Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes) - Mike Schur

Episode Date: December 4, 2024

Ted Danson feels a bit strange about interviewing his TV “boss,” showrunner and writer Mike Schur. Of course, you know Mike as the creator of The Good Place and co-creator of shows like Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Mike talks to Ted about pitching The Good Place, how Ted’s role on the show took shape, why Cheers was the first show he cared about, landing his dream job at SNL at 22, and much more.Ted and Mike have teamed up again on a new Netflix comedy series, “A Man on the Inside.” All eight episodes are streaming now:  https://www.netflix.com/title/81677257  Like watching your podcasts? Visit http://youtube.com/teamcoco to see full episodes. 

The reason that I embarrassed myself in front of you when we first met in the way I did is because A. I meant it and B. Cheers is the first show I ever cared about. Welcome back to Everybody Knows Your Name. This week I'm joined by a brilliant mind who's been making us laugh for years, Mike Shure. He wrote and produced on The Office, co-created shows like Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. He also created The Good Place, which I was lucky enough to be on, and it changed my life.

Most recently, we united for A Man on the Inside, which is now streaming on Netflix. This episode was recorded a while back, and we weren't quite ready to talk about the show, which is why you won't hear us talking about it. Mike's one of the smartest people I know, and I can't wait for you to meet him. Here he is, Mike Schuyl. I have to do a disclaimer just because it is so different to be sitting next to you, talking to you, because bottom line, no matter how you cut it, you are the writer, creator, and I am the actor. So you are the parent and I am the kid.

You feel it as a power dynamic switch? Is that what you're saying? Yes, no, it's not a switch. It hasn't switched even. It's like, that's who you are. And so if I am obsequious ever, it's because I'm still trying to kiss your ass to make sure that I work with you forever.

I think that I would like to think that you have gotten beyond the point where you have to kiss anyone's ass. No, that's what keeps me youthful. The scrappy, still need to make my way, still need to prove myself. Yeah, and don't ever be afraid of kissing somebody's ass. It's good for you. It's humbling. Maybe it might get you something.

Is that really your philosophy, would you say? Or not kissing people's asses, but that you consider yourself to be, like that you sublimate your ego to the ego of the people you work with. Yes, but comma, you need a huge fucking ego to claim that. So I am, as Mary likes to call me, a faux F-A-U-X Christ.

I am not, I am pretending to be humble. But I don't, well, this is confusing now because your genuine self, I would't, well, this is confusing now because your genuine self, I would say, from having watched you work is like egoless on the set. You don't seem, you don't have any of the superiority complex or kind of like, don't, no one can ask me to do anything else because I know I nailed it kind of like, don't, no one can ask me to do anything else because I know I nailed it kind of attitude that folks who have far less than your resume

and stature sometimes have. And so I don't think it's faux F-A-U-X. I think it's genuine. I think there's a genuine, I think you ride a sine wave of like, you have to have an enormous amount of confidence in your abilities in order to do all the things you've done. But then when you're actually working, I have found you to be,

I mean, I talk about this all the time with people. It's shocking how, how egoless you are when you act, when you're doing your work. Yeah, here's what I think. And I'm sure there must be a version of this truth for you as a writer, but every time you start something, if you don't start at zero and start with I know nothing, then you will be tempted to go, oh, I was funny last time I did something like this, I'll do it that way.

And you cut yourself out of a big, wonderful chunk of the creative process. So part of it is, I think, smart as an actor. I guess I'm conflict avoidance. But correct me if I'm wrong. Correct me if I'm wrong. I might be wrong. don't hurt me.

But it's also, I like to feel good, I like to feel happy. That's how my body enjoys going through life. And so I'd much rather not, you know, I will stick up for something that I, well, sorry, I'm rambling, but here's how I was also trained by Les and Glenn Charles and Jimmy Burroughs. Don't come to us and talk about the character or the script until we've heard our words done by you.

So then I'm willing to have a conversation, but I don't have to be right. I just want you to know, Mike, how I feel when I say the words that you wrote. And is that how you picture it? Is that what you wanted me to feel? I will have that conversation and stick up for how your words made me feel, but I don't have to be right

about the words being right or wrong. Yeah, that's the best way to do it, in my opinion, because what you're describing is essentially the writing process to me. The writing process to me is you have an idea and you think that that idea is worth pursuing, whether it's a character, a scene, an entire show, a movie, whatever.

And the way I used to think of it is when you break stories in a TV writer's room, you brainstorm a million ideas and you put them all on index cards and they're up on a giant wall. And the way I used to feel is that when you stand back and kind of go into like a soft focus and evaluate the work you've done,

some of those cards begin to glow a little bit, like they start to have a little, a little like pulsating glow around them. And your eye keeps getting drawn back to them. And that signals you that like this is worth exploring. And so you start exploring it. And the only possible attitude to take when you begin that process is,

I think this is good, but I don't know. And let's all decide together. It's a team sport, and we're gonna like investigate this together, and we're gonna throw out ideas. And I'm never going to, like ultimately, if I'm running a show, it is up to me eventually to say like, okay, this is the direction we're going in. But for a very long time, and even after you decide

what direction you're going in or what the story's gonna be, you still have to maintain this kind of, like 20% of your creative brain has to allow for the possibility that you're wrong and that someone else has a better idea. And as soon as you close off that entirely, that pathway, you're just running the risk that you're missing something good.

And there are very few actors I've met who I think approach the craft of acting the same way, which is to say, I'm gonna do this the way I feel like it should be done. And then we're gonna like check in. We're gonna like, how was that? That felt pretty good. Maybe I could try it.

Maybe I'll be receptive to notes or suggestions. I'll try something else just for the hell of it. And that is that that to me is the continuation of the writing process as the rubbers meeting the road. And if you don't do it that way, I've worked with a lot of actors who come from the improv world. They're all very much like that because they know this is like these ideas are they should be like tissue, right? It's like you try this, it doesn't work, you throw it away, you pull out another. Yeah, and and but but you come from a very different place and it was wonderful to watch you work because you had coming from a completely different angle than the improvisational actors like Steve Carell or Amy Poehler, you had this similar feeling

of like just constantly sort of like probing and experimenting. And some of the very greatest moments on The Good Place came from that exact instinct that you had. And that is that there's nothing better to me than working on a scene, talking it out, experimenting, and then suddenly someone, whether it's an actor or a writer or a set PA,

who cares, has an idea. Then you try that thing and that's the breakthrough. It's just wonderful. It's the way that all of this work should be that, and it isn't always that. When it isn't, I feel it. Boy, I tell you that, let's talk about the good place just for a second, then we'll go backwards. And people say, have asked me how, you know, oh, wow, you've been working for a long time

and what is that? And it really is, once I decided early on not to have things written for me, because that cuts out a huge chunk of the creative process, I'd rather find the smartest guy in the room, smartest lady in the room. And if he's not available, you find me. Yes. Oh, you ruined it. Shoot.

Okay. But you had this thing you just wanted to say and then you go, oh wow, can I be part of that? You know, because then you're not catering to me, we're all focused on the idea, the project, the story. And anyway, let me, the first time I, maybe it wasn't the first time, but I really met you was when you came to Keith Addis, my manager's office, and pitched The Good Place to me, but to us.

Yeah. You started off by giving me an amazing compliment, so, which is so smart, because I turned my hearing aids up and I was ready to hear. Do you remember how that actually went? I think about this a lot. You said, I'm really excited about this meeting.

And I said, I bet I'm more excited. Yeah, you did. And then you said, why is that? And I said, because I consider you to be the greatest actor in the history of the medium of television. Now, if you back up in my brain an hour, I was driving to Keith's office and I was very nervous to meet you, and I had a thought in my head very, very clearly, which was,

don't blow this by being too obsequious and complimentary. Like, don't just be cool, man, is what I was saying to myself. Be cool, don't say something insane. And then jump back now to me saying, I think you're the greatest actor in the history of the medium of television within 30 seconds of meeting you. But I didn't, when I said it, I was like, I'm blowing it.

I don't care because that is genuinely how I felt about you. And I figured like, look, either he's gonna like recoil at that or he'll enjoy it. And then we're off and running. And thankfully it was the latter. Thankfully. My God. And then to finish that little meeting, I may be exaggerating, but basically, you know, you pitched the idea and you started

and you talked for, I'm guessing, 45 minutes. Yeah. And with such detail that may have changed eventually when you, you know, started writing more, but it was with such detail, But what a bizarre idea you were pitching. I mean, really. Yeah. Your mind first goes, oh, I get it. It's the office and the afterlife.

Right. No. Right. And at the end of your 45 minutes, Keith and I hadn't said a word. We just looked at each other and it was like, I don't know what this is gonna be, but I wanna be part of it.

Yes, please sign me up. I should say that I'm not in the general habit of talking for that long. When I'm talking to someone about an idea, I felt like when I had the idea, which had been months and months earlier, I was like, this is a hard sell. This is a hard sell for anyone. It's a hard sell for a network, for a studio, for an actor.

And I thought that I owed it to all of those people, starting with NBC, who had generously offered me an entire season guaranteed to be on the air, which at the time was fairly rare. It's more common now. But at the time is very rare. And then, so starting with them, but then going to people like you and Kristen Bell who- Let's be real, you went to Kristen Bell and then me, but go on, please. I felt like in order to give people of your stature

clarity on what you were walking into and the kind of like intricacy of the idea, it wasn't going to suffice to give you a 15 minute overview. It wasn't gonna be enough to say like, you run heaven and there's a mistake and you're kind of running around trying to figure out the mistake. What do you think? Are you in or out?

Like I didn't, I first of all didn't think it would work to get you or Kristen to be in the show. But more importantly, the show was going to take you in a very significant and very surprising direction. And I didn't think it would be fair with you specifically to tell you half of the idea or even four fifths of the idea without you four fifths of the idea without you knowing, and this is a spoiler if anyone hasn't seen the show,

that the entire premise of the show is going to be upended at the end of the season. So I think I prefaced it to you by saying this is gonna take a while to explain. So just like bear with me. But it was very unusual to talk that long for me in a pitch and it was only because I felt like frankly you had the right to judge whether you wanted to be involved based on the entire idea not on half of it. I knew I wanted to be

involved immediately when and you would also say to any kind of question was I'm not sure. Yeah. This is what I think might be, but I'm not sure, which was, because a lot of times people are just in enrollment and they don't really stick to the integrity of their idea. And I remember my one question was, if this is brilliant, I'm not sure how I can be funny in the, it turns out first year of the story,

because nobody should know, you know, no thanks to me, by the way, because I'm a blabbermouth, nobody should know the secret, you know, at the end of the episode. But you were so, you listened to me, and I'm so grateful for that, but it was so worth the wait. When you read lines and you know you're in a comedy and you look at your thing, my analogy is you grab your funny gun and you start shooting and I wasn't sure if I had the funny bullets.

You said something very smart and this is why this is the best job in the world is you said And it's something I genuinely hadn't thought about Well, that's not true. So I had this thought that in order for this show to survive long term I had to stay a step ahead of of the audience and What that meant to me was as soon as you set up this premise, which is woman gets into heaven, there's been a mistake, she doesn't belong there. Guy running heaven sees things going haywire, doesn't understand why, is actively looking for the problem.

So as soon as I reasoned that, as soon as I set up that premise, that people would assume, okay, at the end of this season, the cliffhanger, the big like heading into season two, cliffhanger will be that you find Eleanor, that Michael finds Eleanor and realizes that she is not supposed to be there. And so I had said to myself, aha, I'm clever. I will move that up. And I had that slotted for around episode nine or 10, because I thought no one will

be expecting it before the end of the season. And then when you said what you said, which was basically, I am for that, for the entire time I am searching for her, I am playing the same thing. I'm playing the same comedic beat over and over again, which is I created a paradise and there's a flaw in it and I'm, and I'm running around same comedic beat over and over again, which is I created a paradise and there's a flaw in it, and I'm running around searching for the flaw. In a befuddled professorial state. Exactly. I was thinking about how to lay out

the story based purely on the theory and the concept. You asked a question about the practicality of the actors involved, and it made so much sense. I was like, you asked a question about the practicality of the actors involved. And it made so much sense. And I was like, you're totally right. And also frankly, the earlier we do this big shocking thing, the more shocking it will be. And the less time you, Ted, have to be doing only one thing.

And so we ended up making that right in the middle of the season. That was the seventh out of 13 episodes or something. And as soon as we did that, you suddenly had something else to play. And so did Kristen and so did Will Harper and so did everybody. And still believable to the made up situation that you will discover later at the end. Yeah. And it was, again, it was that part of what was so charmed about that show to me is that the folks involved were all Everybody was all in on the project and it was a very open and fun and free-flowing

Discussion amongst the writers and actors and yeah and producers about what was the best way to execute this very tricky idea Can I ask you a question? Yes, please. Did you? This is a podcast after all. It seems only natural. Well, most of the guests realize I have nothing to really say and they do a monologue, but okay. Just desperately covering for you as you lean back and take a nap in your chair.

He's so sweet. He's a little old. I will take care of him. It works too sometimes by the way. Did you know when we were starting, even while we were shooting the first season, did you know that the reliance on real genuine ethics and philosophy, meaning you had ethic professors around the country on speed dial, that writers would have seminars with people who are immersed in the world of ethics,

did you know it would be that real as far as the ethical underpinning? Yeah, I did. And that was part of the reason that I felt like I had to break so much of the story because I was like, I'm gonna walk in to my boss's office at NBC and I'm gonna say, I'm gonna do a half hour sitcom about moral philosophy and it's gonna terrify them.

And I don't blame them. That is not their their fault they're in the business of entertaining America 21 minutes and 30 seconds at a time on Tuesday nights at 830 and I cannot it's I can't in good conscience tell them I'm gonna do that without explaining how it is going to work and how this show will still be funny and entertaining. And so I said to them, I said, look, I'm not going to sugarcoat this for you. This is not a show where from time to time, often the margins will make a reference to some aspect of philosophy.

Philosophy is baked into the core of this thing. Ethics is baked into the core of this thing. Ethics is baked into the center of this pie. And here's how I think that is going to be okay. And here's how the show is still gonna be funny. And they were, to their credit, to their everlasting credit, they felt okay about what I was doing. They were excited about it.

They thought it was a cool idea. And then, and I have to say, I'm not just saying this because I'm on your podcast. When I got you and Kristen to say, yes, they stopped caring. They just stopped caring. It was like, that's Ted Danson. Everybody knows Ted Danson. That's Kristen Bell. Everybody knows Kristen Bell. Whatever this is, go ahead, go with God. And so it made it a lot easier to sort of sell them on the idea once the cast started to take shape.

There is one very funny moment, I've told this story before, but I'll tell it again. I said to them in the pitch meeting, I promise I will not make this feel like homework. I understand that people don't want to watch homework on television, so I will not make this feel like homework. And then we were on the set shooting the beginning of episode three, and Will Harper was standing in front of a blackboard that said philosophy 101 on it.

And I was like, I'm making it feel like it's worse than homework at school. It's not even homework. And I just was like, it's been going well. I think I'm going to get away with this. And I just was like, it's been going well. I think I'm gonna get away with this. And I, and we did. You, you, another important thing as a producer, writer producer is casting and man, did you, I mean, let's start with Will Harper.

Yeah. Who could pull that off? But Will Harper. It's a miracle. And turned out to be not a lovable nerd, a leading man extraordinaire. So all casting conversations I ever have begin with me praising Alison Jones, our casting director.

She cast Curb, she cast Parks and Recreation and The Office and The Good Place. She cast every great comedy on TV with a few exceptions, has Alison Jones behind it. And she, we, you know, the miracle of Alison is I said, I created the character Tahani on paper. And the deal I sort of have with Alison, and I don't think I'm unique here but the deal I have with her is I say like I'm going to tell you the general parameters of what I'm looking for but I am open to like I share her her acumen and casting is so 999th percentile off the bell curve that I say like,

I'm gonna give you the basics, but like, I would love to see anyone you ever bring in for any of these roles, as long as the core of the person seems the same. So I said to her, okay, Tahani is Eleanor's rival. And so she should be everything that Eleanor is not. So Kristen is a diminutive person, so Tahani should be tall.

And Kristen is a fairly provincial person, so Tahani should be tall. And Kristen is fairly provincial, lived in Arizona her life. Tahani should be very worldly. And the way that I described her on paper was a tall, glamorous South Asian woman with an Oxford British accent who is like, I described her as like Indian or South Asian Grace Kelly. That was the person I thought would drive Eleanor the craziest. And then I was like, but it doesn't matter. If she's South Korean, if she's Czechoslovakian, if she's from Bimini, I don't care.

She just has to fit the parameters of being the opposite of Kristen. And then, you know, four weeks later in walks, Jamila Jamil, a six foot tall Pakistani, Grace Kelly with an Oxford British accent, who by the way, not only is her accent perfectly posh and British and lovely, she is like incredible with accents and can do all sorts of different accents. And we had her do a bunch on the show.

And that's what makes Alison the best at what she does. Will Harper was the hardest part to cast. We looked at a million people. We saw a lot of really great folks. And I remember she sent me an email and said, some tapes just came in from New York. And I watched them in my office at Universal. And Will's was, I think, the first one I watched.

And I got like the hair on my arm stood up and I was alone and I was like, I think this is something, this feels like something and I sent it to Drew Goddard who was going to direct the pilot and he watched it on his phone at like his daughter's soccer game and immediately texted me, he was like, this is the guy, right? And I was like, yeah, this is the guy. And everyone I showed it to over and over again, David Minor and Morgan Sackett and everybody, it just kept feeling like, oh my God, we finally found him.

And even though we had that feeling when we watched it, I don't think anyone truly understood what we had found. And the craziest thing, and I'll say this again, is Will had been acting for a long time. He'd done a lot of New York theater. He had decided that if he didn't get a part, that casting season, he was going to quit acting. Yeah.

Like it's so, it's even now, you know, like if you're almost in a car accident, but you narrowly avoid it. And then like six months later, you suddenly have the feeling of like, oh no, I'm, oh no, it's okay, it's okay. It's happened and I avoided it. I have that feeling about Will Harper all the time of like, oh no, I'm, oh no, it's okay, it's okay, it's happened and I avoided it. I have that feeling about Will Harper all the time

of like, he almost quit acting. The world was almost denied William Jackson Harper. That's a terrifying thought. Throw in Manny Jacinto. Yeah. Throw in Darcy Carden. Darcy Carden. Who I felt so sorry for on week four.

I went, oh dear, poor Darcy. Sweet girl, but she has the most boring. There's nothing to do. Yeah, linear, she's gonna play a computer. How much fun is that? And she became this rock star as a result. Yeah, cut to three years later, she's playing all of the characters in one episode.

Yes. Yeah, it was, I think that successful shows, and this should segue us to cheers in a second But I think successful shows shows that are creatively successful all have one thing in common Which is that if you look back on them? They it seems like a magic trick. It seems like Someone was was pulling strings and making everything work out perfectly. The reality is we just got really lucky and we had a lot of really good people working for us

like Allison and Morgan Sackett and folks who knew how to put these things together and Steve Day, our assistant director and David Niednagel, our visual effects supervisor, like they made together, they made a thing that has this sort of beautiful, smooth sailing arc to it and that we executed exactly the way we wanted to. To say nothing, by the way, of the writers and all of the guest stars on the show.

Everyone who was on the show was so good. And so when it's over and it's done and you look back on it, it retroactively seems impossible that could have ever happened. But it does start with an idea that feels like it has a lot of authenticity to it and original. And then the odds are pretty good that you will start to attract people who are excited by that. So yes, it is a magic trick and it doesn't always work even with the same ingredients, but wow. Let me, before we go jump to me and my glory of cheers in my late thirties.

Couple things, you know this, but this ethics, this philosophy show, this comedy about ethics and philosophy was taught in Notre Dame. Didn't they have a, on their syllabus there was ethics? There is a professor at Notre Dame who has become, I would say a friend of mine, who was teaching a class called God and the Good Life, I think is the name of the class. It was a very popular class before the show. But the essence of the show, sorry, the essence of the class was very similar.

It was like, let's talk about philosophy, let's talk about what philosophy has to tell us about being a good person and living a good life. It's Notre Dame, so it has a little more of the religious philosophies woven into it, which we sort of avoided on the show. But she reached out to me, and I think after the first season, because my wife went to Notre Dame and my father-in-law,

my late father-in-law went to Notre Dame too, and she reached out to me and asked if I would come and talk to the class. And partly why she had done that is because she had started using, I'm pretty sure I have the timeline, right? She had started using things from the show to help teach the class. And there was this sort of amazing dovetail.

And a lot of the stuff, naturally, that she was teaching was stuff like the trolley problem and the sort of basic ethical questions that folks have asked. And so I went and spent a couple of days in Notre Dame and it was really fun and I had a great time. And I've since done that at a lot of universities. I think what I've learned is, it's not the easiest sell for college,

first year college students to like, come learn about moral philosophy. Like it's very impractical. It doesn't suggest a high earning future in the private sector. And so the show has provided teachers at all levels, high school, college, even I think postgraduate studies, the ability to make the basic blocks of learning how this stuff works,

more enticing and more fun. So a lot of places are using, I was just at the University of South Carolina who, you know, actually I wrote a book called How to be Perfect that was sort of the distillation of everything I learned writing the show and that book, which you very nicely blurbed, thank you for your blurb, that book was given out to all of the freshmen and fresh women, first year students at South Carolina as like a, here's read this before you start your first day of classes kind of thing.

And so there's, I've been to Duke and North Carolina and Wake Forest and been to Stanford and all these places and the sort of feeling is the same, which is like, if you are the person who's inclined to get interested in the subject, this show is a really good introduction because it's all of the basic ideas and it's also a lot of very funny and handsome folks are telling you how that works. One of the things, so there's that,

which just to my point, this is the real deal. This philosophy and ethics in the show, it comes from a very real serious place. And at the same time, this message, which is, you know, like you said, sometimes a difficult sell, is wrapped in the most glorious visuals,

special effects that blow your mind, and the sense of humor of a nine-year-old boy who loves fart jokes. Yeah. So it's like this package of, this might feel like some medicine, but nah, nah, this is gonna make you very happy. Don't worry, it's gonna be great.

We're comedians, we wanna make jokes. And before we move to my earlier career, let me just say that you rejuvenated my career. I have more people coming up. Really? Yes, ages 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, especially young teenagers who are at that point in their life, I think, this is my spin, is that their sense of humor

is starting to get really honed and they're fast, especially this generation is so fast that they love the fast pace of the show, the fact that they can go, did you see that in the corner there? And their friend will say no and they'll watch it again. So literally I have people with big grins on their face that makes me have a big grin on my face

because I know literally what they're coming to say. And it's not just ooh-ing and ah-ing about me, it's ooh-ing and ah-ing about the show. And that's brilliant. Okay. Speaking of brilliant. Speaking of brilliant, let's go back to,

because you said, when I asked you if you would do this, said, yes, I wanna talk about cheers, or I can talk about cheers forever, whatever. Don't need to do that, but go for it. Don't need to do that, but do it. Yeah, go. The reason.

As a segue, because I want to go back to how you became you, and that was, how old were you in 1982? I was six or seven years old. Okay, so this is good. The reason that I embarrassed myself in front of you when we first met, and the way I did is because, A, I meant it, and B, Cheers is the first show I ever cared about. And I cared about it to

a degree that it's almost impossible now for me to calculate. There are episodes of the show, I've re-watched it since it aired, it's now available in a lot of other places. And my, I think my 30th birthday present from a person I used to work with was the entire DVD set of all of Cheers. It was from my former assistant, Allison, bought me like all of the episodes on DVD because everyone knew that that was my favorite show. And there are, but there are episodes of the show I've maybe haven't seen since I was 10 years old or have only maybe seen once since I was 10 years old that I remember with blinding clarity.

And I think it's fair to say that it's what made me want to be a writer. I think it's either Cheers or Saturday Night Live is what I would pinpoint as like, that's what made me want to write for TV. I remember seeing the names, Glenn Charles, Les Charles, James Burroughs on the screen and thinking like, I don't understand this.

I don't know how this happened, but those seem to be the guys whose names come up first. And that must mean they're important. And so I want to be them someday. Like I want to do this with my own show. At age, literally eight, nine, 10, maybe? 8, 9, 10, 11, yeah. And I think now that I've been doing it professionally for a long time, it only continues to kind of reveal itself

as a sort of miracle of engineering to me more and more. If I watch an episode, I can watch any episode at any time. And it's not, it's, the effect of it on me has not worn off. In other words, I've spent the last 20 years or so doing nothing but break stories for half hour comedies. And it is really hard. It's a really hard thing to do. It's a hard thing to do well.

It requires an enormous number of people to do it. And when you do it, you feel like you've scaled a mountain. You feel like you've achieved something truly remarkable. And Cheers to 300 episodes. And they're all really good. That just seems impossible. And the thing that I always think about when I think about the show is, what is it called? Is it a fractal?

I think it's a fractal when it's a pattern, each part of which contains the entire pattern itself, right? Every episode of the show contains the pattern of the show itself. So there are themes to the show. Some of those themes are in the theme song of the show, like sometimes you want to go where everyone knows your name. But the family, the outside of the family family that was created on the show and the relationships and the sort of ideas that the

show wanted to talk about, you can pick any episode at random and you can find them. That's a really hard thing to do, to say, like, you basically, if you want to teach someone what the show is about, if I wanted to teach someone what the show is about, I would have my favorite episodes. I would say, watch this one. Watch the Thanksgiving episode

where they get into a food fight. Watch the season one finale when Ted, when Sam's brother comes to town or something like that, or watch the Lucky Bottle Cap episode from, there are certainly ones that I would send them to, but if they ignored me and they turned on any episode from any season, they would get a pretty great representative sample of what the show was doing

and wanted to talk about and wanted to, the argument the show was making is present in every episode. That's really, really hard to do. And I don't think it's true of some other shows that I consider to be all-time classics. Like, I just marvel at the machinery and the engineering. It's such a simple show, such a simple premise, but every single piece of it was holistic and related perfectly

to the umbrella scale of the whole project. I'm going to snip that five minutes and send it to Les and Glenn Charles and Jimmy Burroughs because I know that would mean a lot to them. Okay, but now you're seven, eight, and you're looking and thinking about Cheers. Maybe that came later in life, but you were engaged in comedy and looking and figuring out what you liked about comedy at seven, eight years old. And I read here at 11 years old, you bought Without Feathers, right? The Woody Allen collection of stories. Well, I was bought for me by my dad

because I had started to get really into comedy. I had seen some Homesick from School, I watched Sleeper and Bananas, I think. And then, and I was like, that's the funniest thing I've ever seen. And then my dad bought that book for me. And then I started to get, and then he was like, if you like this, you should watch Monty Python.

And I did. And then he was like, if you like this, you should watch Saturday Night Live. And I did. So it sent me on a, I was careening through the, the history of comedy very quickly at that point. And I don't actually know, I don't think I watched Cheers in the first two years.

I think I probably started when I was around that age, probably 84 or 85. But it was the first long form show that I knew and cared about and understood, partly hilariously because I was a Red Sox fan. And so the fact that the show was about a former Red Sox pitcher, that alone was, I was like, this is amazing. I can't believe there's a show about a guy who played for the Red Sox fan. And so the fact that the show is about a former Red Sox pitcher, that alone was, I was like, this is amazing.

I can't believe there's a show about a guy who played for the Red Sox, fictionally. So it just had a lot of, it came along at the exact right time for me. And I just remember thinking like, I cared about it deeply and I would count the days until it was on again. And in those days, you know, obviously there's no secondary market. You can't watch it anytime except when it's on live. And in those days, you know, obviously there's no secondary market.

You can't watch it anytime except when it's on live. We didn't have a VCR. Like I had to be in front of my TV at a certain point in the evening to watch the show. I think it was on at nine for a while. And so I know my bedtime was nine and my mom would let me stay up and watch it from nine to nine thirty. We weren't a Nielsen family, it didn't help you. So I'm sure I'll pull this back to me again in a minute. But can I, I read this other thing and I didn't read this in the book and I should have because that you have a whole thing about talking

about separating the artist and the art. Yeah. that you have a whole thing about talking about separating the artist and the art. Yeah. Clearly talking about Woody Allen. Talking about that exact thing, yeah. And I just think that's an amazing conversation. If you want to tune out now, you can if you're of that ilk. But it's a big subject.

And I know this, I understand the sensitivity. Some people do deserve to be canceled, but it's, you know, or have done things that aren't good. And I'm not saying that about Woody Allen. I'm just saying all people, you know, have this balance. But when you talk about artists, when you all, you know, are we supposed to get rid of Picasso's paintings because he certainly was a womanizer or whatever he was?

So what is your point when you talk about separating the artists from the art? Well, the point I tried to make in the book I wrote was that we are now living in a time where everyone knows everything about everybody. And that is good in some cases because bad behavior can be noticed and pointed at and stopped. And it's also bad in some ways because we now live in a world where everyone's heroes turn out to have rough, bad qualities, because all human beings do. And there is a wide range of those bad activities. Some of them are forgivable and some of them are not.

And the argument I make in the book is simply that you have to decide for yourself, essentially, what is forgivable and what is not forgivable. There will be people that you love, athletes or movie stars or directors or artists or whoever, who do think, who are revealed to be monstrous in a way that you think like, that just doesn't comport with what I believe to be a proper way of living on earth,

and I can't buy that person's books or look at that person's paintings or go see their movies. And there will be other people who do problematic things who you think like, that's really bad, but I think as, is it, oh God, Brian Johnson, is that his name? The lawyer wrote a wonderful book and said that, very famously, that people are more than

the worst thing they have ever done. So you can decide that too. You can decide like, okay, this is bad behavior, but I can find it in myself to forgive that person. If that person seems genuinely remorseful, if that person tries to make amends, whatever the concoction of stuff is that you think that person needs to do

in order to climb out of the hole they dug. And the argument I make is simply the only mistake you can make, really, is to try to ignore it, is to pretend it's not there. If you do that, then you're basically saying anyone can do anything at any time and there are no repercussions. I don't think that's the answer. I don't think the answer is to simply say, well, everyone's bad in some way and so I'm never going to personally pass judgment on anyone in the world for anything they do because that doesn't seem like the right way to have a sort of a sense of integrity to me. I think you have to kind of figure out where the line is for you.

You might end up, as soon as you draw that line, you are opening yourself up to an argument, which is how can you forgive this person, but not that person? How can you say that I'm not going to listen to this person's music anymore, but you listen to that person's music, which people are fond of doing. And you might find in that argument, they have a point and then you have to kind of erase the line you drew and redraw the line somewhere else. But that's okay.

These are not simple questions. And so- No, and it's gray and that makes most people very uncomfortable. Yeah. It's much easier to be black and white. Right. You know? And I think that's the mistake.

I think the mistake is trying to ignore the grayness and the mushiness and the uncomfortability you feel when you say like, all right, I'm going to continue. Picasso really meant something to me and I'm going to continue to look upon and adore the paintings of Picasso, but I can't possibly. Have a drink with him. Yeah. Yeah. Or like, but I can't forgive Mel Gibson for what he did or something.

And then someone will say, how can you still like Picasso if you don't like Mel Gibson? And you're like, well, it's not the same thing. They're two different issues. And that difficulty of arguing these things And you're like, well, it's not the same thing. They're two different issues. And that difficulty of arguing these things makes people want to either ignore all of it and just say, like, anyone can do whatever they want.

I don't care. Or in some cases, write everyone off and say the second that anyone makes a mistake of any kind, they're dead to me. You can't support that person. You can't look at Picasso. You can't see Mel Gibson movies. Everything is out the door.

And I don't think either one of those is the best possible way to approach this. And I would argue that it also misses on another level, the whole point, which is take a look at yourself. This is an opportunity. Yes, that was wrong. You can call it out. You can be angry

that your friend did this or whatever you need to do to be real to yourself. But you're missing the point if you don't go, wow, I need to check myself out. Yeah. Wow, I have said things to women you know, wow, I have said things to women that I thought was charming and designed to make them laugh, but who cares about your intention, Ted, if it made them uncomfortable? You know, you need to keep digging into, cause that's the whole point is to know yourself. Yeah.

So, you know. It's just a big, ugly mess. The whole thing is a big, ugly mess. And you know, the problem that you're talking about too It's just a big ugly mess. The whole thing is a big ugly mess. And you know, the problem that you're talking about too is that no two of these things are the same. No two issues that have been brought to light from any two different people are exactly the same.

There's power dynamics at play where they bosses and did things to their subordinates, where they guest in someone's home or movie set and did things to the folks who were too afraid because of their power and fame to raise an issue? We'd also don't know, I said we know everything, we don't really know everything. We don't know the context, important pieces of context in all of these cases. So it's, I don't think, the simplest way to put this is, I don't think the right answer to living in this world is either the second anyone does anything bad or questionable, you're dead to me.

And I also don't think the answer, I really don't think the answer is, I'm going to close my eyes and cover my ears and pretend that none of this is happening. The real path is through this muddy, murky, gray zone that requires you to do a lot of check-ins with yourself and a lot of self-examination and a lot of like... Which is hard and uncomfortable and... Yeah, it's awful.

You don't want to do it. I should say, I don't blame anyone for not wanting to do it. I don't want to do it. It's hard. It's like love. It's like love. It's like faith. It's a living thing that you have to engage in every day. Takes a lot of work.

It just takes a lot of work. And the work people have full lives and a lot of personal problems and difficulties and issues and things that they have to spend time and energy on. And I don't blame you for not wanting to spend any time or energy on figuring out whether it's okay to watch an old Mel Gibson movie, like no one wants to spend that time, but I don't think that it's the right answer to say, like, I'm never going to think about it. I just don't, I can't believe that that's the solution.

I can't believe that that's the solution. Okay, so go back. I want to get you to Saturday Night Live. I know there was a period you said that you were involved with free cable access, you and your friends at an early age. You really did do your research. So you could do anything you wanted, right? Yeah. friends at an early age. You really did do your research. So you could do anything you wanted, right? Yeah, there was a cable access station in my hometown.

And my friend, Adam Goodwin and I, when we were in middle school and high school, like, I can't remember how it started. Maybe we interned there or something. I mean, this is cable access. This is like central Connecticut cable access. No one's watching this thing, right? It's mostly like low-level

informational shows. It's between two ferns style informational shows about like the library has fundraiser or whatever. So we realized that like no one was minding the store and we could kind of do whatever we wanted to. And we went there, we started going there all the time, and we learned how to use all the cameras and all the equipment and stuff. And we started writing things. I remember we were huge fans of the naked gun and airplane. And we wrote a half an hour documentary tribute show about the Abramses and about those movies, cause we love them.

And it was absurdist and silly and there were terrible jokes in it. And I pray, I pray that those tapes have long been erased and are unavailable for viewing. But we like filmed the whole thing and we like clipped in without permission at all. We clipped in chunks of the naked gun and airplane and airplane two.

And then it like aired on TV. It was like on like cable access that you know to probably do in the morning. But it was the first time that I had ever sort of written anything and then like put it together and made it and then finished it. And I remember just feeling some immense level of satisfaction. Like we had a script that we like typed out on a typewriter.

I mean, it was like the first foray into like making television. So you were becoming Mike Schur at a pretty early age. Yeah, I mean, at least I wanted to be doing it and I enjoyed it and it was very silly and fun. And then we did a bunch, I don't remember what else we did. We did a bunch of other stupid stuff. But yeah, I was bunch, I don't remember what else we did. We did a bunch of other stupid stuff. But yeah, I was probably, I don't know, 12 or 13, 14,

something like that. So by the time you got to Harvard, jumping ahead, you recognized, and you were the president or the editor or whatever of the Harvard classroom. Which is a very funny, huge history of producing funny funny cutting edge stuff that later became national. It's spun off into national Lampoon, yeah.

Right, but you, when you got to Harvard, that inclination to look for funny and was already there in you. I wrote it in my application. Oh, wow. I said, I want to go to Harvard because I want to write for the Lampoon. Like I manifested it in my application. I said, I want to go to Harvard because I want to write for the Lampoon. Like I manifested it into the universe.

And so yeah, that was my main goal was to write for the Lampoon. Cause Conan, this is 93 I got there. So Conan had just gotten his show and he was the president of the Lampoon. And there had been a bunch of articles, all of which I had read, about this weird old humor magazine at Harvard

that had created National Lampoon's vacation and Caddyshack and Doug Canyon, all those people from that era. But then also all of the, a ton of Simpsons writers had been on the Lampoon and a bunch of Saturday Night Live writers, Jim Downey, who's the greatest sketch writer of all time, head writer of SNL forever and ever and ever,

was had been on The Lampoon. So I had learned about this weird factory that churned out professional comedy writers. It's what my dad also went to Harvard, I should note. I didn't care. What I cared about was The the lampoon like I had no interest in it as like a Thing that my dad had done. I had interested in a thing that Jim Downey and Doug Kenny had done So that was my my number one goal when I got there was to write for the lampoon and then I got in freshman year you graduate then what so I graduated and I

I wanted to be a TV writer, obviously, but I also am a very practical person. And so I decided I would give myself one year to try to get a job. And if I didn't get a job in a year, I was going to go to grad school. So I borrowed $3,000 from my Uncle Steve, and I used it to pay rent on this tiny apartment down in the East Village. I crashed on my friend's couches for a while, and then I borrowed money from him and I put it as a down payment on this apartment, and I wrote submission packets for Letterman, SNL, Conan, maybe, I think that was it, because I wanted to be in New York.

And so I got interviewed at SNL in, so I graduated in June. In July, I got interviewed at SNL. I didn't get hired right away. They put us in pairs to walk around and meet the producers. And I was walking around with this woman and I remember very clearly thinking, I'm never getting hired here because this woman is so much funnier than me and so much obviously better for this job than I am. It was Tina Fey, I was right.

She got hired, I did not. And when I got that news, I was like, yes, that's correct. Like I spent 11 minutes with her and it was very clear which one of us was ready to work at that show. So I kept working and I got into the fall and into the winter and I was sort of halfway through my year of experimentation and I hadn't gotten hired anywhere. Although John Stewart was writing a book and through through Steve Higgins who was at SNL at the time when I didn't get hired, he said my buddy John Stewart is writing a book and I'm gonna set you up on a meeting with him and you can pitch him ideas.

So I met John Stewart and John Stewart paid me like a thousand dollars three times I think over the course of a few months just pitch him ideas for this book he was writing of comedy pieces. He didn't use any of them at all, but he paid me enough money to keep paying rent. And it was amazing. I saw him a couple years ago, and every time I see him, he was like the Medici's. He just paid me to work he was the Medici's for a crappy artist like that he didn't give him

anything of value but anyway I got into December and I was thinking all right it's been like six months now and I should probably apply to grad school like I you know you have to apply by January or whatever. And just at the moment I was sort of like, I had sent a couple emails I think to like get applications. And then I got a call in classic SNL fashion. It was like, you, you start Monday kind of thing. Like, congratulations, you start Monday. And I started there in January of 98.

You and Will Harper have something in common. Yeah, I mean, I don't think I came quite as close to quitting as he did. And I certainly, he had been acting for 13 years and his problem was that he hadn't been like discovered. I was just like, I don't know if I'm gonna make it or not. But I started there in January of 98 and on day one. I love this part.

When I walked through the office, I met the woman who would later become my wife. Oh, I didn't think that's where you're going. JJ. JJ. And she'd been there for a while, right? She'd been there for like a, I think she just started earlier that year,

maybe halfway through the year before, I can't remember, but like, you know, I was being shown around and she was the writer's assistant at the time. And there was like, this is Mike, he's a new writer and said, hi, nice to meet you. We shook hands, I moved on, that was it. And then now we've been married for 20, almost 20 years. And Mary and I are giggling every night

that we sit down to watch, is it only Murders in the Building? Is that the full name? Yeah. Yeah. And see JJ's name up there producing and writing episodes. Where did you think I was going with that? What were you expecting me to say? JJ's name up there producing and writing episodes. Yeah. Where did you think I was going with that? What were you expecting me to say? Where?

Oh, I thought that you arrived and someone died and somebody or somebody... Oh, well, yeah. It was all of a sudden an empty set. Well, it had happened over that sort of holiday break as Chris Farley had died. And with a couple of days earlier, I think, Norm MacDonald had been fired from Weekend Update by Don Ohlmeyer.

Don Ohlmeyer was running NBC, and Norm, in classic Norm MacDonald fashion, had been telling jokes about OJ Simpson for, at that point, like, you know, four years. And the trial had long since come and gone, and he had long since been declared innocent. And Norm just kept right on telling jokes about OJ Simpson. Don Ohlmeyer, I think, was friends with OJ Simpson and called him and said, like, hey, knock it off.

And Norm was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. I'll knock it off, yeah. And then didn't, and then just kept doing it. And did it so often that at the end of that half season, Ohmair fired him. And it's one of the only times I think I've ever known about when Lorne was like overruled by someone at NBC. Like Lorne is the king of that, of fiefdom. But in that instance, they had fired Norm.

And so the place was in chaos. It was, they had fired Norm, Colin Quinn was taking over Update, Chris had died, people were mourning his death. And he had been, he had hosted the show like a month earlier. And so I started at a very weird moment and I wrote about this in the book.

Like it was the luckiest possible thing for me because no one paid attention to me at all. Like SNL is a big rambling mess of a place. There's tons of writers and actors and it's very sort of like, let's put on a show community theater kind of vibe. And so I sucked at the job and was allowed to suck It's very sort of like, let's put on a show, community theater kind of vibe. And so I sucked at the job and was allowed to suck for a good half a season because no

one barely even knew I was there. And that's probably what saved my job. But then you got, then you produced the news that Weekend Update. So I eventually sort of figured out how to do the job, got a little better at it, had some success, and then my friend Robert Karloch left to go write for Friends, and he had been writing, who you know, from Mr. Mayor. And he left to go write for Friends,

and they gave that job to me. So the second half of my time there, I was producing Weekend Update with Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon. Let me ask you, I know several, not really, really well, but several people who had been on Saturday Night Live and there it was, I mean, I can't remember what your quote was that involved, you know, heroin. It was, the story was this was the most supercharged example of comedy writing you could possibly endure.

Yeah. It was so high wire, you know, you had you started with nothing and by Saturday you had to be. Yeah. Live and all of that. A lot of people walked away because it's also very competitive. Mm hmm. You know, to get your material on.

Yeah. And a lot of people, the combination of the stress of just the logistics of having to perform every week and whether you'd get your material on the air left them with a little bit of post-traumatic stress. Yeah. I mean, a lot of, some people thrived, you know, and where did you fall on that line? You weren't performing, so you didn't have that ego. I think the performing is really hard for folks. It is weird because it's one of the only shows

where you're in competition with the other people that you work with. Most shows are team efforts, right? All the writers are working on scripts and all the actors are in a cast, and one person's success is sort of everyone's Success and whatever SNL is Darwinian. It's it's sink or swim killer be killed. Nobody Famously like when you show up on your first day

No one tells you where the bathrooms are nobody tells you like how to use the elevators to get down to the to 8h and It's just sort of by design. It's a little bit hostile by design. Can you swim? I hope you can. And so I had a very hard time with it, as I think a lot of people do early on. And I remember I was walking to, I was 22 years old when I was hired. I'd just turned 22.

And I was walking to work, I was walking to 30 Rock. I stopped in the Dunkin' Donuts I always stopped in. And I got a cup of coffee and I was walking to work, I was walking to 30 Rock, I stopped in the Dunkin' Donuts, I always stopped in and I got a cup of coffee and I was walking toward 30 Rock and all of a sudden I was like, oh my God, I'm miserable, I hate my job. Like suddenly it just popped into my head that I was hated, I hated it. I was so unhappy.

And I think what happened was that I was like, I'm, what had happened before that was I'm 22 years old. I work at Saturday Night Live. Every party I go to, when I tell people what I do, it's the coolest answer that everyone, that anyone has. Like everyone else is like, I work at Goldman Sachs. I work at Morgan Stanley. I work at Salomon Brothers.

I work at Saturday Night Live. Everyone was more interested in me than everybody else. Right? And I think I hadn't allowed myself to conceive of the possibility that I wasn't happy. And when it finally popped into my head that I was miserable, I had two thoughts. Number one was what a relief to admit that to myself. And number two was, I think I have to go to therapy. Like I think I need therapy.

And I had never considered therapy before. And I suddenly was like, I have to go to therapy. I think I need therapy. I had never considered therapy before. I suddenly was like, I have to go to therapy. I found a therapist and I started going to therapy. As I did, learned a lot of stuff about myself that had nothing to do with Saturday Night Live, which you might expect. Basically that moment is the line of delineation between me sucking at that job and me being good at that job. It didn't happen immediately, but as soon as I was able to admit that to myself, I started

getting better because I wasn't a clenched fist. You didn't have a secret. Yeah. And it actually created this kind of like organizational theory that I have carried with me ever since, which is I believe that no one can do good work in a writer's room if they don't feel safe and happy and comfortable. It's just impossible. And I know that because I did not feel comfortable and happy and safe before that moment.

And I was writing crappy sketches every week because I was just too tightly wound. I was not like, it was not sort of like, I wasn't enjoying myself. I wasn't having fun. And so my goal literally ever since I got into a position to actually hire people on shows was to say to myself, my job here is to make these people feel safe and comfortable and happy. And if they don't, they're not going to be good at this. So it was a very important moment for me.

And it was the, like I said, it was the everything before that that I had written sucked. And after that, some of the stuff I wrote still sucked. Let's be, let's be clear. But the stuff that I wrote that didn't suck was not possible until I had that revelation. Were you and JJ together at that point? I don't remember if we were together at that exact moment. So we started dating, she had a boyfriend at the time.

There goes the whole ethics conversation. No, wait, wait, Ted. So she was gonna quit because she was gonna move out here to be with him. And like literally two days or something before she was supposed to move, he called her and broke up with her on the phone. And so she stayed.

Wow. Thank you, sir. Yeah, sad for her in that moment, good for me, because like maybe a few months after that, we got together, but SNL, SNL is very weird, and it was, it's a very strange place, and we were kind of like, we don't wanna like, make this public.

Be the public. Yeah. So we sort of dated like in secret for a while. She became a writer on the show. She was promoted for my assistant. We dated secretly. That is not a good idea. It never goes well. And it was very rough and

we were on and off for a long time. She eventually moved out here to take a writing job. We dated long distance. We were on and off a million times again, long distance. It was a mess. And then we broke up like for good in like 2002. And then a year later we sort of got back together. And then it was like, if this is gonna work, one of us has to move. And so I was like, all right, I'm gonna move. So I quit SNL after the 2004 season, I moved out here to look for work.

And that's when I got hired at the office. And if she had moved to be with you in New York, you probably wouldn't be together today. I don't think we would. This was the right move. I want you probably wouldn't be together today. I don't think we would. No, this was the right move. I want you and I'm willing to come. I think it was the right move for a bunch of reasons. Number one is we had already been dating in New York

and it was like, New York is the best. I love it, I miss it every day. But like, it's not an easy place to be in a relationship when you're in your mid-20s. But also we just needed a fresh start. Like the two of us specifically needed a fresh start. And it was like, the way this is gonna work is if I move there.

So I left the show. Was she working? She was working on a show. Yeah, she was working on a few shows. In fact, oddly, the show she was working on when I moved out there, she'd been on a couple other shows and then she was working on a show called Coupling, which was an adaptation of a British sitcom

that had very, it was on NBC. It had very high expectations. It was introduced as like, this is the next Friends. It's about six single, good looking single people in LA. And it was a really hot show. Feef Sutton, who wrote for Cheers ran that show. And it was like, wow, her career is really who wrote for Cheers ran that show. And it was like, wow, her career is really taking off.

And then that show didn't work and got canceled halfway through the first season. And then I came out to LA and I interviewed in the show I got hired on was The Office, an adaptation of a British show. It's going to be at NBC. No one really believes in it. How soon? Right away. I moved out in, I interviewed for it in February, March, April, somewhere in there,

got the job. And so when I moved out- Was that year one or two? That was year one. So I moved to LA in June. I started working at the office right away. But it was sort of like, oh boy, here we go again, an adaptation of a British show. This thing has no chance of surviving. And then it lasted for nine years. Right. Brilliant show. I didn't watch it. Mary did when it was on the air. Why didn't you watch it? I'm curious.

Because I was, I think, jealous of how good it was. I knew it was good, even without watching. I just knew it was really good. And I think I was at the point where I'm going, I'm not sure I'm any good at this anymore. And we had those kinds of doubts and Mary kept telling me, you really need to watch. And I went, no, no, no, I know, I will.

And finally did. And actually not finally, I think we even became great friends with John Krasinski and Emily. And then I started watching it and it was just blown away at how brilliant it is. And let me just, you know this story, sorry, but John Krasinski was the person that I blew it with you.

Because first year of- Wait, we have to set this up properly. Okay, do it with you. Yes, that's right. You know, because, you know, first hear of. Wait, we have to set this up properly. Okay, do it, please. So, when I pitched you the premise of The Good Place, I pitched you the whole thing, all the way through the twist. The twist being, spoiler alert, that you are not actually the architect of The Good Place,

you are a demon, this is the bad place, the whole thing is an illusion meant to torture the four main characters. The only people I told this to were you and Kristen, because again, I felt like in order to sign on, you should hear the whole story. We didn't even tell the other four main actors in the show, Manny, Will, Jameel, and Darcy. They did not know for most of the first season

what was going to happen to them. Or a lot of the directors who showed up. Most of the directors did not know. Morgan Saget knew, David Miner knew, but like most of the crew didn't know. And I had said, look, we are making a huge bet here. And the bet is that we can get all the way to the end of a season of TV and have something be a real surprise. The way that like Lost provided real surprises at the end of their seasons.

This has to work. If this leaks out, it could blow the whole thing. And you were like, absolutely. I hear you, buddy. I hear you loud and clear. And then we get all the way to the end and miracle of miracles, we pull it off. And the season one finale airs,

and people are genuinely surprised. It has a genuine reaction from audiences and critics that was like, wow, that was incredible, didn't see that coming, that's amazing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. As soon as it airs, you say to me, oh, thank God. Because it turns out you had told everyone. No.

No. You told John right away. I told John right away, but in my defense, in my defense, John, I only get, I'm only competitive by the way, people who are at least 30 years younger than me. Smart. Because then it's worth the challenge. Yeah. So, so, you know, I would try to beat John in a foot race and he would clobber and come in. So anyway, he was off to make some amazing movie

and he said, what are you doing? I said, well, I'm about to work with your buddy, Mike Schur. And we're doing something called The Good Place. And, and I described without blowing the secret, I described it takes place in the afterlife. I could see, this is my interpretation, you may have another one. I could see his eyes dim a little bit, because he was going, I get it,

it's the office in heaven. I saw that and I went, no, no, no, no, you don't understand. See, at the end of the first year, it turns out I'm a demon. I'm not the good guy, I'm the bad guy. He went, no, you don't understand. See, at the end of the first year, it turns out I'm a demon. I'm not the good guy, I'm the bad guy. And he went, oh, that's pretty cool. And I went, yeah, fucking A.

And oh, shoot. And then had to sit there with, you know, little Miss Goody two shoes. But wait, didn't you also tell me that you told Larry David or someone? You told someone else. No, I tell Larry David's secrets to the world. Oh, okay.

But I don't know who I'm sure if I told one, I told many. Because we had been laughing about and sharing the story about you telling John Krasinski with other people for a while. And then I remember there being someone where you're like, oh yeah, you know what, I also told this person. I'm sure, I'm sure.

Hey, if it's a secret that is important, like your personal life, I'm sure. I'm sure. Hey, if it's a secret that is important, like your personal life, I'm good. Sure. I'm good. But if it's something that will advance people's impression of me in the moment, forget it. Not advance the work you're doing, but advance, advance, increase your status amongst another celebrity. Yes. Yeah.

Then all bets are off. Especially if they're lording it over me. Especially if they're 30 years younger. Some fucking feature he was going off to do. Well, we got away with it. The point is, you don't have to feel any regret or shame about that. No, and at that point I was a demon who hadn't become humanized, so my ethics did suck, but it was for the part.

I did it for the part. Oh, that's a good excuse. I don't know how much time we have, but let me ask you something that I have, and then we'll wrap up. I clearly adore you. I'm so grateful you came in. It's so much fun to talk to you because so many times I need you to be doing what you're doing, which is making this amazing thing that I can play in.

I'm supposed to be there right now. Yeah. Oh, I, I'll cut this short. Sorry. I don't even know if there's anywhere to go with this, but taking the world that we see on CNN or whatever, wherever you get your news and then answer this question. I grew up around scientists.

My father was an archaeologist and anthropologist, but we had scientists from all over the world around me growing up. And I remember always hearing about pure science and then applied science. And applied science was kind of looked down on meaning pure science is in a vacuum you just are going for that truth in that in that scientific moment. Whereas applied science you are applying it to make something better in the world. I don't think that there's such a thing as pure ethics or philosophy anymore. I mean, I think, yes, there is, but I don't think, I think it's a waste.

Personally, I think you need to apply, it has to be applied ethics. It has to be applied philosophy. Where do you come down on that, if it's a worthwhile question at all? No, it is. And there are folks who I would say specialize in applied ethics. There's a similar dynamic in ethics. I think the line between the two maybe isn't as bright and clear as it is in science, in part because the nature of studying ethics requires you at certain points to lay out a theory and then kind of road test it, right?

You say, okay, well, here's my theory. Now, let me devise a scenario in which I can test out how this theory would work. And so even if those thought experiments are purely imaginary, you're still trying to apply it to the real world. That's what the Charlie problem is. It's what all of those problems are, is you're saying, okay, well, let's try to figure out how this theory would function in the real world. And I don't think that in this day and age, there's a lot of tolerance for theories that

have no practical application because problems that face us are enormous and they're everywhere and we are constantly wrestling with them, whether it's climate change or racism or misogyny or any of the sort of big, gigantic, overwhelming issues that are causing pain in the world. If you come up with a philosophical theory, it's like, all right, well, does it work? Do something with it, right? And so I think it's certainly, it's obviously worth thinking about. I just think that the, I think the scientific version of it is a little more like, because

it's science, it's a little more nuts and boltsy. It's a little like, okay, well, instead of like abstract mathematical theories, like, let's try to figure out how to launch this satellite into orbit and keep it there so that we can all talk to each other on cell phones. The philosophy part of it is it's not as satisfying, I think, because these are problems without immediate solutions. They don't have tangible outcomes. If we manage to come up with some philosophical theory that's really solid and really well reasoned for why we should all drive electric

cars, that's great. If we can come up with a scientific object that captures carbon from the atmosphere and reduces climate change by 8% over the next two years. That's life-saving. So I think people just are less focused on the philosophy than they are on the science for good reason. We have scientific problems right now in addition to these massive philosophical ones. Thank you. Thank you so much.

I had so much fun talking to you and I can't wait for us to, you know, New adventure. New adventure. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Thanks. That was Mike Schur, everybody. I am so grateful that we got to work together on A Man on the Inside. All eight episodes are available on Netflix right now. I really hope you get to check it out because it's one of the things I'm most proud of.

That is it for this week's episode. Hi to Woody and all is forgiven buddy. Come on home. And thanks to our friends at Team Coco. If you like these episodes, please tell a friend and subscribe on your favorite podcast app. If you have some time on your hands, a great rating and review on Apple podcasts helps a lot. We'll see you next time, where everybody knows your name. You've been listening to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson, sometimes.

The show is produced by me, Nick Leal. Executive producers are Adam Sachs, Colin Anderson, Jeff Ross, and myself. Sarah Federovich is our supervising producer. Our senior producer is Matt Apodaca. Engineering and mixing by Joanna Samuel with support from Eduardo Perez. Research by Alyssa Grawl. Talent booking by Paula Davis and Gina Bautista. Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Antony Genn, Mary Steenburgen, and John Osborne.

Special thanks to Willie Navarrete. We'll have more for you next time, where everybody knows your name.