WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 702 - Rob Reiner

Episode Date: April 28, 2016

Rob Reiner has been around show business his entire life, which might explain why he's excelled in so many different areas. Rob shares stories with Marc about Groucho Marx, the Smothers Brothers, All in the Family, Albert Brooks, This Is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, his dad, his mom, Jack Nicholson, Larry David, and the creation of Seinfeld, all the way up to his new film, Being Charlie, which he made with his son. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated

category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton.

The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. All right, let's do this. How are you? What the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fucksters? What's happening? I'm Mark Maron. This is WTF. Welcome to the show. Thank you for being here. I love you guys'm gonna i'm gonna start expressing my love more by the way my guest today is the uh the hilarious rob reiner who you have to love rob reiner he's made some of the best movies princess bride stand by me spinal tap huh a few good men, pretty fucking good. He was all in the family. But he's a great guy who I was very excited to talk to, who I'd never met before, who I met for the first time the day before he was supposed to come over here at the Gary Shanling Memorial that I told you I was going to. What an amazing, beautiful event that was.

The place was just filled with people that knew gary and you know i told you guys i didn't know gary that well the experience i had with him was really limited to parking his car once at the comedy store when i was 22 and having the interview i had in here with him that Judd Apatow helped facilitate because you know Judd and I have become pretty close and Judd put together I might drop a few names talking about this beautiful event it's not really my nature but it's sort of important to put it into context Judd put together this amazing event with the film footage from Gary's childhood and footage from his television career, you know, bits and pieces of things.

And he sort of was the host of the event. And there was music and there was, you know, people recollecting and reflecting on Gary, one of his Buddhist monk friends from the monastery and community that he helped support and fund spoke. And the love, man, the love. Like, I guess what I'm saying is I didn't really know Gary, but after spending two and

a half hours with these people speaking about him, who loved him and talking about his life and his journey to be open and to be in the present and to be his authentic self, it really changed my life a little bit. It was weird. I felt like when I left the service, it's a somber event, but it was right from the get-go a celebration of Gary Shandling's life. It was stunning. Should I walk you through it? I feel like I should because it was really beautiful. You walk into this big theater and Jeff Goldblum is just sitting on stage playing jazz piano. You know, as people walk in and they're showing slides and pictures of Gary. And then the lights go down and Ryanyan adams johnny depp don was and i don't know who the

piano player was they take the stage and do um and do a song i i think it was maybe a ryan adams song i think it was called wrecking ball or something along those lines and they they play that and they walk off and then jud Judd comes up and opens the show with an emotional sort of reflection on Gary. But it was funny. These are funny people. So there was always some humor running through it. And it was just one after the other.

People that work with Gary, some people you know, some of his close friends. Oh, yeah yeah they did a sketch at the very beginning where hank or jeffrey tambor and um penny uh uh johnson gerald who played um beverly did did a little bit that was very funny they did that in character and then then, yeah, Judd comes up. And it was just so many different people and so many different video montages. It was just stunning. And there was music. You know, E from the Eels went up and played a song called Motherfucker, I believe might have been the name of the song. called Motherfucker, I believe might have been the name of the song. Adam Sandler closed it out by doing My Sweet Lord, the George Harrison song with John Bryan and Don Wise again.

And it was just astounding and really moving and made me want to live a better life. And I guess that's the best you can ask from a reflection of someone else's life. It was just great. Now, if I can get to the other part, it was very hard for me because it was a somber event, but we knew we were there to celebrate Gary. And these were show business people and funny people. So there's a lot of people there. And I'm kind of a fucking fanboy.

I don't know if you know this about me. Perhaps if you listen to this show, certainly know that that i do tend to do that but i'm overwhelmed and i love you know actors and comedians musicians i i just love them yeah it's it's amazing like i still it's very hard for me even now after talking to so many of them and and being in their presence and realizing they're just people they're still sort of mythic to me and i know right away that they're just people but there's some part of me that's still like yeah that like judd kind of told me to sit right up front so i sat right up front with my buddy jerry stall it was next to mark everett from the eels and then right over from jerry like two seats down tom petty sits down it's like he was cool i introduced myself and

even though he seemed like a you know a sweet guy just a regular person but it's fucking tom petty i'm at a memorial service but i'm inside'm like, Tom Petty's right there. Tom Petty's right fucking there. Oh, this is sad, but Tom Petty's right there. All right, they're starting. So there was that element happening for me because I don't go to these things, and I don't ever really feel like I'm in show business most of the time because I work here in the garage.

I do my show, but I don't think feel like I'm in show business most of the time, you know, because I work here in the garage and I do my show, but I don't think anyone watches it. Premieres on IFC May 4th, by the way, new season of Marin. But but it was really incredible. The emotions that were there, but also like I met some people and I don't know if it's wrong of me to talk about it because I wasn't there to meet people. But right behind me, Annette Bening and Warren Beatty were sitting. And, you know, I just turned around and I didn't know they were there. And I'm looking right at Warren Beatty and I choked. I was like, hi, hi, how are you?

Mark Maron. Hi, Warren. Right. Right. Of course. And I couldn't even look at him. I couldn't even hold eye contact. And then Annette Bening, this was really the outside of the emotions that were going on with the memorial.

This was before Annette Bening said she liked this show and that her daughter loved the show and gets a lot out of the show. So this is what I'm telling you. For years, I thought like my father, I talked about my father at his father's funeral and he was a little too chipper you know for a funeral but i realized like you know when you don't see all these people you don't know all these people and you're around certain people and you're excited it's a weird combination of feelings you know i was like i was so excited to see all these people that i have such respect for and that i'm fans of that it was uh you know it was sort of counterintuitive to uh to the to what was supposed to be a somber event, but turned out to be a beautifully deep and hilarious and well-balanced and enlightening night.

And it was all very sweet because it really was a celebration. It was a horrible thing that happened. But, you know, in the wake of it, literally, you have this amazing celebration of someone's life with real emotions and kevin nealon was just astounding he went up there and he did you know a piece of that he had written that was obviously hilarious but he had somehow built the piece to sort of handle his emotions because they were very close and he got very emotional but the comedy that he was doing the piece that he was doing, the piece that he was doing, the stories he was telling, the jokes he was doing, they sort of built as his emotions built. And it seemed as if that he intertwined them intentionally so he could have the feelings that he was having yet still be funny. It was something like I'd never seen before.

It was so impressive and beautiful. And Adam Sandler, who, you know, I don't think he knows me really or likes me necessarily, but he did such a sweet, beautiful job on the George Harrison song, singing it earnestly. Anyways, it was really a beautiful thing. And I'm so glad I went. And Gary Shandling is going to be missed. But I'll tell you, I learned some lessons just from listening to people talk about him and his life.

Just, it was beautiful. It was beautiful. And I'm thinking out loud here, people. I'm just thinking out loud. Like a lot of you have been with me through a lot of stuff over the last six or seven years. And this is sort of the next phase. You know, how do I engage my feelings in my life? I got this beautiful email from a guy after the monologue about empathy and love and grief and whatnot. This just came in.

Subject line, your show helped me today from Chad. He said, hey, Mark, I've been listening for a while. And this is, I'll be honest with you these you know these kind of emails i had no idea that my life would would be so rich as to to have this effect on people's lives and in the gratitude and humility that i am able to experience from the feedback it's it's just like it's so great it's better than anything it's better than money it's better than than than you know being known any of that shit. To sort of like, you know, to reach out and connect. Hey, Mark, I've been listening for a while. I love your show.

You're amazing at it and I'm always entertained by it. And I usually get something from each episode. Today though, today was different. My dog, Teddy has been battling cancer for almost a year. He lost a leg to it. He almost died in surgery and he's had to wear a cone and deal with the pain this whole time. And you know what? He's been awesome through it all. No whining. He bounces back every time he

needs something done and he hasn't let it dampen his spirits. He's a special little guy and he touches people. The vets all love him. People on the street stop and pet him and give him belly rubs. People across the street come to see Teddy. And after that, more often than not, they tell us how amazing he is and how lucky we are to have him. But my girlfriend and I found out yesterday that the cancer is spreading and it's not treatable. He's fought hard, but it's too much for him. And that breaks my heart. I don't know how I'm going to deal with it when the time comes. Today, the day after I found out the horrible news, I listened to your Steve-O episode, 701, number 701, and the intro hit me. It hit me hard because of you and what you said. I'm feeling this grief. I'm feeling all of

it, and it's a terrible feeling to feel. I usually shut out my emotions. I'm the man's man that doesn't cry, but I'm bawling today off and on. I don't care anymore. And listening to your show made me okay with it. I'm going to cry now when I need to, and I'm going to feel all of this and love him in the time he has instead of distancing to make it hurt less. Your show did that. Your show did this to me. It allowed me to open up and be emotional in a way I haven't in at least 30 years. It allowed me to open up and be emotional in a way I haven't in at least 30 years. After your intro, I stopped and went to the restroom at work and I cried for about 10 minutes. But you know what?

When I came back and started the interview, I laughed. And I haven't laughed in a little while, but I did today. Your podcast helps. It helped me a lot. It's opened me up emotionally. It's pointed out flaws I didn't know I had. Your intros have made me a better person, and your interviews have opened me up to other points of view and to the interconnectedness and shared experience of life.

I wanted you to know the difference it made and to say thank you, Mark. Thank you, Chad. P.S., I'm going to include a picture of Teddy just so you can see. This is our special little guy, and here's a picture of this sweet, sweet dog dog and i'm sorry you're going through that chad and thank you for the email see this is this this is what i'm learning and also was sort of an undercurrent of a lot of what people were saying about channeling and about what's important in life i'm starting to i'm starting to feel that now that i'm not spinning out all the time in fear i'm starting to feel that. Now that I'm not spinning out all the time in fear, I'm starting to realize, and I think you guys realized it ahead of me, that this is what life

is, is having these kinds of connections, sharing this kind of stuff with people and having an impact on each other's lives through the human experience not through distancing ourselves from it trying to get past the panic and desperation and entitlement and self-centeredness and that kind of stuff now this isn't going to turn into some spiritual show did i mention i was sitting like almost right next to tom petty did i mention that and i talked to annette benning did i mention did i mention that she likes the show it's it's still about that too and it's still it's still about funny right right so most days right all right so i watched uh rob briner's new film that his son co-wrote about his son's experience based on his son's experience uh with and rehab and some of Rob's experience as well.

And we kind of talked about that a bit. That movie's called Being Charlie. It comes out on May 6th. As I said, it was co-written by his son, Nick Reiner. And this is me and Rob Reiner. I had a lovely time talking to him. I got a real kick. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence.

Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly.

This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. How long were you in Albuquerque? I was there from third grade through high school, and my father's still there. So you get down there a lot?

Not much. You know, I wish I got along better with him, and I compelled then you'd want to go exactly it was like the thing we saw when we were at the gary shandling memorial right you know and it's with his mother i thought that was an amazing thing it was hard for me i think on some of i felt a little embarrassed because i don't know if i act appropriately because i don't go to those things uh not not that there's many of them necessarily but but they're going to be more and more i know mark as we as we go along i know but i get so excited to see everybody and i'm always amazed when people know me because i'm like you know i'm this outlier and so i i see you talking

to billy crystal and i'm like oh my god it's it's rob reiner and billy crystal and billy crystal and i'm acting like it's a wake, but I'm like, oh, this is terrific. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's what's terrible, too, is people that you know and you hang out with and stuff, and then you see them in those circumstances. And as you get older, you don't see people as much anymore.

No, that's true. And why do you think that is? Time. I think it has to do, I really believe, you know, they all, that whole thing they say where you're born alone, you die alone.

Yeah. That bit. Yeah. Well, I think what happens as you get older, you start thinking about, uh, you know,

that. Yeah. And also that you don't want to spend any time with anybody that's going to annoy you or make it uncomfortable. And as you get older, you realize that there are more and more people that annoy you. So you limit. Your world keeps narrowing and getting narrower. This happens at a subconscious level or a conscious level? I think it's unconscious.

I don't think you're consciously saying, I i'm gonna narrow my world now no you you think you know i don't really like that person that much so why should i say you know it's like it's like when you're young you'd never leave a movie theater until the movie's over right now you go i don't really like why do i have to watch the last hour of this piece of crap? You know, because I have such a limited time on the planet. But then, but also you get up earlier when you get older. That's killing me. That's true. What the fuck is that?

I think it's God saying this. You're running out of time. Yeah. You better take a couple more hours today. Yeah. But then it takes longer to pee. So, so you maybe that's why you have to get up earlier because you got to factor in all the time it takes to pee i pee i get up all night and pee i don't know you don't do that i do i think i get

up you know two or three times a night it's you know and then i can't go back to sleep right but i the annoying thing though but i don't know we're we're all kind of annoying i mean if you really like i mean if you really think of your friends, I mean, who are they? And I guess it's just who you can tolerate. And also, I think you have family stuff, you have work stuff, and now with phones and computers, it's like all the time is eaten up, unnecessarily eaten up. Yes. And you fake, you trick yourself into believing that you're actually either working or communicating with people.

Right. You know, I'm texting, I'm emailing, I'm doing. You're not talking to anybody. Exactly. You're talking to a computer. Right. And actually talking to people is like it's exhausting. Like we're doing now.

It becomes exhausting. It is exhausting. If you could text somebody, it's like, oh, boy, what a thrill. I'm so happy to not have to talk to him. So, but I look at this, I look at the Gary Shandling thing last night and I'm so happy to not have to talk to him. But I look at the Gary Shandling thing last night, and I'm thinking, look at all the friends he had and all the people who he was close to. I know.

And I'm saying, is that true? Yeah. Is that true? I don't know. I only met him once when I talked to him in here, and I was always a fan, and I'm friends with Apatow. So I don't know, but I was always a fan you know and I'm friends with Apatow so I don't know but I was sort of amazed like these people he sounded like he was uh he was like a mentor a buddha and a guy that

he sounds like he wasn't doing the work that everyone gets hung up on but instead he was just sitting around talking to people about what they were working on he's helping Sarah Silverman and he's everybody and helping Apatow it It seems like that basketball game was the foundation of modern show business. Yeah, I know. My wife kept saying, how come we don't have anything like that? You just like to sit in your room. You don't do anything. Why can't we have people come?

I said, because I don't like any of these people. I don't want to speak out of school or anything, but I had Gary Marshall in here the other day. Yeah, Gary. Yeah, he's a great guy. And there's a couple of people have said that you had the best parties at your house when you were married to Penny. Yes, it's true. When I was married to Penny, it was like a fraternity house. I mean, we had, you know, it was Albert Brooks and Louise Lasser and Jim Brooks and John Belushi.

Yeah. Everybody in Chevy and everybody came to the house. So you did that? you know it was albert brooks and louise lasser and jim brooks and john belushi yeah everybody and chevy and everybody came to the house so you did that yeah i did it but that's when you're young right here's the thing yeah you look at this show like friends right friends the show friends it's so funny and and and you've got all these people yeah they're they're in their i guess their 20s or something right and they're hanging out with each other and I guess that's what you do you go in packs but when you get into your 30s, your 40s, your 50s

you don't do that anymore you got kids, you hang out with them and then when you get older you don't have that hey let's go and hang out at the coffee shop, they don't do it maybe you get one guy I mean I talked to your father. I was at the house you grew up in, I think.

Yeah. I went over there. See, that's why, I think that's why Jerry has comedians in cars going for coffee. Right. Because the fact of the matter is, if he didn't have that show, he wouldn't be with anybody.

Yeah, I don't, yeah. You know, this is his opportunity to get out of the house and hang out with somebody. That's right. And that's why I think he goes on the road to get out of the house. Yeah. I mean, it's not like he needs money.

No. He doesn't. He just likes to do it. Yeah. I never understand that. You see these guys that have a billion dollars. It's like, why are you doing anything? Yeah, because they like to do it.

Yeah, exactly. Or if they don't do it, they're just sitting around going, when am I going to die? Yeah. When does this happen? Yeah. But I went to your father's's house and he says he hangs out with mel every night mel mel and my dad every single night really every night yeah virtually every night that's really something listen it's wonderful that they have each other they met each

other when they were in their 20s you know show shows and to have that kind of bond and that bond to stick and they make each other laugh they enjoy each other's company they both lost their spouses recently so they have that and they'd say that you know they watch any movie that has secure the perimeter in it they they watch it do you go over there yeah i've been over there i was over there one time when they got into a huge fight over uh it was an appearance that mel did on on the on the carson show and and uh they fight over, it was an appearance that Mel did on the Carson show. And they were arguing about, it was like the Sunshine Boys.

They were arguing about who got the, which line got the biggest laugh. And Mel was a guy who played an expert on wine, could detect any wine. And they blindfolded him, they gave him a glass of wine, he tasted it and he went, I think it's a red, it's a Cab it's a it's a cabernet it's 1970 and carson says no no that's not it's not

he says okay wait a minute let me try he takes another sip oh yes it's a red it's a bordeaux it's a 1980 no it's not that he says all right let me taste it in okay i got it it's a white and it's and that was a big laugh and then says, that's the line that got the big laugh. And I said, no. My dad says, no, it was the line after that. It was the line after. He takes another sip and he says, oh, I know what it is.

It's chiclets. And that got a big laugh too. And Mel said, no, but the white wine got the big laugh. My dad says, yes, but it's not as funny as the chiclets because here's a guy who was a wine expert who couldn't tell the difference between a liquid and a solid that's the funny part so they yelled at it yelling at each other and you're sitting there i'm sitting there i'm

loving it loving it yeah well you know who else i talked to a norman lear i talked to yeah and he said uh about you that uh that like i guess you vacationed with his family or you lived somewhere? Well, no. Well, here's the thing. My dad and mom used to go with a group of other people. They were the five families. It's not like the Italians.

It was Larry Gelbart and his wife, Pat, Norman Lear and Francis, Dom DeLuise and Carol, and Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft, and my folks would go and they would rent a house together and they called it Jenenveldt. For those of you who are not Jewish it means heaven, the other side, you know when you die you go to heaven, Jenenveldt. That's what heaven looks like. Yeah, they have fun. It's you know five Jewish families sitting around making each other laugh so yeah that's what they did now the fact is i i used as a kid used to go over to norman lear's house all the time and he was actually the first person that ever thought i was funny right that's what

he said he said you you had the demeanor of an old jewish man yeah at like seven yes absolutely i i was playing i don't remember it but i was playing jacks with his daughter we were about seven or eight and i was like no here's what you do you don't know you don't pick the ball up you put that thing and i was doing all that yeah and norman thought it was a funny and he told my dad he says your son is really funny and my father's that kid no no that brooding kid that sits in the in the corner he's so sad not funny not funny but they they uh and then i finally bought norman lear's house really yes well it was actually uh henry fonda's house oh yeah is that where you live now yeah yeah yeah well that's years later many years later yeah at nine yeah nine and then about

about 30 years later bought the house 32 yeah it's funny your father uh you just said said you were the brooding kid i was i was but you know but you talked to your father and within seconds he'll be my my son's friend albert yes the funniest guy i've ever seen in my life he was the funniest and albert albert was a prodigy at age 16 comedy prodigy yes a comedy prodigy at age 16 he could make not just adults laugh yeah but professional i mean you know world-class professional comedians yeah my dad mel he'd make them laugh at age 16 it was an amazing thing yeah he said he used to do a stick in the curtain and yeah what he did was he played a uh the greatest escape artist greater than houdini and he basically said here just uh he took a a napkin and you just draped

it over his hands he said it's good enough there was not even tied yeah and he put a thing in his mouth you know just a napkin in his mouth and he went behind the drapes there was nothing and all you heard from behind the drapes was, help, I can't breathe, I can't breathe. He had nothing to stop his hands from taking the napkin out of his nose and out of his mouth and he could just walk out from behind the drapes.

I can't breathe. That was it. That was the bit? That was the bit. And you guys have been friends since you were what? Since we were 16. That's crazy, right? And you're still friends now?

Yeah. He came up to me last night, you know night because he won't come on the show. He won't? No. Why? I don't know. You tell me. You know why?

Because you don't pay him. That's why. Really? Is that it? I think that's it. It's not because he doesn't like to talk about himself? No, no. He's happy to talk.

He just doesn't want to waste all that good comedy. What do you think it would take? I don't know. A limo and 500 bucks? I don't know a limo and 500 bucks i don't know but he's but he's but he's brilliant he is no i know i like him he's the most brilliant yeah and here's what's weird so you've got carl reiner yeah and mel brooks right you've got rob reiner and albert brooks that's hilarious and also jim brooks who's also a friend. And then my son, Nick Reiner, is best friends with Joey Brooks, who's Mel Brooks's, I mean, Jim Brooks's son.

Really? So you got three generations of Reiners and Brooks, and all the Reiners are Reiners, and none of the Brookses are Brookses. You've got Mel as Kaminsky, Jim as Bernstein, and... Really? Yes, yes. That's funny. Who was the third one? Albert is Einstein. Yeah. Everyone

changed. They like Brooks. That fit. Not Jewish. Not too Goya. Yeah, exactly. It can kind of in the middle. Yeah, I worked. I just did the fourth season of my show and I've seen I work with Sally Struthers. Yeah, for one episode and she had lovely things to say about you.

Oh, that's nice. You see, in my fantasy world, because I don't consider myself to be actually in show business, I think you guys just talk to each other all the time. I still, like, I'm like, you got a call once a week, right? No. No. You can spend all the years on television.

No, no. I mean, you know, listen, when you're doing a show like that, eight years, you're as intimate as you're going to get. I mean, you're a family. But mean, you know, listen, when you're doing a show like that, eight years, you're as intimate as you're going to get. Sure. I mean, you're a family. Yeah. But then, you know,

you move your different ways and you go on to different things. No hard feelings. You know, we are, we're like the, every time I make a movie, I feel like we're a traveling circus.

Yeah. You know? Yeah. You go from one town to the next. Yeah. You're a circus. You're very,

you're packed together. Yeah. And then you're on to the next thing. Well, what kind of director are you? Nice i'm pretty nice i'm pretty good i i like to have a nice set i like to have a nice experience because i figured this out early on but i really understand it now is it's all about the time you have on the planet right so if it's horrible and crappy and terrible yeah then that's all you have.

So might as well have a nice, fun experience. And maybe you'll make a good movie. Maybe you won't. But at least the time you're spending is you're enjoying it. Well, I just watched the most recent one that they sent me that I guess the reason why we got you today was the Charlie movie, Being Charlie. Being Charlie, yeah. The back story on that is your son co-wrote it, you directed it,

and it was based somewhat on your son's experience? Yes. My son, when he was 15 years old, started having problems with drugs. Yeah. And as parents, your first charge is to keep your children safe. And so I didn't know what to do.

Michelle didn't know what to do. Michelle didn't know what to do. We didn't know what to do. So he went into different programs, rehab programs in wilderness and different places. And none of it worked for him. He'd come out. He'd relapse. He'd come out.

He'd relapse. And as he was doing this, one of the last places he went was this place, Promises. He met this guy, Matt Alice Soffin, who's one of the writers on the film. And they started writing about what their experiences had been and what they had gone through. And when he got out and he was now doing better and feeling good, and now he's 19, he started writing with Matt. He wrote a half hour, which was funny, but it wasn't really touching any of the really deep things. And I said, you know, Nick, you could go a little deeper with this. Why don't

you try? And he, he tried and he did an hour comedy drama and we tried to sell it. We couldn't. And then I said, you know, maybe you can make a film out of this. Cause I think there's something in here about not only what you went through, but how it affected, uh, your mom and dad and how it affects. so we started working on it together and over the period of like a year we came up with this thing and it was like it was the most personal uh thing i've ever been involved in because i mean we're dealing with you know his relationship to me and what he went through and i'm learning more and more and learning probably the stuff i should have known sure early on that would have helped me help him a little bit more.

And it brought us very much closer together. And we made this film. And I think it's one of the most emotional and satisfying creative experiences I've ever had. That's a great story. And I got like 16 years sober. And I was sort of, whenever I see it depicted on television or in a movie, I'm not critical, but I'm like, let's see if they get it.

And you got it. You know, you got the part of it that is, you got that relentless, unexplainable nature of the disease of addiction. Yeah. And like, you know, I'm watching that thing. I watched it all last night. And my brain, and God knows you must know that just in general there's some part of you it's like it's going to be a happy ending the other girl he's going to get the girl and and and it's it's not an unhappy ending but it's a difficult yeah it's a it's a

it's a tough ending but it's it's a hopeful it's hopeful and honest it's hopeful and honest as as he is going to struggle uh his relationship isn't perfect with his father, but it's better than it was. And it's going to get better. And he's off on his own trying to make his way in the world and do the best he can. It doesn't mean that that kid never relapses. Sure, right. You know, I mean, that's part of what you have to go through. But that's a ballsy way to end a movie.

Yeah. Well, it's honest. It's honest. And you know what's interesting, Mark, is that is that you know when we were working on it uh-huh the first draft he was like the father character was like an asshole i mean it was just a balls-out asshole yeah and i said to nick knowing how he had felt about me you know back then yeah i couldn't see you being that no we have a good relationship now and it's gotten way better and it keeps keeps getting better. And I said to him, just as a filmmaker, I said, you know, you can't have a character who's, you know, so one-dimensional. Right.

If it's going to be interesting, you've got to make it, you know, three-dimensional with all the sides. And he's like, yeah, but the guy's a prick. He's a prick. He's not a good guy. And as the thing progressed, that was tough for me to hear. But as the thing progressed, he was tough for me to hear, but as the thing progressed, he came to me at one point, he says, you know, dad, I think the father is a little bit too, too much of an asshole. We've got to make them a little bit more. I said, okay, let's try,

you know, and this was as our relationship was changing. And then the last scene in the movie, which is like you say, it's yeah all roses and you know we changed that scene a hundred times while we were making the film right up till the day we shot it and that always reflected how things were moving uh in terms of our relationship well so you i imagine you got closer to him oh yeah during this process absolutely like i couldn't see you being as much of a cold guy as the guy in... I wasn't. I wasn't. But I had to be strong, at least to what they told me.

Sure, sure. And it's not my nature. Yeah. My nature is not to be... You want to help. ...the authoritarian, you know, tough love guy. I'm not that kind of guy. Yeah, you don't feel that way.

They told me that all these, like we say in the movie, everybody with a desk and a diploma... Sure. ...tells me, you got to do this because otherwise you're kidding. Got to detach with love. And it was hard. I couldn't do, I mean, I had a hard time. Now I'm learning a little bit more about what his situation is and I can be more of who I am.

And he's doing good? Yeah, he's doing good. How many kids you got? I have three. Yeah? He's the middle one. Oh yeah? And you have an older one?

I have an older one who's 20. He's going to be 25. Show business? Well, he's a broadcast journalist. Oh, okay. And he works in Houston. He's on the air a couple times a day. And what's the younger one do?

The younger one is just, she's 18. She's just graduating high school and going off to college next fall. It's exciting. Yeah. I'm the empty nest now. So my wife has the, you know. Oh, she got stuck. Yeah, she's stuck with me.

This is where it begins. Yeah. The real challenge. Yes, yeah. It is. I know, I know. It is. I know because they're like, you know, like my brother's going through it a little bit.

His kid just went off to college and and one of them's away at school, and he's like, so now what? Yeah. You know, when you're married, we're married now 27 years, you have all these distractions, the kids, the things, the things, and then all of a sudden, oh, it's you? Yeah. Do I like you?

I like you. I love you. But what we're discovering is that we do like each other. Oh, that's good. Yeah, yeah. That's a nice thing to realize. And we like to hang with each other. To realize.

That's her in the house, right? That's her in the house. Look, if she didn't like me, she wouldn't drive all the way to Glendale or wherever the fuck we are. Eagle Rock. Yeah, yeah. She came here with me.

Yeah, I hope she's not disappointed. Well, I hope not. If I have to bring her in, I'll show her Obama's cup or something. There you go. Yeah, I'm very honored the fact that I'm sitting in the same place that Barack Obama's. Oh, yeah. It's great. It it's great to have you i would have had you before but you

wouldn't have known that it was a thing you would have got the offer and you would have been like what is this i asked you last night at the thing i said has the fact that uh barack obama been on your show has that elevated yeah i could get rob re. It's a big break for me. Yeah, I get it. No, but I would imagine it does help. I mean, it legitimizes in a way. Well, it makes people aware of the medium. Like, I think a lot of people, not even of a certain age, but they, you know, you go on these media junkets or whatever.

For years, people would come up here and go, what the fuck is this? Where am I? Am I in television? Is it going to be television? Did we just talk? Who are you? is this your house and now like the difference is like so this is where obama was yeah that's that's the difference you know what i mean yeah they put it on the map a little bit that's the other thing that's good is you bring the people into your garage yeah

and you just start talking yeah what else he's supposed to do well i know there's no pomp and circumstance i know well there's a little pomp but very little circumstance i saw some pomp sitting over there in the cat box yeah yeah there's a little bit a little bit yeah you should clean that i gotta clean the pomp out of the cat box so all right so let's go back then you started as an actor now when you because i'm fascinated with the the world that you guys grew up in because it as time goes on i realized that show business was a fairly intimate business and that you know your father's generation you know there were a few studios three tv networks and people ran into each other people kind of knew each other and and there was a a you a community that seemed kind of uh close yeah yeah and you grew up in that i did i did and and

it was it's strange because people have asked me so many times, what was it like growing up in that household? There was Mel Brooks and Sid Caesar and Norman Lear and Larry Gelbart. And I said, when you're a kid, you don't know. It's just, this is what you have. And it's not until you go over to some of your friends' house, you realize they're not quite as funny over there. It's a little duller. These are just the guys your dad works with.

It's a little duller at Paul Schindlerler's house at the lawyer's kid's house yeah but but when was it sort of a just an assumption from an early age you're like i'm going to be in show business i'm going to do this no i didn't i didn't think of that i mean it's interesting i like to play ball i love playing baseball i love playing sports and stuff. And it wasn't until I got into like my senior year in high school where I said, oh, wait a minute. And I got into a drama class and I said, wait a minute. Where'd you go to high school? To Beverly Hills High School. Right.

So that's the high school. Okay. So here's the kids that were in this drama class. All right. Yeah. First of all, Richard Dreyfuss was there. Albert Brooks. Yeah.

Julie Cobb, who was Lee J. Cob j cobb's daughter oh he was great uh melinda marks who was groucho marx's daughter really yeah oh yeah it was crazy but all of a sudden i said hey i like these people i feel comfortable around these people they felt familiar and so i said oh maybe this is what i do could that have had something to do with the Jewishness of the situation? Well, there was a Jew-ness. Yeah. There was a Jew-osity. What, Groucho's kid was there?

Did you see Groucho at events? No, I saw him at the house, though. He came to our house. He did? Yeah, he was at the house. Yeah, we had some, there was some. He's a little older than your dad, though, right? Yeah, he was a lot older.

Steve Allen came over. We had people like that. And then Lee J. Cobb, that guy was something. Yeah, I can do a perfect Lee J. Cobb imitation. Although, it probably is not as good on podcast or radio because you don't see the face. You want to try? But 12 Angry Men.

I mean, did you see, by the way, Amy Schumer's takeoff of 12 Angry Men? I did, yeah, yeah, yeah. How fucking great is that? It's funny. Unbelievable. Jesus, it was funny. Anyway, Lee J. Coboff of 12 Angry Men. I did, yeah, yeah, yeah. How fucking great is that? It's funny. Unbelievable. She's very funny. Jesus was funny.

Anyway, Lee J. Cobb in 12 Angry Men. And you'll get a little more of a giggle because you'll see my face. Okay. The others won't. Everything, every single thing says he's guilty. What do you think? I'm an idiot or something?

The old man saw him right there. Pretty good. Very good. It doesn't come in handy because nobody knows who Lee J. Cobb is. Not anymore. No. So when did you start? So you do the acting class. Now Dreyfuss, I assume he

was always like he is. He started professionally acting when he was like 13 duddy kravitz right or the graduate even before duddy kravitz one line the graduate should i call the cops i'll call the cops should i call the cops yeah but even before that he did he was on uh what was it was a sally field the gidget oh yeah and he did ben casey and he did so he was a working actor when you were in high school. No, he was a working actor. He did theater and all this stuff. Yeah, yeah. But he wasn't from a show business family though, was he?

No, no, no. You like him? Yeah, I mean, you know, he was one of the... My first marriage, I was married to Penny Marshall and he was one of my three best men. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was a good man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a character. He wasn't the best man, he was a good man. Oh, he was one of the

side... Who was the best man? no albert was there and my other friend phil michigan yeah michigan's a good jewish name it is yeah so when when do you start acting when did it happen well i i started the first thing the first job i got i was an apprentice at the bucks county playhouse i just building sets painting scenery and then the next then the next year, first year out of college, I went and started acting in a company called the Priscilla Beach Theater. Here in town? No, that was in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Really? And Albert came with me.

We were there together. You and Albert were in a theater group in Massachusetts? Yes. He just came out? Did he go to college with you or you just said, this is a thing we're doing this summer? No, we're going to go this summer. We're going're gonna go was it a prestigious thing no no it's nothing prestigious at all all i can tell you is that we had we lived up in a loft in a barn area of the loft and there was no toilet paper and one of the guys says this is terrible i gotta wipe my ass

with old varieties you know so it was So it was not luxury at all. So you just wanted Albert to come out to have the summer camp? Well, fun. We'll act together. We'll do some stuff. Yeah. And so I did that for a while. Then I came back to California.

I went to UCLA. And I started my own. Did you go to film school? No, I actually was in the theater school. And I started my own improv group. Really? Yeah, I was friends with some of the people up in the committee in San Francisco. Yeah. I used to go up there. And then I started my own improv group. Really? Yeah, I was friends with some of the people up in the committee in San Francisco.

I used to go up there and then I started my own group called The Session. Rick Dreyfuss was in it and a number of other actors. I acted in it and directed it. Comedy driven or anything? Comedy, yeah, comedy. We did a lot.

And then we were together for about a year and then Larry and I broke off and we did a double act. We played in clubs. We played like The Hungry... Larry. Larry Bishop yeah this is Joey Bishop's son yeah Larry Bishop yeah Joey so here's what happened we get we're doing comedy clubs yeah well we got booked into all the clubs we got booked in Hungry Eye and uh the Mr. Kelly's and Rooster Tail really and Paul Mr. Kelly's and Rooster Tail. Really? And Paul. Mr. Kelly's in Chicago?

Yeah, yeah, all of them. And then Paul's Mall, you know, in Boston. Bishop and Reiner? Yeah, Reiner and Bishop, actually. Sorry, yeah. Yeah, I know. That's okay. Yeah.

So we get booked in. The first gig we have is in the Hungry Eye in San Francisco. And we're opening for Carmen McRae, who is a really good jazz singer. And in the little room, they had a little room, was Mort Saul. Remember, he used to do all the stuff about the Kennedy. With his sweater and his paper. Yeah, you're right. But he did a whole thing about the Kennedy assassination.

That was his big thing. What year was this that you're talking? This is 66. And you're what, 22? I'm 19 years old. 19. 19 years old. And we're doing a double act.

We open for, and we're getting paid. I mean, 19 19 years old and we're doing a double act we open for uh and we're getting paid i mean we're getting like money real money and larry says to me he says rob i don't know if i like this yeah i said what are you talking about yeah he said you know my dad that's all he ever did he was in clubs his whole life joey bishop you know that's all he i said i don't want to do it i don't want to be i said larry we're booked in every club in the country you see i'm not doing this anymore though i don't want to do it. I don't want to be. I said, Larry, we're booked at every club in the country. He said, I'm not doing this anymore, though. I don't want to. So we canceled the whole tour.

You didn't even get to do that? No, I didn't get to any of the things. So you were booked at Mr. Kelly's? I was booked everywhere. And you did one gig? We did the one gig, and then he said, no, I don't want to do this anymore. Oh, my God. What did he end up doing, that guy?

Well, he did a lot of biker movies, and he's done some movies. Directing or acting? Directing, acting. He's done some stuff with Quentin Tarantino. Still guy? Well, he did a lot of biker movies, and he's done some movies. Directing or acting? Directing, acting. He's done some stuff with Quentin Tarantino. Still around? Yeah, he's still around. So that ended, and then I joined the committee. Was that Fred Willard, Hessman?

Who was the committee? The committee was Hessman was in it, Lee French, Carl Gottlieb. Oh, yeah. Who else was in it? But not Willard. Willard was- No, Willard was not and he was in uh he had he was he was with uh greco uh-huh as greco and willard and then he joined

ace trucking ace trucking company right right right so i was with the the committee they came to to la yeah and i went in that company and then uh tommy smothers came in one time and he hired me and Carl Gottlieb, who eventually went on to write Jaws and The Jerk and stuff. And he hired us to write a summer show for Glen Campbell. It was called The Summer Brothers Smothers Show. And Glen Campbell was a star and that's launched his career. And then we worked on The Smothers Brothers for a season. It's so funny that these guys were these Glenn Campbell was a huge star yeah he was a big star and a big star good

guitar player the best yeah he considered by many the best session guitar player yeah ever yeah he played on every rock and roll album the wrecking crew ever yeah the wrecking crew yeah all the Beach Boys stuff yeah yeah everything yeah so you're working with Tommy and yeah well I was writing I mean I was the youngest I was 21 and Steve Martin was 23 and we were kind of thrown together because we were the youngest too so we wrote you're fucking kids yeah we were kids and and did you write with Steve or you just kind of pitched around no I was paired off with him we wrote some good sketches one of the sketches we wrote they here's what would happen they would they would throw things out you know the day before we're supposed to tape the sensors would come and say you can't do this it's too off the you know off the charts so you know the alan blind mason we say well who has anything does anybody have anything and i said well steve and i

just wrote this thing it's a satire of a Hollywood premiere. It's like a red carpet and they interview all the actors and we did a whole thing. He said, let's hear it. So Steve and I act out the whole thing. We do the whole thing. People laugh and they love it and love it. And then Alan says, I don't know.

I don't think so, no. So it doesn't get on. Two weeks later, they drop another sketch from the show and Alan says, wait a minute, what about that Hollywood premiere thing? That was funny. let's hear that again we do the whole thing again nah we did like three or four times they just wanted us to perform they didn't care it never got on the air but they liked seeing you guys do it yeah they liked it but we did write that we did write the first fart joke ever done on uh on national television really yeah yeah it was a pat paulson played a uh the

guy who was the president of the acme novelty company yeah and he was doing you know the the pucker gum and the the hot gum and the dribble glass and everything and at one point he sits down on a chair and you hear a big like this and he says ah somebody slipped a whoopee cushion in under me and then he gets up and of course there's no whoopee cushion there there's a big victory big victory for us yeah so so was that uh but you didn't you didn't want to necessarily be a writer in television well i you know i mean that was to me the greatest thing in the world at the age 21 i could get that job and stuff you did a bunch of episodes yeah well we did a whole year i mean a whole year with the smothers but yeah yeah so it's you and steve and was martin mole there uh no he

wasn't there we had uh uh carl gottlieb and uh john john oh geez we had so many good albert brother yeah bob einstein yeah he was there oh wow good yeah murray roman we had a lot of good people that's That's amazing. And so you really learned how to do it, to get it from the page to the guy. Yeah, you learn about it. I mean, I had one thing that drove me crazy because I wrote a piece.

There was a song called, it was Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, and it was a song where he said are you kissing somebody else or so what was the song damn it I can't remember it woman woman have you got cheating on your mind that was cheating and so I said here's the here's the thing Tommy you're you're with this girl yeah and and you're singing the song to her and while you're singing a guy is just tonguing your girlfriend just tonguing and he said yeah but i would see it i said but that's the joke the joke is that you're singing and asking her have you got cheating on your mind and she's right there doing it yeah and

he says no but that's it so now it goes on the air that was shooting it and as every time he said have you got cheating on your mind he'd look the other way and the guy would be kissing her. And then when he turned back, he wouldn't be kissing her. And then after the thing, he says, see, it didn't work. I said, it didn't work because you didn't do what I told you to do. You got to kiss her while she's saying cheating. Anyway, when you're a young kid, they don't listen to you. when you're a young kid they don't listen to you the way that uh that you uh you get excited i can't imagine that when you and albert brooks talk that anybody like people must be just sitting

around going like oh my god well here's the thing here it goes well here's the thing about albert albert is the funniest human being i've ever met in my life and And when he starts, you clear out. You know, it's like a challenge dance. Everybody goes and does. But when Albert starts, everybody stops. And I've been in groups with Robin Williams and Chevy Chase Ballou. I don't care who's there.

They all stop to listen to Albert. And I'll remember one time, I'll never forget, he started in they stopped it was at a party yeah and just killed i mean just killed and then he finished right he finished and then he left he left the party about 20 minutes later the hostess of the party calls me and it calls me over and says albert's on the phone i said what what i get on the phone i said albert what's up what's up he says listen you got to do me a favor i said what he said i left my keys in the house in the apartment there can you i can't come back i can't come back and get them

can you just get me my keys and bring them down to me? He had finished his performance. He wouldn't go back. So I got the keys and I brought it to him. He had his big exit. Oh, no, he couldn't come back. He couldn't go back. It was the right move. Yeah.

No, Albert's the most brilliant person I ever... He did a routine once on The Tonight Show. He played a mime. And I don't know if you ever saw it but he he was in white face yeah and he had a leotard a black leotard and he comes out and he never stops talking the entire time he just says look here i pulled the rope you cannot see the rope there is no rope here but i am pulling anyway and i it was brilliant, you know, but it got no laughs. Everybody thought, you know, it's just like the worst mime ever, you know.

Right. No laughs. So now two weeks later, cars, actually my dad was subbing for cars that night. The next two weeks, they called him. They said, Albert, do you want to come back on the Tonight Show? And he said, and by the way, he never tried out any of his routines in a club. He just put them on the air. That was it.

So next two weeks, I said, Albert, what are you going to do? He says, I'm going to do the mime piece. I said, what are you, crazy? He said, the mime piece? You got no laughs. He said, it's funny. I said, I know it's funny, but nobody laughed. So he said, I'm doing it.

He goes on. He starts the exact same piece with the talking and the thing. And Carson, again, nobody's laughing at the top. All of a sudden, Carson starts to giggle. And now the audience sees that they're digging it, you know? And the place explodes. He did it twice in a month? Same thing, within a month.

But your dad wasn't hosting. No, that was Carson. Carson had never seen the bit. Oh, your dad was hosting? My dad had seen the bit. Oh, right, right. He knew what it was. Right.

Carson had never seen it. He starts to laugh, and he literally fell off his chair, and the audience got the cue. Oh, that's insane. And so it taught me a lesson that sometimes you got to just stay with, if it's funny. And also, the fact is that if they were taking it seriously, he allowed them to realize that. Yes. But it's so funny at that point in time that they didn't trust Johnny enough to know that he didn't hire the worst mime in the world. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Like, how stupid do people got to be? So when do you start doing the All in the Family? Well, I was, like I said said i was like 21 when i did uh smothers smothers and then i was like 23 i started writing for andy griffith uh he had a show no this was after the andy griffith variety show this no it was a sitcoms called the headmaster he played a headmaster of like a progressive uh high school yeah and i wrote for that. And I auditioned for All in the Family. And Norman liked it.

He saw this episode that I wrote I actually acted in. And he gave me a part. I was only 23 at the time when we started. 24 when it came out. It's amazing how young you guys were when you were in the business. I mean, it was happening. Yeah. And so how long did it take for that to gel?

Well, the thing about it is when it first came on the air, CBS was like disclaimers. Basically, the views on this show do not reflect the attitudes of the network. Really? Basically, it said, you know, if you want to watch this, we don't want to have anything to do with it. You do whatever you want. You watch it, but we don't really. They didn't promote it or anything.

And then it was on for 13 weeks, and then 13 weeks over the summer, and after 26 weeks, people picked up on it. It took that long. Then it went through the roof, yeah. Yeah. And did you, like the comedy on that was so beautiful yeah all of it was so the relationships were so beautiful yeah that's what was great about i mean it was real it was honest i mean people we were arguing about all the issues that would you know of the day the vietnam war the racism and we always

did everything yeah and and what was your relationship like with Norman? Good. Yeah? Good. He knew me from the time I was a little kid, yeah. Did you learn things from him in terms of, like, comedy and how to balance stuff? Well, what I learned from him, the most important thing I learned from him is to go as far as you can

with something. In other words, don't accept, you know, dig further go deeper make it make it edgier do more I mean he I guess he's got the biggest set of balls of anybody I know yeah show business and and I got that you can you can push it right you can really push it it was beyond the edge of the envelope I mean we're way outside the envelope because yeah the envelope was smaller than like in there was a the so and the war and stuff like you know what was going on in hollywood because you're at that age you know you were draftable right yeah and then what happened with your peer group and i mean everything in show business is changing your

father's generation doesn't necessarily know what the hell's happening anymore yeah no my father walked again marched in the moratorium yeah against the war my mother uh was uh part of this group another mother for peace uh they wrote you know that she helped design this poster uh war is unhealthy for children and other living things that was a very big thing during that time but uh yeah i mean the the war was the divided the country and uh you know we could have gotten killed. I mean, you know, Dreyfus became a conscientious objector. There were guys I knew that went to Canada, others that went to jail.

It was a tough time. Yeah, and you were on that show, so you were confronting all that stuff. That was seven years. Yeah, eight years, yeah. And what did you learn from Carol O'Connor as an actor, I imagine? Well, what I learned a lot from him, which is if you have a good script, if you have a good story, you don't have to do anything with your face. In other words, let the story support what you have to do,

and the audience will read in whatever they need to read in. Right. You don't have to. It's only when you've got a weak script and a weak story that you're doing, you know, acting pyrotechnics in order to make it kind of work. Right. And he was such a great slow burn guy. Oh, fabulous. Fabulous.

Fabulous. One time. Oh, this is great. One time I'm in a scene with him and I can't remember why, but I was in bed. I was in bed with him and he's facing away from me. Yeah. And I knock this jug of water on the side of the bed, and it goes into the bed.

And it hits him, right? Yeah. And he turns around and looks at me like, did you just fucking piss in this bed? Yeah. You know, like this? He turns around and looks at me like this, and he just keeps looking at me, you know, like this?

And the camera's over my shoulder looking at him, and I'm just, I'm starting to go. I'm starting to go. And he just keeps looking at me. And under my breath, I'm saying, I'm so sorry, Carol. I'm going like this because I couldn't stop. You were going to laugh? Oh, I had to go, yeah.

Because he just kept looking at me like, what did you do in this bed? So, now, when you guys show up in movies, like after a certain point, like when you do a little bit in The Jerk, you show up as an actor. Yeah. People know you, right? They're like, Rob, will you come do this? Or do you got to go audition for shit well i mean i've gotten to a point now where you know i get called

once in a while you know i did this wolf of wall street a year or so right the father yeah yeah that was fun and i every once in a while i do something and and it's fun because uh you know there's no responsibility you know when you're scorsese asked for you yeah they ask they say to come and do it and so i will always go i mean listen if scorsese says to do it you do when you're scorsese asked for you yeah they ask they say to come and do it and so i will always go i mean listen if scorsese says to do it you do it you know i mean you know you don't wait around but i mean i i like it because i don't have a responsibility i mean you just go as an actor you right you don't when you're directing you got all the pain in the world i remember years ago ronnie howard called me to do there was a thing called ed tv it was uh i can't remember

yeah woody harrelson and uh matthew mcconaughey ellen degeneres was there um then he said there's a part here if you want uh maybe you you could read take a you know read it and see if it's something you're interested in and i said well i don't have to read it i mean i'll do it whatever it is yeah i said if it, it's not my fault. Yeah. So now the first movie they directed was Spinal Tap, right? Right. Now that thing, you knew all those guys.

Yeah, yeah. We were all friends. We had all done stuff together. Right. And how did you conceive of that? Well, here's what happened. I did a special for ABC. Yeah. And back, I think it was 1978 or 79, something like that.

And the whole special was an hour of satire of different things on television. Right. This was before SCTV, but it was a similar kind of thing. A man sitting in a chair just flipping from one chair. There'd be a sitcom. There'd be a commercial. Oh, I see. Yeah. So the device was the guy flipping. Yeah'd make fun and one of the things we did was a take

off of midnight special which was a late night rock and roll don kirschner and it was wolfman jack and i played wolfman baby did here the wolf you know i did the wolfman jack thing and i introduced for the first time spinal tap yeahinal Tap. Yeah. England's loudest band. Yeah. And they came on. They did a thing called Rock and Roll Nightmare. Was it the guys? Yeah, it was the guys.

Okay. It was Chris and Harry and Michael. But it was also, we had Loudon Wainwright on keyboards. And we had Russ Kunkel, great, great drummer. Yeah. Who played for Linda Ronstadt and the Eagles. And all these, you know. Hollywood guys.

Jackson Brown. Yeah. Yeah. So they did it. And Chris and Harry and Michael started just improvising in these characters. these you know hollywood jackson brown yeah yeah so they they did it and chris and harry and michael started just improvising in these characters yeah while we're doing i said geez it would be great to somehow do something with these characters beyond this one little piece that we did and then harry and i had an idea for a movie called roadie and you know just what was it like to be backstage

you know the roadies on a rock and roll tour then the movie called roadie came out right meatloaf yeah yeah and so we said ah forget that yeah meanwhile chris and uh uh michael michael they had done a thing where they played two rock and roll guys who meet each other in a hotel room and they can't remember whether or not they played in a band together and they're kind of drugged out and stuff and we look at that and we said hey let's all get together we'll make a thing out of this. So that's what we did. And I went to a company and I asked them to give us the money to write a screenplay. We start to write the screenplay.

We realized there's no way we can convey in screenplay form what this is going to be. So I said, give me the money you were going to give me for the screenplay. I'll make a little of the movie. So I made like 20 minutes with interview footage and backstage and concert stuff. And I showed it to them. They said, nah, we don't like this. And so it took a couple of years to, you know, walking, going around town to get them, somebody to be interested to make it.

And finally they, someone. And they did. And then we finally got to make it. But there's this myth, this mythology around it that like Reiner had 60 hours. Oh, we had, I'll tell you what we had. The first cut that we put together was four and a half hours, not including three hours of interview footage. Right. Because I interviewed them all over.

So you did shoot a lot. Oh, God. We shot. I mean, we shot, you know, I had, it took me nine months to cut the thing because we basically edited it because it's all improvised. The whole film is improvised. Now, was that the first time that was ever done? That an entire movie was improvised?

I don't think anybody's ever done that. I don't know that they have. And then it sort of set this standard in terms of, like, I think that was the thing that really informed Christopher Guest's movies around improvising. Well, Chris did all those improvised movies. And then you have these TV shows now, like Larry. Yeah.

They do the improvising. But it seems like that Spinal Tap was really the first template for taking that risk and giving it context. Yeah. And it was funny because we had a whole outline was four pages. Yeah. We didn't have it. We don't know. And so we tried different things.

And one of the things we had, we had a group opening for spinal tap called the dose yeah and it was like a you know punk band yeah and it was sherry curie and you know from the runaways and stuff and they and if you remember in spinal tap there's a shot where you see there's a kind of a herpes sore yeah on michael and chris yeah they're together and people laugh at it they know that was the remnants of a joke that took an hour to set up basically you see

the dose opening for spinal tap and the next shot Chris is with Sherry Curie and the next thing you know he's got a herpes sore on his lip

then she's with Michael he's got a herpes sore then he's with Harry they're all keep they're passing her around she keeps getting herpes now it's a band meeting they're all sitting around four guys with herpes so She keeps getting herpes. Now it's a band meeting.

They're all sitting around. Four guys with herpes sores. And the drummer, the only one without the herpes sore. And they said, yeah, I think we got to drop the dose from the tour. And the drummer says, no, I like them. I think we should keep them. It took an hour to tell that joke. So we lost that.

But it worked so good. Just without the unspoken thing. Yeah, you just see two guys with herpes sauce. It was perfect. But who was making those decisions? You? Well, yeah, I mean, we all did. The four of us.

You sat and edited together? No, I was the one who was in the editing room with, but I would put together something, and then I'd show it to the guys, and we'd all talk about it. Then I'd go back and work on it. But it really was a collaboration, the four of us. But you never thought to do anything with the footage that you didn't use? Well, you know, in these DVDs and they put it.

There's that scene with Bruno Kirby where they get him high and he's singing My Way or something. He's a big Sinatra fan. So once you got the handle on the directing thing, you wanted to just do bigger movies, scripted movies? Well, I always wanted to direct. That's the thing that I always wanted to do. So, yeah, I mean, people would always say to me, I don't understand how you could make your first movie could be a movie with no script, you know?

And I said, well, but that's what I feel comfortable doing. I mean, my whole life I grew up improvising, and that's what I do. But it was harder to do a scripted. Why? Because you had to learn how to... Well, you got to know where to put the camera and what the lights do and everything. The basics.

Yeah, exactly. But the short thing, that kind of made John Cusack, right? Well, yeah. He was 17 years old when we first did that. Yeah. And then he did Cameron Crowe's movie, and that blew it up, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But Stand By Me was huge.

Yeah, that one was big, but didn't know. I mean, you know, we started out, it was four 12-year-olds. Who knows if that's... Why did you decide that? Did you like the story? Well, I liked... Here's what I liked. The writing, I mean, it was based on a Stephen King short story called The Body.

Yeah. And when I read the script, I thought, wow, the writing is great. These characters are great. The time frame, I love 1959. I was 12 years old. So that was the thing. And then I didn't really know what the focus of it was. And it was when I figured out that it was about Gordy's character.

Because in the short story it's just he's just an observer he's like one of the four when i made him the focus and that his whole thing about feeling like his father didn't care about him because his father had lost the son and cared more about his brother that's when it started becoming more uh connected to me and i started feeling okay i can tell this story and then he's a writer he's a writer and uh it had a sensibility which is you know i there's humor in it but there's also a melancholy feel which is the way you know my personality with some of the struggles the kids were going yes now like something like that when you got dreyfus there is the the narrator and then

the guy you see at the end is that just one one of those things where you call Richard up and go, hey, you want to do this? Well, what happened? Exactly. What happened was I had somebody else doing it, and it wasn't quite right. It wasn't that the actor was good, but the voice and the voiceover didn't. So I tried a few other voices, and then finally I called Rick up, and I said, hey, would you do the voice?

And he said, yeah, I'll do the voice, but if you want, I'll reshoot it for you, and I'll be the guy yeah so I said okay great oh that's great yeah and that was a friendly thing right like you guys know each other forever and the princess bride was a an amazing movie everyone loves that movie it's a fairy tale with all that comedy all that all those great people in it yeah Billy's in it Mandy Patinkin the guy carry the guy who's in the new movie yeah Cariel was yeah yeah being Charlie yeah you wanted to do a fairy tale or that how people in it yeah billy's in it mandy patenkin the guy carrie the guy who's in the new movie yeah carrie l was yeah yeah being charlie yeah you wanted to do a fairy tale or that how did that come well that was because i was a huge william goldman fan i had read every book that

he had ever written from uh you know temple of gold by turn to curtsy your turn to bow boys and girls together so i loved it and my dad my dad did a play on Broadway in 1968. What was that? It was called Something Different. Yeah. Bill wrote a book about that season on Broadway called The Season. Yeah. And he became friends with my dad. And when he finished Princess Bright, he gave it to my dad. He said, what do you think about this? And my dad said, I don't know if I can do that. I don't know what to do. But he said, he gave it to me. I was in my 20s at the time. He said, here, you like William Goldwyn? Why don't you read this book? I read the book, and it was like, oh, my God.

This is like, you know, when you read something, and it feels like the person's writing for you. It's like your sensibility. I said, wow, this is incredible. And so when I started making films, I started to my friend Andy. I said, hey, they make movies out of books, don't they? What about this? I'll make a movie. And I said, let's see if anybody's ever hey, they make movies out of books, don't they? What about this? I'll make a movie.

And I said, let's see if anybody's ever tried to make a movie out of Princess Bride. I found out at that point that, yes, they had, you know. Optioned it. It was Francois Truffaut. Right. Norman Jewison, Redford. I mean, they all tried to do it, and nobody could do it. And I said, oh, let's see if maybe William Coleman would let me talk to him.

So I was able to get a meeting with him, and he said yes. Yeah, do it. Try it. Yeah. But you found the humor in it all the way through. Well, it's there. I mean, that was there in the book. Who else is going to make it as funny as you, though?

Well, I don't know. The guys you just mentioned, those aren't funny guys. Somebody could do. But like your father directed, he did a lot of movies, you know, starting with Where's Papa and then they did The Jerk too, right? Right, right. So you were on set, I mean, in terms of learning how to use the camera. Well, I was there for the Van Dyke Show. Yeah.

My dad did the Dick Van Dyke Show and the very famous, you know, I did grab Mary Tyler Moore by the ass. Yeah. Everybody knows that. I didn't know that. You didn't know that. Well, now it's moore by the ass yeah that you everybody knows that i didn't know that you didn't know that well now it's important that you do well i was 14 years old you know and i saw her and i she was wearing those she was like 24 25 she wore those capri pants and i was you know my hormones were going crazy she writes about i'm not telling tales out of school because she did write about in her book and told a story on letterman and all i grabbed

her ass you know my father she called My father calls me into his office. Yeah. She told on me. Yeah. I said, did you grab Mary Tyler Moore by the ass? I said, yeah, I did. He says, don't ever do that again. He had a big smile on his face, though.

Yeah, he was happy that you did it. Yeah, something, yeah. So you saw how your father worked? Yeah, he didn't grab her on the ass. No, no, you did that on your own. That's the only one I did by myself. That was different from what his career. Yeah, did didn't grab her on the ass. No, no, you did that on your own. That's the only one I did by myself. That was different from what his career. Yeah, did you explain that you were improvising?

But I mean, in terms of learning how to direct. Yes, I saw how he worked, yes. Definitely, I learned it at his knee and all that. And he was a gracious director and, you know. Well, he was, you know, it was his show. I mean, I saw how he worked with

the actors how he changed the script you know I watched how they staged the cameras I did the same thing on all the family but when he directed you in a couple movies how was that experience it was fine you know I mean you know it's fine it's you know it's weird you know it's weird because like if my kid's gonna do a thing there's always got to be that feeling like yeah he's bringing his kid it's good that you're Yeah. It'd be bad if you were a shitty kid. I know. That'd be terrible. And then, all right, so Harry Met Sally.

Right. That was huge. Big hit. Yeah, your mother's line, big. My mother's line, to me, was one of the great thrills of my life that my mother, who says I'll have what she's having, that line is considered one of the top 10 lines in movie history. It's like, frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

And Louie, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. And so they got Bogart and Clark Abel. And Estelle Reiner is in there with them. Then you go off to sort of a different journey with Misery, which I loved. I loved that movie. Yeah, that was a fun one for me to make. Well, James Caan is like, you kind of,

like it was like this new thing. Like he was getting old. He'd been a little out of the game. And then he comes in this sort of like humbled kind of. I know. What I liked about it is he's this really physical guy and that he would be stuck in that bed. Did you like working with him. I know. What I liked about it is he's this really physical guy and that he would be stuck in that bed.

Did you like working with him? I did. I stand every day. I came up to the, in the set, I come up to him and I said, Billy, I said,

okay, now Jimmy, here's the thing in this scene, you're in bed. I said that to him every day. He kept looking like I was going to give him some words of wisdom. Yeah. No,

see Jimmy in this scene, you're in bed. I said that to him every day some words of wisdom. Yeah. No, see, Jimmy, in this scene, you're in bed. I said that to him every day. Did he laugh? Yeah. I have no sense of what he's really like. He's such a big presence. Yeah.

He's sunny. He's sunny calling home. I know. He got shot on the causeway. Yeah, I know. You can't. He's never. Freebie and the Bean.

I love that movie. Yeah. You know, James Caan is like this guy, the gambler. Yeah. And then to see him as this older guy. You got him all scared. Yeah. Of this woman, Kathy Bates.

That made her, right? Yeah, she was great. Yeah. Unbelievable. Did she win an Oscar or anything for that? Yeah, she won an Oscar. That's exciting. Yeah, yeah.

It was fun. Do you have Oscars? No. What do you want me to? Do you want to give me one? Sure. I had nominated for an Oscar, but I didn't win an Oscar. That's annoying.

I know. It's really annoying. Maybe you're going to have to wait out for the lifetime achievement. Yeah. And I think they, but you know, they should do it before you. See, that was the other thing I was thinking as I watched that. Last night. As I watched the thing last night.

They should have like memorial services, like when you're alive. Because what good is it? Garyary shanley there were some big laughs there last night gary didn't hear any of them yeah why don't you do what you believe but well yeah yeah well let's put it this way even if you believe that there's an afterlife in heaven he's not hearing it exactly the way it was you know it's filtered it's filtered through a lot of stuff. But the point is, wouldn't it be great if he could be around and hearing all that before he goes? Yeah, it would be.

I think we're on to something. And A Few Good Men, great. It's got one of my favorite moments in movies. Which is, you can't handle the truth. Of course. Yeah, yeah. But that was from the play, right? That's from the play, yeah. And working with Jack Nicholson, was that a nervous thing?

Yeah. But that was from the play, right? That's from the play, yeah. And working with Jack Nicholson, was that a nervous thing? I mean, when you were... Jack is like the greatest actor for a director because he gives it his all all the time. When he showed up in the table read, there's a lot of young actors in that, you know,

Tom Cruise and Kevin Bacon, Kevin Pollak, and, you know, a lot of Demi Moore. I mean, a lot of good young actors. And when he sits down at the table read, and Kevin Pollak and you know a lot of you Demi Moore I mean a lot of good young actors yeah and when he sits down at the table read he reads it like it's like it's a performance right it's right and they it's it sends a message to everybody that we're here to to really do the work it's like I liken it like to you know the you know you're taking batting practice and everybody's hitting the ball and then all of a sudden Babe Ruth steps in the cage and starts banging them

into the seats and yeah okay yeah I see what felt that right right at the table yeah yeah i see what this and like tom cruise was like everybody everybody said oh we better step up our game and i remember when he did that famous speech where he does that you know you can't handle the truth we have a lot of angles and i said to jack i said look we can do one or two things either i can shoot you first yeah and you know or i can shoot all of the reactions yeah and i'll save you you know if you want to rehearse during he said yeah why don't you shoot the reactions and that way by the time you turn around and shoot me i'll be ready yeah okay so now we're shooting you know reactions for tom cruise and kevin bacon yeah and he And he giving this full out performance every time,

every time. And at one point I go up to Jack, I said, Jack, you know, maybe you should take it easy. I mean, because we're going to come around to you.

And he says, Rob, you don't understand. I love to act. And he just likes to do that. Oh, that's a good moment. Huh? moment huh yeah so but how do you choose man so you decide to take on race you do ghosts of mississippi and that was a heavy movie that

was the medgar evans movie right right which i saw and it was like you know you you have a lot of range but you do bring a certain point of view to the movies and you have a directing style that's that i can identify yeah but you know i think also as i've gotten older uh you know i'm learning more it's odd to say yeah because i'm only i'm you know i just turned 69 and i'm still making movies i made two this year i'm gonna make another one and i'm learning more and more and as i go along i i think i get better my skills get better i figure out more about what i know what about economy or about vision yes both both you know your your vision begets uh you know it's it's a it's a it's a

conglomeration of everything you've taken in on your life yeah see it and then all of a sudden you find it going out on the page in the script right just experiences you had and knowledge and information and all this stuff and it gets out there now when when you do a movie is it is it uh something is it always something that you want to do that you initiate or you ever hired to direct the only time i ever did anything that i didn't want and that i didn't initiate was a movie called rumor has it and it's with uh jennifer aniston and yeah and kevin costner shirley maine, and Mark Ruffalo. And the only reason I did it as a favor because they had started shooting and they shut the movie down. And my friend Alan Horn, who was the time running Warner Brothers,

who was my partner in forming Castle Rock, he called and said, we're in trouble and could you come and help? Could you come and do it? And so I said, yeah, okay. I didn't see that one yeah no i mean it's it's it's like uh you know it was it was an exercise uh-huh yeah that's a very diplomatic thing to say right yeah well kevin kosher says to me he said you're like a guy who came in and looked at the garage and it's a mess there? And say, okay, we're going to put the paint cans over here. We're going to hang the bicycle over here.

The tools are going to go. Yeah, to put it all together. I'm trying to fix it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the bucket list, I saw that too. How did that happen? I saw the bucket list. The bucket list was just a script that came in over the transom.

I had turned 60, and I started thinking about my mortality. When I turned 60, I thought of myself as a very, very, very young old person. It's like the beginnings of being old. Yeah. And I started thinking about life and the things that you want to do with your life. So that came along at that time, and I went, okay. work with jack again jack yeah and that was fun morgan freeman who i love yeah both of them i mean morgan is like you know the nicest yeah easiest actor ever worked oh really yeah yeah yeah and he's like he probably just turns it on and he does and what's

weird about morgan is he's the fastest study i've ever worked with i mean you can give him something because jack when jack and i every morning we'd go in the trailer and we'd rewrite the scene, you know, whatever the scene was. And we'd hand it to Morgan. He'd take one look and he'd say, okay, I got it. Yeah. And that was it. So now, there's two questions I want to ask.

LBJ's not out yet, right? No. LBJ, we're hoping to come out. Is that based on the play? No. No. The play, they're doing an HBO special that's based on the play. With Cranston?

Brian Cranston, I think comes out in May. Yeah. And hopefully ours will come out at the end of the year before the election. But it's with Woody Harrelson. As LBJ. As LBJ. What years? It takes place, for the most part, for the time he's picked as vice president until the assassination.

And he assumes the presidency and delivers that famous speech in the House of Representatives about continuing Kennedy's legacy. And there's some flashback to when he was majority leader prior to that, but it's a small sliver of time. And Woody Harrelson, it's just off the charts how good he is he's pretty astounding well but he you won't believe when you see this I mean it's he becomes this character

and it's just I've there were days I would watch it and I would go I would forget and I would go

oh my god it's like it's well Johnson he's there he's there and it's like weird it was weird it's all shot

yeah it's finished really it's finished yeah matter It's all shot? Yeah, it's finished. Really? It's finished, yeah. Matter of fact, this week, we're showing it to distributors for the first time. Really? Yeah. That's exciting. Yeah.

Now, tell me just, you know, we can kind of close off on this. Now, the creation of Castle Rock as a production company. Mm-hmm. Because you did pretty good with that. Yeah. I mean, we started in 1987. There were the five with that. Yeah. I mean, we started in 1987. There were the five of us. Yeah.

And we, you know, up till now, we've done over 125 movies. Yeah. And Seinfeld, of course, you know, we did that. So now how does that work with that? So you were the producer or one of the producers, your production company did Seinfeld. Yeah. And so that's money forever. Hopefully.

Because I met with them. I had a deal with NBC on a pilot years ago, and Castle Rock was a production company. Right. And you guys had done Seinfeld, or maybe it was just over. Maybe it was the last season or two. And mine went nowhere. But I remember being excited to meet.

Who were the guys over there? Glenn? Was it Glenn? Glenn Padnick, yeah. And Richie Rosenstock. Right. Those were the guys I met. Yeah, yeah.

And they were talking. It was going to be great. Yeah. Nothing happened. That's upset. It wasn't that great a thing. Do you need money? No, I'm all right.

I'm all right. You okay? You all right? No, no. I was a chef. It was not a great script. But what are you going to do? I didn't understand television.

Well, listen, you don't know. We did a a pilot uh prior to that uh with howie mandel yeah and uh you know jerry seinfeld auditioned for that and we decided to go with howie mandel and that didn't work it went like 13 episodes yeah and then george shapiro you know who's uh jerry's manager yeah he said well we have an idea with larry david you know who's uh jerry's manager he said well we have an idea with larry david you know come in and you know and so that's how that happened yeah i mean it was because we'd seen jerry do yeah of course we thought he you know he's a stand-up i didn't know he was interested in doing you know right he had no idea yeah and uh and you never know if it's going to be successful sure but do

you how much of a part do you have in the day-to-day with that stuff? I didn't have any. My biggest part was convincing Brandon Tartikoff not to throw it off the air. I had to go in and make the most impassioned plea. You did? Yes, I did. Did you pace? Did you sit? Well, I screamed a lot. Really?

You got to that level? Yeah, I was pretty hot because I said you this is the best show that you will ever have and if you're you know you reject it you're turning your back on one of the funniest creative shows you're and he said i can't have a show you know at that time it was called the show about nothing you know i mean they had an episode where they sat around and waiting for a table at chinese restaurant yeah and he said i can't have a show where that's all they do is sit around waiting for a table at chinese restaurant there. Yeah. And he said, I can't have a show where that's all they do, is sit around, wait for a table at a Chinese restaurant. There's got to be things.

There's got to be stories. There's got to be stuff. And I said, I promise you there'll be. And then I finally convinced him. He said, okay. And then I go to Larry, and I said, Larry, we've got to have stories. We need stories. He says, you want to turn this into the fucking Lucy show?

I said, no, no, Larry. It's not going to be the Lucy show. I said, it's your sensibility. No, Larry, it's not going to be the Lucy show. I said, you're going to, I said, it's your sensibility. No matter what, it's going to be yours and you're going to be able to do it. And then of course, Larry, you know, once he discovered the idea of story,

it was like, hey, this is great. It was not on his. And boy, did he have, he had intertwined things hooking up to other things. It was like, it was like all of a sudden he had reinvented. He was so happy. But he had not conceived of that before.

Not initially. He thought it would just be two guys hanging out, talking. You know, like he and Jerry would do. Yeah. And that was certainly part of it. That was a big part of it. But then these other things came in. And the stories became so amazing.

They were unbelievable. Yeah. And when did that happen when you had done the pilot or it had been on this it had been on it had been on a little while and they were going to throw it off oh and you stepped in i stepped in and larry larry had an epiphany larry yeah he did it took him a while but but then then if you look at curb your enthusiasm i mean how great is that yeah and and it's it's story up the yin-yang. I mean, it's like, you know.

Have you been in one of those? Yeah, I did one. I'm trying to remember. I did. I think it was like in the first or second year. As yourself? Yeah. I mean, I basically run into him in the waiting room of a psychiatrist's office, and I say, you know, I try to convince him to auction himself off for a charity for lunch.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Grote syndrome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know yeah the equivalent of drinking 10 cups of coffee every hour right and you guys are buddies kind of yeah yeah no he's a great guy larry's he's a sweet guy yeah brilliant well man i like that you you you have you guys are all friends makes me feel better yeah anything you want to talk about well just being charlie's coming out uh may 6th then that's a that. Then that's a different kind of movie for you.

Yeah, it really is. I mean, there's humor in it, but it's pretty dark in a lot of places. I like that the kid's stand-up was okay. That actor handled it okay. He did it okay, yeah. He did. Yeah, it's hard to do. It's hard to do.

If you're not a comedian. But he's not a comedian. Right. And I had to work with him and get him to. But he's an open mic. You're not assuming. He's an open mic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's also 18 years old. Yeah... But he's an open mic. You're not assuming... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And he's also 18 years old. Yeah. So he's just starting out. He's trying to get his... Well, it's a heavy movie, and it was well done, and it was honest, and I appreciated it.

Oh, thanks. And I'm glad your son's okay, and it was an honor and a thrill talking to you. Thanks. You see, nobody knows, but we're shaking hands right now. I know.

It just happened. I know. Thanks, Rob. All right. How great was that? What is he? He's Rob Reiner. Come on.

He's like in our hearts and minds. Go to WTFpod.com for all your WTFpod needs. Get tickets to my Trippany House shows through the months of May and June, Tuesdays. Nice cheap ticket.

Some good times. Is my guitar off? Oh, it's on. Yeah. Stay open, people. That's one thing I learned from that. From that Shanling Memorial, among other things. Try to stay open.

Stay open, stay present. This might be it. This might be it. අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි Thank you. Boomer lives We'll be right back. Get almost almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting

and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative.