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March 16, 2024

Episode 131: Talk w/ Emmy Award winning writer David Mandel (VEEP, Clerks: Animated Series, Eurotrip)

Episode 131: Talk w/ Emmy Award winning writer David Mandel (VEEP, Clerks: Animated Series, Eurotrip)

Dive into an enlightening conversation with Dave Mandel, renowned writer and director known for his work on 'Seinfeld' and 'Curb Your Enthusiasm', in this episode of Uncle Dad Talks. Hosts UncleDad and Mike Hampton uncover the secrets behind Dave's s...

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UncleDad Talks

Dive into an enlightening conversation with Dave Mandel, renowned writer and director known for his work on 'Seinfeld' and 'Curb Your Enthusiasm', in this episode of Uncle Dad Talks. Hosts UncleDad and Mike Hampton uncover the secrets behind Dave's successful career and his new podcast.

Walk down memory lane with Dave as he reminisces about his time on the set of the cult classic 'Euro Trip'. Engage with behind-the-scenes stories about casting and cameos, and discover why he preferred the original title, 'Ugly Americans'. Gain insights into Dave's journey through the world of comedy and learn about his current podcast, 'Stuff Dreams Are Made Of'.

Explore the ties between comedy and historical events and how they spark reflection. Learn about comedic portrayal of complex issues, such as Nazis, and the challenges in delivering delicate humor. Hear about Dave's experiences working with Michael J. Fox on Curb Your Enthusiasm and how physical comedy balances amusing antics with sobering realities.

Experience Dave's career starting from 'Seinfeld' to his current podcasting endeavor. Learn how 'Seinfeld' has influenced single-camera sitcoms and how these changes impacted Veep's success. Enjoy the storytelling approach, character dynamics and memorable moments from his journey in the entertainment industry.

Delve into the world of television production, from writing scripts to actor encounters, and into the fascinating world of memorabilia and prop collecting. Finally, get insights into the podcast 'Stuffed Dreams are Made Of' and the joy of discussing props, prop auctions, and celebrity encounters.

Tune in to Uncle Dad talks for this enlightening episode that combines lifestyle, creativity, and comedy while offering valuable insights.

Chapters

00:00 - Introduction to Uncle Dad Talks

01:32 - Interview with Dave Mendel, Part 1

05:46 - The Making of EuroTrip and Title Changes

23:13 - Comedy Approach to Sensitive Topics

25:25 - Working with Michael J. Fox

29:10 - Transition to Working on Seinfeld

32:49 - Writing Style Influence from Seinfeld to Veep

35:37 - Seinfeld Influence

37:20 - Winning an Emmy

01:00:43 - Displaying Movie Props

01:04:19 - Special Guests

01:06:06 - Video Highlights

01:08:08 - Coining ”Man Hands”

Transcript
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Music.

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Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Uncle Dad Talks.

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I'm Uncle Dad and with me as always is the ever so handsome,

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the ever so well-drawn, the one and only Mike Hampton. What's up, Mike?

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Oh, it's been the day.

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I'm going to do a recap of my day so everyone can know what type of page I'm on for this episode.

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But I'm great. Yeah, I'm here. I'm excited for our guest today.

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Our guests well hey whenever

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they listen it's whatever time they're in so at some point it might be

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right right yeah what time

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zone are we in yeah what day is it uh

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but we are with somebody who i would say arguably

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is fairly legendary i think

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his work is very iconic he has

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worked for some pretty amazing writing

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credits not only that he's also just done some great

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stuff all together and Mike you know before you

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introduce him I gotta ask you this question how excited

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are you right now I'm excited I'm very excited

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he knows I'm so excited I've been

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trying to get this gentleman on on the

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show for I don't know maybe two years we've been like going back and

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forth and he's busy filming tv shows

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and and accepting awards and nice you know things you know so we we have him

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he was a i'm going to go through some of his accolades here not all but some

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he was a writer on snl a writer on seinfeld a writer and a director on curb your enthusiasm.

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He's the executive producer of white house plumbers and

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executive producer of the emmy

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award-winning show veep which is so funny

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drum roll please uncle dad's

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been wanting to use this drum roll so we're finally going to throw it in here

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here we go easy as it sounds let's have

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it here we go the drum roll we have dave mendel on the show yes yeah hold on

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hold on hold on hold on all right now now we're officially so like like a morning

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zoo radio show thank you bravo i'm trying i'm trying david please i'm just trying you know.

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Can you hit the cue for Take This Job and Shove It? We'll get going.

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And then I Don't Want to Work, I'll bang on the drum all day.

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We'll just get it all going. Yeah.

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Thank you. That was beautiful. Very heartfelt. The drum roll and the applause. Thank you.

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You've earned it. Hey, guys. Hey.

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That's a real talk. Yeah. And one of the things I didn't mention in the intro,

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and I'll explain part of why that happened. Yeah.

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He's also has a very, very fun podcast to listen to called what dreams are made of.

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And, uh, stuff dreams are made up.

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And I listened to a few episodes and I was just listening to,

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I listened to maybe about half of the Rob Liefeld episode when you guys are

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talking about comic book art and you know, it's so, it's just so fun.

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There's so many fun things and we're going to get to all that.

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That. But Dave, so you do a podcast, you travel a lot.

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You know, today, I originally woke up at 5am on the East Coast to arrive where

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I'm at right now in Sacramento at 12 in the afternoon and have a day to do my things.

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And anyways, I missed that flight.

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I barely made it to my hotel room to get the internet going,

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which it didn't try to fail.

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And then realized that my whole notes that I've have

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been compiling for this interview are left

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either in the plane or on the lift car on the

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way over here so i'm gonna kind of go

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i can answer that it was the lift car and his

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show is called can i give you a lift and i just

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did an hour with him and he was they were fucking great and they asked some

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really interesting questions they'd really done their research really really

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likes we cried we cried that day we got deep we got we cried so yeah good work

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good work yeah yeah all right well i'm happy to help you out everyone who needs

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help you're losing my phone.

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Well, one of the other things that you worked on that was also very fun,

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because it's just celebrating its 20th, 20-year anniversary,

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is the now acclaimed cult classic, right?

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Finally, finally acclaimed. You give something long enough and it's a cult classic.

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Just give us another 20 years and it'll be an Oscar winner.

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But keep yeah cold classic euro trip euro trip which which wasn't originally

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called euro trip and i don't know how many people know this i remember seeing the script,

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but when it was still called or when it was you know what was on the script

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was ugly americans yeah which to me after re-watching it a couple weeks ago

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fits fits it better because that's That's exactly what these kids are in the film, right?

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The movie wouldn't have been any different. And quite honestly,

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I think it still would have been a, you know, a bit of a bomb that eventually

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maybe became a cult classic.

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But in my mind, and again, I know I'm wrong.

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If they had called it Ugly Americans, you know, from the get-go,

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it would have been a giant hit.

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I know I'm wrong. But yeah, I know we always, we have gotten used to Eurotrip

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over the 20 years. I wrote it and co-wrote it and co-directed it with Jeff Schaefer

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and Alec Berg, who were my longtime friends, writing partners,

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everything. We went to school together.

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We wrote together on Seinfeld. We wrote together and directed together on Curb.

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We did that. We did a whole bunch of other movie stuff together.

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And we just always preferred Ugly Americans.

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And really, when we were in sort of pre-production, not pre-production,

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sorry, they never loved the title. They were worried about...

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Dumb members of the audience would think we were calling them ugly and that

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it was somehow unpatriotic also.

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That was the other slam on the title.

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And honestly, it just came down to a point when we were trying to get the movie

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out. Like it existed and they kind of hated it.

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And we were struggling to just, you know, get the test numbers where they wanted it to.

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And they more or less, we finally did, but they more or less put a gun to our

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head and just said, they're not putting it out if we don't change the name to Europe Trip.

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Because they were trying, can you remember the movie Road Trip with Tom Green and all those guys?

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Do you remember Road Trip? they were trying at

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one point they were hoping to get tom green to like make an

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ad for our movie like like almost like hi

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i'm tom green you remember my my first group of friends and they went on a trip

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at college these are my new friends and they're in they're on a road they're

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in they're on a europe trip so even without the tom green shots or whatever

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they were trying to trick their Their big strategy for the movie,

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this was DreamWorks' major marketing strategy, was,

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tricking people into thinking it was a sequel to Road Trip.

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That was their entire marketing strategy, tricking people.

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And again, you get used to a title, it's two years, whatever,

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20 years of its EuroTrip and people, and now that it is a cult hit and people

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do like EuroTrip, I don't know.

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It just, I would have, yeah, Ugly Americans would have been the title I prefer. Yeah.

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When was the last time that you watched the film, like sat down and watched

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the whole thing? Has it been a while? It was a long while.

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And then sometime in the last, I don't know, I'll say year, but it may have

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been a year and a half, quite honestly, because it might have been, might have been.

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God, yeah, it's probably been over a year. My daughter, who is 16 years old,

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finally watched it, and I sort of was half watching it with her.

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I wasn't watching it with her, but I was sort of listening and watching,

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if that makes any sense. Like, cause I was curious, I wasn't particularly worried

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about it. It wasn't like, oh my God, the language.

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I mean, Lord knows she's heard worse or anything like that. But I was kind of

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just curious as to, I guess, look, I'm not going to lie.

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I was curious what she laughed at. You know what I mean? Like I wanted to see, what can I say?

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A 16 year old girl who, you know, knows nothing about it.

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You know, maybe it heard one or two lines around the dinner table,

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you know, where we explained something to her, like just to see what worked

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and what didn't work. I think of her as sort of a sophisticated comedy goer.

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She has good taste, the things she likes.

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And I just wanted to see like, you know, if she found it funny and she,

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she seemed to, which was good, but she laughed and like what I consider to be

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the right places. Yeah. Okay.

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Did you watch the unrated version or the rated version?

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You know, I, I, it was whatever was on, whatever was on the streamer,

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which I have to assume unfortunately is the, is the rated version.

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I have to assume because I feel like they're bad about that kind of stuff.

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Like a lot of those special versions are lost to, uh.

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Are kind of lost to our sort of whatever physical

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list media world you know where you don't get

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those director cuts or the extra five minutes

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of zodiac or whatever it is anymore unless it

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really once in a blue moon it'll explicitly you

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know talk about like this is the donner cut of superman but those are things

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that got maybe more of an official release i i just feel like all that that

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extra stuff is gone sorry that was a very long-winded answer to a simple question

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the rating cut yeah i think i like that i mean i love your answers they they're always very well.

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Articulated appreciate that you know yeah it's like i

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had so many dvds yeah that were unrated and

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this cut and that and i'm like i just got rid of them when everything

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started to become streaming because i just assumed everything would be

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available streaming and that's not the case that's not but it's

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but it is funny and by the way i'm not sure i can't

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sit here and tell you you were wrong to get rid of them because

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you could also be me which is to say you

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know if we could kind of turn this thing you would

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just see like a giant like these two

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giant like like file drawers full of dvds and then on top are the ones that

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didn't quite fit do you know what i mean and so they're all here and they're

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about 11 feet from my television and i never put one in so So they're,

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you know, which is, which of us is smarter?

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I don't know. At least you, at least you have the space for books or something else.

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I, mine are here and it just, there's, I don't know what would have to happen to get me to put a DVD in.

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I mean, honestly, like a, like a, like a power failure of some sort, you know.

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The internet would have to be down for some period of time. Yeah. Yeah.

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One of the things that I know everyone loves about the film and part of what

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makes that that cult classic is having Matt Damon do his cameo of,

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you know, of the punk bands, you know, singing Scotty Doesn't Know.

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And I'm sure you've told this story a million times, but tell our listeners.

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He was already in Prague where you guys were filming, and he was shooting Brothers Grimm.

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Yeah. Do you guys just roll up on him at a bar somewhere and go,

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yo, Matt, can you do this? Or how does that happen?

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How do you guys meet? It's very funny. When we were making Hero Trip,

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which would have been 2003,

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there was a tremendous amount of bad luck, which is if you look at the date

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of whatever it was, winter and spring of 2003, you've got the Iraqi war going on.

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And like, I think there was even like a, I can't remember.

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I feel like there was like a, like a disease too. So nobody,

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nobody wanted to travel.

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It was the idea of like, Hey, why don't you come and come to,

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you know, Prague? Like people were like a little scared.

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I mean, it was a long time ago, but it was just like, just didn't seem like

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an ideal travel time, but we got very lucky and went in, in two facts.

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One that Prague at that moment was a real center of bargain filmmaking. making.

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So people were going to Prague like anybody's business because it was just cheaper

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to make stuff there. So that was good. That was number one.

204
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And so because of that, we did keep running into people, but, but again, we knew them.

205
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So meaning it wasn't that you could run into like, you know,

206
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Jeffrey Tambor, uh, who he ran into for at different points.

207
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And like Jeffrey Tambor was there making Hellboy.

208
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And it was like, we'd worked with him on the Grinch that's so Christmas was

209
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was like, Hey, Jeffrey Tambor, do you want to be the dad?

210
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Absolutely. I'll be the dad. That'd be great. And with Matt,

211
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it was sort of the same thing. We discovered he was there making the brothers grim.

212
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He had gone to college with us. I didn't pretend to know him well,

213
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Jeff and Alec knew him a little bit more than me.

214
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They had known him a little bit of college, but they'd gotten to know him after school.

215
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He had lived near them in like a house with like Ben Affleck and a couple of their other buddies.

216
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And so, you know, they, they, they knew each other. And so it was very very

217
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easy to kind of go, Hey, you know, would you do this?

218
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And he was there and he was willing and he had one free night and it turned

219
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out to be the shortest night. It was a,

220
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just a summer night and it was just like incredibly little daylight which was just madness.

221
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And he was willing to do it which was

222
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fantastic and you know

223
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he did it and it was great but we didn't know him yeah so okay

224
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that well that's fun another guy

225
00:15:18,313 --> 00:15:21,573
who has a cameo or a couple cameos in

226
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the movie and i didn't even really realize it was him until i

227
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saw the name in the credits it was fred armisen of

228
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portlandia who wasn't in

229
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portlandia didn't exist yet no he was relatively

230
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yes he was the the creepy italian guy

231
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which is sort of one of those funny things where when

232
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we were putting the movie together when we were writing the movie neither jeff

233
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nor alec nor i had ever like done forgive me

234
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the euro trip none of us had whether it

235
00:15:51,913 --> 00:15:54,533
was after high school or college we just you know we

236
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went to college and then we got jobs as comedy writers so

237
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we never did the let's go to europe thing but

238
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we had many friends that did and so a lot

239
00:16:03,633 --> 00:16:06,613
of this movie is just talking to people who'd been to europe about

240
00:16:06,613 --> 00:16:11,093
like you know funny things that happened and the one sort of across the board

241
00:16:11,093 --> 00:16:16,933
and you know you'll forgive me people of italian heritage was was every girl

242
00:16:16,933 --> 00:16:22,953
basically had been molested or attempt molested by like a creepy Italian guy

243
00:16:22,953 --> 00:16:26,493
on a train in the middle of the night in Europe.

244
00:16:26,593 --> 00:16:31,173
But basically like there just wasn't anybody that didn't try and go to sleep

245
00:16:31,173 --> 00:16:35,353
and wake up with a guy like feeling her up basically from Italy.

246
00:16:35,573 --> 00:16:37,833
So that goes into the movie.

247
00:16:38,313 --> 00:16:43,013
And originally there was this idea, the producer of the movie was Ivan Reitman,

248
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Ghostbusters, Animal House, et cetera, et cetera.

249
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And he had this idea that we attempted, which was that we would.

250
00:16:50,597 --> 00:16:57,057
Try and get genuine, I'll say comedy stars, but at some point it was also just

251
00:16:57,057 --> 00:17:01,697
the idea of like genuine people from the countries that we were going to.

252
00:17:01,797 --> 00:17:05,697
So the idea being the creepy Italian guy, we would find an Italian actor,

253
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someone to play that role and that, you know, the German guy would be a German

254
00:17:10,117 --> 00:17:13,897
and that the, you know, the French waiter would be French, et cetera, et cetera.

255
00:17:14,357 --> 00:17:18,897
And it kind of didn't work at all. I mean, there's definitely something,

256
00:17:18,977 --> 00:17:21,817
there was sort of two things going on there were

257
00:17:21,817 --> 00:17:25,257
there were definitely people that were just offended by the broad stereotypes of

258
00:17:25,257 --> 00:17:28,297
the movie you know so there was like a french actor that

259
00:17:28,297 --> 00:17:32,657
we wanted that was just like this is garbage and you guys are criminals basically

260
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like i like how dare you the french are not like this of course you know the

261
00:17:36,177 --> 00:17:41,797
rudest response ever to a part being about a rude french guy so there was that

262
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and then you just also really had a there were definitely you know Countries,

263
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and I don't know, I guess I'll say Italy was one of them, where sort of what

264
00:17:50,417 --> 00:17:55,717
was comedy to them, their style of comedy was just a very different thing.

265
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And certainly the Italian actors just seemed bigger and broader in a certain

266
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way, and they just didn't really fit in.

267
00:18:02,377 --> 00:18:08,857
So we did all of this auditioning. We hired casting people to do all this auditioning

268
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in all these foreign countries. And I guess the one thing I will say that we

269
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did actually find the girl that plays Mika, Jessica Boers, was actually German.

270
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She was like a German pop star, soap star, and she worked out fantastic. So that worked.

271
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And the other Germans worked out. Germany worked out well for us.

272
00:18:25,877 --> 00:18:30,097
Her dad was like a German actor and the crazy truck driver.

273
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He was on their German police procedural.

274
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He was like the Dennis Franz of Germany. He was like from NYPD Blue, but of Germany.

275
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So Germany somehow worked out. I don't know if they were giant stars flying.

276
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Changed our business in Germany, but the notion of finding these people.

277
00:18:50,527 --> 00:18:54,047
And so it was very last minute where we just got very lucky.

278
00:18:54,127 --> 00:18:59,347
And of course, for all of our European searching, we ended up casting JP Manu

279
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as the robot man out of the groundlings, I think in LA.

280
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And Fred at that point was relatively new to SNL and, you know, had, had the time off.

281
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And basically We grabbed him from SNL, but I think it was in the early days

282
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before he really was Fred Armisen.

283
00:19:19,527 --> 00:19:25,267
So we kind of got very lucky there. For a very long time, I think he was,

284
00:19:25,367 --> 00:19:30,587
for a little mini moment, he was probably best known for being in Eurotrip.

285
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And obviously that soon changed because he's so talented and did all this other stuff like Portlandia.

286
00:19:35,327 --> 00:19:38,167
But anyway, it was a very brief shining moment, but yeah, very cool.

287
00:19:38,167 --> 00:19:41,087
Cool i know uncle dad's also

288
00:19:41,087 --> 00:19:44,747
a huge fan was a huge he's a huge fan of this movie did

289
00:19:44,747 --> 00:19:47,847
you have a question i want to

290
00:19:47,847 --> 00:19:50,667
i want to tell you i hope you you should live happy knowing you

291
00:19:50,667 --> 00:19:54,887
created one of the greatest fight scenes ever to be filmed on scene and that

292
00:19:54,887 --> 00:20:00,927
is that is robot fighting like no other i i i die every time and it's such a

293
00:20:00,927 --> 00:20:04,727
trivial joke but it's such a great joke when he gets kicked you know kicked

294
00:20:04,727 --> 00:20:09,127
on nuts and he falls down and that little touch at the end when he says, terror, error.

295
00:20:09,627 --> 00:20:14,007
That was like such a, just like the full encapsulating because he could have

296
00:20:14,007 --> 00:20:16,207
broke character, right? He could have been just angry.

297
00:20:16,327 --> 00:20:18,867
No, he stuck to his robot guns. Yes.

298
00:20:19,287 --> 00:20:21,727
There's just such, was that intentional or is that something Yes,

299
00:20:21,767 --> 00:20:25,047
I'm very intentional. I mean, very intentional. Like I said, we got very lucky.

300
00:20:25,976 --> 00:20:33,116
The actor, J.P. Manu, came in, had mime training, so he was able to do it.

301
00:20:33,496 --> 00:20:38,276
But really, in the way great improv comedy actors can do,

302
00:20:38,636 --> 00:20:45,876
he really turned it into a character and made it that the ridiculous commitment

303
00:20:45,876 --> 00:20:49,436
to the roboting really came through, I think, in a great way.

304
00:20:49,656 --> 00:20:50,736
So yeah, that kind of worked.

305
00:20:51,636 --> 00:20:54,376
Yeah i think it's one of my every time i watch that scene i

306
00:20:54,376 --> 00:20:57,656
just can't help but like just die laughing because it's just

307
00:20:57,656 --> 00:21:00,596
so smart it's such a smart like it's silly but

308
00:21:00,596 --> 00:21:03,596
it's just done in such a smart way and you know

309
00:21:03,596 --> 00:21:06,396
mike i i i don't know how you feel but every

310
00:21:06,396 --> 00:21:09,156
time i see the hitler kid too the hitler baby

311
00:21:09,156 --> 00:21:12,176
just makes just i just die every time now

312
00:21:12,176 --> 00:21:15,816
that i have to ask you do you think that would be something almost impossible

313
00:21:15,816 --> 00:21:18,676
to release nowadays i mean the difference i

314
00:21:18,676 --> 00:21:21,656
guess nowadays is is you put that out and like half your audience.

315
00:21:21,656 --> 00:21:24,636
Would jump up and zeke heil i guess and join in i

316
00:21:24,636 --> 00:21:27,416
guess so that's part of the problem i guess you

317
00:21:27,416 --> 00:21:30,676
know like who knew that you know nazism would

318
00:21:30,676 --> 00:21:35,036
become so popular here in 2024 2023

319
00:21:35,036 --> 00:21:38,336
2022 the trump the post-trump era or

320
00:21:38,336 --> 00:21:41,116
the trump era so i guess that's i don't know maybe

321
00:21:41,116 --> 00:21:44,196
it would be a giant hit maybe eurotrip would have been the number one movie

322
00:21:44,196 --> 00:21:46,956
with people be like look it's not that funny but go

323
00:21:46,956 --> 00:21:50,076
see it for the there's a a nazi in it and we really appreciate that

324
00:21:50,076 --> 00:21:53,036
so there's nazi propaganda nazi propaganda in this

325
00:21:53,036 --> 00:21:56,316
movie yeah that that that

326
00:21:56,316 --> 00:21:59,116
that it's funny because i i noticed in

327
00:21:59,116 --> 00:22:02,396
several things that i that you were working on that there's

328
00:22:02,396 --> 00:22:05,656
the the nazi i mean it's it's it's

329
00:22:05,656 --> 00:22:09,156
funny especially in this episode of curve with the well

330
00:22:09,156 --> 00:22:12,216
i forget what what at what season and what number it's

331
00:22:12,216 --> 00:22:15,336
in my notes that you you talk to with the other guys um

332
00:22:15,336 --> 00:22:18,396
he's he's

333
00:22:18,396 --> 00:22:21,676
doodling the the swastika yes the swastika that's

334
00:22:21,676 --> 00:22:25,636
the with the kid season finale of that's

335
00:22:25,636 --> 00:22:30,476
the season finale it's the michael j fox episode season six i think or seven

336
00:22:30,476 --> 00:22:35,516
something like the six like six i'll say six yeah the michael j fox episode

337
00:22:35,516 --> 00:22:39,956
yeah where he's doodling the swastika and the kid learns the swastika the kid

338
00:22:39,956 --> 00:22:42,676
who who is sort of pre-gay,

339
00:22:42,676 --> 00:22:44,656
I guess, is what we call him on the show, yeah.

340
00:22:46,476 --> 00:22:50,276
And then he does it on Michael J.

341
00:22:50,356 --> 00:22:54,616
Fox's father-in-law. Father-in-law's picture, yes, exactly, yeah.

342
00:22:55,096 --> 00:22:57,636
So, and there was another one I remember,

343
00:22:58,862 --> 00:23:03,562
With Larry David doing another kind of joke of that, is that like a,

344
00:23:03,562 --> 00:23:07,602
is that like a running joke between you guys all?

345
00:23:07,702 --> 00:23:11,282
Like, I mean, it's funny. I laugh every time it's on there. I think there's

346
00:23:11,282 --> 00:23:13,902
a certain amount of, I'll say a couple of things.

347
00:23:13,982 --> 00:23:16,702
I mean, first of all, for Larry, Larry's fearless as a comedian,

348
00:23:16,902 --> 00:23:21,662
meaning he's just, he's willing to make himself look like both an idiot.

349
00:23:21,762 --> 00:23:24,402
He's also willing to sort of say just about anything, you know,

350
00:23:24,402 --> 00:23:27,502
so he's looking, whatever's funny, you know what I mean? So let's start with that.

351
00:23:27,562 --> 00:23:30,302
So just whatever is funny. So there's, I think that.

352
00:23:30,842 --> 00:23:34,442
I will say without, I don't know, maybe getting too self-analytical,

353
00:23:34,542 --> 00:23:39,262
there do happen to be a lot of Jewish comedy writers.

354
00:23:39,382 --> 00:23:44,342
It's sort of a rich tradition among the Jews, and I am one of them.

355
00:23:44,922 --> 00:23:48,642
And, and I do think part of it is, you know, a little bit of,

356
00:23:48,742 --> 00:23:52,882
you know, I'm sure there's a very sort of very serious answer about,

357
00:23:52,942 --> 00:23:57,302
you know, you know, speaking truth to power and making light of the things that

358
00:23:57,302 --> 00:24:01,622
are just so horrible to try and make light of them is sort of,

359
00:24:01,622 --> 00:24:03,302
sort of the Jewish thing to do.

360
00:24:03,302 --> 00:24:05,962
And there's nothing more horrible than the Holocaust.

361
00:24:06,022 --> 00:24:11,782
And so the idea of sort of not finding comedy, how does one say this?

362
00:24:11,842 --> 00:24:17,302
It is not finding comedy at the expense of anyone that was a victim of the Holocaust.

363
00:24:17,402 --> 00:24:22,862
It is certainly not making light of it or pretending it didn't happen,

364
00:24:22,962 --> 00:24:26,482
which obviously is a very popular riff these days.

365
00:24:26,482 --> 00:24:32,782
But finding sort of comedy in the horror, I think is what's really interesting

366
00:24:32,782 --> 00:24:34,422
and kind of, I don't know.

367
00:24:34,482 --> 00:24:39,042
And so we do that. I don't know what else to say. We do, we do that.

368
00:24:39,182 --> 00:24:43,402
And I think that's, that's, it's more of that than any private joke or anything

369
00:24:43,402 --> 00:24:44,602
like that, if that makes sense.

370
00:24:45,142 --> 00:24:49,362
Yeah. Well, I mean, we can make fun of it now because they lost.

371
00:24:49,422 --> 00:24:52,862
And I think people forget that they lost, you know?

372
00:24:53,262 --> 00:24:56,522
No, I mean, It's the craziest thing because you just, I mean,

373
00:24:56,542 --> 00:24:59,082
again, now we're talking about just, we're talking politics and you,

374
00:24:59,222 --> 00:25:02,382
you know, on the, on the, the far right, which, you know, again,

375
00:25:02,462 --> 00:25:04,042
it used to be a little perhaps hidden.

376
00:25:04,082 --> 00:25:08,402
And now, you know, they just had the big, the big CPAC conservative conference.

377
00:25:08,482 --> 00:25:12,822
And I mean, they're just open out and out Nazis, like not even hiding it now.

378
00:25:13,722 --> 00:25:19,182
And you do kind of go like, do you guys, I mean, you're, you guys remember world war two?

379
00:25:19,242 --> 00:25:24,822
Like we, we, we fought them, we beat them. I mean, it's fucking bananas, yeah.

380
00:25:25,617 --> 00:25:31,357
Yeah. Well, back to the other part of that, you mentioned Michael J. Fox. Let's go to that.

381
00:25:32,237 --> 00:25:36,377
What was it like working with him? Because I know you're a fan of Back to the

382
00:25:36,377 --> 00:25:39,377
Future. You know, it's funny. I was thinking about this the other day.

383
00:25:39,497 --> 00:25:42,357
I watched, I recently watched, even though it's been out, I think,

384
00:25:42,377 --> 00:25:45,457
for over a year and people haven't watched, I highly recommend it.

385
00:25:45,497 --> 00:25:50,237
I watched Still, which is the Michael J. Fox documentary on Apple TV.

386
00:25:50,657 --> 00:25:55,097
And it's very much about, you know, his Parkinson's, his ongoing fight against

387
00:25:55,097 --> 00:25:58,337
Parkinson's. And it's a brutal movie.

388
00:25:58,497 --> 00:26:03,037
I mean, it's, and he talks about this. It's, you know, there are moments where

389
00:26:03,037 --> 00:26:06,857
he's sitting there and when he's sitting still, obviously his speech is affected,

390
00:26:07,097 --> 00:26:10,337
but then he moves and you see him walking on camera.

391
00:26:10,397 --> 00:26:14,437
And the second he starts moving and stuff, you just are taken aback because

392
00:26:14,437 --> 00:26:18,137
no matter, I don't know how, when he's sitting there, no matter how rough he

393
00:26:18,137 --> 00:26:21,477
looks, you kind of turn him into, you know, Alex P.

394
00:26:21,517 --> 00:26:23,097
Keaton from Family Ties, you turn

395
00:26:23,097 --> 00:26:28,597
him into Marty McFly and somehow he's whatever, 24 again, but he's not.

396
00:26:28,597 --> 00:26:33,757
And in the movie one of the things that's going on is he'll come and sit down for an interview

397
00:26:34,177 --> 00:26:36,917
and all of a sudden he'll just have a black eye and they'll be like

398
00:26:36,917 --> 00:26:40,937
what's going on he's like oh i fell and his hands broke i fell and you i mean

399
00:26:40,937 --> 00:26:45,397
you feel you're not necessarily seeing these accents but you feel everyone it's

400
00:26:45,397 --> 00:26:50,237
it's quite it's both heartbreaking but also at the same time his philosophy

401
00:26:50,237 --> 00:26:53,957
and the way he talks about it the way he's willing to talk about it is really

402
00:26:53,957 --> 00:26:54,797
really, really amazing.

403
00:26:54,937 --> 00:27:00,877
When we had him on curb, I think it was certainly not great.

404
00:27:01,137 --> 00:27:05,017
He was on a medication of some sort that had a timing sequence to it.

405
00:27:05,077 --> 00:27:09,697
So he would try and take the medication, allow the medication to sink in,

406
00:27:09,757 --> 00:27:14,297
and then he would sort of be quote unquote better to work for a period of time.

407
00:27:14,857 --> 00:27:18,757
But, you know, it has certainly progressed so much since then.

408
00:27:18,797 --> 00:27:21,517
And I I will be very honest. I'm the biggest fan in the world.

409
00:27:21,697 --> 00:27:26,557
And I certainly spoke to him about scenes we were doing.

410
00:27:26,617 --> 00:27:31,397
I spoke to him about stuff we were doing, but I stopped myself.

411
00:27:31,597 --> 00:27:37,817
And now I sort of regret it, but I sort of don't. The idea of wasting his time

412
00:27:37,817 --> 00:27:41,837
with, I love Back to the Future.

413
00:27:41,977 --> 00:27:46,077
I don't know. I felt like I just didn't want to be that person as much as I

414
00:27:46,077 --> 00:27:50,457
love Back to the Future and wanted to tell him about things in my collection

415
00:27:50,457 --> 00:27:51,677
and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

416
00:27:51,817 --> 00:27:57,337
And I just, I didn't. And I just didn't feel like I wanted to, like, again,

417
00:27:57,437 --> 00:28:02,217
like it felt like this man is on a limited time clock of life and he doesn't

418
00:28:02,217 --> 00:28:06,677
need me wasting six minutes of it with, you know, it's like six minutes he won't

419
00:28:06,677 --> 00:28:07,677
have for something else.

420
00:28:07,717 --> 00:28:13,357
So I loved him. I respected him and I stayed out of his, I just stayed away from him.

421
00:28:13,437 --> 00:28:16,217
It's sad, but truth. I just didn't want to bug him.

422
00:28:17,425 --> 00:28:22,265
Yeah, I mean, he's such a great sport because some of the jokes you guys do with him is so fun.

423
00:28:22,305 --> 00:28:27,805
He loved doing all the Parkinson's stuff, and his timing was exquisite.

424
00:28:27,925 --> 00:28:33,805
I mean, his timing, you know, the brain is sharp, and nobody had timing like him.

425
00:28:33,905 --> 00:28:39,225
And even then, I don't know if you remember him with the big boots and the jumping,

426
00:28:39,525 --> 00:28:41,565
where Larry's like, what's all the noise, whatever.

427
00:28:41,845 --> 00:28:47,665
And you see him jumping around. And I mean, he's even he's a guy with Parkinson's

428
00:28:47,665 --> 00:28:53,525
doing physical comedy that says, you know, good as anything he ever did on Family

429
00:28:53,525 --> 00:28:55,705
Ties or, you know, anyway.

430
00:28:55,845 --> 00:28:58,065
Stone City. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

431
00:28:59,305 --> 00:29:03,345
Is it the shake or the Parkinson's shake? I love that. So that line is so fun.

432
00:29:03,925 --> 00:29:06,385
Pissed or Parkinson's. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

433
00:29:07,485 --> 00:29:10,385
So and so. OK. And so you, you know, of course.

434
00:29:10,385 --> 00:29:17,265
First curb is larry's larry's baby but his first baby was seinfeld and you and your your your,

435
00:29:17,865 --> 00:29:22,425
high school homies got to work with with larry

436
00:29:22,425 --> 00:29:27,545
first on seinfeld because you guys were already punching up scripts and and

437
00:29:27,545 --> 00:29:33,805
and no funny enough um the the guys it's actually we we all met in college actually

438
00:29:33,805 --> 00:29:36,925
not high school we met in college and they were a year they were a year ahead

439
00:29:36,925 --> 00:29:38,525
of me They were one year older.

440
00:29:38,605 --> 00:29:41,145
They were class of 91. I was class of 92.

441
00:29:42,285 --> 00:29:48,245
And initially everybody kind of stayed East and I, and ultimately,

442
00:29:48,305 --> 00:29:53,645
you know, they were around and then they moved to Los Angeles and I went to

443
00:29:53,645 --> 00:29:55,525
New York and I was doing SNL.

444
00:29:55,525 --> 00:29:59,805
And then they came back to New York and they were doing the Conan O'Brien show,

445
00:29:59,905 --> 00:30:01,165
the early days of Conan O'Brien.

446
00:30:01,265 --> 00:30:04,445
So we were all working in 30 Rock, but just on different stuff.

447
00:30:04,465 --> 00:30:09,585
And we were talking to each other and looking at each other's stuff,

448
00:30:09,605 --> 00:30:11,605
but not officially looking at each other's stuff. stuff.

449
00:30:11,945 --> 00:30:16,005
And then they, they went back to LA basically to clean out their apartment and

450
00:30:16,005 --> 00:30:18,725
move to New York full time when they got Seinfeld.

451
00:30:18,865 --> 00:30:22,805
So then they were on Seinfeld for a full year when I was still on SNL.

452
00:30:22,865 --> 00:30:26,245
So I would go out to LA to visit and I would hang out in the SNL offices.

453
00:30:27,285 --> 00:30:31,345
And then a year later, I officially joined the staff.

454
00:30:31,465 --> 00:30:36,285
So I was, we were sort of separate that we kind of joined, although obviously

455
00:30:36,285 --> 00:30:41,425
I, part of how I got in there was hanging out with them and meeting Larry and

456
00:30:41,425 --> 00:30:44,185
Jerry and whatnot. So sort of an answer there.

457
00:30:44,485 --> 00:30:48,165
But yeah, no, it just was honestly, you know, that show had started.

458
00:30:48,185 --> 00:30:51,285
It was a couple of seasons in. It had become the hit it was.

459
00:30:52,045 --> 00:30:54,565
And, you know, it was really one of those things where,

460
00:30:55,289 --> 00:30:59,269
You know, on Thursday nights when it was, you know, airing, you just like,

461
00:30:59,329 --> 00:31:02,869
it was like nothing we'd ever seen because it was just so different.

462
00:31:03,029 --> 00:31:07,949
I mean, now I'm not sure anybody, like if a young person watches Seinfeld,

463
00:31:08,009 --> 00:31:17,229
I'm not sure you realize how much it changed television because most sitcoms now are just very,

464
00:31:17,349 --> 00:31:21,029
most of them are very different because of Seinfeld.

465
00:31:21,029 --> 00:31:27,009
They are doing the way they do a story, the way they kind of the characters talk.

466
00:31:27,129 --> 00:31:32,629
And I'm not saying every show is Seinfeld, but just a lot of shows do the Seinfeld thing.

467
00:31:33,069 --> 00:31:35,629
And Seinfeld was shot in front of a studio audience.

468
00:31:36,209 --> 00:31:40,089
You know, it's a multicam and obviously we had crowds and stuff.

469
00:31:40,109 --> 00:31:43,969
But as the show got more and more complicated, we were constantly shooting stuff,

470
00:31:44,029 --> 00:31:47,769
you know, like on like our fake New York streets and whatever.

471
00:31:47,769 --> 00:31:50,909
And so all of that was not shot in front of the audience.

472
00:31:51,049 --> 00:31:54,089
And as the show got more and more complicated than you would have in a given

473
00:31:54,089 --> 00:31:58,429
week, often four characters with four different stories and they're intertwining and stuff.

474
00:31:58,709 --> 00:32:03,149
But even though the show was shot in front of an audience, it became more and

475
00:32:03,149 --> 00:32:07,849
more like a single camera before there were all the single camera sitcoms.

476
00:32:07,849 --> 00:32:11,049
And really it kind of bridges that gap like

477
00:32:11,049 --> 00:32:13,709
you don't do shows like you know

478
00:32:13,709 --> 00:32:16,589
the office and whatnot all those single cams that now are

479
00:32:16,589 --> 00:32:21,149
you know it's all anyone does a single cam but again i think seinfeld is that

480
00:32:21,149 --> 00:32:26,089
sort of magical bridge and it just you know so many shows that just kind of

481
00:32:26,089 --> 00:32:31,109
again i don't want to say lifted but just kind of you know did the seinfeld

482
00:32:31,109 --> 00:32:36,209
thing so yeah no it was It was very much just like,

483
00:32:36,269 --> 00:32:38,429
you know, this is the best show on television.

484
00:32:38,629 --> 00:32:41,309
I can't believe I've gotten a job here. This is great. You know,

485
00:32:41,349 --> 00:32:42,949
it was really that sense of things. Yeah.

486
00:32:43,595 --> 00:32:45,615
Yeah. And it's cool that you got to do it with your buddies,

487
00:32:45,755 --> 00:32:49,355
you know, like how awesome is that much more fun? Yeah, obviously. Yeah.

488
00:32:49,915 --> 00:32:53,015
It's like the trailblazer, you know, of, of those types of shows,

489
00:32:53,015 --> 00:32:58,495
which, you know, and, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I watch Veep and,

490
00:32:58,495 --> 00:33:04,415
and there's the similarities of, of, of how people communicate more like there's DNA.

491
00:33:04,975 --> 00:33:09,815
It's like the DNA similarities. And by the way, you know, Larry really taught

492
00:33:09,815 --> 00:33:14,675
me how to write a sitcom in terms of, I'll say a couple of things.

493
00:33:14,755 --> 00:33:18,755
First of all, number one, what is a story? What actually is a story?

494
00:33:19,575 --> 00:33:22,975
There's so many things a story isn't that other sitcoms make the mistake.

495
00:33:23,235 --> 00:33:27,635
Often, a story is a location to them or a story is a holiday.

496
00:33:28,515 --> 00:33:32,915
Larry obviously had characters with real stories. And I think one of the things

497
00:33:32,915 --> 00:33:37,835
I brought to Veep is I sort of, I think in my, I, cause I did not create the

498
00:33:37,835 --> 00:33:39,795
show. The show was created by Armando Iannucci.

499
00:33:40,095 --> 00:33:44,195
He ran the show for the first four seasons and then he wanted to spend more

500
00:33:44,195 --> 00:33:45,895
time back with his family in London.

501
00:33:46,115 --> 00:33:49,535
He was looking to sort of, you know, step aside or I don't know,

502
00:33:49,535 --> 00:33:51,155
maybe possibly end the show.

503
00:33:51,275 --> 00:33:54,135
Julia wanted the show to keep going. HBO wanted to keep going,

504
00:33:54,435 --> 00:33:57,935
the show going. going, he was, Armando was open to it and was very,

505
00:33:57,955 --> 00:34:01,855
just really gracious and wonderful when it was sort of decided that I would

506
00:34:01,855 --> 00:34:04,655
take it over. I didn't work there before that. I was just a fan.

507
00:34:04,935 --> 00:34:08,515
And when I took it over, I do think there are things that I brought to it,

508
00:34:08,695 --> 00:34:11,575
you know, in terms of the, some of the storytelling, but also,

509
00:34:11,655 --> 00:34:17,415
you know, we started doing, I think more plots, you know, we started doing two and three plots.

510
00:34:17,555 --> 00:34:21,875
It's not exactly like Seinfeld, but in a similar way, more plots that were bumping

511
00:34:21,875 --> 00:34:25,435
into each other and things like that, because that's just, That's what I know.

512
00:34:25,795 --> 00:34:30,935
The other big thing with Larry was always that every scene has to move the story forward.

513
00:34:31,135 --> 00:34:34,555
And that's something that just works for everything I do, whether it's a movie,

514
00:34:34,635 --> 00:34:36,355
TV, whatever, which is...

515
00:34:37,141 --> 00:34:39,661
In any given scene, there can be things that are funny. There can be lots of

516
00:34:39,661 --> 00:34:42,761
different things, but there needs to be new information.

517
00:34:43,081 --> 00:34:47,721
The audience has to be hearing things because either something is happening

518
00:34:47,721 --> 00:34:49,781
or someone is telling someone something or whatnot.

519
00:34:49,941 --> 00:34:54,061
So the story is moving forward. Stories are no longer moving forward.

520
00:34:54,161 --> 00:34:57,061
The show starts to feel stagnant and dead.

521
00:34:57,281 --> 00:35:00,961
And one of the things about Veep, maybe even more so, dare I say,

522
00:35:01,081 --> 00:35:07,421
than Curb or Seinfeld, was I just also pumped the speed up. So my show got faster

523
00:35:07,421 --> 00:35:12,081
and faster and more and more information and just kind of kept jamming it.

524
00:35:12,141 --> 00:35:16,221
But the DNA is pure Larry David Seinfeld. I mean, it just is.

525
00:35:16,401 --> 00:35:20,201
So, yeah. And I have that from working there.

526
00:35:20,361 --> 00:35:23,061
There are a lot of shows where they just kind of start doing it.

527
00:35:23,121 --> 00:35:25,581
You know what I mean? I mean, look, even, I don't know, I'm not saying I don't

528
00:35:25,581 --> 00:35:29,141
think anything crazy, but even if you look at like a show like Friends back

529
00:35:29,141 --> 00:35:34,121
in the day, they were doing Seinfeld-esque stories.

530
00:35:34,201 --> 00:35:37,241
That was not by mistake. Now they did it differently.

531
00:35:37,601 --> 00:35:40,981
They had people that were, you know, dating and falling in love more,

532
00:35:41,101 --> 00:35:46,081
but a lot of their, you know, New York City stories were very Seinfeld-esque.

533
00:35:46,081 --> 00:35:50,141
And in fact, Courtney Cox had been a Jerry girlfriend.

534
00:35:50,421 --> 00:35:54,161
That's part of how she kind of not, not the only reason she got that part,

535
00:35:54,261 --> 00:35:59,201
but she, you know, and, and over the years of that show, you would see people

536
00:35:59,201 --> 00:36:03,421
would be on Seinfeld in a funny guest starring role and then eventually start

537
00:36:03,421 --> 00:36:07,181
going on to all the other shows playing similar parts.

538
00:36:07,181 --> 00:36:09,841
Like all of a sudden like oh that nerdy guy's now on the

539
00:36:09,841 --> 00:36:12,581
on friends as a nerdy guy and you know what things of

540
00:36:12,581 --> 00:36:15,761
that nature and again it's not there's nothing illegal about it

541
00:36:15,761 --> 00:36:18,781
i'm just simply saying it just people don't quite realize what an

542
00:36:18,781 --> 00:36:23,121
influence seinfeld was i think at the time especially if you're just watching

543
00:36:23,121 --> 00:36:27,641
it on netflix now where it just seems like one of many shows that have this

544
00:36:27,641 --> 00:36:33,721
kind of voice no it was the first one anyway yeah yeah yeah i mean that that

545
00:36:33,721 --> 00:36:36,521
those Those shows, all three of the ones that we're talking about,

546
00:36:36,641 --> 00:36:41,021
are some of the only shows that really make me laugh out loud,

547
00:36:41,201 --> 00:36:45,701
genuinely laugh out loud at the television, you know.

548
00:36:46,641 --> 00:36:51,901
And then you win an Emmy. Is that like one of your most crowning achievements

549
00:36:51,901 --> 00:36:54,861
of your life? Or is your kids more than that?

550
00:36:55,341 --> 00:36:59,501
I mean, certainly, look, I'm going to put a lot of things in front of it.

551
00:36:59,561 --> 00:37:03,301
And look, obviously, I have a lot of work experiences where we didn't win an Emmy.

552
00:37:03,301 --> 00:37:07,401
You know it's funny i don't know i you know at some point or another i think

553
00:37:07,401 --> 00:37:13,001
i was texting with jerry seinfeld it was a funny thing the night i won the the

554
00:37:13,001 --> 00:37:15,101
night we won the first emmy for veep,

555
00:37:16,463 --> 00:37:17,643
Larry was the presenter.

556
00:37:20,143 --> 00:37:23,703
Curb was not on at that moment. There was no Curb. He was on a long break.

557
00:37:24,003 --> 00:37:30,083
And so obviously as a huge comedy guy, he was chosen to give the award out.

558
00:37:30,203 --> 00:37:36,343
So he was the presenter, which was just pretty amazing, just somewhat magical, dare I say.

559
00:37:36,343 --> 00:37:39,143
And i obviously there was no way i you could know

560
00:37:39,143 --> 00:37:42,323
you're going to win or anything like that and oddly enough uh alec

561
00:37:42,323 --> 00:37:46,923
berg one of my former writing partners was up for it as well he was doing a

562
00:37:46,923 --> 00:37:51,523
wonderful show silicon valley at the time and so he was up for it as well so

563
00:37:51,523 --> 00:37:58,763
there was a two and five chance that larry was going to give the emmy to basically

564
00:37:58,763 --> 00:38:02,243
one of the you know basically basically the, the,

565
00:38:02,303 --> 00:38:04,783
his disciples for lack of a better word,

566
00:38:04,883 --> 00:38:07,343
which was sort of kind of, you know, fascinating odds.

567
00:38:08,023 --> 00:38:13,463
But anyway, long story short, I did win it and Veep won, which was great.

568
00:38:13,543 --> 00:38:15,683
And Larry handed it to me, which was very special.

569
00:38:15,983 --> 00:38:20,463
And oddly enough, that year, Jerry had been nominated for comedians and cars

570
00:38:20,463 --> 00:38:24,463
getting coffee, which maybe had just switched networks or something.

571
00:38:24,503 --> 00:38:26,003
So now it was eligible for an Emmy.

572
00:38:26,063 --> 00:38:30,403
So anyway, long story short, I get up to, and I, And all of a sudden,

573
00:38:30,423 --> 00:38:31,623
you're up there in front of the lights.

574
00:38:31,763 --> 00:38:36,263
And really, the only person I can see in the front row is Jerry Seinfeld.

575
00:38:36,323 --> 00:38:38,723
So it was this very funny thing where Larry handed me the Emmy,

576
00:38:38,783 --> 00:38:39,783
and now I'm staring at Jerry.

577
00:38:40,863 --> 00:38:45,923
And by the way, it just was one of those very funny things. So afterwards,

578
00:38:46,303 --> 00:38:48,503
I think we texted a couple of days later.

579
00:38:49,420 --> 00:38:52,120
And I think Jerry had written me something because I had said something about,

580
00:38:52,140 --> 00:38:55,560
you know, learning from Larry and Jerry and he wrote me something about that.

581
00:38:55,660 --> 00:38:59,500
And I said something to him about how it had been. I thought it was a crime

582
00:38:59,500 --> 00:39:02,460
that Seinfeld won the Emmy once, basically.

583
00:39:02,900 --> 00:39:06,420
And it was before I ever got there. I mean, we were nominated every season.

584
00:39:06,480 --> 00:39:10,700
We would win Writers Guild Awards, Directors Guild Awards, all these other awards.

585
00:39:10,880 --> 00:39:13,240
And we never quite won the Emmy again.

586
00:39:13,640 --> 00:39:17,740
And I sort of said to, you know, to Jerry, like something along the lines of

587
00:39:17,740 --> 00:39:19,180
this was wrong. This was, you know, whatever.

588
00:39:19,560 --> 00:39:23,760
And he had just a very, you know, sanguine sort of like very,

589
00:39:23,860 --> 00:39:27,260
very philosophical reaction. He just sort of said, nope, it's perfect.

590
00:39:27,640 --> 00:39:31,000
You know, it's almost like he enjoyed the fact that it was like,

591
00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:34,580
that it was so stupid and so wrong that they only had the one.

592
00:39:34,720 --> 00:39:37,560
He's like, I prefer it that way. And I was like, okay, I get that.

593
00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:40,780
So the honest answer is I worked on a tremendous number of shows,

594
00:39:40,920 --> 00:39:43,420
SNL at some point, Seinfeld,

595
00:39:43,580 --> 00:39:49,160
Curb, all of which had been nominated and I'd been many, many times and not

596
00:39:49,160 --> 00:39:53,600
won for shows that I truly believe should have won.

597
00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:59,720
And I, I, you know, the idea that Frazier won so many Emmys and I mean,

598
00:39:59,740 --> 00:40:03,360
I'm not sure anybody, and by the way, I was about to say, no one even remembers

599
00:40:03,360 --> 00:40:06,400
it and they have a revival on right now. No one remembers that.

600
00:40:06,800 --> 00:40:10,720
And they beat, they beat Seinfeld year after year after year.

601
00:40:10,900 --> 00:40:15,600
And yet, you know, how crazy that is. And I'm not mad.

602
00:40:15,780 --> 00:40:19,700
I'm not sitting here seething about it. It's just, it's just kind of crazy.

603
00:40:19,700 --> 00:40:26,200
So, long story short, I will say that taking over the show and taking it over,

604
00:40:26,380 --> 00:40:29,400
and again, I obviously had an amazing writing staff.

605
00:40:29,680 --> 00:40:34,260
I had Julia as my really almost like my new writing partner in a way just because

606
00:40:34,260 --> 00:40:38,500
she and I were really a team in doing the show.

607
00:40:38,500 --> 00:40:41,960
But i will say being the

608
00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:45,140
solo showrunner taking over the show and you

609
00:40:45,140 --> 00:40:48,040
know people i think thought it was going to you know get so much worse

610
00:40:48,040 --> 00:40:51,680
and all of these good things that happened and winning for that

611
00:40:51,680 --> 00:40:54,480
yeah no it was pretty great i mean it just kind of is

612
00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:57,120
you know and but no not not as good as my

613
00:40:57,120 --> 00:41:00,100
kids but maybe one of my two kids but

614
00:41:00,100 --> 00:41:02,840
yeah right yeah yeah and she's so great in the

615
00:41:02,840 --> 00:41:05,560
the show no she's incredible and you know

616
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:09,160
you have no idea i mean i don't know what to say obviously you watch the show

617
00:41:09,160 --> 00:41:12,520
you get to see how funny she is but you have no fucking idea how good she is

618
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:17,800
yeah there's another show you worked on that uncle dad is a huge kevin smith

619
00:41:17,800 --> 00:41:25,200
fan okay so the clerks he loves it all yep and uh i think he wants to well i just you know.

620
00:41:26,132 --> 00:41:29,292
I love everything Kevin Smith, everything. He's probably like,

621
00:41:29,292 --> 00:41:32,652
one of the reasons why I do a podcast is because of Kevin Smith.

622
00:41:32,812 --> 00:41:34,952
I mean, I mean, listen to his podcast since I was in high school.

623
00:41:35,032 --> 00:41:39,072
No, I think honestly, if Kevin, I mean, obviously he's obviously all his podcasts

624
00:41:39,072 --> 00:41:44,392
are great, but if Kevin had like put his name on like a microphone kit, he could have sold them.

625
00:41:44,972 --> 00:41:48,032
Yeah. I mean, he's very smart about marketing himself in general,

626
00:41:48,072 --> 00:41:53,412
but his great failure was to not do a Kevin Smith at home podcasting set because

627
00:41:53,412 --> 00:41:58,212
you are not alone in the world of people People that sort of listened to him, love him,

628
00:41:58,272 --> 00:42:01,472
and then started their own. So yeah, he would have made a small fortune on it.

629
00:42:01,752 --> 00:42:05,252
I have to tell you, one of my favorite highlights of his career,

630
00:42:05,472 --> 00:42:09,172
if you will, and I guess your career, is the Clerks animated series.

631
00:42:09,332 --> 00:42:10,792
I loved it. I thought it was incredible.

632
00:42:11,132 --> 00:42:13,992
It's a shame of what happened with Disney and that stuff. I mean,

633
00:42:14,012 --> 00:42:17,592
in my sort of my very Jerry Seinfeld answer now is no, it was it was good.

634
00:42:17,632 --> 00:42:22,672
It happened because like, you know, it was only because it was we got so like,

635
00:42:22,832 --> 00:42:27,292
you know, violated basically that like we sort of are still talking about it.

636
00:42:27,352 --> 00:42:30,472
But no, one of the things I loved it. I loved it as an experience.

637
00:42:30,552 --> 00:42:35,572
There is comedy that we put into those six episodes that I think was,

638
00:42:35,572 --> 00:42:40,272
you know, I don't like talking about my own stuff this way, but I think there

639
00:42:40,272 --> 00:42:42,672
was some of the best stuff I've ever done is in those shows.

640
00:42:42,672 --> 00:42:45,372
And stuff that was just again i hate saying it

641
00:42:45,372 --> 00:42:48,172
like this i think really years ahead of its time like jokes that

642
00:42:48,172 --> 00:42:51,432
nobody else was doing that like six years

643
00:42:51,432 --> 00:42:54,232
later shows would kind of do a version of our

644
00:42:54,232 --> 00:42:58,972
joke and of course nobody knows we did it first six years ago but like i don't

645
00:42:58,972 --> 00:43:02,372
know it just always sort of made me laugh there were things like i don't know

646
00:43:02,372 --> 00:43:07,712
like the judge reinhold stuff and whatever other shows did years later were

647
00:43:07,712 --> 00:43:10,492
you like wait a second family guys doing that we did Anyway,

648
00:43:10,712 --> 00:43:12,072
not the point of the story.

649
00:43:13,331 --> 00:43:17,671
I loved it. And I'm always really happy when I run into Kevin.

650
00:43:17,811 --> 00:43:20,251
Kevin lives sort of vaguely in my neighborhood.

651
00:43:20,411 --> 00:43:23,091
So, you know, when I'm walking and he's walking his dogs and stuff,

652
00:43:23,151 --> 00:43:26,411
we get to kind of run into each other just enough that it's always,

653
00:43:26,491 --> 00:43:29,311
you know, just like we always get like a sort of a good time and put a smile

654
00:43:29,311 --> 00:43:32,251
on each other's face. And I think, honestly, we both really enjoyed it.

655
00:43:32,271 --> 00:43:35,831
I never want to speak for him, but just all these years later that he's still

656
00:43:35,831 --> 00:43:38,431
talking about it too, makes me very happy.

657
00:43:38,531 --> 00:43:43,391
And him and Scott Mosier and kind of getting to know Muse and Brian.

658
00:43:43,711 --> 00:43:48,031
I just, I, you know, I, I got to, you know, and I've since then I've popped

659
00:43:48,031 --> 00:43:52,291
up, I've gotten to be an extra a couple of times in a couple of the Jay and

660
00:43:52,291 --> 00:43:54,711
Silent Bob movies and, you know, you know, whatever.

661
00:43:54,711 --> 00:43:57,771
And so i always get to feel like like i'm in

662
00:43:57,771 --> 00:44:00,471
the view askew universe i'm like a cousin like i'm

663
00:44:00,471 --> 00:44:03,151
a cousin from a far so far away city and i get to

664
00:44:03,151 --> 00:44:06,591
pop in every now and then which is a is

665
00:44:06,591 --> 00:44:10,731
perfect for me but i'm always very touched that i'm like a i'm a distant relation

666
00:44:10,731 --> 00:44:15,291
so yeah no it's a nice feeling yeah well speaking of you askew mike may i show

667
00:44:15,291 --> 00:44:23,471
him my hat yeah show away yes all right we We were going to go to the Cruises queue.

668
00:44:24,471 --> 00:44:28,931
Oh, that was like last week, right? Yeah. And, you know, I made that hat and

669
00:44:28,931 --> 00:44:30,571
we were going to bum rush Kevin with it.

670
00:44:31,531 --> 00:44:35,451
Were you going to bum rush him hoping that like he'd want to make like an order

671
00:44:35,451 --> 00:44:38,771
for his store kind of a thing? Was that the secret, secret hope? Yeah. Yeah.

672
00:44:39,011 --> 00:44:42,411
By the way, your hats are wonderful. I'm not sure I've said that to you in the

673
00:44:42,411 --> 00:44:44,831
last 10 years, but I thought that was really cool.

674
00:44:45,031 --> 00:44:50,271
You've done good. You made good. I appreciate you saying that. Thank you.

675
00:44:50,551 --> 00:44:53,031
It always goes back to Mike's hats.

676
00:44:56,371 --> 00:45:00,991
Maybe we'll send you a hat and you can pass it to him when you bump into him

677
00:45:00,991 --> 00:45:02,371
when you're walking your dog or something.

678
00:45:02,551 --> 00:45:06,011
Oh, Kevin, look what I happen to have that I've been walking around with.

679
00:45:07,051 --> 00:45:08,571
Just wandering around with this.

680
00:45:10,011 --> 00:45:11,851
I want to ask one last question real quick. Yeah, go for it.

681
00:45:12,944 --> 00:45:16,384
When you did that show, remind me, because I'm a vague memory.

682
00:45:16,444 --> 00:45:20,184
I don't own the DVD anymore. But as we talked about, getting rid of media.

683
00:45:20,524 --> 00:45:24,544
I know. And by the way, the shame of that one is, I will say,

684
00:45:24,744 --> 00:45:30,304
I think the six commentaries on that, which we recorded right after they fucking

685
00:45:30,304 --> 00:45:31,784
canceled us and whatever.

686
00:45:32,344 --> 00:45:39,404
Those are six long hours of therapy where Kevin and I really go through the ringer emotionally.

687
00:45:39,404 --> 00:45:42,544
Emotionally and it's just like two just angry

688
00:45:42,544 --> 00:45:45,764
motherfuckers just furious at abc

689
00:45:45,764 --> 00:45:48,724
and everything and it's like it's i mean i don't think

690
00:45:48,724 --> 00:45:52,144
anyone listens to commentaries anymore but those are good those

691
00:45:52,144 --> 00:45:56,364
are good commentaries yeah i that's literally what i wanted to talk about was

692
00:45:56,364 --> 00:46:00,044
those commentaries because i don't have the dvd anymore and that was my favorite

693
00:46:00,044 --> 00:46:03,804
thing because it really opened up my perspective of everything i mean it was

694
00:46:03,804 --> 00:46:07,684
i mean you remember you're sure you remember It was just such a process of what

695
00:46:07,684 --> 00:46:09,664
happened and what they did to you guys.

696
00:46:10,024 --> 00:46:13,184
I mean, I don't know. I just think it's insane, too, to just do two episodes

697
00:46:13,184 --> 00:46:14,164
and just pull it, I think.

698
00:46:14,264 --> 00:46:17,244
Right. Like, it's just, you know, it wasn't it wasn't it just,

699
00:46:17,324 --> 00:46:19,924
you know, again, it's like, you know, I'm dating myself.

700
00:46:20,104 --> 00:46:25,684
It's just like you guys just can't know what a giant hit and what a game changer

701
00:46:25,684 --> 00:46:28,004
who wants to be a millionaire was.

702
00:46:28,004 --> 00:46:32,244
Yeah. And we, you know, we sold the show to ABC when they were basically in

703
00:46:32,244 --> 00:46:35,104
third place and kind of open to anything.

704
00:46:35,224 --> 00:46:38,164
And I believe we were the definition of open to anything.

705
00:46:38,484 --> 00:46:42,684
And then unfortunately, before we ever, you know, got to air,

706
00:46:42,904 --> 00:46:46,704
they started putting on who wants to be a millionaire and it was on, you know, like.

707
00:46:47,396 --> 00:46:50,996
It was on like 11 nights a week. I mean, it was on just like they were making

708
00:46:50,996 --> 00:46:52,996
up new days of the week to put it on.

709
00:46:53,416 --> 00:46:58,016
And no matter how much they put it on, the ratings were just bigger than anything

710
00:46:58,016 --> 00:47:00,796
that any of the networks had. I mean, it was crazy.

711
00:47:01,376 --> 00:47:06,616
So when our show, which was certainly weird and off and the idea of them doing,

712
00:47:06,736 --> 00:47:10,496
I mean, forget about even if it had been the most mainstream show in the world.

713
00:47:10,576 --> 00:47:13,376
You know what I mean? Like just the idea that they were going to put any show

714
00:47:13,376 --> 00:47:19,696
on or even an animated show on, but a sort of, if you will, Kevin Smith ask,

715
00:47:20,016 --> 00:47:25,876
I, it just, I mean, it just became such a, it just became such a bad joke, but the worst part of it.

716
00:47:25,936 --> 00:47:29,576
And again, all these years later is not that they, you know,

717
00:47:29,576 --> 00:47:34,636
found a new show and they didn't want us and all of the things that are again,

718
00:47:34,796 --> 00:47:37,476
you know, very, you know, whatever, a very Godfather, you know,

719
00:47:37,496 --> 00:47:39,116
it's just business. It's just business. Okay.

720
00:47:39,216 --> 00:47:44,456
That's all fine and good. It was just how despicable and unhonorable they were,

721
00:47:44,576 --> 00:47:46,636
their inability to tell us the truth,

722
00:47:46,796 --> 00:47:53,356
the lying that they did to us about why it wasn't going on or like the way they

723
00:47:53,356 --> 00:47:56,796
even told us it wasn't going on, which was by not telling us.

724
00:47:56,796 --> 00:48:00,316
I mean, we read about, like, we read about the fact that we weren't going on,

725
00:48:00,416 --> 00:48:04,416
you know, in, in, in, in like a, you know, like in an article online.

726
00:48:04,536 --> 00:48:08,116
I mean, it just was, it was, the behavior was despicable.

727
00:48:08,196 --> 00:48:11,456
You know, it's like you, if you're proud of who wants to be a millionaire,

728
00:48:11,576 --> 00:48:13,476
be proud of it. Go for it. Congratulations.

729
00:48:14,356 --> 00:48:17,196
But I mean, I hate to say it, just don't act like, you know,

730
00:48:17,196 --> 00:48:20,496
just don't act like a, just a, I don't know. Just, just.

731
00:48:20,916 --> 00:48:23,096
Don't be a dick. Yeah. Don't be a dick.

732
00:48:25,596 --> 00:48:26,356
One of the,

733
00:48:27,078 --> 00:48:30,758
One of my favorite, and I think a lot of people's favorite episodes of Seinfeld

734
00:48:30,758 --> 00:48:33,778
was your Bizarro Jerry episode.

735
00:48:34,298 --> 00:48:41,218
You know, and there's a Bizarro statue in the Bizarro Jerry's apartment.

736
00:48:42,298 --> 00:48:49,538
And I'm wondering, was that yours, personal one that they use as a prop?

737
00:48:49,718 --> 00:48:52,758
Or do you have that as a prop?

738
00:48:52,898 --> 00:48:56,038
So it's a hard answer. at the time there

739
00:48:56,038 --> 00:48:59,378
was no such thing as a bizarro jerry statue there

740
00:48:59,378 --> 00:49:02,418
was no bizarro statue like dc comics did not

741
00:49:02,418 --> 00:49:05,758
make a bizarro they have subsequently bizarro has

742
00:49:05,758 --> 00:49:08,798
sort of come back a little bit into fashion which

743
00:49:08,798 --> 00:49:11,838
i'd like to think was thanks to me because you

744
00:49:11,838 --> 00:49:14,818
know it was just very much a character that was kind of gone and

745
00:49:14,818 --> 00:49:18,658
by the way it was a word that was kind of gone and i think nowadays you

746
00:49:18,658 --> 00:49:21,698
know you will read an article and it'll say like it's like bizarro world

747
00:49:21,698 --> 00:49:24,858
and i think people have learned the term because of the episode

748
00:49:24,858 --> 00:49:27,898
so to answer question number one

749
00:49:27,898 --> 00:49:31,438
because jerry had the superman

750
00:49:31,438 --> 00:49:34,278
statue in his apartment we wanted a bizarro statue

751
00:49:34,278 --> 00:49:37,658
which unfortunately as i said did not exist so that

752
00:49:37,658 --> 00:49:40,658
was something that was purchased at at the time the warner store

753
00:49:40,658 --> 00:49:43,618
the warner brothers store was a superman statue and our

754
00:49:43,618 --> 00:49:46,938
wonderful prop guy in art department kind of turned

755
00:49:46,938 --> 00:49:49,818
it into a bizarro they kind of painted the face white

756
00:49:49,818 --> 00:49:52,578
they scraped away with like

757
00:49:52,578 --> 00:49:55,558
a file at the hair and stuff and kind of you know

758
00:49:55,558 --> 00:50:01,318
made it sort of spiky and whatnot and then they fashioned a bizarro number one

759
00:50:01,318 --> 00:50:06,818
like little little amulet and like put it around his neck with like a i think

760
00:50:06,818 --> 00:50:11,938
it was a stretched out paper clip honestly making it like that and that that

761
00:50:11,938 --> 00:50:14,598
obviously sits in the same spot that the bizarre,

762
00:50:14,718 --> 00:50:18,258
the, the, the sort of Jerry Superman statue is funny enough.

763
00:50:18,278 --> 00:50:19,718
The Superman statue, the.

764
00:50:20,218 --> 00:50:22,998
Was mike i don't know if you remember from your

765
00:50:22,998 --> 00:50:26,438
old comic days was a randy bowen statue that

766
00:50:26,438 --> 00:50:29,138
also i think was for sale at the at some point at like

767
00:50:29,138 --> 00:50:32,258
comic shops and the warner brothers store he went on to

768
00:50:32,258 --> 00:50:35,218
do all those like busts of all the marvel heroes and stuff

769
00:50:35,218 --> 00:50:38,678
so he has like a kind of a statue empire of

770
00:50:38,678 --> 00:50:41,798
just some of the great he's a great sculptor i got

771
00:50:41,798 --> 00:50:44,998
to know him later on because in

772
00:50:44,998 --> 00:50:48,078
a weird way because we sort of put this bizarro

773
00:50:48,078 --> 00:50:51,218
statue in and people started talking about the superman statue

774
00:50:51,218 --> 00:50:53,978
some way or another i found my way to

775
00:50:53,978 --> 00:50:57,298
randy bowen found his way to me and i met him and his wife at

776
00:50:57,298 --> 00:51:00,258
the time and they came to the set and they took pictures with

777
00:51:00,258 --> 00:51:03,018
the superman statue long story short he had said

778
00:51:03,018 --> 00:51:06,318
to me oh i wish we'd known each other i'm sure i could have made you a quickie bizarro

779
00:51:06,318 --> 00:51:11,378
statue you know on top of the superman one to make it work it's like oh but

780
00:51:11,378 --> 00:51:17,498
anyway long story short we made this kind of crazy looking one and as the episode

781
00:51:17,498 --> 00:51:22,098
is ending You could probably see me crawling on the floor in the back of the

782
00:51:22,098 --> 00:51:25,758
scene to grab it and take it home with me.

783
00:51:25,858 --> 00:51:30,398
I got it. And actually, at the time I took it over, I got all four of the cast

784
00:51:30,398 --> 00:51:31,918
members to sign the base of it.

785
00:51:31,958 --> 00:51:34,578
And I have that in my collection. That was really awesome.

786
00:51:34,878 --> 00:51:38,938
You know, I am a I collect now movie props, among other things.

787
00:51:38,958 --> 00:51:42,218
And the stuff dreams are made of is very much about my movie prop collection,

788
00:51:42,298 --> 00:51:48,538
TV prop collecting in general. It's me and Ryan Condal, who's the new Game of

789
00:51:48,538 --> 00:51:50,158
Thrones show, House of the Dragon.

790
00:51:50,438 --> 00:51:53,098
He's a prop collector. I'm a prop collector. We talk about prop collecting.

791
00:51:53,478 --> 00:51:57,958
Back then, that was me really, on the one hand, grabbing just a piece of,

792
00:51:58,018 --> 00:52:01,078
I guess I'll simply say, personal memorabilia. You know what I mean?

793
00:52:01,118 --> 00:52:03,738
I was taking it because, obviously...

794
00:52:05,617 --> 00:52:10,797
I wanted to have it as I wrote this kind of a thing, but inadvertently it was

795
00:52:10,797 --> 00:52:15,397
some of the first props that I ever actually put into my collection.

796
00:52:15,517 --> 00:52:19,477
I just wasn't thinking of it as prop collecting if that, I hope that makes some

797
00:52:19,477 --> 00:52:21,477
sense, but yes, I, I have it.

798
00:52:21,497 --> 00:52:24,357
I have it to this day. It is a treasured possession, as they say.

799
00:52:24,697 --> 00:52:29,977
So yeah, one of the questions I wanted to ask you was what was your first prop that you collected?

800
00:52:30,477 --> 00:52:33,597
My first, my first prop, I mean, like I said, as I took a couple of odds and

801
00:52:33,597 --> 00:52:37,897
ends from SNL, I definitely took some things from SNL, took a couple of Seinfeld things.

802
00:52:37,957 --> 00:52:42,597
So I definitely was taking things from things I worked on, but they definitely

803
00:52:42,597 --> 00:52:44,797
were a little bit more in the same way.

804
00:52:44,857 --> 00:52:49,017
Like you go on a vacation and you buy a nice tourism tchotchke.

805
00:52:49,197 --> 00:52:53,697
You know what I mean? Like they were mementos of a work experience more than

806
00:52:53,697 --> 00:52:57,157
I was sort of prop collecting my first, I guess.

807
00:52:57,757 --> 00:53:00,617
What's the word I'm looking for? proper prop where i was

808
00:53:00,617 --> 00:53:04,237
basically wanting to own something from

809
00:53:04,237 --> 00:53:07,237
a movie that i loved that i did not work on

810
00:53:07,237 --> 00:53:11,597
do you know what i mean like the first time i ever spent money like on a prop

811
00:53:11,597 --> 00:53:17,197
and really the piece that probably got me deep into prop collecting in general

812
00:53:17,197 --> 00:53:21,237
because all of a sudden when i got it i was able to go oh my god i have this

813
00:53:21,237 --> 00:53:26,797
thing and there's more of them was a storm Stormtrooper helmet from Return of the Jedi.

814
00:53:27,017 --> 00:53:29,817
So, you know, a Star Wars Return of the Jedi helmet.

815
00:53:30,797 --> 00:53:37,257
And the idea of owning like an actual thing from Star Wars kind of changed my

816
00:53:37,257 --> 00:53:41,997
collecting like life, I guess, just the idea that you could have something from Star Wars.

817
00:53:42,157 --> 00:53:45,337
And if you could have something from Star Wars, could you have something from Raiders?

818
00:53:45,417 --> 00:53:47,897
And if you could have something from Raiders, could you have something from

819
00:53:47,897 --> 00:53:52,657
Aliens? And as I sort of made the list of, you know, the movies that kind of,

820
00:53:52,657 --> 00:53:57,257
you know, sort of formed me, I, you know, and then was able to get,

821
00:53:57,277 --> 00:53:59,617
you know, pieces from some of the ones I loved.

822
00:53:59,657 --> 00:54:03,257
It just really, that was my, that really just got me hooked. I mean, really.

823
00:54:03,757 --> 00:54:08,237
I don't know if you remember this, the time I was at your house, I was there.

824
00:54:08,397 --> 00:54:11,917
It was, I think it was for an LA Comic Con of some sort.

825
00:54:12,057 --> 00:54:14,897
Sure. And it was your, it was your apartment. And I was there with Steve Wyatt

826
00:54:14,897 --> 00:54:16,757
and Adam Hughes of all people.

827
00:54:16,757 --> 00:54:19,937
And it was the four of us and you were

828
00:54:19,937 --> 00:54:23,057
kind of showing us around your apartment on all the props and

829
00:54:23,057 --> 00:54:26,417
i my head exploded maybe both

830
00:54:26,417 --> 00:54:32,717
heads uh you had a a darth vader helmet from i think empire if if i'm right

831
00:54:32,717 --> 00:54:38,017
you had a a ghostbusters trap you had the the letter that marty writes doc yep

832
00:54:38,017 --> 00:54:40,357
warning him about exactly yep

833
00:54:40,357 --> 00:54:46,097
you had a doc ock spider-man 2 piece of a tentacle yep big arm tentacle.

834
00:54:46,297 --> 00:54:49,017
You had pieces of the Death Star on the floor.

835
00:54:50,017 --> 00:54:53,977
You had, I think, was there a Cylon Warrior in there? Yep, he's still there.

836
00:54:54,077 --> 00:54:55,157
He's still there guarding the door.

837
00:54:56,037 --> 00:54:58,557
There's some Star Trek tasers and,

838
00:55:00,081 --> 00:55:03,181
Those were some of the things I remember. And I remember geeking out.

839
00:55:03,581 --> 00:55:08,281
You were, I think Wyatt had already seen a lot of it. Steve had definitely been,

840
00:55:08,341 --> 00:55:10,381
Steve had been in and out a lot, obviously.

841
00:55:10,701 --> 00:55:13,961
I think that was the first time Adam was seeing it. I think Adam was really

842
00:55:13,961 --> 00:55:16,141
over, especially to see the Star Wars stuff.

843
00:55:16,441 --> 00:55:20,061
And so that was, I don't know, it's too long. I definitely remember it happening.

844
00:55:20,301 --> 00:55:23,761
I'm guessing that was sort of vaguely the point was like getting Adam to see

845
00:55:23,761 --> 00:55:27,061
the stuff. He'd wanted to see it. So I'm sure some version of that.

846
00:55:27,201 --> 00:55:29,841
Yeah. Yeah. And we got to see it and he and I were geeking out.

847
00:55:30,081 --> 00:55:34,001
And like talking and looking at each other and like becoming best friends.

848
00:55:34,461 --> 00:55:40,021
And then the next day I went to go talk to him at the convention just to say hi, really.

849
00:55:40,541 --> 00:55:45,481
And he didn't even remember who I was or pretended to not remember.

850
00:55:45,661 --> 00:55:48,761
No, I think he just honestly just didn't even see your face.

851
00:55:48,841 --> 00:55:51,941
You were there talking to him and he was just looking at a stormtrooper.

852
00:55:52,021 --> 00:55:55,721
You know what I mean? It's like you'd come to him in a white stormtrooper mask.

853
00:55:55,941 --> 00:55:58,121
You'd have been like, Mike, how are you? But yeah.

854
00:55:58,621 --> 00:56:03,141
Yeah. That's fair. Yeah, I probably look like every other guy at the convention anyway. Yes.

855
00:56:04,001 --> 00:56:11,041
So a lot of those props, and you've gotten many more now, that's the nucleus of your podcast.

856
00:56:11,481 --> 00:56:13,221
Yeah. And it's...

857
00:56:14,710 --> 00:56:17,790
So like how how do you start a

858
00:56:17,790 --> 00:56:20,690
podcast like that and you're you're doing seasons so like

859
00:56:20,690 --> 00:56:23,630
you record a bunch at once and then release them all

860
00:56:23,630 --> 00:56:27,790
or like no we try and we you know we'll look we're both busy guys you know we're

861
00:56:27,790 --> 00:56:32,030
sort of our our running joke or our latest version of the joke is you know like

862
00:56:32,030 --> 00:56:36,890
it's sort of like the the you know how everybody adopted a dog during uh covid

863
00:56:36,890 --> 00:56:40,090
you know it's like we started a podcast you either adopted a dog you started

864
00:56:40,090 --> 00:56:42,790
a podcast oh yeah yeah Yeah, exactly.

865
00:56:43,010 --> 00:56:45,530
And so, yeah, we did that so that we did that.

866
00:56:45,850 --> 00:56:50,030
And at the same time, you know, he's working on House of the Dragon and I was

867
00:56:50,030 --> 00:56:53,470
for a long time, you know, now we're a year beyond.

868
00:56:53,570 --> 00:56:57,070
But for a long time, I was finished making and then, you know,

869
00:56:57,070 --> 00:57:00,230
editing and then finishing and then releasing White House plumbers.

870
00:57:00,370 --> 00:57:05,690
And so we have jobs, you know, so when our seasons are sort of more like we

871
00:57:05,690 --> 00:57:09,810
kind of do the show every week, you know, and we're usually a little bit ahead

872
00:57:09,810 --> 00:57:12,410
and we kind of just do it until we get a little bit of time.

873
00:57:12,430 --> 00:57:15,130
A couple ahead and we're just exhausted and like the

874
00:57:15,130 --> 00:57:17,990
rest of our real jobs and our real live work kind of

875
00:57:17,990 --> 00:57:20,970
catches up a bit too much so for example

876
00:57:20,970 --> 00:57:23,710
we kind of we we came out of the gate

877
00:57:23,710 --> 00:57:26,830
really strong last year and we did a bunch of shows like september

878
00:57:26,830 --> 00:57:29,610
october november and we managed to have like a show

879
00:57:29,610 --> 00:57:32,230
recorded for december and then it was just like we need a break you know

880
00:57:32,230 --> 00:57:35,290
like his work got crazy and everything and so

881
00:57:35,290 --> 00:57:38,230
yeah i mean we're not we're never that much far ahead

882
00:57:38,230 --> 00:57:41,010
but honestly we just really you know

883
00:57:41,010 --> 00:57:44,410
we enjoy talking about props we enjoy talking about upcoming

884
00:57:44,410 --> 00:57:47,450
auctions we like sort of educating people we'll

885
00:57:47,450 --> 00:57:51,630
pick topics like you know how do you display your props we do about you know

886
00:57:51,630 --> 00:57:55,230
what do you do with a mannequin we just did a big episode this year talking

887
00:57:55,230 --> 00:57:59,810
about fakes in the prop world and like what to do about fakes and why and how

888
00:57:59,810 --> 00:58:03,350
bad you know that's becoming more of a problem as of course you know prices

889
00:58:03,350 --> 00:58:05,930
go up and there are more more fakes and whatever.

890
00:58:06,130 --> 00:58:09,450
And it's, you know, it's a little bit of the wild, wild West. And I know we just.

891
00:58:10,245 --> 00:58:17,325
It's a fun conversation. I mean, it's the same sort of, I could easily do a comic art podcast.

892
00:58:17,705 --> 00:58:22,685
I could do this. I enjoy talking about these sort of nerdy pursuits.

893
00:58:23,025 --> 00:58:27,425
And it's just fun. It's really just two guys talking about movie props.

894
00:58:27,605 --> 00:58:32,045
And then every once in a while, we bring our wives on to kind of make fun of

895
00:58:32,045 --> 00:58:33,905
us and yell at us about the money we're spending.

896
00:58:34,065 --> 00:58:36,665
So that's basically the podcast. Yeah, Stuffed Dreams are made up.

897
00:58:37,205 --> 00:58:40,805
I i have to ask you this so i actually own one

898
00:58:40,805 --> 00:58:43,825
screen use movie prop oh do you

899
00:58:43,825 --> 00:58:46,705
guys remember tremors 2 yes i

900
00:58:46,705 --> 00:58:51,045
mean i do i feel like all of a sudden you know this is the week that dune 2

901
00:58:51,045 --> 00:58:55,065
just came out and i feel like all of a sudden because of the the sand and the

902
00:58:55,065 --> 00:59:01,285
worms yes yeah i've seen more tremors references than i've seen in like a hundred

903
00:59:01,285 --> 00:59:06,105
years like the like it's somehow dune Moon is helping the Tremors franchise.

904
00:59:06,585 --> 00:59:10,625
Yes. Yeah. So the props that I have, and I actually have a question for you

905
00:59:10,625 --> 00:59:13,525
about it, is I don't know if you remember now, but they were making,

906
00:59:13,625 --> 00:59:17,625
and that little town was making money off the Tremors. Yep. And they had merchandise.

907
00:59:17,985 --> 00:59:23,385
Okay. In the background, somebody's selling a orange Frisbee that has like the

908
00:59:23,385 --> 00:59:25,125
logo of the Tremor on it. Oh, that's cool.

909
00:59:25,225 --> 00:59:28,085
I actually own that actual one. Well, that's very neat. Yeah.

910
00:59:28,365 --> 00:59:30,305
How do I display it? Tell me.

911
00:59:31,625 --> 00:59:34,325
Well i mean it's an orange frisbee and everything's sort of

912
00:59:34,325 --> 00:59:37,045
on the front right so it's like there's nothing really on the the

913
00:59:37,045 --> 00:59:39,925
back of it so honestly i mean the the easiest thing

914
00:59:39,925 --> 00:59:43,485
you could do honestly is just put it in a frame just put it i mean by the way

915
00:59:43,485 --> 00:59:47,425
steve wyatt could frame it for you steve is still a great framer but honestly

916
00:59:47,425 --> 00:59:53,125
just do just do just do a frame i mean honestly because i think it would be

917
00:59:53,125 --> 00:59:56,685
three-dimensional because obviously it's thick it's not a painting but it would

918
00:59:56,685 --> 00:59:58,585
just Just frame up, you know, with like,

919
00:59:58,685 --> 01:00:01,805
you know, even if you did like a white mat or something, it would just be right

920
01:00:01,805 --> 01:00:04,025
dead in the center. That would look really good.

921
01:00:04,655 --> 01:00:08,915
I think the, the next, the next step, a different version of things,

922
01:00:09,015 --> 01:00:14,575
but sort of similar, but good is you could get like, you'd have to go to like a plexi place.

923
01:00:14,655 --> 01:00:16,995
I mean, I don't know, Steve might be able to do this, but you certainly could

924
01:00:16,995 --> 01:00:20,695
go to like a plexi place and have like a nice plexi box made.

925
01:00:21,115 --> 01:00:25,195
And then if you will sort of lean it almost like on a, you know,

926
01:00:25,195 --> 01:00:27,535
like on like a, like a picture stand kind of a thing.

927
01:00:27,575 --> 01:00:31,195
So it would be kind of leaning a little bit, but then in a box.

928
01:00:31,195 --> 01:00:36,235
So it would sort of be standing on a lean, like basically like on your counter

929
01:00:36,235 --> 01:00:38,055
or whatever, and do it like in a plexi box.

930
01:00:38,195 --> 01:00:42,935
Both of those I think would look really, really nice just off the top of my head. So there you go.

931
01:00:43,035 --> 01:00:46,935
Oh yeah. And that is why they need to listen to your podcast.

932
01:00:47,155 --> 01:00:49,735
There you go. Yeah. Those are the tips, but you know, look, obviously in this

933
01:00:49,735 --> 01:00:54,635
case, you are also talking about something that is thick and plastic and not

934
01:00:54,635 --> 01:00:56,255
going to break and not brittle.

935
01:00:56,315 --> 01:00:59,735
And we don't need to worry about like, well, how are we going to support it and all of these things.

936
01:00:59,955 --> 01:01:02,795
And, but that, changes based on the prop if all

937
01:01:02,795 --> 01:01:05,915
of a sudden you were like i've got this you know whatever 20 year

938
01:01:05,915 --> 01:01:08,755
old like you know something that's made of rubber and it's

939
01:01:08,755 --> 01:01:11,395
drying out and whatever well then okay now we got to

940
01:01:11,395 --> 01:01:14,255
talk about can we get conservation on it how do we support

941
01:01:14,255 --> 01:01:16,995
you know so every prop is different but that that one

942
01:01:16,995 --> 01:01:20,435
will lend itself i think in a really great way to to frame

943
01:01:20,435 --> 01:01:23,295
it up and whatnot so yeah i think that'd be great i think you're

944
01:01:23,295 --> 01:01:26,215
oh no please i think that'd be so cool one of

945
01:01:26,215 --> 01:01:29,375
the things that you guys are talking about and i know they're they're kind

946
01:01:29,375 --> 01:01:32,635
of a sponsor of yours is the the heritage they're doing

947
01:01:32,635 --> 01:01:36,275
heritage auction is doing the the planet hollywood yeah they're

948
01:01:36,275 --> 01:01:39,115
calling it treasures from planet hollywood we have two sponsors we have heritage

949
01:01:39,115 --> 01:01:42,715
and prop store but heritage is doing the big five-day planet hollywood auction

950
01:01:42,715 --> 01:01:47,815
yeah and uh and bruce willis was one of the original guys right and i don't

951
01:01:47,815 --> 01:01:51,615
know if you know but i'm a i'm a huge bruce willis fan i have a bruce willis

952
01:01:51,615 --> 01:01:57,075
tattoo oh i didn't know i knew that they have I mean, the three main guys.

953
01:01:57,315 --> 01:02:04,155
Schwarzenegger, Stallone, and Willis, you get really a sense that on certain ones of their movies,

954
01:02:04,535 --> 01:02:08,115
they just let Planet Hollywood back the truck up and take everything.

955
01:02:08,575 --> 01:02:13,335
I mean, this is a bad joke, but there's more cliffhanger stuff.

956
01:02:14,055 --> 01:02:18,595
There's more like Judge Dredd. If you've ever wanted to remake Judge Dredd,

957
01:02:18,615 --> 01:02:19,455
just go to Planet Hollywood.

958
01:02:19,555 --> 01:02:25,135
They've got everything. thing for Willis where it really hits is it's a couple, it's like the, uh,

959
01:02:25,954 --> 01:02:29,474
It's Die Hard with a Vengeance. Is that the third? That's the third one,

960
01:02:29,554 --> 01:02:30,794
right? With Samuel Jackson.

961
01:02:31,274 --> 01:02:34,514
They got a lot of stuff. They have a couple of things from Die Hard 2.

962
01:02:34,774 --> 01:02:38,874
They have a couple other odds and ends of things, but they got a lot of Die Hard with a Vengeance.

963
01:02:39,754 --> 01:02:42,894
They've got some other stuff too, but there's a lot of Die Hard with a Vengeance.

964
01:02:42,954 --> 01:02:44,834
And I think there's stuff that...

965
01:02:45,494 --> 01:02:48,214
How does one say? The one thing about these big auctions, which is great,

966
01:02:48,414 --> 01:02:53,554
is there's a lot of price points. Like you could probably grab something from

967
01:02:53,554 --> 01:02:58,054
a diehard movie that Bruce, you know, touched for like a decent number.

968
01:02:58,114 --> 01:03:03,214
It may not be, it may not be his main outfit, but there's stuff to be had.

969
01:03:03,414 --> 01:03:07,494
Yeah. Not his bloody messed up tank top. Yeah, the bloody tank top. Yeah, exactly.

970
01:03:07,854 --> 01:03:10,534
Well, yeah, that's, that's where I was going to ask because I know a lot of

971
01:03:10,534 --> 01:03:12,414
this stuff, you know, can get really pricey.

972
01:03:12,794 --> 01:03:15,914
But can I, you know, a guy that's, you know. Very much so. So,

973
01:03:15,914 --> 01:03:18,534
I mean, I hate to say it, but there are, there are, I don't want to call them

974
01:03:18,534 --> 01:03:20,754
bargain pieces because I think it's not necessarily that they're a bargain.

975
01:03:20,874 --> 01:03:23,354
I just think there are shitloads of price points. I think, you know,

976
01:03:23,374 --> 01:03:27,834
you can, you can, you can be a lower level collector and still find really good

977
01:03:27,834 --> 01:03:29,934
stuff. Yeah. Tremors 2, baby. Tremors 2.

978
01:03:31,834 --> 01:03:35,174
Tremors 2 and Die Hard 2. Yeah. One is slightly better than the other.

979
01:03:36,374 --> 01:03:38,434
Only slightly though. Yeah.

980
01:03:39,934 --> 01:03:44,154
Yeah. And you guys, you've had some good guests on. I know you had Anthony Daniels

981
01:03:44,154 --> 01:03:45,454
on. You've had like, who are?

982
01:03:45,794 --> 01:03:49,154
I had them in my notes, but they're, you know, in the car. So who are some of

983
01:03:49,154 --> 01:03:51,354
the other guests that people could hear that you guys had on?

984
01:03:51,494 --> 01:03:53,794
You know, we've had a bunch of, I mean, obviously, you know,

985
01:03:53,814 --> 01:03:57,914
it's, you know, the guests end up being very prop centric. So we've had like

986
01:03:57,914 --> 01:04:02,174
a lot, we, for example, we had like, you know, one of the FX guys who does all

987
01:04:02,174 --> 01:04:04,634
like the dragon writing from house to the dragon.

988
01:04:04,694 --> 01:04:09,394
We've had some of the great sword makers from like the Lord of the Rings movies

989
01:04:09,394 --> 01:04:11,894
that talk to us about, you know, making Lord of the Rings stuff.

990
01:04:11,894 --> 01:04:15,934
So those have been sort of our, those are the kind of guests we get in a good

991
01:04:15,934 --> 01:04:19,374
way, you know, and really, you know, it depends on the topic of the week.

992
01:04:19,414 --> 01:04:22,674
You know, we're always trying to like, like, we're always trying to talk about

993
01:04:22,674 --> 01:04:26,874
some aspect of prop, the prop industry that would be of interest both to people

994
01:04:26,874 --> 01:04:30,074
that are way into it, but also maybe to people that are just starting or thinking

995
01:04:30,074 --> 01:04:33,714
about it, or just maybe you're into collecting and not even specifically props.

996
01:04:33,714 --> 01:04:37,094
And then it's sort of like, okay, well, let's talk about what can we talk about?

997
01:04:37,134 --> 01:04:40,834
Well, let's talk this week about like, I don't know, like swords on the set,

998
01:04:40,914 --> 01:04:42,154
you know, and we kind of go for that.

999
01:04:42,274 --> 01:04:45,934
So yeah, I mean, I wish we I wish I could say to you, we've had the most incredible,

1000
01:04:45,974 --> 01:04:50,474
like, like, like, biggest stars in the world. We have not. Yeah. So, yeah.

1001
01:04:51,341 --> 01:04:56,441
Well, I know you guys just put out season seven. Yeah, just went live.

1002
01:04:57,021 --> 01:05:00,801
So it's just tell everyone that's listening to us.

1003
01:05:00,961 --> 01:05:05,401
The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of is available on wherever podcasts are available,

1004
01:05:05,601 --> 01:05:06,481
you know, all the biggies.

1005
01:05:06,621 --> 01:05:12,941
You can follow us online on social media at Props Podcast, which is we're on

1006
01:05:12,941 --> 01:05:15,361
Twitter, mostly doing a lot of Nazi stuff there.

1007
01:05:15,421 --> 01:05:18,481
But we're on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

1008
01:05:19,061 --> 01:05:22,701
And we have a YouTube channel. You can go to YouTube and do a search for the

1009
01:05:22,701 --> 01:05:25,641
stuff dreams are made of, and you can see the videos of the podcast.

1010
01:05:25,761 --> 01:05:30,001
We use this fine Riverside program as well. You can see videos of the podcast.

1011
01:05:30,381 --> 01:05:33,901
We're starting to try and do some live podcast, live podcast as well.

1012
01:05:34,021 --> 01:05:35,521
So you can find those through YouTube.

1013
01:05:35,861 --> 01:05:39,841
And when we are, these big auctions are coming up, depending on where they are,

1014
01:05:40,021 --> 01:05:42,301
Ryan and I will occasionally.

1015
01:05:42,341 --> 01:05:46,261
So in this case, me, cause everything was in LA. I got to go over to Heritage

1016
01:05:46,261 --> 01:05:52,081
and kind of, you know, play with a bunch of the really cool stuff and the Planet Hollywood auction.

1017
01:05:52,141 --> 01:05:56,221
And then I went over to a prop store and I got to see the stuff that they had as well.

1018
01:05:56,401 --> 01:06:00,901
And so, you know, got to really give everything sort of a look over and really

1019
01:06:00,901 --> 01:06:03,581
like, you know, really check everything out. So that was really fun.

1020
01:06:03,781 --> 01:06:06,241
So yeah, check it all out there. So yeah. Yeah.

1021
01:06:06,501 --> 01:06:11,041
There's some good stuff on the video. Like you get to play with the Barbasol can from Jurassic Park.

1022
01:06:11,081 --> 01:06:14,901
Yeah, the Jurassic Park can is just so incredible. And of course,

1023
01:06:14,901 --> 01:06:18,601
wherever this fits in, of course, that was Wayne Knight played Newman on Seinfeld

1024
01:06:18,601 --> 01:06:19,581
all those years ago. That's right.

1025
01:06:20,061 --> 01:06:22,241
Circle is complete. Circle is complete.

1026
01:06:23,141 --> 01:06:28,141
And one last thing, since you brought us Seinfeld again, this was in my notes as well.

1027
01:06:28,401 --> 01:06:31,741
Man hands. That was your phrase? You came up with man hands?

1028
01:06:31,941 --> 01:06:33,481
Yep. Yeah. It was... That's you.

1029
01:06:33,701 --> 01:06:40,701
Oddly enough, my wife was born on a farm. She lived on a farm in Maine. And as women...

1030
01:06:41,420 --> 01:06:46,960
Often sort of do about certain aspects of their, I guess, body or physical appearance.

1031
01:06:47,080 --> 01:06:48,740
My wife always sort of hated her hands.

1032
01:06:49,040 --> 01:06:54,440
She did not like her hands. She felt like they were rough, kind of like growing

1033
01:06:54,440 --> 01:06:57,560
up on a farm and having worked on a farm, she always felt they were kind of

1034
01:06:57,560 --> 01:06:59,680
rough and a little too dry or whatever.

1035
01:07:00,200 --> 01:07:07,180
They were not horrific man hands, but that was her kryptonite, her weakness.

1036
01:07:07,500 --> 01:07:12,440
And I took that idea of, She used to call them farmy or farmhands.

1037
01:07:12,480 --> 01:07:17,420
And I sort of took the farmhands and kind of stretched it. That's what we would do in Seinfeld.

1038
01:07:17,480 --> 01:07:20,760
You kind of take the germ of an idea and stretch it into a bigger idea.

1039
01:07:20,880 --> 01:07:25,100
And I kind of took farmhands and farmy and turned it into manhands.

1040
01:07:25,300 --> 01:07:28,880
And this idea of these sort of, I thought that was a funnier way of saying it.

1041
01:07:28,960 --> 01:07:32,980
And then that became, okay, what if we get like this very beautiful woman?

1042
01:07:33,080 --> 01:07:36,380
It was Kristen Bauer, who was later on True Blood. but

1043
01:07:36,380 --> 01:07:39,440
we went of course when we cut in for her hands it was like

1044
01:07:39,440 --> 01:07:42,700
one of the guys on the crew you know and so it was just big big

1045
01:07:42,700 --> 01:07:46,380
thick meaty palm and obviously both the visual of

1046
01:07:46,380 --> 01:07:49,120
that hand touching jerry's face along with the

1047
01:07:49,120 --> 01:07:54,940
phrase you know man hands it kind of became a thing so yeah yeah yes but technically

1048
01:07:54,940 --> 01:08:00,320
a love letter to my wife so yeah oh that's beautiful last week we had the guy

1049
01:08:00,320 --> 01:08:05,060
who coined the phrase happy wife happy life on jeff allen and now we we have

1050
01:08:05,060 --> 01:08:08,600
the guy who coined manhands on. So here we go.

1051
01:08:08,900 --> 01:08:12,340
Dave, thanks so much, man. You're awesome. Thank you guys. This was very fun.

1052
01:08:12,520 --> 01:08:15,460
I'll come back again. I'm sorry this took so long, but very fun.

1053
01:08:16,100 --> 01:08:21,320
Alrighty. And we will, we're not uncles. We're not dads. We're just someone you can talk to.

1054
01:08:22,160 --> 01:08:25,780
Isn't that right? Yep. And we'll see you all next week. Take care, buddy.

1055
01:08:26,640 --> 01:08:54,550
Music.

David Mandel Profile Photo

David Mandel

Emmy Award winning writer / Actor / Producer / Director

avid Mandel (born 1969 or 1970 (age 53–54) is a writer, actor, director, and producer. He was an executive producer and showrunner of Veep, and also an executive producer and director of Curb Your Enthusiasm and Seinfeld. He is also a comedian,cand one of the producer-directors of the teen-comedy EuroTrip. He was a writer for Seinfeld during its seventh, eighth, and ninth seasons and also co-wrote the screenplay for the 2003 film adaptation of The Cat in the Hat. He is one of the creators of Clerks: The Animated Series, and he was a writer for Saturday Night Live. He had a brief stint as a host of Dave and Steve's Video Game Explosion, a comedy video game review show that aired late nights on TBS as part of the Burly Bear Network. The show only lasted a few episodes before the entire block was canceled.

Mandel is also one of the authors of Star Wars Art: Ralph McQuarrie, a comprehensive collection of Star Wars artwork by Ralph McQuarrie, published in 2016 by Abrams Books.

Since October 2020, Mandel has hosted the podcast The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of detailing movie props and collectables with writer Ryan Condel.