The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Scott Aukerman

Episode Date: September 24, 2019

Comedian, director, and host of Comedy Bang Bang Scott Aukerman talks with Andy Richter about his first public access program, launching from Mr. Show to Comedy Bang Bang and the founding of his very own podcast network, and behind-the-scenes scoops from the biggest episodes of Between Two Ferns. Later, Scott discusses his experience directing Between Two Ferns: The Movie and shares what he’s learned about juggling work and family.This episode is sponsored by VitaCup (www.vitacup.com code: THREEQUESTIONS), Morning Brew, Betterhelp (www.betterhelp.com/threequestions code: THREEQUESTIONS), Bombas (www.bombas.com/THREEQUESTIONS), and Dashlane (www.dashlane.com/andy).

All right, well, that song, which, by the way, that song is Big Big Love by Winn Stewart, who was one of the lesser known members of the Bakersfield Sound Gang. The leaders being Merle Haggard and Buck Owens. But that song, folks, means it's time for the three questions with Andy Richter. And it's a special Tables Are Turning episode. Whoa. As the questioner becomes the questioned that's right today i am talking to scott aukerman pretty much like the hugh hefner of podcasts oh no please don't saddle me listen

well then don't wear the silk robe asshole it's you want me to turn these tables around by the way folks it's his yeah he's actually we're actually doing – we're actually doing this in the Comedy Bang Bang Earwolf studio. And I was in the bathroom and Scott came first and sat – he came and sat in his boss chair. It's not my boss chair as much as the chair that I – I'm a creature of habit and I like sitting where I sit. Right, right. You like to sit in a chair that only you have farted upon. It's usually, I think, the seat across from the entrance so I can see what's happening, like if anyone comes in or out. Like assassins. Yes, exactly.

The Steve Sondheim musical, Assassins. Yeah, you run your life pretty much like a mob boss. Always put your back in the corner so you can catch an eye on them. I do think that I heard the concept of that when I was 18. A friend told me that. And I subconsciously now do it at every restaurant. Really? I try to look at the... But what do you think's gonna happen? I mean, now it's... Nothing. Oh, just...

It's just stuck in my head. Right, right. So I do it. The other night I went to dinner with friends and I... It just happened that we all kind of entered at the time where my back was to the door and I just felt anxious. Oh, really? Yeah, I did. Wow.

Yeah. Well, it sounds like you've got a lot to feel guilty for. And maybe we'll trip across some of that. Maybe I'll try to figure out what it is. Yeah, yeah. Hi, Andy. Hi. Thank you so much for having me.

You're welcome. Thank you for having me. Hi, Andy. Hi. Thank you so much for having me. You're welcome. Thank you for having me. This is, you know, you helped me promote the beginning of this show. Of course.

By having me on your show. And now the end of this show. That's right. We're canceling it. That blitz at the beginning propelled me to be the number one podcast in America for all of about 17 hours. Wow. Congratulations. And now I think I'm below something that's about, you know, the history of flagstones. Well, you know, it's not based

upon actual numbers. It's an algorithm based upon like they heavily favor a new podcast. Oh, really? Yeah. To propel it to the top of the chart. So the ranking, in other words, don't feel like suddenly you got less popular. It's just they want to feature new podcasts, so they tend to put the new ones up higher on the charts. Oh, I see. So don't feel too good about being number one, but don't feel too bad about being low right now. Here's the thing about me. I don't – I'm not a particularly competitive person.

Like I've kind of like – I've always sort of been like, hey, I don't know. You want to go for that thing? Whatever. Go ahead. I'm going to stay here. But also- Conan, you want that job? All right. I'll be fine. Just do your right. Exactly. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. This isn't supposed to be about me, but yeah, that's, that's pretty good. But I also, you know, it was really fun to have, to be like, Oh wow, number one podcast. But I also have the ability now, and I really fun to have to be like, oh, wow, number one podcast. But I also have the ability now, and I think this comes with age, that now that I'm not number one, it's all nonsense and bullshit and it doesn't matter. Right. It's kind of like when you get nominated for an Emmy, which both of us have been, but you're the only Emmy winner in the room. But then, and if you don't win the emmy

the emmys are fucking bullshit right but if you if you do win then it's finally the finally the the the recognition and finally showbiz got something right i would say the okay so i've been nominated four times i felt like i should have won the first time but it's all bullshit yeah yeah definitely because what did win is sucked. Yeah, yeah. Oh, no, no, no. They were okay but it was for a sketch show.

At Mr. Show we were nominated. I see. And the other sketch shows were pretty bad. What was the sketch show that won? Chris Rock Show won which... That's okay. It was okay. I mean, it's at least funny.

But we all thought it was going to be the Dennis Miller thing. Oh, yeah, yeah. Which was just a talk show. Yeah, yeah. That would have been least funny. But we all thought it was going to be the Dennis Miller thing, which was just a talk show. Yeah, yeah, that would have been bothersome. So then the next three times were for Between Two Ferns. The second time I was like, who gives a shit? Yeah. And then the third time was for Barack Obama, which I was like, oh, we're going to win because it's Barack Obama.

Right. And then the fourth time I did not expect to win at all, but we did. So you won twice, right? I won twice, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Congratulations. at all so but we did so and so you won twice right twice yeah yeah congratulations there are many times where like for comedy bang bang i thought i should have been nominated and worked really hard to get nominated and then did not i know it's all very silly and it's all based on fame and i had a friend who was nominated last year but they were very excited and um i had to

call them and say oh you're not going to. So like they trick you into thinking for that 10 seconds as they're reading off the other nominees. Like I might have a shot at this, which happened to us with Mr. Shell where we were like, we heard from the voters because it used to be a small. A smaller group. A smaller group would vote on it. Just like, yeah, a handpicked group of academy members. We heard from the people in there, no one voted for you. And yet in those 10 seconds as they're reading off the names, you kind of go, we have a shot at this.

Of course, of course. And you also, as time goes on, I mean, this is, we're really being helpful to like the smallest percentage of an audience that anyone's ever heard. We will never be nominated. Hey, listen, people, if you're, if you're, if you get nominated for an Emmy. Now there was one year that in particular, that was really infuriating to me when we were nominated for the late night with Conan O'Brien show, which is a show I was on before.

Oh yes. And we lost to, because we were in the same category as Eddie Izzard's hour. Something he worked on all year. Yeah. And it was an hour. Yeah. One hour that he did over and over, whereas we did –

Yeah, 500 shows. 47 weeks of shows a year, five days a week. Yeah, even more than five. Yeah, yeah. But you only submit that one hour and then they put that one hour and it just, it was infuriating and that was kind of a turning point

for me to decide, oh, I'm never going to give a shit about this again. Yeah, it's hard. It's hard because the only thing I care about more than the, I will say that for a while until I had the actual trophy,

I was like, why don't I have one of these trophies? And then the minute I got it, I was like, oh, who cares? Right. Because now I have it and maybe and who cares? I have a, I want, we run the Writer's Guild Award one year and I have the Writer's Guild trophy,

which is a fucking murder weapon. Yeah, they all are. Oh my God. I think we did a sketch about it when I wrote on the Emmys about how it is the most dangerous trophy. It's crazy. It's like, yeah, four different ways to stab somebody um but yeah they're all it all becomes something that you just think like well here's something for my you know well i loved ones to

have to deal with when i'm in the ground exactly once you get it you don't care about it the only thing i care about is is that for comedy bang bang the tv show it would have been a nice pointing to it of like, hey, everyone should pay attention to this thing. Sure, sure. Because I felt like the entire five years, it was so much fun and we got to do whatever we wanted. But at the same time,

I also felt like no one was ever watching. Yeah, it's a vindication of just some, you know, a recognition. It's not even vindication as much as I just wanted more people to watch it. So it's like advertising. I see. You know what I mean?

I see. Were those the three questions? Yeah, yeah, we're done. Okay, great what i mean i see well those are the three questions yeah yeah we're done great no listen okay so the three questions uh first starts uh where do you come from where do you come from and where do you get off so really that's yeah question one what's your deal out with it that's a new show. Out with it. With Andy Richter. Just go. Just talk. We're recording.

Just talk. Andy, where do I come from? I grew up right here in California in the wonderful county of Orange County. You weren't born here, though, right? I wasn't. I was born in Savannah, Georgia, but I moved about six weeks after I was born because my father was in the military. I see. So my brother was born in New Mexico. I was born in Georgia.

But then he got restationed back in California right after I was born. That's a lot better story than even at that early age that Savannah could tell you were trouble and ran you out of town. Get that baby out of here. So Orange County, did your dad leave the military then? He was a pilot for the National Guard. So he was in Vietnam. He flew in Vietnam. And then when I was born in 1970, so the Vietnam War was still going on.

So I think he was still in it. Yeah. And then after the war, he came back out and then applied to be a pilot at the Los Alamitos – is it an Air Force base? It must be National Guard because he was in the National Guard. I think it is. Los Alamitos. But I think it's the Air Force base or whatever. Yeah. I mean they also – it's like the fort pendleton also

has navy right yes so he worked there for uh probably i want to say a decade oh okay um where he just basically flew uh helicopters oh cool so yeah was it did he just fly helicopters or helicopters in plane he just flew helicopters okay yeah although i think he could fly a plane yeah although he never took he could fly a plane. Yeah. Although he never took me up in a plane or he would take me up in helicopters every once in a while. Right, right. Just to scare you? Yeah.

Threaten to throw me out as a disciplinarian. Just like, yeah, just like Duterte. That's where Duterte got the idea. So I grew up in like the suburbs of California, Orange County, which is kind of a richer place. But I didn't know that because we always had like the least assuming house wherever in the two houses that I grew up in. They were always the quote worst unquote houses on the block, you know. And so, yeah, I kind of grew up with this. what some would say is like an idyllic suburban life. I grew up right next to like a huge park, you know?

And I thought that- In which town in Orange County? In Cyprus. In Cyprus. Yeah, we had two houses in Cyprus. We moved like a couple of blocks after. And so, yeah, I kind of, but I thought everyone grew up like that because most of like youth fiction or movies, everyone was like suburban, looked like me, had the same kind of house as me. Yeah. like maybe 10% of the population maybe was down on their luck or something like that,

you know, and growing up in, you know, kind of not as well off in a city or something like that. But I mean, my parents did say we were middle class, but I didn't really know what that meant. Yeah. Can I just go back to, because I, so few of my peers have parents that actually were, are combat veterans. Really?

Yeah. I just don't know. I can't think of anybody else that had a. They're having a lot of trouble recruiting from what I understand lately. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. I mean, was that something that your dad's Vietnam experience?

Was it a presence in your home that you knew about or that he ever talked about? Not really. Did it have any complications for him? Was there any PTSD for him? Not really. In fact, we went to see a play because we had season tickets at the La Mirada Playhouse one year. And it was a play.

I can't recall the title of it, but it was made into a movie called Jackknife, I think, with Robert De Niro, where he played a Vietnam veteran. And the only thing I remember is like coming out of it, my dad going like, geez, why does every movie or play that has to do with the Vietnam War have everyone be so messed up about it? Geez, just get over it. Wow. Yeah.

And so I never really, he didn't really seem to have any kind of relationship to it at all. And it wasn't until maybe in the last five years or so, I moved them out of Arizona where they had moved back to Orange County. Yeah. And so I like packed up a lot of their stuff and I drove them, you know. And so for an eight hour drive, I just like talked to him a lot about Vietnam, you know. And found out that like if not for someone's gun jamming, he would be dead and like all this kind of stuff. Wow. But he seemed to either be in denial or or just kind of like who gives a shit about the war.

That's the past is the past. Yeah. He signed. I mean, he he signed up for it. Yeah. He signed – I mean he signed up for it. He didn't get drafted because he had heard that if you signed up to be – before you got drafted, you could be a pilot and he thought that was a good stepping stone to a career. I see. And his – and my grandfather was a pilot as well, a helicopter pilot. A helicopter pilot. Yeah.

And was you in the military? Yeah, in World War II. Was he in the military? Yeah, in World War II. Did that sort of just get over it philosophy also apply to his parenting skills or his sort of the ethos of your home? I don't think that we were ever really encouraged to talk about things all that much unless there was a problem. I see. about things all that much unless there was a problem. I see.

So it wasn't like we were ever, you know, talking about our feelings or talking about what was going on. My mom brought my mom has a lot of guilt about stuff. And recently she brought up how we went to a we were in a stadium. That's all I remember. We were in a football stadium for some reason when I was five and I was sitting on her lap and my dad, she says, your father said, get him off your lap. You're going to baby him. I've just felt bad that I've babied you too much ever since then. I'm like, I don't remember. I don't care. Right. Now give me the whoopee.

And change my diaper, mommy. So, yeah, I think that we were never and i think it's infected my life too of just like never looking backward always looking forward uh or not even being present just always being like yeah yeah yeah whatever but like what's next what's next yeah yeah um and and so really the only time we would ever talk about things were if i had done something wrong and then it was like why the fuck are – or not fuck because they're religious, but why are you such a bad person? Well, it's also – it goes along with just sort of military helicopter pilot is not dealing with anything theoretical. It's not dealing with anything other than what's in front of you, how a system operates,

and the repetition of that system. You have the instrumentation there. And even following orders in the war is kind of like that. I mean, the Vietnam War, so many people who were in it questioned it afterwards. And people who were against it, obviously, questioned it. And all of were against it obviously questioned it and the all of America kind of, you know, that was the first war that people were like,

is this really what we want to be doing? But not, not him. He was just like, yep, I got ordered to go out there. I did it. And now I'm back. Well, I'm always, I always am struck

when you hear those recordings, those battle recordings of pilots and like the, when they, you know, it's never like the movies like like, I'm hit, I'm hit. I've got to get the fuck out of here. Yeah, yeah. It's always very like. I got hit.

I'm going down. Yeah. You know, and that's just. Well, you're trained to be, and it's a lot like policemen where you're trained to deescalate situations. Yeah. You know what I mean? And you're trained to, you know, always have, and people make fun of airline pilots because of that voice. But you're trained to just never, you know, be calm in all situations and just never escalate a situation to that point. Yeah. Was he a non escalator at home, too?

I again, I think unless there was an issue and then it got then it got pretty. I mean, like where you were out of line or where. Yeah, exactly. Where you were right. Done something wrong. Or where you were. Yeah, exactly. Where you were. Right, done something wrong. Did not, or where you're just sort of talking back, you know. Yeah, or. Defying. My brother and I fought a lot. And so there was a lot of like, all right, who, who did the bad thing?

Yeah. And both of us denying it and both of us getting spanked with the belt. Yes, yes. You know, because neither of us would admit to it. Admit to it. When it's probably usually a shared blame of some kind. Usually it was one of us, definitely. And it wasn't you?

Is that what you're trying to say? Well, occasionally I think it would be me. But I think the whole point of view is like, if I'm going to get spanked, I want him to as well. Even if he didn't do it. And that's what's wrong with the world. We'll be right back. Is it just the two of you, just you and a brother? No.

My parents had a sister when I was 10. A daughter. Yeah, my sister. And then my brother got married, but he passed away when he was 35. Oh, wow.

So now it's technically his ex or his widow. It's not his ex, I guess, but his widow. She's still like our sister. I see. And then my sister as well. And are you the oldest? I am now technically the oldest. He was older than you.

I see. And did you have a good relationship with him? Or, I mean, beyond the normal sort of like fractious kid stuff? Not really. Not really. Yeah. No. It was pretty contentious. All the way. Between us, yeah.

And what did he end up doing for a living? He worked with my father, actually. Oh, really? So my father got out of the military and then flew helicopters privately for a while for rich people or for a corporation. Yeah, yeah. And then he owned a machine shop where he would make parts for airplanes, which went out of business. And then – so then he got hired to sort of run a company that did that. So they would make the overhead compartments in airplanes. They would make,

I remember after 9-11, him talking about the regulations, that there were two competing regulations for the doors closing off the cockpit. Yes. That there was a regulation about how they should be impenetrable now but also people had to get through you know yeah so you know but he he did that and my brother worked with him i see and uh was there i mean having the two males in the family being such a sort of straight-laced military tinged business for you being someone who – because you started acting at an early age or showing interest in it. Yeah. Was that frowned upon? Was that embraced?

Was it sort of looked at with a puzzlement? I think it was puzzlement. I, you know, for some reason, I was trying to think about this earlier. For some reason, I grew up knowing that I was like not in terms of with, you know, my peers, not desirable or not cool, you know. No, explain it. I mean, seriously, explain. I mean, not that I don't. I mean, I don't know exactly what you mean by desirable and cool. But by like women will not like you and you are a nerd.

Oh, right. And I don't know. And I was trying to think of like, I don't know how. And I think maybe I was skinny. That's like all you could really say. But how jacked can you be at five years old? And also, how like concerned are you about opposite sex attention um i mean just in terms of status yeah like you know when you're told like

hey you're ugly it's very like oh okay i guess i'm ugly and i'm and i'm a nerd uh and everyone makes fun of you you know um and i guess also like there's probably were fights and I couldn't fight or whatever. I don't know. So anyway, so I think I grew up like kind of, you know, weak in a way,

which is sort of, uh, you know, when you're growing up the son of a military person, it's kind of like, what is, what is going on? Why is it,

why is my son like this nerdy guy who likes comic books? And your older brother was not that. Not really. He would try. I mean, he did, though. He liked comic books. We actually shared a lot of the common interests, and I think just personality conflicts got in the way. But it was sort of like, you know, he really loved music, but he hated New Wave because I liked it and he liked heavy metal, you know, and now I like heavy metal, you know, you know, now that we're all past that and he's no longer with us.

It's all nonsense anyway. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I grew up like I think the first thing I ever did was a church play. thing I ever did was a church play. And my parents talk about how something I said got a laugh. One of my lines got a laugh. And they say that I looked out at the crowd with like a, oh, really? Yeah. That happens? Like an audience expresses- The first taste of the stuff.

So, and they said it was never the same after that, that I just wanted to act and, you know, do artistic things. And what age was this? This was probably five, six, seven, something like that. And you were a very religious household, yes? Yes. And went to church a lot. Three times a week, usually.

See, I think it's funny in many ways, religious families that take their kids to church a lot, they might make them religious or they might make them theater kids. And it always seems like the. Because church is theater. It always seems like the opposite. Church is theater. It's just – it's all a show. And they sing songs. Absolutely.

And they have bands playing and there's a stage and an audience. I was very – I was, as I like to say, never encumbered with belief. But I was involved with our church like in a very – it was a United Church of Christ. It was a very sort of middle-of-the-road Protestant denomination and still is. In fact, some of them are Unitarian Universalists, just kind of that very squishy, hey, whatever you want. Yeah, I can't even tell you the distinctions between all of the Christian religions. I used to know some of them, yeah. I used to know some of them, yeah. Christian religions.

Well, Unitarian Universalists are pretty much like God is – every god, whether it's Allah or Buddha, it's all the same thing. And it's all human versions of our understanding of that. And that's all cool. That's more progressive than – Oh, it's fantastic. And I mean, that was like hundreds of years ago. There were really forward-thinking East Coast New Englanders that started this church. That's great, actually.

I would have much preferred that to the – It's a great thing. To the anyone who doesn't believe the exact thing that we believe is going to hell. I remember I had a – because probably my high school years, the defining sort of movement that affected my life in terms of like a sociological movement was born. Musical hair. Was born. No, just treat Williams was born again. Christian stuff, because like, you know, just in our town alone, when I was in grade school, there was a little storefront church.

And by the time I got out of high school, it was a mega church. Really? It had a huge building, like hundreds of people every year or every Sunday. And a bunch of kids that I went to school with all of a sudden were literally burning their albums and shit like that.

Like their Genesis albums. Right. Like fucking, like, yeah, okay, I get it. It's Genesis, but for Christ's sake. Sticks albums because Sticks is the river in Hades. All of that shit. But I remember I had a, we had an English teacher who was a wannabe Baptist minister. A wannabe.

And at the time, too, there was this great, I think they were brothers and their their gimmick their showbiz gimmick with it within evangelical circles was that rock and roll is the music of the devil and you could buy their whole setup like you could buy their av setup of playing playing the clips of yeah playing the clips backwards slideshow my and i think it was album covers i think it was Stairway to Heaven there was one part the backward masking yeah it was supposedly My Sweet Satan

yeah and they played it for us heard all that and even but the kids you know and we as kids should have been

hey fucker this is supposed to be English class he would do it in English in English class oh come on twice a year because the kids are like

please do the please do the rock and roll shit again. The devil shit again. I like it. Because everyone fucking loved it. The metalheads were like, yeah, do it again. Talking about, well, that's the thing is like I went back and systematically bought all of those albums that they warned us about. Because like I remember the guy coming to our church.

I think, I feel like his name was Bob Beeman, but I don't know. I remember the guy coming to our church. I think, I think, I feel like his name was Bob Beeman, but I don't know. But, um,

and he showed us dead Kennedy's too drunk to fuck, uh, album cover. And I was like, Ooh, cool. And I went out and got that. And I remember people talking in the church about how, like,

if you liked iron maiden, their mascot was Eddie, the corpse. Right. And that was a gateway to necrophilia that eventually if you listen to enough iron maiden, you would fuck corpses and find them attractive it's like a corpse in your closet what is going on joey no it's also ludicrous yeah no it's ridiculous but uh i that that the reason i bring it up is that minister i asked him once because i was taught you know i asked him about

i was i kind of always had a little bit of an interest in theology because even without, without believing, it's an interesting thing. It's an interesting mechanism that the human brain does as a coping mechanism. Right. And I just like all the different brands and the way that it manifests itself. And I remember asking him once about Unitarian Universalist. And I think also there's some other church too, whether it's Presbyterian, I don't remember now. But he said like, oh, well, they're just like,

no matter, you know, if you live a good life, you know, you're going to end up going to heaven. You don't have to like really follow any of their rules. And I just, you know, like there are specific rules about your particular faith, about the Christian faith. And I'm just sort of like, well, then what's the point? If just living a good life is going to get you to heaven. And even at like 15, I was like, well, that seems like a pretty good point to me.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, yeah. Like why, like some poor guy that's, you know, is from an island in the Pacific, some guy that lives and dies and never hears about Jesus. He's going to hell because he never heard about Jesus. They told us, okay, so the way to get to heaven was you had to ask Jesus into your heart, right? And become a Christian. But once you did that, it's game over.

Like you're going to heaven. So my whole point is like, well, then once you've done it, do whatever you want after that. Right. And then conversely, we would go, well, what about the people who have never even heard of Jesus? And they go, Jesus has made sure that everyone in their life gets the opportunity to hear about Jesus and invite him into their heart at least once. And if they don't take him up on it, then they're going to hell. Right. And my scientific proof of that is because I say so. Yeah, exactly. I say so, children.

Now shut up and move on. The more you like poke holes in the – and I actually was semi-religious, especially at like 12 and 13. I would go to Christian camp in the summer and like I said, three times a week to church and i was like wrestling with it and i had a girlfriend when i was 13 and very like you know into like hey should we have sex but and and wrestling with it like god please you know guide me through this you know um but and she was a church kid no she was not she didn't give a shit she was like oh that's bullshit but and and then i was friends with the youth pastor and would hang out with them sometimes on Wednesday, a fourth night, you know, and like

talking about and just discussing stuff. And just as I grew to be like 18, 19, the more I would talk to people and the youth pastor about all this stuff, I would be like, I just, none of it is making sense. The more questions you bring up, there are no answers to this stuff. So the rules part of religion just seemed like it was all made up and stupid at about 19 to me. I see such a parallel between a dad that's like, look, just do what the book says. Just follow the procedure. And a church that says, just do as you're told. The book's right there. Just do what it says. Don't question it. It'll keep you in the air. It'll keep you flying, you know?

Yeah, exactly. And so then, but you really were active as a kid then in theater. You really, I mean, more so than a lot of kids. I definitely, I was sort of weighing if I wanted to be an artist or – meaning because I drew or whether I wanted to do theater or just both or whatever. And I also did music. I was in a band in high school and stuff. What did you play? Guitar.

Guitar. And sang. Yeah. And so I – but my whole thing back then was like I just wanted to do anything. You know what I mean? I just wanted to be creative. Yeah. So it was like I had the band i had

like a public access tv show i was doing uh high school plays i was doing access was that for school yeah it was uh my it started out as my friend was the anchor of this show called centurion highlights because we were the cypress sure so he was on the debate team and he was very serious. And so he was the anchor of this program that was ostensibly to inform students. A news program. Yeah, news. Yeah, yeah.

And then they brought me on to do a piece on it about how the, and they pitched this to me. They said, what if you did a piece on how Cyprus got its name? And they had an article about how it got its name. And so I wrote this piece. I was super into David Letterman. Um, and this is 1985. And, and so I wrote basically a Letterman field piece about how Cyprus got its name with a lot of jokes and a lot of like inside jokes about all the places in town. Like there was,

there was a restaurant called Alan Maggie'sie's and then uh one just one day suddenly it was just called maggie's and so i made a big that's awesome investigative journalism part of the piece of like what happened to al and oh that's so it was just really you know and he should have interviewed al we couldn't find down al so i did that and by the way and and i showed it at ucb once because jen kirkman had a had a show where she was like bring something from your childhood that you were that you're embarrassed by and i played it and she goes to me she goes i i said bring something you'd be embarrassed by not something you would do now i was like yeah my sense of humor kind of hasn't changed.

I can see, and especially when you say Letterman, I can see you in such a Letterman kind of way. Like, not really. Like, there's not like a superiority. There's not really a smugness to it. But it reads to people that don't get the joke. Yes. As that fucking prick thinks he's better than me. Yes, exactly.

And this, not to get too sidetracked, but when I went up to theater school when I was 20 to 22, that was a big issue. Because it was a serious theater school where it was, you know, like a two-year trip. You were there all day. You know, like a two-year trip. You were there all day. And I would try to do stuff like that where I, for my dance project, we were supposed to incorporate ballet. And so we did, me and my two friends did a ballet about one of us was a dog. One of us was, no, one of us was a cat.

One of us was a bird. And one of us was a worm. And we us was a bird and one of us was a worm and we were all chasing each other. Um, and then, but then it went into Michael Jackson's rock with you and we started doing modern, uh, dance moves, which then ended up into a poker game, which then the song ended and everyone applauded like, okay, that's the end. And then the next song started to play and we just played poker until they stopped us. That does sound like you have not changed a bit. So I would do or I did like a kind of Letterman inspired piece for our big public project where like parents would come and stuff. And everyone was always confused by it.

Like, why are you doing poking fun of how serious this all is? Yeah, yeah. And for me, I was just kind of like, what? Everything is to be made fun of, right? Right, right. Like, why are we taking everything so seriously? We're all here to have fun. Yeah, yeah. At one point, right before I graduated, one of my teachers, I was in a band while I was there as well.

And we had a big concert. and we had a big concert and I basically just repeated what Bono said on the, the rattle and hum on one of the songs on rattle and hum. And I was talking about South Africa and all this stuff in a song that like had nothing to do with it. And my teacher, like afterwards, he goes, I think I finally understand you. That was a compliment. I was like, oh, okay. understand you. That was a compliment. I was like, oh, okay. I remember in college, I had a photography class. And one of the things that struck me so much about photography when I started to, because I took pictures, but I didn't understand art photography. I hadn't been exposed that much to art photography. This is at University of Illinois. And I had a great teacher she was really great and one of our first uh projects was to do a uh go to a photo booth you know the old photo booths that do three or four right shots

and sort of make it an expression of ourselves and of our artistic identity and was it pictures of yourself yes yes and and i don't remember exactly what my pictures were but my whole point was because i had been reading so many artists talking so seriously about their photo of a you know an egg on the street or something that i just wrote like two pages of self-important horse shit about this picture and i in my mind i thought sort of like well this is about me i'm a smart ass right and here you go here's me and and uh this teacher because we had to show i didn't give a presentation and read it and i did read the whole thing right and people were laughing but some people were made uncomfortable

by it because some of the people had no sense of humor. Right. Like the guy with the giant dong who was nude in every fucking photo because he had a giant dong. Where is he now? Oh, I don't know.

Probably fucking. His dong's outgrown him. But at the end of it, the teacher just went like, well, she said, I understand what you're doing here. But she said, maybe before you start making fun of photography, you should learn how to do photography.

And that's actually a good point. And I was like, you are 100% right. I get it. I got it. You know, I got to run before I can be a smart ass, a smart ass critic about running. That's maybe a great way to put it. I think that what happened to me was every teacher was saying like, stop doing this. You aren't taking this seriously. And they tried to kick me out and stuff.

But I think that I totally agree with that. I just think that me and my friends were – it was a reaction. I remember my other friend who I was in a different band with we would go see bands in coffee shops and our biggest criticism is we would leave and go wow they were very sincere yeah you know that's always been like i've always had an allergy to that too like you say you too like people i don't like i've never liked you too right and i maybe their first album like that was but i've never liked U2. Right. And maybe their first album. Right. But I've never liked them. And people would say, why don't you like them?

And I would say, because they have absolutely no sense of humor about themselves. Right. Well, I loved them until all of the speeches during the rattle and hum stuff. And then that's why when they suddenly got into irony, I was like kind of hooked back in of like, oh, okay. I like irony too. But then they stuck with irony too long. Yeah. oh, okay. I like irony too, but then they stuck with irony too long. And now I'm a sincere guy. Like I'm way more into, even though, you know, I do, the podcast is very insincere and the TV show was very insincere. Now I'm more like about just expressing real things. You know what I mean? That's what I, ergo this podcast.

Right. No, I mean, I, no, I couldn't agree with you more. I'm the same way. And I have friends that are younger than me, you know, in their thirties or something. And I was just having a discussion with one of them the other day, who is sort of an insult comic, like not professionally, just in life is always kind of, and really, really good at it. Right. And I was just telling him, them, this is funny to me, but I don't do this anymore. Like, you get old and you stop ragging on each other, as we used to say in Chicago. Or you stop busting balls, as they say. Doing bits and yeah.

Yeah, no, you start to just be like, okay, listen, we get it. We can all pick each other's sore spots and we and we all know the buttons because that's the other thing early on when you start to be with incisively funny people they go this is something i in chicago at the annoyance theater it was a it was the sport of this group called the annoyance theater which is uh oh i get a sense that you're really sensitive about this one thing loudly make fun of it in front of everybody and see how you deal with it and it was sort of like there is something sort of useful about it and even sort of therapeutic about it where you're like yeah this thing that i do that is such a scary secret to me yeah what the fuck let's let's i'll make fun of it too let's do that you know no yeah but after a while enough's enough let's just be nice to each other yeah it definitely

when i first started doing comedy it it kind of was like oh okay here's a place where all of this stuff makes sense yes me making fun of stuff makes sense and you're with people who all are the same kind of asshole yes exactly the same kind of asshole you are. Yes, exactly. The same kind of smartass. But I will say my first professional comedy writing job was on Mr. Show. I came into it. Which you got because Bob saw you in a live show. Yeah, the second time I did comedy. With BJ, right?

BJ Porter, who was your early collaborator. My early collaborator. We started doing comedy together. And the second performance that we did, Bob was, and we were very nakedly kind of very influenced by them because I saw them do their show to get Mr. Show on stage. And I was like, this is what, it all clicked for me. It shows you a way to do it. Yes. So we were kind of doing our inspired or impression of what they would do.

But Bob happened to be there and he was like hey man that was really funny you want to write on my show which just never is like a hollywood success story that never happens yeah um but so not without having to blow somebody right oh no that came oh really yeah oh wow do you also want to blow me i would never think that bob had an to be that forward but they it was i went into it very much just like fuck everything. Let's make fun of everything. Let's take it down. And I will say that I was surprised when I was there.

There would be certain things that we would do around the office or that Bob would do around the office. And we would be just like dying laughing and going, Bob, we got to do that on the show. And he'd go, no, that's for just around the office yeah yeah like he he really taught us to have a sort of sense of responsibility about why you're putting stuff out there that you're putting out there that i have tried to sort of um you know i've i've as the years go on i've tried to sort of incorporate that i've tried i've tried to be responsible about the comedy in a way you know, I've, I've, as the years go on, I've tried to sort of incorporate that. I've tried, I've tried to be responsible about the comedy in a way, you know, and, and not just be like, let's burn it all down just to burn it all down. And I definitely think once I got the comedy bang, bang TV show at that point, I was like, you know what? I've had enough of the fuck everything kind of comedy uh where it's just like be as offensive as possible i just want to do fun stuff yeah you know yeah so i did five years of fun stuff with that in my recollection of that time too because i was mostly i was i was you know that sort of

time in comedy history was about when i was starting on late night. Yeah. Cause you started in 93, right? Yeah. And then Mr. Show started, I started doing comedy in 95.

So it's very like close, very similar. So I, but I was not, I was not part of the LA comedy scene except then when I would come out here and visit and I'd go see shows and I'd see a lot of kind of the alternative shows with people like Sarah Silverman and Marilyn Rice. Yeah. On cabaret, all those kinds and those same, and you know,

many of those people are, you know, here now working today. And it always struck me that a lot of it was the joke is that there is no joke. Yeah. There was a lot of different people sort of comedy was that, or the idea was that guy's doing next to nothing, but he's doing it for 10 minutes. And isn't it funny that he's up there wasting all of our time by doing nothing, you know? And that was always what kind of struck me about it. And people love it. People like it. I mean, there's a lot of comedy that's like for, that I just feel that's out there now that I look at and I'm like, this is for younger people because I don't, I'm waiting for some, I'm waiting for a reason.

And the reason is like that we're just doing this thing. Can you believe we're doing this thing? It's, it's tough because there are certain things like Wonder Shows and for instance, that I am like, wow, this is genius. Gaga about it. I love it. It's so funny. But it is so nihilistic in a way.

But then I'll see something else kind of similar and I'm like, where's the heart or where's the humanity to it? So it's a fine line for me. Well, it's funny. It's the alchemy of being funny. Yeah funny is it how funny compared with how much of is is it just a fuck you yeah to the audience or to to emotions or life and somebody like me or like you that's been thinking and professionally making funny things or what things are supposed to be funny for years and years and who really thinks about it there's a lot of times when somebody says well why is that thing funny and that thing funny?

And that thing's not funny. I don't have an answer. I don't know. You tell me. Why can Will Ferrell say virtually anything? And it's hilarious. I don't know. And Dennis Miller can say anything and can say something really funny.

And it feels like that's not funny. Well, I've also thought about it in regards to my own career. When I have the TV show, people, there's a certain contingent of fans. They're not even fans. I don't know why I'm calling them that, but people who would say like that I'm the weakest part of the show. Right. And in, in my mind, I was like, I don't understand when you say, why does anything Will Ferrell say? Why is it funny? I was like, I don't get it because I'm writing all this stuff and I'm performing it and I'm writing all this stuff. Yeah, yeah. And I'm performing it and I'm sort of playing the straight man or whatever, but I'm also like doing a very exaggerated comedic version of myself.

Is it just like face? You know, is it purely like how expressive your face is? I don't know that there's any reason to think about it. Who knows what it is? I don't know if there's any reason to think about it. Because it's just there's any reason to think about it because it's just not it's not a fruitful area yeah because what are you gonna do you know i mean you can only be who you are and do what you do sometimes i'll look at people on tv and i'll go their eyes are too small oh i do that you know what i mean i don't and then i think like oh and you're so fucking perfect well but that's my point is like do to

be on television do you have to have like giant expressive eyes i don't know for people yeah no there is there is a comedian in particular who i know and love who i just think that guy would be so much better i or that person uh would be so much better if if they didn't have those dead eyes. Right. And it's like, what the fuck are you talking about? That person is successful, makes a living, has a family, and here you are judging their dead eyes. And when people say shit about me and my physicality, I'm like, how fucking dare you? Yeah, yeah.

So it's, you know, we're all full of shit. Yeah. Can't you tell my loves are growing? Well, let's move forward to when things started to really click. Because you sort of, you just kind of were out there in the mix. And you wrote on Mr. Show. And I mean, at what point did you really feel like, okay, this is a career? This is a life? feel like, okay, this is a career. This is a life. I kind of felt, uh, I was very interested in comedy ever since I was 13 and my, the girl, my aforementioned girlfriend, um, showed me,

uh, I do not, uh, showed me later and I'll put it in, in your voice. Her name is Tiffany. I wish it was Tiffany. Um, showed me a Monty Python and the Holy Grail, right? So I got very interested in Monty Python and I was doing speech competitions. And that's where the first smart ass stuff started, I think, was like, I saw, I hated when people would do what we call DI, which is dramatic interpretation. Yes. I did prose. I was on the speech team too. So I did, so everyone who did DI would pick, I remember them from monologues from Night Mother or something where basically if you said you were molested, you won. Yeah. You know what I mean?

If you were like, I was molested, you won. So I wrote an original prose piece that was called Dramatic Speech, which just blasted through all the tropes of that, but then made jokes about them, you know? And I was very excited. I won third in state. Oh, wow. In California, that's something. Illinois, I mean, I did okay in Illinois, but fuck Illinois.

So I didn't go to nationals because I didn't win first, but it was like, it was a big, you know, kind of, so I was very just interested in comedy, but I also, I was in orange County and I thought, you know, orange County is so close to Los Angeles, but it may as well be a million miles away because there is no path. No, you know, there's no one saying like, if you do this, you will get on. So I just loved comedy, but never assumed I could do it. And so the, the, when my friend, uh, told me, Hey, I really hate the pilot and, uh, plays that you write. Uh, but you're so funny. Why don't you do comedy? Because I was writing these like serious kind of mammoth kind of things, which is a very young person thing. Yeah. Yeah. I was super into mammoth.

Every short story I ever wrote in college was like, you know, the same thing. The cliche of film school about your first film class is like 60% suicide movies. Right. Yeah, yeah. So I did comedy for the first time. And I would say, you know, I was working at waiting jobs before that and everyone uh would say i would make jokes and they would go haha mr comedian and like basically saying i was not funny but then i started doing comedy i was like oh i'm a comedian now and then suddenly people are like

oh he's a comedian he is funny it was that click happened it them. It was very weird. So at that point, I was a professional comedian, and I never really looked back at that point. So after the first time I did it. What was your last outside job? Like what year? The last outside job was Cafe Cordial in the Valley. Ooh, la, la. So that would have been 97. Oh, okay.

So I started – no, 96. I started Mr. Show been 97. Oh, okay. So I started 96. I started Mr. Show in 97. Okay. Bob called me the week my unemployment ran out. Oh, wow. And he had been like saying, you got to not take another job. You got to not take another job for like two months at that point. And finally, my unemployment was up.

So, yeah. So it just, you know, like I really felt like I was at that point. And finally my unemployment was up. So yeah, so it just, you know, like I really felt like I was home with it. And, but I didn't really think, I'd never, you know, worked on a TV show or whatever. So I was like, not really sure how I was gonna do it. And I remember talking to Andy Kindler about how kind of nervous I was about it. And I was saying, I think I'm one of those guys

who's better behind the computer and writing. So I think I'm not gonna be very good in the room because I need the time to craft a joke. And then Bob, the very first day, he had this thing where he was like, let's put the new people on the spot and sink or swim, you know? So someone read one of their sketches that they had brought in on the first day, uh, from their submission packet. And he just turned right to me. He goes, what do you think?

And I was like, in my head going, ask one of the people who's worked here for a while, you know, but I just blurted out what I thought because I'm a very opinionated person. And he was like, yeah, very smart. Okay. Yeah. Let's do that with very opinionated person. And he was like, yeah, very smart. Okay, yeah, let's do that with it. You know, and it was like, oh, maybe I can be good in the room. You know, and all it is is like. Well, God bless him for that, you know? Yeah.

Honestly, he was one. It was such a great first job to have because he was so supportive of the process. Yeah. Because it was a reaction to SNl uh in him working at snl where where sketches would get shot down right after being in dress rehearsal yeah yeah now where it seemed like house intrigue was more important than the actual product he was about if someone has an idea if there's the kernel of comedy there let's not shoot it down let's not make fun of it let's like really treat it seriously for at least an hour you know and people would come in with the

most half-baked things and he would say and we would talk about it for an hour and at at the end of the hour you usually would find some pathway into it being a successful sketch you know so it was it was a really incredible instructive first job to have where we were trusted with the sketches that we wrote to, to basically produce them and to be in the editing room. And it, it taught me so much, uh, about making stuff that from then on, I couldn't really go back to like just staffing on a sitcom, know and just being a cog in the machine i kind of just had had to make the stuff myself when you started to have this sort of artistic reinforcement and and this contentment and fulfillment in an artistic sense did that translate into personal

like at the same time did you feel that this, that this was like a key that was unlocking something in you? It definitely did with my peers. It definitely made me feel comfortable and I suddenly had, you know, a crew, you know, of people who understood me. Which is the biggest thing in the world. Yeah. When you find your, when you find your people, it's, I've talked about it on other shows. It's the biggest thing in the world. Yeah. When you find your people, I've talked about it on other shows, it's the biggest thing in the world. It's huge. So I finally – everything felt like it clicked and I – for various reasons, I hadn still 27 and I'm still, you know, like eight years out

of the church. And so I'm still very concerned about what my parents are thinking about my career. And that did not kind of settle for a while. That takes a while. Yeah. I know a lot, like I say, people in their mid-30s, they still worry. I have friends that are worried about what their parents think. And I just think, give it time and you won't give a shit. Yeah. The first time I was on Mr. Show as an actor, I didn't know they were going to do this, but my parents didn't have HBO. So my mom called me the next day and said that they had rented a hotel room, a hotel that had HBO so they could watch it.

And she called to tell me that, right? And I was like, oh, wow. So what did you think? And she goes, well, you look like you've gained weight. I was like, oh, okay. Well, what did you think about the show? She goes, well, we didn't like it. We turned it off after five minutes.

And she called to tell me this, right? So I was like, okay. And she called to tell me this, right? So I was like, okay. And the wrestling with that happened until probably like 2002. I remember I was 32 and there was a big sort of epiphany for me because I had been working for about a year at that point at DreamWorks on this animated film called Shark Tale. And I remember it was along with other stuff that I was doing that was more in my wheelhouse of like, you know, sarcastic or offensive comedy. But I was like, oh, wow, I love animated films and I have since I was a kid. And maybe this will be something that my parents are proud of.

Yeah. And so I did it and it came out in theaters and I took them to the premiere at Man's Chinese Theater and the lights came up and my dad was like, well, that wasn't very good, was it? And I had a lot of problems, you can tell. And I was like. Audience, I'm smiling and shaking my head. And it's very supportive and I appreciate it. shaking my head and it's very supportive and i appreciate it um but that was literally that was when i said to myself oh i don't i don't have to care about this yeah yeah yeah i can shake this tree all day and no fruit will fall yes yeah i don't have to care about and since then it's been great we're like i don't even tell them about i don't think they've ever heard the podcast or

anything i don't think they would know how to download it i just don't even tell them about stuff. I don't think they've ever heard the podcast or anything. I don't think they would know how to download it. I just don't care. I'll put stuff out there and I don't care if they watch it. Sometimes I'll hear about it. And my mom loved Comedy Bang Bang, keeps every episode on the DVR. Oh, that's nice.

So it's, you know, so they're supportive in certain ways, but it's like, I also just literally know that it's not for them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, you were sort of a pioneer of podcast, the podcast world. The pioneer chicken of the podcast world. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kind of shitty off-brands. That's correct. Craftsy. Yes, yes. No, but I mean, you were in on this pretty early, and you were inspired by Jimmy Pardo? Is that what I read? Yeah, so Jimmy has been doing it 13 years. And at the time, too, he started subscription service before anybody really sort of had the notion to do that thing.

Yeah, he is a true pioneer, but he felt like he was getting in late because Ricky Gervais had a podcast, and it was kind of like, oh, what are you just imitating Ricky Gervais? It was kind of like, you know, but it was like, man, maybe we missed the boat on this thing 13 years ago. And it was all online, too. There was no downloadable anything. Really, was there? You could. Yeah. When I first started, and it was basically I was on Jimmy's show quite often and telling stories and gaining a fan base.

And it made me kind of go like, oh, wow, you know, like I'm maybe okay on mic, you know. So 10 years ago is when Comedy Bang Bang started. And it started as a radio show and it was just a live radio show here in L.A. that I then podcast. And I quickly found out that I asked the station manager at one point, I said, how many people like listen to the show while it's happening? And he was like, anywhere between, I would say, 50 and 500. All right. And I was like, OK. And then I. I i gotta tell my mom i took a look at the the download numbers of the podcast and that was at like 2000 every week yeah and i said well

what am i doing this shit about the live radio show part of this i'm just going to focus on the podcast yeah so about a year into uh the the show um i had a a mutual friend of someone get very interested in the show. And he wanted to meet me about maybe managing the show or doing something. I said, I have a manager, so I'm not really interested. But on my way out of the meeting, he said, you know, if we really wanted to do something cool, we would start a podcast network with all of your friends. And I turned around and was like, that's actually, that's an idea I'm really interested in. Yeah. Because I've always liked like building something or being, you know, I have the show at UCB for

10 years and just- No, clubhouse for everyone to play in. Yes, exactly. And creating something. And I viewed it as sort of like the UCB in a way of like when I first started doing comedy, it was all about the venue. You never could find a place that would let you do the comedy. Right. So I started at the comedy store, but we were in the tiny room and we got kicked out of that after like six months, right? And then there was Ambar and you moved from there because that was restraint, restrictive in a way.

Yeah. But it was always you had to find a bar that was amenable to you doing comedy. It always had to be on a Monday or a Tuesday because those are the slow nights. And then you would get kicked out of it. I had a super successful show at Pedro's, which is no longer with us in Los Feliz, where hundreds of people would come every week. And one day the owner came up to us and was like, you make too much mess, no more shows. And it was done.

And we found out the place was like a drug front later. Oh. But that was always the problem is the venue. And sad that you missed out on the drugs? Right. How come you never showed those to me? We want the drugs. So the venue was always an issue.

So when the UCB came, it was suddenly like a blessing to la of we had a place you know so i kind of wanted to do something like that where it was like i would go around to comedians and say hey you're you're doing a show at the ucb for like between 50 and 100 people every night you could be doing a podcast for thousands every week. And every comedian kind of looked at me like, okay, sure thing. And even yourself, I believe, I asked if you wanted to do a podcast and you're like, I'm not really into that.

Up until five minutes ago, I was, well, it started out like I didn't understand what it was. I am not a visionary. That's how it always was. All of this kind of stuff. I didn't get it. I didn't get it. I didn't understand it. I only understand the delivery systems that I grew up with in any kind of real way.

People thought that it was a thing that was not serious and that people would bother them to do. You know what I mean? They didn't realize how many people worldwide were accessing these things. And so that, that became my mission to, to tell people like, no, no, no, you don't understand this is big. And I would look at the forecasts for the future of podcasting. And there were articles at the time about how it was going to grow two and a half times where it was in the next two years and how automakers were going to no longer be putting radios in cars. They were just going to have, um, uh, MP3 lines and stuff, which ended up sort of happening now through Bluetooth, you know? Yeah. So I just got very interested in the business and

tried to talk to people about the future of it. And some people like Paul Scheer was like, immediately got it and was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, man. like Paul Scheer was like immediately got it and was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, man. And, and other people were like, no, I don't understand this and I don't want to do it. And it took, you know, a good five years before advertisers were even interested in it. I was also very spoiled by the fact that I, at an early age, got on television and I was working on television. So the notion of when somebody would say, I'm doing a show that's going to be on YouTube, I'd think, oh, what do you do? Start a lemonade stand. But that's where I was in my career too is like I'd been on television and then I hit a wall after Mr. Show where suddenly every – I had like a pilot deal that I was going to star in and all this sort of stuff.

And everything got turned down. And I got no's on everything. And suddenly I hit like three years in a row where nothing I wrote got made. Yeah, that's very common. And so I suddenly found podcasting and I was able to express myself and do a show every week

and people would pay attention. I mean, that's, I think, why we're all doing it in a way. Like, you know, one of my other shows, Are You Talking R.E.M. Re Me, Adam Scott and I do it. And at one point, people here at Earwolf were saying like, oh, you could do it on Stitcher and have it be behind the paywall and we'll pay you a lot of money to do it. And we were both like, no, we want the people to hear it. Yeah, yeah. You know?

Yeah. And we were both like, no, we want the people to hear it. Yeah, yeah. You know? Yeah. So the weekly affirmation of putting out a podcast became this sort of salve to my career at a time when I felt like it was, you know, in the shithole. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And do you think that the podcast – that the success of the podcast and the podcast that you were involved in in general was what led to the television show?

Definitely. The comedy, yeah, yeah. It was just- You had an audience. It was serendipity. There was a big audience. It grew from that 2,000 to probably in the first couple of years, 100,000 or whatever. And so I found that the algorithm that people put together when they're deciding to give you something like I had a book deal at one point, they were like, OK, you have this many Twitter followers.

They want to talk about your reach. Right, right. And the podcast was something that they could say he has this reach and he has all these Twitter followers as well. That was also happening at the same time. This is why it's OK to spend money on him. Right. Exactly. He's a bankable person.

Yes. Which I found is not a good algorithm to use because they'll give TV shows to people with a million Twitter followers and they get canceled right away. Yeah. But in any case, so I got a TV show from that and it's all due to the podcast. I mean, the, the, the, the stuff that has been the most, um, that, that has made my career has been the stuff that I just kind of was doing as a side gig for free. So between two ferns was just a video that we put up on funny or die for free that we didn't think anything was, you know, going to happen with. And that, what did that just happen? Like, did you just, what was the, who, whose idea was to do that? So there was a pilot that I was making, a sketch pilot.

And Zach couldn't be a cast member because he was just too in demand. Yeah. But he wanted to do a sketch for it. And so I was just talking to him. I was like, well, what do you want to do? Do you have any ideas? And he said, I've always wanted to do like a public access show called between two ferns i don't know what it is he and he was just like i worked at public access i said oh i did too

and we both thought that was really funny of that your only set dressing is just two ferns yeah so all he had was a title but i was talking to michael serra about doing something as well and i said hey would you want to do this with zach? And he said, yeah, sure. And so we just improv'd it for this pilot. And then the pilot didn't get picked up and Funny or Die became a thing. I think it had only been around like three months at that point. And so, but we had friends who were like the, who were working at it. We said, can we put this up on Funny or Die? And they said, Oh, we'll make it an exclusive, uh, on a Monday for you. I didn't know what that meant or whatever. And then suddenly, like, it got, I think, a million people watched it that month or something. Well, it's, I mean, it's just basically, it's the purest expression of Zach Galifianakis.

Right. I mean, aside from, you know, having lunch with him. But even that, honestly, I think Between Two Furs is more authentic than actually spending time with Zach. It's like he's more- He's putting on an act while you're talking to him as a regular human being. Right, right. He's being human.

Right. One thing that occurs to me as we're talking about all this, and especially with Between Two Furs, you end up talking to the goddamn president yeah it's not in order to sell the new health care policy it's crazy is there like is there a tremendous amount of pride in all of this like do you feel like it's all wow scott no but i mean i'm back to hating myself yeah but but you i mean you you know, you had the idea. I mean, granted, other people sort of showed you the way, but you really sort of had the persistence of vision to do this thing and to commit yourself to this silliness, but this particular kind of silliness that will be delivered in a particular way. It is – I mean, it's one of those things where I just – I don't think it could be replicated in a way, although I guess we tried to with the Hillary Clinton one.

That one was technically more successful in terms of viewers and less successful in terms of achieving what we wanted to achieve with it. Right, right, right. Well, the big difference is Barack Obama, the way he's funny, he can be funny out in public that way. I think that Hillary Clinton is probably funny, but she can't be funny in public. But you know what? I was very conscientious of that. And Barack Obama is the only Ferns episode we've done that was scripted

because we were told essentially, there is no way in hell you're ever going to do this. I push for it, but there's no way in hell you're ever going to do it the way you want to do it, which is Zach just throwing the questions out without them knowing – without the president knowing what the questions are. So that's been the only one that we scripted. But Hillary Clinton's people wanted it to be scripted because they're like, that's what she's used to. That's what you did with the president, right?

And I, in my heart of hearts, knew she would not be good doing that because she's stiff. And most politicians are really stiff when they do this kind of stuff. And I said, I would rather not do it than have it come out and be shitty. So we just, we want to do it the way we want to do it. And they, to their credit, they said, okay, great. And I think that when you watch that video, she is funny in a way that she is not on talk shows. Absolutely. I agree. Because when

she gets on a show like, you know, I don't know if she ever did Conan, but she did, I'm sure she did Letterman. Yeah, of course. And The Tonight Show, it just comes off as just very fake to me and very much like it's gone through a filter of people writing it and people checking it. Yeah. But it's also, every human is imperfect, but she also has gone through the filter of her life of being the first lady of Arkansas and making a crack about I'm not going to bake cookies and people going fucking bananas because she said, I'm a civil rights attorney. I'm not going to be home making cookies, which is like an eminently reasonable thing to say. And that was it. That that's it. Like a, a turning point. Those people, they, they, it is bizarre. I'll tell you one story about doing Barack Obama, which is, I thought about the other day, which was when we went to the white house, we were, um, Barack Obama also was going to be talking to YouTube stars,

like in the next day or two days after that. And they were telling me the story of a YouTube star, a very popular YouTube star, that they thought they should invite to this event. And then they looked at their YouTube videos and realized they could not invite. And because of a certain video that this person did. And I said, well, that this person did. And I said,

well, that's too bad. And they said, well, that's just what it is. You have to vet these things. You have to watch every single thing they've ever done. They have someone watching every single thing they've ever done.

So cut to now when there is no one vetting anyone and it, and you find out none of this matters. And where the president himself has a thousand career enders on tape. Yeah. And you find out none of this matters. And where the president himself has a thousand career enders. Yes. On tape. Yeah. And you kind of – part of me wishes like the Obama administration could go backwards and be a little looser. But I also know and I could feel it while I was there.

There's such a responsibility on him to be the first black president. You can't fuck up. You know what I mean? Yeah, no, I know. You can't do what Bill Clinton did. You can't do, you certainly can't do what Trump's been doing. You can't fuck up or else people are going to say there should never be another black president again. Well, you know, people joke that Bill Clinton was the first black president. I think Bill Clinton got to be blacker than Barack Obama did, just in terms of what people would tolerate.

Yeah, exactly. I mean certain people. So it's certainly something where you look at Hillary Clinton and I know why she's over-processed. We just wanted to break through that. I understand. Which I was happy about. Which was a good – I mean kudos. Thank you.

That's the whole point of this. Kudos. Thank you. That's the whole point of this. Kudos to Scott. Well, I like to keep this thing to an hour because I've been on your show and I know how that can go. Oh, my God. Some days it's like bring a meal. Last time you did two hours. It was two hours, wasn't it? So we can edit it down to 90. No, it's always fun.

It's always fun. But it is one of the things. And listening to podcasts, I know my, I have an attention span thing. Yeah. An hour is about all I can do. And even then sometimes I don't make it through an hour. Technically podcasts should be 20 minutes because that's the average drive to someplace. Right, right. You know what I mean? I don't make it through an hour. Technically, podcasts should be 20 minutes because that's the average drive to someplace.

You know what I mean? But at a certain point, I used to try to keep Comedy Bang Bang short. And then people would always be saying like, no, no, I listen to podcasts at work. I need more. I want more. Yes. Thank God for people with jobs that don't occupy much of their brain. Yes.

Well, so but we really do. We should move on to the where are you going part of this. We talked a lot about where you've been in a really, you know, frankly, you were an enigma to me up until now. We've been friends for. I know, I know. But I was like, who is that guy? Oh, my God. It's like he's like an abstract painting. But what do you think is going forward for you?

But what do you think is going forward for you? I mean, either in your personal life, you and your beautiful wife, who just had that wonderful documentary film, which everyone should check out. What's it called again? It's called Origin Story. Origin Story. It's on iTunes. Check it out. It's really, really great.

It's on Amazon Prime. Amazon Prime. Fuck. It's mainly where people can watch it. Edit that so that I say the right thing. Okay. I think so in career i i just directed a movie which has been one of my big goals for a long time um ever since you know

watching that monty python movie something you wrote or yes between two friends movie okay so that's coming out and and i've just always wanted to be one of the comedians who like directed a movie. It's like very Spinal Tap or Albert Brooks, real life influenced. So that's coming out. So at this point, I don't know what – I've been working on that for two years every day. And now I just have my last day on it. So now I don't know what is happening. So you're done editing. It's all just ready to go out.

It's all, it's turned in, it's done. Wow. So yeah, I don't know what's happening career wise other than I'd love to do more of that and make, just keep making stuff, you know? How does it feel when something like that's over and when you're like, what, what the day after, when something like that's over? And when you're like, what, what, the day after, two days after, how many days when this sort of like, oh, thank God that's work is over. I kind of, this has been odd because I came from five years of a television show

where we made 110 episodes and we're just cranking them out and constantly new ideas. It's been weird to work on the same 82 minutes for what feels like an eternity and to be constantly watching the same 82 minutes and to be and to be engaged by it yeah i mean i still like it and i still like i had to watch it front to back two times this week uh because you know to finish the color correction and to finish the sound mix you know yeah and Yeah, yeah. And you're watching it with people and they're all laughing, and I'm just sitting there like analyzing it. But I'm certainly not at the point where I'm like,

ooh, I wish I could have made different choices. Yeah. I think it's good. I think it's very funny. People love it. So I think it's, you know, I think it'll be great. But it is weird. Yeah.

It's weird to be done with it. It'll be great. But it is weird. Yeah. It's weird to be done with it. And to so many people are good about, you know, setting up their next project while they're working on this one. And this was so overwhelming for me. Yeah.

I just – and plus doing all the podcast stuff. Like if I didn't have the podcast stuff, I could have set up my next project. Yeah, yeah. So in terms of career, I don't know. I would love to be one of those guys like Mel Brooks who just keeps making shit until I'm passed away. Yeah, yeah. Which could be any time now. Oh. What's going on? Nothing wrong with me.

Something sad you've learned? Something scary? Something medical? What if this is where I announced I was dying on your show? I have an inoperable brain worm. It's like Todd Glass announcing he was gay on Marc Maron's show. Oh, did he really? Yeah, do it on your own show, Todd.

Like, this is groundbreaking. He wanted people to hear it. Boom! Sorry, Todd. It was hanging there. I had to, you know. Yeah, anytime you see something hanging there, you got to punch it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Personally, I think we're, you mentioned Kulop and her movie. I think we're at kind of a crossroads as well in a way of if you've seen the movie, you know that we've been trying to have a kid for a while. And so we're in the middle of that. I mean, I say we're in the middle, but it's like we're in five years of that at this point. So that's been a journey, but I hope I were, we're hoping that that comes to a resolution in the next year or so. Um, at which point then, I don't know, man, because you you're you have kids who are like almost 18 and 13 yeah one's like leaving right yes one's off to college in a matter of weeks so which i don't even like one of my coping mechanisms is uh oh if there's a train that's

going to run over you don't think about it until right before it's going to run over you because what's the point of when it's a mile away and you're like, oh, I might get run over. Are you trying to spend time as much time as you can? Yeah, we are. We are. But no, there's the basic thing. My baby is leaving. Yeah.

My baby will be gone. Yeah. Because he's always going to be my baby. Right. And he's six foot two. He's a beautiful. Always be your baby. Eyes of blue.

He's a beautiful man that just makes me so proud. And I love him so much. Yeah. But I actually am choking myself up. God damn it. He's going to be gone. Yeah. But I mean, he's not going to.

I mean, you own a dog and they're not ever going to leave when they're, you know, like 18 and dog years. Like, see you later. And they shit on the floor just like the kids do so but i think that that with a i have you're one of the the friends that i have that had kids and had a career simultaneously and i was always very very worried about that like i had a friend who had kids relatively young and he was saying like when his kid was 10, he was saying like, I just look back at the last 10 years like I'm just a very tired guy trying to make comedy not very well. Yeah. You know, and so I was always very worried about that.

Yeah. About how do you, I mean, it's the joke question I would ask on Comedy Bang Bang, the TV show, how do you juggle work and family? But I was always like, I want to achieve things. I have things in my career I want. I wanted those Emmys. I wanted to make a movie. So I'm kind of at this place now where I'm like, well, can I now be selfless and have a career as well? I don't know. I mean, we're always able to hire assistants. Am I right? And nannies. Yeah, assistants and nannies.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They'll help you out in showbiz. Yeah. But I don't know. Well, I mean, I wouldn't say this if I didn't mean it, but I think you guys, I mean, I would love to see you guys as parents because you're both really beautiful, nurturing people with a lot of love in your hearts. And I hope that that comes true. Thank you, Andy. You're welcome.

And it is like, yeah, it's tough. I mean, like it's – there's things that like I wish – a lot of times I look at – there will be a new comedy movie that I'll see a trailer for because I'm sure it not paying money to see those fucking things you ever see a comedy they're the worst uh but i'll see a trailer and i'm like i know every fucking person in that thing you mean i couldn't have been the waiter or i couldn't have been the you know the deputy sheriff or i couldn't have been and there's and there's part of me that's like god damn it what's been happening and what's been happening is i've had a steady gig that's been in one place. I live 10 minutes from where I work. Right.

And that's been going on for about nine years. From when my children were nine and four. So, you know, like pretty formative years. Yeah, you got to be there. I've been home. Well, also. I've been home a lot. Yeah, you got to be there. I've been home. I've been home a lot. And I drive him to school every day. And, you know, I mean, I've gotten to be a real dad while also being on television, which is a really.

It's rare. A rare thing. And I really am glad for it. And don't you think before it happened, were you in this sort of existential dread about your career of like, I don't have a steady gig and I need what's, you know? No, absolutely. Well, I seem to remember you being happy that you were getting a steady gig. Yes. At the time I was very headed, but you know, I get bitchy about everything, you know,

and the grass always becomes greener and I'm always, and I have a short attention span. I, you know, I do get like, well, this is great. I love this thing and I love everybody here, but I'm antsy. I want to move on. And, and I, but I also was aware and there is, there is the balance. There is the yin and the yang of like where, yeah, you can have a movie career, but you're not going to be home. Yeah. And there were times like I, I, one time it was right before the writer's strike. I got a job in a movie in New Zealand. And they were like, you got to decide right now. It was a movie called Aliens in the Attic.

Oh, yeah. And I went away for six weeks because it all happened so fast. And I had to take, which is another story. But it happened where like on Friday, they said, you've got the job. Not just you've got the job. But you've got to be there on Monday. You've got the job. But yeah, you've got to leave not just you've got the job but you got to be there on monday you got the job but yeah you got to leave on tuesday right for what could be three months and fuck you if that's a problem right and i'm like well i gotta take this job because it's the writer's strike everything

stopped but i was gone for six weeks i i was away from my from my family for six weeks it was terrible it was a terrible mistake and if i had to do it again, I would have dragged him with me and put my son in school in New Zealand and Auckland or whatever. Because that just – and that was a real turning point for me to know like, oh, no, I'm not going to be the guy that goes to Prague for three weeks. I think I look at – a lot of times I look at movie stars and how they constantly – even if they have children, they're constantly getting divorced. And I kind of go, I think, you know, it's, it's very rare to be one of the top 10 bankable movie stars in the world, but I think there is a price that goes along with that. And so I think there's something to that. I mean, I w I would say that the only times that I think that cool up and I have ever had true difficulties were when I w I basically had taken too much work, you know? And you just, there's just something about not being next to the person, you know

what I mean? And not, not being able to just connect even like in a physical proximity, you know? So, so I, I think, you know, if something like that were to happen of like, hey, you got to go move somewhere for whatever amount of time, I think it's the sensible thing to do if you want to keep your relationship going is to bring all the people with you. Yeah. Which, yeah, exactly. But that's predicated on the notion that everybody's portable based on what your life is. And everyone's all children are OK with like upending their lives.

And then cool ups OK with dropping her life here and go on to wherever you might. Well, that's the other thing is, is like, you know, she's got her own career going. So like a child, I mean, it's definitely almost more impactful on her career than it is mine. Not more than almost it, 100%. Yeah, so I shouldn't even be like as selfishly thinking about how's it going to affect my career as much as I should be thinking about her. Nobody hears this. I mean, for sure, Cool Up doesn't listen to this.

All right, well, we're getting near the end here. I think the notion of a balance between the sort of personal gratification of a fulfilling work career and the, you know, sort of deeper. And I personally think deeper gratification of a family and creating a home. It's a careful thing. I mean,

that's sort of one thing you've learned. I mean, you know, one thing is like, what is it all for? You know, like i've gotten to do these cool things and it makes me feel good of like oh i've always wanted to achieve these things and if i didn't achieve them i think i probably would have felt bad yeah you know so that's great but in a way it also is like it's the old questions of what what is it all what's the fucking point yeah

yeah you know of like you know i when when you hear rudy giuliani say like i don't care about legacy because i'll be dead you know it's like he's just fucking gonna be the worst asshole yeah because he's only got five more years here on this earth and he just wants to fucking live his life during it, you know? Right, right. So what good is a legacy? It's more about the relationships that you have. No.

I guess. I very—early on, there was a—I mean, like, we're talking, like, 1994 or something. There was a profile on Conan in which they asked me questions about him, and I love saying exactly what I want to say. So they asked me sort of like, you know, how do you, you know, he's your friend and you care about him and how do you, you know, this, and it was the whole point of the article. I was like, well, what a rough ride it's been for him, you know? For Conan?

Well, I mean, in the beginning. Oh, okay. In the beginning, no, we were, we were, you know, from like the first. Oh, ratings. Oh, I thought you meant his career. Oh, no, no, no. I meant, that's what I'm saying. the beginning oh in the beginning no we were we were you know from like oh ratings well yeah yeah just like i thought you meant it is his career oh no no no i mean right from harvard no i'm saying in 1994 it was like he started this show and everybody shit on it and everybody hated on it and the network was terrible i know network was pretty shitty to us for the first couple of years

it wasn't until david letterman came on and was like this is a great show yeah i can't believe how much comedy you guys do and then it was kind of that was it just was in the air like that guy says we're good so how can you really think we're shitty right but in this article that they wrote about him they asked me about like how i felt he was handling it. And I said, well, I just hope, I said something along the lines of like, I hope that he realizes how sort of passing all of this is and how sort of fleeting all of this is and how sort of ultimately inconsequential and silly all this is because, you know, at the, in 1994, it's like, can you remember a talk show kerfuffle from five years prior to that? Right.

You know, no. So, and I just told him, I just said, and I said something along the lines of like, because having met David Hasselhoff 12 times does not keep the ghosts away when you're laying in that nursing home bed. And I got a call from him like early one morning saying, my friend, he goes, because he didn't read the article. So my friend read that quote to me and said that it chilled him. It chilled him. And I was like, well, good.

Good. Because it's true. Yeah. You know. I mean, conversely, though, the movie's about to come out. And I was thinking the other day because, you know, once it wrapped up, I was like suddenly feeling very just worried about my career. Yeah. You know?

Yeah. And like, oh, shit, have I fucked myself, you know, working two years and disappearing basically for two years to do this one thing? But I just had to remind myself like of the kid who wanted to do it. Yeah. To be present at least. Yeah. When it comes out yeah to be and to not be so much like about the future and all that kind of stuff so because and because you

know we don't have kids right now so i can't like take them to it and go look daddy made a movie daddy did but honestly when you take your kids and say look what daddy did they don't give a shit right yeah look jimmy parto's kid came to it and loved it. I feel like he's my kid anyway. Do you really want your kids to be fans? That's another question. It's okay. I have a couple of friends who have two kids and the daughter is exactly

like the mom and the kid is exactly like the dad. And I think it's so adorable. And I don't think the kids would even acknowledge that or whatever, but they are so alike that I just, I think it's so funny. Yeah, yeah. And I love it. But yeah, I want to get there.

I know Cool Up and I, we definitely want to get there. And I'll be an old dad, which I think is like, you know, not the greatest. That's okay. I don't know. It's okay. I'll be physically unable to do the job. No, that's not true. That's not true.

I think, I know old dads and I think it keeps them young. Yeah. I know old dads and I know older moms and I think it keeps them young. I think being around, I mean, older first moms or moms. You're on older moms.com as well as older first moms.com. I own older moms.com and that's why I'm bringing it up. No, I think, I think that kids keep you young. I think they really do. dot com and that's why i'm bringing it up uh no i think i think that kids keep you young i think

they really do i think that they have a i mean they're they're the biggest most work because they're the most important thing but they uh i think that they do tend to keep you young because you're that much closer to that life force you know that you want to suck out of them no no no that you want to nurture that you want to you know i mean. No, no, no. That you want to nurture. That you want to, you know, I mean, you know. Yeah. I mean, it's like, to put it in show business terms, it's like a development deal with 18 steps, you know. To put it in terms that we understand. You know, it's like a multi-picture deal that we have.

A development deal that shits itself. That just lasts a long time. Yes. And it can fall down stairs. I've always wanted one of those. long time yes and they can fall downstairs i've always wanted one of those well i uh one of my few philosophical uh standpoints is i am a devout relativist and i have found comparing myself to other people to be an incredibly useful things oh when applied to different things such as career like very getting into show business it's so daunting how the fuck do you make money in show

business how can you make a living at this? And I remember specifically being out here and seeing all of this houses and businesses and thinking so much of this is show business. It's an industry. There's gotta be a place for me. And also so much of, look, if that fucking guy can do it, I sure as fuck can't.

Yeah, you can subside on that in your early 20s. And I think like just to speak to you feeling a little nervous about, you know, devoting yourself to the direction of this film and what that does to you. It's not just the fact that it's the child that you were that had the dream of this. It's all the people that have attempted to do it, too. And all the people that are out there that would love to direct a film. You know, of this, it's all the people that have attempted to do it too. And all the people that are out there that would, that would love to direct a film, you know, I mean,

it's, it can, it can be very easy to look at what you don't have with like friends who have, and it's all just like weird luck sometimes in addition to talent. I mean, I think everything is a, is a combination of talent, but it's so much of it is luck that in circumstance just somewhere

yeah that you just kind of gotta like look down and go i don't care that i'm not there are certain things yes i will never achieve that i wanted to achieve when i was young but god i had a tv show for five years which is fucking insane i know and i probably will never have another television show i'm not like one of those people who's like, all right, what's next on my TV slate? It's like, I'm probably never going to have another one. And I got to direct a movie and who knows if I'll ever get to direct another one. But it's like, I got to do these things. I'm always tickled by people when they try and insult me on the internet, on Twitter or something, where they say something like, you and your failed shows.

And I'm like, oh, you mean the three network shows that I was the fucking star of? Yeah, what a loser. When people say like, oh yeah, Comedy Bang Bang was canceled. I mean, I go after 110 episodes? Yeah. Way to go, asshole. Like what shows do you,

do you only like The Simpsons in 60 minutes? Do you only like Guiding Light? The Bold and the Beautiful? No, Bonanza, that was a show. No. Gunsmoker, whatever. Got canceled after 20 fucking years. Yep.

All right. Well, this has really been the best time I've ever had with you, frankly. Oh, boy. Usually it's a little. You've been to parties at my house. It's a bummer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that was just to sort of look through your stuff.

You came and watched the Super Bowl at my house. I did, I did. And I made you lunch. I, yeah, yeah. But that was just to sort of look through your stuff. You came and watched the Super Bowl at my house and I made you lunch. I did. I actually just, your house was one of my first sort of post-announcement of my getting a divorce outings. And it was just, I made a joke afterwards because I had to talk to so many friends that I hadn't really talked to about it. It was your coming out party, coming out as a divorced man. A little bit. I mean, not divorced yet, but I made a joke to a friend of mine the next day about going to dinner. And I told him, I said like, hey, just last night I was workshopping

my one man show. I'm getting a divorce. And I think I could real, now that I've got it worked out, you know, having repeated 12 times to my friends at your house. Oh, boy. And listen, people out there, if you ever get a chance to go to Scott's house, it is lovely. Come on by. Yeah, you got to take an Uber, though. The parking is fucked. We're taking all comers, though.

Anyone who ever wants to come by, just ask me for the address. Go right ahead. All right. Thanks, buddy. I really enjoyed this. I love you, Scott. This is great. I really enjoyed this.

I'm glad. Thank you for having me as well. And thank you for all your help, Scott. This is great. Love you, buddy. I really enjoyed this. I'm glad. I'm glad. Thank you for having me as well. And thank you for all your help getting this one off the ground. My pleasure. And thank you out there for listening to the three questions. We will be back next week with someone far less interesting, I'm sure. Got a big, big love for you.

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 Beckton. And if you haven't already, make sure to rate and review

The Three Questions with Andy Richter on Apple Podcasts.