Dennis Miller
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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 1800th time you say, on the towel rack. Yeah. Thank you. Oh, 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? Okay, Dennis Miller, who is a really long-term...

term good friend who's a brilliant mind and one of the probably best pure stand-ups and I think you know because he did it six years and nailed it every night the best um

Update. Update guy in SNL history. I don't count Kevin Nealon because he only did three years. I think of him as a sketch player. Tina always had a sidekick. So I think Dennis is the best pure, you know, Chevy was brilliant as well. But I put Dennis up there and he's funny. It's fun to do, Dennis. Yeah, they've been lucky with Update. They get great people on there. Yeah. I should have tried to do Update. Colin, Colin, the current people are great.

Colin Quinn, yeah Colin Quinn and Colin Jost Yes And Scarlett Johansson Scarlett did it for a while, yeah She's awesome I don't know anything about the show She did it for a while Okay, so Scar Jo Okay, started out in the Whisper Horsey movie With the Redford cat, alright So Denny got me on the HBO Young Comedian special That's right And he helped get me on SNL

he's the one that gave me the famous advice before I went on at catch rising star. Hey, Spudley, don't kill too hard. It'll throw up a fucking red flag. I go, what do you mean? They don't like some polished road hack. I go, Oh, anyway, so wait, I don't do well. And they're like, and David Spade. And I go, so I walk up and, uh, they're just looking at your writing. So I did it and Schneider did it. And we got on the show. Oh, Dennis was a good champion of, uh, young comedians. And, uh,

He's a good talent scout. I mean, notice the kindred spirit. I think that you have some symbiotic comic DNA with Dennis. You're not a clone, but you... Big influence, especially early on. And he helped Sandler get on too. So he was... And Schneider. So he was a big help to us. And here he is, your boy, Dennis Miller. One and only Dennis Muscle. Dennis Muscle? Yeah.

Christ sakes, Carvey, what was in your tea that day, all right? It's called Miller. It's not exactly the toughest pedigree you could think of. Anyway, when I do dentist, my IQ goes up, but right now it didn't. Ladies and gentlemen, the man without the sunglasses is now going to say, it's Miller time. There you go.

Our guest today, this is the only official thing we say. Dave's always on the verge of splitting. He lives on, Dave, his frisson is found. It's like a surface tension where you over pour a glass and a tremolo, that's spudly. Spade passed out was the kind of moniker of early October. Wait, before I forget, did we do a gig once in Pennsylvania where we went?

We were having so much fun in the backseat of the Liva that we went around 100 miles the wrong way before we figured out the driver. Was that me and you or me, you and Dana? I don't remember. Too many drives. I thought it was the three of us that we got in a car on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and

And we were laughing our asses off. Do you remember this at all, or am I just doing a Brian Williams hanging out the helicopter? I remember a lot of drives in darkness at night from gigs, yes. It just seems to me that I remember being in a car with you guys and all of a sudden saying, hey, we're heading towards Pittsburgh and we want to go to Philly. So there I go. That's my story, folks. That's my M&L story. We would get insanely silly in back of cars after gigs, driving multiple distances. Like, ridiculously. Remember we had that...

We both lived across the street on the Upper West Side, and there was that fuckhat who played the Jamaican –

What's that drum called where you hit a big walk and it... Yeah, I know what they are. Yeah, we had a guy outside playing that till two in the morning. And Christ, he couldn't say anything or you were buzz killing him. You know, all of a sudden he's trying to lay there. It's the one sound on the planet I can't sleep through. I can't sleep. I don't like any sounds. That was New York. I was from Arizona. Just a sweet kid off the streets. And then my first...

apartment in New York you guys are at the Bromley the fucking nicest place in the world well I was at the Bromley wasn't Dennis is that your pad two thousand dollars a month weren't you at the Bromley I was across the street on Edgar Allen Poe Street I bought a place actually I remember that place how nice pretty nice yeah I had these pipes you know in the middle of the night they're full of steam or something they go kang it's like somebody's hitting with a steel pole

And I go, I call my landlord. I go, something's wrong. He goes, shut the fuck up. Don't ever call me again. I go, what? Everyone goes, is that just the way it is? I go, the way it is, there's no way to sleep. It's like a steel pipe landlord. You know, David does, he has to have his scene arranged. So think about dropping you. I always, I'm touched by that with Spade, that he has a...

supreme comfort watch him on ellen or stern this guy is so comfortable and then if you tweak something like this this picture of faye dunaway is hanging a little tilted you can't even fucking get out of bed in the morning but yeah i was getting and and by the way it's before uber eats it's before any delivery so i had to go down to like sleepies and buy a mattress and drag it three blocks up my stairs like there's no help at all you know what i mean your ancestors and the comedic kind of

I see no sleepies that place. But dropping these references perfectly timed. And then I would drag it up and then I had to get one desk, a phone, and that's all I had, like two spoons because they kept telling, you know, Lauren, I might not come back the next year. So I had to move in May. And then...

And then wait. And then about a month later, he goes, okay, bring him back. Then I have to come look for an apartment. It was way more stressful. I should have just spent the money. Lauren would do the pickup of Damocles thing, hanging over your head. So you were like a rat on a wheel. I'll do anything. Mine was Whitney. Do two bad ones in a row. I'm co-anchoring with Whitney Brown. So you were there one year before me. Yeah.

With Terry Sweeney, Nora Dunn, Whitney Brown. That was your first season. I remember going to Lou Chow's one night with Robert Downey. It was a sweet, sweetest young guy in the world. Oh, that was your year. Yeah. His first. And his young girlfriend coming. We shot pool next to Lou Chow's with Sarah Jessica Parker. She was like 16. Oh, yeah.

And I was playing the Potter from Julius with guys like that. And Anthony Michael Hall. Anthony was standoffish, but Robert was the sweetest cat in the world. We had Randy Quaid. He's now gone upcountry. I don't know why I'm doing that. You could say that. Up in the attic. He's auditioning for militia roles. He's on next week. Oh, I think so. We'd love to have Randy Quaid. Randy's got canned heat playing in his head 24-7. A little Freeman action on outside of Big Fork.

And poor Denitra who passed. Denitra Vance. She was lovely. Terry Sweeney, who I saw maybe last year, and he's still with his husband, who they were together then, so that was lovely to see. And Lovitz, of course. And Smigel, that prick, wrote that. I hate Smigel. I love Smigel. But he wrote that last scene where there's a fire. So at the end of that season. I was about to say, you lived through the fire, I guess. Yeah, but they didn't say that that night. The funny thing was, Lorne runs into the fire.

Grab Slovets. That's true. He saves Slovets. It's kind of brilliant. I mean, it's a great joke, but when you're waiting on a pick, I kind of thought I'd get picked up, but you never know. The season was considered rough because Madonna came on the first show of the following season and said it was a dream or something.

Oh, like the last season. But you survived it and thrived from it. And Nora. Nora and Whitney. And John. And John. But John was the biggest hitman. John was the biggest star in the world. You know what I knew? I knew that John was a genius, was...

We're flying in to do our auditions, and they put us all on this L-1011 out of LAX. You remember that plane that had two on the outside, two on the inside? Yeah, they were a little shaky. Oh, huge, huge. It's like you're flying a little choir practice. So I'm in the middle, and I'm sitting next to Lovitz. And, you know, when you first meet John, he's so childlike. He's like an elephant. And we're flying in, and –

You know, when I get uptight, I get so sardonic that I kind of drive people away as I look back. Stress. Yeah. Then later in our relationship, I get gushy about how much I love him. But up front, until I form bonds, I'm so uptight that I kind of get – not sour, but just a little quiet. So anyway, Lovitz is going on and all. You know, John, Jesus Christ.

On the plane. Jesus Christ. Say hi. Pull his strings. What's he talking about at this point? Is he on the show? You're going in to do the show? We're going in to audition. To audition. And I say, so, John, what do you do? And he said, oh, I'm a comedic actor. I'm in the Groundlings. And I said, so what will your audition be? And he said, I'll do some characters. And I go, what character are you most proud of?

And he said, the pathological liar. So he said, this guy lies incessantly. You know, and I'm sitting there thinking, Christ, it's like seeing a gazelle limp on the Serengeti. I'm going to feed on this guy. Right.

I said, that's the big pitch you're going to come in. That's the big pitch. You're sitting in front of the SNL. It didn't sound that great. Star Chamber going, I didn't remember anything. But then all of a sudden I start seeing that thing. And then he does dress rehearsal the first night. And I introduce him as Tommy Flanagan, the president of.

Liars Anonymous. Liars Anonymous, yeah. And he grabs me. It goes well, but he grabs me in the break and he says, no, no, it's not Flanagan. He says, there's no other way to really pronounce Flanagan except for a pathological liar. He makes the A long. It's Flanagan. And I looked at him and I said, Jesus, John, that took my breath away. I said, that is such a cool.

Cool little accent or a cedilla or something. I thought, oh, this guy is sharp, man. He's into it. You know, you look at Flanagan, you're going to say Flanagan. Yeah, totally. But he even had to lie about that and say Flanagan. John. That's great. We had him on the show and he, you know, he really stood out because he looked different. Him and Phil Hartman, too, had these 40s things they would do all the time. And his voice was so big, John, with mouth, lying, acting, that whole thing. Yeah.

But for you, like we knew each other from the clubs and you probably knew David a little bit too before he got into SNL, maybe right after. I remember David and Charlie Schlatter. Yeah. Remember in Schneider, we used to go at breakfast at Jerry's Famous Deli on the curve out in Ventura. Sure. You'd be there with like Torrey Wells. Torrey Wells. No, Covert went out with Torrey Wells. I'm full of porn stars at Jerry's. I'm like, oh, yeah.

Yeah, she was like straight out of the porn. That's great. Dennis is more of a Terry Weigel guy. No, one time Tim met a... And I said to them, they were all so diminutive. You know, they come in and they're all like, well,

killers. Charlie was funny too in his own way, but he ended up walking with a clipboard next to Dick Van Dyke for four years in a hospital. Remember that show? Diagnosis Murder. Yeah. So they came in and I, remember I told you you should pitch a show called Tiny Cops? Oh yeah, Tiny Cops. Where it was just a procedural. But everything was just like Jerry Orbach and one of those procedurals, but you, all the prompts were made just a little bigger. So you guys would whip up to a crime scene and people would say, is that, look

it's the tiny cops. And the doors were all open and they'd open the door with two hands and hop out and there'd be, you just set a scale up so everything was done. I remember you telling me that because I was like, I'm waiting for Michael J. Fox to host for that one. Give it to us. Hey, come on, Sarge.

From Casual to the War. What are we doing here exactly? I did a benefit for Michael one night and he stops two days out. He's such a mensch. He stops taking his pills two days out. Oh, okay.

Oh, so he'll get the fundraising on. Oh, my God. That's what an absolute beautiful beast he is. So we're standing there talking. I'm going to have to process that later tomorrow. It gets people to go, oh, shit, this is for real. I mean, it blew me out. You're like gobsmacked and you're also tearing up thinking, wow, this is a warrior. They find this disease fucked with the wrong guy. And we're doing a gig and Jason Bateman comes in.

And he said, hey, do you know Jason? I go, no, no, I like Jason Bateman. But this was before Arrested Development. I'd just seen him in a few things. And he said, let's go say hi. So we go up. This is the first thing Jason Bateman ever – I'm sorry, this is an SNL, but I'm just – I love it. I figure we're supposed to do series. Doesn't matter, yeah. So he goes, Jason Dennis Miller. And Bateman looks at me. The first utterance is, hey, what's it like to be with both Teen Wolves? Yeah.

People don't know. Michael J. Fox was Teen Wolf and then Jason Bateman was Teen Wolf. Jason took Teen Wolf. I forgot he did Teen Wolf. Geez, great. I was just laughing out of courtesy. I didn't even get the reference. Because we're from Pittsburgh. So they both did Teen Wolf. They both did Teen Wolf. And that's the first thing. Whenever I'm watching Ozark now and it gets really weird, I think of him and go, hey, what's it like

He is funny. He's the Teen Wolf guy. I remember when you got on SNL, because we did some club dates. In fact, it's an interesting story that I was playing the San Jose Improv Club.

I think I was headlining it. And then Dennis Miller, I said, who? Dennis Miller, what? So I picked you up at the airport in San Jose and you were my opener for like five nights at the San Jose pub in like 81. And we got on like a house of fire. You had to follow this guy? This is a tough one. Well, I'll tell you, usually I was, you know, I had the lady, I had some chocolate. No, you're the hardest to follow. I have my little impression. It's horrible. I liked Dennis right away, but I didn't pay much attention. He's another middle act, you know. Middle act, poke your head in now and then, take a look. But then every night, every night,

But I started, I'd go up there and I'd go, what is wrong? You know, if I didn't, I wasn't watching his act, you know, what is wrong? And I realized, then I went out and watched him. I said, holy shit. So the first 10 minutes of my act, I had to deal with you.

Because you were a headliner. I mean, it was ridiculous trying to follow you. But what struck me is when you got on SNL and then we were hanging out and stuff, you were telling me how emotionally trying it was being on that show. And it kind of scared the shit out of me. And then I got on the next year. It's weird. But I remember you just going, honest to God. It's like finding a griddle, man. Yeah. All of a sudden, you get the keys to the kingdom and you realize that they can...

They don't even have to come up from the desk and ask for the key. They can just do that electronic cancellation where it doesn't work in the door anymore. It's pretty fraught. But you know what? I was such a wuss then.

I'm glad I got it. It gave me rhino skin. I don't know about you. Isn't that one of the best gifts SNL gave you? I like rhino skin. It made me tougher for everything else in showbiz. Everyone who's talked about it says that you can do anything after that, whatever you want to try to do. But also I was telling Dan, like I come in, Dennis was my favorite comic. I didn't know Dan as well, so I wouldn't say you weren't my favorite comic, but I knew Dennis.

and of his stuff. And then I got to open for him, I think at Caroline's Seaport and great working with you, you know, and you said nice things about a couple of my jokes and my Kaja Gugu jokes or something. And then I had a pretty good act back then.

Oh, shut the fuck... I didn't know that. That's Carolyn in The Two Shots. Yeah. You know what my joke was? It was pretty clever. I said... I told my guy... I did a Police Academy movie and I told my tax accountant and I go... So I made...

no money and then I made a lot of money and then I made no money again. I go, is there something we can do? He goes, oh, the Kajagoogoo proposal of 1982. Something about someone that made money and didn't make money again. He went on and did one other thing, The Never Ending Story, that song where the kid sings it while he's on the dog's head. That guy did? Oh, Jamal? Yeah, that was Jamal from Kajagoogoo. So he had two big hits.

But he also, you know, he worked with Giorgio Moroder a little on that and they became friends. So I think he – I think Lamal does well now. I used to watch my wife on that video. He had parachute pants. I met her later in life. I was a model when you met her. She was in Europe. But that video is cool when you go back and see it. It's one of those videos that you don't – they have some sort of loose narrative there. But it's mostly just Lamal and Carolyn and the nightclub. It's cute.

I told Dana before with Lovitz that, first of all, I wrote, I didn't write for you, but you helped me get on this young comedian special that was before SNL. And that he hosted and he sort of squeezed me in from five comics.

Remember, there was only going to be five, but then you helped, Brad and Gervitz helped. And then, so I got on. So that got me and Bowie was in the audience. We've talked about that. Coolest cutaway. Yeah, there's our crowd, Bowie. It's not Joanne Worley like Robinson. Yeah. There's Bowie doing a gut buster, bending over. And then I get on the show and then it's me and Schneider. And then, you know, Dennis is like, can't.

he goes, Spudley, get a crowbar in there and fucking kick me some update jokes. Don't forget about your boy. Has that been his consistent nickname for you? Cause he always calls me Carvey and you're Spudley. Yeah. And Nealon is Sammy. We'll talk about why that. So I would try to, once I realized I was totally X'd out of read through for the week and nothing got on, then I'd go and try to give Dennis some crumbs with update jokes and slide them under the door.

And then Herb Sargent would go, did you get my jokes? I mean, none of them are any good. So we would try to write for you. And I told Schneider, help out Denny, man. He got us here. We got to throw in some jokes. But it's hard to write for a guy who's this good of a joke writer. I'd say the best. I make my best bluff sometimes. This year, Dell Technologies' back-to-school event is delivering impressive tech with an inspiring purpose.

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Dennis is pound for pound the best update person in history, in my opinion. And also the longest single guy, because I was looking up update hosts today, and Tina always had a sidekick. She was brilliant too. Oh, right, single. Yeah, but as far as six years, six seasons, solo, 120 shows down the...

Down the barrel. And Herb was a big – Listen, Herb's – Herb – you remember Herb's office was like the Louvre of Saturday Night Live, the Smithsonian. Yeah. He had everything. He knew everything. And I would go in there. I couldn't really write until around Friday at 4 o'clock. I'd get scared. And then you'd make out. That made you write. You know, when I got scared, I thought, you fucked this up. You're going to be back in a club in Baltimore, man.

You know what I mean? It's like, get your head together. Don't be whiny. And right after I would have that moment, I could write like a beast for the next eight hours. And Herb would sit there and tape everything and write it down. And he'd hold – he took an X-Acto knife and he'd cut out articles and hold them up and I'd just flash on the article. That's your brilliance. Oh, you riff about it. And he had like –

I remember we were Belushi's beers because Herb had every piece of accoutrement and to feel inspired. Not that I was like, I'm not saying anything like John Belushi, but you could sit there and put the shark on, the land shark. You could put the beers on. And I know that sounds funny, but it did remind me I was on

Saturday night live. Night fucking live. You better bust your ass here and kill, man. Because it was, you know, the day-to-day of it, you guys must know, it was like work. And there were times you'd forget it. And then there were other times you'd see George Harrison walking in the middle of the night. And you'd be reminded that you were at the locus of it all. And it would make you hustle because you wanted to stay. It was too much. It was too much to process. I can't imagine people coming on now. Because we followed...

you know the original cast the superstars and then eddie murphy you know billy crystal and martin short christopher guest so the idea that for me at that time that i was on saturday night was insane so to deal with that pressure and score but i've never seen anyone in a room uh write jokes like you and i know people have talked about it besides me like with the recorder on topics going

When did you know you had that gift? Because you told me once, which I think is an interesting story, about doing kind of your first stand-up date in Pittsburgh and inviting kind of local friends and stuff. And it was a disaster. Disaster. But where did you get the idea that maybe I got something? Was it like as a kid or just around? You know what? I started the – and by the way, I want to say that that night –

You never know about people, do you? You're talking about when people like jokes on this thing, but when you're sincere. Yeah. I remember there was this Sun God quarterback for our football team. Yeah. He was the first guy to have a- Sun God. Super B, 440. Yeah. He had a muscle car. Super stud, yeah. He managed a rusty scuffer. His name was Mike Meneghazi. Roger Varwig, yeah. You had one? We had one. Super stud, yeah. And I just ate it in front of-

150 high school friends and uh it's it's rough in a weird way because you're so uh you know you're so like an emotional hemophiliac then about people approving of you and it went horrible and i remember him coming up to me and street yeah you never had the time of day for me or that turns out he he just we didn't cross paths but he said hey uh

You should keep that up. You have something. And I know that this is always going to be brutal for you. That was tough. He said, but you have a funny sense of humor. You should keep it up. And he walked away. And I remember thinking after that,

I got so much less neurotic about it. I remember thinking, nobody has put a gun to your head to get into this. You could have been in Vietnam. You could have drew, you know, I drew a number where Charlie had to be bungee jumping off the St. Louis arch for me to see any action. But you could draw that number where you're, you know, all of a sudden you're with a Gump kid in a marsh somewhere outside. I missed a Vietnam draft. Yeah.

But life gets a lot harder. And I got so much less neurotic about it. And that's when I started to write better jokes. Because I remember thinking, this isn't a sword from the stone moment. This doesn't always have to be some Francis of Assisi praying on a rock and a beam hits you in the head. Just shut up and write 10 jokes. It's like Letterman used to say. That always made me, it's parts of Dave I don't get, but I was always endeared when he'd say it.

Hey, we're entertainers. Have two funny stories and get on and tell them. About the show? You didn't want to know anything. Do your fucking jokes. I got eight minutes with you. Tell two funny stories. I think it's nice that you did that because...

I think it's interesting that you walk away bombing in quotes in your head, you fuck that. But someone, you know, you, people don't always laugh out loud or there's people that go, everyone's not laughing. I shouldn't laugh, but I actually think this guy's pretty good. And have someone out of the blue that's influential like that, especially at high school. When he died early and I, somebody, you know, you're on a list with your fellow graduates and they said, someone's past and,

He died pretty early. And I must admit, as little as I knew him, that made me so sad. It's like a stab. You hear that and you go, oh, wow. Is that weird? What's happening to us? I'm 68. Carve, are you a little younger? I'm a little younger, but not by much. Spudley, what are you? 41. 41.

Heather, check the Wikipedia. Will you change it again? You know what I mean. You're starting to care about classmates. It's so weird. Or you just start noticing the age on people who have a heart attack. At 51, you go, what the fuck? So now you're in the vicinity of like, oh, people are dropping. Or you look at a picture and you go, oh, these two aren't here anymore. And you go, oh, fuck, man. It's rough. I have a big picture in my office. I just looked at Spudley's office. It's so sweet to see those pictures.

But I look up and see Phil so many times. Jesus, weren't we privileged to be with him? I had a flash yesterday because we were talking to Bill Hader about nerves. And I do remember distinctly being terrified. But I'd come on before a sketch in 8H and I'd see Phil.

And Jan, and they'd be in their costumes and Phil be looking at the script and they were calming, you know, your castmates, I call them bandmates, it would calm me down to a point we're in this together. Going back to you, you were just alone.

Right down the pike for like how long were your segments normally update? Ten minutes of jokes and you'd have guests. Yeah, but there's always a guest. Yeah, there's always a guest or two. You know what it is that old Carson lesson about those are not going to work and you have to not be a sweat act when it doesn't work. They don't need every joke to be perfect. That gets a little precious and erotic. Right.

They want to see if you have any Scaramouche in you when it doesn't go well. Can you still Zorro a little? Scaramouche? The guy who served under Trump? The rapier. Oh, the rapier. I got to go back to junior college. I didn't know that one. I just skipped it. I'm just saying that they want to see some Savoir Faire when you eat it. That's more important and better than good jokes. And Carson was always so brilliant at that. I used to watch that and say, why is that so intoxicating? And I thought, well, when this joke goes awry,

The only mistake you can make is to double down or look like an asshole or like you're so bullet-ridden you can't take it. It's definitely a joke that doesn't land, and then they see you smile or laugh at the idea that it didn't land. That's all it takes. You don't even have to be witty or anything. You just have to look –

Aware that you just screwed the pooch. This is what, you know, how bits stand out with people. I don't know why this line always stood out in my brain. I don't know if you did it on an update, but it was just so you, and it was so dry and bizarre. Jimmy cracked corn. And I don't care. And I don't care. Long pause. What the kind of hell attitude is that? Did you do that on an update? You know what? I started to try to write jokes when I was in a fallow thing as far as a, I used to always think indignation.

What am I? It was like the fulcrum. Right. What am I? Arcane reference. So, you know, when you boil it down to is I got cut off on the one-on-one. What am I? The robot made from death. You know, whenever I get stuck, that's what I'd write. And when I couldn't even come up with one of those, I would just do a rhythm joke. And oddly enough, you, you,

built that firewall for me when you used to do Morse Miller where you wouldn't even say words you'd just go well yeah I mean your attitude well that's what that joke was yeah that's really crap what am I Glico and you say things where I go I think you said one thing you'd say things that weren't even didn't even make sense it's brilliant the way you do it because people would walk away going I didn't get two of those you're like oh I just made those up

Just because you got to keep people off kilter a little bit. Like, God, I had almost every reference. I always thought the core joke, the mothership should be accessible at all. And the next one should be accessible to four fifths. The third one in should be the other fifth.

And the fourth one, they shouldn't get that's where the garbo is. And it doesn't even have to make sense, but you walk away and go, you're just giving that look. It's just so smart. You don't even have to mean anything. I don't know. Also, you've done how many specials? Ten? Ten specials? Nine? Yeah. Specials. Which I opened for one, maybe Black and White or maybe Mr. Miller Goes to Washington. I was thinking of shooting for ten, but I don't have it in me anymore, man. I'm like Jimmy Arness in season 22 of Gunsmoke. I'm flinching.

It has to be Jimmy Hart, not James. There's a kid in town with a fast gun and I don't have it anymore. The last one I did, I was so fucking nervous. Well, the way the world is, it would be here. You'd be seated for your tent. I could do this. It's just a little room with just like three people. But you stand up in front of that crowd. I just don't. Listen, I'm glad. I played golf with Charles Barkley once and he's terrible. Terrible.

But he didn't even have a hitch in his backswing. He had a mini stroke. You know, we got to go away to warm springs and warm swim in the pool with FDR. Eleanor's out with her girl, Brad. He used to say, he used to be, I remember going over and he'd say, I can't believe I embarrassed myself like this. And I said, Charles, just be glad it wasn't in your free throw stroke. Oh, yeah, stop in the middle. It could have been in your rice ball.

So I always thought, you know, as long as it didn't impinge on my rice bowl like the not acting or anything like that, I was happy. But can I just insert this for a second? One time Dennis and Kevin and I did a date and we were too afraid to take the private jet. There was weather. So we drove for like four hours. And I needed jokes about...

kids in high school because my son was working on a stand-up. Oh, yeah, we had. And you were, Dennis sat there and came up with like 50 jokes just sitting in the back like that. One of them was like, I'm not, I'm going to paraphrase it. I don't want to say I went to a privileged high school, but I hung my jersey in my wine locker. You know, but it was one after the other. Yeah, of course. You know, I probably was clumsier than you did. Listen, if you do 50 jokes, 40 of them suck.

Yeah, that's okay. Rapid fire. You can pull and they've got something. And then you, Mr. Miyagi, the 10, you know, you just sharpen them a bit. I watch you on stage. I know that you take it up there and get the language right. You know, and the rhythms, right? Yeah. You're a great standup man. You know, when I first saw you, obviously you were like a,

Such a young kid. And then I've watched you over the years and nobody, I mean, those Ellen things, Ellen can be a little quirky, but you're so smooth with that. And then you go over to Stern and then when I see your standup periodically, I go out, well, God rest his soul, Norm, but remember you and I and Norm recently? Oh, God damn. That was the last time I saw Norm. For sure. Yeah, I mean, maybe me too because he...

He wouldn't do, during Corona, he didn't say what was going on. So he'd just say, I can meet in a week. And he goes, I go, all right, we'll go to this restaurant. Outside? I go, no. I mean, you can come to my house. So there were breadcrumbs there. But we did this fucking gig, me and Dennis in Oklahoma. You guys played that big giant casino in Oklahoma? Yeah, right up an hour south of Delo. TriStar. Yeah. Do we take a plane or something? Yeah, and we just left. So can you imagine us three idiots?

Oh yeah, you guys took, yeah, Norm, I remember you guys talking about this. Oh, so listen, I had a headache, my neck was all fucked up as per usual. So we're driving over there and Norm goes, do you want anything? And he's clutching like a falcon, he's got like some prescription bottle. I go, oh, I think I'm right. And he goes, do you want fentanyl? I go, fentanyl? It's very Norm. I go, doesn't, isn't that the one everyone ODs on? He goes, yeah, but you just dose, you don't overdose. I go, okay, I mean, that kind

of makes sense. Was he kidding or was it real? I don't know. That's the... You can't tell with Norm. Norm was like Andy Kaufman if he could have written jokes. You know, it wasn't all... Unless I loved Andy, but it was theater pieces. Norm was like that, but he had such an adjunct. Weirdo with jokes. You know, the first time I heard about Norm was I was doing HBO. No, I had...

I had a talk show that was syndicated. Oh, yeah. And somebody said that there was a new kid from Canada and they had –

glimpsed him at the improv and I said well he said his name is Norm Macdonald I think it was Eddie Feldman told me this and I said well tell me what's he like and he said I just remember one joke remember he used to do that great joke about I feel sorry for the homeless guy but I really feel sorry for the homeless guy's dog because you know the dog's thinking this is the longest fucking walk I mean do we go do we go in anywhere

Because I could do this on my own. I laugh so hard at that joke. Yeah, that's one of his best ones. I say, well, see if he wants to gig if he's new in town. So they call Norm, and you know how they always say, put together a packet. And this made me laugh. This is the midwife joke that makes me laugh. And he says, Norm says he won't do pack.

And that word sounds so – It's so funny. It sounds grim like you're a taskmaster when you say, I want a packet of jokes. He said, but I'll send one joke and you can make a determination. Remember the joke he did about Dahmer where he essentially reads the UPI wire copy of the Jeffrey Dahmer trial. And it's so – I mean, it could not be grimmer. It's like –

Hieronymus Bosch, sort of. And he disemboweled the young boy and ate the entry, you know, all that stuff. And he gets to the end of the joke and Dorf says, in his defense, Dahmer said, he started it. LAUGHTER

It's such a norm. Hired him on the spot. Hired him on the spot. Put him in a room with Drake Sather, the great Drake Sather, who was on that Young Comedians special with us. And they tinfoiled the window shut like Elvis. They both smoked Smix. Nuts. And the head writer would go over and ask him for jokes at a certain time, and they bridled at that. And I said, listen, these guys are rare. Think of that as a –

orchid hothouse those are two geniuses you can't ruin the humidity in there so I said I went over to Norm and drank and I said listen guys I don't I don't I'm not I'm not going to take your best jokes I don't want to know your best jokes I need some sixes and sevens for this monologue because Norm would write jokes that I'd have to hand back to him they were so brilliant

I said, I can't tell. You know, I'm not going to take this joke. This will be something. And Drake, too. He was a stone killer. So they said, fine, fine. So at 1.30, it literally is like the food slot in Papillon where the jokes would slide out into the door. And out of 12 jokes, some of them were so crazy that you thought, I'm going to go to hell just for seeing this joke. And then a couple were just, you know, I mean, they were two brilliant minds. And you know how...

They love to be left alone. Drake had a couple of, I remember when he goes, I went to a funeral. He sounded like Dennis. He was kind of doing a little bit of Dennis. A lot of people think that's a influence. And he goes, I went to a funeral and I was wearing the same outfit as the deceased.

How embarrassing, but how did I know he'd be wearing a too drunk to fuck t-shirt? I was pulled up on this car and the bumper sticker said, help, stop bombing. And I ran. I pulled up. I said, I can't get my girlfriend to stop fucking my buddies. Can I handle that before I start ironing out everything in the middle of the house? That's a rhythm joke. You can almost insert anything there. I remember sitting one night up in the balcony at the improv.

And Jay was holding court. You know, he had like a tweed hat on. He'd call you Mr. Arthur Conan Doyle Pipe. He was sitting up there. He's like six months older than us. Mr. Carvey. And Drake's one of the people there. And, you know, Jay, listen, if you have a TV shot and you tell your eight best jokes, you don't save jokes for the second shot. You don't save them. It doesn't have to be a second shot. You tell the best eight, then the second one you do is nine through 15, you know.

It's like 40 minutes of the Socratic method. Yeah. At the end, he's like, okay, boys. I forget what he's got outside. He's got the Munstermobile or something that he bought at auction. Driving in a unicycle down the 405. Drake's sitting there with a cigarette. He looks at you and goes,

hey thanks jay but i have a father it's 45 minutes straight and then finally oh jay i love listening to that stuff i'm not making fun of jay but you know he always had a tutorial jay was right about a lot of stuff yeah never stop you don't stop great story when we first moved to la you talk about moving to new york state when i first moved to la from pittsburgh i was so

scared and freaked out it's such a deal you at least had the Bay Area you knew California life but I came out from the Berg and it was like Christ I was on another planet but thank God Jay had more of a proletariat underpinning and he would have the same guys up Seinfeld Brogan Larry Miller uh

Once in a while, we'd meet up at Jay's house up off Castle Drive, I think it was called. And you'd go in and Jay would hold court at night. He always had pizza. And if you did a shitty TV shot somewhere, I don't give a fuck if it was like AM Warsaw or

Jay had a copy of it. He saw it. Yeah. On Bob Crane technology. You know, that formatting. Bob Crane from Logan Zero. There wasn't even streaming then, but he would have, he'd load up a three-eighths inch super-data. Hey, Daniel, look at Dennis is on Madam's Place this week. Madam's Place. He and the puppet. Wow, interaction. Hi, Jinx and Sue. Spade, good job on Mike and Maddie.

You know, it's a while. He had like James Bond TVs all over and he'd watch all the shows and knew what was going on. He would download all your worst stuff. All your worst. What happened here? And then there'd be banging from upstairs. Maybe it's upset. We used to do Jay Leno 911. Yeah, this is Jay Leno. There's someone upstairs at my house. I just need someone to check it out. Are you married? Oh, never mind.

You did the funniest... And by the way, that documentary, Clark, blew me out of your commitment to it. I was so proud of you. What was it? It was the brilliant show that they did with Schmeichel and Colbert and... Oh, the Danny Carvey show? But there's a great documentary about it. You can see how proud Dana is of it. And...

Listen, that's a bad play by Brad. God rest Brad's soul. But you don't put Dana on with that. That crew, that's a wrecking crew. That's like the Session guys, Hal Blaine and all that in that studio. It was a cable. It was an HBO show. And God bless Tim Allen. I mean, he was a huge hit, but there could not be more chalk and cheese. No, once it was on primetime following Tim Allen. My favorite sketch is you did, didn't you do?

The incredible journey with Jay. The dog and the cat and the dog who go cross country. Yeah, some kind of weird sketch. Do you remember that movie? It's a dog. The Never Ending Journey or something? Yeah, but it's a kid's movie. Am I confusing this with Stiller or is this on your show? I don't think. I did Jay and Smigel did. It was you on the side of the road like that. I don't think it was me. I did Jay and Smigel did Quentin Tarantino and we got so excited. Wee-oo!

And bother dogs like states away. It always goes to noises. I'm conflating it with Stiller Show. Somebody did a great thing called The Incredible Journey, which is a Disney movie when they're young. It's two dogs and a cat. It dropped in a vacation spot and they have to get back across the country. And they all make it over to them. But somebody played Jay. And this is what I always think of Jay. He was always closing. He was a stone killer when he was in The War

He never thought about anything else. I remember he played good cop, bad cop with Helen Kushnick. Like, you know, I remember I had a band on my show one night, a talk show called you through Yindi. They were an Aboriginine log band. They're standing there, you know, like, uh, uh,

Skirts made out of that, you know. Bamboos. Yes, that sort of stuff. No shirts on. And they're hitting big logs on little logs. This is what I'm booking at this point because I'm like third in line on the talk show thing.

So the youthy indie manager comes up to me and says, hey, we got a call from the Tonight Show. They said we weren't allowed to do it if we did your show. I'm talking to a guy in a loincloth. I said, call Jay. I go, what the fuck are you doing? You're kidding me. I've gotten out of the way. I'm not trying for Tom Cruise. I've got the youthy indie guys telling me that you're bracing them. That's hysterical. Yeah, I had no helmet.

In the sketch, Jay's, there's a dog and the dog goes, I got to get across that highway. My master's across that highway. They've gone home from vacation. I love my master and I love my mistress. And then they show the cat and the cat's, I got to get across that highway. I need food. I know there's food over there because master and mistress always provide sustenance.

And then the third creature is no longer a dog. It's Leno. And he's got that shitty crinkle cut tie on and a stand-up coat. And he's like, we could bump Trisha Yearwood and we could... Bump Trisha Yearwood. It was all about the Tonight Show. The other two were thinking about getting back. It is every thought. Well, yeah, then Harry Potter can come in for the Christmas show. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

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Visit roberthaff.com today. Do you want to talk about SNL a little more? Yeah. Those six years, was there a point where you felt you turned the corner? I mean, I remember one time-

There was, Lorne had Whitney kind of try to maybe coach you a little bit or something. There was a blip there. And then after that, you seem like you got calm. You know what? I got to say this. Lorne changed my life. He's like Henry Higgins, you know? Oh, yeah. It was all well intended. I look back and I don't even know if Lorne lauds it over as much as you give him to, you know what I mean? He's such an omnipotent guy.

power in your life you mean it's like in your head about why I'm like you wanna go Lauren doesn't really think about you every day you're like I wonder if Lauren thinks this I wonder when he's like just on a treadmill at home it's like Paul McCartney said about the Beatles music he goes you listen to Winston Churchill it's still all you know wobbly and hissy you listen to the Beatles we get shinier and brighter all the time

And it's like, Lauren, the further you get away from the show, the more you appreciate having to handle the network, the egos, the sensibility. So he gets a lot of kudos. When I stopped worrying as much about him because I knew I was making him laugh. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I got a little better at it. But I do remember coming out of the box and having a bit of a, man, this happened too. It's one of the gift stand-ups given me. I was always such a neurotic kid. Yeah.

I wasn't self-loathing all the time, but I had a quick switch to it. If anything went wrong, if I shot like a 61 and nine holes of golf, I'd go, oh, you're such a, you fuck everything. You know, I had that thing. And I got over that.

with Lauren, I didn't turn on myself as much. I remember thinking, you better get on your own side here. And it happened to me on Letterman one night where I was standing back there. You remember how scared, I was so scared. We all were scared of Letterman. And Biff standing there. You remember Biff was so sweet. Stage manager right before you go on. A lot of care in the world. And he's so cool. He's like, yeah, you kill it. You know, and you're thinking, they do this a lot. Somebody must be doing it right. And right before I went out, and I had all day long been, you know, they put you up with that,

on Madison right there where all the watches were on the Longines building or whatever. And I'd get up, I'd walk on Madison, go back to my room, try to lay down. I was so nervous. Yeah, the day of the show. It's like a nightmare day. And I remember thinking right before I went out, I thought, Christ, you've worked so long and so hard and you've dialed these jokes in. And, you know, there was the hectoring voice, you're not going to do this well, you're not going to do it. And I just said, you, it was like a

Big moment in my life, all that therapy. I said, shut the fuck up right now. You can start hectoring me again in around eight minutes, but I got to go lay waste to this or my life is going to be all urinosis and I'm not even going to have scored. And I put it aside. It was a pretty powerful thing. And I got to that point at SNL where you just thought, Christ, I can't.

go into this every week thinking it's the end of the world as we know it. Well, I always felt like I had to kill like because I auditioned for SNL twice. It didn't go well. I followed Kennison. So when I got on the show or I went on Letterman or anything, I could say maybe I was pushing too much or so theatrical or whatever. But I felt like if I didn't kill, there's no more job. Like,

Like I'm out. And I felt that way all the way through SNL. Just had to kill. You're the best performer that's ever been on there. And listen. Is it recording? No, no. I mean, there's some geniuses on there. But your mixture of a proletariat ethic, your ear, and Christ, you're a world-class. And so, you know, Carvey has that ear. And for rhythms, it's amazing. And then you mix in the fact that you can write great jokes.

And then you mix in the fact that he's dogged. I remember he used to come up with the old man character. Grumpy old man. Which is sweet, but it's not sketched out all that much. It's about the rhythms and the act. And I used to hit you on the leg right before we went on. And I'd say, this is going to so fucking die. And you watch this. And they destroy these people. And you would. And you'd get up there. And you'd be like.

I don't like things now compared to the way they think they used to be. David wrote a joke for me once for that. Oh, I did? Yeah. I don't like these latex condoms. In my day, you had a rabbit skin. You tied it around your yoink or whatever. With a bungee cord. With a bungee cord. It was the same one over and over again. And that's the way we liked it. We loved it. Yeah, that was a dry joke. I'll do this one because I like this one. Yeah.

Sorry, I forgot it. Wait a minute. Here's the element, flame retardant sleepwear. Yeah. Yeah. But something about, you go to bed smoking, you wake up gulfed in flames. And that's the way it was. You liked it. Look at me. I'm on fire. I'm a burning corpse. And I love it. I love it.

It's so hard to go back. I used to wrench that chamois, and I would just sit there and marvel at that and think, this motherfucker, you're going to have to carry him out there because he's going to go until that moment. I tried too hard. I don't know. Fuck no. That's the show that works. When I saw you against Carmen Basilio at 148 in the garden, you were beautiful.

Now, is that a real boxer? I think it was a cat named Carmen Bat-Basilio. One time I was golfing with Dennis. We did a gig in Palm Springs. This is probably when I was on SNL. We drove all the way out there. And...

We had to stay the night. We had to do a gig and stay the night. So we golf and Dennis gets mad right away because he's not playing perfectly. So I go, I go, hey, where's the green? He goes, Spudley, you don't have to worry about the green from the 12 fucking shots. Just hit it. And so I say it to my friends all the time when they ask me where the green is. Steal Denny's jokes.

Denny, you worked at Point Park's recreation room. You ran the air hockey. I did. I was the commissioner of the air hockey. Do you remember the night from...

He lays that down and then gets off it because he knows how insignificant. What happened if I would do a joke about impressionists where I'd go, what happened if Ben Gazzara worked at a TCBY? Yeah. I think it would go a little. Something like this. I'd turn around and I'd turn back. No, no, I'm not.

I could do that. I just wanted to get right up to the precipice and pivot, right up to the precipice, pivot and jeté back to Coolsville. And then that joke caught on the indifference. And what you just did there is so funny because the fact is, folks, I was the commissioner of an air hockey league and Spade lays that down and then moves away because he knows how uninteresting that is. I just like the noise of air hockey. Crack, crack, crack.

He's got a little Michael Winslow in him, David. No. The ultimate compliment. The ultimate sound effect. The ultimate. Can you do Couillet's? Oh, I'm sorry. Is that a water drop? Wait, do the little quiet bird. Wow. What's the one that British guy does? Have you seen that, Rob? He does the voice. Oh, the little man voice. Little man voice. It's just too freaky. Have you ever seen that? No.

crazy. You gotta watch it on YouTube after. I'll be anybody but Michael Winslow, so give me that guy. I just meant sound effects. You remember Jimmy Allen used to work with a cat and a Jimmy Allen and he had a Ken Severa. They used to do impressions. And then Ken Severa broke up and went back into the business world and Jimmy Allen got Alex he was a

A Mexican kid, he was blind. And Jimmy was so sweet with him. He'd lead them up on stage and they did that brilliant bit where they would go between train cars on the way to the next gig. And it would be, it reminds me of Winslow. Oh, yeah. Then they'd open the door to go between the train thing. And you remember they used to do that perfect volume up. And then you'd hear the door slide and they'd go back in. Now, I know it sounds simplistic, folks, but this thing was so real. If you shut your eyes, you just sat there. I can't believe. Winslow is amazing.

Any of those noises are really just texture and a bit to make them throw you in there to make it sound more real. You're not a sound effect guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just do it and I don't even know it half the time. All my friends at home used to do it when they tell stories and then it just turned into, it would just naturally be in a bit. I do it. Yeah. I came in late. Oh.

It's just those things. Who has the chops of your two sons? Or do they have different chops? Tell me about Tom and Dex. Tom is sort of the, he's a sci-fi fanatic. We're doing this scripted podcast. He's the idea guy. I've heard a couple. But you told me you're extrapolating them out, right? They were short, but you're going to make them longer. Yeah, yeah, we're really into it. I didn't realize it's like making the White Album.

It's like showing Apocalypse Now to a blind man. Yeah, there's a lot of helicopters. They're really scary. They're coming in low, you know. You got to explain. Yeah, so we had to learn the process. We started out and we had to redo it and redo it. And now I think we have a rhythm on it. So Tom's ideas and Dex's what? Dex does a lot of voices and writes.

You know, people who are listening now, fans of comedy, sometimes writing is just an idea in the room in the moment. It's not all just at a typewriter by yourself. He's like, yeah, we should, maybe you should go into the game. It's something like that. There's some little thing of, we have that Mario Brothers one. Maybe you should go into the game with his dad. It's like, oh, that's a brilliant idea. Right, then you run with it. Yeah, but it's just a blast. He has two sons. It's fun working with your sons. You know, when you just did the...

of comedy thing. It's such a Robin lilt, the way you did that. And it reminds me how much I miss our friend Robin. Oh, yeah. And I think you saw him closest to the end, didn't you, Carm? He lived up in Marin County when I was up there. Mark Pitter was a very good friend, too. He was a great comic friend of mine. But Robin was there a lot. I really got close to him. And we would go to that little theater up there, the Brock Morton Theater on Tuesday nights in Marin County. It'd be packed. One of the best theaters in the country. Yeah.

And he would come in and I really didn't understand him until then. You know how we call everyone boss and he was so shy and differential? I'd be doing a set and he'd be off to the side going like this. He was so sweet and so vulnerable and yet such a powerful performer.

that it's hard to reconcile those two things. But we finally hung out. I think I was just in awe of him for many years. But you knew him for years, but you finally... Finally just, we hung out and talked about life and stuff. And then he went down to LA to do that half hour sitcom. And that was the last time I saw him. Yeah.

I saw him at the other one night. Was the other the one with the long, thin window along the other cafe? Yeah, that was in San Francisco, where I met my wife. The other cafe. I was with him at the other one night when he went up on stage and Mystery Science 3000, everybody walking by the window. Yes, and you would riff for people in this giant picture window. You know, you have certain nights in comedy. Ken is in around 2.30 in the morning one night at the comedy store.

Yeah. Just wading into some tourists who thought it was Dr. Feelgood, and then he went Anton LaVey, Dark Prince. Screaming, yeah. They're all scared. But Robin, that night, people would come at a predictable cadence almost that he would annotate them. He's absolutely brilliant. Yeah. One night outside that place, I'd done a set, and he stopped me. It was Misty with a lamppost. There's the other. This was before he went to L.A., like before he passed away. And blew up.

And he said, Dana, Dana. And he said that he always had this idea in his head that I had...

came up with talking about your dick like, oh, my Mr. Happy referred it. But I never did. And at your wedding, he mentioned that to me. I think people said that maybe you came up with Mr. Happy. Never did. So he brought it up again. Sounds good. He brought it up again. Oh, I feel like, you know, maybe I took Mr. Happy. I said, Robin, I tried to take your whole act. I tried to become you. That's not the way this is supposed to go. One time I was at the MMO. I don't have stories like you guys, but I was just...

Did you know Robin for a little bit? A little bit, but I met him through Bobcat and then, again, friendly, but I didn't know him well at all. So here I am auditioning before I ever met him at the Improv on Melrose and I have a showcase. So, you know, you got to go up and do like seven minutes. So I'm waiting and it's packed and they go, you're next. And then they go, we just gave him the light. And then I'm waiting right here behind me. Her.

And I go, it's like predator. I go, Oh no. And he's watching. And I go, Oh my God, it's fucking Robin Williams. And then he goes, they go, you want to go up next? Okay. And I go, no, no, no, but there's nothing you can do. It's too big of a force. And I even, I'm like, fuck it. Go. And then he went on and did maybe an hour. And,

And then I'm trying to fight my way to the crowd because everyone's leaving. The people that are to see me are like, everyone forgot. It's like you forgot your carry-on bag and you have to go back down the aisle on a plane. They're pushing you out of the way to get out of the way. Excuse me, I got to get back to 23D. Yeah, 23D in the center. I'm like, wait, the people from Star Search are leaving, you know.

Sweet man, though. Very sweet. Really vulnerable person, but what a fucking genius. Yeah. At our crap. But when I do these talks with David in this podcast, I think of people like us in high school listening to this, and it is kind of an interesting aspect to it. Because when I was watching, I don't know about you guys, I watched people on TV as a kid, and they would never really say how they got into this stuff.

And then I was on Ed Sullivan, but I wanted to know how the fuck do you get into show business? Yeah, it's all hard. I sold some jokes to a kid named Joe Bolster. Do you remember Joe? Yeah, yeah. He was in town working at the Pittsburgh Comedy Club, and Christ, I was living in an earthen floor basement. I was like a step away from being...

you know, Hannibal Lecter's lighting stand and it was so grim my life. I just had an apartment with an earthen floor that I laid some rugs on. Yeah, it was like 40 bucks a month. It was so broke that I just laid bad Indian rugs on top of it.

I go to the comedy club and I have some jokes and Joe Bolster buys three or four of them for 25 bucks a pop. And then I'm laying there watching on this TV that I have. It's so small. This is in the era of cables just come in, but I'm watching it on rabbit ears still. It's so broken. He does one of the jokes on The Tonight Show. And Carson laughs. It's Carson with an ascot on. That's how long ago it is. He's sitting there. And he hits the table. And I remember thinking,

You know what? I'm not a natural entertainer, but I've got to become the conduit for this or I'm going to fucking go crazy. How old were you at this point? 24. Oh, okay. And he told it and that changed it for me. I mean, that's true. I then went out and started telling him my own because I thought I'm not, this is hard, jumping up here at a strip club or a jazz club and telling jokes. It's not as hard as laying there.

Yeah. An apartment with an earthen floor and an Indian rug on it. Fuck yeah. And watching somebody else make Johnny Carson laugh was something you thought of. You better get it together, brother. It also shows you're in the vicinity. You're like that, just right there. You go, wait, I did one. I thought, and it's on TV. And I'm close enough to get it. So I'm not that far off. Yeah. It was a, it was a,

Sitter at the Net, too, is an easy one. Joe had just moved out from New York. Carson said, how do you like L.A.? He said, good, good. I get a part-time job during the day. I drive around during rush hour in my car and report on helicopter traffic. You know, just inverting. But when I first moved to L.A., it was like all those –

It was like Ray Liotta making spaghetti. There's all those helicopters in the sky. He thought, this is so crazy. And it just caught Carson. You know, that's hardly a great joke, but it caught Carson's real eyes. You are a funny, funny man.

That is good stuff. You are correct, sir. One of my favorite things I've ever done. You are correct. I remember we were at Comedy Magic Club like in 1981. Yeah. Still at the point of not knowing, is this going to be our life? Is this going to be our career? And I remember meeting, I don't know if we already worked, but I didn't know you that well. But you kind of said to me, I don't have any gigs. I got no gigs. I remember that really stood out.

Like you were scared. I was a little shy. Yeah. And I couldn't be forced myself on people. But you didn't have any gigs. You were talking about you had no work. You mean you can't send that tape to the Denunzio brothers? No. I think when I was 28 years old, I made seven grand for the year.

And I remember thinking, I better hang in here because I'm behind everybody now. And then shortly after that, it happened. Thank God for guys like Mike Lacey, who would give you a burger. We're talking about the Hermosa Beach Comedy Magic Club. I don't know if Mike's still affiliated with the club, but if you're in California, it was a show place. Thank God it was a

beacon in the night for lost comedians because we used to all go down there, sit in that back room. Mike would feed you and he was the sweetest guy in the world and then he'd had animatronic dolls. He'd say, hey, I gave my Eddie Bracken doll a new belt loop. And you'd go out and he'd go on the other end. He had comedian puppets and stuff. And it was comedy magic. Do you remember following a magician? They'd always have a magician middle. Do you have a story about following a magician and then you'd go out

I remember one night I went down, he had that little marquee. I go down with Jimmy Alec. Do you remember the great Jimmy Alec? And I'm the opener and Jimmy's the headliner. This is when I first get to LA. And the middle act, you remember Jimmy had the bad leg from childhood polio. The middle act's Marty Polio.

If we pull up to the market, it's Jimmy Alec Polio. Polio? That's just his name. That's just his name? He said, thank you very much for booking me. Can't you give me Kozak? The one guy on the planet Earth who names the disease that took my leg. Yeah, the guy with the speech impediment. What's your opener? Jimmy Tourette's is going to be on before you. Marty Polio.

Okay, when you're hiring for your small business, you want to find quality professionals that are right for the role, obviously. That's why you have to check out LinkedIn Jobs. Everyone knows LinkedIn, but LinkedIn Jobs has the tools to help find the right professionals for your team faster and for free. That's right. You need good people, Dana.

You do, David. And newsflash, LinkedIn isn't just a job board. LinkedIn helps you hire professionals you can't find anywhere else. Even those who aren't actively searching for a new job, it might be open to the perfect role. In a given month, David, check this out, write it down if you want to, over 70% of LinkedIn users don't visit other leading job sites. So if you're not looking on LinkedIn,

You're looking in the wrong place. Well, because they get what they want from LinkedIn. So why look around? On LinkedIn, 86% of small businesses get a qualified candidate within 24 hours. That's one day according to my calculations. That's right. And LinkedIn knows that small businesses are wearing so many hats that might not have the time and or resources to hire. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. They're constantly finding ways to make the process easier even though it's easy already. Yeah.

They launched a feature that helps you write job descriptions, make it even easier if you want to post something, you know. That's right. Quicker. 2.5 million small businesses use LinkedIn for hiring. Listen, post your job for free at LinkedIn.com slash candidates. That's LinkedIn.com slash candidates to post your job for free. As always, terms and conditions apply.

You know, Dana, I think we have a connection. We've been friends for a long time. And for this episode of Fly on the Wall, we've partnered with eHarmony, which isn't us. eHarmony is a dating app to find someone you can be yourself with. We are not dating. I want to clarify that. But the connection is what you want in a dating partner.

Just someone like, if you found someone that listened to this podcast, that's somewhat of a connection. And then you sort of build on that. You want someone with some common ground. Yeah. It's not, it, look, if you want to connect romantically over, you know, super fly or fly on the wall, uh,

It just makes us happy. You don't want to be watching The Godfather and the person next to you goes, this movie sucks. So dumb. Yeah. You want to connect on all issues and harmonize in life. Similar sensibility, similar sense of humor, and similar sense of sense. I don't like when they watch The Godfather and they're like, everyone in this movie is so old. I'm like, they're 40.

Watch 2001 Space Odyssey. Too much of this movie is in outer space. I don't like it. When do they land? When do they land? Why is that stupid red light acting so silly? Who's friends with a robot? We know dating isn't easy. That's why we partnered with eHarmony because dating is different on eHarmony. They want you to find someone who gets you, someone you can be comfortable with.

Yeah. I mean, the whole idea is you're going to take a compatibility quiz, helps your personality come out in your profile, which makes all the profiles on eHarmony way more interesting and fun to read. So I think this is the goal of dating sites, and I think eHarmony does it great. It's just finding somebody you're compatible with.

So get started today with a compatibility quiz. So you can find some and you can be yourself with. Get Who Gets You on eHarmony. Sign up today.

I can't let Dennis go without thanking him for being in Joe Dirt. God, Spade. God, it gives me cachet with the kids. I can't tell you how many people... I don't know how that thing turned into a something else, Spade. I know it did too, but it's like a Wayne's World thing. You could bring it back now. Or a...

I have people come up to me. That's their favorite movie. It always boggles my mind. Not boggles my mind, but I didn't know Joe Dirt until I did the movie. And then all of a sudden, they had this whole new audience. People loved that movie. Yeah, that lucked out. Who thought of the name Joe Dirt? Joe Dirt. It was me and Fred Wolf wrote it. And you're good. You're really good. You're not so good. It was called Shane for a while.

Dennis, I want to tell you, first of all, you did a great job. I'm going to talk to you, Dan, in a second. I just want to tell you, I want to say one thing. I just want to tell Dennis, there's no way you can do better, but we're going to do it one more time. Hey, Fred, you're going to be our guest one of these days. Yeah, Fred's coming up. But we did, it was called Shane, because I thought that was a funny name for that guy. And then I said, what if it's just Joe Dirt? Very potent. Which I didn't love, but then it kind of caught in there. And it was sort of a crystal meth guy at the beginning, and then we kind of made it a little nicer guy.

That was a good move. That was Ted Lasso way before Ted Lasso. Yeah, it was a sweet guy. Like a sweet guy where you really pulled for him. That was a good vibration, right? And it was the first time I wasn't super sarcastic and all that. And wasn't making fun of the South. It was sort of one guy was really like a genuine, authentic person. And Kid Rock was great. You were great. Dennis and I, I remember I had script pages on my lap because I think we had Dennis for one day.

and he was just making up joke after joke. It was just fucking spinning gold, obviously. What are you, Jane Fonda from Clue? We tried to write like him. Oh, that was the heritage. Oh, yeah. And then I would just try, I'd look down, look up, say my lines, look down, look up, because it was too hard. We were moving too quickly. You know, I had like 12 pages of dialogue. I had to keep going. Yeah, we knocked it out though, man. That was a productive day. Yeah. And then I think Dennis got out at lunch or something because it was like, we got it all and,

We didn't know how hard it would be, but he was nailing it all. And then he would just riff on each one and go, I'll give you three for this. And then it was like three jokes. We're like, fuck it. I lost 10 pounds after I saw Joe dirt too. He was nice enough to have me in for like a practical note on Joe dirt too. Yeah. I'm sitting there and like, uh,

It's before Untucket, so I've got a regular length shirt that's hanging out, Don. Oh, I always thought we did. You know, like a muumuu. I look like Alan Carr. I've got this... Jesus Christ. I could not... I can't watch that movie without seeing how fat I was at the beginning of that, man. I know. So right after that, I appreciate it. I'm not exactly Frank Gorshin in the Riddler costume now, but I've at least lost a few. Like Donnie Sutherland, sure enough. Right.

Timmy Hutton. My first movie, I did a movie once with Michael Douglas and Donald Sutherland. Oh, you did? It was called Disclosure. It was about sexual harassment. Oh, I saw it. That's a great movie. And I remember seeing for the first time how the other half lived. Because as soon as they'd yell, cut, you know, Michael had the whole world wired. He was Gecko in real life. And Sunsy was so funny. He was like a hippie guy.

Very cool French hippie sort of French Canadian hippie. And they we'd go down a pair of steps. There was a golf cart there. We'd be in the golf cart. They'd blow out through the doors. We were out in Warner Brothers studio. We'd go down. Mike had this trailer that was like the Taj Mahal. And he had a he'd call ahead and what your drink was.

I love it. I love it. And he would meet us at the door with our drinks and we'd watch the NBA championship. Yeah. And I just remember thinking it was the – he and Donald were so funny together. And you realize the guys like us, quite frankly, I'm from Pittsburgh, Spudley. Arizona. I was a young guy from Arizona, a car from up in the bay, telling me stories about –

room servicing for my you know we were not guys who were privy to this yeah remember that first moment you're let in you call me one night you and mccartney were out in the hamptons i just there's that mind blow part where you go i can't yeah you're trying to fake it like you belong but you're thinking this is unbelievable not i was not ever on snl at that point i was just hanging out with paul mccartney for five nights with linda but having a famous person the first time someone a host would come in and know you

You know, like, cause you're always just a writer, you just perform. And then someone goes, oh yeah, maybe we can do something together. And I'm like,

Like they know something and they like you. Carole King came to the show and said, we should try to do something together. Oh, for OKO. Carole King, just out of the blue. That's a big part of SNL is that Lorne, almost as much as being funny and not being a sweat act and not laughing at your own jokes, he does not want you to be overly supplicating with people. No. You know what I mean? You remember those Monday nights. I think sometimes you'd sit there with somebody really funny.

He was your hero and you had, he didn't want you gushy about it. Did you have people like throughout your tenure in SNL and your career, like, like somebody famous that was older that gave you kudos or came up to you to rest on or whatever? Sammy Kahn, the great lyricist. He came up to you one night, said, kid. Can you imagine that? Sammy Kahn. I, you know, I would come fly with

Yeah.

you know, the Friars. It was for Chevy, not the train wreck one later down the road. This is when Chevy was front running. It works better when the guy's in a power position, you know, cause the jokes sort of fall off their back. And you also know him a little bit. Yeah. Chevy later, he was still Chevy. I mean, Chevy's to me, hugely funny, but it wasn't quite the success story. So the jokes landed and stuck a little more and it's harder to watch. But I remember when I went up and I said, nice to be here in the Friars. I always think of Milton Berle, uh,

You know, Milton Berle's dick is so big that I'd have to think he stole that too. And because he was famous for stealing jokes. So it's a good joke, but I'm like, nobody knows me. He's Yoda there. And they're like, who the fuck is this kid? It's a great joke. I eat it. I remember Paul Newman's on the dance. I looked down and Paul Newman, who was very cool, but he has to avert my gaze because it's so bad. Like what's going on? I hate that. And I come off a...

After this goes back to Sammy, I come off and man, I am. Nobody has felt worse than a fryer's roast until whoopie convinced Ted Danson to get out of the Hanson cabin blackface at noon on 7th Avenue. You know that? I'm sure he can still think of that. Sit up and bolt upright in the middle of the night and go, what the fuck was I doing? But Sammy Conn comes in. He's done it. Sammy Conn.

And he said, fuck Milton Berle. Oh, I love it. And he was so, just the fact that I was commiserating, assuaging my wounds with Sammy Codd made me laugh. It's an amazing existence being in show business. If you get lucky like we do, good Lord. Well, you know, I love you boys. Thanks, Dennis. You're two of my dearest friends. How long have we been together now? 30 years? 30 years.

I've known you, I've met you in like year one. Who did you run with? You used to run in that alley. Remember Rob? Oh, I met Rob's daughter. She has a daughter who's a singer. Al King, yeah. Yeah, she's London's child. Yeah, yeah. As I met you and...

Yeah, it was always you. A little less Adam. But remember we had apartments out in the valley somewhere. I was off to Studio City. I had like a swinging apartment. And I remember I bought an old front car seat for my couch.

And that's how nouveau gauche I was. Yeah. Wow. I remember buying it in an art gallery. And that was my couch. It was an old car seat from a Dodge Valiant. I thought it was cool. I remember bringing women home. You'd see a Roadrunner cloud heading off into the distance. What the fuck, Dr. Theme? And...

We all lived out there and I would run into you guys. I was sat for you once on cold water. You had a huge house on sticks, you know? And it made me scared. Oh, that was a bad house. Because you have sticks on the hill. It was hanging off. I remember my saddest moment in LA. I was into that place. Back then it wasn't that much, but for me it was a lot of fun.

And I remember Phil took a step up. Remember, Phil went north of a million, not in Encino. We were all like our minds are brought. I'm a 900s. But I've got leaks like out to Wazoo. Nobody's building the code in L.A. It rains once and all of a sudden, you know, it's the parting of the Red Sea. And I order, I get these roof guys to fix it.

This is my grimmest moment in L.A. I come home. I walk in the door. It's just pouring through the water. I go up and two guys just stunned out of their gourd sitting in the rain on the roof with a big spliff.

Look at him and go, hey, Mr. Miller, home early. We're just going to lay down some time. It happens. L.A., when you first get money, you don't know what the hell to do. I know. It's fun, by the way. Beautiful path. Beautiful. Oh, yeah. We're doing this in the house for the second time. The artwork is impeccable and the place is just the nines, Matt. Yeah.

I'm happy for you. Spade was always so smart. And then we'll wrap. I'm sorry, but I... No worries. I'm talking to you guys. Spade's...

took that show i said he's the smartest cat because everybody takes the thing where they're the center of it and you're the first guy they take out and you know they go which one i guess i know and i always said spade was so funny because george seagull and laura san she's hot off the they had a great class right yeah and george is just a player yeah they sent her post it

And Spudly nibbling around the frame. Wendy Malick. Nibbling around the frame. She was. She's great. She's kind of sexy. Sexy and funny. Delivers great jokes. And Spudly comes nibbling in. Hey, we got that photo shoot. I'm going to cast the models. And then he's like. He's like Batista. He heads back to the mountains with some mead and some.

meet and he stays out of the frames of that show. It's hard to memorize lines. Just come in and they said, if I do my own show, I'm just going to have to get a spade guy to come in. I'll carry all the lines and someone comes in and scores and leaves. I want to be that guy. Smart. Yeah, you scored in that show. I got lucky. All right. Thanks, Dennis. All right. Beautiful. Thanks, Dennis Miller. He's been our guest. Love you too. Peace out.

Hey, what's up, flies? What's up, fleas? What's up, people that listen? We want to hear from you and your dumb questions. Questions, ask us anything. Anything you want. You can email us at flyonthewallatcadence13.com.

Here's a spade. Okay, I'll just introduce this. I'm Ryan Bach. Dear David and Dana, I'm sorry for only coming up with a spade centric question. Okay, I'm going on a personal vacation. Okay, I'll take over. Okay, I'll relax. This is the longest question. It's something I've been dying to know for over a decade. No interviewer has ever asked him to my knowledge.

Can you please tell us everything about Emperor's New Groove experience? Sure. That's a separate podcast. How did it come to you? How did they decide it should be a llama? Do you realize it's by far the funniest cartoon made in the 21st century? And people quote it. Adore you both. Oh, you're back in. And happy this podcast came to life. Cheers.

Ryan, a female Ryan. A female Ryan. Okay, switch hit her name like Dana. Okay, what did the llama sound like? I mean, I'm so... Now, I can't remember. And what would he say? Hello, I'm the llama. I pooped my llama pants. That was his catchphrase. Oh, no wonder it made 300 million. Here's how it was. You know Owen Wilson. How's it going?

Yeah, you know, we could go to Argentina and like go surfing, you know, tomorrow if you want. It started out me, Owen and Carla Gugino were prince and the pauper. She was the queen. I was prince or whatever. And she was princess. I was going to marry her, I guess. And Owen was a peasant.

And we were going to switch places. That's just sort of basic story, right? So we did that for a year and a half. And they said, back then Disney, it was an honor. So I didn't get that much money. They go, it's an honor to be in it. And then Shrek comes along and you get paid. Less of an honor. Yeah, less of an honor and more of a paycheck. So I said, oh, I was the last of the honors. And I did it. And I was doing Just Shoot Me. And I go over and do my voice at Disney. And I go, this is fun, but...

After a year, I'm like, I'm over it. So they would show you like stick figures and animatics. And then they showed it to Michael Eisner. As the story goes, and I could be lying, but this is what I heard. Disney guy. Yeah, he was the head of Disney. He watches it and he doesn't love it. And he says, scrap it. What else can you do? And he goes, I liked, not really Spade, but I just like the prince's attitude of being like sort of snarky. What could he do? And they go, what if he turns into a llama? And he goes, yeah, something like that.

So he'd already spent millions. How do I get that job? It's unbelievable. And he flipped it. They came up with a new story. Another year and a half. Sting does the music. They throw away all his old songs. He gets mad. There's a documentary about that. Really? So this is a very interesting story. It was a real old thing. Yeah, Trudy did a documentary. So I finished it off. I was being crabby at the end because-

I didn't really know where the story was going. So we were just making up stuff. And when I saw the premiere, I never met Patrick Warburton, who was Kronk, who was great. - He's funny. - Or the kid, was it? Was it Yzma? Great. Sting's music was unreal. He got nominated for an Oscar. And then it was so funny at the premiere, I go,

Am I out of my mind or is this fucking hilarious? They did a great job. And you know, with cartoons, I did the voice fine, but they make everything funny around you, Dana. You've done it. You did Life of Pets, was it? I did the Secret Life of Pets. The first one,

Did really well. And then the second one, not so well. But we have a ride. Do you have a ride with your... I mean, I think they're working on something. Yeah, there's some drawings and some sketches right now. Oh, I'm in a whole big giant ride. They say more people will see the ride and go on the ride than ever see any movie. I have a ride. Damn it. It's at Universal. As you come into the thing, you're going down the tunnel. My dog is introducing it. You're going to love this ride.

And, you know, I get a little taste of the action. You know, little checks keep coming in. But yours is good, too. No, it's good. It just didn't make it to it. There's no rhyme? Couldn't you just give it a Ferris wheel or something? I'll check out The Secret Life of Farts or whatever it's called. Anyway. We're broadcasting from David's beautiful house. So I can make fun of him. Emperor's New Groove didn't pay for it. But I did it. And then I was so happy I did it because I really liked it. And I got good reviews for the only time in my life.

And then it went on and on for Disney. So I love it, and I appreciate all the people that like it out there, and I was lucky to be in it. If they animated our podcast, and you were a fly, what voice would you use for the fly? Meep, mop, moop. Ha ha ha!

It doesn't matter what it is. It doesn't matter. It's just the idea that you're trying. I'm a robot fly. Now, I played Buzz and Scuzz as horseflies in a show called Racing Stripes. Steve Harvey and I were flies, horseflies. I would do this voice, and no one would know who it was. That's a fly? I'd be a fly talking like Cary Grant, but no one, the kids wouldn't know. It'd just be, I'm a very sophisticated fly. This is how I am.

Fly on the Wall has been a presentation of Cadence 13. Please listen, then rate, review, and follow all episodes. Executive produced by Dana Carvey and David Spade, Chris Corcoran of Cadence 13, and Charlie Finan of Brillstein Entertainment. Production and engineering led by Greg Holtzman, Richard Cook, Serena Regan, and Chris Basil of Cadence 13.