The Watch - David Wain on Making the ‘Wet Hot American Summer’ Franchise (Ep. 177)

Episode Date: August 17, 2017

Andy Greenwald sits down with ‘Wet Hot American Summer’ franchise director and cocreator David Wain to discuss creating and adapting his comedy film to a TV series for Netflix, what it’s like working with a multitude of famous people with busy schedules, and where the franchise goes from here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Andy Greenwald. I have no official title at the ringer.com. I should talk to someone about that. Chris Ryan is on vacation, probably staying at a hotel that he booked using a very successful and popular service

like Hotel Tonight. I don't know. I hope he's having a good time. I miss him. I'm all alone in the studio. I'm not really alone because Zach Mack is here on the boards. I'm also won't be alone soon because today's show. is a special show, David Wayne is going to join me. I am so excited to talk to David Wayne.

And by the way, yes, podcasters usually record intros after they do the interview so they can sort of act prescient and wise about the warm conversation they just had. I have no idea what this conversation is going to be like, although I hope it's warm. I've never actually spoken to David Wayne at length before, but I've been a fan of his work for a long time. I was a huge fan of his comedy troupe, The State, back in the 90s, and I am a fan of his current projects, including What Hot. American Summer. Ten years later, the series that is on Netflix now, I just finished it last night.

We're going to talk about that, how he assembles those insane casts and films around their wild production schedules. I also hope to talk to him about this National Lampoon movie that he has coming up, which also has a remarkable and crazy cast of people playing very, very famous comedians. So he's always working on stuff. I think it'll be an interesting conversation. We're going to get right into it. I just have to say one other thing, though, before we do, Zach was wondering if there was any cultural news to hit. Did you guys know that, that halt and catch fire, one of the best shows on TV, is returning for its fourth and final season on Saturday on AMC.

I did a poll on Twitter, which is a weird thing to say. I have literally never done a poll on Twitter before. But I had to ask people, why don't I know about this? Is it because I am old now and don't pay attention? Or is it because AMC totally dropped the ball in promoting this thing? And I kind of feel like, well, the former is true. But if that's a given, I kind of feel like it's the latter. I don't know. I haven't read the tea leaves. I haven't spoken anyone about this, but it's a miracle that we got four seasons of Hald and Catch Fire, especially because as many longtime listeners or readers know, I wasn't that enamored with the first season. But talk about taking the leap. The show got really good in the second season, got even better in the third. I'm really happy. It's a small miracle that it got a fourth season, considering its ratings. I've always considered it to be the height of peak TV jiu-jitsu that Joel Stillerman and his team in AMC managed to

somehow convince shareholders or whoever they have to convince that it's worth funding because it really is that good of a show. Worth noting, Joel Stillerman, who championed the show at AMC, no longer at AMC, now at Hulu. So I wonder if that's why I don't know about this fourth season premiere and why it's premiering on Saturday night. But look, we are post-air date, right? It doesn't really matter. Everyone watches stuff streaming or on demand anyway. And so, though I haven't seen the season premiere, let me just say again, if you're interested in smart, nuanced, character-based television. Look, we all love dragons, but it's really cool to see emotional storytelling that doesn't involve dragons. Two, I really think you should check out Halt and Catch Fire.

I believe all three seasons, including season three, which had a stunning finale and really shocking and cool time jump. All are available on Netflix, so you should check those out. But season four of Halt and Catch Fire premieres on Saturday, I recommend this show. I stand by it. I look forward to watching it. Hopefully we'll have the ringers, Alison Herman, or somebody on. in the next few weeks to talk about the show, as well as the two Chris's, not Chris Ryan, but Chris Cantwell and Chris Rogers, who created the show. I'd love to have them back on the podcast as well. So check that out, and then let's just get into it.

Sorry, Chris, you're missing out. This is my conversation with David Wayne. I want to talk to you about a bunch of projects, but I think we should start in the wet-hot, expanded universe, because that's- And for those, like, not in the no, wet-hot American summer is what you're referring to. Not the wet-hot universe that we live in. Well, Wet Hot is the shortened hipster abbreviation. You protest that.

No, I don't protest it. I just want to make sure the audience is not lost. It's true. If you spoke into Siri and said, show me Wet Hot, you might get like Cinemax after Dark entries. Likely. If you Google just Wet Hot, it's in trouble. Terrifying. Yeah, incognito mode for that.

Okay. So for people who don't know, and I'm going to go back even further than Wet Hot American Summer. If you're ready to go on the way back machine. Wait a minute. I am. I am now ready. Now I'm ready. Well, I'm not doing it yet.

Okay, but I'm ready whenever you do it. He looks calm and ready. I appreciate that in a guest. Wet Hot American Summer is a absolutely, I'm going to say classic now, but it's absolutely wonderful comedy film. It is one of the great seminal movies of all times. Very seminal. Throughout.

I didn't even know what seminal means, but yes. I was just thinking of certain scenes. Came out in 2000? Yeah, 2001. It was shot in 2000. Shot in very rainy summer camp in upstate New York. in Pennsylvania. Sorry, Pennsylvania.

I'm here to correct the record. Let me tell you how you made your movie. Whose show is this? Came out in 2001. I developed a cult following, as it should have. And then I'd like, because we had nothing for 15 years, 14 years in this world. And then a Netflix series that was absolutely terrific that was the first day of camp. Yeah.

And then two years later in short order, we have another mini-series. Weirdly. That's the part I want to talk about. I think it's a question about TV in general and your business in general. You can go from having this thing that was beloved by hopefully the right people. People really enjoyed this. And I'm sure there were years, a decade even, when people who were partisans of the movie, big fans would come up to you and say, oh, I wish there could be more. And it was an almost absurd question because of the bottom line box office receipts that you had.

And yet something turned where... Right. Well, I think two things turned. Internally with our movie, the stature of the movie kept rising higher. And the people who were fans of it kept getting older. And some of them got jobs in Hollywood. Those two things came together and made it actually more viable for us to do something more with it. And as we got further and further away from the 299,000...

worldwide gross of the movie. That's dollars or Lira or? $299,000. And so because a lot of times throughout my career since Wet Hot

I would have meetings with studios about various jobs or opportunities and they were excited to meet me and they liked what they saw and then they would

do their homework and look up the numbers and they'd be like oh, forget it. Back away quietly. This has happened in real ways all the time. We'd be go down.

way down the road on a project, they'd see the numbers for the one movie I had directed. They're like, oh, no, no, no, no. So then the other thing, of course, it changed is the landscape of TV changed so much and movies, too, where there was, you know, WetHout was made sort of right in the middle of the indie film time in New York, even though it didn't end up getting bought like we had hoped at Sundance. But, and then we thought of initially let's make a sequel movie or prequel movie. And the movie that we were writing creatively became so, it was too expansive, and we were having trouble conceiving it to be limited to the length of a feature film. And then we looked around and we're like, what is this Netflix thing?

It's like this whole other genre that's kind of better than a movie and better than a TV show for this. And so, yeah, that's how we decided to pitch the idea to Netflix specifically. and if they said yes, we would do it. And that's what we did. And this is you and Michael Showalter. Right, along with John Stern, who produced it with us. And then we, it went better than in every way, internally and externally, better than we ever anticipated.

And so it was a natural conversation to say, should we do it again? And so I was terrified when we first did it. I thought there was a million pitfalls to trying to revisit it wet hot American Summer in any way. But for my money, it worked well enough. Then it was fun enough and it was exciting enough that I would thought, sure, let's try it again. One of the hallmarks of the first series of the first day of camp was you not only managed

to reunite a truly incredible cast and add to it, but you navigated what must have been quite a production I don't know I don't want to say headache but you had The puzzle of actor's schedules was insane Because you For people who don't know

Stars of the original film included Paul Rudd and Bradley Cooper Elizabeth Banks Amy Polar Elizabeth Banks Certainly many more And then for the first series back You know you added John Hamm and Jason Schwartzman and Chris Pine

These are people who were busy They're busy and they're busy and they're also in all every case of everyone who was in the original film and there were dozens of them that we wanted to make sure we brought every single one back they're not replaceable yes and usually when you're scheduling a shoot like this if it's a movie shoot if they can't make the dates you get somebody else yeah or you maybe do a little moving around but basically if you can't be there when you need them you get somebody else in our case didn't have that option and we also were working on a relatively low budget low short schedule and so we just we just just had no choice but to tell every actor, come when you can, because we're not paying them that much either, come when you can for as long as you can or as short as you can, and we'll figure it out. And so we ended up shooting many scenes three, four, five times just to make sure to get every actor and every angle and all that. How much of that, it's fun because it, you know, the part of the, and I guess this is also the legend of when you made the original film,

you actually, you had that cast and you were all living together on this camp. Very rainy. How many weeks was it? Were you there? It was 28 shooting days. It was 28 shooting days. People grew close. People spent a lot of time together during that time. I think there's a documentary. It was a very much like being a came. Yeah, there's a great documentary on Netflix. Hurricane of Fun. Right, which is, I highly recommend as well, that captures the spirit of it. In a way, although now people are older, some, you know, people are more successful, more established. You have Netflix, which is spending $6 billion, though not wholly on your projects. Not wholly on our, believe me. We're in like tier four.

But it does seem like you recreated part of that spirit in terms of just like, let's get this done how we can, let's be fluid, let's figure stuff out on the fly. Oh, I feel like I've called on every crafty, tricky, crazy move I've learned starting from when I was at NYU of how to do something without any resources, especially in this. Because even though we have a budget that's decent, especially in our second time around, all of it went to trying to figure out exactly that puzzle in a lot of ways. And also we had budgeted the second round based on what we did the first round, but then we then wrote the script. And the script turned out to just be maybe four times more ambitious from a production. Of which series? Of the Wet Hot American Summer.

Yes. Because the second season, the 10 years later script turned out to be 10 times more ambitious than the first day of camp script. Well, you've got nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons and helicopter shot. Literally twice as many locations and many more characters and many more scenes. And all that stuff is so complicated. And our first assistant director was just terrified trying to make a schedule.

And it was really hard. But you usually make this budget after you read the script. Because it's really more making a movie than a TV show. Right. I've, it's part of the fun for me of watching it, especially the new series, was I've turned into like an amateur cinema sleuth where I'm trying to see, is anyone else actually in the room during that shot? Like is she interacting with anyone else? So are we only cutting from behind? I mean, but that's part of the fun of it.

I mean, you know, in the original. Well, sometimes we'll make a joke out of it. Right, exactly. But we try to, my goal was when we weren't making a joke out of it to try to sell it the best we can, you know, and make it not make you be thinking about that, hopefully, too much. But for example, you did do, and you did this very skillfully and in a very amusing way. There are two characters in the new series, 10 years later, who were not present in the previous film or series. Mark Forresting. Yes.

And you've dropped them into the first scene of the new series to suggest they always had been. Right. And you roll with it. And in fact, what's so funny is the joke to me was as if we're going to try to fool anyone. But then as it turns out, unbeknownst me, we did actually. actually fool some people. People were like, I didn't remember them in the first one, but then I saw that flashback scene. I guess they were. And I'm like, no, no, that was the joke. People, it's really, as a fan of the original, it's one of the fun things about it, is seeing these

people continue to play these parts. And you steer into that by having them, you know, 15 years older playing themselves at the first day of camp. And now they're playing 26-year-olds, even though most people are now beyond that age as well. To me, one of the big overall jokes to the whole thing, which to me is so, is so, funny to me is that we're treating this scrappy dinky movie that we made for nothing as like the godfather, you know, and every frame of it is this rosetta stone of source material, and it's just so ridiculous. But that's a meta thing in the show, because the camp itself is the stand-in for the film,

right, where it's just like, what's this little camp actually mean to people? Right. And why do we keep going back to it? And yet it means the world. It's literally. Literally, the presidency is at stake. The survival of the planet. Yeah.

So despite the far-ranging careers of all these people, they're ready to come back to camp. Can you tell me how easy are those phone calls to make? Because there are some people, what's nice about it is that even the actors who, you know, who clearly were either busy or shooting something else would show up for as much, as you said, for as much as they could. And then you have people like Paul Rudd, who is literally a Marvel superhero, who I feel like you have to drag away from the set.

He is willing to do it. He appears to be willing to do anything. I mean, basically, no, he's not. I mean, I think basically the, goodwill among the cast has been there all along, which is great fortune for us. And that people, we all had such a great time doing that. And for some of us, Elizabeth Banks, Bradley Cooper, is their very first job in the business. So there's a lot of, and it is like a family reunion. So I think everyone involved wants to do it. And so my phone call both times was like, hey,

we're going to be doing it again. Are you in? And the answer is always, of course, yeah, sure. if it works out schedule-wise, you know. And then it becomes the very long, arduous, difficult job of their people and our people making those deals and figuring out the schedules. And believe me, as it was actually on the first movie, too, we didn't know if Janine Garofalo was going to show up. And she was the, what was the financial motor of that first. She was the most famous person at that time, right? Yeah.

And there was, you know, it's always last minute and deal-making and deal-breaking. And that doesn't change. And so there was always drama. And every day we had to shuck and jive and be like, okay, well, I guess we're not shooting this scene that day because this guy can't show up. So we'll change the character or we'll move the story. Like so much of what's in there as a result of the realities of schedules. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised to see Chris Pineback because, you know, he is,

everyone's busy, but he's Captain Kirk. He's in Wonder Woman. And he felt like the person who joined your gang, you know, for the last. last go-round, also because he died in it. Right. No, sorry. But there he was. Back with dreadlocks and just looking doing great. I don't want to call him dreadlocks.

It's a Durrits thing. He's just terrific. He is really incredible. He's really funny. I mean, I was so sad not to bring back Michael Sarah and not to bring back John Ham, for example, in this one. And there was definitely a few people that didn't make it in it. But at a certain point, it really, then that became a creative thing.

It was just like we could not fit every single person in the script. but because it starts to, I mean, part of the joke of this year is the bloat and the overkill and the endings and everything. And the poster kind of illustrates that a little bit. But yeah, at a certain point we just said, like, okay, there's not room for this character or that character. I wonder what it's like on set because, you know, as we're alluding to, we have people who have wide-ranging careers. And then there's Chris Pine and Chris Maloney and Jason Schwartzman in a van. with a talking can of vegetables. Does that infect the set in a fun way?

They're like, well, this is play, this is fun? Yeah, I mean, it sounds so, I don't know how it sounds to say it, but when you're shooting something, you're just shooting something. Right, it's the same. But it's the same exact feeling as when I was at NYU shooting a student film with my friends. Like, they're the actors, we're figuring out what the scene is, we're trying to figure out the funniest jokes, we're trying to figure out the best way to shoot it,

and we're having fun and we're laughing. And I think nobody's thinking about the fact that he's the star of Wonder Woman. Because he doesn't bring that to you either, right? He's there to have a good time. Yeah, I mean, of course, they'll joke about it. I'm like, I'm a huge star. Yeah. No, but it really, I mean, you know, Bradley Cooper is someone who's become obviously a huge, huge star.

When he came back last year, he was exactly the same sweet, curious, just dude that I met way back then. and it felt like no time had passed, even though I hadn't seen him in years. I don't want to spoil the new series, but I do want to, you mention the ending. The ending was possibly my favorite part. Well, why don't we just say spoiler? Well, no, I don't want people to even jump.

It's worth it. It's worth getting to the end. That's put it that way. The one scene that I do want to mention is when I was trying to think of a way to sort of distill what I find so funny about this project and also a lot of what you do, the moment that I laughed hardest at, I think,

occurs in the finale. And it's a almost nothing cut away to Jason Schwartzman, who is being a fully 90s bartender, and he bobbles the swizzle stick. Yeah. It is so purely funny and foolish in a way, but with intent. And it's there. You kept that moment in a way that is beautiful. Jason Schwartzman is so brilliant in those little moments like where he will take, he had a non-speaking role in that scene. He owned it.

I mean, he just, he literally was an extra. in this scene and we said we rolled the camera we said okay you're a bartender what are you going to do and he did like 10 things and they were all like indispensable it was so amazing and i i just one of my great pleasures of what i do is seeing people who are just that kind of magical actor who can just come in and you know paul red is like this too and most of the cast we work with all of them they're they just they teach me every day or just show me what what pure talent is all about well it's something that I think you probably would use other words and feel free to put them in my place, but there's a commitment to the beauty of foolishness in what you do.

It's a good way to say. You know, it's not clowning, but it's elevated, you know, but it is purely foolish and the laugh is immediate. Well, I think that, uh, yeah, the great performers in what we've done, I think, find a way to be so fully committed to the reality, as it were, of the material, as if there's no joke there, but then they're also aware of where the joke is and they know how to deliver it.

And I think doing both at the same time is an amazing juggling act that all these actors can do. I wanted to, I tease it at the beginning, so this is a good three-act storytelling. Oh, wow. But I wanted to go back in time a little bit. Nice.

And what I wanted to talk about briefly was... You might all remember earlier on, we mentioned that we're going to go back in time, and now here we are. Here we are. This is the moment. I first became aware of all you guys when I think you first broke through,

which was with the state. And actually, though, I watched, you wrote it, you wrote it, you watch it as well. Wow. So I remember back in the day. I loved the state. I thought it was the funniest thing in the world. Thank you. And it wasn't just my fandom that I remember.

There's a fun article, by the way, in the Village Voice this week. You can look up. It's on my website where Tom Lennon and Ben Grant recall our days at NYU. Oh, really? And what that was all about. I would like to read that. For people who don't know that the comedy group that all you guys started with, the state came out of NYU, was on MTV in 93, 94, 95, which for me was the sophomore,

junior, and senior year of high school. And for us was like year one, two, and three out of college. Which was crazy. And so I remember learning later that the reviews hadn't been, you know, ecstatic. But the people who were your age or close thought this was the greatest thing ever. Exactly. But the TV critics at the time, they were hostile. And beginning, a long tradition of hostile reviews that we've gotten where there people are like, what is this? What is this even on? I don't get it. I hate this. I remember reading that for Stella and thinking the same thing. Oh, yeah. And for wet hot American summer. Initially, yeah. I don't know why. I could say wet hot. I'd prefer it now. You've already said it a few times. I didn't call you on it because I'm a

gracious host. Thank you. I remember thinking of this as a lesson in, for lack of a better word, show business, because I thought the state was the greatest thing in the world. And then I remember reading, I don't know there's Esquire GQ there was this big feature on you guys

and you had the move to CBS and there was the special details magazine the details I was a big details guys

this is the 90s this is almost as 90s as your new series I can't believe we didn't do something about details

in the new series but the the show of Claire and what's the new Mark's apartment

that was the other time I left the hardest it was pure uncut like you will OD on it 90s

yeah it's so good that's yeah our production designer incredible you should have

put details on coffee table. But, and I remember thinking, oh, my guys have made it. Like, I was, you know, invested like a minor league team and then I went away. And, and what I remember thinking, you know, I knew nothing about how any business actually worked was that that's a wrap. They're done. Like, because when I heard that you went to CBS, I was like, well, they are now Saturday Night Live and they will be on for 30 years because talented people who I like don't fail, I had a very gentle, very gentle childhood, you know. And what's actually been amazing and

exciting to watch on a like meta level or you know not just as a fan level was that none of you guys stopped you know and that continued to work and and have good taste and people that you worked with as you said you mean you were joking but it's true we're promoted either in their careers or behind the scenes to a point where um your sensibility i don't want to say you won we also just continue to work with each other yeah consistently and i think that was a good check on each other and a good bolster for each other and so it was this group of 11 of us and we just kept going in different ways until now. Okay, we're going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsor.

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Where do you want to go, Zach? I haven't been to Mexico City in a minute. I'd like to go to Tokyo. Zach wants to go to Tokyo. So without Chris, we're taking a road trip to Tokyo, and we're going to start browsing Hotel Tonight now. Look, though the app's name is Hotel Tonight, you don't actually have to use it for last minute just tonight deals. You can book up to a week in advance. All it takes is 10 seconds.

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not with the critics, but you had a TV show. The thing that you were doing in college was working. Oh, it was such a ride. I mean, to some degree, we were aware that this was insane, you know, that we had our own TV show that they really just gave the keys to the candy store to us. We had basically no oversight, really, at MTV. And what little oversight we had, we hate it. We were, like, rebelling against, like, crazy.

Yeah, it was nuts. But when you talk to, or I've talked to, or when you read about, or I've talked to bands who had, like, one hit, you know, they became one-hit one-hound, But they were young bands. They have a big success, big album, and they fall off, and then they're done. The missing link is often the understanding that, you know, you're playing the long game. You work, as you're saying, the only thing you can control is what you generate. You do your own work. Why do you think you guys, in different ways, were able to internalize that at such a young age and keep going? And not just have that first hit be fatal.

Well, I think everyone in the group, there was 11 of us, had a very different journey to the, to the, to most of us ending up kind of out here in LA and being somewhat successful or, you know, varying degrees of successful. But I guess we did have a work ethic that we all learned together as teenagers at NYU, which was about quantity. Like, because we had such competition to get our material onto the stage or later onto our TV show where every day we'd have a pitch meeting and you'd have to pitch really hard and hope that the others, you know, And it was our job to be super critical. And we'd write 200 sketches for what would end up being a 13 sketch episode of the state. So we knew, I think we learned or internalized early on that notion of just keep going, just keep cranking them out. Like, okay, this one didn't work.

Next one. You know, like, moving on, moving on. And not being precious about a joke or a material or a whole project. And I think that probably is a unifying thing among a very diverse journeys. that we've all been on. But I always think about how much I learned about just knowing. And I use it every day when I'm directing, too, even the smallest things. Like you're standing there and the set that you've spent a month building gets hit by a rainstorm. This happened to us on the 10. And the whole thing falls down and is destroyed. And so you take a breath and you say,

okay, here's plan B. And just keep going. But that's a level of awareness or external awareness, that I do think is rare because on one level there's the there's the sort of fairy tale version of it which is that you and your college friends thought you were funny, enjoyed making each other laugh

and there's the wonderful confidence of young people where you're like, well this is funny, other people will like it. Right. But at some point there's a check against that, you know, or there's a, you have to learn that you have to continue to have that faith

because that's carried you guys. And it has worked, but you also have to be able to either take criticism or adjust or adjust on the fly. Well, our criticism was mostly internal among us. And then externally, we just had this cocksure attitude beyond belief that we were the best and we were going to take over the world and change comedy. And somehow that served us. That cocky attitude helped us move in that direction. There was something that – and I don't think I'm alone in your fandom in thinking this way.

but it did make a, because of when we first came in touch with, came in contact with your comedy and the way that we did, it does, there's a personal element to it. So that like when I saw the trailer for role models and saw that you directed that, I'm like, they gave him the keys. You know what I mean? Like this work pays off. Yeah. And that's a terrific movie, by the way. And it's fun to see all of you in different ways having the same sensibility, but slowly making the bigger industry not a bend to you in a way. you've all had to bend to it in different ways.

Of course. It's becoming gymnastic in an uncomfortable way. When we did two years ago, the Wet Hot American Summer series at Netflix, that's when I started to feel like, oh, finally, some legit part of this industry is accepting what we do in a way that is not completely sidelined, and it felt really great. I mean, there is a sort of beyond even the 11 of you in the state? Do you feel a solidarity with certain New York performance? or a community of comedic performers that started on the fringes and then slowly infiltrated the mainstream.

Oh, yeah, of course. Well, I mean, right around the end of the state TV show is when Michael Schultner, Michael Black and I started doing, hanging out in the alternative comedy stand-up world in New York. Do it in a Mark Maren voice. Oh, yeah, I can't do it. But that's what it was. And so we would go to Rebar on Monday nights and on a typical night. it was Mark Marin and then Louis C.K. and then Gene Garofalo and then Todd Barry and we would sometimes go up or we would sometimes host and that led to Stella. But that whole, I mean, those guys were the towering, like the adults. You know, we were the kids. I did not consider any of those people my peers at all. I still don't. Of course. But then the people that we were with

Leo Allen and AD Miles and you know large group of people that we were in that world with you know most everyone migrated to LA

and you know I think we feel part of that community although the state more than a lot of sketch comedy types we were much more in our own bubble and we never had anybody we had numbers

we had numbers And so we never had any motivation to bring anybody else on our show. It was hard enough to cast ourselves in a given episode. And then we were not an out. We had no relationship to groundlings or second city or anything like that. And it was UCB didn't exist when we started. And so we weren't part of that any structured world. But I really like, and I feel like not enough attention is paid to stories of patience, you know,

and just playing the long game. doing good work. I think about how, I don't, I think this is correct, that I, Jesse Klein being in New York, used to work at Comedy Central, right? Yeah, she was the executive. In charge of Stella. And didn't work from a mass audience perspective, right? And then, right? You guys have these shows now. She was writing for Amy Schumer. She's a superstar book. These things, if you are funny and talented, I feel like looking at these stories of the long game help. Oh, I think I see that all the time. Yeah. People, it's just, yeah, you just got. It's the ones who stick with it.

I think everyone eventually, if you have talent, you stick with it, you find your place. And it is encouraging in that way. And I had a really long period of really bad times in my career after the state and before Stella, which was basically 10 years, including the making and releasing of Wet Hot American Summer. was an incredibly dry time for me. And I had almost no income, and I didn't know what I was going to do, and I was depressed a lot. And I had very little work, but I never stopped working ever. I was constantly trying to generate this and do projects and make stuff. And that's when we made all those Stella shorts, and that's when we did a zillion things.

But I didn't really work consistently or have income until the Stella show on Comedy Central in 2005. Or even, I mean, we're talking about your creative partner in so many things. I mean, Michael Showalter directed The Big Sick, you know, which is a huge movie and was critically adored, you know, and he, it's not like he came out of nowhere to direct this. He's done the work that led to the thing that he's now being lauded for. Oh, yeah. And probably knowing him or, I don't know him, but knowing the way all of you guys work, he kept working in the interim, you know, that's the lesson. Oh, yeah, he never stopped. I mean, and, yeah, I mean, his, everyone's journey is so completely.

different. I mean, he was teaching screenwriting at NYU for so long. But as it turns out, that was like a huge preparation and also networking for him to meet the people that he would collaborate with and also learn storycraft. It's amazing what he's done,

but not surprising at all, because he's a brilliant mind and he's having an incredible year. I want to ask you about upcoming things, this National Lampoon movie. Is that wrapped? Is that a movie that you've made? A feudal and stupid gesture. Great name.

It's wrapped. We're finishing it up now. It'll be done in the next little bit. And so this is for Netflix. This is going to be for Netflix. And this is an incredible thing to me because this is a film that you've directed that is about the National Lampoon magazine and the brilliant minds, right? That passed through, created. And it's specifically about Doug Kenney, the founder of National Ampoon, who then went on to create Animal House and Caddyshack.

So in order to make this film, you have to make a film about people we know. famous people who pass through people visually. Very tricky. Bill Murray or John Belushi. You have to cast these people. I have the IMDV page open. You have a, what's more than a murderer's row? Who kills more than murderers?

Because the cast you have is outrageous of just incredibly funny people. Who you've given the terrible albatross of playing more famous people who are funny. Famous comedians who are still with us. Yes. It's insane. After speaking to you for this amount of time, I'm not going to question your bravery in taking this on or why you did. But how did you is the question?

Well, we talked a lot about that pitfall of like, how do you get famous people playing more famous people or the previous generation of famous people who everyone knows how they look and sound and are we doing imitations? Is this, you know, Frank Colliando territory? Like, what's going on here? And we knew that there's a lot of ways to do this wrong. and then we thought about do we completely go against type? Do we do this like Hamilton? You know, like where we cast people that look nothing like them so that we're not thinking about it that way.

We thought about a million ways. And then what we ended up kind of doing was just going with our gut and not doing any big conceptual huge choice, except for that the story itself is really primarily about Doug Kenny, who is played by Will Forte in the movie. Played by Will Forte. And Doug was, as far as,

being on camera very reclusive. So most people don't, most people don't know his name unless you're a comedy nerd. And most people don't have any idea how he sounded or anything like that. But he, but the other characters around, we just did our best to emulate the spirit of them without worrying too much about doing an impression. And just tell the story. And it's a really cool movie, I think. We're still finishing it. But I think people will enjoy how it all

comes together. It's exciting. I mean, you have John Daley playing Bill Murray, Joel McHale playing Chevy Chase, which is wonderful on a number of levels. But it goes so deep. I'm just looking at it right now. I mean, Seth Green is playing Christopher Guest. Jackie Tone, as Gilda Radner, is amazing. But these are people who

really exciting. It's just really exciting. People were excited to see on both sides of the ball, if you will. We want to see these performers, but then we're seeing them play performers we also want to see. Right. That's exciting. I mean, it's that interesting. I always remember when I was watching the movie, The Doors, which I loved at the time. I haven't seen it a long time.

But you start to, you know, very quickly you start to forget the exactitude of what the other person, the real person looked like. And you're just following Val Kilmer playing Jim Morrison. But then at a certain moment, suddenly he's doing a photo shoot and he spreads his arms. And then it's that album cover of, and you're like, oh my God, this is the thing that I remember and connect to and has a visceral association. And there's little bits of our movie that do a similar thing, which is very exciting. Well, it's the wonderful, always fascinating thing about impressions, which is what is it that we're looking for? And the best impressions are often not verbatim or exact, you know, Caliando.

They have captured the sort of ineffable thing that drew us to them, the charisma or, Right. Well, and of course, there's impressions that an impressionist does, which is more to just entertain you. Like, you're right, that is what he's like. That's the voice, yeah. And then there's more of an actor playing a role, which is a different thing. It serves as a story just like any other character. And, I mean, to me, for me as a director, it was such an amazing experience to do.

I've never done a movie that's at all about real people of any kind. And that's a period piece, much to say, chronicling the people that invented the comedic sensibility that gave birth to everything that I do and that everybody I know does. That's, you know, quite a challenge and an amazing new area for me. And also, it was the first thing I did that's really not entirely comedic. You know, it's about comedy more than it is. It's funny, but it's a drama. I would only push back on you not doing things based on real figures

because obviously, in many ways, the Wet Hot series has become the most compelling presidential drama since Steven Spielberg's Lincoln. And I'm hoping that it is the definitive document of what Reagan and Bush and Clinton were like. For me, it's more, and this is, I did want to end by speaking to your own performances. I believe you play Bill Clinton. I played Bill Clinton. Yeah, and what I love most was that you entered the screen playing the saxophone. Just so you know who it is.

Yeah, which is what we're talking about. It's that ineffable thing that is just perfect. I had chills like you did the doors. No, I did, in all seriousness, something key about my enjoyment, particularly of the Wet Hot series, television series, is your performance as Yajon. Yerun, the Israeli transfer camper or counselor. And I really need to speak to this because maybe I don't know if he had similar experiences, but I've met this person.

Of course. If you've gone to Jewish summer camp, you've met and been very irritated by Yerlun. He was always named Avi in my experience, and he always had spent time in a kibbutz and had raves. Those are the two things that you knew a lot about. All right. You're the 90s version of it. But yeah, same thing. Yeah, and he would just talk about the love parade and, you know, why weren't we all more open?

And then he would steal my girlfriend. Right. Which one Avi did do in 1994, when I was watching the state just to bring it full circle. But there's a level of scholarship in his performance. But he also probably just got out of a year of being in the Army. Which I had no respect for or appreciation of at the time. Yeah, I think that the Israeli counselors that I encountered in all of my Jewish camp experiences were, very irritating and just patronizing and...

Irritatingly worldly. Yeah, irritatingly worldly and like sexy in all the wrong ways and just like... But it worked somehow. Yeah, oh, it definitely worked. It always worked in a way that I could not work. Right. Oh, yeah. No, they had it all figured out in a way that I wanted to just shoot them.

You've done a beautiful tribute to that. And, you know, I think I might have... had the idea to have the Israeli counselor, but a lot of the other writers that we had in our writers kind of wrote out that character. And then we were reading it at the table reads. It was never a passing thought that I would play that part because it was just absurd. And then, but I was reading it as I remembered my Israeli counselors with that accent, and everyone's like, you kind of got to play that part. It might be my favorite part of both series, because it is, you're being modest when you say that it is not an accurate or, you know, that these projects are somehow purely comedy.

Oh, no, no, they're loaded with real nostalgia and observation for me, of course. Particularly that character. I think the key to what makes wet hot work better than some of the just dumb, spoofy movies that come out all the time is that it's coming from a very true deep heart place for both of us. and we're talking about things that we really genuinely care about. We're not just being like, remember these stupid came movies? In fact, it's not based on camp movies at all. No, it spins off completely. I guess the obvious question is, is there more?

There always could be. Yeah, I think, I mean, I think going along with, like, taking everything as the source material, we definitely want to do more. My sense is that we probably will go in some new direction or some, you know, smaller side story direction. But it's on, you know, we haven't, haven't figured out yet. Well, thanks for talking me about it.

Wet Hot American Summer, not just Wet Hot. Wet Hot American Summer. Don't be a hipster. It's on Netflix. All of it is on Netflix. It's all on Netflix. It's actually not. Oops.

It just got off. I don't know. It's so weird. Netflix, get it together. If you haven't seen the original movie, you've got to like go on iTunes or something now. Wow. It's on stars also. They have $6 billion.

I can say this. You shouldn't. Six billion dollars spend some to get the movie there. You know what? I think the deal was made. Yeah. And it expired. when the deal was made, they didn't have $6 billion, they had like $40 from renting out DVDs and red envelopes.

Right. Shameful. Okay. Go on iTunes and watch the film. Yeah. Then you can go to Netflix and you can watch the documentary on Netflix. You can watch the documentary. You can watch the first season.

And then you can watch first day of camp. Yeah. And then you can watch 10 years later. And then you can watch everything else I'd done. Yeah. And then you can watch Ozark or whatever if you want. If you want, you can watch anything where you can watch Orphan Black. Yeah.

Which I just watched the finale. It was great. There's always stuff to watch. There's always more projects to do. David Wayne, thanks for talking to me. Please come back and talk about the movie. May I come back sometime and talk about more other stuff with you? Yeah, what else would you like to talk about?

I'll tell you when I come back. Always leaving with a cliffhanger. Yeah, that's storytelling.