you they you have a especially if you're like you know uh propping a set they send you away with literally thousands of dollars of cash at least in those days they didn't give you a credit card they give you thousands of dollars of cash and you go buy things and you have two days where you're just out buying things and then you bring them in and, you know, and they make choices.

And then, you know, or I did special effects rigging props, which is where, you know, make make these appliances, appliance doors open on their own invisibly. You know, and then you get a refrigerator and you have to take it apart and figure out how can I get some straps in here that'll open the door? But yeah, it was just bullshitting because what are you going to do? Yeah, you fake your way through it. I faked my way through SNL in the first year by basically observing other people. I watched Adam McKay write sketches. And for a while, I was like was like okay that's my guy i'm gonna because because he would uh he would get four sketches on every show well he's got the biggest brain in comedy yeah he's the biggest brain of a comedy brain i have

ever ever come across i agree if you put it if you put a gun to my head and say who's the funniest person you've ever met i say adam mckay yeah yeah um and but what happened was i mean i learned a lot by just watching him but eventually i was like this can't be my model because i'll never write like him like if i i was trying to imitate him and that wasn't he's i was never going to become adam mckay like it's just impossible it's like saying i'm going to learn how to play the piano by watching mozart well you'll never be mozart so look watch someone else who has who is closer to who you are as a pianist and so i was like okay and then i started watching tina and observing tina and i a little bit i was like she's. She's still an alien to

me. She's like the way her brain works and the way that she comes up with her ideas. It's still alien, but it's closer to something I can conceive of. Um, but eventually what happens is like, you just, you pick up little things from everybody. And then one day you write something and you're like, Oh, this feels like me. Instead of imitating other people, you're like, oh, okay, now I'm not imitating anyone. This is just an idea that I think is good and that I'm executing in my voice. And literally that happened a year into the job. The first time that I really felt like that was, and I had other friends, Dennis McNicholas and Rob Carlock and Scott Wainio was there at the time. All these people who were really good at the job.

I didn't get good at the job until I stopped trying to write like anyone else. Yeah. And said like, okay, I've learned things from them, but I have to only try to write like me because I'm just doing these pale imitations of a TFA sketch and it's never going to work. Yeah. That's a huge thing I don't know if you've ever felt that in your comedy life but you don't like you have to truly actually be funny you can't be imitating anyone you have to be speaking

out of your own kind of centered voice because if you're imitating someone else it just feels false it doesn't feel it's like this isn't I'm approximating something else instead of just being true to sort of who I am and how I feel. in comedy listening to this and thinking because even like the notion of like what's me comedy wise is still kind of nebulous to me like i couldn't like i couldn't say you know well it's a sports related it involves a strong female character and you know yeah and a lot of animals you know i mean it just it there's it it just is kind of like a feeling and it's just kind of like an instinct about this is a dynamic that I repeat, you know, and that kind of shows up over and over.

Yeah, none of it is math. None of it is something you can boil down to an actual formula. But there is a really specific feeling, though, that I have that I can identify. And there's a difference in that feeling. The feeling that you have when you're like, this is me in the pocket of my own voice and my own style. That is a very, very different feeling from when I'm kind of forcing it or faking it. Or trying to do something that isn't quite right or doesn't fit meet a network note yeah like yes exactly a network note yeah yeah and and i realized way back then

and i think about it all the time is like it's everyone and this is the tricky thing about running a writer's room is everyone has to be having that feeling yeah and that's it and and everyone every writer is different and every writer has has his or her own pocket where they, where they're comfortable. And your job, I think when you're a showrunner is to create an environment where everyone can feel that way, no matter what his or her specific little pocket is like you, everyone has to be relaxed and comfortable and confident and, and sort of self-possessed. And it's kind of, that's your goal is to create an environment where everyone can feel that way. That's, I mean, good on you for even acknowledging that,

that part of your, a big part of your job is to facilitate an environment in which people will be their most creative because I don't think a lot of people do that. They think I've got to, I've got to get a show that sells and I've got to get, you know, I've got to meet the network notes and I've got to get this and I've got to, you know, ring every last laugh I can out of these people. But in terms of, you know, like that was something that I always felt, you know, being in, you know, kind of in a, you know like that was something that i always felt you know being in

you know kind of in a you know my position on the conan show was weird like i would always joke with you know i would joke occasionally with people on the show you know i'd say like andy richter head of the sidekick department um because you know i'm like my own one man department in it right but i always felt very aware of uh of the responsibility on me to be to make it a nice place to work yeah you know like and that and not because i'm a good christian or whatever it's because it will make everything better yeah it'll make my day better first of all selfishly and it'll make the comedy better yeah because if if the guys running the cameras and the guys doing the props and the guys hanging the lights are all fucking miserable odds are the show is not going to be funny right and it's not going

to be a place where guests want to come and hang out and it's not going to be a place where writers are going to come and be like ah like i'm home'm home. Yes. And yeah, I, you know, it's not part of the job. I think it's the majority of the job, honestly. And that, how did you learn that? I think partly it was my own experiences of being at SNL and being miserable because I was trying to imitate other people and was terrible at it. And I felt like at any moment I was going to be fired. And frankly, I should have been fired. Like I think under normal circumstances at a normal show,

I would have been fired. SNL isn't normal. Yeah. Yeah. It's very weird. And to Lauren's credit, hostile element environment too. Totally can. Um, it can be very hostile because it's one of the only shows where writers are sort of pitted against each other. Like most, you know, out in LA, you're all on the same team. You're all rowing in the same direction, but SNL is, there's a limited number of slots. Yeah.

There's a giant number of writers and actors who are writing. You're kind of, you're in competition. And the results are quantitative. Yeah. And it's, it's Darwinian. It's,

and Lauren, Lauren has always run it in a sort of darwinian fashion which is like hey it's a big sloppy mess of a show we do 90 minutes fight it out the winners the whoever writes the funniest stuff that we you get your sketches on and a story and um so i i was i lived in constant anxiety and fear for us for that solid year that I was there because I was just trying, I was trying to force something that I, that was never going to work. I was trying to force my way into writing like other people. And then I, and once I, I went through a sort of crisis, like a, a, a career crisis slash personal crisis where I was just like, I remember I, so I started going to therapy

when I was halfway through that year. So I don't know, end of, end of 90, beginning, mid 94, something like that. First time in 98. Yeah. This is my first time. And so 1998 or something, I'm, I, I started going to therapy and I, I remember this clear as day. I was, uh, I was walking on 50th street from the one nine subway over over to 30 Rock, and there was a Dunkin' Donuts there where I went and got coffee every day. And I was drinking the coffee, and I was crossing 50th Street, heading in, and like a flash, a thought hit me, which was, I'm miserable, and I hate my job. job. And I had never allowed myself to consider the fact that I might be miserable and hate the job because I was 22 and I was writing on SNL. Yeah. It was your dream come true. Yes. It was everything I'd ever wanted. And of all of the 22-year-olds on earth, I think I had the coolest job. In fact, there was a Rolling Stone piece. Someone got in touch

with me from Rolling Stone magazine and said, can we interview you about how cool your job is? And I was like, yes. And it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. Like, of course you want to talk to me. I'm 22 and I write for SNL. So this simple, weird acknowledgement that I wasn't happy and that it might have something to do with the fact that the job itself was making me unhappy, which I had never allowed myself to internalize. It was like a cloud parted. And from literally, that was the moment, like from that moment on, I was so much better at the job because I was like, oh, what a relief. Like this is because I'm miserable. I'm at the job. And as soon as I admitted that and acknowledged it, the job became so much better.

And I ended up, I worked there for six and a half years and I loved it. And everything turned on a dime once I just tuned into my own feelings and my own anxieties and my own fears of failure and everything else and allowed myself to be vulnerable in that way, like to myself, everything got better. And so that memory is so potent about like, man, there is a direct correlation between being comfortable and happy at your job and doing a good job. There's, it is a one-to-one correlation that like, it is impossible to do it well if you're not comfortable and happy. And it is a million times easier to do it well if you are comfortable and

happy and i just sort of have carried that my whole life like that just is a very that was a very clear lesson and so anytime i am working on anything the majority of what i think to myself is like i'm not gonna none of these people are doing gonna do good work unless they're comfortable and happy and feel safe and feel supported and feel like they're enjoy coming to work and so it's it's like you can do it as selfish reasons if you want to like they're not going to write good stuff if they're miserable you know i well first of all i'm falling in love with you because uh because i know i mean because it's so rare to hear someone say that. And it's so rare to hear somebody in charge acknowledge, you know, that that and I mean, I know, you know, the Conan show was a bit you know and i mean and it was we were you know there was incoming fire for years you know that where it was just it seems like everything was you know like we were

trying to do a good show we did a funny show but it also kind of seemed like there were you know the people that were supposed to be you know the people that owned the ship were shooting cannons at it. You know what I mean? And it's like, what are you doing? And I saw, I mean, I give a lot just in terms of how it was just such a mess to run that show. But I remember, I distinctly remember an early meeting, and it was early because I went to the meeting, because after about like 1998, I stopped going to meetings. Like, I just, I hate meetings. I just don't like going to them.

And anything that I need to know, I mean, it's a very pampered position, because I'm not going to the meeting, but I'll find out what I need to know, you know, from the meeting. So it's someone who does have to go will tell me. Yes, exactly. It's very little Lord Fauntleroy of me, but it's, and I recognize it and it's, but it's like, I, you know, you learn what you can take and what you can't. There was a meeting about going, our first road show, our first, like, we're going to go do a week of shows from a different town. And of like boston was the first one it just was the natural one and i said in this meeting uh i said something like well wherever we go i said it we should really think about it about how much fun it's going to be for us to go on a field trip. And for this group of us, like we should really, if we're picking locations,

pick a place that we're all going to have fun at. And that fun will then translate onto the screen and the show will seem fun. And there was just, it was met with this silence. And I won't name names, but, you know, just it was met with this silence and i won't name names but you know but a legitimate eye roll from someone higher up at the show yeah like an eye roll from that yeah and i just was like okay all right you know do it your way you know like wring your hands and sweat you know sweat pour from your brow and and feel like you're having a heart attack the whole time. Let's see how funny that show is, you know? Yeah. Yeah, I know. And look,

the reality is when you're running a show or producing a show that it's not always possible to create this amazing, fun, exciting, comfortable atmosphere. Like there, it's a high stress business and the production, and there's a ton of money at stake and there's a lot of ego at stake and there's a million moving parts. And so sometimes like, it's going to be shitty to go to work at your show. It just is like, uh, there are just going to be moments where for whatever reason, things have, the supply chain is, has broken down. A script has to get thrown away. Somebody has a, doesn't like what they're doing that week, whatever.

Yeah. And so. There's a cast member who's an asshole or whatever, you know. Yeah. It can happen. It is going to happen. It's human imperfection dictates that you are going to run into your fair share of obstacles. And so to me, you just weather those storms better if the default setting is, let's try to make this happy and comfortable and everybody feel safe. If that's the default setting, then everyone will ride out those waves with you because they feel like this is an endeavor that is worth their time and their energy.

And it gets worse when you add in, you know, this is a job. This isn't everyone's whole life. This is a job. People have families, and they have children, and they have sick relatives, and they have problems in their marriages, and they have all of these sorts of things that are so much more important than whether we have the right act to break for episode 17 of season 5 of whatever show we're working on. we have the right act to break for episode 17 of season five of whatever show we're working on and so there are going to be times when those people aren't doing their best work anyway for very legitimate important reasons and again it takes the sting out of it if to me if the experience that they've had working at the show to that point has been pleasant and has been supportive and creatively fulfilling, it's not like, oh, I'm not saying they'll be happy to ignore their problems in order to help you. What I'm saying is that they will feel more valued and

more a part of everything and just more taken care of when those crises of real life show up, if the job hasn't been one of those crises, if you haven't turned the job into this awful, stressful thing that everyone is miserable about already, their lives will be better and they'll be happier. And at some level, especially in comedy, man, especially in comedy, the point is to have fun. The point is to be happy and have them share something communally with a group of people

that you love and think are funny and that everyone gets to just to own a piece of. And if you're making a comedy show and anyone is miserable, there's a huge problem with that because it's the best job in the world. Doing comedy professionally is the best job in the world. And so if everyone is miserable, it's like, well, then what are we doing, man? It's easy to, if you want everyone to be miserable, like open a coal mine and have everyone go coal mining

because then everyone's miserable and you know why. But if everyone's miserable on a comedy show, that is your fault if you're running that comedy show that's 100 on you i think also too that usually the person that's running a comedy show in which everyone is miserable that person is an insecure fearful person who's like afraid that they're not that they're not going to be able to do it that they're not that it's not going to be funny and it's you know i think that's pretty common i think there's another shape for that which is that comedy shows in general were just there was this there's this cycle of abuse that's been going on forever and ever and ever which is the people who were powerful at the top treat the younger people and the lower the staff writers and the pas and the writers

assistants they treat them like shit because when when they, the powerful people, were PAs or writer's assistants, they were treated like shit by the people above them. And so it's like, this is a rite of passage. It's all that stupid hazing stuff, right? It's like, this is just a deal. You have to be treated this way because I was treated this way. And it's always, I just always want to say like, were you happy that you were treated that way? You seem upset that you were treated that way you seem you seem upset that you were treated that way so why would you make someone else feel what you felt it doesn't make any sense so that there's also that version that shit pie in the oven remember eating shit like you know that's right yeah why are you baking a shit pie before you turn that oven on to 450 and and put that pie crust in there and dump all the shit in the pie. Maybe remember how unpleasant it was when you ate that pie.

Yeah. It's not good. You mentioned like, you know, feeling that sweet spot of writing from yourself, like where it fits. Which of your shows do you think have you felt the most comfortable in? That's a good question. I have certainly felt that way at all of them. And I would actually say like there were, I can more accurately pinpoint it

to specific like moments or episodes of things that I've written that where I was writing them and this is a rarity, but there are moments when I've written things where like i don't even feel like i'm writing i feel like i'm dictating or or being dictated to rather and uh this sounds very highfalutin or something um but it doesn't i don't feel like i'm struggling to write the words it feels like someone is speaking them to me and i'm just i'm just like

taking i'm a court stenographer yeah yeah those are the moments where It feels like someone is speaking them to me and I'm just like taking, I'm a court stenographer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are the moments where you feel like this is just the sweetest spot, the happiest spot, the happiest zone for me. Yeah. And it's rare, like, you know, 98% of the time, writing is a miserable slog.

It's work, yeah. It's work. Yeah. And you're, God damn it, I know this doesn't work and this i can go back and fix this and whatever yeah that's that's the vast majority of everything i've ever written but on on rare occasions there have been moments where i really felt like wow i'm just sort of in a zone right now and i'm and i it's like a soap bubble like you don't want to you don't want to get up you don't want to move you don't want to play music you just are like i don't i don't want to you don't want to get up you don't want to move you don't want to play music you just are like i don't i don't want this feeling to end and so you just sort of like sit there quietly

typing as fast as you can so that you can get out all of the stuff that's coming uh so i i i think that there were there certainly have been chunks of time at every show where i have i personally have felt like i was in that zone but the things I'm probably happier about are the times when it felt like the whole staff was in that zone. Like there were, you know, the parks and rec writing staff, for example.

Um, so at the end of season two, Amy Poehler got pregnant and we had to, she was due to give birth, like right around the time we would have started shooting season three. And so we went to the network and we were like, look, the only way to do this,

if you want the show is that we have to like basically finish season two and then just keep going and bank a bunch of episodes for season three that could start rolling out while she's giving birth in September. And then once she's recovered, we can go back and start shooting again. So three days, three days after having the baby, when she comes back to work. Give her 72, 96 hours, somewhere in there, and then she'll be fine. So, you know, we made 24 episodes in that second season, and then we took three weeks off, and then we made six more for

season three. It was wild. We basically did a 30 episode season and so when we when i announced this to the writing stuff i was like look you know we're exhausted that we've done 24 episodes and i think we need some kind of like organizing principle for this new season so that we can just like generate stories because we're so tired and so we came up with this idea where she was going to put on this big event called the harvest festival and then that because we're so tired and so we came up with this idea where she was going to put on this big event called the harvest festival and then that and we're like we're going to do like a six episode arc that's about or seven episode arc that's about this one project instead of like every episode it's like today is the day where this happening whatever such a great idea yeah

and i'm and and that sort of ended up becoming a model for the show. Like the show started doing more serialized stuff after this. But that zone, it's like partly because we were like giddy, I think. We were so exhausted and so tired. And then also, but also like we were just kind of clicking. Like season two, season three is when most comedy shows really start clicking. Because you've known the characters long enough that you are you're like you can pitch really good ideas for them but at the same time they're not so well defined that you everything is new still so you can still take them in exciting new places like basically season two

season three is almost always the best seasons for any comedy show so that combination of things i remember that chunk of time, which could have and should have been so hard to do episodes 25 through 30, basically, of this one continuous year. The whole staff was just in this crazy zone. And we just broke these really funny stories. And everyone's drafts were great. Everybody would come in with their first draft, and it would just be full of exciting, great jokes and wonderful story twists and turns. And I remember being like, this is great. This is like, we are killing it right now. And then, hilariously, the network decided to move our show to mid-season, so we didn't even have to be on in September, which means none of it had to happen.

We just waited until Amy had given birth and been totally fine. But I'm really glad in the end that it didn't go that way because it really felt like we, as a group, collectively solved some kind of puzzle and we're just grooving. And once you've done that too, you can revisit that. It becomes a known quantity that you can, visit that you it becomes a known quantity that yes maybe it won't be as special maybe it won't be as productive and fertile but you at least know like we were there and we can do it again you know yeah and also importantly to that point you know that it's possible so if you're in if you're trying to work something out as a group and you're not getting that feeling it's like a little bit of a warning bell of like,

why, why isn't this as easy? And that, that might mean there's a problem or that we should keep thinking or that there's some other path we should go down because we remember the joy, the kind of like, like just flourishing joy that the staff was feeling. And if we're not feeling that right now,

maybe we should try to do something else, you know? Yeah. Well, um, we've been talking for a long time because it's, it's fun. But again,

that we'd said from the beginning, this is two white dudes talking about comedy for five hours. That's what you're getting. Yeah. So if you want to pause it, yeah, take a bathroom break, maybe get it,

get a drink, get a snack, settle in. Well, no, uh, cause that, you know, that, uh you know, the next step of this is where are you going? I mean, do you have aspirations that, you know, aren't being met? And they also, too, it doesn't even have to be work.

Like, is there, you know, are you, you know, do you want to are you trying to reach a point where you can live on a boat or something like, you know what I mean? Like, should I run for governor in the upcoming recall? Is that what you're saying? Will you? Doesn't that sound like fun? Just because I I'm a you know, like I'm a smart ass and say things about politics publicly. People will say you should run for office. And I just think I would honestly rather, you know, neuter myself

with pliers. No, thank you. A couple of people have asked me if I would ever want to do that. And I'm happy to report that I have called way too many sitting members of Congress assholes on Twitter to ever be able to even consider it. You know, like I, I, I think I, I, I didn't do it for this reason, obviously, but I did do it. Yeah. So now there's no, there's no way that I could ever, like, I'd have to go not only delete my tweets, but like delete the internet. Like I have to unplug the internet somehow.

Yeah. And the, and the pseudonym doesn't even cut it you know every that's right they know who you are by now they know who i am yeah yeah uh so where am i going i don't know i i mean i i have a bunch of stuff that i'm working on now that feels fun yeah and exciting still and there are a whole bunch of young writers who i've worked with or who I've met who have their own stuff that they want to do. And it's really fun to lend whatever weight I have to them to try to get their stuff off the ground. But again, my wife is also a comedy writer and she and I have talked about this a lot. And I honestly think that I stop doing it when it doesn't seem fun anymore.

I have the extreme luxury and privilege of having that choice because of what I've done so far and of just the way that America is. I can afford to think about leaving this business probably earlier than most people, which makes me very lucky. But also, I think it's important, no matter what you're doing, to enjoy it. And so if I don't enjoy it anymore, I think my eyes start to wander sometime in the future. And I don't know when that'll be. Again, I'm having so much fun, and I'm really proud of the stuff that I'm working on. But I don't think this is a thing I'm doing when I'm 65. I think this is a thing that I do for a while longer, as long as it's enjoyable. And honestly, the biggest thing is as long as I feel like I have something interesting to say.

I think that the worst possible fate is for someone who has my job description is doing it because you feel like you just want to be in show business still or because you want because it's a job um i mean again this is a position of privilege and luxury that i'm saying this from but i don't ever want to do anything that doesn't have something to say about the world and that's been true that's been true since the since the beginning for me like i i had something i wanted to say about government and that was parks and rec and dan gore and i had something i wanted to say about government and that was parks and rec and dan gore and i had something we wanted to say about about policing and that was brooklyn 99 and i had something i wanted to say about ethics and and morality and that was the good place and i think i i at least attempt to have a point with everything that i work on and if i'm

just like you know what would really work on ABC right now is a show about this kind of person and this kind of person. Like that's, to me, that's the less interesting way to do this is to just try to crack the Hollywood code or something. Right. And when you get to a point

where people don't say no to you anymore and so you just shit out four pilots that somebody buys because they've got your name on them. Yeah, and none of them are that interesting or have anything interesting to remark on about the world that we live in. There's a quote from David Foster Wallace, who's a novelist that I really love, where he really didn he really didn't like um i think it was brett easton ellis's novels like the less than zero guy right and they asked him the interviewer asked him why he didn't like him and he said well like the world is like dark and miserable and and sad and unhappy and we all kind of know that like everyone kind of knows that right the more the world is like full of misery and sadness and he's like and if that's true then it doesn't make

a lot of sense to me to write books where the point is that the world is really dark and miserable and everyone's sad and and and and everything's awful because we all know that already and what makes more sense to me is if you say okay given the fact that the world is miserable and sad and everyone's unhappy what's a path through that world that where things could get better right that's that's like be prescriptive in what you're writing instead of just like holding up a mirror in quotes to society and saying like look how shitty everything is yeah and that really like struck a bell with me um struck a chord rang a bell it rang up there struck a chord you can

strike a bell all right good it really struck a bell with me to coin a phrase um and and i was like yeah that's that's right i think that's right like in like the the best kind of writing in any medium is the kind that says like here's a problem that i've noticed with the world and here's a here's a potential solution to that problem or at least here's a way to manage that problem or navigate here's a way to navigate in a world where this is a problem or something like or where we can people can come together and cope with it right here's a coping mechanism or here's a way to here's a way to just to fight off this thing that's attacking us. So that is, I mean, again, that's a very literary sort of approach to this, but I think it's the right approach. I feel like whatever you're doing, and it doesn't mean everything has to be high art. It doesn't, like, I think think there are plenty of ridiculous absurdist

shows like i think you should leave is a little bit like this to me i don't know if you've yeah yeah yeah i think you should leave it's wonderful and like there's something about that show it's that show is like a weird kind of like social anarchy to me it's just like he tim robinson plays these characters who were lunatics in in a world that he doesn't understand. And the best sketches are like, he's trying so hard to understand the world that he's in. And it feels like, I mean, it's obviously ridiculous. And the point of it is it's ridiculous, but I have a tremendous amount of empathy for his character. It's like, I'm like, oh no, this poor man and these poor people who have to do, and like, there's something that is very, I don't know,

there's something very like weirdly meaningful about it to me, even though it's mostly dumb and ridiculous. So it doesn't, what I'm saying is it doesn't have to be like, everything has to be a metaphor or be high art or be like important with a capital I. It's just like, you have to be saying something. You have to have a, you have to have a reason for doing whatever you're doing. And if you don't,

then you should do something else. Yeah. Um, well that, you know, that could suffice, uh, for the third question of like, what have you learned? I mean, you're just trying to wrap this up, aren't you? Well, I mean, come on. I know you have things to do. I just have a wall to stare at. No, actually, while you were talking, my daughter just stuck her head in and was like, dad. Like, she's ready to go. Well, wait, what is the third question? I'll give you the pithiest answer I can give. It's what have you learned? What have I learned?

Oh, well, let me take you back to the beginning, Andy. When I was two years old. Should I lie down? Yeah, that suffices. I've told you a bunch of stuff that I've learned. I've mostly learned that if you're not having fun doing the job that should be the most fun of any job in the world, quite literally, then there's something wrong and it's on you to fix it.

Let that suffice. Well, you also, too, I think that you have learned something that I think. You know, and I mean, we went over it just that. The thing that you do, whatever you're doing, it's all well and good that you're, you know, that you're building a house or that you're, you know, cooking a meal or you're raising a child. But unless you're focused on your experience of doing that thing, you're missing out on what it's all about anyway. Yeah.

You know, and it is like if you're working on a television show whether it's a drama whether it's a news show what's your day like is your day happy is your day good is your day stressful is your day such that you can't wait to get the fuck out of that place right you know that's important vitally important yeah it's it's absolutely right. And there's a sort of mindfulness in the Buddhist terminology of like, are you focused on the thing you're doing? Or are you distracted by all these other less important things about what might happen in the future or how you can make money off of this or whatever? meaning or how this can how you can make money off of this or whatever like that that sort of mindfulness which is a hard thing to achieve at least in my experience is like that is the whole ball of wax like it doesn't matter what you're doing if you're not focused on it not thinking about it not doing it with love and craft and care and attention yeah then you should again

you're not doing it right that's that is the that is the job of being alive in some weird way. It's just like, just do whatever you're doing and do it as well as you can and focus on it. Heaven forbid you get to the end of this thing and most of your days have been happy and productive and felt good. That's right. Regardless of what, you know, have you built any great mansions? You know, are there statues about you? Who gives a shit? Yeah. All that's left is how are your days to bring this full circle i remember reading an interview with conan where he talked about like i can't remember like chester arthur or one of

those presidents that no one knows about do you know what i'm talking about yeah no i don't know but i mean but yeah that sounds like yeah that sounds like conan yeah he was talking about i think it was like grover cleveland orester A. Arthur or one of those guys. And he was like, this guy was president of the United States and no one knows anything about him. Yeah. Nobody cares. Like if you ask a thousand people to list all of the presidents that have ever lived, all of them would forget Chester A. Arthur. Yeah, yeah.

And there've only been whatever, 45 of them would forget chester a arthur yeah and there's only been whatever 45 of them yeah and his point was like you can achieve the maximum amount that's possible in your lifetime and 100 years later no one's gonna care no one's gonna remember so like your job isn't to again like you said your job isn't to do something that leads to them putting up a statue of you and uh in the in the center of the town you grew up in because by the way a hundred years from now you will have said and done things that are so offensive to that society a hundred years now your statue will be torn down anyway right right my hometown my hometown has me and dennis hastert so i was like i was always sort of second, but now I think I'm probably

the most favored son. Wait, that's Ohio? Where is that? Illinois. Yorkville, Illinois. Yorkville, Illinois. All right. Yeah, so exactly.

And if they put up a statue of you in a hundred years, they would dig up a bunch of stuff that you said that to them is really offensive and they would tear the statue down. Right, right, right. Instead of focusing on the statue that you hope they construct of you, focus on like

today and what you are doing today and who you're with and how happy they are and how happy you are and make that your goal. That's such a better goal to me than the statue that will be torn down in 100 years. Yep. Well, Mike, thank you so much. This has been a really good talk. I mean, it's kept me from doing the things I need to do with my child, which is always, you know, always the mark of excellence.

Ignore your children. That's the other lesson. That's the other thing we should focus on. Yeah. Nobody blew smoke up my ass. All right. Well, Mike Schur, thank you so much. And thank all of you out there, as usual, for listening.

And we will be back next week with three more questions. Coco and Your Wolf production. It is produced by Lane Gerbig, engineered by Marina Pice, and talent produced by Galitza Hayek. The associate producer is Jen Samples, supervising producer Aaron Blair, and executive producers Adam Sachs and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Your Wolf. Make sure to rate and review the three questions with Andy Richter on Apple Podcasts. Can't you tell my loves are growing? Can't you tell my This has been a Team Coco production in association with Earwolf.