Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (sometimes) - Seth MacFarlane

Episode Date: August 6, 2025

This week Ted Danson is joined by his friend, the multi-talented Seth MacFarlane. Seth talks with Ted about the boarding school they have in common, how his college years inspired “Family Guy,” singing lost Sinatra material on his latest album, and why he thinks Hollywood can do better at storytelling.Like watching your podcasts?  Visit http://youtube.com/teamcoco to see full episodes. 

Nobody gives a fuck what celebrities think. What we do do well is tell stories. And we're not doing the best job right now of telling those stories in a way that gives people hope. Welcome back to where everybody knows your name. Where do you begin with Seth McFarland? First, I have to say he's a friend. For many years, somebody I respect so much, so many talents, he's always being creative, whether it's acting, animating, writing, producing, or directing.

He created Family Guy and Orville, co-created American Dad, and the Cleveland Show. He also co-wrote, co-produced, directed, and starred in the TED movies. And if you can believe it, Seth is also a gifted singer who's been on the world's most prestigious stages, including the Royal Albert Hall. His latest studio album, his ninth, is called Lush Life, the Lost Sinatra arrangements. They are delicious. I can't wait for you to hear them. As a matter of fact, here's a clip from Lush Life. I used to visit all the very gay places, those come what may places, where one relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life.

to get the feel of life from jazz and cocktails. This is a love fest because this is my opportunity to thank you for so many things and an ooh and awe at your talent. And I just spent the last week listening to Lush Life. Oh, good. So I think we should start there. Sure. It's been out for a couple weeks?

Couple weeks, yeah, yeah. About three weeks. Anyway, you can download it, you can buy the vinyl, you can do it any way you want. I think people should buy the vinyl. That's the purest way to listen to this kind of music, yeah. But just how I got introduced to Lush Life is Victor, who has become a family friend, but he drove Mary and me to work to Paramount for the last two and a half months, and I've known him for years.

And he knew, I think, that I just found out that we were going to sit down together. So he downloaded it on his own and listened to it. And then on the way home, the next night, it was saying, you've got to listen to this. He's a huge Frank Sinatra's fan, a purist. And a singer himself, obviously. You're talking about Victor Garber? No, no. Sorry, my driver.

Oh, you're driver. Victor Gonzalez, who is the most astounding man I've ever made. recently. But he grew up listening to Frank Sinatra when he was seven or eight and his father would come in and go, don't you want to listen to pop? He went, nope, I want to listen to it. Anyway, listen to it. And I'm just saying somebody who worshipped Frank Sinatra loved you singing Frank Sinatra, not just that you were bringing it back to life, but that how well you did it. Then marry the next night going home, listen to it. And I've been listening to it the last week or so. And it really is, You're so kind. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's sort of like fishing for the last, and they're good scraps, but fishing for the last scraps of, you know, these great talents that Nelson Riddle and Don Costa and Billy May and these guys, they're, this is, these are undiscovered gems.

So for people who don't know the history of this, you found by working with Frank Sinatra Jr. and the Sinatra family, found these arrangements. Yeah, Frank Jr. used to do Family Guy periodically. And he, when he became a friend of the show and when he passed away, the stewardship of all of these charts that his father had collected over the years over the course of his career fell to Tina Sinatra. And she has subsequently become a great friend as well. And she said, look, would you want to buy these things? Did they come to you? Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. And I said, absolutely. You know, having no. idea really what was in there. It was about 1,200 boxes worth of material. And luckily they had their curator, Charlie Pignon, who has been with Sinatra Enterprises forever. And he kind of gave us sort of a cliff notes of exactly what was in these boxes, but really the only way to know is to play the music. And so we hired an orchestra, same folks that play on the TV shows,

and went over to the Fox lot to the Newman stage and just brought, you know, what was recommended to us as the most likely candidates from these boxes by the curator and just played them and you know from the first few notes of that first chart it's like it's something that's so familiar and so comfortable and so second nature musically but yet is brand new right it's like hearing you know like never having heard i've got you under my skin and hearing it for the first time in 23 or whatever it was we did that first session so we It was kind of amazing. Because you have an orchestra on, I don't know if it's on standby or what, that you can assemble for all of the background music.

Yeah. Well, it's, I mean, it's, it's a, there's studio players that play on everything from, you know, Jurassic Park to, you know, to family guy. I mean, it's all. Freelance and you put them together periodically. Yeah, yeah. I mean, they're studio players that, that play scores for television and film and, and, uh, and, and, uh, and, and, and, and, and, And those are the people we call. And is it the same people that you would then tour with?

Because I know you've toured all over the country as a world. Yeah, as much as we can. I mean, the L.A. players that when we can get them, the best of the best, are just fantastic. They're just some of the best around. And when we tour, we'll, you know, if we play with the Boston Symphony or the Philadelphia Symphony or Houston or wherever, we'll bring a rhythm section. So we'll bring maybe a pianist, bassist, drummer, guitarist, and then maybe a lead. trumpet player, lead violinist, and then the rest will be that local symphony. And there's some great symphonies, so it's, you know, you're singing with a 80, 90 piece

ensemble is not too, not too bad. We went to the, you grew up in Kent, Connecticut. Yes. You went to Kent School. Yep. Not just for boys back when you got there was for boys and girls. Yeah, there were two separate campuses. Yeah.

But, yeah, the dean of students was, when you were. I was there was your roommate, Don Gallin. Yeah. It was a wonderful guy. Yeah. Were you there second form through six form? I was there all four years, yeah. I was there five years. You're there five years. What'd you do? Uh, when, oh man, it was scary when I was there. You were there five years? Yeah, you went there. Uh, yeah, it was a third, third form through six form. Second when I got. Oh, so there was an extra form when you were there. There were five years. Wow. And you were not adjoined school, boys and girls and girls. girls. The girls school was still up the hill. They bust us back and forth. Yeah. Yeah. But I also,

I was a day student because I lived in that town. I grew up in that town. And so I was, I had the, you know, luxury of avoiding kind of the Lord of the Flies side of boarding school, which I'm sure was just hell. Oh, man, it was scarier than crap. I was 13. Yeah. And they were 18-year-old hulking giants, you know, the six formers. And it was very scary. It's like, it's, and they just kind of leave you to your own devices. I mean, After, I think now it's probably better. Oh, much. But when I was a kid and when you were a kid, I was like, no, it's your, you're on your own.

Yeah. Like, it'll toughen you up. Yeah. It'll do something to you. I'm not sure. It's twice your size. It's like, yeah. Kent School for Boys makes men.

And it's like, it's gentlemanly at a dance and valuable in a shipwreck. Yeah. My friend and I, Dwayne Retta, who, uh, I went on to Stanford with him. and he's this great friend. But anyway, he was an athlete, an amazing athlete. But we both realized it was not worth trying to date somebody up in a girl's school once a week at a movie or a dance. It was like, no.

It was like 1955. Yeah. Yes, it was. It was 1955 and scary. It's like dancing with the balloon between you that the chaperone. Yeah, it was just. But let me go back a step further. Yeah.

Because I, because we're going to talk about family guy. American Dad, which I've been on, thanks to you, and all of that side of your life. But you started drawing family lore at two, but at least at five, you were like hired. No, you did your first flip book at five, but at nine, you were hired to do a comic strip by a local newspaper. Yeah, yeah. It was our local newspaper, which tells you how small the town is the Kent Good Times Dispatch. That was the banner.

Yeah. And yeah, they hired me to do like a one panel comic like once a week. And it was like they paid me five bucks, which later went up to 10. And I was doing that from age nine all the way up through, I think when I went off to college was when I stopped. Okay. So how did you get there at nine? How do you? It was a very. How do you have a sense of humor at all? I mean, what is that that you could know what was funny or interesting enough? put it in on paper i mean it's you know my family was very uncensored in a lot of ways um more what it's that yeah i mean you know my mother was was there wasn't really any kind of humor that was off limits i mean like even i remember from the age of four her stubbing her toe and like god fucking damn it's son of a fucking you know just just it was just there was no editing mechanism and that extended into you know the the comedy that that wefted throughout the house and so So I had some sense of, I mean, it was very undeveloped,

but I had some sense of maybe what was funny and what was not. And I liked, you know, the far side. And there were comic strips that I liked. So I was sort of aping certain things that at the time before I kind of found my own voice. But it was, you know, it was such a small town. Yes. I mean, there could have been more than 600 people at the time. And so everyone knew everybody else.

And it was a very supportive town. And so it was very encouraging. for Kent for them to say yeah let's give this kid a shot and did people find it funny did you get feedback yeah yeah i um was it ever too far seth or it was it was there was one week i got um a a a letter from the local priest because i had done a comic oh i know yes yeah this is sort of a i've told the story before where the comic it was a guy at um at uh thinking community Because when I was a kid and I was in a church choir and I went to, you know, I didn't, it wasn't like a, our family wasn't a religious family, but I was, they felt that music was important. I was in the church choir. And I would watch communion at the Episcopal Church. And it was just so oddly fascinating to me. I couldn't figure it. I was like, is that really, they're eating him. Like this is really the body of Christ. Like they're eating. That's like, what? What? And I couldn't, I just couldn't get it through my head. what exactly was going on up there.

And I did this one-panel comic strip at like nine or ten that said, it was a guy taking communion and he says, can I have fries with that? And I got a letter from the local priest saying, shame on you for insulting the almighty God. Shame on you for insulting the almighty God and those who love him. Wow. And I think maybe that was just an excuse to write to me. I don't know.

but but it was that wasn't when you say you were in a choir and you were looking at chapel that wasn't at Kent that was pre-Kent that was the local and Episcopal church

yeah that was St. Andrew's Episcopal Church because we went to our share of chapel oh yeah three times a week yeah oh we were every day at six I feel like for everything I experienced you had like the you know the worst version.

Yeah. It was tough. It was also wonderful. You had to go every day? Yeah. Sunday was not early chapel. Sunday was a, I don't know. You had the full on dead poet society

version of, yeah, pretty much. Incense on Sunday. Yeah, we had to go Tuesday and Thursday at 10 a.m. And then on Sunday, we had to go for like a full service. Yeah. No, we were every day. God, what a. Every day?

Yeah. What do you even talk about? How much Bible is there? Oh, I don't know. I have no idea. I was just looking, I was just hoping no. Five years in your case. No, hulking 18-year-old would turn around and look at me because he's pissed off.

That's all I was worried about the whole time. Yeah. Okay, Kent's school. I somehow avoided that because I was assigned, for some reason, I was assigned to be, like, videotape the football games. so I was able to like the hulking like seniors were like oh I was like their little buddy yeah so I was the you know yes sir boss yeah but I got a good close-up of you day big fella exactly but it's I asked my dad about this recently because I don't know if you ever were in the up in the crow's nest at the football field right at Kent there was a the wrestling

room in the gym right had a crow's nest up top and that's where you taped the football games Oh, no, I didn't know that. And so I just remember being handed this, you know, 1980s camcorder in this big heavy case. Yeah. And there's just a fucking ladder that, and this thing has to go up like 30 feet or however high it was. And maybe not quite 30 feet, I'm excited. To my memory now, it seems higher. But like, and I would walk in like all by myself and just climb this ladder.

With your one hand. With my one hand. And I'm like, and I said of my father recently. like, how was that allowed? What were you guys smoking that I, because, because, and it took me forever. I would like, you know, just climb and just acrophobic terror. While you were filming, I was the guy because I hurt my knee playing basketball, which was my passion.

Basketball was my passion. So I, and football, I was six foot and 120. So they knew that I would die. If anyone ran into me by mistake, I would die. So, but you had to do something, you know, you had to participate somehow. So I was the guy lining the fields with that chalk machine. That was your job. That was my job as my big friends would go, ho, ha, ha, I'd stop all over the lines.

And, you know, that was me. So you'd be lining up and they'd be, like, kicking all the. Yeah. Oh, wow. I got to. Oh, they're not really your friends, it sounds like. No. Well, they were.

But I got to play basketball on the gym by myself. I could go practice basketball after I'd line the fields. Oh, that's cool. So you got good at it. It was transactional. Yeah, yeah. It was transactional. It's a beautiful campus.

Are you glad you went to Kent School? Is it a plus? I am. Me too. It was a phenomenal education. I mean, a phenomenal, like the teachers I had stick with me to this day. It was Bill Armstrong there. Bill?

Bill who scared the crap out of all of us. All of us, yeah. And yet wrote one of the most sensitive books. Yep, wrote Sounder. Sounder. Yeah, yeah. He was, I recently went on, uh, went online and looked for some of his old books that I hadn't read because I felt like there was some, there was some, what is that through through troubled waters, the book that he wrote about his wife's death. I don't know.

Oh, right. Um, right. But yeah, he was, he was, um, a pretty amazing guy. There was a, uh, God, Tim Scott was the English teacher when I was there. He's probably came on later. but he was fantastic. No, Jay Coulter wouldn't have been there. No.

I think who would have been? It was O.B. Davis there? Yes, O.B. Davis. English department? English. And sometimes did the plays. Yep. Directed the plays.

Was Charles Gould there? Don't know. No, probably not. No. O.B. Davis was, he was one that sticks in my head. It's just a great, great, great bunch of teachers. Pitt Armstrong was his nickname. Oh, is that right?

Yeah. And he, at age 13, the second former's head is how to study kind of class. Yeah. Which was invaluable. Unless you were in me. We had the same thing. Yeah. Yeah.

Right. But was he, he had this partition between his little office and the classroom that came, it was a halfway petition so that there was a door jam that he could reach up. And when we came in day one, he was doing one arm chin-ups. One-arm chin-up, just looking at us. Just staring at us. It was like, oh, fuck, we're in trouble. It was kind of like the real life, you know, John Wayne sort of like, he was like, yeah, he just, I mean, well into his 80s, like, was still probably unbelievably, like it could probably beat any student there in an arm wrestling match. Yeah.

So just quickly, big lesson learned at age 13, we would take these little pop quizzes and you'd pass your paper back and forth to the person behind you. so they would correct it and then read off your scores. There were quizzes, not exams or tests. Well, it was clear, and then you'd just throw them away. They weren't, he wasn't interested in them. So we thought, my friend and I, who was behind me, went, well, this is silly. We could just put anything, and I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine.

And so we would give ourselves each other good grades, earned or not. And then one day, and then we got cocky and tried to make the other person laugh, so the tyrant of Rhodes, you know, was pit, arms, strong, pass in your papers that day. And for the next six months, he would hand out, here's the test for everyone, and here's the test for Mr. Dance and the cheater. I was Mr. Dance and the cheater for six months. It was like, okay, I learned a big lesson.

Oh, my God. Yeah. That's, yeah, that's, that hurts from that, coming from that voice. Yeah, in the one I'm trying. Did he, did he do the thing where he, and I, and this, the whole point was to get us to remember who, who the, who the famous Greek was. And now, of course, I can't remember where he, he was talking about some famous naval battle. And he's, I, I still don't think you're going to remember who this is or what his name is. So we'll have him taken a piss off the side of the boat.

And he like, and he just draws the guy taking a leak. And it's like, I remember that. I just came around what the hell of guy's name was. that's so funny but yeah he was he was a pretty amazing guy it was pretty much

my formal education yeah yeah then I went to Stanford and learned nothing because I chose to not because of the school

but I found acting and off I went so were you were you an actor at Kent like were you uh the after

basketball seasons was over our final year uh my friend and I went uh we'll try out for a play and we got into Martin Duberman's

in white America and yeah my friend is black and we're we both kind of went it's not basketball but it's okay yeah that's kind of how I held acting it's not basketball that's okay

if you're on and then you later found your passion for it yeah yeah okay so off you go where'd you go RISD I went to RISD yeah yeah which was also a fantastic place that's just all right but sorry I'm trying to put the pieces together So, and I'm interrupting you're like crazy. Oh, no.

I haven't done this for a while. You have music beginning because... This is already more coherent than any podcast I've ever listened to, so you're good. It'll go downhill in a minute. So you have music, you have drawing, you have drawing characters and being funny. You haven't done stand-up. yet so you're really music and drawing yeah yeah that's your creative output at the moment yeah yeah i had done i had done as much theater as i could when i was at kent so i had a little bit of

that you know i tried everything to to not play a sport if i could avoid it and and um so but yeah when i got to and choir and choir yeah yeah i'm singing um but yeah risdi was where i mean my first love was animation, was visual art. And so I applied to RISD, got in. And that was where I really started figuring out what the hell my voice was. I did start doing stand-up when I was in college and local stuff.

In Providence. In Providence, yeah. Wow. Which has got to be a tough gig. I remember being okay. Oh, really? Yeah, it was like, because I was from New England, and so there was sort of a shorthand that was like,

you know, you're kind of talking to it's such a small part the country that you're talking to people who all have grown up with the same sort of frame of references that you have. Very working, very bright, very working class. Yeah. Tough. Yeah. It's a weird dichotomy because you have like the, you know, the educated sort of professorial

intellectuals. And then you have, you know, you can't park your car over there. You have those guys. And it's like, and I was kind of, you know, dialed into both those worlds when I was there. So it was, but it was a great place to kind of find your voice. Great school. I mean, just phenomenal school. How did you know that very first time?

There's an open mic or there's something. Or I saw somebody and, oh, I got to do that. What was that? Because that's a big transition from drawing, being funny, and standing up. Yeah. I mean, the theater that I had done in school and kind of the hunger that I had, had had for that at the time helps to kind of grease the wheel. So it wasn't like I was unfamiliar with being on a stage. I just hadn't tried anything that was so solo and exposed.

But, you know, it's like you're in your 20s. It's like, who gives a shit? You don't care. It's like, what if I fail, I fail? Who cares? Okay, see, that's different. I didn't have that. That's very balzy. That is. Stand-up is ballsy. Well, it's just like, you know, the worst that happens is that you have a bad night and no one laughs and you go home and people forget about it the next day. Yeah. But, but it's, I mean, nowadays, I would be much more reluctant to, to, I think about it at times, like, it's, you know, at this point, like, the expectations would probably be

because of family guy, because of everything, like, people be right, people be coming. Show us your funny, asshole, you know. So did you develop something that you can point to later in life go, yeah, I kind of got that from my stand-up at RISD? No, I mean, there were a lot of impressions. It was a lot of, you know, very kind of like diet-rich-little sort of routine that I did. But there are certainly elements of, yeah,

my college years were very in different ways, influential in what became family guy. I mean, I was, I discovered film musicals. You know, I'd seen them when I was a kid. My parents had showed us all the, the, you know, Oklahoma and My Fair Lady and sound amusing.

I didn't really care that much. And then I got into college and I started to kind of pay attention to the music a little bit more and realize, oh, this is, there's actually some great craftsmanship here. And just thought Rex Harrison was hilarious in My Fair Lady.

Just like, this guy is just like, just this comical person who, who, by all accounts, was very much you know as he appeared on screen right and that became stewie that because stewie is essentially rex harrison as henry higgins there were um there were a group of security guards that i was friends with when i was at risdi and they were all you know full on you know rhode island to the

core um and peter griffin is very much derived from from one of those guys um but that was yeah i think there was god there was one year we made like i got all the security dirty cards together. We made like a fake A-Team episode for film class. It was, it was a fun place. Wait, a fake A-team? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like starring RISD security.

Yeah. And that was like, it was like some film project. And they were like, yeah, yeah, why not? We'll do it. But it was, it was just a place that was just kind of pumped gas in the creative tank in every way. And it, you know, I've heard that there are. certain schools that, you know, at the time, we're teaching you how to, you know, they're kind of training you for Warner Brothers or for Disney or like, here's how to work in this style.

So it's a, it's a pipeline to this particular company. And RISD was very much like, here's everything you might need to know because we have no idea what you're going to want to do with your life and you have no idea what you're going to want to do with your life in a lot of cases. And so they just kind of kept it very open-ended. And if it was, if you were kind of leaning in a certain direction, it was nurtured. Right. So you graduate from RISD and what happens?

And then, well, my senior year, I had applied to the Boston Conservatory of Music for musical theater. I just love this about you. You interwove everything that you cared about creatively from a very early age. the person we are talking to right now, you were there. Yeah, yeah. 30, 40 years, whatever it is ago. Yeah, I mean, it's,

and the beautiful thing about animation is that it does encompass, I mean, something like Family Guy, you work with an orchestra every week. You do. It's, does everybody do that? The Simpsons does it. We do it on American Dad as well.

Yeah. I mean, any show that I work on, the Orville, we used about a 80, 90 piece orchestra every week. See, that's amazing. But I think it's, it's, It's a important part of the, that used to be pretty standard on maybe not that size, but every television show you used to watch.

I mean, the little playons from Cheers are like, those are acoustic, you know, musicians. But, you know, it's performance art, it's visual art, it's musical art, it's, it's writing. I mean, it's so many disciplines in that one medium. But yeah, I had applied, What I'm saying is you're designing the perfect Seth to go off and be the creator of all these things you've created,

to be the head of all these things you've created because you have your fingers and everything. It worked out that way. It worked out that way. Yeah. I also didn't really know which way I wanted to go. My sister had gone to the Boston Conservatory of Music for musical theater, and she spent four years there. and she had a beautiful singing voice. And I applied to their grad program, got in, and before I could go, my student film, which was a really rough version of what would become a family guy,

had fallen into the hands of Hannah Barbera, which was, you know, at the time still, you know, at the tail end of their existence. Now they've kind of, you know, they've kind of gone. They've been folded into Cartoon Network. And they're here in L.A. Yeah. Or they were.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, at the time they were still working under that banner and, you know, and they were legendary as the Flintstones, it's Scooby-Doo's, the Jetsons, and they had gotten a hold of my student film and RISD had entered it in some competition that they were sponsoring, and I won something called the Freddie Award, which is like, it's like a bunch of rocks with Fred Flintstone sitting on the top and your name on a little plaque. And that was my introduction to Hannah Barbera. And so before I graduated, RISD, I had, I got a call saying,

listen, would you want to come out and do a cartoon short for us based on your student film? And I said, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, there's a little bit of a shit. Do I ditch the grad program at Boston Conservatory? And the opportunity was just too good to pass up. So I took the California job. I came out here. I had no idea.

I was, you know, stayed at like the Beverly Garland holiday in for like. How much should you get paid? Do you remember? I think it was, I think initially it was like, this was like in the 1990s, it was like 600 bucks a week.

Oh, wow. That was pretty good. At the time, that was, yeah, just coming out of college, that was great. Yeah. But, but I,

you know, learned the Hollywood style of animation through, you know, one of the best studios, through the people that invented it. Wait, how? Because you've been hired to,

so did you start working with other people, other creators? There was a program called What a Cartoon that was created by Fred Seibert, who has since gone on to be a pretty major force in the animation world. And it basically, the idea was basically to give green animators with no credits,

a shot at making their own seven-minute pilot with an eye towards putting control of animation back into the hands of the artists and taking it away from the writers, which I think there's a place for both that when it gels is the best case scenario, but they were very kind of like, look, the writers have taken over for years,

let's give things back to the artists. And so I did this short called Larry and Steve that was based literally on my student film. And when that was done, they put me on a show called Johnny Bravo, which was a show that was on the air at the time, and Dexter's Lab and all these shows that the millennials and Gen Z will, I'm shocked at how much they remember.

So I was, I worked there for three years, and there was a fellow named Adam Shapiro who took over development at hand. Canna Barbera and wanted to get them back into the prime time business and said, listen, your film is sort of the closest, your short is sort of the closest thing. The Larry and Steve. Yeah, yeah, that might be of interest of these people. So he took me to the Fox lot at this, you know, at the time I'm like 22, 23, introduced me

to these executives and I, you know, had no clue really, I was learning at all as I was going. and they said, we like this short that you did. Would you want to do a pilot for us? You're an animator. And I said, yeah, sure. And generally a pilot gets a pilot budget of, you know, even back then, 500, 700 grand. They gave me like 40 grand. Like, spend it however you want.

So I spent about six months in my apartment animating this pilot, the family guy pilot. Right. and all the money went to having the drawings filmed and colored at a local production house. And by the time it was over... But each frame you drew. Yeah, and keep in mind, this was very, like, you know, the Flintstones was the model,

so it's like you have heads that are nodding and mouths that are moving. You know, they're economical ways to make sure that you're not doing full-on Don Bluth. Right. But at the end of that six months, I submitted the pilot. And by that time, it was 24, and they said, yeah, we want to buy this.

Animation was really hot at the time. The Simpsons was at its peak. King of the Hill was a big hit. It was like more and more and more animation. And so they picked up my show. And so at 24, I was kind of thrust into this world of, you know, it was a writer's room that I was partially in charge of. And I had to kind of learn on the fly. So one more process question.

Because it fascinates me. Your writer's room is a bunch of writers. Yeah. And then, so when you, what started first for you when you did your pilot? Did you do the drawings first and then figure out, or did you script it with dialogue and then draw around that? Yeah, I had a script that, I mean, with animation, it's, you know, it's, it's analogous to like a live action sitcom where it's like you're, they're just steps. that are similar, but because there's a different medium, they're different.

You write the script. You do a storyboard, which is effectively blocking. Right. You then do the animation. And everything's not really refined. You're just sketching it out almost. Yeah, with animation generally, it's, you sketch it out with like a blue pencil,

and then you kind of clean it up, you ink it. Or you use a pencil. line or whatever your style is and then it uh and then it gets filmed um but you know you're you're animating to the voice yeah because if an actor comes in and does something you got oh wait yeah yeah yeah there's a scene in mrs doubtfire where robin williams you know obviously play as a voice actor and he goes into the studio and he's um speaking to completed animation on the screen and everything's magically syncing up and of course that's not how it works at all it's like you you have to let the actor do their thing and then you animate to their performance so that always

that always works in that order so there you are a writer's room of how many people at the time there were about uh probably 15 people maybe were you assigned them or did you go find no no i was i was um i had chosen they had me meet with a few seasoned showrunners um i picked um uh david zuckerman who had worked on King of the Hill, who had had animation experience. And so he helped me kind of develop the show into something that was going to be sustainable week after week. And so he was kind of the adult in the room. And I was there to, and it was an interesting process at the beginning.

Like we, we are friends to this day. But we did have our, you know, he was working with like a young 24-year-old guy who was, you know, had no experience and a whole lot of ideas. and it was his job to kind of corral it. But we made something that endured really, you know, for 25 years. But it was an experience. Like to be in that room, everyone in that room was more experienced than I was. I really shouldn't have been where I was for another 10 years when I arrived in that writer's room.

Running a room at 24 was just, I just had to learn on the fly. right and um you know that'll sink a lot of people and that's where i credit my parents it's like they they put enough of the um you know stick up for what you want but don't be an asshole like find that goldy locksone and and so they did their jobs well and that kind of got me through that period more than anything else but uh and then the the show i do remember actually, I think it was like day three we were in the writer's room and like one of the first things we did was go on strike

because animation at that time was not included in, you know, it wasn't a WGA covered medium and so you didn't have any of those benefits and King of the Hill and the Simpsons and the shows that were on the air were like, hey, we're

done with this. We we want the same. We're bringing in a lot of money. Yeah, exactly. So they said, do you want to you know do you want to stand with us and so like we got to like three days later we were like sure yeah so for how long it lasted 24 hours oh good that was good that was how much the studios knew like well we just yeah we were waiting for you guys to bring it up we weren't going to bring it up but yeah of course you should be killed um one last thing on this the process i mean yeah so you sit down

and you write you start the writing room and you start writing your first episode when when is it on the air and I get to watch it. How much long? About 10 months. That's amazing. 10 months per episode. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And how long before, after you write the script, do you start getting roughs of the animation itself so you know, oh, this is working? Probably a couple months. I mean, it's been a minute for me. I mean, I ran that show for 10 years and it's now been a while. But as I recall, it's you finish the script, you do your record, and then maybe about a few weeks

later, maybe three weeks later, you start seeing storyboards. And then you see an animatic, maybe a month and a half a month and a half into the process, and then full animation you don't see for a while. Because that goes over to Korea, and then it comes

back, and that's like months and months later. And then you did a whole mess of stuff, and then American Dad. Yeah. Yeah, American Dad. Family Guy got canceled because nobody was watching. I don't remember that.

Yeah, that was in about 2002, 2001, 2002. After how many episodes? After two seasons. Oh, so it came back, obviously. Yeah, yeah, after two seasons. And I think it was two seasons. And because that third season, I believe, no, it was three seasons. Sorry, it was three seasons.

Jesus Christ. So we got canceled. after three seasons and because no one was watching, I was still under a deal with 20th and so we created American Dad which was sort of a you know, it was more political show

but it was very much in line with Family Guy and then Family Guy got picked up again because the DVD sales were doing well. That's how long ago that was that DVD sales can bring back a fallen show. Syndication DVD sales were doing great. So Family Guy gets picked up again. I didn't intend to have two shows. I didn't want to have two shows. I wanted to focus on one thing. This family guy was still very new. But I now had two shows by accident. And I made the decision to focus on keeping Family Guy running at that point. We'd had this brush with death. And American Dad, I essentially turned over to my co-showrunners.

Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman, and it was a good move because you had two shows that were, that didn't feel like, one felt maybe more like me and the other one felt like something different. And it was, that was a good lesson in the value of delegation at a young age. And that's kind of how I operate now. I'm either kind of fully invested in something 24-7 or I'm delegating it completely and whoever the showrunner is, their voice is very much the voice of that show. When did Ted come along?

Ted came along about 2000, God, 2010, 2009, 2010. First pitched that. And it was roundly rejected by most of the studios that saw. It was just too expensive. In an R-rated comedy starring a teddy bear that talked was not really on anybody's most wanted list. And I think at one point they asked us to do it. Can you do it with a hand puppet? It'll be a lot cheaper.

And then Universal said, yeah, okay, we'll roll the dice on this. And Mark Wahlberg and the rest is sort of history there. That's when I slowly start to enter the periphery of your life. Yeah, you were in Ted. Yeah. It brought me great joy. It was Ted dancing on cocaine, being bitter or something about reminiscing of... It was like the...

It was like they bought the Cheers DVD, and it was like the interview with you. Right. And I think you even improvved... You even improvved a line that we ended up using in the film. Oh, it brought me great joy, too. Woody Harrelson, smallest dick and show business. Right. It was my getting back at him for innumerable things he did to me.

Listen, we were happy. help but that was huge became a huge hit and that gave you kind of i'm assuming license to pretty much start making whatever film you felt at the time yeah yeah at the time that was i mean i know one would have greenlit a comedy western from anybody right i think if it weren't for if it weren't at that time it weren't for uh ted but wrote directed and acted yeah yeah how did you like that actor directed part it was it was again completely new it scared the shit out of me i i i got to say this is where i got to give thanks to albert brooks because i was a huge fan of his it remain a huge fan his defending your life remains just oh the best one of the greatest movies ever made to me

and i just called him and said listen i haven't done this before you've done it out of the blue or did you have a relationship out of the blue no i reached out to somebody who connected me with him and i can't I'd have been my agent, but called him and said, can I just pick your brain about this stuff? And he was so kind and so cool. And he said, not only can you, he said, you call me as often as you want. And so I called him probably once a week

while I was working on that movie. And every time he picked up the call and he answered all my questions and was so generous with his time. And I will never forget to this day. Because it really did make a big difference. It, you know, because I was learning as I went and to talk to someone who's done it really as well as anyone in show business ever has. I'm not hearing this story because I have so much respect for him, but I didn't know the mentor part.

Just like a stand-up guy to end all stand-up guys. Pre-production and shooting, yeah. Wow. I mean, literally write down to questions like, how many of your dailies do you watch? Like, piles of dailies, and it's like, you got to watch all your dailies, watch all your dailies. you know how do you at what point do you go and you look at playback at what point do you know you know when you're directing how do how do you how do you separate your directing brain from your watches me while i yeah who's looking to the lens in essence while i'm acting exactly

yeah who did yeah i i hired an acting coach to kind of be my conscience um this got this guy Aaron McPherson who was wonderful and i i mean he's been doing it for me in every project that I've acted in since. To see whether or not, wait a minute, you, yeah, you did it. You hit your marks, but you weren't really present. Do it again. Exactly. You were cheating.

Yeah, yeah. And that's kind of, it's invaluable and it's essential because it really is, I mean, unless you're someone who has been acting, you know, for so long that it's just second nature. I will still say that I claim it's about 50, 50, 50, whether you truly show up in the moment. film is literally about, I'm giving you the impression of what I did last night, or I'm trying to repeat what I did, dead and day. The audience doesn't care how you get there, though, right? No, but you are truly either there in that moment surprising yourself and the person you're

with or you're not. How much of it do you find is, like, how often is it, like, I nailed exactly what I prepared for, and how much of it is that was an accident and that's the best thing I've ever done? Because for me, it's most of the time it's an accident. Well, that's wonderful because... Well, it's not because it means it's like wrangling a horse that... I just find it if you... I mean, if you do everything right, all the preparation on and all that stuff,

it's still, for me, 50, 50, whether I truly am like, I have no idea what's happening next and isn't this astounding. Yeah, yeah. Kind of thing, that downhill scheme kind of thing with acting where you just... But can you access certain, like, you know, I've talked to actors who, and this sounds so fundamental and probably just the most basic way to ask the question. But I've talked to actors who are like, yeah, I know, I'm drawing from something in my own life or, no, I'm really believing what's on the page. Is it kind of 50-50 for you or do you have like? I hope to get closer and closer to it's on the page.

Yeah. And that this is not so you're drawing on something from your life, but you're putting yourself so fully under the imaginary circumstances that you can just use that. And I still find it fascinating. I love acting so much. It's so cool. Yeah, yeah.

Well, I mean, you never stop either. Like, I mean, you're... Well, you should talk, but... But it's like you always... There's a show, there's a film, like you're always... I do love... I do love driving through. studio gate. I do love crews. I love writers. There's always plenty of Ted

Danson for America. Or smidge too much. No, no, no. Well, no. No, no. People, people, people like it. Yeah, yeah. People like it. I want to rush through some stuff because then I want, because I have other kinds of questions. I'd love to talk about. You have other clients. I get it. Yeah. But let me ins. All right. No. we're going to go there. So Ted, you know, but then that's just something. That was just a fun moment that I didn't see you again for a while. And then I think it was a family guy. For some reason, somebody reached out to see if I would do something. I think this was the order of things.

And I said, yes, but can you just do me a favor and pay whatever you're going to pay me and give it to Oceana, which is something that I care about. And I do when. I'm not acting. Yep. And you said, I won't get into numbers, but you said instead, how about instead of that, I multiply it by this amazing number that you did

and give it directly to Oceania. You proceeded to do that. Oh, that was Orville. That was for the Orville, I think. Was it Orville? Yeah, I think it was Orville, yeah. Okay. One of your many projects,

and it was almost 10 years ago, or something like that. Yeah. And you have, and you'll have to tell me, and we can edit this, because I don't want to, you know, put a target on your philanthropic back. No, that's such a great organization. It is, but your generosity is beyond belief, because you've been doing that for the last 10 years. And which means a huge amount to me, because raising money for something you care about that makes a difference in the world and changes things dramatically. and then somebody like you comes along

and it's that generous. It is, you know, you're changing people's lives. You are. It was funny. Like, I was, I was introduced to Oceana. I was on a date years ago, and she took me to the Oceana event.

I had no idea what Oceana was. I wasn't, I, I, and it was this incredible event that was just, you know, really educational and in so many ways. And so luckily when you, you know, When I found out you were involved, I was like, oh, yeah, that's, that organism, that's a phenomenal organization. I mean, phenomenal. And, you know, yeah, I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's win-win. You get, well, it's the reason why you can ask me to do anywhere and I will go anywhere,

and you don't have to send me a script. I would just want to come play with you because of who you are and how you, your generosity makes a difference out there in the world. And I know you do this in many other areas and not just the environment but i have huge respect for you well that's that's that's the one that i mean i and i know you feel the same way it's like that's the one that you just can't afford to screw up i mean you can you can you can recover from a lot of screw ups but if you screw up the environment beyond a certain point you're really in trouble and it's a game changer for literally everybody on the planet and if you think you're wealthy enough to dodge that bullet you're you're a fooling yourself or powerful enough to dodge that

bullet you're wrong kidding yourself yeah it's true um can i just ask a bunch of you know who the fuck are you random questions sure what is your if you had to go oh this is kind of my north star or this is my mentor if it's somebody or this is somebody who or some thought that keeps me on purpose knowing that you know yeah just that yeah um I mean, look, it sounds so cliche, but like, you know, if any decision that you make, you know, is this something my parents would approve of? It's kind of, I mean, both your mom and dad come to mind when you say that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, they were ex-hippies.

They were very altruistic. They were very much, you know, very socially conscious. and so that was that still remains sort of a a lingering part of my conscience that's very much active that that is this is this something but as far as you know people who um you know certainly out my father aside i'll still call my father with with you know to get his take on on certain things but um you know andrewian who was who was married to carl sagan before he passed away and who wrote cosmos for us um um is very much a mentor, is very much somebody who... Why? What do you get from that relationship? I don't mean get, but draw from it? I mean, there are very few people you can say

this person is truly, is the legitimate genius. Like a legitimate genius. Like, whatever her, and I mean intellectually, and I mean culturally and socially in every sense, this is somebody who sees the world in a way that, that is pretty extraordinary. And so she's become somebody who I see as kind of a North Star, as you call it, somebody who I can call.

And, you know, even with the most fundamental career question, hey, you know, should I do this or this? Or is this, is this, is this, you know, what's your take on this? And you're always going to get something that's both incredibly astute and incredibly humble. And, you know, she remains a model of, of, you know, the kind of person. I mean, I will never be as smart as she is, but remains a model of the kind of person that I would like to look in the mirror and see. Is there a rhyme or reason behind, I'm sure there is, so behind your philanthropy? be there are things that are really that are fundamental things like rainforest trust and things like

oceana that that are just kind of no-brainers it's like well we can't we can't survive without the ocean we can't survive without the right the rainforests like we're going to be in trouble if we trash either one of those two things and so that that's just those are kind of no brainers and then when you get into the you know the cultural stuff and you're funding music you're funding the arts you know, you're funding medical research. It's then, you know, it's discussions with my team, the people that I work with, discussions with doctors. Your team, what does that mean?

You know, my manager who have become very good friends with and, you know, with doctors that I know who are involved with various types of, you know, say, cancer research. And my doctor would say, like, yeah, there's a friend of mine, you know, runs a lab at, USC that's working on this and this and this and they're you know they're looking for funding and so it's just about having conversations and finding out what people are working on and what sounds interesting and who needs what and everything is a is a crapshoot you know when it comes to when it comes to things like medical philanthropy it's it's I sort of go into it thinking like this is this is money I'm never expecting to you know right I'm throwing it into a potential void because science is you

you have to be willing to just experiment and throw things to the wall and see what works. But, you know, still never a bad investment. It's like if you've moved the needle in some way, even microscopically that maybe you're never even aware of, it's still worthwhile. Yeah, that's kind of the definition of philanthropy, I think, not knowing what the end result will be, so it's not this transactional thing. Right, right. Okay, so this part is, I don't, this is, these are my questions for myself.

You can either help me or express your own, and we can edit the shit out of this. So it's really up to you. How's your heart nowadays? My heart is aching a little bit with the world. Yeah. Especially here in L.A. I have an ache that I haven't figured out. I know that, I'll just do my thing for two seconds.

I know that fighting dark with dark is, does not work. work. I know that for me and my makeup, anger in my body, rage is not a good thing. And I never, I never, I could live with it like that, but it's popping up right now. So I need to figure that out. And I need to know, is there a line in the sand that is for me that I will then have to go, well, sorry, all bets off. I now have to become I don't know, Jane Fonda once more under the ramparts, you know, kind of thing. I don't know. So that's those, I would love to know

if you want to talk, and if you don't, I totally get it. I'm happy to talk about anything. How's your heart? What did somebody online said, boy, I'm tired of living in interesting times. That's great. I heard somebody else say, no, you know, no, let my enemies live in interesting times.

Yeah. Yeah, I, I, it's a really good, question. I mean, I went back and looked at old texts of, you know, how I was feeling in the past few elections. And it's like every four years, it's like, this is the only thing that that kind of put me in on a little bit of a rational track is that they're always existential. The threats we face. The way that I'm, the way that I'm talking about it,

but the way that I talked about it in 2024 was the same way I talked about it in 2020 and 2016. Existential, existential, existential. And is this time different? I don't know. But I do know that my language didn't seem to change. And so that gave me a little bit of, a little bit of optimism that maybe...

This isn't the first time. This is just kind of the way people like us are that like we just we do we give a shit um and we should give a shit uh but it's also something that that can get the best of us and can consume us so it's like what is that goldiloxone what is that balance of of caring enough to stay active and stay involved but not letting it drive you to the point where it's it's just wrecking your life um and i i i I know exactly what you're feeling, and that's the struggle, is that you're, how do you balance altruism and philanthropy and, you know, caring about the world that you live in and caring about

the world that is inherited by, you know, the people who come after you, that there's, who's that philosopher that says, if you heard that somebody 3,000 miles away in Europe, or if you heard that like a large group of people were going to, we're going to die and you could prevent it, would you? It's like, well, of course you would. Well, if you heard that people, 3,000 years from now, as opposed to 3,000 miles away, we're going to die and you could prevent it, would you? And the whole question is, why do we have this feeling of moral responsibility when it comes to distance, but not when it comes to time?

And look, this is the kind of shit we fuck around with on the Orville and why I love writing that show. But it's a great question. It's like, what do we owe the future? and I think we owe the future as much as we owe the present. My father, who was a scientist,

an archaeologist, the thought that came out of that for me as a kid was, you know, a lot has come before you and hopefully a lot will come after you and this time is not about you. It's about your stewardship of what you've been given, which is similar to what you're saying. Yeah, you're a linking chance.

For some reason, I have, because I've always let science lead the way. I, if you, if I get into an argument about partisanship or politics, I get very emotional, lose my way. And I'm not, that's not my happy place. If I, I'm happy to go, and I have gone to Congress and testify about oil and offshore oil and the oceans and all of that. And I'm happy if a Republican throws a brick at me. I don't care, because my job is say, hey, this is the science. Yeah. This is what we know.

Do with it what you will, but there will be a consequence. It's interesting because Republicans were once, I mean, you look at the, they were once champions of science. Oh, totally. My father was a Republican. Yeah. I mean, it was something that they took pride in. Yeah. And I do think that if there can be a separation, but I mean, look, it's, when things like climate change are lumped,

in with other issues as if it's like if it's if it's a woke issue that's where you kind of lose me it's like look we all have our feelings about how to apply you know what how to tax the country or what you know how to structure health care and the public and private of it all and you know how to allocate these funds or these funds and reproductive care what's you know what what is ethical and it's like all of these are we all have our opinions in what we believe but they are in many cases opinions like your opinion on how to best allocate health care maybe different than mine when it gets into things like science that's where it's like god we should all be agreeing on this this should be something like that we we've all done as a society

together republicans and democrats liberal cons like we've all we've all you know reach this point where we can you know you have a cell phone in your pocket that can give you You know, any information you ask for with the tap of a button. And there should be no reason for any of us to be abdicating that like that, to be abdicating that. So I think that that's something that if, and you know, you do read about these conservative groups that are concerned about climate change. And there, you start to see kind of sparks of that. And I think it's a great place to start. It's a great place to begin.

Because it's not, you know, we can disagree about pronouns until the cows come home. But, you know, when you have something that is, you can start with something that's so irrefutable, I do think there's a, there's a conversation if we can just dial down, if we can just dial down the red in our faces. Right. And I almost, I always feel like I'm, I'm not going to talk about climate change. anymore. I won't. Let's not talk about that. Let's agree. You don't agree. Whatever. Beside the point. At this time and at this point in our lives, it's beside the point. Let's talk about how can I help you develop a system that saves lives in parts of the world and

country that are flooding so badly? Because when people drag other people out of the water, odds are they'll be on different political sides of the fence but they could give a shit because it's a human being reaching and saving another human being so let's find out how we can help save human lives together forest fires drought let's do that let's talk about because it's here we don't have to talk about yeah there was i tell you know even as a kid watching uh and boy they knew how to teach us this lesson in a way that we don't really we're not as good at nowadays i remember watching um he man when i came home from school in the afternoon there was always the there was always the moment where like skeletors hanging off the cliff and they've been battling and it looked like skeletor is going to die and he man reaches down and pulls him up at the end of the day and skeletons says you did not have to save me why did you say you know yeah and it's it's that's that's always the kind of person you want to be in wrapping up this whole thing first off thank you so much thank you for all of the little interchanges and creative things we've gotten to do

together, your generosity, but thank you for being here today. I really, really have had fun talking to you. But just to end this, you in some quote or something talk about optimistic and fun. Maybe it was looking back at the things that you enjoy, but you use those two words, optimistic and fun, and that is putting that out into the world, which you do through your work and your music is a contribution to this thing we're talking about why our hearts ache at this point putting that out is if that's all you did in life you can't discount that as moving the needle in the right direction that's that's why i did the orville and that's why i you know we're we're

we're gonna we we still have yet to do a season four that's why i did that show because when i was a kid hollywood was providing that uh voice through in various forms there was a lot of hope and we're doing a really you know some of the blame lies right here in this town like we are the the dishes that we are serving up are so dystopian and so pessimistic and yeah there's a lot to be pessimistic about but it's so one-sided we're there's nothing we're doing that's providing anyone an image of hope um i mean look i love the handmade sale to great fucking show beautifully written, beautifully directed.

But it's, it's, there's a lot more of that than there is of, you know, what we used to get from, from, from, uh, Captain Picard. I mean, it's like there's, there's, where, where is Hollywood's, they're certainly giving us a lot of cautionary tales, but where are the blueprints that they once gave us for how to do things correctly? It can't all be just, here's what's going to happen to you if you fuck up. Yeah. You do need.

Here's what. you can achieve if you change your ways and do things right. Look at the joy and happiness and laughter you can come get if you go this direction. Exactly. Exactly. We're doing none of that. We're doing none of that. I see it every day drive down, you know, like they're driving down Beverly Boulevard today and looking at the billboards of what's to come and it's like, yep, dystopian, dystopian, horror, negative, pessimistic. There's nothing that's that's that's giving anybody kind of, you know, any, any, and now as an adult, it's like, all right, I can, see past that.

But when I was a kid, I had the opposite. I had a lot of templates and, you know, characters who were kind of the Gary Cooper in high noon of when I grew up, you know, who would do the right thing. Who would, I remember that movie, he would, you know, he's on his honeymoon. Yeah. And he's pulling away. And he's like, well, shit, I'm on my honeymoon. And I got to turn around and fight this bad guy.

But, you know, it's the right thing to do because I'm an altruistic guy and I just got to do what's right. And television and film were full of those kinds of people. And now it's all about the ever since Tony Soprano, and again, great fucking show, but it's all about the anti-hero. It's all about the complicated, fucked up, drug-addled person who's like, isn't this person a mess? And, you know, and, you know, I mean, everyone on the White Lotus is brilliant, but everyone, no one is someone you'd want to be. There's nobody who you'd look at and say, boy, I want to be like that guy. If I was, if the shit hit the fan, I'd want to do it.

Gary Cooper did. We don't do that anymore. And I think if we did a little bit of that in this town, even just a little bit, we actually, that's the only thing really that Hollywood can do that's worthwhile. Because as we all learn from this election, nobody gives a fuck what celebrities think. Like we can tweet, we can talk, like people don't care. They don't care. What we do do well is tell stories. And we're not doing the best job right now of telling those stories in a way that gives people. hope. And I think that's part of the problem. That may be like a way over

simplification of things, but I do think that it's incumbent upon us to take a good fucking hard look at that and see what we can do to change. And let me say while you have those thoughts, listen to the lush life, and I'm not just bringing this around in a circle.

What a pleasure. Always. Yeah, thank you. My pleasure. Thank you so much. I don't believe in, Fred and or even why mess around with strife I never was cut out two step and strut out

give me the simple life The fantastic Mr. McFarney Check out his Sinatra album, Lush Life And you heard the man Consider getting the vinyl if you have a record player That's all for our show this week Special thanks to Team Coco If you like this episode, review and

subscribe on Apple Podcast If you like watching your podcasts, these full-length episodes are also on YouTube. Visit YouTube.com slash Team Coco. More for 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 Leow, our executive producers are Adam Sacks, Jeff Ross and myself. Sarah Federovich is our supervising producer. Engineering and Mixing by Joanna Samuel with support from Eduardo Perez. Research by Alyssa Graal. Talent booking by Paula

Davis and Gina Battista. Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Anthony Gen, Mary Steenbergin, and John Osborne.