Bill Simmons
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Yes, I have actually stayed at Airbnbs from time to time. And truth be told, I do really like them. I'm being totally honest right now that I've had great experiences with them. Yeah. I mean, you can have your look at you go get your own place, get your own pool, your own living room. You're not going to walk in an elevator. You're not going to see people when you're walking around in your undergarments. Yeah.

Yes. And if you don't understand what we're talking about, you should go online. What we're saying is you have a house with a kitchen and a bathroom and it's just for you, tailored for you. You liked your Airbnb over a hotel. Yes. And I do think I've had relatives stay nearby and sometimes it's very nice for them to do an Airbnb and have a little house and they're not underfoot. The last thing you want is your house guest to say, excuse me, um,

Where would I find a towel? That's a toughie when it's because they're naked. Well, it's like the 1800 time you say on the towel rack. Yeah. Thank you. I was going to look there. People don't even think hotels sometimes just go, hey, I'll go there. I'll get an Airbnb. So you won't regret it.

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Or choose mobile service where a technician will come to you and do routine maintenance right on the spot. Both are complimentary and depend on your location. That's ownership built around you. Contact your participating dealer or visit FordService.com for important details and limitations. Our guest today is Bill Simmons, and he is a podcast joggernaut. He has...

is the head, I like that word. He's the head of The Ringer on Spotify. And it's a huge, huge network of podcasts.

He's a sports guy from Boston. He's been all over ESPN and we go over that. But the main feature of this particular episode, which I had a lot of fun with, is he said after I want to talk about Saturday Night Live. And so David and I have never been asked this many questions by a guest before.

Um, and so we go over a lot of SNL stuff inside baseball. I think we got to stuff that we've not talked about in that, in the ways we talked about. So I really enjoyed it with Bill Simmons. Yeah. He's, he's a deep diver. He knows everything. And you know, the funny part was Dana, we had a lot of questions about, is the NFL fixed and this and that. I had a lot of questions for him about sports and I asked one, um,

And then he goes, I want to talk about SNL with you guys. And I'm like, well, it wasn't really interviewing us. So he just talked about different favorite things and we got some backstory on him. Yeah, he's a very interesting character. He'll talk about anything. The financing in podcasting, movies that he's a fanatic about, and gambling, sports gambling, sports. He talks about the Super Bowl.

And just a lot of SNL. He is maybe, I'd have to say, is the biggest fan of just SNL that we may have ever interviewed. So that's interesting in itself. He knew more than anyone. And we did a pretty long one. He could have gone on, I think, much longer. But we both had to use the bathroom. So we turned out. But he was great. All right, here he is, Bill Simmons. This is my setup. This is where I do my pod.

So I got all my stuff behind me. So it looks like I'm in this big. And then if you zoom out, it's just like this little weird corner of stuff. And then nothing else looks like that in the room. Fake busy corner. Yeah, fake busy corner. I'm in an abandoned motel.

Jesus. Near Bakersfield. Dana was taken. I put do not disturb. He's Green Larson in room. God damn. I'm a minimalist. Good one. Everyone's going to knock and give me food. I'm a minimalist. What can I say? God, no shit. So should we? Wait, I have to ask Bill first. There's no way. What did you have to do with 30 for 30? I just saw this. I created it. I came up with the idea. That's huge, dude. I sent the memo.

And then for like a year and a half, me and my friend Connor Schell basically came up with every angle of it and got it sold. That's in my notes. Yeah. I don't want to talk about me, though. I want to talk SNL. No. We don't need to talk about me. Okay. No, you're boring. I understand. Yeah, everybody knows you. Okay. Top best athlete. I'm trying to do a mashup of Bill Simmons. Best athlete host on SNL. Oh, wow.

That's a tough one. Does The Rock count? What's The Rock on? He's an athlete. Well, he's a movie star. Yeah, no, he's an athlete. The Rock was really good. I mean, he did The Rock Obama, which I thought was one of the better presidential sketches they did in the last 20 years. Yes, that was funny. The Rock is good. Yeah, there's Peyton Manning. My day, Joe Montana with Walter Peyton.

Yeah, but I mean, Montana was in one of the iconic sketches of the late 80s that the I'm going to go upstairs and masturbate, which was like out of nobody could believe he did that back in the day. It's like, oh, my God, Joe Montana said masturbate. And you know what? Fun fact. Talk about how fun fact. Talk about how competitive Joe Montana is. He finishes the show and he landed that sketch, which killed. And then he he he can't come out of his dressing room almost like a boxer. He feels like.

He feels he didn't do very well. Wow. And Joe, can you go talk to him? He just can't come out. You know, it's funny.

Jesus. John Madden was good too. It was before your time, but he, uh, he came in right as he was taken off from CBS and they built, it was there in the Eddie era. Yeah. They built the whole show around him and he was pretty, he was pretty good with that. I want to say OJ hosted in the first five years and thank God he didn't kill anybody. Oh, he killed. I had to say it. I know it's not funny, but I had to say it. Charles Barkley during David's era. I just missed him. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, he was good. Sometimes it's tough. Hey, did Joe Montana have any problem with that joke, Dana? No, I don't think so. His inner monologue was, yeah, I'll be upstairs masturbating. Yeah. Yeah. There was a charm when athletes come on or non-professional actors, there's a sort of

kind of stilted charm to them. You know, I find that that's a big, big part of the show is having movie stars, non comedians try to do an hour and a half of a live sketch. It's a ridiculous task. It's, it's a great reality show. I think when MJ came on, that was about as far,

in the running for about as famous as he ever was. That was really when he had ascended to the a plus plus list. And, um, everybody was so interested to see how he would do. And he did really well, but it just felt like a moment when he was on that chain changed eight H, uh, everybody was flipped out. So he was Michael Jordan at that time. And, uh,

He was, um, it's a real interesting part of being a cast member, being behind the slats with Michael Jordan. And we're about to go do the sketch and it's live and he's not in his element. He's kind of looking at his script. And I said, you know, just look at the card. Don't worry about it. Christopher Walken does it. Just look at the card if you have to. Well, and they're so used to coming through and pressure.

That eventually you come out and the adrenaline is running and it's basically no different than if they have a big game or something like that. I was, when I, you know, when I got to know Seth Meyers and Hader and those guys in the late two thousands, they popped on my pod. I was always so interested in the mechanics of,

The person coming on who hosted who fit in right away, what actor, actress, comedian who just kind of got the show and could have been like a surrogate cast member versus somebody who came in and was just kind of their head spinning the whole week. And then certain people would come in and you guys that were on the show would be like, Oh,

This isn't easy. This person gets it. This guy, this guy or this girl could actually be on the show full time. Well, I don't, I'd be curious what those guys said off the top of my head. Like John Goodman was like a cat. He was just good at everything. Tom Hanks, of course. Tom Hanks was a great one. Yeah. Completely committed. By the way, I want to just for a second, check your memory. What was the hit sketch kind of objectively for Michael Jordan's episode?

Wasn't it the Stuart Smalley? Yes. Yeah. And then there was a, there was a naked thing. I mean, I'm, I'm top, top, top percentile SNL fan that has ever been on this show, including all the people who have been on it. You're just not going to, I grew up with the show. I was an only child. I remember every single season, everything that happened. I'm just, I'm going to have an answer for every question you have.

I now put you, I knew you were a fan and a sports fan, but now I put you in context. So now you're one of those people, which is great. There's not that many of them that are comprehensively dug into that show. So let's, should we try to see if we can stump them? Here's the thing. I told Spade this when we did a podcast, like,

I was born in 1969. That's literally the perfect year to grow up with the show. Because I was six when the show premiered. I wasn't able to watch it until I was maybe eight or nine. They started running the half hour kind of highlight shows on NBC. That would be like nine o'clock, 930, whenever that was on. And that's how Belushi was my first guy. I'm like, who is this? I'm like eight. I'm like, how does this person exist? Started watching those. They finally let me stay up late for

for the fifth season, my parents. And then I was all the way through. Eddie, when you came on, when Spade, like the height of the 90s and all that, then Hartman, I mean, Farrell coming back and basically saving the show and it felt like it was in trouble. I've been there for every piece of it. Wow. Did you ever entertain going into the business of what we're in? So ironically, I did. I was in the mid 90s.

I was writing for the Boston Herald and trying, I really wanted a sports column in the high school newspapers. And it's like, I have no chance. This is never happening. And I lived with a guy who I'd done a lot of comedy stuff with just for fun. And we knew this guy named Bill Lawrence, who, um,

I think he's a producer. Yeah. He's a, he was at the time he was on the show friends and he had an SNL connection and it was the year when everything blew up when the New York magazine, when they wrote that piece and it was that when they were coming in and they're blowing up the show is summer 95 maybe. And we did this whole packet and we sent in, you know, 20 pages of stuff. Now I learned later, like there's no way anybody even saw it, but we sent it in and we're like, this is it. This is our big break.

And it never happened. You mean without an agent or something, just sending in a packet? No, but we had like, oh, a guy knows a guy. It was one of those. But you don't know any better. I was living in Boston. We're not supposed to read them. When we were on the show, we were talking yesterday about how we had mailboxes. There wasn't email. So Dana's was always full.

And then Mike Myers, and then everyone else has started getting full. But if people sent packets, which a lot of people would send us scripts and stuff, and to this day, if you read, they can sue you. So you really can't even read it in case...

You don't like it, but three years later, there's a sketch like that on the show. It's very easy to think of something. We didn't know that in Boston. We're just like, this is it. They're going to hire us. We'll be able to come in. We'll be hanging with Sandler. And it just did not happen. Better keep my summer free so I can go in there and prep when they call right away. What was your first sketch that was the top of that 20-page pile? What was it? What was the topic of it? It was a big Friends parody.

It was the first year of friends. We did a lot. You probably saw it in the pile. No, it was a big aisle. And I told Lorne, it's not happening. It's all right. He'll do fine.

I remember we had another one about Jesus coming back and signing with Nike and doing this whole... And we were like, really, this is so edgy. This is going to be great. Now I read it, now I'd want to kill myself. Well, yeah, but sometimes stuff is funny anyway back then. When I even look back at sketches that are clanking, it seemed to work then. Yeah.

and you just don't know, and then later you're embarrassed. But some of them actually still hold up. Yeah. It's funny. With your era, the sketches were mean in a good way. Some of the Carson stuff Dana did, you go back and you watch it, and you're like, ooh, man. Was Carson okay with this? I just don't know if...

stuff's not mean in the same way, especially SNL, which is way more celebrity friendly than I think it was. But back then it was like, like Rob Lowe did that, uh, the,

The Arsenio Beckman, whatever that was like the Arsenio parent. It's like, man, this is kind of mean. Yeah, but it was good. That's what we all grew up with. That was what made us laugh. I don't know if there's a better way to put it, but if there's an elephant in the room or what you're not supposed to say or what you're observing, you just need to tease that out. That's why it's funny, you know, and then it can be construed as mean or not mean. But Johnny was fine with it. He actually liked Carcinio.

Oh, really? They're making fun of Archino as much as they're making fun of us. And then there was one sketch that got him dinged and I was blacklisted casually from the show. So bittersweet memories. But of course, I revered Carson and I revered doing him. I've never had more relaxed fun than being in the Johnny the Earnest Nebraska guy.

That's just a great, Bill's here and you apparently have a very big podcast called, it's called The Ringer, I understand. You know, that interviewer with that voice hasn't been replaced yet, but we've had some great people, but no Carson yet. Well, then you did the Larry Sanders episode.

Which is one of the best seasons in the history of television, season four. But where you come on and you're doing the impression and they're trying to keep Larry from finding out that Dana has his impression of him, that he sees it. And then it's a whole cat and mouse game of whether he's going to do it on the show. But you actually have the mustache on and the fake teeth. You're like, I have the teeth. That's my ass.

Yeah, and I heard Gary was tweaked by it later, but I told him, I said, I'm just doing one frequency that you use in your stand-up. And I don't even know what he's trying to do to me. You know, it's like Jay Leno. Yeah, go

like that, but he doesn't talk like that. But anyway. He goes like this too. I do think that was different way back in the day where you would take a piece of something and both of you guys did it. You'd take a piece of whatever and then you'd blow it out and now it'd become the impersonation. Will Ferrell did that when he was doing W.

He did like small pieces of it. It wasn't even close to being W. You did that when you did George Bush Sr., same thing. Now I feel like when they're doing the impressions, it's more like a dead-on impersonation of somebody is the trend now. But back then it was like, I'm going to take this one piece and go crazy with it. I'm doing it with Biden currently because you need to, I said this yesterday, but my latest toy is so abstract. It's the only one who understand Biden is Hunter.

So then I, then I can do Biden of anything. Hey dad, what's going on? Yeah. Cisco's goes to people. So say, Oh no, I already ate maybe tomorrow night. Yeah. Cause I said, so sure. Yeah. Seven 30 is great. Okay. You know, so I, I find for myself in high school with my friends, I don't want to ask you this.

abstracting my impression of the water polo coach into madness. And then that rhythm extenuated, but coming from someplace real, like Will's W was in a real zone, but so playful. I just liked the style of it. I also like people who could do a perfect impression too, but I do like abstracting it. I mean, that was Hartman, uh,

Like when I was in college and we would tape it, you know, we'd have like the VCR player. So we'd tape it. We watched it the next day. It was like a Sunday ritual.

And Hartman did the McMahon. And we thought the McMahon was like the funniest thing of all time. It wasn't really, you know, there are pieces of Ed, but his version of McMahon, we thought combined with the Carson, we just like, we would be imitating. It would be talking about, but Hartman was really good at, he did that with the Sinatra group too. Oh yeah. Oh sure. We're the same thing. Like his version of Sinatra, Piscopo is like more of an impression and he would have fun with it. I know Piscopo was on your pot. I loved it. Um,

But the Hartman Sinatra was a little bit like, I don't know, a little rowdier, a little angrier. And I thought it was funnier. What about Ed McMahon doing it when all he has to say is yes, and you are correct. Just those little hooks, just saying it over and over. You are correct, sir. And then when he goes, oh, older reference lost on younger viewers. Yes. Because that was where Phil...

Phil was the laugh bomb and I didn't have to carry that weight. I was kind of doing this rhythm and setting it up and very sincere. And I know that you are correct, sir. Yeah. Old reference last time. So it was just a, like a magic show. It was like new to do, and then boom. But yeah, Phil was just, there was a piece to that Carson thing though, where you were tapping into something that I think people, my generation were feeling. We're like Letterman was our guy for my generation. Yeah. Like the,

The most important things that happened to me when I was like 12, 13 was Eddie Murphy and Letterman. And just kind of going on the ride with both of those guys from 82 to 85. And Carson, I love Carson.

Everyone, you know, for three generations, Carson was with three channels. Everyone watched Carson. But he did start to seem a little old by the time we got to the late 80s. And when you guys kind of crossed the beams and went after him a little bit in a fun way, but you still went after him. It was a little like when Norm went after Letterman in the mid 90s. It was the same thing where he loved Letterman.

But the fact that he was parroting him was like, oh, okay, we're doing this now. Well, I would say built to that, that I kind of realized that everybody, every comedian becomes a caricature of themselves. Like, am I looking at this comedian and maybe actor or whatever, or am I looking at an impersonator? So there's just this redundancy to your character. But with Johnny, Jay Leno told me,

He was guest hosting back then. Johnny was still around. Johnny would walk down at NBC in Burbank and just yell out, they're making fun of me now. It's time to go. So that was Johnny, who's obviously was very bright, kind of reading the tea leaves, you know. And then you never went on again, right?

I didn't. Well, so what happened when you did Dennis Miller, who you were friends with, who used to be on the show? Very good friends with Dennis. And then you did Dennis Miller cooking. But did he like that? Did he think it was funny? Well, Robert Smigel writes these pieces that are brilliant, and they're a little cutting. With that, because I was...

good friends with, uh, with Dennis. I just called him, you know, and said, we're doing the cooking show, the thing. And he goes, okay, that's all right. You know? I mean, it's hard to say no, even though you don't like, I don't think anyone really likes an impression when they're, it's like getting a caricature, uh, you know, it's all the things you're fearful of yourself. All the things you don't like. Right. They did me about three weeks after I left us. And now I'm like, let me get out of the building. Jesus, let the body get cold. Right.

Well, you had Terry Hatcher sitting next to you for the Spade in America that time. Oh, that was... And I thought that was one of the best ones you ever did. And she just started doing you and it was like, oh shit, what's going on here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But at least I got to be there and give her jokes and things to say to make it funny and make her at least get more of the laughs because she was the host. But she was great about it. Yeah. That was actually...

A fun one because I was there. But like when you did Dennis with Tom Hanks, that was fun. But Dennis is in on it. And then I think he doesn't mind. And he sort of is that way and his voice is so...

perfect to do. Uh, I think he was always cool about it. And he's, he's so, and he's so great. And it's so, when you have a, a, a way of speaking that can be, it's just very unique. And I think that's all ultimately, it was just from hanging out with Dennis a lot and touring with Dennis and just extrapolating that attitude. But, you know,

I was standing outside a hotel, Dennis and I were playing Dallas or something. And I said, just hit me that your whole comic motif is like, life is really fucked. And it's really hard. Like, because the car...

At the airport, the car gets you to the gig, right? But when you do the gig the next morning, the car's always late, which I pointed that out to Dennis. And then he just, he laughed so hard, me going dark, you know? They got us in, but now fuck it. Now it's a half hour late, flight's leaving, you know? And he died with that. But I just think that attitude is still...

So funny to me. Bill, Billy Simmons, huh? SNL cat. I got the photographic memory like a junior Kreskin here. So fun. Kreskin's always in there. You know, we golf once in Palm Springs and he goes, we drive all the way there. And he goes, he goes, you want to go golf in Palm Springs? I was like a newer comic.

And he goes, I go, yeah, yeah. So he goes, yeah, okay. I'll meet you out there. I'm like, we don't want to drive together. Like, okay. So we drive all the way out there. Two hour drive. Yeah. And then we get out there and then we're golfing. And I go, hey, how far to the green? He goes, hey, Spud, you don't have to worry about the green for another fucking nine shots. All right. Hit it as hard as you can. And I'm like, okay.

Because we were, I don't know. And then he hits two bad shots in a row and he goes, fuck it. I'm heading back. I go back home to LA. He goes, yeah, fuck that. I go, Dennis, don't be, this is, you're too hard to deal with. Come on. We're having fun. Everything's cool. But I looked up to him so much. I couldn't really talk back to him or bust his balls too much. It took so long.

to get to that point, but he's still always above me. Better joke, right? It's always that thing growing up. Well, who do you look at? That's when people come on the show. Yeah. I still have a reverence to certain people because I got there with Dana, with all these guys, because they were always the ones that I looked up to going on. And then if you ever get in a movie where kids come to you and say, Hey, we watch bench warmers or we watch whatever. And then you go, if this is anything close to what,

It was like when I would watch movies and I saw someone from that movie, I would have fucking freaked out. Because that's all that mattered in my life was those movies. Yeah, we also had less choices back then. I really wonder if you're like 18 now, there's so much comedy and stuff to watch and TikTok, all these different places. Right, all these blended. I think you guys were both on the show for this, the Partridge Family versus Brady Bunch sketch.

Yeah. Like to me, that was one of the peak SNL sketches, not because it was like one of the funniest, but it was like, it hit this time. Everyone watching that show had the same pop culture experiences. Right. So,

Anyone I knew knew the Partridge family. We knew the Brady Bunch. We knew every episode of those. We knew Charlie's Angels. We knew all the early SNLs. We knew the early, like we all had like the same 25 things with the same movies. So when you guys did that and it was like, oh, they're going for this. Oh, there's more cast members. Oh, they're going to have the boys crack. And I don't know how you would do that now in 2024 because I don't know if 15, 20 years ago,

people like at age 22, 19 would have all the same experiences. Yeah, I don't know if it exists. I mean, the biggest show currently kind of is The Bear, which is a great show, but you know, how far can it reach compared to primetime? I got canceled from a sitcom and we were doing...

Mickey Rooney show 24 share or whether it was 30 million or it's just with three channels is insane. But we actually to that sketch, we had Melanie Hutzel on who was in it and she wrote it and we broke that sketch down for like a half hour on the podcast with her. Just the part. Yeah. And how it came together. The Brady Bunch. Plus Susan Day was in it, which pushed it over the top. But I heard even Piscopo when he was on a couple weeks ago on your show.

And he was talking about how they didn't feel like the show was doing that well, but yet 8 million people were watching or whatever it was. That's what it was like. Like we had 11 channels. So even if SNL was kind of failing, everyone was still watching it. And then when SNL started to come back with Eddie, it was like, this is great. SNL is back. And then they had the Billy Crystal season. Did you have a crush on Susan Day or not? I did. Oh my God. Come on.

Come on. I mean, growing up with the Partridge family, I was like, Dana liked David Cassidy, but me and you liked Susan Day. Well, then she had the LA Law comeback, which was like, all right. I was into it. Chrissy didn't talk much on the Partridge family. Who's more attractive from that era? Elizabeth Montgomery or Susan Day? Susan Day. I felt like Elizabeth Montgomery was a slightly older generation, right? They still loved her. Thanks for answering that, Bill.

No, no. There's three generations. There was the Peggy Lipton, Belinda Montgomery generation. There was the Lindsay Wagner, Linda Carter, Cheryl Latch, Acklesmith generation. Loved, loved, loved. With Susan Day. I was such an easy sell. Goddamn. Oh, I know. Everybody. I was in all the above. All the above. Blythe Danner? The Charlie's Angels. Yeah. Blythe Danner? Then we moved to the Dukes of Hazzard, Fall Guy, Heather Thomas, Catherine Bach, that era. Yeah. I mean, we...

You were watching a lot of TV. I was an only child. I was watching sports and TV. What else was I in? Reading books. What else was I going to do? Me too. I know all those shows. Dana, the road to getting engaged can be long and full of memories. Oh, yeah. Or it can be short and thrilling or somewhere in between. But the road to finding the perfect engagement ring is straightforward path every time. All you got to do is head over to good old BlueNile.com. Good news, David, on BlueNile.com.

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That's $50 off with CodeFly at BlueNile.com. BlueNile.com. I don't know what we've lost. We were going to ask you just because you have your pulse on media, podcasting stuff. Is Jon Stewart's coming out in SNL and what is the influence now of political satire versus 80s and 90s in terms of moving the needle forward?

I like that phrase. So anyway, talk to that if you want to. Well, it's I mean, SNL had a huge part with this. I would say maybe the biggest. And once Trump came in in 2016, I think it just became a lot harder because when when the real life stuff is a parody, how do you parody a parody? When you look back to.

I mean, you've talked about this on the podcast. Ackroyd's doing Nixon. He's got a mustache. Like everything was way more loosey goosey. Ackroyd's doing Jimmy Carter. Talk about the Allman brothers. Spoke to Dubu with them. And yeah, Hartman does Reagan. Yeah.

I mean, the Reagan sketch where Reagan's pretending he's out of it and then everybody leaves the room. I mean, that's one of the great sketches they've ever done. And then once they figured out the debates, the 88 debate, I think, was huge with the Dukakis and Bush. And there was just so... And Lovitz doing the, I can't believe I'm losing this guy. I think from 88 all the way through Sarah Palin, SNL really was...

kind of shaping how people thought in a lot of ways. To me, like the Sarah Palin thing still makes me mad because when they had her on with Tina, I felt like that's when something shifted and the celebrity cameo became as important for the show as making fun of these people. And that's, that to me is like the line in the sand when the show started to change a little bit. They'd bring on, they'd have 32 cast members. Then they'd bring on stars to play people and,

and not use the cast. I would be furious about this cast. Yeah, a lot of cameos. Yeah, I feel like it's very, it's so different and difficult to be a cast member on that show right now. If you're just coming in to establish players, and I think it's great. I kind of wish I'd stayed a few years longer, but people are staying 10, 12 years, and then new people in there. It's such a different dynamic. But Lorne is managing the best he can. I thought you stayed the perfect amount of time.

Well, I definitely, because Wayne's World hit and my political impressions hit, I got sort of...

uh, freakily really big, really fast, maybe too big, you know? And so I had so much, so much stuff coming at me. I was almost confused, uh, as to what to do. But later on, I realized that I, my own attention, attention, deficit disorder and sketch comedy. I was like a fish in water in that. That's why I went back to it in 97 with, with, uh, the Dana Carvey show. Right. Yeah.

Loaded. What about, I'm asking about podcast superstars. What's next for Megan and Harry? Because I don't. Didn't you say something about, you've commented. No, I love it. You use a great word. I might have said something in the past. Yeah, that's a great word. But do they, is it Hallmark movies now? What's next? What would be the best move?

I mean, there's probably a huge acting comeback for her at some point, right? She should do that Suits show. It's huge now on Netflix. You should just jump right back in. Or some TV, like a Christmas movie where her divorced husband and they have to be with the kids, but they're stuck in the snow and then they fall back in love. Yeah, she just needs one of those. Yeah. And she's back.

And John Corbett could play her husband. He's just a friend of mine. Because all she needs is one thing like that to get big ratings just out of curiosity factor, and she's back in Hollywood. I don't know why she's not jumping back in Hollywood. It felt like that was the biggest reason Suits took off again, though. Of course. Because she was in it. It's not a secret. Do you think...

if Harry came out, I mean, he did some event in Vegas where he made fun of himself a little bit or told some jokes. I think that's the move for him. And it could be on this podcast or, or on other, on yours, but our host SNL, any kind of little, just in the lane of it being funny, he's, he's aware of how people perceive him and stuff. I think it'd be because there's just monolithic. Now we don't really know what they're thinking. They release statements and,

Here's one thing I've learned, Dana, and I've had my podcast since 2007. Not everybody should have a podcast. It's okay. It's not like a driver's license. Some people just can't do it. It's turning into it. It's sort of mandatory. I just want to make a note because it seems like good advice. Just for the people listening, you don't all have to have one. It's okay. It's not like having an Instagram account. It sounds easy and it's kind of hard.

It's hard. And you have to, you have to have some level of expertise on something. You have to have real authenticity. I mean, one of the reasons, like think about all the reasons your, your show works, you have a relationship with each other. I'd want to listen to you guys talk anyway. You have this wealth of SNL related guests, but then also other comedians that could come on that feel comfortable with you. They tell stories. I hear things maybe I didn't know. And I just feel like I'm hanging out with you guys. Like podcasting is not that hard.

But people always over and over again make it hard and they come up with, they try to do the idea versus to look at what actually works, which is like, do I want to spend time with the host or not? Over and over again, it's do I want to spend time with these people or not? Or this person? And that's what works. Where do you interject? Because people tell me about outrage. Outrage, if it's outrageous, it's contagious. A lot of podcasts kind of harbor in

You know, the idea of clicks and trending, you have the hot take that gets there first. And there's that lane. We're sort of, we want to make people feel good and be interesting, but we don't, should David and I have a feud, we can cut this part out, but should we find a way to get really mad at each other? But you know, that, that lane, I mean, it's just. No, you guys are good. You guys are doing great.

Spade every, like maybe every month could just take a flying pot shot at somebody to see if it could maybe get in a couple of places. See if I still got it. Out of nowhere, jumping off the top rope, flying elbow on somebody. Yeah. I mess around. I want to believe me. I want to a lot of times. Instead of flying the wall, fly on the minute and you bring back Hollywood minute, but it's part of our show. Just wait. Can we talk about Hollywood minute for a second? Yeah, sure. One of the iconic update of reoccurring things that David did.

Did Hollywood Minute create Twitter? Ooh. Yeah. How about that? Yeah. I think you should take credit for that. It was a precursor for sure. It's basically Twitter. You watch it and it's just like he's throwing out these one-liners with a picture. One-liners about a photo. Yeah. Maybe you should talk to Elon. Maybe see if you can get a cut. God damn. I don't know. I sometimes hear old...

Hollywood Minute jokes and I go, God damn, like some of them are pretty rough. But I think for back in the day when it was just fawning over celebrities, that was the only hook it had. It was like someone doesn't really know anyone or you don't know me and I've got sort of an innocent look and then really...

Hopefully cleverly. And that's another thing is a lot of the writers I was going to say are trying to use me to get through me, even through sketches, through Dana. They want to get stuff out there, even if it's like anger and they go, you should do this because they don't have a way to do it. They go, I can funnel it through one of these clowns and get it out there. And then I'll be on the side going, yeah, fuck that guy. And so social media has changed that a little bit. You're doing that on the show and it's just on.

Right. And people taped it. Then it comes and goes. And if somebody got mad, maybe you'd read about it in a newspaper or the trades, but ultimately you couldn't even see it unless you watched it. Yeah. And I think now that the last 15 years, one of the things that's changed with the show is if something happens,

you know, like you have some comment in Hollywood minute, be like, Oh my God. And then it turns into a thing. Then the celebrity gets mad. They fire back at you. Now people are reporting about that. And it turns into, it would be before I went to bed that night. I would know what hit, what didn't, what was a problem. And then I'd have to have an answer the next day. And then there'd be a feud and then it would go back and everyone have a fucking comment about it. I think that keeps us now really helps it because if I don't see a sketch now, I follow them. So if I don't see a sketch,

I can watch it Sunday morning. They're just like sketch, sketch, sketch, like broken out monologue, this, that. And that's kind of a smart way to sift through to see what's going on there lately. Yeah, totally. Well, it's also interesting to see how the cast members are using, like Chloe Fineman has a really good Instagram account.

And she's just like test drives, different characters and stuff. And you're watching half the time you're watching it going, how is this not on the show? Why am I watching this on Instagram? But it's a great little audition. Yeah. It seems like there's more creative outlets than probably you had in the mid nineties where you're writing for yourself. If they say no to the sketch, you're basically like, oh shit. All I did was walk out and say goodbye to everybody. Then that I did nothing. And then that's it till the next week. Right? Yeah. That one stung. That was still too close to home. Yeah.

Dana's like, I don't know how that felt. Backstage, Nealon and I, when we were doing Hans and Franz, we would just giggle for hours, you know, going back and forth and stuff. And then it's distilled, distilled, distilled to four minutes. But with podcasting, you can do it long form. You know, I mean, we do have a second podcast where eventually we'll get around to platforming ideas. We have a video one. Oh, yeah.

Everyone's fucking shitting their pants. Jesus. Just doing characters. It's called Too Good to Be True. No, it's not. It's called Superfly.

I follow, there's an Instagram account that does, um, I'm listening to super fly by the way. You've done like three, four episodes. I like it. Cause you're just bouncing around. Yeah. You're just doing your thing. We're still getting into it and getting used to it. Well, you guys are buddies though. You're fine. Um, there's this Instagram account that runs all these old sketches and they ran comedy killers from Nealon's the it's a game show. Nealon's the host.

And I, I don't know if Dana was still in the show, but David probably was, but it's all these categories of things, whether they're a comedy. Oh, that's right. It's like the categories, like the Holocaust, child. And then it goes through. And I was like, man, what would happen if they ran this now? What would the reaction be?

Because back then we were like, oh, this is great. What a great idea. This is so funny. We were all in on the joke. Now people would just get mad, I feel like. I think that's why people like Bill Burr or Shane or those guys do well because it's just even Theo, they just say whatever they want and it's almost like back in time. And then some people go, I don't want to get mad. I just want to laugh or not laugh and not have a big opinion about it and move on. And then people get mad at them and want to get rid of them. And you go, no, maybe you can't get rid of people anymore. Hopefully, if it just falls under comedy-

Of course, we always think you should be able to do whatever you want, but not everyone agrees. But isn't the reason you guys got into comedy is like part of what was funny is, oh, I probably shouldn't say that or, oh, I shouldn't laugh at that, but that's what was funny about it. And now the fear there's, there feels like there's more fear than we've ever had with comedy. But I agree with you that it's coming back. Cause my son's 16 and he loves Shane Gillis and he like,

That generation, I think, is ready to see somebody kind of dance close to the line again. Right. They went from the super pampered, super everyone's scared to do anything. And the new people like, hey, fuck it. Let's get back to just laughing and doing jokes and not because it's all it's all down to like five jokes you're allowed to use. And then everyone's like, OK, I'll accept that one. That one didn't offend anyone. It has no no corners on it. It's just the most generic, bland dog shit ever.

And some of these comedy specials, they're just sitting talking. Like there's not even earlier. They're just like walking around and you go, is there jokes? Someone's like, Ooh, I won't have an audience in mind or I won't have this. And there's not, it's not just even jokes anymore or making you laugh. It's like introspective. And I go, I personally would go, let's just get back to getting laughs. I agree. What do you think Dana? You know, I, I, you were maybe too young for this when it came out, but blazing saddles.

So Blazing Saddles is like, it's a peak movie for me. I'm like a senior in high school or something. Yeah, sure. And so I knew that Richard Pryor, who co-wrote it with Mel Brooks, was not racist and neither was Mel Brooks. I knew it was, they were satirizing. All the white racists are idiots. Cleavon Little is...

Yeah. Is above everybody. So, and the movie is hysterical, but yeah, you can't do it. Now, the difference between, uh, like I played a Southern, a Strom Thurmond or whatever, Southern care on SNL. Yeah. And, and,

Right now, it would be like as if I'm that guy. Yeah, we've lost our sense humor about it. For better or for worse. It's very it's very serious out there because the stakes are very high between the left and the right and Trump and Biden. It's very it's just compared to like Clinton versus George Sanders. So benign. And now it's all toxic. And I have to trace it.

Back to social media, giving us a platform and tribalism. Talk to that. I don't want to even mention. What do you think about that? People get in their bubbles. It's a combination. Social media becomes the hall police, where a lot of people on social media are just trying to get people mad at each other, being like, did you see that? Did you see what he said? Did you see that? And kind of poking the bear on that stuff. It's also easier to go backwards, right?

and have somebody be like oh i dug this thing you did at your comedy set 1993 that's weird um you have people who are doing stand-up acts i know they try to take the phones as much as possible but

you know, sometimes when you're, and I'm not a standup, but I've talked to enough of them. Like sometimes you're out there, you're testing shit and you're trying to figure out what works and what doesn't and where the lines are. And if you're losing that ability, that becomes dangerous too, I think. But, uh, yeah, it's hard to pry people's phones out of their hands. I mean, it's who's giving up their phone for two hours. You know, that's a very tough situation to say you can't talk to your babysitter. You can't talk to anyone. Um,

And so you have to agree to do that. People are doing it, but yeah, what you're saying is true. If you want to say jokes that go way too far, and then you're going to be judged on that. You're like, this is where we used to practice. And then we go, okay, that one didn't work. Okay, that's too much, but it's already out there now.

And they're like, "That's your favorite joke." And you're like, "No, that was a pretend joke I'm trying to sharpen. And now I'm going to die with it because that's... Where do you practice? What do you do? I'm with you." Yeah. Well, you want to, as comedians mostly, just you want to say what you're not supposed to say. It's what pops into your head. Sure. To take that away. And we all self-censor now. "Oh, I can't do that. I want

I won't do that. We'll cut that. You know, just do. You're not even thinking about it, but you are. Well, I remember the sketch, the Italian restaurant sketch with Kirstie Alley when you're the maitre d' and you're just like,

basically mauling the guests which i'm half italian so i love that because italian restaurants really are actually like that they're very touchy feely and so you went for it there's that one part when the camera pans back and he's just got victoria jackson with her legs up and he's like and then by the end of it they're just like licking the face and doing all that i don't even know if

I'm not even positive that would fly now. I don't know. I just don't know. It's like right on the line. But what I would tell people who have seen it or are offended, whatever, is I asked Kirstie Alley, can I...

are you okay with this? She's amazing. And she was like, she lets everything go. Yeah. Yeah. Some people are there to say, whatever we let's do anything you want to me. And whatever's the funniest and they trust you. And then it's way funnier than the people that are stiff and worried about it. That's the best. And we did it in dress where I go over to the table and Victoria goes back. I have her legs up around my shoulders and I'm talking to everyone sort of

And then apparently the censorship people said, hey, chill that a little bit. But somehow Smigel pretended to, or Rob Schneider, I can't remember, pretended to try to get to me before that. But that was probably once I was in that position in 8-H, I go, one of the biggest laughs I've ever been part of was that. Had the honor to be associated with. To your point, couldn't do it today. We're going to have, I don't know if we had already, Sharon Stone,

There's a sketch that has 16 million on YouTube where we are sort of ogling her. She's going through airport security. Oh, look, and I'm playing a man from Indonesia or something. Oh, look. Oh, can we take you? And we're taking her clothes. I don't know if we'll talk about it with her or whether you were after her. You know, I remember when I did the pod with Spade, we were talking about SNL. The thing that I always feel like it doesn't get enough credit for

It catches somebody a lot of times at the absolute most famous they ever were at whatever point in their career with the guest host, right? See, Sharon Stone on probably like right after Basic Instinct or right before. And she's the most white hot famous...

She's ever going to be like right there, right in that moment. And that's why it's so, it's so funny to see some of the social media accounts that are around SNL, right. About like, they have the ones of just, there's a, there's a Twitter account of just a guest host announcing the musical guests.

And sometimes it's really funny because they could be like, there's Steven Seagal, you know, introducing the Smashing Pumpkins. And it's like, it's like pop culture Mad Libs, you know, that like there's one Emilio Estevez like saying goodnight and it's Pearl Jam and it's like super young Eddie Vedder. And it's like, all right, thanks to Eddie and Pearl Jam. And there's no other pop culture artifact like that. You know, someone dug up Bill, which I saw might've been on Twitter was

just rolling at promos, which I didn't know they were rolling when I was there because they're just rolling and then they're like, and I used to write promos. So it's me, Emilio, Eddie Vedder, Lauren,

and then going, okay. And then it's just all the talk in between. I would say this, I'd hit this. We step out of frame. They try one. Hey, it's Emilio Estevez and Pearl Jam. And then we all walk back into frame and go, how'd it go? We were a second too long. Okay, take this word out. It's riveting for me to go like, there's me. It's almost like watching that Beatles thing where you go, there's something I didn't know about and they're filming. And it just, a little sliver of time in one of my favorite things in the world

And just doing it and just my daily, the boring daily grind of that place. And you go, it's so fucking cool. Well, for both of you, it's like all that stuff must be like these random home movies that are in your attic. But meanwhile, like 20 million people have seen them. And their dress rehearsal and stuff. We never saw dress on video where we are. They have it somewhere because now they're showing clips from SNL from dress and they're showing this and they have a million things backstage and some of the mystery is gone, but it was fun to just,

run around backstage. There's no security. There's no nothing. There's no, there's people in the hall drunk and friends of friends that are there. And Phil Hartman's going, move the fuck out of the way because he's got 90 seconds to get to his quick change of back. And people are drunk. Hey man, like I'm at the show, but now I think they've got a little more dialed in, but that was part of the fun of it. It's a, you know, it's, there's a surreality to it. I always tell people it's a little bit like going back to your high school and

on a Sunday afternoon when no one's around and just walking around the halls, whatever that feeling is. So when I'm there in the 17th floor and I'll be walking along and I'll see me and Phil in a sketch or picture David, it's heady stuff because experientially it is the most intense part of one's life or right up there, you know, because of the liveness of it and the legacy of it. That's why I think of cast members.

who joined this year. You know, I was lucky, but I had Eddie and Billy Crystal, Mark Short, that, those guys, and then also the original cast, which is like Mount Rushmore for all of us, you know? But when you showed up, the show was in trouble because it felt like that transition year after the Billy Crystal thing

uh, that Martin short and Christopher guest that year. And then Lauren came back. He had this young cast and only a couple of them ended up staying, I think for the second year, but then you showed up at Hartman showed up and all of a sudden the show is the show is amazing again. Um, but could you feel like, um,

Did it feel like that was a make or break year? Now I feel like I'm interviewing you. Did that feel like a make or break year for the, for the cast? Or did you not even sense that? Well, unless I've misremembered this, but it dynamite on who was Lauren's Lieutenant producer, really nice woman. I believe her saying, I was told that we had a 10 show commitment.

that Bernie shows. Bernie Brillstein went to Brandon Tartikoff, I think, and just said, you got to give Lorne one more shot. This is, I remember. So I was told this, if we don't hit the ground running, they're going to pull the plug at Christmas. So incredibly nervous anyway. And the first sketch that I did, Madonna came on for my first show and apologized for the 85 season. That was our cold open. Yeah. And then I'm in a sketch with Jan Hooks

and Phil and myself. And, uh, I just found out recently, I was talking to Robert Smigel and he's in Jim Downey, Jim Downey. And they just said that the audience felt safe with us. And at that moment, cause you don't want the audience to feel nervous for you or not quite sure where the joke's going. You know, you want to get them relaxed. So, uh, to come in with them and do that was great. And then when David showed up,

And Chris Rock, Chris Farley, Sandler. I felt like in those years we were peak, peak, all cylinders for us because we had the bad boys kicking ass. And then we also still had Phil and John Lovitz for a year and Dennis and stuff. So that was... I mean, that was the second peak of the show. I feel like the show was in danger in my lifetime three times. The first was...

After the original cast left that Jean Dominion year that you talked about a little with Piscopo, but it really felt like the, if Eddie, if Eddie isn't there, the show gets canceled. Like that's just, was that the Robert Downey, Anthony McCall? No, that was, that was the next one was that the, so that was season six, but they had Eddie, they ended up keeping, but if they don't have any, I think the show gets canceled. Yeah. I think if the Dana Phil Hartman, that first season doesn't work,

I think the show gets canceled. And it really feels like if, if the will Farrell that season, if Farrell's not on the show and the new blood and the people they kept, but then the new people they brought in and that season didn't work. I do wonder if they would have canceled it that year. Cause I remember that,

That was back in the day when those magazine profiles, if it was the right kind of hit piece, really felt like incredibly damaging. And I remember reading that New York Magazine piece and being like, oh my God, the show's going to get canceled. And then that first episode with Will, he showed up, he did Get Off the Shed. He did the phone thing with Meryl Hemingway. And it was just like, oh, we're good. This guy's amazing. This show's going to be good again. But after that, I never felt like SNL was in danger again after that.

Where do you feel, now that you are sort of an expert, what do you feel about this season and this cast? I mean, watch as much anymore, no.

I watch, uh, I still watch, I still monitor it. Um, I, I think they've made the mistake the last decade of too many cast members, which I think you can always trace when the show is struggling. Yeah. It's when the show is always humming, it's always smaller cast members. I've talked about a bunch of people about this who've worked on the cast. Like it's like a basketball team. If you, if you guys watch basketball, like I do, if you're playing 14 players, you're

And everybody's playing, you know, 12 to 18 minutes a game. Guess what? The team's going to suck. But if you're put, if you figure out who like your seven or eight are and you ride those seven or eight, the team's going to be really good. And I always felt like SNL at its best always had the eight or nine. I, I went to Lauren's office like 10 years ago and I got to do a podcast with him, which was amazing. I mean, it was like, honestly, one of the highlights of my career. And I was giving him my basketball theory and his answer was,

Yeah, but the new cast members, that's kind of like the draft.

And you, it takes so a couple of years for the new cast members to have their sea legs. Yeah. And you got to have those guys ready. And that's why we have the deeper cast. I get it, but I still feel like it should be eight or nine max. I would have been tough on me. I just, I happened to be in like four things on the, on my first episode. I didn't even know what I was doing, but it's sink or swim. If you're slow motion, it's kind of like, if you don't like when, when an NBA player gets traded, uh,

And then he comes in with a new team with a new system and he gets into his rhythm. He fits with the system. All of a sudden, he's scoring 20 points. He's a different basketball player. But if you're coming off the bench constantly and the offense isn't running through you,

The same thing with SNL. If you can't get your reps in and get rid of the fear, not all of us are Eddie Murphy, who I thought was a savant at 19. But even Will Ferrell, everybody gets better the more they're out there. And then the audience also discovers you, gets comfortable with you. So it's pick your poison. I don't think... Lorne, it's his show. He's 50 years. He has a method to everything. He thinks of everything. So I guess this is...

um how it how it works you get to be on the show but you may have we we didn't have anyone not in the show when i was there was seven cast members right so everybody was in every show but now a lot of times i wasn't in it for two weeks it's like survivor yeah because there's people that just if you don't make it and then and then they sometimes add but don't subtract so now you add this person because you got to cover like a leading man type you know there's sometimes there's types i never got that back then

but sometimes you need to fill a phil hartman role sometimes you need to fill this kind of guy and then um if you don't do or just adding now suddenly it's just too many to keep track of it's just hard for them they go bananas but then if they leave where do you go i remember i was going to leave a year earlier and then they're like what do we have lined up because it's always easier to get work when you're on snl and then right had a movie almost every summer and then uh you leave and luckily

God, don't just shoot me. But that doesn't always happen. So what do you do when you go? And so you just sometimes just stick it out. And there's people there sticking out longer than we used to. I stayed six years and that was...

considered a hair long um sandler uh farley rock was three sandler probably were four or five no five so i stayed one year too long and i was like the fucking guy that went to college they came back to high school because it was will and sherry and i was like i liked them but i didn't i immediately felt like oh no all my guys are gone and i don't know what to do with this i don't

And so I just did one, Lauren goes stay and you can do one segment a week, do whatever you want. And I didn't do sketches. I just did one segment a week of whatever I wanted. And that was like my own kind of update. So that was where the Terry Hatcher thing was. Sean Penn gave me a tattoo. I thought that really worked. Yeah. It was fun. It's fun. But yeah, one swing to get it right. I went to the world series, did a field piece to the Braves with Chipper Jones and some people. So, you know, some of those came out pretty funny, but after that I said, no, I think it's time to,

boogie and uh and then i forgot where this question started well i mean part of it is about how you build the cast right and yeah everyone says the same thing you have to have that one glue person

You know, and then you could argue about who the greatest glue person was. It's probably Phil. Phil Harvick. Yeah, Ackroyd's in there. I think there was a moment where Sudeikis and Hader together were just literally covering every possible glue thing you would ever want. And Fred Armisen, too. Right. Those three. It's always amazing that we get these new peaks after Will Ferrell. And then we asked...

Kenan Thompson, who's your MVP or whatever? And he said, the women of the last 20 years. And I do think there were complaints about misogyny in terms of casting and Nora Dunn had some complaints about it. And boy, starting with, I don't know, Sherry Oteri through Tina, and I'll miss all the names, Maya Oteri.

and Amy Poehler. It's just Kristen and then Kate. I never thought that was totally fair because I always felt like Jan Hooks was one of the best cast members of that entire generation. They're always like, oh, it wasn't until this. It was like, man,

I thought like it's taking it away from her a little bit because she was, I mean, to me, she's in the running of one of the best female cast members in the history of the show. Yeah. And I think she's in the top five. Yeah. A male, you would, women were not running for president. I mean, Sarah Palin came on the scene and,

And there was Tina Fey meeting that. Yeah. In the era I was in, it was mostly men politically. There were other figures. But so that sort of evolved as well. Obviously, Hillary became a big a big thing. But yeah, Jan Jan Hooks, I don't know if I wouldn't call her underrated because everybody knows. But if you really take a deep dive into her work, she was one of those. What can't she do? You know.

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All at your fingertips. Holmes.com. We've done your homework. Bill, who's your starting five if you took out the original casks? They're too good. They don't count. And take us out. Yeah, take us out. He's like, you don't have to worry about that. Yeah, I got that. Dana's got a real Mount Rushmore. Dana is very close. He's got a legitimate Mount Rushmore case. He really does. I really have to say I'll give it to Dana. Okay, take Dana out. I get people who think I...

I'm just, I'm an impressionist like Rich Little when I meet him at airports and stuff. You did the best impressionist. And I go, well, but what about Church Lady and Garth? And they go, oh, that's kind of flattering. Okay, go ahead. I think Hartman and Eddie and Farrell, just all the different stuff they could do.

They just had it. Like, it's almost like instead of just naming five, it's almost like who can't be left out. And I think you have to mention those three and you have to mention Dana. Um, you have to mention Dana. I have, I have,

And if you're pulling the original, if you're saying that's off limits, that's tough for me because I think Gilda was the best female cast member they ever had. And it's not a popular opinion because it was 100 million years ago and people barely remember it. But man, if you go back and you look at all the stuff she did, she was so good, so talented, so famous that she had her own Broadway show. Yeah.

How many cast members in the history of SNL could be like, you're so good at this, we're going to have a show called Gilda Live and you're going to do all your characters. It's like impossible. I'm not going to fight young Gilda. Yeah, I mean, all these girls, the women today will probably be like, they looked up to Gilda. I'm sure like we looked up to different...

I looked up to Gilda too. I mean, I would watch her and I didn't realize how hard what she was doing was. I would see characters and just think that was the people. And then later go, oh, they're doing different. I don't know what's going on, you know? I actually thought the last 20 years, I thought Maya Rudolph was,

was my favorite female cast member. I thought she could do the most. I just thought she was incredibly talented. I know she has like four or five kids. She's definitely gone the family direction a little bit, but I think she was like...

I just thought she was one of those. She could literally do anything. It's almost like you could make three or four packs for people. Sure. You could do top 20. And then you have Armisen and Sudeikis and Bill Hader may be the best. So it's a fun game. It's a way to celebrate the show. For me, my thought about Gilda is the charisma and the likability was at the

the highest I'd ever seen of any cast member. I mean, there was a comment or ability thing about her. She's playing a little girl on a bed. It's an, just herself. She's so committed. It just, there was just this kind of other level of, of likability or adorability, whatever quotient you want to call it. Who do you have as your number one? I, maybe you're too close to this and can't answer, but number one weekend update.

Well, I have to bifurcate them in a way. Yeah. Like, Chevy was the original. And so when I'm watching that show, he was just, no wonder he's a movie star. You know, he's like, he was so great. Such a good vibe to watch Chevy. Yeah, everything was funny. Everything was exciting. It was fun to watch. Dennis did six years solo. That's why I don't, you know, when you had Tina and Jimmy Fallon and stuff, it is a different kind of,

I do think the current two, Michael and Colin, have a great chemistry. They're getting even better and looser. They're tricking each other. So I think they're really as good as it gets. But for a solo, you know, night after night, I've never been around. And David would, you know, Dennis is just such a brilliant joke writer.

and he's a machine. So I would put him up there as the solo. I mean, Norm only did two years. It's different, right? It was two years. Norm also had a

a thing you couldn't take your eyes off of him, you know, when he was doing update that smile, the dimples. I mean, he was like, he looked like a movie star. He never played into it, but he looked like a full blown movie star, especially in that era. And then the, the turns that his jokes would take, uh,

I don't know what you call it, David, that style of his. Like, OJ's not doing too well because he kills people. Whatever it was, you know? The pauses. Pauses and like this really bold turn. So he's...

It's fun to talk about. Michael Jackson says he'll never get married, mostly because he's gay. Yeah. It's like, and then, but they let him do it. And then it's just hard to compete with that because that's just in a world of you weren't canceling people, he would have been canceled. I mean, there's so many things he said and then he doesn't stand up. Or he was uncancelable. He doesn't mind walking people. Maybe he just wouldn't have cared. No, no, he doesn't care.

And even later in his career, he would just do gigs and people come, they know what they're getting. So...

And they're just talking about presidents or something. And he gets into a casual thing, just soft selling it with that grin of his. Yeah. The Clintons. Right. I mean, you know, they they're good. I think I like them. But I think they they kill they kill the guy. Right.

They kill too many people. That's one problem. And Barbara Walters didn't know who he was. It was just a comedian getting booked. What are you saying? So his soft pedaling, he was almost like a country guy out in the town square or something. So they never landed hard in like a way with Norm. That was also part of his... I thought Dennis was the best.

But at norm, norm was my favorite. Okay. I don't know. I just felt like I didn't know if everyone was in on norm. I didn't know anything. I'm living in Boston. We don't have the internet yet. I don't know how popular it is, but I just knew like me and my friends, we were like, this guy's probably getting fired soon. Let's just enjoy this for the 10 to 20 weeks. Did he originate fake news or was that someone else?

Did Norm say, and how's the fake news? Here's the fake news. Yeah, I think he did. Yeah, he also, he did the note to self. Another interesting argument that I, people always have the same SNL arguments. Nobody has the, who are the best five people to just pop next to the weekend update guy for four minutes. Oh, for bits. Combo. Because that was Belushi-

Wait, that was one of the things he didn't get enough credit for when he would come in and he would do different things. But he would do the one where he would just get super mad and end up with the, but no. And then he'd go flying off the stage. I feel like he was the first one that got crazy. Throwing his body around. Eddie was unbelievable. Eddie became famous.

And then Sandler probably hit the hardest of anybody. Yeah. Cause he could do the characters. He could do the songs. Like when he did the, the first time he did the Hanukkah song, you go back and watch that clip. Like people lose their fucking minds. Like it's like he's Leonard Skynard singing Freebird. He's a professional singer. It's unreal. Along with jokes, which is very rare. And he's cute.

And then I remember when he did Crazy Spoonhead, he did all the Halloween things he was killing. Yeah. And just commitment. I mean, Adam has that, whatever he has, he's got it. You know, super, super likable charm. Yeah. And Hater, I think, is up there too for just popping on. Kate McKinnon was really good at it, just coming on, playing some crazy character.

But it is like its own little skill set. Cause you, it's like you're a basketball player. You're just coming in and you have to make like five threes in two minutes. Yeah. You did it. I mean, that's how you broke in. Right. With, uh, sit next to, I think I was doing like little Hollywood minutes. Oh, that's what, that's all that was. Yeah. I guess I would come in and do those. But even if I did anything, I talked about going to concerts or whatever. You're sitting on a desk in the dark and you're like,

And you know, it's coming to you, which joke, and then you slide in and the cue cards, they point and they go like, you're up after this one. And you're like, because you're in the dark and no one's really looking at you and you slide over. And then there's 20 million people, like they see you. And even when you walk by, you go, I can just run in front of that camera right now.

I guess that's a trust issue. It is like a rodeo thing because I remember one time you're on deck and you're in the darkness and the show's all lit up and there's laughs and rah, rah. And I think it was Chris Rock was performing or something. So I see his chair rolls out and he does his thing. Then I'm in the shoot. And it is, you have to go from just darkness and crew guys around you to being on, you know? So there's...

But Dana, what about when you do, you do a good one and it kills and then you kind of scoot yourself and then Piscopo, I mean, Joe Dixo pulls you off or whoever. And then you're in the dark and you're just walking behind like a Gap Girls set and no one's even looking at you and you're like, your adrenaline's going, but the show's still going over here. And you sort of walk back to the underneath to maybe snag a few compliments. Yeah.

From Lauren and the producers watching them on it. Well, you try to look at some of the audience members and they avoid eye contact. And then you go back where it's lit by your dressing room to change. And you're like, anybody? Did it go good? Did it go bad? Another good category is the Mount Rushmore or whatever of people who weren't even the focal point of the sketch, but somehow were still the funniest person in the sketch. Which is like, to me, Chris Farley is number one. Oh, yeah. Like he's in the dysfunctional family feud.

He's just like the loser kid who Harman's being mean to. And he's probably like the fifth most important, but every single thing he does in the thing is hilarious.

And then at the end, he runs out and starts kicking to the left and right. I just saw that the other day. I go, what a moron. I remember walking at rehearsal. I go, you're not really doing that. He goes, oh, yeah. You were on the other side. You were in the normal family. Yeah, I watch him. Yeah, I think we were the normal family, right? Chris was... There was so much intellect behind all that. You know him much better than I did, David. But his rhythms and sounds and moves that he would... I mean, it just...

They were so concise and you could not not laugh. Like when he would do his kind of fake laugh, like he would turn into a hog, you know, just around the office.

You're like, this is irresistibly funny. But yeah, he was, your eye went to him, anything he was in. I once did Ross Perot riding him like he was a piggy. Come on, piggy boy. Let's go, piggy boy. And I was going, Chris, is this okay with you? And he goes, oh yeah, do whatever you want. You know, I'm whipping and stuff. I know other people get mad though. You can't do that to Chris. No, Chris wasn't mad. No, no, do it. I'll do whatever you want. I don't care. I think it's funny. He would never kill a bit.

So we're headed for the 50th year next year. I know. Which I think is really good for your podcast because, you know, the fact that the show's been around for a half century is... What do they do, Bill? What is this? Lauren leave? Who takes over? It's stunning and bizarre. I can't even fathom it. 50th. I think... I'm guessing Lauren's going to leave next year.

And I'm guessing somebody major has to take over the show. Somebody with real DNA. Someone NBC would approve. Everyone would have to approve. It's I, I just feel like it's Tina or it's Seth if he wants to do it. And it's gotta be somebody on that level who has that kind of chops. They're not just like, Hey, we hired Bob. He's been a huge fan of the show. He'll be taking over for Lorne Michaels. Like I, I don't,

see that happening. I feel like the person's got to have DNA. Yeah, we brought them over from Hallmark. And they would have to, they would be warned ahead of time that half the time you're miserable. I mean, it's a tough show. Not every show

There was just a lot of shows in my era where the party's a little grim and didn't really land it that night, you know, because that's why there's no other sketch shows because the ratio of success to failure and a quick hit sketch. Yeah. But I do think the fact that it's live, they tried to take that away in the 90s. They said, let's make it taped and we got to change the theme. And Lorne, to his credit, always resisted. Somehow he knew about branding.

before maybe that was become such a thing people talk about stuck with that theme everything's familiar and that's why we can interview cast members we talked to mikey day yesterday right he's on today and uh we know everything we told him that we know the offices you're in we know and lauren's there it's still but lauren might just stay a few more years i don't know i've yeah who knows like the patriots are going through this now bill belichick

just left and they hired a new coach and he's got a new coaching staff. And there's been a lot of stories about, whoa, things are so different. And, oh, the coach talked to the media today and, oh my God, they have this, you know, they're changing this part of the office and it's going to be this now. And everybody's like, cause Belichick was there for 20 plus years. Yeah. And just any kind of change feels like the most substantial change ever. So

So I can't even imagine with SNL if somebody else came in and was like, hey, I thought of an idea. We're going to merge two offices and make it one big. People are like, what? You can't do that. It's been that way for 50 years. I don't know how you do that. Maybe Tina and Seth could make one. Lorne, I don't know. I mean, Lorne is very good politically with the new regime as Universal, whoever he is, or whoever the head of the network, he's really good at doing that.

And how do you navigate all these cast members kind of game of throning each other, even if they love each other? It's still just your friend gets it. So I don't know. It's really hard to imagine. And Lauren knows all the celebrities too. So Lauren can call someone and say, maybe Steve Martin would be good in this. Let's call him. And someone new has to be able to be dialed in. The new iteration of the show, I don't feel like should be celebrity dependent. I would go back to what the roots of the show were.

and go to cast members and a guest host, but not be celebrity dependent because yeah, celebrity and pop culture is part of the, what they should be.

I felt that. Yeah, and we talked about it earlier yesterday when the podcast was a while back. But yeah, when a celebrity would come in, and then in my era, someone from the cast would do that impression, I just thought it was dispiriting for the cast. Right.

I'm going to say it. The secret sauce, one of them is watching a young performer come in, male, female, watching them trundle along and then become a star. In real time, you're experiencing it with them. And that is still the magic elixir of an unknown person being thrown out there. And you want those impressions to have some bite. And you want to have...

some edge to it. And it's just hard if they're a friend of the show, friend of the show. And so you got to stay away from some people. You can't do this politically. Like you can argue they should be having so much fun with Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey, right? Like that should be, think about if those people existed in the late seventies or in the late eighties, that would have been fodder for the show every week. But now I feel like they'd be a little afraid because, Oh no, she won't want to come back on if we make fun of her.

And like the other piece of it is why is the show live?

At this point, if there's no danger that comes with being live, because right. Because the reason the whole reason they had the show in the first place was this is live. Anything can happen. Any line might get crossed. Somebody might swear accidentally. All these crazy things could happen. Now it's like a safe live, which I don't at this point. Like, I don't know why you just wouldn't tape the show at eight o'clock and air it at eleven thirty. It's not like, oh, my God, what's going to happen? I don't. Do you feel like that might change that way anymore? Yes.

Maybe. It would be better. I mean, when you can have two takes on something like on a movie, you're definitely better. Some sketches, you come off on the wrong foot and you're like, oh my God, we came in wrong. And it's just not clicking. You can't save it. I want to step back and go, let me just come in again.

And then you're like, it's too late. It's not, it's not working. When something like when Ross Perot's running mate, Admiral Stockdale came out and he was kind of goofy. And then like three days later, Phil's doing that and I'm doing Perot and we have the car. And that was just...

What the show does best, better than anyone when it happens, is the zeitgeist is all there. But now you've got to compete with things like this, everything. And then you hit it and it's this relief valve. And that's when the show is magic. And I think in the modern era with all the different people doing

different kind of comedy takes all the time. It is more difficult, but that's still, when it happens, it's, it's, it's great. It's going to be interesting when Shane hosts at the end of this month. Yeah. Why do you, why do you think so, Bill? What do you think? I think there's going to be real danger, you know, and it's like, holy shit, I don't know what's going to happen. And that's a show I want to watch live. That's more about him than the show. But, um,

And I also think he's one of the funniest people working right now. Well, we mentioned that when we talked just casually that time. He's the guy right now. And his take, it's just... You just want to listen to him. And going back to the show and how he got fired, that's an example of a live show where you want to see it. Like, how is...

How are they going to handle it, the show, and how is Shane going to handle it? So I'm sure they're thinking about different things, but usually when the show's at its best, it's going to go right at it. You know, like maybe him and Bowen Yang will be in a rowboat somewhere. I don't know, but they usually go right at it. Right. You know, Rosetta Stone, the most trusted language learning program. Oh, yeah. If you want to learn a new language, which no time like the present, it's always fun to learn when you get older.

I know. And it's not learning a language when you're older, you know, over the age of 20 is difficult. You know, I mean, all the high school Spanish I took a grade school Spanish, you know, all I can say is Ola and hasta luego. So it goes out of your head. So now you have Rosetta stone, David, tell them about it. Well, Dana, you know, more than anyone trusted expert for 30 years with millions of users in 25 languages. Uh, I mean, my gosh, uh,

They have Spanish, French, Italian, German. I don't think you can throw them a curveball. I think they're going to know. What don't they have? The language you want. Yeah. And immerses you in many ways. There's no English translations. You know what I'm saying?

I know no English. You need a Rosetta Stone for English. No English translation, so you really learn to speak and listen and think in that language. That's the whole idea of Rosetta Stone is that it sticks to your head. It sticks to your brain. I learned German out of a book. It just doesn't stick as hard, so this is the way to do it. Designed for long-term retention.

There's a true accent feature. It gives you feedback on your pronunciation. Yes. And of course, there's desktop app options. There's an audio companion and ability to download lessons offline. Yeah, so that's great. Lifetime access to all 25 language courses Rosetta Stone offers for 50% off. A steal! And I do think that the off-label thing that... I'm ad-libbing now, going off script.

is that when you learn a language and you learn to pronunciate the words in that language, you start to learn about the people who live there and speak that language. Sort of a subtle, intuitive way of integrating with the culture. A little different, yeah. Don't put off learning that language. There's no better time than right now to get started. For a very limited time, Fly on the Wall listeners can get Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 50% off.

You just visit rosettastone.com slash fly. That's 50% off, unlimited access to 25 language courses for the rest of your life. Redeem your 50% off at rosettastone.com slash fly today. I'm a nibbler, Dana, and I think you are too, but you always know me that I just have to keep the energy going. And I think because I learned from my dad, pistachios...

are a good source of just, you know, nibble, wake you up. They're always delicious. I actually named a character in a movie I did called Master of Disguise. The lead character's name is pistachio. That's how much I love pistachios. Ooh. Yeah. Well, wonderful pistachios have literally come out of their shells. It's the same taste. It's delicious, but...

It's a lot less work. As you know, cracking them open can be a little bit of a job. Less cracking, more snacking is what I say. That's what I say. That's what you say. And I'm going to use that when my wife goes to the store. Wonderful pistachios. No shells. Flavors come in a variety of award-winning flavors, including chili roasted. Honey roasted. Mm-hmm.

Salt, sea salt, vinegar, smoky barbecue, sea salt and pepper is one I like the most. And I'm going to try this jalapeno lime. They don't have a red, red necky flavor just yet. Yeah. Red, red necky loves pistachios. I like to crack things open and put them in my mouth.

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Don't get mad. I know how you, I know your temper. Because people ask me this. I'm kidding. Is football allowed to be rigged? I know people say it's football rigged, but then they also say it's entertainment or NBA. Is that stuff allowed to fudge and twist because it's an entertainment thing?

company instead of just sports i don't really get that are you saying could the super bowl have been scripted because kansas city won and they won in overtime and taylor swift and her boyfriend kissed after the game that's part of it and how beneficial how beneficial that is or even i thought i saw a thing with shaquille i've seen basketball players sometimes online saying oh yeah we're told the finals will be this long and who wins and shaq saying when he got

David Stearns said to him, where do you want to play, hot or cold? And he said, I want to play somewhere hot. And he goes, okay. And then the day of the draft, he goes, it'll be Orlando. And then he's saying this. Yeah, that's a famous story. I mean, that's so weird. I never heard that story. And I go, is that, so are the ping pong balls really bouncing around? Or is it, you know, I don't know. It makes me,

Think all this stuff. And then the defense is we're an entertainment company. We don't have to play exactly by the rules. And you go, oh, like a movie. Like we have to make it fun to watch. Yeah, I don't think they can rig the games, but-

I used to write about this all the time. I, you know, it's same thing, like how you guys would do impressions of people. I would always play up certain things and have fun with it. One of them was that David Stern, the old NBA commissioner was, you know, this like basically Vito Corleone and rigging all this stuff. And there was always this thing about when Patrick Ewing went to the Knicks,

It was the first time they've read the lottery. There are seven envelopes and he's reaching down and he grabs each one. And if you look briefly for like a split, split second, it looked like the next one had a little bit of a crease on one of the sides. Ah, I felt it.

Then there was a theory that they had frozen the envelope. So as he's feeling the envelope that was frozen, that was great. And it was like, you know, whatever, like they just put it in like a carbon, whatever. So it was like freezing cold when he touched it. So he knew that was the one, but that was always a, a recurring bit about him. Same thing when, when Jordan got,

or when Jordan retired, there was always a thing. Oh no, actually Jordan got suspended for a year. The shack thing, that was always a story. There was stuff they did in the late 90s, early 2000s where,

The perfect team for the league and the ratings always seem to win. And most famously, it was Philly versus Milwaukee, Allen Iverson. They're trying to get him into the finals in 2001, playing Milwaukee. And Philly shot like 100 more free throws than Milwaukee in the series. There was the Kings-Lakers game, which I'm sure you guys remember, 2002, where if the Kings win game six, they win the series. Everyone on the Kings fouled out.

So you see stuff like that. I do think they can kind of nudge the officials to say, Hey man, we don't like how, you know, Shaq is being defended when they do this, you got to call it. And then they start calling it early. And the other team's like, wait, we were doing that last game. That's a foul now. Um, but yeah, there's been some fun conspiracy stuff. Players that are spend their whole life playing as hard as they can to get with it. It's just hardest to buy. You're going to tell players not to play hard. Um,

But then you see like, oh, you watch all these, like, which I would never see a lot of chiefs, no holding calls. And then they just show over and over holding. And you go, I mean, the refs can't see everywhere, but sometimes if they want to, they can always find a hold somewhere because it's kind of-

Where if you watch the helmet catch, like four guys are holding for Eli because he buys like an extra four, four seconds. And there's just holding all over the people are just getting mauled and the refs are like, cool. And that was the year we had spy gate for the Patriots and,

You know, the commissioner's office was against them. So the Patriots fans have always felt like that game was. What's the penalty rate per game right now? Because it seems like when I watch the NFL, there's an incredible play. And then I immediately go looking for the flag. Yeah. Oh, a flag. The best play I've ever seen. So I do think if you're going to rig professional sports and you want to kind of nudge it, that would be your way to do it without getting caught.

That was when gambling, sports gambling really took off the last 15 years. One of the first edges, the best gamblers had was the referee tendencies.

And this was an NBA and NFL specifically where it was like, oh, this team, they call more penalties and more penalties means this will happen. And it's the same thing with NBA. If somebody is more foul happy, then the over is going to hit more. And now all that stuff's kind of on the internet and people know it. But when they assign certain refs to certain playoff games-

Then people are like, oh, of course they assigned that ref. He always calls it for the road team. And so that stuff's out there. I think it's fun. Some people take it very seriously. Well, when I'm losing millions every week on DraftKings, I sort of think about it. How'd you do in the playoffs, Spade? I do DraftKings, but I also do a fan duel. I get with some guys and do like fantasy or guillotine leagues or weird stuff like that just to keep the fun going up until the end.

And I do okay in those. I'm not that great. It's just some, it's a good time killer. I'm in the fantasy league with Jimmy's cousin and John Hamm and all those people where it's 11 people in the league, but the winner gets to vote somebody out of the draft the next year, which I think is the single best rule. So we have to show up. We have to show up. And then the guy who won is like, all right, Dana, I'm sorry, you're out. And you just have to get your stuff and leave.

And that's it. We don't see you for a year. Yeah, it's great. It's really, really, it gets super bitter. And you keep going lower and lower with people or do you add a person? No, it's the same 11, but we, we have 10 people in the league every year. Plus the guy who got voted out. Oh, so it's even. So they get to come back a year later. They can't get voted out, but then somebody else gets voted out. It,

It has to be even Dana. You don't understand. I just, I'm going to ask you guys a question. I mean, I felt like I felt beat up after I watched the super bowl. Yeah. I don't think I've ever gotten that beat up. I'm from Bay area. So I'm a Niner fan, but I, I liked the chiefs too. I'm not fanatical, but I was rooting for them.

But there was some frustration and penalties, and the way it ended, I was like, ah. It wasn't satisfying. If you're a Chiefs fan, I guess it was. But it was like that new fifth quarter, I wasn't paying attention to that. It had never been in the Super Bowl. I wasn't briefed either. Those new rules for the overtime. You were confused? It was one of those things people wrote about it.

But nobody actually thought it was going to happen. So then when it was happening, there was so much strategy to it that none of us had really totally considered. And the Niners ended up choosing to go first. But I was saying this week, to me, it's like going second was such an advantage because you become the blackjack dealer.

It's the other guys going first. You know exactly what they're going to do. And then you can decide what you need to do to match whatever they did. Sure. Yeah. Is the advantage. But I don't think we realized that until we watched it. Because if you get a touchdown, you're not...

Just going for two, probably, because you could win with a touchdown with an extra point. The Chiefs said that. They said that they were scoring. They were getting two. They were going to come back and do two. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I told my wife it was over. I said, oh, no. Mahomes got the ball. They're going to do four downs. They moved back so fucking easily when they came in. I was like, oh, no. It's going to be prevent, defense, and then it was just so predictable when one team is playing three downs punt or they did get the field goal and the other team is going to go four. Man.

mentally to move the ball. So, well, and then there's this inevitability with him, which I think all the best athletes have where when the door is open like that, you're like, oh, here we go. Do you think he could host SNL Patrick Mahomes?

He's kind of quirky. I think I got a whole set. We were doing the game we thought we were doing. I get a little stutter. That was pretty good. I like that. Oh, I'm sure everybody does it on... No, I haven't heard a lot of Mahomes. That was good. It's always like Pee Wee Herman and...

Yeah, I remember that teaser about my voice. Now I'm doing Bobcat Goldthwait, but that's okay. Bobcat Goldthwait as Pat Mahomes. As Pat Mahomes. But yeah, he's a supernatural talent, a word I like to use a lot. He can host for sure. Well, you asked me about athlete host. I thought Kelsey was actually really good last year or two years ago whenever he did it. I thought he was solid.

um i think you'd be an actor he's with caa there's a master plan i i love it it's just to make him into an international movie star and he probably has the the looks and the charisma to do that it's just kind of the rock did it and was open about it you know i'm ready for action stars again i i feel like we're in such a weird spot like the the era i grew up with

where we had Arnold and we had Sly. We had then Von Dom showed up and Seagal and all these dudes. And we just, there was a new one every year. And we had like this embarrassment of riches. Carl Weathers had a chance. Yeah. Um, and then, and now it's like, it's all these Jason Statham guys. They know how to do this, like choreograph Kung Fu stuff. And,

I don't know. I miss the days of just like these big dudes that we can kind of make fun of on a show like SNL. I like Seagal. I thought he was great. Seagal, his first five were great. Oh, yeah. He's great. I was a legendary bad host, though. Anybody seen Richie? In the pool hall scene, one of the great scenes in the movie. Anybody seen Richie? Anybody?

Yeah, he always played Italian dudes. He played like Nico Peretti and people like that. I didn't even know what that meant when I was a kid. I just kept going, you better kick his fucking ass too. And there's like eight guys and he walks in and starts being a dick. And I go, once in my life, I just want to be this guy. Just go up to a bunch of guys that are looking at me and go, the fuck are you looking at? Just for once. Yeah.

And then beat the shit out of all of them. He was Steven Seagal when he hosted the show as far as just this alpha male presence and stuff and talking about how he could choke anyone out or beat anyone up. Just, yeah. He was a perfect guy. He was the legendary reviled host, though, from your generation, right? Wasn't he the least favorite? You know, there's others I wouldn't mention. I kind of liked him. I did, too. Yeah.

It's hard to act tough when you ask for a scrunchie. I found it fascinating. You'd go by the dressing room during the week and you'd hear a woman in a state of pleasure. It was just really interesting. Oh my God. What a lover that guy was. I guess so. But he was just fun to talk to. What a trip. But he was a little offended by Hans and Franz. We had to rewrite it because he thought we were making fun of him in the read-through and then we rewrote it so that

You could beat up Arnold. You're the only one who could beat up Arnold. But I like the guy. I don't know. I like there's worse hosts, but you can't really name everybody. It's just too rude to name them. No one's going to do that. You know? Yeah. That becomes aggregated. It's like the Daily Mail. David Spade said so and so is the most reviled host. Yeah. They quote it for the rest of your life. Yeah. Yeah. But Marcy Klein told us that she was the wrangler of hosts over the years and producer. Hi, Marcy. Hi, Marcy.

And she, Lauren would say, so-and-so was in their dressing room. They're not coming out. So she would have to go in there and they'd be crying and the show's on in four minutes or, or just having a panic attack. And so, yeah, you kind of have some empathy for the hosts. They're doing something that's impossible, you know? Yeah. You know, one of the things, cause I loved all the books. Like I read, there's this great book that came out. I'm going to say mid eighties though. It's called, I think it's,

live from saturday night or something like that but it's about the first 10 years of the show and and it was one of my favorite books and then the oral histories came out with jim miller and shales and a bunch of other stuff but you'd read the history of the show and these things that happen never expecting youtube's coming and all these other things where you could actually just go back and watch so there was always that legendary story of belushi when he was so fucked up he couldn't go you know basically couldn't start it was that i think when kate jackson hosted

And they were like, it's 50-50 whether he could die in the air if you put him on more and more. It's like, I'll take those chances. And puts him on and he's in the first sketch. So I've always read that story. And then you watch the clip and it's like,

Yeah. Belushi seems fine. He's fine. He's a little, he's a tiny bit green, but it doesn't seem like he's going to die during the sketch. It sounds better. Yeah. Yeah. So sometimes the video doesn't match up whatever the, uh, the folklore. Yeah. Yeah. Dana. And we gotta, we gotta wrap up Bill, but anything else you have something good for Bill? Any, it can be sports. It doesn't have to be, it can be anything. Well, I love sport. Well, you know, I'm a big, uh, like a lot of people now, but I, I was with the Warriors, uh,

mentally with Nate Thurman and Rick Barry. Oh, look at you. And so I've always been a fan of the Warriors. And of course, this era with Steph is amazing. I guess the rumor today they're trying to get, which they're not going to get LeBron, are they? Yeah, it didn't happen. The trade deadline was last week.

And I, and then it mysteriously got leaked today that the words tried to trade for LeBron and the Lakers said no. And LeBron didn't want to go there. So obviously the Lakers are leaking this because the words are playing better.

And they have good chemistry. And it's like, oh, actually, they were trying to trade a bunch of you for LeBron. Get in their heads. Yeah. So it felt, I thought, a little diabolical. Get Brawny. Yeah. Oh, they were trying to get LeBron, but we said no. It's like, all right, maybe. Don't you have to get the kid to get Brawny? I mean, get Brawny to get LeBron? Well, the kid's had a rough freshman year in college. Yeah. So I'm not sure he's hopping into the draft right away. Ooh, sore sub. Yeah.

Yeah, it's a tough one. He's like five points a game at USC. Okay, this is my last question because I know you're a movie fanatic as well because you do the rewatches. I don't like, forget top 10, whatever. Movies that you can revisit throughout your life.

Oh yeah. So like, you know, I see the Godfather every year, but pretty much, you know, there's, there's ones that you just see a lot of, you know? So for me, heat was the movie that started the rewatchable on my podcast. We just, it was the 20th anniversary.

And me and my friend Chris Ryan were just like, let's just do a podcast about heat. Fuck it. People loved it. So we created the rewatchables. What do you want to do? That was the first time Pacino went full scream, which is amazing. Pacino is crazy in that movie. Pacino has explained it after that he's playing the character, like the guys on cocaine. Yeah. And it's like, yeah, we know we saw heat. We, we, we know that's what you're doing. She's got a great ass. Yeah.

but he's up there go ahead and then uh boogie nights the two godfathers are on all the time now because yeah i think showtime has just stripped all their library except for the godfathers and they're on constantly and i'm amazing i just could feel like i can dive in at any time to those shawshank's a good one fiction they i mean there's certain ones that just any science fiction in there

Not for me personally, but for a lot of people. I mean, there's a ton of comedies. I mean, you know, Tommy boy, I'm not just saying this cause spades on this, but Tommy boy has become the good thing about, especially when you get older and you have young kids and you can start showing them the comedies. It's gotta be one of the first six or seven because I don't know how old a kid has to be to understand. Farley was one of the funniest people of all time and how funny that movie is, but it's probably like age four.

where you can like fat guy in a little coat it might even be age three but you can just indoctrinate them yeah in that so there you know there's there's a bunch of the rewatchable like what about me in the window watching the girl at the pool are they rewatching that part maybe like fast is that cut out of i think that's cut out on tv so there's even joder there's stuff that's cut out and i and i never know it and then i go so there's people that are seeing these movies with a couple of parts missing

Because it's so rough for TV. And I'm like, they don't even know those extra parts. I don't know. That's a bummer. One of the cool things now is like with YouTube and all these different places, like, you know, Dana's show from the mid nineties, like, I don't know, 20 of those sketches are on YouTube now. That was one of those things where if you love that show and then it gets canceled, you're

And it's gone. There's no, unless you taped it on your, on your VHS, it's gone. It's history. Yeah. And now kind of all that stuff has a second life, like shows like freaks and geeks. Yeah. You can dive in that Larry Sanders, which Shanley was always like famously never wanted it on DVD. It was always like very prickly about it.

And now like every episode's on the max app, you know, so you can, it's great. Nothing goes away now. We're all in, we're all in cyber bits next to word next to Godfather next to everything else. It's just all there. Uh, could airplane be made today? Yeah. I think the, the problematic ones, animal house. Yeah. Um, if you're talking about, is this movie canceled now, which we talk about a lot on the rewatchables, like animal house, revenge of the nerds,

Porky's. I don't know how Porky's happens. A lot of stuff with women, yeah. Yeah. I don't know how Porky's happened the first time. I don't even know how you explain it now, much less in 83. Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Yeah, but that's a good movie though. At least it's well-written. Sean Penn is so good in that. Yeah. But yeah, some of the 70s, 80s. I think Airplane's fine though.

I just think a really silly movie right now because the country's in such a bad mood that's just joke permitted almost. Just physical gags would be a nice look. Yeah, it's weird. The airplane naked gun type of movie, which I was, I mean, that's what we all grew up with. It just kind of is done. And then they would do the top secret and they would do the ripoff versions of those kind of movies. But it was like 20 years of them. Then they made the scary movie franchise. Now nobody does any of those. Yeah.

Yeah, never know. I don't know. That's my final question. Thank you, Bill. Bill, it's been a pleasure. You guys are awesome. You hanging out with us. This was really fun. I forgot I was on a podcast or even hosting a podcast. So thank you. This was fantastic. I love you guys. You guys got a fantastic podcast.

This has been a presentation of Odyssey. Please follow, subscribe, leave a like, a review, all this stuff, smash that button, whatever it is, wherever you get your podcasts. Fly on the Wall is executive produced by Dana Carvey and David Spade, Jenna Weiss-Berman of Odyssey, Charlie Finan of Brillstein Entertainment, and Heather Santoro. The show's lead producer is Greg Holtzman.