wellRED podcast - #101 - The One With The Writer From Friends (Andrew Reich!)

Episode Date: January 23, 2019

On this episode we sit down and chat with the show-runner for our ABC pilot, Andrew Reich! Among many other things, Andrew was a writer, executive producer, show-runner, and EMMY WINNER on a little show that some of you may have heard of... FRIENDS!We talk about Andrew's early days growing up in New Jersey and following the Punk Scene in New York, to his rise thru the ranks in the television world which led to working on one of the most successful sitcoms of all time!Andrew also co-hosts (along with Ben Blacker) Dead Pilots Society. In Dead Pilots Society, scripts that were developed by studios and networks but were never produced are given the table reads they deserve. Starring actors you know and love from television and film, a live audience, and a good time in which no one gets notes, no one is fired, and everyone laughs. (Link Below)Dead Pilots Societywellredcomedy.comsmokeyboysgrilling.com

And we thank them for sponsoring the show. Well, no, I'll just go ahead. I mean, look, I'm money dumb. Y'all know that. I've been money dumb ever, since ever, my whole life. And the modern world makes it even harder to not be money dumb, in my opinion. Because used to, you, like, had to write down everything you spent or you wouldn't know nothing. But now you got apps and stuff on your phone.

It's just like you can just, it makes it easier to lose count of, well, your count, the count every month, how much you're spending. A lot of people don't even know how much they spend on a per month basis. I'm not going to lie, I can be one of those people. Like, let me ask you right now, skewers out, whatnot, sorry, well-read people, people across the skew universe, I should say. Do you even know how many subscriptions that you actively pay for every month or every year? Do you even know? Do you know how much you spend on takeout or delivery,

getting a paid chauffeur for your chicken low mane? Because that's a thing that we do in this society. Do you know how much you spend on that? It's probably more than you think. But now there's an app designed to help you manage your money better, and it's called Rocket Money. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions,

monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Rocket Money shows all your expenses in one place, including subscriptions you already forgot about. If you see a subscription, you don't want anymore, Rocket Money will help you cancel it. Their dashboard lays out your whole financial picture, including the due dates for all your bills and the pay days.

In a way that's easier for you to digest, you can even automatically create, custom budgets based on your past spending. Rocket Money's 5 million members have saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscription with members saving up to $740 a year when they use all of the apps. Premium features. I used Rocket Money and realized that I had apparently been paying for two different language learning services that I just wasn't using.

So I was probably like, I should know Spanish. I'll learn Spanish. and I've just been paying to learn Spanish without practicing any Spanish for, you know, pertinent two years now or something like that. Also, a fun one, I'd said it before, but I got an app, lovely little app where you could, you know,

put your friend's faces onto funny reaction gifts and stuff like that. So obviously I got it so I could put Corey's face on those two, those two like twins from the Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland movies. You know, those weren't a little like the Q-ball-looking twin fellas. Yeah, so that was money. What was that in response to? What was that a reply gift for?

Just when I did something stupid. Something fat, I think, and stupid. Something both fat and stupid. But anyway, that was money well spent at first, but then I quit using it and was still paying for it and forgotten. If it wasn't for Rocket Money, I never would have even figured it out. So shout out to them. They help.

If you're money dumb like me, Rocket Money can help. So cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney. dot com slash well read today that's rocket money.com slash well r e d rocketmoney.com slash well read and we thank them for sponsoring this episode of the podcast. When it comes to work, communication is key. Even if you don't have a writing job.

Sounding unconfident, indecisive, or passive aggressive can hold you back professionally and hurt your team's productivity. Gramaly premium's advanced tone suggestions make sure you're always sending the right message. Sound clear and confident in your writing and automatically replace negative-leaning language with solution-focused alternatives. With Gramaly's help, you can build stronger relationships at work, be constructive in the face of challenges, and help your team get things done. Gramley works where you do, so your team's projects get done before the deadline. And with features like comprehensive spelling, grammar, and clarity-focused sentence rewrites, Gramley helps keep your writing efficient and mistake free.

The right tone can move any project forward. Get it just right with Grammally. Go to gramly.com slash podcast to sign up for free. Then get 20% off when you upgrade to premium. That's 20% off at gramly.com slash podcast. What's going on, everybody? It's your boy the show. Well-readcom.

W-E-L-R-E-D comedy.com. Spelled just like the podcast. That is where you. You can grab tickets to come see us in places like San Francisco, Sacramento, San Jose, Chattanooga, Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, Tampa, Orlando. These are just a few places that we are coming at the very beginning of our brand new 2019 tour. Tickets are available now. Like I said, go to well-read comedy.com, grab those tickets. Sign up for our newsletter so you will know where we're coming before anybody else does.

And you can grab some sweet merch. We got T-shirts. We got hats. We got tank tops. We've got our book, The Liberal Redneck Manifesto, Dragon Dixie out of the dark. All sorts of good shit. This portion of the podcast, as always, brought to you by smokyboysgrilling.com. Go to Smokey Boysgrilling.com and grab all the rubs for all your meats.

Or if you like your boy, you're trying to trim down, sprinkle a little bit in your sipping broth. Feels good, taste good, is good. Smokey Boysgrilling.com. Skew. Also, carvevodka.com. Go to carvevodka.com, find out all about Jacksonville's first and only craft vodka distillery. It's not a discillery. I've deskilled at this.

I suck at commercials. Carvecraft vodka. You want to get drunk like the show? I know you do. Go to carvevodka.com and carve your path. This episode is a very special episode. We've been wanting to do this for several weeks. When we get into it on the podcast a little bit, it's with our good buddy and showrunner for the,

show that we are working on Andrew Wright. We've been wanting to do this episode with him for hell months now, but as you can imagine, writing a pilot for television has taken most of our days, and by the end of the day, yeah, we're a little bit tired. You know, want to go home and watch some television of ourselves. One show that I always watch when I'm unwinding is Friends, a show that Andrew wrote on and became the showrunner for. I really can't tell you how insane the experience has been for us having somebody like Andrew, I guess, I won't say crack the whip, because he doesn't do that. He's a very fucking nice guy, but like learning from Andrew has been spectacular. And the fact that Andrew could, you know, be somebody who wrote on friends with

the showrunner on Friends. And then he's like, sure, I'll do a show with these fucking idiots. It's, uh, it's truly a weird and unfair world that we live in. Andrew is also the host of a very insanely awesome and popular podcast called Dead Pilot Society. I love listening to it. It's fantastic. What he does is he takes all these shows that's where Dead Pilots is that were maybe picked up by networks, but were never put on air and thus didn't get the table read that they deserved. And so, you know, hopefully we don't ever end up on that show for this particular pilot.

fingers crossed, gun in my mouth. But it's a great podcast and you should check it out over on iTunes, wherever you get podcasts. Go on there, leave Andrew, listen to the show, leave a review. And also, if you don't mind, guys, leave a review for our show. We know that you're out there listening. We know you love it. But if you hadn't left us a review yet, please do that because it really helps us bump up in the ratings.

And if, you know, we stay in the ratings and the podcast keeps going well, we'll keep doing them for you. And we do love doing them for you. So this episode, very special. please enjoy Andrew. Tell us his story of moving from Jersey to L.A. and rising in prominence as a writer in Hollywood. We hope you enjoy it, and we love you.

And skew. Well, well, well. We're here at the office, sort of. We're on the Disneyland in Burbank. Me, Corey, and Dure, and we're joined by our boss man here, our showrunner. and comedy writer extraordinary, Mr. Andrew Rack. How's it going? Good.

Thanks for doing this. We've wanted to do this for a while, but we've been pretty consumed with riding this pilot, so we haven't had a chance to, every time it gets the end of the day, and we're finally leaving it like 6 o'clock, none of us feel like, hey, let's stay here for another hour and just, you know, talk about ourselves the whole time. But finally, we've had opportunity to actually sit down and have you on here, so I'm glad it worked out. I had to do it.

So first question, what's your economic tax policy? I'm just fucking. We don't have to get into that at all. How long have you been out here in Los Angeles? I've been out here 18, no, sorry, 28 years. 28 years. And I guys, I know it's a podcast format. He's looking great.

So great. Keeps his shit tight. You moved out here when you were 10, but you didn't. You were. How old? I was 21. Did you graduate college early? No.

I moved out here right after I graduated college. I think I also graduated when I was 21. I graduated, yeah. Started when you were 17? Uh, yeah. But we're from graduating the 21 is still pretty early. Oh. Yeah, just four years.

Yeah. Yeah, but did you graduate? I graduated in 1990. Do you graduate like high school earlier or something? Were you like one of the younger kids in your class or whatever? I guess a little bit. Okay. I started college when I was 17.

I wasn't early. It was just my birthday. Which where was that at, by the way, high school? Morristown High and Maristown, New Jersey. Did you have any kind of like Jersey accent or anything when you were growing up? Like a Joe Piscopo jersey accent? Yeah, anything. That's not really a thing.

I never knew anyone to talk like that. I have a little bit. All right, but we got a friend Matt. I'm about to say. He's from one of those little towns that's right across the river from New York City. Like, name one of them. I'm sure it's the right one. Fucking Matt talks like fucking this.

Sure. Matt from fucking Weehawking, all right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there are those guys. I never talk like that, no. Did any of your friends, though? Yeah, I guess there were kids that talked like that. But that, like, Joy Z, went from Joyzee. Yeah, that's not real. That's not real. I never knew anyone who said Joyzee. That just sounds like a character from a 1950s play.

Yeah. Let me tell you what we're going to do here. That goddamn Mr. McGovern. Okay, but accents aside, growing up in Jersey was it you know was it a Bruce Springsteen song

or was it like what was your basic feelings about growing up there then versus now looking back on it I mean it was very suburban all American

go ride your bike and be home by dinner yeah I mean high school was a little bit John Hughes movie-esque I mean it was pretty typical

suburban the only difference we were close to New York City we were like 25 minutes. I could get on a train and get into New York City.

So that was different. Did you do that? I did. Because that's something. My friend Harrison has this great bit about Bruce Springsteen, always making these songs about how he can't get out of his town.

But like, you can just get on a fucking train for a dollar and be in the greatest city on Earth. I mean, the way he tells it and he was in a different, he was in a town that was not a commuter town for New York. Like my town people commuted it,

you know, to work in the city. But yeah, the way he's, I just was watching the special. And it was like, no one he knew ever went to New York. I went into New York all the time. And I was like a- Starting when, like at what age? Starting like probably 14. And you and your buddies would just go into New York just to hang out.

I had a friend who was like my best friend in like fourth and fifth grade, moved to New York City after fifth grade. And I would go visit him. And I was just allowed somehow to like take the train in. would meet him and he would play this game where we would walk around for like an hour or so and then he would just say okay find your way back to my apartment I would have no fucking idea where I was we had this game where he would abandon me in the biggest city in America he didn't he was with me but he had such pay and it was the village so it wasn't like you could just number

you know that wasn't like the john malini but yeah yeah so you would just I could walk for like a mile in the wrong direction he would just patiently like follow me but we would go in And I was like and I was a punk rock kid. So I would go, I was going in to go to record stores and to go to CBGVs. And you had these like all ages matinees at CBGBs. You could, you know, if you were like 12 years old, you could get in. So I was going in for that. So I, you know, I went in.

So that was the thing, you know, my town was very suburban, but I had New York, you know. Yeah. Well, wow. So that was your thing, the punk kid thing? Yeah. And did you go in as you got older? did you keep doing that? Yeah.

And you could also at that time, drinking age was 18. Right. If you were, if, you know, whatever, those jokes, if you could see over the bar.

Yeah. You could get served. You could, like, we would go to McSorley's when I was probably 14 and I could get beers. So that was cool. So that was like a reason to go with.

You had a cooler time at 14 living in New York City than I did at like 28. Yeah. Because things have changed so much. I'm about saying. I mean, honestly,

that checks out for me, you know, considering like when he was 14 what he was doing versus, you know, yeah. Also, this is something that Trey and Corey and I have talked a lot about, some on the podcast. You know, when we came of age or whatever, as kids, the youth culture, the youth movement, like 9-11 happened. It changed so many fucking things. Long story short, rap was coming into itself then, and that was what kids were into. But we were from these rural areas who obviously had rap because of MTV, but we didn't have rap shows. country music had become commercialized rock music was fucking dying but you had like a fucking youth identity had like a scene it was it was cool it was small i didn't tell almost any of my

friends in high school that i was into it because it was just like no one it was not cool i had like two or three friends and it was like this secret identity kind of thing but it was cool yeah um and now it seemed like it was amazing because it was a true true underground thing that felt like, oh, this is like, people don't know about this and you could go to these shows and it was like your own thing. You know, I've been reading the Beastie Boys book because they're a little older than me, but they were part of like, they had that thing. And for them, it was like the hardcore scene and then it became like the rap thing. You're reading that right now? Yeah.

I've almost asked you a couple times, but we've been working and I didn't want to like derail us if you were like super into the Beastie Boys or something. Because recently, you've referenced the Beastie Boys a few times in here. So it makes sense to me that you are currently reading their book, but I've been wondering, like, is he just like a huge Beastie Boys? Which is fine, by the way. And I was, I was a huge Beastie Boys fan, and I've sort of forgot about them for a while, but now this book is making me like back. We were not together, and Craigman, if I'm wrong about this,

I know we weren't together, but I'm pretty sure you were there. But I know I was at the last live show they ever played altogether, because it was at Bonarue in 2009. Before I had a done. Yeah, right. And then that happened right after that. and they had a secret guest. You keep killing people, Trey.

Had a secret get. Noz was there and nobody knew it. They brought Nause out and he did some songs with it. And it was fucking sweet. And right after that, I went to Public Enemy, which was also sweet. Bonnery used to be the shit. It still does. You want to come to Bonneroo with us to share?

Yeah, maybe. But yeah, Beast. Yeah, I saw Public Enemy open for the Beastie Boys when I was in college. Yeah. But it was cool because I did this show for Netflix with Run from Run DMC. Right. I got to like hear all these amazing stories from like that era of hip-hop and you know him coming up with the beginning of Paul Revere and oh that's yeah it was pretty cool I bet that sounds rad as hell it's like I don't know how where anyone would be especially if you're 14 probably very little that you're just kind of like creating this long living culture or you're a part of it or whatever but I remember there's a bar called Niagara bar in New York that we used to do stand up in the back of and in that back room needs to have punk shows and there's plaques on the walls and stuff

stuff and about twice a year I'd be at an open mic or a show there and a film crew would come in with some 80 Europe, that's probably not fair, 70 year old original punk rocker and the crew's following them around and sometimes like they got on makeup now and you're like well I don't maybe they sold out I don't know but it's just I just did you have any sense that it was a big deal I mean I knew it was cool it felt cool at the time but No, I don't know if I had that sense. But it was also just like, it was dangerous to go into New York. And that, I mean, I did, like, I got jumped and beat up.

And that was, that sucked. But there was still, it made it really exciting to go in to the city and, like, get back. Getting jump and getting beat up sucks. Having gotten jumped and gotten beat up is fucking rad. It's rad. Yeah. Like, did you get your shit stolen? Like, all $10?

hunch in the face. I got just a guy walked up to me and was just like a group of guys. I was with it was going to a show on Jane Street and it was this kind of sketchy neighborhood but it was me two friends, one of whom was like a six foot tall black guy with like a foot high mohawk. That's one of your, that was one of your friends. My friend John Washington is a kid I went to high school with. And my friend Dan Macta who was like a nerdy Jewish kid like me and whatever. I had like probably combat boots and like I wasn't like really punk rock looking. The guy that John Washington was. Yeah. Right. And these like five guys came up to him.

This guy just walked up to me. He was just like, what's up? And I was just like, uh, nothing. He's like, what's up? I was like, nothing. And then he punched me in the face. Didn't see it coming like, like, suck or punch. Just like, and we were like, all right, let's get out of here.

We cross the street. Once we're across the street, or just across one street, my friend John Washington, who was not a tough guy. He was a big guy. He was tall. But he is a big black guy with a Mohawk. But he was not tough. Like, he had been a Michael.

Jackson fan like a year before with like a white glove and everything he was not tough but we cross street and he just starts like saying you motherfuckers you're too scared to come over and and of course they start chasing us why wouldn't there's only a street like in between it's not like yeah so john and i we take off we're like a couple blocks away and we start to realize oh dan you're a fuck ahead of dan's not with us dan had bought a cream soda at a like bodega and i swear he didn't want to to spill the cream soda so he wasn't running that fast because he had this cream soda we start hearing dan yeah he's screaming and we're like oh shit they've got they got dan we have to go back sounds like dan deserved to get his ass well he kind of did john and i like run back not knowing what

the you know dan at this point and it's he had crawled underneath a car because they had him on the ground and they were like trying to kick him and so he'd crawled underneath a car at this point like a bunch of other people had gathered around and these guys took off and he was all right we went to the show like i remember i couldn't like hear out of one ear because of getting punched but the thing i that like we were about a block away from where the concert was we were friends with a group of skinheads who were at that show who would have destroyed these guys if we were just saying if we could have gotten there and and these guys were like we were like wimps but these guys live to get in fights especially if we had justify it exactly if we had said like come on like they would have been in heaven to come and beat the

shit out of these you know these guys who just like and we just were like if dan hadn't bought that cream soda right we would have gotten there it would have been the greatest thing ever but that was like a little bit the new york you know it's like that of new york does not exist anymore did he spill a cream soda when he went under the car i think he probably yeah he was like i asked because i have a parallel story kind of one time my dad had a horse roll over on him uh he was right he was like up riding the horse with some people and he had a bottle of Mountain Dew in his hand while he was riding the horse if you know my dad of course he did and this horse just decided to get down and just like roll over and scratch its back with my dad on it it rolled over on my dad so bad it like bruised

one of his ribs and Darrell he was the associate pastor of the church we're going to at the time they're all just sitting there dying laughing they're recanting the story to us because they swear throughout that whole thing my dad got back up no mountain dew had spilled out of his bottle like a horse rolled over him he was just like no not even one drop I have a question that I think I know the answer to, but I think it's worth you explaining. A lot of where we're from and probably a lot of our fans who aren't in the punk world here are skinheads. And they're thinking, why would skinheads defend two Jews and a black guy with a Mohawk? These were not racist skinheads.

Skinhead in the punk world. Skinhead became a term that means racist now. Well, there were racist skinheads. There were like warring gangs of skinheads. The Dead Kennedys had that song, Nazi punk. fuck off. Yeah. It was like a whole thing.

Yeah. And believe me, in that scene, there were, like, evil skinheads, for sure. And I saw some really violent, terrible stuff. But then there were, like, skinheads who were cool. And, like, you know, my friend, you know, this black friend of mine, John, was super down with these guys, even more than I was. But kind of like, outside of that punk world, kind of like how redneck to some people is just what they mean. They just mean racist from the South when they say it. Like, I feel like a lot of.

of people in mainstream people or whatever they say skinhead too mean a punk who is racist did that when did that happen that happened in england i mean skinhead started they were scah and reggae fans it was definitely they were definitely not racist because they were just into black music and it was just like a style and then it started to get it started in england that that like that racist skinhead thing and then it came and there were plenty of them in new york but i don't know i i understand Like, that is a synonym for now. Now. It wasn't back then.

It wasn't. It wasn't. It was just like, there were the, there were the skinheads who were cool and the ones who weren't. Okay. Did they have any kind of dividing thing where you could tell? Because I, in there, like, red shoe laces. There were the red, there were the cherry red, Doc Martins. Yeah.

Yeah. Have you, you were seeing that movie Green Room? I haven't. It's pretty fucking sweet. Anyway, it's about racist skinheads in Oregon. and this pump band I like that they get fucked with

it's a massive understatement that movie's fucking it's a guy did blue ruin right yeah he also directed he directed

the whole uh third season of true detective is coming out now that's same dude which has also been hitting by the way I think

that they decide to play that dead Kennedy's song they do they play that song like that's like they look at each other they do they do they do yeah

and it did not hit for them but anyway so yeah you're living in Jersey but you're going to New York, you're, you know, rocking out, getting punched in the face, buying cream sodas, just living a dream. Yeah, you're going to be in prison. What happened? What turned it? Right. And then, yeah, and then,

then, uh, then you graduate high school and went to Yale, right? Was that a, boo? Yeah. How was, like, how much of a, I don't know, plan or whatever was that? And also, how much of your parents involved, like, was that a thing that just kind of happened, or was that a, like, you're going to go to Yale and then you did. I think my mom really was kind of set on it, but somehow managed to make it seem like it was my idea.

Which was some genius parenting. I went to... I mean, I was a smart kid. Like, I was a good student. And it was just why people at the time didn't... The punk rock thing didn't seem to like add up. Right.

Because they didn't get like this. He's like the brainiac like a student. Like, how could he be into this? To me, it made total sense. Have you seen SLC Punk? Yeah. There's that one character that Jason Segal plays where he's like going to go to Notre Dame and study environmental policies so he could save the environment and he's a great student. But also he gets him fights every night, gets arrested and kicks his way out of the cop car.

Did you ever kick your way of a cop car? No, I did not. Fair enough. But I went to Yale summer school after my junior year of high school for acting. At that point, I wanted to be an actor, and I was super into doing improv, which an acting teacher in high school had introduced me to. So me and my best friend, Ira Ungerleiter, we did improv with our acting teacher. We would go tour. He would go teach improv at other high schools, and we would be like his demonstration.

Like he would talk about something, and then we would do an improv scene to, like, demonstrate what he was talking about. and I went to Yale summer school and had a great time and just like liked it and then you know I got in and I went into the theater program I like I quickly realized I auditioned for some plays my freshman year

and I saw the other actors who were so much better than me like I was in the place as you or they're same age some other like even the freshmen certainly the older ones like Paul Giammati was there and was already incredible and um did he look 48 years old but i knew i i just my first audition for a play i was just like i'm not good enough but i auditioned for an improv group and got into that and that became like

so much in my college experience like i started directing that group like second semester my freshman year i directed you know and we toured we came out to california we were called the exit players okay um and that's yeah that's yeah that's yeah It's fine. So much better than that. No, it's right. So much better than the pun. So much worse.

It stood for experimental and improvisational theater, if that makes it worse. All right. But it was, and it sort of was that when I got in, but it became straight improv. But yeah, we toured, up and down the East Coast, we toured California a couple times. And so. So you're touring California when you're 20. Yeah. After you got out of the punk rock scene in New York, this is all checking out for me.

So I came out here and I loved it. I loved L.A. Like as soon as I came out. That was your introduction to it? That was my introduction to it was touring. Yeah. And when I say touring, we were playing high schools mostly. Yeah, yeah, right.

Like private high schools. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we're playing the forum, you know. But I really liked it. And then so Ira, Ungerlider, who I mentioned before, went to Northwestern, but we, you know, stayed in touch. And he had the idea, after college, we should move out to L.A. and the first thing actually after our junior year of college

like let's go to LA let's get internships and go out to LA and we got internships I worked at a I worked in the story department at NBC which I don't think they have anymore but we like read scripts and wrote coverage mostly for like TV movies

and shit that they don't do anymore and then I also worked at a film company called 21st Century Films most and my two things I did at that there was a fantasy of the opera movie with Robert England and I ran

a smoke machine like a that's Freddie Krueger yeah yeah and then they also made a Captain America movie in which I was a PA but I also they needed someone to be a paramedic in a scene

and someone that didn't have anyone so I was a paramedic and I gave Ned Beatty mouth to mouth resuscitation so okay that's interesting because I'm a big Marvel dude and there's always anytime they're showing like the Marvel Cinematic Universe and all the films or whatever.

Every single time I've ever seen that, they've always just like briefly passed by this Captain America movie that was done in like, what, 91 or something like that? It would have been 89. Okay, right on. It maybe came out in 91. And I've only ever, the only scene I've ever seen is this one where Captain American comes out and he's got a shielding like, you know, compared to the Marvel movies you see today. It's like, what the fuck? But you were, you put a paramedic in that? Yeah, I'm a paramedic.

It's a fucking terrible movie. They also had, they also had the right, they also had a script for Spider-Man. They were going to make Spider-Man too. and they didn't end up making that. Was it, it may not have been one of these, but I know this is a thing that happened back in those days. Studios would make movies for, like, comic book properties and stuff, literally just to maintain the rights to them,

like, that they didn't even want to, like, they never even planned on it making money. They basically just shit them out because, oh, we can't lose the rights to Spider-Man or whatever. Like, I know there was a fantastic four movie that was like that. Yes. That they made and never even to be. put out.

Yeah. I don't think. America, this was like a real. I think no one gave a shit about these properties at that point. Right. You know, it was just like Marvel was not a big thing. Right. Comic books were not cool.

So I think they just like, I mean, this was like an exploit. You know, 21st Century was there was an old company called Canon films. I think there's a documentary about them that made like exploitation movies mostly. I think maybe they made Rambo. What's the guy that ran that? The dude, like the main guy that was like in charge of that. Yeah. He's like famous for.

It's like an Israeli guy. Yeah. Shit, I can't remember the guy's names. I can't remember which one of them was 21st century. But they were just like, these things were cheap. Yeah. First effects were terrible. They were doing the best they could do.

So you gave Ned Beatty mouth to mouth. Give Ned Beatty mouth to mouth. How would you write the prettiness of it? It was, it was a purty, it was a pretty mouth, you know. A scale of one to three Del Earnhardt's. Alperty was Ned Buddy's mile. Two and a half? It was two and a half, Del.

Yeah, for sure. Two and a half Del Earnhardt's. So we did that and we, you know, it was just like, we felt like, all right, we know L.A., we can do this and moved out here in 1990. You did that during the summer. It was a summer internship, went back and finished school. And then pretty much as soon as soon as school was over. You came back to the Yale Theater Department, having been in a movie where you gave Ned Bowdy, mouth to mouth yeah that that so you've always been the coolest guy in the world so figured oh we've

got l.A. totally figured out you know just drove drove drove out here what kind of car you remember it was a Nissan stanza I remember those yeah who's brown Nissan stanza that was mine okay I think he had no he didn't have a car that was the car we drove out me and my girlfriend at the time IRA and we another friend of ours Adam chase uh these names are significant just because all three of us ended up writing on friends. But moved out, got jobs. I got a job working for a literary agent at a place called H.N. Swanson. This is going to be a long podcast if I tell all these stories.

I got plenty of stories. You tell me when to stop. You're doing fine. So Swani was like one of the original literary agents. In Hollywood, he represented F. Scott Fitzgerald, Raymond Chandler, and Rand. Like, I mean, he was the guy. He used to just, like, drive around to all the studios with a trunk full of books and just go sell him to Louis B. Mayor and whoever.

But by the time I got there, he was ill and not coming in. I worked. So I worked for a guy named Michael Siegel, but we worked in this badass old. It was like Barton Fink, like, cool, mahogany paneled on Sunset Boulevard. Just the coolest thing. We were representing, we were selling film rights to, books and it was a super cool job but I did not well I wanted to write like I didn't want to be an agent oh yeah you got you realized at Yale that you weren't going to be an actor because you

saw the other actors yeah at Yale and were so much better and I realized I'm not that good like I just wasn't that good like I was good at improv I think I was not good at acting but I wanted to be in show business I think when I came out here I was like maybe I'll be a director maybe it'll be a and I think I think I wanted to be a screenwriter when I first came out. As in movies, features. Yeah, features. Right. But I got this job, which ended up being really cool, and I wasn't really doing that much writing.

I was trying to write an action movie screenplay that was like a female diehard kind of thing, sort of based on my sister who had this job restoring sculptures. like she would lead these crews who would like take statues off the top of like the domes of buildings and bring them down and I had this whole thing. It was set in the Austin State Capitol building. Anyway, it was just like, Die Hard was big then, but it was not what I should have been writing. Don't say yourself short. You got a female lead of an hour. You're years ahead of Hollywood. Yeah, yeah, you're way ahead of your time.

Yeah, she had these. Casting a woman in a lead was not cool. She had nail guns and all this cool stuff. Yeah, it sounds like you're. doing Tomb Raider meets, what's that Nicholas Cage movie? National Treasure? Yeah. Yeah, it was kind of that.

Yeah. You get it. Yeah, you get it. Yeah. I got about 30 pages written to that. But meanwhile, so Ira and Adam had started writing TV. They wrote this hilarious spec script, a Seinfeld spec. People know that, you know, these were like a sample script you would write an episode of existing show.

And they got an agent and they got a job on a, they got like, we're working as TV writers. And, um. They wrote one spec script. together and got an agent and got a job. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, before that I'll say like they worked their asses off at other jobs, especially Adam. He worked for James Brooks's company and like polished James Brooks's fruit and his fruit bowl and like did a killer job of doing that. So by the time they had this. I mean, I'm not lying. I tell that story to every person I interview for like a PA job or a writer's system up. I was like, because he had this job that you could easily be like, fuck this. I got to polish this guy's fruit. Instead, he was just like, I'm going to be the best fruit polisher. Do you really tell that to people? I do.

Because I think half of them think you're making it up. They leave the interview and they're like, this motherfucker trying to tell me about polishing fruit or some shit. I swear to God, though, Richard Sakai, who was like, you know, James Brooks's partner really did think like this guy just busts ass. Whatever we asked him to do, he bust his ass. So when he was like, hey, Richard, will you read this script? He was like, yeah, I will read that script. And it's really good, and I will send it to an agent, and he helped them. If he was, like, half-assing that food polishing job, he would not have done that.

And I swear to God, that's like Hollywood lesson, you know, a key one, whatever it is. Because I've had PAs who, you could tell they're just like, I don't want to, I don't want to go get the lunches. I don't want to do this. Like, I just want to get in the writer's room and pitch jokes. It's just like, you're not going to get to do that if you don't go get our lunches on time. If you got to be a monkey, be a gorilla. Yeah. Yeah.

There you go. You and my papo on the same page. I just can't imagine, I don't know, maybe it's because of where we're from. This is someone who's like, you're pet, and you're like, I don't want to go get the lunches. Fuck you. But you get those entitled kids. You get them. I've seen them.

It doesn't surprise me at all. I know you don't. That's why you're here because I don't want to go get the fucking lunches. Right. Yeah. You know, and I'm all about treating people fairly, and you do, Andrew. I've seen how you treat your assistant. But it's like, whatever.

Which is good. Yes. He's treated very, very well. A little too well. Too well, in my opinion. It is to be brought down. I know. I think you're right about that. But so those guys had like, you know, they like were working so it seemed possible, you know,

and I was going, they were working on the show called Phenom. Did you guys have like a friendly competition? Was there any sort of like, okay, I'll fucking do it now? Or was it just like, no shit, I don't have to be an agent. I can actually make it in the industry. I think at that point there was still part of me that was just like, all right, I still wanted to write movies. and then my college roommate and best friend from college, Ted Cohen, had gone to Harvard Law School.

And he was not really, after a year, he was just like, I don't think I want to be a lawyer. And I was like, I don't think I want to be an agent. Two years smarter than me. And I mean, there's parts of being an agent that were cool. I could not negotiate a deal to save my life. Like, I was like, an offer would come in. I'd be like, great.

Like, I would just be, you know, so worried. if I asked for more, they'd be like, oh, no, we changed our minds. We're not going to offer you anything. I was just, like, I couldn't do that part of it. But so he was just, you know, Ted was just like, look, I'm coming out there for spring break. I had an idea for a Simpsons script. Do you want to write, would you want to write a Simpson script? And I was kind of like, I don't know, I think I want to write movies.

But yeah, let me hear the idea. He came out. We just like, I remember we went to Zuma Beach. He told me this idea. We just started bouncing ideas back and forth. and after like an hour and a half, two hour walk, we felt like we've got a whole episode here. We like figured this out.

And it was so much more fun for me, just bouncing ideas around with him than just sitting there by myself trying to write this action movie screenplay. And we were like, all right, let's try and write this just for fun. Just maybe our friends will think it's funny. And he went back to Cambridge

and we like over like early AOL, you know, sending shit back and forth. We wrote this Simpson script, really not thinking like, oh, we'll be TV writers, but just thinking like, I bet, you know, our friends will think this is funny. And we gave it to me, we gave it to Ira and Adam. And they're like, this is great. You know, we're going to give this to our agent. And they gave it to their agent.

Nancy Josephson, still my agent to this day. Oh, she has. And she was like, yeah, this is really good and signed us. And it was kind of like, I guess we'll be TV writers. and we really had had fun writing that script, partly because it was like, stakes were so low. We were just, like, just wanted to please ourselves.

And honestly, all we were thinking about was, like, will our friends think this is funny? And then it was just like, all right, you know, I guess, let's try and do this. But so she signed you, you're like, oh, shit, okay, I guess we're going to be TV writers. Did you then have to write, were you told, okay now write another sample or spec or something and we'll shop that or round

yeah or did she use that same script she used that script I think she started sending out that script um and then actually during that time um we were really good friends Ted had grown up with a guy named Zach Penn who was Z-A-K Z-A-K yeah he's a big he's written a lot of Marvel movies and he just wrote Ready Player 1 yes he and his partner had written Last Action Hero. Oh, that's that fucking movie. And PCU. And a producer came to him and said, hey, it was a time of all these John Grisham movies,

the firm and all that shit were huge. Oh, yeah. And a producer came to him with the idea of doing a parrot, like a Zucker brother-style parody of all these courtroom movies. Yeah. And asked him, would you want to do this? And the Speck Simpsons that Ted and I had written had a courtroom angle. was sort of like an Alan Dershowitz.

Like, it was, it had a, it was sort of a courtroom parody. And Zach was just like, you know what, maybe Ted and Andrew, like, we could do this together. He didn't, he was busy writing a lot of stuff. So he asked us if we'd be interested. And we were like, yeah, like it seemed like there was like an actual movie deal. So we came up with this pitch. We pitched it to Purdue. We sold it to Fox.

We sold this movie. And we wrote this. It's called Mistrial, and it was like, you know, a full-on airplane-style, like, parody of these movies. And we got... That's pre-I don't know the exact timeline, but that's pre-scary movie, right? Pre-scary movie, yes. That run of movies that I know that group of producers, they made all those epic movie, date movie. None of those had happened yet.

They didn't exist. There had been, like, the first run of, like, airplane naked gun, and then there was, like, a lull, and we were, like, in that lull. Right. But we got paid to write this, you know, we got, like, a substantial amount of money. to write this this movie and we would never have gotten it if it hadn't been for Zach but but that was like the first paycheck we got as as writers and then in the meantime like they started trying to get us tv staffing jobs and we got a job i think it was from that simpsons maybe we had written one i think we wrote a news radio spec um and we wrote a fraser spec and a news radio spec too and i can't

remember at what point in which got us what jobs but we got hired on a show called minor adjustments which was with a stand-up name Rondell Sheridan. And so we were like, we were staffed on a show that was produced by these guys, Witt Thomas, who were at the time, had like seven shows on the air. You know, they were like a factory. But it was on NBC and, you know, we were staff writers. And so we were, you know, we were doing it. Like we had gotten that first job.

How long had you been out here? I've been out here for probably four years. years at that point. Okay, that was my question. How long between the writing of the Simpson Speck script to this? Probably two years in between writing that because I didn't, you know, it was two years. I'd been here for two years before. Yeah, it was probably two years. And so we got, you know, we got that job. We did 13 episodes of that show or 12 episodes, I guess, not a very good show, but worked with some cool, you know, the guy who had created it had written on taxi and was like this amazing writer. But, and then we felt like, okay, we got it made,

but when that show was canceled, it was hard, you know, it's very hard to get the second job. Like, it's not automatically like, oh, you've gotten one job, but you just easily get another one. I think it took us a while to get the next job.

You keep saying us, were you guys promoted as a part of it. Yeah, yeah, we were Rike and Cohen. We were a team. After that, the first show got canceled, you said it took you a while. Yeah. After you've been staffed on a show,

did you then, did you guys, write additional samples or do you have like you've got samples and now it's like interviews and stuff because you've got a resume or were you still having to like I think we probably wrote at least one more sample at that point it may have been I think actually what happened was we we had written the Simpsons and the Frazier and then in that lull we wrote the news radio and I remember one of the agents not Nancy but one of the other agents there really didn't like the news radio and didn't want us to send it out and we really liked it and we thought it was

funnier. It was probably the funniest of and I remember like having to convince them to send it to this showrunner and it's the script that got us our second job which was on Mr. Rhodes which was Tom Rhodes. Yeah. Another NBC show. He was my favorite when we were in high school.

There's a question I want to make sure to ask you before we're done. This is a minor divergence but the spec scripts right? You wrote all these specs they got you staffed and everything. That's not really what happens anymore. Now it's like originals. It's pilots and stuff. People don't really write

spec scripts anymore. They don't. I can't remember the last time I read one. Because there used to be... How do you feel about that? I know I've heard, because I listen to a lot of other writing podcasts, and I know writers kind of differ on that, because some of them are like, that's bullshit. You know, that's the way it's supposed to be, and it's not anymore.

And then other people, I guess, I don't know if it's people, you know, who didn't write spec scripts to get jobs. They're like, no, no, no. It should be... Because that gets your own voice across. How do you feel about that whole thing? I mean, I guess, first of the reason why, is there's no longer like a common language where if you know back in the day if you wrote a Seinfeld or a Simpsons or our friends or whatever it was you you're pretty much guaranteed whatever show runner was going to read it knew that show yeah now it's like you could write an insecure

or a teacher or whatever and there's so many shows and the odds that the showrunner is going to know the show and you have to know the show to know whether it's a good spec because what you're reading for is like, did they capture the voices? Did they capture the tone? Does this feel like, you know, it's a wild divergence from like what the show is actually like. If you don't know the show, and it started happening, you know, a while ago, because I remember staffing shows and started to get scripts and be like, I don't know this show. I don't, I don't, A, I don't really want to read it because I don't know the show and I'm not going to be able to judge it. And once that started happening, you saw it like slowly, it would be like, well, here's a spec,

big bang or whatever but also here's a pilot and then slowly it just started to be like here's the pilots and that i mean i do think being able to write a speck of an existing show is a really good indicator if someone's going to be good on staff right because it's like can they just can they capture the voices um can you plug them in to a spot and yeah are they going to be able to come into the show yes and they're going to adapt so how do you do it as someone who hires people now well it does get tougher because you're asking a lot of people and even the youngest, you know, writers, the newest, you know, greenest writers to write a pilot, which is very hard. Very hard.

You guys can probably now attest to it is very hard to write a pilot. But what I look for is, I guess one thing is like, is it funny? You know, because that's what you're looking for. Like, is there something legitimately funny in this script? I'm not really asking, would this be a great show? Is this like a legitimate pilot where it could be a series? I'm looking for, are they funny? Can they write?

Like, does this structure work? You know, does the story land? Can they track a story through? Do characters have clear attitudes and scenes? And all these kind of like, just skills that you're looking for. And then is there just something where there's just like a fresh voice where it feels like, okay some kind of personality is coming through which is harder to see when you're just writing a will and grace or whatever So in some ways

There's times where it's like it is better for showing Whether someone has a unique voice But on the other hand sometimes that unique voice is not that helpful because there's already a voice of the show and what they really have to do is this like You know ventriloquized someone else's voice Do someone else's voice Do you do it any different at the front end versus middle of the season because of that? How do you mean? I'm starting a show, and I've got to hire, I don't know, but arbitrary number seven riders,

versus I lost two great writers to, they've started their own show, I've got to replace them. We're three seasons deep and friends. I need a plug-and-play writer, not necessarily, not that I'm afraid of a fresh voice, but how do you know in that moment, like, oh, they can be plugged in? Yeah, you know, the last time I was in that situation probably was friends. Like I haven't been really. And they did specs back then. And it was specs.

And also, really, the people that ended up working out were people we kind of knew. Like, because there was, we moved people from, you know, other shows into Bright Coffman Crane, you know, from Veronica's Closet, who had already proved themselves there or something. I feel like the times where we really just hired people because we like their specs, it didn't always work out on that particular show. Sometimes it did. but I will say putting a staff together now it's so hard a brand you know a new show

putting a staff together because there is only so much you can tell from the script and a meeting a meeting is huge it has to be the meeting is really huge

especially on a comedy which is I mean that's all I know anything about it all and still very new to all that but like a huge part of that job is you know sitting in a room

and having a rapport and being able to come up with funny ideas live and on the spot and not be afraid to throw them out there, pitch a joke, have it die or whatever. Like, you don't get any of that type of shit

from just reading somebody's sample. You have to like meet a person to get a sense of all of that sort of thing, right? Yeah. And you get a better sense and you still, I mean, you still make big mistakes. You know,

people turn it on, you know, or like amp it up or whatever. Then they get the job and show up. And it's like, Oh, now I'm at work. Yeah. I mean, one thing you just brought up, which is so crucial.

How are they going to respond when, and I don't think, I mean, you guys can tell me from wrong. I don't think I'm particularly harsh when I decline a pitch. No. No, we pretty much just move on. Yeah. And now I know it's like, okay, that was dumb. But I thought it was when I was saying it kind of. Right.

Yeah. But there are people, and it's hard to know this, who will shut down for the rest of the day or two or three after they pitch something. and it doesn't and it gets shot down which is a terrible quality right what you really need is people be like yeah all right and they're going to stay in there and they're going to pitch but not pitch too much not like talk too much and like take up too much of the oxygen in the room so it's just like those are the kind of things that you don't know until you're in the thick of it and where you really do need it's terrible to have a quiet room when you're doing a rewrite and you're stuck and everyone's just kind of sitting there and no one's pitching anything because it's just like

Like pitch something. It could be a terrible idea. It might spark something. I might mishear what you said and that'll give, you know, an idea or whatever it is. But those are the things that become so important in whether someone's good in a room or not. How are you going to tell that from just reading their spec pilot and meeting them for 30 minutes? I'll always call, you know, if, you know, I look to see, you know, if they've worked before, if it's not like their first show, the best thing to do is call a showrunner who they've worked with and say,

how were they? How were they in a room? And that's the most meaningful thing, you know, that you can get is that recommendation. Someone who's been in the trenches and be like, yeah, yeah, they were great. Or sometimes you hear like, you know, funny writer, but not someone you want in the room. It's hard. Yeah. We've been told that just you touched on it, that as stand-ups we have to overcome, if we're trying to get writing jobs, you have to overcome this idea that we won't turn it off in the room, that stand-ups.

that stand-ups have over the last two decades or whatever kind of built a reputation into the industry of like if you hire a stand-up to be in your writer's room there's a chance they're going to be too on and not shut up or whatever I've seen it for sure you know K.P. Anderson?

No. He was a stand-up and I mean, still does stand-up, but he started out of a stand-up and he wrote for Bill Maher and then he did the soup, talk soup, and then the soup, you know, with Joel McHale and all that like for years and years. And I'm pretty sure he does the new Joe McHale

show too but I did this late-night writers workshop for NBC in 2015 and he was one of the speakers we had and that was one of the things he brought up he was like okay are there any stand-ups in here and I was the only one ever about to sketchy improper but I was the only stand-up and he was like okay this is for you and then it

yeah and then he was like you know if you're in a writer's room like you know you can't I know you're going to want to be the guy you know but because that's how stand-ups are but you know that's not what a writer's room is about or whatever. So it's something that I've always thought about, but you know. None of you guys are like that.

Okay, good. That's good to hear it because I feel like I am sometimes. I have seen it where they're just like they don't stop and you're just, and they may be funny, but often it's funny and not really usable, not helpful because it's sort of either room bits, you know, it's just for the room or. I do think we do that a little bit. Everyone does that. But this is also the four of us creating.

a show instead of a writer's room with a deadline and blah, you know what I mean? But every writer's room does room bits. It's just like if that's all you're bringing to the room, that's a problem. Well, I'm glad to hear you say that we're not like that because I certainly feel that I am like that, like, that. Oh, you're definitely like that. You just make him laugh so it doesn't matter.

Yeah, right. Like, if you can make the boss laugh, you're getting away with it, baby. Sure, sure, sure, sure. But there might, I mean, I was thinking maybe it's like, we're all three stand-up, so it doesn't like poke out as much. But I feel like if I, Corey was in, I was staffed on somewhere, and I was the only stand-up comedian in there. I feel like I may stick out more like a sore thumb. I don't know.

It's hard for me to, I don't think, having seen it, having, I've spent a lot of time at this point, and having been with people that really are like that, you have a self-awareness that would like prevent you from being that guy. Well, all your all your room bit is, bits are self-aware.

First of all, we're super comfortable with each other. I mean, you just brought it up what would worry me. You said if I was in a room and I'm the only one in there, I think I'd go the opposite. I think because I've heard that so much, I'd just be sitting there like, be too quiet. Oh, man, I just thought of something really hilarious.

But I don't think it's on topic, so I'm not going to fucking say it. And then it's like, what's this guy's problem? We got about 15 minutes left. And I know that, you know, people will be pissed and hell I'd be pissed at us if we don't set aside some time to talk about friends for at least a little bit. We'll skip ahead. That was the third job. Right. We're there now.

Okay. And so. That was the third job. job? Yeah. Did you... And if I'm... Dude, you're gonna fuck you a little bit.

Like, you gotta be in New York when New York ruled and then the third job as friends. He's out there fighting Nazis with his fucking... Cream soda friends. He's fighting Nazis. He's writing female superhero movies. This dude was woke before we fucking even attempted to be... Good Lord. He's touring the fucking coast, opening for fish.

I don't know what you're doing. We've obviously talked about friends, you know, quite a bit off the mic. But... So if I'm not mistaken, it existed was on the air when you came on board, right? How long did it be on? Ted and I wrote a freelance episode third season. We don't have to talk about how that all works. So we were one episode third season.

You were not on the staff. You wrote an episode for them. We were hired full-time, fourth season, and we're there for the next seven years. Okay. So, because obviously everybody remembers friends and the phenom that it was, but I don't remember. So by that third season, by the first season. Huge hit. So you knew.

You 100% knew already. It was already what it was going to be. We knew this was like a life-changing moment. And we had like, we wrote that freelance. David and Marta liked it. And that was, they were starting Veronica's closet that David and Marta being the creators of David Crane and Marta Coppin. They had created Veronica's closet.

Veronica's closet was starting next year. We knew we were going to get hired on either Veronica's closet or friends. They asked us to come help punch up the Veronica's closet pilot. and it was like, how good a job should we do on this Veronica's closet pilot? We don't want to suck because then they could just change their mind about hiring us at all, but we don't want to seem like, oh, these guys are the voice of Veronica's closet because we didn't want to get hired on Veronica's closet. We wanted to get hired on friends, but it was like a nail biter.

What was the freelance episode that y'all wrote? It was the one with Ross's thing. He's got a growth on his ass. One of the kids in the hall is a... And Phoebe is dating two guys, like a fireman and a teacher. Yep. Yeah. And then it was also, Monica thinks John Fabro is going to propose,

but it turns out he wants to be an ultimate fighting champion. I watched that one the other day. And it was so funny because, you know, we've talked a lot in the room about like when we're, you know, like, well, you're making an Instagram joke or a Tinder joke or whatever, yada, yada, yeah. How's this going to look later? And it's always funny for me to watch that episode because they come in and they're like, he's got a TV phone.

You know what? and like now it's and by the way it still is fucking cool because his TV phone is like in the wall it's like mounted it's still very billionaire-esque but it was like oh my god we got a TV that's fucking great I love that episode um

did so it seems to me like you crushed the whole Veronica's closet thing like it went exactly the way you wanted yeah we played it we did just good enough so there was like one great joke that you bit your tongue on because you were like that's too good answer.

Yeah. So you get there and it's already in progress. You mentioned earlier you were with three people when you came out. You all ended up working there. So Ira and Adam. Did you have friends there already? Yes. So Ira and Adam had gotten hired on friends from the beginning.

Okay. So they had been there for the first three years. So we knew everyone. And we had interviewed, we interviewed first season. We came in. We pitched ideas to try and get a freelance first season. And David and Marta liked us, but they didn't. like go for any of them. Second season, we interviewed to get on staff. They liked us, didn't hire

us. Third season, same thing. And then the thing that did, we worked, there's two guys, Jeff Astrov and Mike Seikowitz, who had been on friends the first two seasons. They left. They had a pilot. They asked us to come punch up that pilot. The pilot didn't get on, but they told David and Marta, hey, we just worked with these guys. They're really funny. You should maybe just think, you know, they knew there was this freelance, and they sort of pushed, because Ira and Adam were saying, hey, these guys are great, but I think David and Martyr were like, well, you've known them. They're your best friends. They're not going to listen to you.

But these guys saying we actually worked with them. And that was actually cool. That punch-up room was the two of us and Terry Winter, who was in like Sopranos and created boardwalk empire. Anyway. So that was what got them to take a chance. And then they got hurt. So we knew like this was.

And that freelance episode too, because the way it worked was you went into the room. everyone's trying to break stories it was near the end of the season everyone was burnt out they just wanted to play video games and fuck around days are going by the deadline for shooting this is coming up we're like you know we're just coming in where

no one would break these stories and by the time we finally got the stories approved we had a weekend to write the script so we basically wrote that script in like two and a half days and it was insane and I remember like the night before we had to hand it was like this is terrible and Ted was just like I think it's good but I was

so freaked out because I knew the stakes were huge. Like, if we get this, this is going to be... So, yeah, so that's... We knew... That show was a gigantic phenomenon by the time we got there. And you knew people there and everything. We knew people. We weren't coming into, like, uh...

No. You know, this like, well, old machine that's running. Yeah, because we've been hanging out because... Yeah, I ran out, like, we lived together. Like, we were hanging out at the parties. We knew people. It wasn't enough, you know, to get us on there yet, but... But, yeah, we were...

It was a friendly environment. were there for the next seven years. Yeah. Including didn't you for a season or two, you didn't you run it? Yeah. Yeah. When was that? The last three years we were showrunners with, it was Ted and I and Scott Silverie and

Shauna Goldberg, man. So, I mean, I know this is a cheap-ass question, but like, what's, you know, what was it like, generally speaking, being in the room of a show like that's like an undeniable cultural phenomenon? like that and you all are you all are aware of it like is there way more pressure or is it more like confidence like we're fucking crushing this shit i mean i think the thing i say and i really believe this to be true is when we're in that room what we cared about was making each other laugh like if i could get a laugh out of robert carlock or scottsilverer you know sherry

Bill Singh and Alan Kramer, like, these people who were great writers and who I had a ton of respect for, if I could just get them to laugh, that felt huge. I never was thinking like 30 million people are going to watch this. It was really about the other writers in the room. It was like, we were competitive as hell with each other, but in a good way. Like everyone wanted to get their jokes in and get the laughs from the other writers, but not to the point where you're like, you didn't acknowledge when someone had the better joke. You're like, put that in. Like that's the joke. But we didn't, we couldn't have sat there in that room thinking like, okay, wait, what are 30 million people going to think is funny? Right. We had to trust if we think it's funny and we really, we're, you know, we're all pretty young and we're just like, we just kind of, I mean, there's so many inside jokes in that show. You know, they're just about stuff in the writer's room and because we really just cared about the other people in that room mostly, you know. And then the live audience also we, and look, filming that show was incredible. It was Beatlemania, like the way those live audiences would come in.

So they couldn't believe they were seeing these people in real life. And they just would go. I mean, the biggest problem we would have was laughing at setups. You know, we were just like, they were so hot that they would just like laugh. And everyone's just, you know, when people were like, oh, those fake laughs, and it was just like, all we did was dial down the laughs before we put. you know, in editing, because the laughs would just be ridiculous. It didn't make sense.

Yeah. There were just too many laughs. So related to that, the Beatlemania, obviously you have a relationship with all those folks. But if everyone out there listening, the showrunner is the boss. It's not like with a movie where the director's the boss. The director kind of works for the showrunner. Yeah. And so you became one of four bosses.

Yeah, I mean, really six in a way because David and Marta were still there. They were still there as a round all the time. Executive producers? Executive producers. and yeah. You transition for being in the writer's room to being a showrunner. As a person with a career that they care about, that's a big transition. But also, you sort of become the boss of a show that employs literal superstars.

Was that weird? Did that add any extra pressure? Yeah, I mean, when you say we were their boss, I mean, we were, but they still had a tremendous amount of power. For sure. Because they were superstars by this point. they were superstars and look there's always going to be a little bit of friction between writers and actors just a little bit you know because it's just how it works like you know they're the ones

that have to say these lines they're not always going to like the lines it's annoying to the writers when the actors you know kind of say I don't want to do this right but on the other hand you got to respect that they're the ones who have to like go in front of camera and say it um I had known, you know, we'd been on the show for a while, so we knew all of them pretty well. And, you know, as it went on, David and Marta were great about letting people move up the ranks and giving them more. So, but, you know, you sort of were able to, if you had a joke, you know, so you're on the floor shooting, you know, it's show night, a joke dies. We all huddle up, come up with a new joke. And if you had the joke, there were times with David and

go, like, all right, go pitch that to Lisa, you know, go in and give them that joke. So, you know, we knew them and were comfortable that way. It was a dance. You know, you just had to sometimes be like, we just try. Like, we really believe in this. I know maybe you don't love it. But that was, you know, even though we were friends with them, there were times where it was intimidating to have to go and say, you know, could you do this even though you don't want to do it? But it was never when you say, but it was never like, just do this and, you know, shut up and do this.

It wasn't that kind of a situation. Of course not, but I mean, I was thinking more, that was great. I was thinking more like internally, though, were you cognizant of that? Did you process it at all? That you went from being a writer to, you know, freelancing to in a relatively short amount of time. I don't mean you're in your mind thinking I'm going to go tell Luzakudra what the fuck to do. But just the pressure of fuck, I'm now over a show that has these fledgling superstars on it. I think the pressure, I don't think that's where the pressure, the pressure was like,

boy I don't want this show to start to suck on my watch right that was really the thing because there's now you know eighth season when I'm you know running it and you know it's pretty and it's just like okay it could easily go downhill at this point people like oh when you took over it so you know so we were very much aware of that and we did win the Emmy that you're the first year's in relation to you know you've got to know all the cast and you're pitching jokes on the spot was there a character that you've enjoyed writing for for more because of that, because of your specific relationships,

is like, oh, this is, you know, Chandler's my wheelhouse. No, I mean, I always, my favorite thing, if I had a great joke

for one of the women, and there were times of people like, oh, that must have been one of the women writers that wrote that. And it was just like, no, you know, that was always really, you can take away something from a woman.

I hear you. Exactly. Yeah, it's always. That's what I was in it for. That was always satisfying. For that exact reason. Yeah. But, I mean,

there were, I don't know, We all, we kind of love Joey, you know. Joey was always fun to write, but it was also any time there was, most of the time there was a story from my actual life. That was probably going to be a Ross story. Yeah. You were telling me the other day that the apothecary table was a, it was a conversation that you had. My ex, yeah.

And third nipple, but that was Chandler. Yeah, that was based on my childhood friend, Tony. That was actually, you know. Three nipple Tony from New Jersey. And you're trying to tell me no one said Josie. Okay. There's three nipple Tony. Three nipple, Tony, come on.

I'm walking here. Tony, three nipples. Oh, yeah, Tony, three nipples. Sorry, our bad. So, all right, well, it's about time to wrap up, but thanks for taking this times. You've spent an insane, too much time with us. We have. And I only hope that, you know.

No one told him this podcast was going to be this way. There it is. I hope someday in the future, some, you know, snot-nose whippersnapper is asking you what it was like to work with three hillbilly dipshits on a TV show. Yeah, the one who's still alive can... Anyway, Andrew Rack, everybody, thank you so much. Thank you, guys. It's been a pleasure.

All right. Scoot! You got to give us a... You got to give it? Skip. See, no one told you life was going to be this way. Your job's a joke, you broke. Your loved life's a day away.

It's like you're always stuck in second. gear. And when it hasn't been your day, your month, your week, or even your year, thank you for listening to our Red Podcasts, skew, skew, skew, skew, skew, skew. The Popeye's family feast. Why is everybody suddenly family with Popeyes hits the table? Feed all those cousins with six pieces of our boldly seasoned signature chicken, two famous chicken sandwiches, two large mouth-watering sides, and four flaky biscuits. That's enough for cousin co-worker, cousin roommate, cousin neighbor, and all his billion cousin kids. You've got all the cousins

coming. Even the ones who aren't really your cousins. All for $2.99. Love that chicken from Popeye. Limited time to participate in U.S. Restaurants prices may vary additional terms apply.