Dennis Miller pt 2
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It was beautiful. It was private. Great big kitchen right next to a forest. What's not to like, David? You check that box saying I'd like to be near a forest. That's a good thing. A lot of people like Airbnb because you can do that. You can say, hey, I want to

place with a pickleball court, you know, and they can find you. You can be in town. You can be in the suburbs. You can be in the country. I mean, you can have a pool. You cannot have a pool. I mean, the benefits of Airbnb are just the flexibility of it and the locations and privacy compared to hotels.

Listen, hotels are fine and that's great. But sometimes I think if you get into an Airbnb and you see the convenience and all the things, you don't have to walk by people in the hallway and nod, get on the elevator and talk about the weather. So you realize that it might really...

be more tailored for you, and it turns into the perfect accommodation. Whether you're with family, friends, whatever, you're on your own. Consider Airbnb for your next adventure. I don't think you'll regret the switch. So Dana, we're excited to have our first repeat guest on Flying the Wall, Dennis Miller, who we both love, grew up with, and you were...

You knew him before I did, and you guys are great friends, and we're all- We go back to the very beginning. I remember playing at Comedy Club with Dennis Miller in 1981, the Comedy Magic Club. When I first got to know him, he goes, he says, I got no gigs, Garfield. Got no gigs.

No gig. By the way, he's probably the second most person you do on the show. Who's number one? Is it Trump or Biden or what? I would say Lauren because, you know, but Dennis is a close second. And it's fun to try to process the way his mind thinks. When you think of a thing, it'd be like, Kirk,

Carvey and Spudley doing the classic intro a little long on the keep cop you know what I mean so but his mind well anyway you'll enjoy this because a couple years have gone by so there's just a lot of stuff to talk about and his mind is uh

razor sharp and really fun to listen to sharp we cover a lot of bases and we mostly just crack up yeah we mostly just so you're just laughing uh you'll just watch me and dana basically just listen to dennis crack up and i will say the one and only i mean his he has a singular voice in stand-up which is amazing the one and only dennis miller hey baby what's that enter the dragon skateboard

What are you, fucking 60? You're 60 years old now? Dennis, I'm a skater at heart. Let me get a hat on. I look like a madman. No way. We're not even showing this part, boss. Oh, we are? No. You look good, though. What?

What do you mean? My hair looks all fucked up. It's up to you, but yeah, this is just audio. So, Spudly, I'll start you off by putting you on comfortable home ground, as the great Jim Kelly said, ghettos are the same all over the world.

And then he flipped an Ollie. Okay. Jim Kelly, the quarterback. I'm sorry. Who is that? There was a guy and enter the dragon. And at the beginning, he's riding a junk. And he looks around and he goes, kiddos are the same all over the world.

That's fantastic. And then an Ollie is a skateboard trick, Dana. Wake up. I know. I am waking up. Are you kidding? All right, boys. Let's rock this. Who played the bad guy? What actor played the bad guy in Enter the Dragon? I don't know.

um kareem abdullah jabbar no that was no it was john somebody he had a kind of a comb over a good actor anyway it was uh i remember joseph weissman played dr no who was the uh and he was in detective story with kirk douglas and i think they patterned hung after him anyway let's

let's go on no this is what we're doing this is great this is this is the beef of yeah this is a plus podcasting so far i auditioned for dr yes and my whole part got cut up spade your hair looks good man what do you do my hair looks good today why are we on fucking camera and jesus i know he's got volume he's got lift he's got he's got you too jesus i'm sitting over i look like uh

Okay, here it goes. Everybody else looks good. I was the first one in on plugs and they're not working for me.

We're going to, we'll do a whole thing. You know, we just had Joel McHale on. Yeah. And his hair looks great. And he fully admits he's got more plugs than the last two minutes of Carson. Yeah. Jesus. It's your joke. That's a dentist joke. A class. How many times do I do dentist jokes? Are we on the air, by the way? Should I? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I was on the Tonight Show one night after I got my plugs. Yeah.

I was talking to Jay and we had a fallow moment as it were because I had nothing to plug so ironically I said hey Jay I just got hair plugs he's no he didn't hair looks great and I said no I'm telling you I got hair plugs and I'm healed up now and I want to show them off so I went up to the camera the number one camera and

you know, put my head down. I said, I've got around 5,200 plugs here and, uh, came back and Jay said, you're not kidding. I said, no, no. And the next day I got calls from some of the most famous craniums in the world asking me where, you know, I won't betray their trust, even though some of them have passed on now, but say, where did you get your plugs? And I, uh,

And they said, do they have a back door? I said, yeah, but why use the back door? Just go get hair plugs if you need hair plugs. And the guy, my doctor eventually called me when I needed some more. And he said, you're comped. Don't pull coin in my town. I've gotten so many, you know, recommendation heads off you. You reorientated the skulls.

of several hundred men in Southern California. And that is a, if you have your legacy as one of the all-time great comedians, but this legacy we've heard about today, helping people with their appearance, their self-esteem, I'm calling myself happy. And I'm glad this was, this is like any, anything like,

plastic surgery or something, you notice the bad ones, but there's so many people that have different things they've done that you just would never know. And I just go, that guy looks pretty good.

Yeah, Ellen Burstyn always looked great. I consider myself now in retirement, I consider myself a not a life coach, but rather a life assistant coach where I don't have anything. I don't speak to the press on a daily basis. I have nothing to do with the overall organization, but I consider myself the strength coach for life.

I hired a life assistant coach a little cheaper. I just stole your joke, switched it, and it's in my act now. Remember we used to call that bit surfing, where if somebody jumped on a bit, I had that song on my show where you go, two tags on every bit. Yeah. Oh, they're waxing up a premise and taking them on down to the beach, bit surfing, yeah, yeah, yeah. That happens. If comedians are together, I think the...

uh the rule is the unwritten rule like if you start a bit just you're talking and people kind of tag it just in conversation i think if you tag someone if i tag someone they're talking

And they say, well, I might use that. I say, go ahead. You started the premise. I'll throw you whatever I can shovel on this fire and take it. Right? Yeah. Jimmy Vallely was like the Red Adair, but he would airdrop in on any main premise and just start tagging it like Floyd Mayweather working the speed bag. Did Red Adair help cap the...

the oil rigs that were on fire in like Iran or something? - Well, he would do that thing that Duke Wayne did in the Hellfire or Hellfighters movie where if you knock the feed of the air out for just a millisecond, the whole thing stops.

So you have to get up close, dynamite it, stand behind something and have the dynamite suck the air out for a second. And then that puts the fire out in an oddly ironic way. And you have to remember the dynamite was invented by Alfred Nobel, the Nobel Peace Prize, because his original invention had croaked so many people that he karmically worried whether he would ever get into heaven. So he came up.

He made him a modicum of a donation in perpetuity to have a peace prize. The only reason he did it is because he invented dynamite. Wow. That...

I'm speechless. I did not know that. Well, Clive, you remember when we were on the road, we used to do San Jose and you'd go to the Winchester Mystery House? Certainly. Oh, yeah. Right? It was this house that had, it was like an Escher print that had stairwells and chutes and ladders. And the reason the woman, she was of the Winchester family.

uh, she married a Winchester. So many people had been killed with the guns. She was afraid that the spirits were going to come back and get her. So she built a house that was one big baffle chamber. So the ghosts would run into dead ends because you know, that's how you figure out how to stay alive after you're dead is that you can't figure a fucking hallway out. So anyway, but do you remember the catchphrase of the local TV, which was in the San Francisco Bay area about the Winchester mystery house? Uh,

It was always, Winchester Mystery House is 10 miles south of San Jose. And then she would say, keep building, keep building. And that would crush. Did you have local Pittsburgh bits that would only work in Pittsburgh? Well, to some degree, but I remember most from New York because that cat out on the island was always pushing. Carvel was always pushing cookie puss and

You know, you had Crazy Eddie selling the stereo equipment. Right. So that's when I was first indoctrinated into local catchphrases. And I remember SNL knocked off the most famous one, which was a thing of about what we played the Beatle music on Broadway. And it was called Beatlemania. And and then Jim Downey, I think, who?

One doesn't a trace back all roads lead to Dowdy comedically. He wrote that great bit called Beatlemania mania. It's not the Beatles, but the next best thing. And then he changed it. It's not Beatlemania, but it's the next best thing. It looks like a copy of a copy, you know, at a Kinko's or something where the guys were even a little more, more shot and loosely connected to the actual beat of Beatlemania guys. So very funny.

What's your, so let me try to use Spade first. You're playing Chicago. What's your local reference up front for a laugh? My local reference up front is about Arizona. And then I realized quickly it doesn't travel. Like that was the big wake up call. I'd never done S when I did SNL, I'd only been in New York once in my life. So all, all my jokes weren't working and I didn't really have any clubs to go in. Once you're at SNL, you're locked in that dungeon. So I didn't do much standup.

Except for maybe on the college gigs and weekends now and then, but man...

I would do literally, I would say streets in Arizona. I would say, hey, I was on a camelback over with the hookers on Van Buren. Yeah, there you go. And it's a surefire. But that's in Arizona. And then I get out there and I go, I'm not funny. I just know my area. It's just different. I had a go-to adaptation that's politically incorrect, but I'd take the name of the city, extrapolate it to sound like an Indian name, Fresno from the old Indian name Fresnaca, which means drop your shorts. We don't have much time.

crushed beyond beyond the beyond I couldn't follow myself I had to say thank you and goodnight you couldn't follow your own joke Jimmy Stewart blowing himself next and then I'd just leave the stage I could not follow myself I remember one night Randy Randy Quaid and I were coming out of we were coming out of the comedy store we went past that

train car up there that sells burgers. You remember that? What was it called, Spudly? Carnies, I think. Yeah. And we're walking past Carnies. And when you were talking about Jimmy Stewart, the original guy who did that,

uh his name was ron jeremy and uh he was a porn star who auto collated himself that's what he was known for he comes up and he's he's a big fan he's talking to randy about he's talking to randy about the last detail you know randy was so great in that and then he's you know telling me some of my jokes you know we're both like looking at him oh thank you sir that's nice and uh

As soon as he takes two steps away from us, Randy and I simultaneously look at each other and go, that's the guy who blows himself. He wasn't even out of earshot. We couldn't wait to tell each other. Oh, man. I saw him at the Rainbow all the time. Literally everyone from 1990 to 98 that's doing well is at the Rainbow, obviously me included. I was like, why was I there? Oh, yeah.

But I saw like, you know, Brett Michaels and those guys, they just, and they, you know, there's something about old people, not old people, but people that dress the way they were when they're their most famous. So like they'll have the same hat or the same look or the same hair, the same exact outfit. So you go, oh, that's that guy. You know what I mean? Was the rainbow, the joint, um,

Like below there was a private club called on the rocks. Wasn't that? No, that's a Roxy. Yeah. Very close though. That's all that same little run there where they're going to mow it down soon and make a club Monaco. Well, they better not do the whiskey because that's where the lizard King made his name. So you've got to leave the whiskey up. It should be whiskey. Sorry. Who's the lizard King.

Wait a second. What do you do? Do you tease him? Jim Morrison? Yeah, sure. Oh, Jim Morrison is the lizard. Oh, because of the leather outfit? You know, I never got Jim's curriculum vitae to see exactly why he named himself that. But yeah, I think there was some story about him out on a highway and he ran into an Arapaho crossed over and head-on into...

a telephone pole or something and died. And they saw the guy's spirit came into him and he saw a lizard on their throat, something like that. Just another day. That was the plot of Wayne's World 2, I believe. I thought he had a big dick. No, we had a guy playing Jim Morrison in the desert. But okay, fun fact, Bill T. Craigie was...

Just portionally wrinkled for his age. And that's where the phrase Craigie came from. Because Craigie is a great... How's he aging? He's looking a bit Craigie. Craigie, you mean? Craigie's not a word. Craigie's a word. He's saying it with an E. It's with an A, right? I just made that up to get things going. Oh, okay. Jesus. Well, come on. Have them...

had them loosely based in reality for God's sake it was a long ways away you know Mr. Craigie I was thinking what is Craigie Bill T. Craigie is in fact Craigie that's the joke

Isn't it ironic? I'm glad we're just on audio today because my hair, I'm looking at it now. You guys both, Carvey, yours looks like a beautiful, like showering, you know, like one of those geysers goes off and runs down the side of your head. I have three products. And he looks like David Jansen. The lion is true. Look at Spudley's hair. Beautiful. I know. It looks great.

Spudley's hair today, I did day combed it yesterday, but, uh,

I have to start something Friday. I still don't know if I'm wearing a wig or not. What do you mean start something Friday? Are you doing a film? Oh, I don't like to talk about it. What's going on? It's called Busboys with Theo Vaughn. It'll be in a theater near you. Busboys with Theo Vaughn. Steve introduced me to that cat and I find him so funny. I mean, he is. We had a fucking blast. He is a smart guy. And remember we sat down and we watched UFC one night.

And you were with him and I thought, he thought it was like a reincarnation of Phil's caveman lawyer thing. You know, he looked a little rough, but then the more I listened to him during the night, I said, Jesus, this cat is hysterical, man. Yeah. If you get into that frequency, he says the funniest shit. And I was in between. So,

The fight was right in front of us. Obviously, if you get Dennis right next to you, just whispering jokes about every round. We were just all telling jokes to each other. It was the funnest night in the world. I sit next to Dennis a lot there. I haven't been in a while. Are you going to go? Well, we'll talk after this.

I'd like to go in and see some. That's quality talk. Well, Dana's the best host, isn't he? He's a good guy. And he always treats you like cake. And, you know, you'll be sitting down front. You'll think God out of all the people in the world. And I see miles tell her there a lot too. He's a good guy. And one night I saw Mel Gibson and lady Mary from downtown. Now you remember that night?

Oh, I didn't see. I saw Mel. I've seen him there. Yeah. Well, she was doing a film with him. So they were just as fans and co-workers. Dana White. I am Dana White's godfather. He was named after me. I've never revealed that before. Dana Craggy. Love that guy. Craggy. By the way, to pull it all in a circle. Bill T. Craggy is, in fact, Craggy. Dana gave me that. Steve Recessive Chin has a weak chin. These are all in...

Farmer's Almanac. You know, it's funny when it's like, it's like whenever I'm with you guys, I know it's going to be such stream of consciousness that it reminds me of those times you had to do pre-interviews when you were starting out and like the Letterman pre-interview was more in depth than you trying to became a citizen of the country, for God's sake. I know. With somebody and go over jokes phonetically and all of a sudden you're in an office with

some people we all remember the people I don't want to denigrate them but some of the people that you're pitching jokes to you're thinking my god if I was writing to their level I wouldn't be on the Letterman show you know you'd have to say a joke and they'd look at you and go not that one yeah you do a 45 minute pre-interview this is what people at home don't know before you do a seven minute spot on you know

or something. So you're like pitching and the guy's like, what's your Obama thing? And do the whole thing and sweating at the end. He's like, what else? Maybe

Maybe we'll push that to the end. That's the worst. If there's time. Dennis, by the way, did you have a Tonight Show, first Tonight Show doing stand-up? I don't even know that story. No, I don't think I did. Or did you just skip that? I think I did. You came out as a guest after us. I don't think I did. Remember there was a cat who screened people for the Tonight Show and he had like a six and a half foot long Hobie cat that he would go out to Pasadena on the weekend and pitch himself as a yachtsman, you know?

And then you eventually see a picture of the boat that it's, you know, your grandson's in the bathtub with it. It's so small. And that guy was omnipotent about who got on the plane. I'm recovering from Hobie Cat. I'm still recovering from just the... Do you remember that guy, David?

Oh, yeah.

And then later, as you go along, you're in the center of the room to some degree. I'm not saying Tom Cruise is the center of the room, but you're at least in the room and you think, I'm going to hedge a few bets here because I don't want to end up getting kicked out. But at the beginning, you're fearless. I look back and I think, I can't believe I had those cajones. But I did panel the first time. And Johnny was like Henry Higgins, showing you off at Ascot or something. He was so good at it. It was an easy gig.

Why can't a regular piece be more like a comedian? I'm trying to do the, my fair lady thing there, but why can't Dennis be more? But, uh, yeah, this is the first time I saw the power of our former manager, Brad gray, Jim McCauley, me going there and my time was cut down or something.

So Brad just sitting in his chair in the green room and he had that raspy kind of voice and he just gestures with his finger to Macaulay. So Macaulay comes over and has to bend down to Brad. And I heard Brad go, we're not happy.

We're not happy right now. It was the most powerful move I'd ever seen. No, really? You could be having lunch with Brad at the grill and all of a sudden it turned in him and the waiters like him and Mo Green or Michael and Mo Green. I don't want you to ever touch my brother. And he was banging. I don't care. You do not touch my brother. You know, it got really Brad. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Spudly, was he your guy too or was it Gervie all the time? Always Gervie. Always Gervie. Brad would just jump in on stuff, but it was, you know. But Gervie's been straight through since day one and had different agents. But yeah, Gervie is always funny. We make fun of him on the show all the time. Listen, growing your small business in 2025 all comes down to how well you can hire.

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Well, you know, the great Brad story is, geez, I don't know if I should tell this. We could always edit. Just. Yeah. Well, you've heard. We can always say. We'll cut it. Where they're. Where they're in. Bernie's office. Sandy. Who? Sandy Wernick ends up. Yeah. Managing Adam to. Yeah. Yeah.

ultimate success i mean who's had a career and adam's adam you know i mean he's so great at it but those two dovetailed perfectly and uh so it's sandy and brad and bernie and uh yeah bernie brilstein the avuncular head yeah and uh brad says uh he says to the receptionist we don't want to be interrupted this is important i don't know what it was about

And then around 10 minutes in the receptionist calls and says, Brad, and he's, I said, I didn't want to be interrupted. He said, it's your father. Now, Brad, at that point, you remember they were, he and his father were exchanged, estranged for a while. And, uh, you know, Brad looked, uh, he goes, uh,

Jesus, I haven't talked to him in years. And Bertie says, well, he's either sick or he needs money. And Sandy says, let's hope he's sick. Good line. Good line, Sandy Warnick. Hollywood, so brutal.

So cold. But the good thing, Gervitz, Bernie, they loved comedy. That's why they have so many people that are comedians. They have all the SNL guys, all the great ones, all the way back to Belushi Akroyd.

And so they still have them. And that's why it's fun to go in and talk to Barney when I was a newer comic. And he goes, come in here. And he goes, tell me what's going on. And then he just wanted to fucking laugh. So fun. He was funny. He gave me confidence. Brad brought him to see me at a club and he goes,

We're not going to give you the Saturday Night Live. You're bigger than Saturday Night Live. My previous managers thought I was a hack. You're bigger than them. He'd always start his compliments off with, how's about? How's about you're a fucking genius? How's about it?

He told me, how's about you play Rooster Teeth Feathers again? I go, what about starting live? Come on, you got to stay in the bullpen a little bit. You were there that week that I was at two bars with Destiny and Tree. Tree! Great stand up, right? Yeah, he was a good stand up. Remember those three? I didn't know that. And then there was the cat Earl. He put on some weight and he went as Tree Trunk. You remember that?

What do you mean? He evolved into tree trunk. He put on weight and then he named himself tree trunk. Is this another craggy joke? I need an assist. Talking to the best joke writer probably ever. He needs clarity.

So what's happening on the pod, boys? I see, as I looked at the thing today, that it was called something else. Is it no longer focused on SNL? Is it just sort of a free-forming? That's been a problem from the get-go, the confusion over that. We started a second podcast that's just us talking.

talking about videos and goofing around on YouTube, on video. That's called Superfly. Totally separate from Fly on the Wall. And a lot of people don't understand. We took a confusion course at the Learning Annex. This is what we came up with. And the two podcasts harbored themselves. They diseased themselves.

Don't start a Dr. Laura thing where you called the fly is down, you know, where you talk to depressed people because you're going to dilute the brand even further. Oh, no, it's it's for the podcast or we're up for the best podcast award today.

Again. Well, yeah, we are for best podcast on iHeart. Beautiful guest. Not exactly the Nobel Peace Prize. Why don't you send Sashene Littlefeather from down there? Is that who Brando said? Is she still picking up awards for people? You might look her up somewhere. Maybe she can go in. That would be funny. It would be good publicity if you guys sent Sashene in. Mm-hmm.

I don't know if they have a literal award show. I think it's an online poll of nine people. But we're over 200 podcasts, we just found out. We've done over 200 between the two. Beautiful voice. McCarty, where are you at there? Are you up this way? Yep. Beautiful. On a farm.

I know. In the Central Valley. Well, you look like it agrees with you. You look healthy as hell. But you've always had the best health regimen. There's great hikes up that way. Are you going up in the mountains at all? Oh, yeah. Keeping that VO2 max going. Send me another picture of your quads. I remember...

Carby used, I think I went to the workout with him once when we were on Saturday Night Live. And he set the Stairmaster machine on the highest setting. And he was talking to me throughout. And he like did an hour on it. I'm over there doing some girls pushups. And he talked a whole hour. He wasn't even gassed. And, you know, at the end, like Sherpas were tapping on next to him. You know, we're in the best fit. Yeah.

Yeah. An aerobic guy I've ever seen. And then you had the pump blew out or something. That pump blew out in your heart? That was later on. It didn't blow out. I had hypotestremia. I was like a sports car with a fuel injection problem. But the engine was great. Engine was perfect. Still is. Still a pink title. Sorry, Dennis.

It's still not. Some things never change. No, I watched Ford and Ferrari and Carroll Shelby originally wanted to power his car with your heart. That's how strong. Yeah.

dude i wanted to get the whole thing did you they did a whole thing i mean they go go in just for laughs get the whole scan and so i got a whole scan and i think i did good i think i sent it to dana because i didn't understand it all these years zero all these years when you've sort of floated on the periphery of social scenes and i know you like a nice social scene but you're always working the uh

Well, what did they call it on old paintings? They called there be whales at the corner of the painting. It would point outside. Every time I've ever been in a social setting or a banquette with you, you're always floating around the outside and then you split because your neck hurts. And I always wondered, was that just a defense mechanism to get out of a scene or did your neck actually hurt? Uh,

Uh, it's, it's neck hurts combined with some boredom, but usually, but everything, I feel like more, the people are less boring, but if you're at one of these, I was at a Netflix party the other night and you know, you go around, I see people, it's fun. And I see famous people you don't see for a while. So we have a few laughs, but when you're walking around with like

now you got a plate full of crab cakes and you're just, now it's the fourth time you're running into miles teller. You just go, I think I'm going to get out of here because it turns into a head nod and then you ignore them on the fifth one. And then you just go, I think I've done my job here tonight, but I last about an hour. I was really down to about an hour now, even if it's a great party, I'm like, I don't know. I can't just fucking rot. Well, I have to tell you one. I have to tell you one day. I know that, um,

where Spade stayed longer. And this will talk about what I meant by Spade is. He's always sort of ethereal. He pisses on stuff, but he's the guy who's sending the bread to buy the bulletproof vest for the cops in Phoenix and that. And my son is graduating, and it's when Tommy Boy is out. It's the biggest thing in the world. And I asked Spade,

Just I thought if he came to this grad party they had. Now, imagine this. We pitch the grad party and we're going to show Tommy Boy on a screen at this party. And it's all soft drinks and that. It's not like we're at Pauly Shore's house up above. But it's just a really sweet party. We're going to watch the film and we deliberately have the projector break or it won't function. And.

And then I saw the kids are all like bummed up, but kind of, you know, they've all seen the film 10 times themselves. And I go, what are we going to do to fill time? Well, one of the stars is in Spudley walked out from behind the screen. It was the biggest thing.

hue and cry people went crazy these kids and then spudly stayed for a couple hours you couldn't have been nicer he and he didn't turn into a stiff you know where it was all you youngsters you're gonna you know he was just cool spade but framed properly and they all felt like they met the real guy and they still talk about you know obviously my son's still once in a while i'll say remember when spade came and i always think what a cool movie

Yeah, thank you. Spudly fucking wrote it out. That's a fun time though. That scenario is perfect because you're not overwhelmed. It's not too much. You know, some things are too much. And are you still with that girl you love? I'm sorry, what? I'm sorry, what's going on? Alert, alert. Dennis, you're cutting out. Hey, Dennis was our guest. I like the story he ended with about the Tommy Boy stuff. Dive, dive.

This ain't no horse's cock. Sorry. I'm going right back to the last detail. I want to do that for the last 40 minutes. Guess who was brought up for Busboys? Randy Quaid. Is that crazy? Get him in there. We were brought up. We were talking about casting. And we were talking about, I think it was for Theo's dad. And Theo said, what about Randy Quaid? And we're like, oh my God.

We could dust off Randy Quaid. He's the nicest guy. And you remember some of his work in Midnight Express. I mean, he's a great actor. Most people know him from vacation, but he's done this, all this other stuff, but he can just ride on vacation forever because he was so good in that. But I don't even know what Busboys is. Tell me what is Busboys? Just a movie me and Theo wrote. And, uh,

It's about two losers that want to be waiters. They're busboys that try to be waiters. They can't work. And they think if they're waiters, it'll straighten out their lives, but-

Because my girlfriend ran off with a waiter. So we're like, fuck, dude. Waiters got it made, dude. If we just get that, it'll all come together for us. So I don't want to give it all away, Dennis. No, come on. That's pretty good. But your busboys and then shenanigans. Yeah. Happened. Obviously happened. Dennis was there on the first round of fucking Joe Dirt. And then...

I remember we were doing it and remember we didn't have a ton of time. So that's right. I mean, I had my mini sides on my legs in the radio station, Freddie Wolf behind me playing the guy. Oh, I remember that. Tech guy. And then, uh, the zoo crew guy. And then Dennis was the one, of course we try to write jokes for Dennis and then they're somewhat in the vicinity. And then he just keeps adding laughs. And so it made it that every time we cut back to the radio station, uh,

It's funnier because Dennis is doing all this great. So Jane Fonda from Clute, that was not in the script. I guarantee you. And, uh, and then I had my set sides of my, like I said, so many lines, it was too hard. I'd look down, then I'd say, um, then I looked down and say, but we got through it spreadly. Um, out of all the things I've done, uh,

I can't tell you how many people still come up to me. And I always wondered why, why was that? I know you did a two, but it seemed like it would have been right for two even quicker than that. Right. It's such a, that's it was so many movies. Yeah. Yeah. We might do an animated version, which would be easier because then I won't have to get,

Look like the old Joe Dirt. So there was a sequel a few years ago, right? Yeah. Yeah. But I'm saying that one had to go to Crackle. Some offense to Crackle. I was going to say no offense. Sony bought Crackle. Yeah. Sony bought Crackle and they go, we're going to make this Netflix, which wasn't a bad idea.

So they said, the only way we'll let you do another Joe Dirt is if you go do it on Crackle. Now, we didn't know there'd be commercials in it and not a paywall, but you'd have to sign up for Crackle. So all these people that want to watch it have to fill out a form and make it harder. And they said, if we can get a million downloads out of this,

will be successful and that'll help build our library and get the word out because you know i could do press at nascar and i could go and talk to so we do it they give us a shitty budget we do it actually they cut the budget during the shoot which was bad sign not great uh and then we do it i still like it i go out there and try to i didn't get paid a lot we go do it they get a million downloads within two days wow and within a week they got two million

And then they got 3 million and then around three and a half, I just stopped asking. And then I, cause there was just, they, that's why I don't understand with all the stuff on crackle and then it folded. So they crackle still out there, but they decided they don't want to put money in it to make it into Netflix. So I don't know what its purpose is anymore, but we had a good jumpstart. Very obscure. Well, Spade, that's why I'm saying with all the adherence to the

intellectual property. Everything needs some sort of past iteration before people will bet money on it.

Joe dirt. Number one was such a proof of concept. I'm surprised somebody didn't, you know, to think that somebody says, we'll let you do a Joe dirt too. If you'll do it on crackle for God's things, why not just do it on citizen band radio? They should have come in and said, let's do a sequel and push chips in like Mike did with Wayne's world too. I bet you it would have went that high. Yeah. I don't know. That was a tough part. We couldn't get it going. And so that was our thing was, um,

To put it there on the witness protection program. And it's shocking. It did well over there. And they got all these people signed up to fucking dog shit crackle. But then they pulled the money to make it big, like a Netflix. And so the head of crackle left. Well, let's face it. Once you do the mosey through show business, Spudly, you're still in the middle of it. Dana and I are a little further down the line. You're surprised you get anything off the ground.

Honestly, the great mystery to me, and I don't know, maybe Carve had something to do with it, but the biggest thing in America was Church Lady. I see some of the things they make movies of from Saturday Night Live. I'm telling you, Carve, do you remember when Church Lady was at its peak? It was just...

It was, isn't that special? It was everywhere. And that movie, theatrically, this is way before COVID, all that stuff. But I always thought that would come off. What's the backstory on that? Well, SNL Studios, Lorne Michaels didn't get an official studio. SNL Studios started after I left somewhere. And that's where they did Stuart Smalley movie, It's Pat movie.

Um, I had an idea once that she's at a Bible retreat in Santa Barbara and then she's driving her car in a rainstorm and it breaks down in Malibu and then she goes and knocks on the door. And so it's a Malibu beach party full of celebrities, Sodom and Gomorrah. Well, Frankenstein, we're not wearing any pants. Are we? You know, it just goes around.

I'm the age that church lady is, if anyone's listening. We can do that for three and a half million and just give you some back end. I told you you should have done church Biden on one of those SNLs you take where you just do a complete mashup of you're Biden and you're in the church lady. I know, that was your idea. Church Biden. Wow.

Well, isn't that special? No, no more special. You would have figured it out. You would have figured it out. No doubt. No, he gets in as one of his things and he comes into the podium with a wig on.

And he thinks he's, uh, well, look, I mean, I don't know if this is rumor, but I hear that with what they're planning with Biden's retirement is to build a replica of the oval office in the house, uh,

and bring him in there every day. And then once in a while, the fear is that, you know, Hunter might pretend to be a foreign person. Who do we have next? We have the ambassador to Spain here. Yeah. Hey, hola, hola. My name's Sebastian. I'm from Spain. Yeah, what can I do for the country of Spain? I've always loved Spain. We could use like $100 billion. Yeah.

All right, let's do it. Get them in check. Hasta luego. Hasta la vista. Whatever. Dad, I mean, me. Goodbye. So that's probably going to happen. Like Rupert Pupkin, De Niro in King of Comedy. He's doing the talk show down in the basement in front of the placards. All right, this podcast is brought to you by eHarmony, the dating app to find someone you can be yourself with. Because let's be honest,

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Mm hmm. Well, you know, I had some bad, some bad dates, you know, I mean, it was rough dating back in the day because I was a bus boy. That was my person. That was who I was. Claim to fame. That was your identity. We called ourselves table maintenance personnel managers. But it's hard to get a date when you're a bus boy. And I have my heart goes out for all the bus boys in the world. But it's good to be honest. Right, David? Right. Because, you know, that's a

A classic situation where you try to be a little bit of someone you're not just to get in there. And I've done the same thing. I've been out and caught myself saying, oh yeah, I'm really into daycapage too, because you just kind of want to find a connection there, but it doesn't always work because you eventually come back to being yourself and they figure you out. So the best dates are the ones where you're with someone who's acting like themselves or

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I think that's a great idea that they sort of... Breadcrumb is a good one. That's when someone answers your text about once a week just to keep you around, but they don't really care about you. Oh, is that? That's funny. Breadcrumber, yeah.

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Right now, $50 off your purchase of $500 or more with code fly at BlueNile.com. That's $50 off with code fly at BlueNile.com. That's BlueNile.com. But I went to 10 Saturday Night Live parties and stayed there till 5 a.m. every night. Can you believe this, Dennis? This motherfucker went to the show. They must have been all coming up to kiss the ring, right? I mean, geez, you have a merit of status there now.

Once you're around long enough, you do get a lot more positive feedback. I remember when you and I would go to those SNL parties after, and we were in such an unwind thing. Neither one of us were serious partiers, but that's such a pressure cooker that you would probably throw five or six beers, and I'd have a couple of vodkas on the rocks, and then we'd share a car to the Upper West Side because we lived across the street from each other.

And neither one of us are great drinkers. I mean, you could handle your beer, but I have never left as hard in my life as when we would go up the, you know, the West side highway and just how from some of those parties that were way down. It's so silly. Like, you know, they're flying you and I flying together and sort of flaunting our neurosis in a funny way.

but Dennis was the seat behind me and I'm in the seat ahead. And we're just flying across the country. Dennis over and over again would lean in and say, Carvey, if you see anything out of the ordinary, I want to be the first to know. And if he said that one time, he said it like 40, 50, every single time. We were so frightened flying. Carvey and I were, but I actually grew to be a good flyers. I had a good insight from Penn University.

Penn Gillette once, Penn and Teller, we were on a flight and it was getting bouncy. And he was reading the newspaper. He didn't even look over at me. I was getting pissed off. It's one of those things where you get pissed off at somebody who's not afraid of flying when it's really bumpy. And I look over and I go, you're fucking kidding me. This doesn't scare you. He goes, what? I get this. And he finally looks up and now he's cognizant that we're in really bad turbulence.

And he looked at me and said, oh, shut up. Alexander the Great would have given everything he ever done for two and a half minutes up here. Which in some weird way gave me clarity about the pragmatic nature of flying. But when Carvey and I were on the road together, we were both so flipped out that we didn't

We'd get plastic. You remember that night we were over the Rocky Mountains in that electrical store and we both called Bernie Groski and our manager at home and told him we were leaving the company. You're on fucking Malibu on our architectural digest, you son of a bitch.

Yeah. Dennis used to say, got a little light chop and a little dirty air. That's how they tone it down. You're like, I'm bouncing off the ceiling. We got a little light chop. Yeah. I just want to say two words about this chop. Structural integrity. They always go, you know, the wings of the plane can touch at the top. I'm like, I don't know if we need to get that far and test this out.

did you get better at it? I haven't flown within a while. I've gotten better at it. Yeah, I think so. I think you just get worn down by it, but I still do get thirsty on an airplane, even with a little bit of packed in there, claustrophobia, you know, I'm just bouncing around. It's third hour in and I'm kind of bored. And then it's like, someone comes up very nicely and says, would you like something to drink? And I go, Oh,

Okay. You're not trying to pretend with me you're still on commercial air, are you? Because, I mean, come on. Are you kidding me?

Well, the gross in the net gets disturbed when you do a gig. It gets very disturbed. It gets altered. Yeah. You know, they were cheaper. When it's a push, it's bad. Yeah. You remember when, Spudly, that was one of the best days of my life. We had a gig in a place called Thackerville, Oklahoma or something. Yeah, Oklahoma. And we wanted to get in and out. Yeah.

And Norm was with us. The three of us were the headliners. And we rented a plane and we flew from Van Nuys or Burbank, I think, to Thackerville. You know, you didn't even have to land in Dallas and do the drive north because there was a strip somewhere up near Thackerville, which was a nice gig. I don't want to disparage it. It's like a city, Thackerville. It's the biggest casino in the world. You're right. And we knocked the gig out.

And then we split right after. So between all of the stuff, we were there, you know, together for like 10 or 12 hours that day. I have never laughed so hard. Norm was just killing me. That was my last Norm hangout. I mean, I think because it was before COVID, one funny thing Dennis did is he goes, hey, Spud, well, I think we each had to do 30. And he's like, you want to, I think I might want to go first and run back to the room and take care of some stuff. And I'm like,

Oh, okay. Then Norm goes, then I should go on after that. And I go, yeah, go ahead, you fucking assholes. I have to follow these two great comedians. Oh, fine. Now, did you know, Spudly, that, did you know that Norm was, I did not know Norm was that sick at that time. You know, he was pretty. No, and I was. I never knew. Kind of mad about it because we kept setting up a dinner and then he kept going. I go, so what? So it's six o'clock. So you're heading over and you're like, what? What?

It's COVID. I go, Norm, we've gone over this. It's nine months into COVID. You drive to my house. We sit 10 feet apart at my table. What? I go, we keep this. You agree to it. And then you cancel. Was he actually hard of hearing or is that just a stall tactic? I didn't like it when he would text what? I go, Norm, you can't text what?

You hear me on text. Isn't it ironic that Norm's true genius, and I don't know, from the first time I met him, I told you that first joke. I heard there was a new kid in L.A. from Canada, Eddie Feldman. My writer said, there's a guy here. It's great. I saw him. His name's Norm MacDonald. And I said, well, where did you see him? He said, I saw him at the improv, and he did that great joke where he said, uh,

I feel sorry for the homeless guy, but I really feel sorry for the homeless guy's dog because you know, the dog's thing, and this is the longest fucking walk I've ever been on. Do we, do we eventually go in somewhere? Cause I could do this on my own. And I heard that joke. I said, that is so funny. So I get on the horn with Norm and I say, Hey, I know you're just here. And I'm just saying, if you want to stop gap writing job, I've got this talk show and, uh,

I said, I'd hire you right now, but just the protocols dictate you send in some sort of a batch of jokes or something. And Norm said, I don't do batches, but I'll send in one joke and you guys can make a determination. He was already hired, but I was trying not to usurp the

the head writer and producers, you know, their office. And I didn't want to overstep. So I go, okay, send a joke. And the joke is he reads the AP wire story of Jeffrey Dahmer's trial. And it's so grotesque and detailed, you know, the actual transcript about disembowelment and eating pancreas and belly. And he reads the whole thing. And then he says at the end, Dahmer defended himself by saying he started it.

It's like the greatest joke ever. So we hired him and I always thought he was a genius from that point on, but

He always sort of was on the fringe. And now it's so unfortunate. It's like, to me, he's like Van Gogh. You know, when you hear about Van Gogh during his lifetime, having to, you know, take handouts from Tao and that Norm was not taking handouts, but I'm just saying every day I look now on the reels that I get, it's Norm reminded of another great job. Yeah. A hundred percent. Because I get these,

Norm Macdonald pages and people centered me. And I'm like, I don't remember this joke. Like there's a couple that I never saw. I don't know if you guys had this experience, but I was just, I had a long drive. And some reason I ended up talking with Norm and for an hour and a half, we talked about our career issues and he was just completely not one joke and just sort of talking about this sitcom didn't go and they didn't know what to do with me. And it was very interesting to be around him.

The only other time I heard him like that was when his attache assistant, best friend, Lori Jo, had some heart issues and they were consulting with me. She's fine for people who are listening. I love Joe. And I could tell that Norm was really worried. And so he had that other side, of course, but

As far as obtuse one liners, I would praise him as high as, as putting him on Dennis's footing. I would put those two guys. No, I'd be totally real. I mean, look, this is an example of the thing that I always quote about you. And it, it, it just kills me. I don't know why, but you were up there, you're opening for me or I'm opening for you and you go, Jimmy cracked corn and I don't care.

what the hell attitude is that? Who does that? Who would do a joke like that? I had to go out with this guy. I did either black or white special. I think Schneider opened for one and I opened for one. You have to go up before Dennis' crowd, but they're nice. Dennis does a killer hour.

So great. Each joke. You know, all your cards. Great. You know, when we when I when I actually saw recently sometime in the last year, I mean, by recently, our our young comedian specialist, by the way.

That was quite a murderer's row of comedians when I look back on it. Freddie Stoller was good. Jan was good. I think you're friends with Jan Karam, right? Or you know her? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She was in it. Drake, that cat Warren Thomas, who's no longer with us, but was a killer. And you and Schneider. I mean, when you look back, man, we hit the ball that night.

Oh, fuck yeah. Dennis is hosting it. Brad Gervitz produced it. And what a great one. That got me at least in the vicinity of SNL. And then you helped on that one too. I remember writing fucking update jokes for Dennis. It's so hard.

God dang. It's so hard to write a bunch of jokes. It's just update jokes are a different world too. People get there as comics and think you're going to write a sketch very easily. It's such a different muscle. It's so hard to figure out that formula. I see reels of the current guys who do it.

And I don't, I'll be honest, I don't want to show. And there's no grievance there. It's not my, I'm not up at 1130 on Saturday. But I do see these clips of them together. And when they do that back and forth thing where they write jokes for each other, they kill.

Hill. And it is so funny. And I, I don't remember seeing reels of them years ago, so I don't know if they've grown into it or not, but I think his name's Jost and Jay are very funny together. Colin and Michael. Yeah. They started doing that maybe just a couple, three years ago, I think, but they've evolved that with this chemistry thing.

to become one of the all-time duos up there. And when I was there, the last show, Michael wrote some jokes, cold jokes for Colin to read live on air. And they were extremely inappropriate, racist,

and there were a lot of stuff about his wife, Scarlett Johansson, and they would cut to her in the hallway looking at it on a monitor. And that crushed because Colin lost it for real on live TV, laughing so hard, barely getting through it. That crushed as hard as anything I'd

seen in that studio in a long time well i always wanted to talk to somebody who's inside there carf because i've heard that too and sometimes these stories are almost apocryphal about things because i remember you know let's face facts when you go out with robin everybody'd say he's just making it up as he went along and he often made things up but he also had a core he worked off nobody's going out there with absolutely nothing so you hear these tales and you wonder are they actually seeing each other's jokes you believe for the first time

They are when they do that. Yeah. When they do that, they do. They don't do them because they're not that same. John one's that great an actor. I mean, they, that they're, they're really shocked by it. I'm happy to hear that. Yeah. You remember I, the first time I heard that was, uh, Mulaney, who I think is a genius used to write jokes for that character that, uh,

Who did? It was a guy who went to class. Bill Hader did. Yeah, Hader. With the hands over his mouth. Yeah, Stefan or something. And the single funniest joke I think I've ever heard on Weekend Update is Hader would always, the template was, this place has everything.

And then he did the quintessential New Yorker joke, and only people who've lived in New York and co-ops or condominiums will know what this means. He said, this place has everything. Doorman who high-fived children of divorce. Yes.

And you remember the doorman in your building was always like, uh, you know, like part of the family after a couple of years and everything in your building was known by everybody else. And if there was a, you know, a disturbance in the force, the guy would go out of his way to make the youngins feel good. But children, you know, that the, uh, Malaney is an incredible joke writer. Uh, that, uh,

The, you know, being on that show again, a lot of magic stuff happens at the dress show.

I just anecdotally, it seemed to me the dress show just had more energy and, and just, um, so the fact that Colin did not, they don't do those jokes at the dress show. They're just doing them live on the live show. But there's something about like, I would go Dubai and yeah, I was, I was, and I come out of the dress show when I first started landing it, people like clapping and wow, way to go. And then I would do the air show, try to do,

equivalent and then you come out of 8H and everyone's just like you know so there is something I just want I mean the show works the way it works it's 50 years should never change it but I wondered if Carol Burnett if they essentially shot the dress show

And that allowed for a lot more spontaneity, you know, because it's the first time you're coming on. Take is good. Yeah. Yeah. I think they did. I think they did shoot both of them, but I think they leaned heavily towards the one on air, but yeah. If you're going to run a dress, why not shoot it? Right. I mean, yeah.

Well, they shoot it and the air sometimes goes higher, but I, I, it just, when it got cold out there, the audience, it's a tractor pull to get into that studio waiting and late. And, um, you know, you know, one of my early ones was Michael J. Fox impression. And he came on the, the child actors. We were going to rob a bank together or something. And, uh, that was, I think a smile, but super hilarious. And so I was playing, uh,

Michael J. Fox, he was playing Danny Bonaduce. And when I was doing a speech right to him, he started cracking up in dress and it was a fucking monster. And then on air, he didn't laugh because he'd heard it. And I'm like, where was this? Please, God, air the fucking dress version. There was a bit where someone was spraying water at Colin for the dress show. And it was the first time.

And then it just had this magic to it. And then the air show was fine, perfectly great. But there is something about the first time you can't like top it. Half the crew knows it's coming. Half the cast sees it. So it's not...

But it's a thing that don't peek at dress. It's a thing. Do not peek at dress. Carve, was the schedule still the same? And what part did they ask you to participate in? Did you still have that Monday thing where everybody sat around Lauren's office? Because I came in just to do Biden contractually. I was placed with Maya Rudolph and Gaffigan and Andy Samberg. And so-

They, the first show they asked Gaffigan and I to come into the read through, which is now an eight H and it's like a giant. There's, it's a huge room. I didn't know that. You got place cards and table costs and snacks and there's a piano and they, they do symphony orchestra. They bring in classical music. So yeah,

They have those massage chairs like at the airport where you sit and kneel on them. We were doing a circle jerk in a broom closet on 17th. It's harder to kill there. A lot of the writers kind of miss that up on 17, the tightness of the room. It dissipates a little bit. Picking over Huxley's leftovers. Yeah.

You know, that meeting room on 17 really was Thunderdome, wasn't it, man? Fucking sweatbox. You often saw killer shots there, but there was a couple of times where people overreached. I don't want to name names because I'm old and conciliatory now, but a couple of times you can remember people really going for something and it just hang in there. And, you know, Lauren would say, all right, moving on.

Oh, the BO was breaking records. Everyone was so nervous. It was sickening. And then someone would get up or Lauren would crack the window a quarter inch and be freezing within two seconds. Everyone's like, it's like, shh.

the worst is when they do show and tell like you put on a little hat or you have a little instrument or something or a vest sweater and you're gonna stand up and act it out and then it's dead silence you know uh moving on i'm a yankee doodle dandy everyone's like sad little uh sailor you know when you look back man think about how lucky it was i mean geez i uh

you know, I look back and I was never a cool kid. And I think Spudly and you seem a little, I don't know of your youth as much, but, uh, I think we were all a little bit nerdly and all of a sudden you're in the crosshairs of it, man. And when I look back, I just always think, wow, how lucky that was to be in that room with all it's with all it's, uh, you know, sort of Damocles hanging over your head. And if you fucked up three weeks in a row, you were probably gone. But, uh,

I look back and it was the juice, wasn't it, man? Or the spice, as they say in Doom. You really got the spice in that room. I feel for the young cast and a lot of the people, there's 18 or 20, I don't know how many cast members

And I was talking to one of them once and he goes, look, it's, it's hard to be relaxed out there. Cause you know, if you go out there and you don't quite land it, then you're not going to be written for it. You're not going to be in the show for a few weeks. So it's hard to get loose. When we came in, Dennis, we had such a small cast that everybody got their reps in which it look, if I had not gone on that show, I don't, I think I'm, I'm playing yuck yucks. And, uh,

merced tonight you know so i that was my ticket you know i was 31 when i got on there i'd had my 10 years in the clubs and i bombed every every pilot they put me in and the burton kirk film and it was a disaster damaged goods to your point the luck of getting on there and then of course you were like made out of a factory to be the update guy because you could land jokes and you're such a reader i mean

It really matters to be able to read really well is a big advantage. See a card, you know. Nail it. Listen, Dana, New Year's resolutions are coming. I know. A lot of people don't do them. A lot of people do do them. A lot of people don't. What's no? You don't do them? Like I said, a lot of people don't do them. A lot of people, by the time you said do do them, I'd already said no. So I think resolutions are great.

Right. You know, and I think learning a new language, because Rosetta Stone, one of our favorite sponsors, has got this, they've hacked this. They know how to do this. This is where you learn language, Rosetta Stone. Yeah. Sounds scary, but when they do it so much, they learn every year what people like, what they don't like, and they just get better and better. It's personal growth, you know? Language learning is something you...

It sounds overwhelming, but I think these guys know how to do it. It's a smart way to do it. But it's cool. Whenever you meet someone, all of a sudden they go, oh, yeah, we went to Paris. You did? And they go, you know, they speak a foreign language. It's always very impressive.

Because everyone travels, everyone's trying to get career advancement, cultural appreciation. But let's break down what Rosetta Stone does. Yeah, well, Rosetta Stone, first of all, it has speech recognition. So there's a built-in true accent feature that gives you feedback on your pronunciation. It's like having a personal trainer right there to help you. Right. And it's flexible. You're not driving 40 miles to go to some junior college. Nothing against them in a classroom. Some JUCO.

anytime, anywhere, learn on the go with the mobile app or at your desktop on your schedule. Right, David? How about the value, the amazing values? I like it's my schedule. I like they have a lifetime membership and that is all 25 languages. So,

That pretty much covers anything you would need to be in America, to be overseas, to be anywhere. All trips. Listen, that's lifetime access to all 25 language courses Rosetta Stone offers for 50% off. That is a steal. Start the new year off. Yeah, with a resolution that you can reach. This one might work. Today, Fly on the Wall listeners.

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Yeah, Larry King said to me one night, I had him on my HBO show, and he said, God, you know how to read a prompter. And I, you know, some people would take that as a, you're a prompter chimp joke. I looked at him and said, Larry, that's the nicest thing anybody could say. That is nice. It's hard to do. But it was different. Let me ask you a question. This is technical for the people listening still. Like cue cards versus prompter.

What would you prefer? Me too. Because it kept you, well,

Listen, that can go awry. There is something you were talking about, first show, second show. I don't want to sound too like we don't sit there and do Oppenheimer things on blackboards about how the show goes, but half of the thing is the frisson of its fear, you know, like the surface tension when you overpour glass, that tremble. That's where the whole money shot is on that show. And I always thought the cards, sometimes they wouldn't come out at the same pace and you felt less robotic about it. It could

go awry plus my card girl was Tom Laughlin's daughter Billy Jack's daughter which I always dug that because I love Billy Jack so much so whenever I was in trouble with the crowd I'd think of saying when I see what you've done to this little audience I just go pivot kick boom

like in the ice cream parlor. But the fact that it could go wrong a little, I always dug that feeling. Because then when you conquered it, and it didn't always go right. There were times, and boy, you were hanged on the next day if you blew, you screwed the pooch, as they say at NASA. But for the most part, you're not going to screw the pooch there because you do it with some degree of alacrity. And I used to like that, man, that feeling. Do you remember?

when you'd come up and do something at the desk and we would just be howling at how maxed out it was. And Spud Lee used to kill with the, you know, the guy. Hollywood Minute. Yeah. It was fun moments. Well, we know the power of home base and right to camera because when I was doing Church Lady and David was out doing Hunter Biden and

It was getting used to that idea of look, don't look at the cards. There's the wide shot. There's the money shot. Also kind of glance over at your gas, but don't go to profile. It's just getting used to all that. But money, you know, when I was doing Biden, normally it was just straight ahead. It's much easier. It gives me chills thinking about it. When you're on that show and you're, you're in a good sketch and you do your lines and

And you kind of miss him. You lay down a broken bat single and you walk back off camera and everyone, everyone kind of darts their eyes. You're like, fuck, I had two lines to get it right. I just kind of missed it. Or you fluff it. You're like,

If I just had one more take, it would be better. But you do that too many, like you said, in a row. It's so under rehearsed. And the director, Liz, who's a lovely person, I really got myself in her shoes of like, you're doing Hunter, I'm doing my thing. How long do you hold right after the laugh? Or do you cut after the line?

And then, of course, bumbling a line is so painful. Or not getting a laugh and realizing later the camera wasn't on you. Yeah. The cutting, because she doesn't have that much time. Or we had Davey Wilson. It's such a fly-by-night thing. But when it works, it's magic. Put it that way. For sure. Well, Carter, you had a nice return there.

And you hit the ball really hard every day. I'd go, I'm golfing a lot now. And the guys at my golf course would always, oh, Garvey killed it over the weekend. So nice to know you were still putting good wood on the ball, brother. How'd your chops feel? Did it come back to you right away or it never went? Well, I, you know, I'd done some Biden just slowly, but surely I was gathering a Biden up, you know, cause I noticed no one was really doing him, you know? And so,

When I went there and read through, I didn't I was just coalescing in my head. But Lauren was sitting next to me and no one had really kind of figured out by how to make it funny or sensitive or whatever. So I just said I had this thing of. And guess what? By the way, just that. And then I saw Lauren's shoulders go up like that. He was happy. So I knew I had a hook. And I think that.

I was discovering it with the audience live in real time. But yeah, it came back to me for sure. It felt like I was home again, doing rhythms. And I'd had a warm-up with him on this podcast, and I had some clips out with him, with the Biden I was doing. So I had a lot of hoax. That was good honing, though, because he got to make mistakes here. Boy, when they're cutting back and forth between the shots here, Spade looks like he's in some...

private booth somewhere in a VIP booth. You've got to trick that place out a little, that room you're in. You've got that table over here. It looks like the Pixar opening credits with that lamp or something. You've got to get the...

Get some flowers in there or something. Get some flowers. Leave this over on the left. It's like the honeymooners. It's like Crabden's place with the Pixar light on top of it. Spudly, what's your book over your shoulder? What are you selling there? What's that? Oh, that was a John Lennon book.

Because I bought the glasses, John Lund's glasses, and that's the glasses he's wearing on that book. And this, Dana White gave me this. Your boy gave me that Bruce Lee skateboard. Dennis, you can react whenever you're ready. I thought, well, I just thought we would give him an edit point there in case we're wrapped up because I got to split soon. Oh, yeah, let's go. Dennis. Dennis. It's been hilarious. We love you. And you're one of the...

I don't know if you should retire. You're still better than 99 to 100% of the comics out there. I'm liking being retired, man. You know what? I just want to explore what it's like

not do it. You know, I did it so long that I thought I didn't even know what I'm like as a, one that I started writing jokes and staying in that, that guy's that maybe a 30, 71 now. And I just thought, man, you know, why don't I analyze, hopefully I get another 10 or 20. I'm going to just try to see what it's like being,

What am I like without all the trappings of that? Well, did you find this? Because I feel like if I go before I ever did stand-up,

Then I start to do it just as a nobody in San Francisco, just this little bit of tension or weight. It would come and go, but it was just there. I should be writing more material. I should be doing that in a club. And then SNL, I should do that. And that movie bombed. I got to do this. And so there's still like this sort of weightiness when you're connected to it and the excitement of that and making money and all that. But I just wonder when you psychologically take that away, does your relaxation quotient go way up? Yeah.

Well, I've been reading and I saw Seinfeld was reading this too, which is intriguing to me because I've been reading a lot of the Stoics, Marcus Aurelius and Seneca. Yeah, Jerry talked a lot about that. Yeah, he's into that. And I'm just trying to see what's on the other side of that apprehension about not doing it.

I think there's something important there. I don't want to sound too ethereal. Maybe I'll find out that I just missed doing it. Maybe you'll see me back in a walker doing jokes or something. But right now I'm thinking, okay, I always diffused that sort of anxiety or fear of the unknown by telling a joke or getting up on stage or smiling and glad handing and

And I thought, what's beyond that? So I'm just trying to sit in it for a moment. And I'm finding on the other side of it, I'm kind of enjoying that lack of apprehension. Because let's face facts, I don't care how much you feel safe going out on stage, and you do get safer over the years.

I'd still be getting there, going cross country and getting there and going to the place and right before you go on. And then it can go wrong at any moment. I mean, the moment you start thinking this can't go wrong. It's like Robin's old bit that he did in his first special about step inside the comedian's mind where you hear that submarine.

clocks and go on. Mayday, mayday. Dive, dive. Yeah. So I don't miss, I don't miss that part of it, but when a joke pops into my head, I often think, well, listen, I'll call Carvey with church Biden, but then that gets smacked back in your face. Like one quick question. Just how does stoicism relate to what you just said? Um,

Just letting go or being in the moment or not making problems that don't exist is kind of part of it, right? Well, I'm trying to find out. I used to control things with my showbiz career in a way because you can manage that. You're really managing an efficient organization to some degree when you're in the middle of it. And then I realized that you're not managing anything. And I don't know when this airs, but if

The Palisades doesn't remind you that. Yeah. I was just trying to get my head around the fact that really you don't, you have to balance not controlling anything except your thought processes and

And still leading a happy, non-morbid life. You don't have to be forlorn about it. I'm just trying to find that delicate, where the Venn diagram taps, where you realize that you don't have any control over it. And in an odd way, that should free you up to not worry about it as much. Good or bad, that's going to happen. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

All right, boys. Well, you know, I love you both and I love you with all my heart. It's been a blast hanging out with you. And then we also recorded it and we'll get paid. So check in now and then and give us some new stuff. We've got jokes to burn. Well, listen, you got to get rid of, I've been staring at Bruce Lee's nipple for an hour here now. And it appears he only has one in that photo. And who else had one nipple in famous lore, Carvey? I'll quiz you there.

Paul Harvey. Which one? Scaramunga. The man with the golden gun played by the great. Oh, yeah, that guy, that guy. Third nipple. I just remember there was some sort of areola discrepancy with Scaramunga. All right, Dennis. Love you, buddy. Love you, buddy.

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, and Heather Santoro. The show's lead producer is Greg Holtzman.