Ray Romano
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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. Ray Romano.

Oh, yeah, yeah. We just had Ray Romano. I like that. We just had Ray on. Ray is a good buddy of mine. We did stand-up together at the Mirage for the last five years. Ray is a great stand-up. Very smooth.

Funny stand-up hosted SNL. Was it twice? Twice. Yeah. Had some great sketches in there. Did a classic sketch in there. We won't give it away. With Tim Meadows. I don't know the name of it. They're sportscasters. Yep. SportsCenter. Crazy funny. And we break all that down.

We go through his kind of his travails. We break that down to like powder. We break it down so in the tiniest bits, it's like sand. Yeah, we break it down like this is how I went to the club. And then we break that in half. This is how I got dressed. We break that in half. These are the shoes that I bought tonight. So we keep digressing. Eventually, we got him back to, he's just born. And his mother, bring it home for the house.

He's done Ice Age. He's done movies. He just directed and co-wrote a movie that was very good. No bullshit. Dane and I both saw it. We both, without knowing it, saw it and not comparing notes and on the podcast.

I have to say. I thought it was a very interesting movie. It is a bit of a roller coaster. It's not just funny, but it's kind of a tearjerker in places. That was fun because I knew that we both love the film, so we kind of go over his career in SNL because I didn't want to come out with it. But at the end, I think he was excited or happy because we legitimately love the movie. Yeah.

And it's a lot of stuff for parents. You know, it's not like a dark drama, but it's dramatic and it's funny at the same time. And the name of it is? Somewhere in Queens. Somewhere in Queens. I was going to say Night at the Queens. We turned into Siskel and Ebert. You know, movies to me. Am I Siskel or am I Ebert? You're the guy that's. Ray Romano is also, especially when you look at his resume, especially humble and real.

He didn't really get a break in show business until he's 36. He worked at a bank until he's 29. So his story is very interesting. And, God, he's done a lot after Everybody Loves You. Met his wife at the bank. Met his wife at the bank. And, you know, let's put it –

Eventually, he made a deposit on it. Okay. Sorry. Spoiler alert. Spoiler alert. Dennis Miller will sometimes appear on the podcast. So, Ray, here he is, Ray Romano. You know him. You love him. You know his voice. And he was very, very interesting.

Have a nice listen and remember, 10 and 2. Pull over and finish. Don't go to work or don't go into the store. Pull over and finish the whole goddamn podcast. Yeah. And the commercials are really funny. We don't like pauses. We're not the pause guys. There's no 30 second going forward. Not with this podcast. Do that with the other guys. We don't play that shit. We should do a podcast called The Other Guys. Kind of like the Will Ferrell movie.

I'll just remake that movie. I think the camera went off 20 minutes ago. No, they're out of film. Phil, what a way. He's like, is there a spider, motherfucker? Wow. Smash it and kill it to death. There's no pre-interview? No way to prep. No. No way to prep. It's just being in the moment. Real. Can I bite a piece of bread while we do this? Yeah. Yeah? Is that disrespectful? No.

Not at all, especially because you've announced it. Now, people listening all over the world, by the way, will be like, that's cool he told us what was happening. He wasn't having some kind of jaw dysfunction. No, I came right from my eye doctor. I haven't had breakfast yet. It's all right. Eat all you want. I talked to Dana for the first 10 minutes anyway. Oh, okay. So I discovered Spade and Dennis Miller-

discovered, was it Chris Rock or who did he, oh, he also, Schneider. Did anyone discover you in a linchpinny kind of way back in the day? Some club owner, some big time comic? Hey, kid, you're going to make it. You may not have one. What do you mean discover, like, how did you discover those guys? Well, recommended them. Yeah, that's a strong word. Dennis, not discover, that's the wrong word, but Dennis Miller, he saw Thaburu Thandler

and told lauren michaels about him right i believe right it's that kind of thing well that's a bit yeah that's networking no that's a big thing i'll answer for you because ray's eating ray was performing at probably the cellar and he yeah but i'll tell you one thing i'll tell you one thing before i got to the cellar i was uh i was at the improv i was just a kind of a

Still a late night slash maybe get on the regular show comic at the improv. And my buddy, you know John Manfellati, David? I do, yeah. Yeah. He was a regular at the Cellar.

And on one Friday night, somebody canceled. They didn't have a guy, blah, blah, blah. And the owner said, who can we get down here? And he said, there's a new dude at the improv that's pretty good. And he called the improv and he called me. He said, can you get down to the cellar in 15 minutes? And I said, yeah. And I raced down there. I got there and

And that then became, the cellar became my club, you know? That was, but he's the one who got me in there. I don't know if you count that. Do you count that as anything? Yeah. I'm going to count it. I'm going to count it. I know there are people who disagree with me. But so just for inside baseball, so the improv, which Bud Friedman had, we had 55th and 45th Street. 44th and 9th. 44th and 9th. And the cellar was...

in the village. McDougal Street, yeah. So it's like a 10-minute cab ride to Nirvana. At least, maybe more. 20-minute cab ride to Comedy Nirvana. That could be your book if you ever write a book. Dan, I have a technical question for Ray because I only met people at the improv when I was staying out there and they said, this guy Gary Grant could get you some road gigs if you fly out there. So I do two weeks. I take a subway to

two times we would walk to the improv, sit there and meet some comic, like you or someone, it wasn't you, but someone that was established would drive me to like BF Packy's in Jersey and I would do 20 minutes and I'd get, you know, 60 bucks. So in two weeks I could clear $500, which I did and it was great. But the improv stage, is it elevated at all in New York? It seems like it's in the corner. A little bit.

A little bit. It was, yeah. I mean, now it's an Italian restaurant, the improv. But what do you mean? Is it elevated? Yeah. Because it looked like the one in L.A. was like, you walk upstairs and you're like, you know, you walk up three stairs your way. I was scared of that improv. I got humiliated there once because I was doing the Mickey Rooney show. I was like 25.

and I was going to do sets at the improv, and I'm doing all my dancing around and singing and doing little funny moves and funny little voices, and I thought I was doing really well, and then an old guy, probably 40, came up to me and go, I like you. You get laughs, kid, but they don't like you, and he pointed to like 15 comics hanging out on the other side of the club. What? They don't like you. They don't get you. Wait, the New York improv? Yeah, New York improv. Yep, 1981. Oh.

Oh, that was before me. But I do remember when I was coming up in there, I remember you coming in, Dana, and this is when you were on SNL. So you did a spot and you were the big guest star. And I remember, I think John Lovitz was in the audience.

At the improv, was at the improv also. And so you on stage said, how do you guys like Lovitz? What do you think of John Lovitz? You were asking the audience to get a reaction. Balderdash, fine. Now you have to bring me up to try to get a laugh. They like me better. I remember, yeah, I was a young dude then thinking. Ray, who were the good guys when you were starting? Who was like on the slate there? Jerry. Jerry?

No. At the improv? No, Jerry was never there. Our paths never crossed. Wow. At the improv was like Alan Havy and Ron Darien, I remember. Chappelle was just starting. Chris Rock was just kind of starting then. And then at the cellar, it was more when I ran into like Jon Stewart and Louis C.K. Yeah.

But, you know, the Cellar's the club that I still go to now. Cellar's very big. Didn't you shoot your, what was the name of your, it was a Netflix special. You started the set at the Cellar and then you walked to another club during the special. Another Cellar. That's the annex of the Cellar. Yeah, it's around the corner. It was called right here around the corner. It was called The Jaunt. And it was just a quick jaunt across.

Were you quick to get kind of what you would call your voice and like the way you do stand up now? Or did you work with props and puppets and stuff and then get into your thing? I had a couple props. When we dig down, Dana had props, I had props. You had a prop, right? A puppet? No, I had a little duffel bag of... It was at the end of my act. It was at the end of my act and I would do...

Impressions I would do the kid you always wanted to sit next to during a physics exam.

And it was nerdy hat, nerdy glasses. Interesting. And I would turn around and do the old reveal. Closer alert. And did he talk? Nope, nope. He didn't talk. All visual? All visual. He was all visual. So it was just a set for, I think there were four things. It was the kid you wanted to sit next to during a physics exam. Boom. It's a funny setup. That same kid's mother.

I did his mother. Whoa. What'd she look like? And it was just wig with cat glasses. Same thing. You know. Okay. So one after the other. Yeah. And then I did with the wig and the glasses. I don't know if you guys remember. The Mets were, this was 86. So the Mets were in the World Series and the playoffs. And there was a woman who sat behind home plate.

who tried to distract the pitcher by doing this, rolling her hands around. And she was prominent if you watch the game. Sure, on camera. Like this. So with the wig on and the glasses, I did that woman also. Oh, God, what a tricky laugh. Are these getting equal laughs? Are these just all killing? They're doing very well. And then the closer, not only was props, but it involved music.

I said, of course, the counter to the nerdy guy was the cool guy.

who would come into class and it was just, it was sunglasses, sunglasses and half a cigarette. And when I put my back to the audience, a lot of back to the audience so far. Yeah. When I put my, and this would crush when I put my back to the audience, I would, they would play the theme to, um, uh, eye of the tiger.

And it would be... And then on dunt, I would turn around. And then on each dunt, my...

I would move my head. So I had glasses and a cigarette. Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun,

Damn. It crushed. You're the kind of guy I would hate to follow. Oh, my God. He walks up and goes, follow that motherfucker. Wait a minute. I had one more. I had one more. One more prop and one more impression, and it would be a nuclear explosion. And I would take...

The rubber band that, I don't know if you know this, in broccoli in the supermarket, the broccoli rubber bands, they're fat. Yeah, well. I would get one of those. Very well. And I would put it on my head, and you could feel it creeping up. So as it was creeping up my head, you know, the pressure of it, I would do the whistle of the nucleon. Oh, yeah.

And when I would time it so, and it would snap up my hair into a mushroom cloud. It would be like a little bit like a mushroom cloud. And very seldom did that not happen.

Oh, super kill. Well, that damn. I mean, I know this is kind of crazy, but are those bits still around for hire? I mean, I got a sale, a couple of nickels in my pocket. There was one day on, you know, when I, when I got the TV show,

You got a TV show? What was that? Yeah, yeah. Okay. I got every pose Raymond and Letterman was our producer, you know? So I would do Letterman at least twice a year, every year the show was on. So when I was running out of material stuff, one of those spots about five or six years in,

I recall all those impressions sitting next to Dave. Throwback. Oh, okay. You know, I just showed Dave, this is from the old days and blah, blah, blah, whatever. And they crushed again. I'm not joking. That would have been good on Star Search because it's quick. It's fucking score.

Yeah. And you get your last, you get four stars, you move on. I got 1.5 stars on Star Search. You did Star Search? On Star Search, I lost to Geechee Guy. Geechee Guy, Joker Nate.

Yeah. Did you do it? Did any of you guys do it? I didn't do it, but did you use those bits on Star Search? No, not at all. No, not at all. I did 90 seconds of stand-up and it didn't work. And you get a two, it was one to four stars, right? So you get it.

You get a two just for showing up, you know? And I got three, two, two, two, and the last person gave me a one. So it averaged out to one point. That's the most dismal score I've ever heard of on Starz. No, I mean, that's cruel. I ask people this. How did you deal with stuff that didn't work well in your career? Like that thing. Were you injured for a week mentally or you just went and go...

They don't know what they're talking about. No, I would. Yeah, it was a blow. It was a blow. But the story is actually has a happy ending because my wife was pregnant with my first kid, my daughter, and she was due about four weeks from that. So I fly out to L.A. to do Star Search. And, you know, if you win, you come back. You go the next week. Next week, yeah.

But they film it like a couple days later. So I would have had to stay and stay if I want. So I lost. And I told my manager, we were going to stay for a couple days. I go, let's just go home. And when I went home, my wife's water broke and she delivered the baby the next day. So...

I was lucky to be, yeah. Did you kind of intuitively rate the baby at all with stars, you know, when you saw your kid? Sorry. Well, you know what was funny? What was funny was she was born in the city. I like it. She was born, I was living in Queens and she was born in the city, you know, and so I was going back and forth. And one, the second night I went to the cellar just to say hello to the guys.

And I went down in the basement and you know Mike Sweeney? Do you guys remember Mike Sweeney? Anyway, Mike Sweeney was there and he saw me and he goes, "Hey, congratulations, man." And I said, "No, didn't you hear I lost?" I thought, "He goes, 'The baby, you asshole.'" - You know Rosetta Stone, the most trusted language learning program?

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You just visit rosettastone.com slash fly. That's 50% off, unlimited access to 25 language courses for the rest of your life. Redeem your 50% off at rosettastone.com slash fly today. Ray, I auditioned for Star Search at the mall in Arizona and they go, big audition. I thought Ed McMahon would be there. He was not. But they just had like a cattle call. So I waited in line.

like a chump. I, and I wore a white sweatshirt that had a bat on it, like a Batman, not even a logo that said just Dana. It was just this outline of a bat. And I thought that signified comedy somehow. I don't even know why, like Batman, like, I don't know. So I go up and I do my bit, you know, they're just running a camera and the guy's reading a magazine and everyone just goes up and does like two minutes and

And I thought literally when I even got to my second joke, it would be like a movie. He'd look up from the magazine. And then on my third joke, he'd start to stand up. And then on the fourth joke, he'd like hug me and say, we got him. And just like shut the place down and say, you're going to Hollywood. Literally no one looked up. I did my act. No one called me. I go. And even for like two years, I'm like, it takes a while. Cause they got to get the tapes and they got to review them. And so I never got on.

God damn, I wanted that one bad. Both of you guys had the Young Comedian special on HBO, which I don't know if it still exists, but that was kind of a big deal. And I coincidentally hosted. You hosted, right? Yeah. Hosted Rays? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. And I just, my blink about you then was just the confidence. And I've gotten to know you a little more over time, but you came across so confident and right as...

I was about to go out to introduce you. You said, you said, do reintroduce me as Regis. So I don't even do an impression of you, but so I did Regis Philman. Did I say that? Yeah. Do Regis. I want to, I want to be brought out to Regis and you crushed. Do you remember who was on that one? Janine Garofalo. Yeah.

Help me out. Andy Kindler. Andy Kindler, who's hysterical. Comic. Nick DiPaolo. Yes, another great guy. Bill Bellamy. Bill Bellamy, wow. And Judd Apatow. And Judd Apatow. Yeah. Really? Judd was on that one? I didn't know Judd was on any of them. Judd was on that. Yeah. And did that help you? That's kind of a boost back then. There wasn't much going on, and HBO was a big deal back then.

Yeah. I mean, I had, I think after that I got my own half hour special. They did those half hour specials. Sure. So I got my, my, my own special. Um, it was all good, but, um, you know, the thing then was to look to try to get a development, not to try to get a development deal, but that's what was happening.

And nobody was offering me anything. I had done all of those things, you know, the HBO, the Young Comedians. You start to get nervous because you go, I'm out of like tricks here. They've all seen me. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I thought. It was like about 11 years in. And I thought, well, no one's offering. And then it was it wasn't until, you know, I got I got news radio. I got, you know, hired on news radio.

And then fired on day two. And yeah, so it was right around that then where I was like wondering, I love doing stand-up. If it's not going to happen, it's not going to happen. But then Letterman, I got my first Letterman and Letterman made it happen. You know, it was Letterman or nobody. Were you fired or were you...

When I looked it up, it said you left there to go to your own sitcom, like the writers from there. Yeah. Yeah. That's what it says on Wikipedia. So we're going to challenge this one. I've never seen that ever. Isn't that great? No, no, I was stone cold. Six o'clock in the morning. My manager called me at the hotel.

and said, they're going in another direction. What was that direction? That phrase. Who played you? Who played you? Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan came in. Yeah, yeah. So in a parallel universe, you are hosting the world's biggest podcast right now.

We both made out all right, I guess. You know, Ray, Dana, back then, I would say going on the improv, I was just trying to kill. But with Ray, the more important thing was, which I couldn't really understand, they're just looking for a personality back then to write a sitcom about.

Tim Allen had tool time. So like, this is his act. He's like a tough guy. And they could, they could see a show around that. I was just concerned about doing good and getting laughs. And then you have to look at the big picture. Like Ray, they see his whole persona up there and say, we could see him as this and do a whole show around that. And I think that's what happened. Right. Right. Well, I mean, like I said, nobody was, was, was interested except for Letterman.

I mean, I don't know what he saw. I was just like, I guess the every guy, you know, um, but I had a really good first Letterman spot. I mean, as hard as I am on myself, it was, it was one of the better spots I've had ever on TV. That's so good. That's so, there's nothing like it. Yeah. And Burnett, Rob Burnett called me on the following Saturday. It was a weekend and he called me

And, and he said, listen, we're, they liked it. We're interested. Don't, don't sign with anybody else. And, you know, I told him there's nobody else. You know, it's easy to get. Yeah. How old were you at that point?

I was like 30, 36 maybe. Yeah. And they sent me to L.A. You know, I had three kids then. I had three little kids. I had the twins and the three-year-old. And they sent me to L.A. And I interviewed with, I met with about 10 potential showrunners.

And the first guy I wanted turned it down. The first guy was a writer named Michael Borkow, who was writing on Friends at the time. And Friends was the hot, sexy show. So I got all, you know, seduced by that. And he was cool. He was, you know, he was single, though. He didn't have a family or anything. And I went, we offered it to him and he passed on it.

And then Phil Rosenthal was my second choice. And, you know, if that doesn't happen, I don't know. You know, who knows?

Did you ever have a moment, because it's sort of a theme of the show, of maybe trying for Saturday Night Live? Because everything in hindsight, like when you're two hosting things, which we'll get to, I mean, you were great, like a great sketch player. Did you have any kind of designs about that? Because it's either the sitcom path in those days or pure stand-up or SNL. I kind of knew...

I wasn't a really pure sketch guy, you know? I didn't have voices and characters and I didn't know... But...

Did I dream of being on SNL? Yes, I did. I did. You know, I was 17, 18 when it came out and we stayed home and watched it every night, every week. But I never thought I was going to be a sketch player in an audition. I never asked my manager to get me an audition for SNL because I kind of knew I didn't have that muscle in there, you know.

But I wanted to be on it. It's very hip. I mean, it's a cool road if you blow up on the classic show, Everybody Loves Raymond, and then they call, and then you're going to go host. So your first thing is just hosting. You skip it all. And that's quite a privilege. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was probably...

I think it was year two, maybe, of Everybody's Ready. It was 99. So three. It was year three, actually. Were you ahead out of the gate? On the Raymond? No. No. We were on Fridays for the first 20, 21 of the first 26 episodes, we were on Fridays and we were in 100th place. And then the only thing that was keeping him from canceling us was

The reviews were pretty good. So, you know, it was Les Moonves at the time. So he kind of hung on to us. And then he gave us a five-week trial at the end of year one. He put us on after Cosby. And Cosby was, you know, their hit. And he said that, you know, we knew that that was our trial, that if we didn't deliver then, we were gone.

And we actually went up a tick from Cosby. What? Whoa. Wow. Was Cosby at some point, did I read this right, that at a given point he would get 50 million people watching his sitcom? Maybe that first one. Yeah, the first one. This was the second one. I don't know.

I don't know about 50. That's all. That seems like a lot, but I got canceled at 25 million with the, one of the boys was Mickey Rooney going back to that one more time. They go, we're stuck at 25 million. We're out of here. Really? Yeah.

Now if you get a million, you're a hit, right? If your parents watch, you'll probably get a season. Just shoot me that, Cass. 700 million. Bigger than the Super Bowl. Every week. Half the week. No, when you look back, the ratings, even on Rules of Engagement. Oh, a few people remember? Thank you. That we got the same thing every, you know, it's just typical. The ratings at that point made us get on the borderline of canceled.

today would be huge but it goes down when then people go I got picked up we got a .09 I'm like that's great yeah I don't even know what the ratings are .09 doesn't sound like a lot of something yeah I don't either I used to watch every point of anything out of 100 out of 1 out of what I don't

I would look them up every week, man. And I would check the numbers every week. Oh yeah. And now I, yeah, who knows? I can't tell what's good and what's not good. Did you call that hotline and it would give you the ratings? Yeah. Yeah. I would call something. I remember I would call something. It would make your day or it would crush you. It'd be like, Oh yeah. Yeah. And we got for our finale, the equation was this.

We got... If you took Seinfeld's finale and subtracted Friends' finale, that was the numbers for our finale. Like, literally, exactly perfect, buddy. Yeah.

I don't think it was good, but Seinfeld got like 75 friends got like close to 50 or whatever. We got close to 30, you know, huge, huge, gigantic. That's bigger than the Oscars. I saw a sketch. I saw a sketch you did Ray about a sports center. I mean, we don't have to get in all the sketches, but.

There was one when you were with Tim Meadows. Yeah. I mean, that's the one, that's the one. Is that the one really? Cause I, you know, when you look them up there on YouTube and you jump around, but that one, that's the one that has a little bit,

the barest nugget of a little bit of a cult following because of the sweet sassy molasses. Yeah. I wonder if they say it on TV at SportsCenter now because it's so fucking funny. That was very inspired by

you know, the new sports guys that they're at the desk and I'm starting to watch it. And then I see the turn and I go, oh, damn, that's. Yeah, I didn't see it coming. And then you landed it so beautifully, Ray. Just like. Yeah, well, we I have to thank Mike Royce was one of the writers on Raymond and they all flew him, Phil and one other writer, Tom, flew with me.

And Mike kind of threw that together like a couple nights before. And we all then worked on it. But he came up with that. And he came up with the sweet sassy molassy, you know. And it worked. And, you know, the guy, it was Tim Meadows was playing Stuart Scott. I don't know if you're. Real guy, yeah. Yeah. Booyah. Yeah, booyah.

And sadly, you know, he passed away. But he had cancer. But I saw him probably a year before he passed away, the first time I ever saw him. And I didn't know whether he was going to be into it or not. But he was all – he couldn't have been more flattered by it. He was really cool about it, yeah. But that's the – yeah, like every now and then I'll be at a golf –

chat tournament and someone from the side will yell out sweet sassy molasses so just for people who may want to look it up it's sort of two news they start sportscasters they start to use all these colorful phrases to report the games and Ray's character takes it in this

But he's known for the character that Tim Meadows is playing is the real guy who was known for having that catchphrase, Booyah! You know, whenever he would narrate a clip or something. Yeah, and he has cold side of the pillow, stuff like that, right?

The real guy's Booyah and then your guy is Sassy Molassier. I was bringing him. I was the new guy and I tried to match him with Sweet Sassy Molassier. Yours had some racial stuff in it that he wasn't happy with. It's funny when I look back at it, I'm like, there's no chance. I don't know if we would have wrote that now. And then the second, the funny, that was what happened was the night before we flew in for SNL,

uh, was the go, I think it was the golden globe awards. Uh, it was one of those awards and Roberto Benini won and he, he jumped up on the chair, you know, and he, and he went crazy and, and I was looking at him and I was thinking, I, they, I could look like him. If they could make me look like Benini and on the plane there, we, we, we threw together the sketch. That was the second one up that night.

Was the Roberto Benigni comes into the restaurant and goes nuts, you know? Was there any... That was in the same show? Same show. It was... That's good. Out of the gate. Boom, boom. Ford sent it first and then Benigni was next. Yeah. That is the thing about SNL dime store observation is this stuff is thought of and then it's fully mounted 24 hours later.

And on live TV, there's some, the immediacy of it, there's nothing like that. They're very good at it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was awesome. I mean, it was. It's a challenge. You tell them, I need to be Roberto Bonini. They're like, yep. And then. Got it. You walk in the next day and they got you all dialed in. You're like, where'd you find this outfit? Well, we matched it with, he wore it at the Oscars. We matched it with this. We.

got the wig from here and you're like, shit, man, these guys know what they're doing. So you're jumping around like that. Did you get hurt at all your hosting times on sketches? Did you get hurt doing that? I mean, anytime you're doing physical and it's live and your brain is thinking of so many things, it can fall down and stuff. No, I didn't get physically hurt. I'm happy to hear that. Yeah.

Yeah. Mentally, mentally. He looks so beat up. That was the question I want. That's my number one question for today. Did you get it? Did you guys take any blows in the whole time? I don't know if you can see it. I got a bump here. I had a grade three shoulder separation doing a pre-tape pratfall as Dan Quayle, the vice president, going over the ottoman like the Dick Van Dyke show. Yeah. And I just crushed it. And then I was...

I went two more times not knowing. And then I'm walking around like a pirate with my shoulder way up. And Mary Tyler Moore's husband was an M.D. And he goes, hey, what's what's wrong? He felt it and said, I think you've got a shoulder separation. So I went, they checked it out, but it was just barely on the edge of a surgery. But I did a show the next night and it was very painful. Switching clothes really fast with a separate. Did you do that? Did you do the bit?

Well, that was a pre-tape, so it showed in the pre-tape. Oh, pre-tape. Did you get hurt, David? I got hurt twice. One was Schiller vision. If you weren't into sketches, he could pluck you for a day shoot. Films. And I was, me and Victoria Jackson, we were older people, and bad luck, they drop an atomic bomb, lands on my head. But they did it from a ladder, and I have a bad neck. And it's...

And it's a jammed neck. And so him dropping this thing, no matter how heavy it is, it wasn't that heavy, but it keeps racking me and they keep doing take after take. And I almost can't stand up anymore. I'm like,

I feel like I have a concussion. I'm like, I can't do this anymore, but I can't say anything because I just want to be on the show. And then Farley picked me up backwards. We fell through a table and motivational speaker. And then I sort of got rocked by that. Farley picked me up is a tough. Yeah. Where does that go? And by the way, it's not super thought out in quotes. So he's like, I'll pick you up and we'll kind of spin around and fall through a table. I'm like, sure. And whatever happened, you just cross your fingers. But yeah.

Yeah, you weren't hurt during Ice Age, were you, doing that voiceover? Yeah, I was. You were the mammoth.

That was a big one. Are they still doing them or is it over? Don't you want more? We did five of them. Five? Yeah, five. Nobody gets five. Well, you've done, I mean, you guys have both done animation, right? Transylvania did four and I'm like, do one more, motherfucker. Secret Life of Pets. When you did it, did either of you have other actors in the room with you? Because I never did for five movies. No, nobody. David? You didn't have, what's crack-a-lackin'?

You didn't have Chris Rock in there? No. No, I never did. We talked to Andy Samberg, who's in Hotel Transylvania, and I said, I told him I thought Miley Cyrus was first going to be Selena or Selena's part, which we didn't even agree.

agree on that so who knows if it's a lie and then he said I never actually got to do it with Selena and they play boyfriend and girlfriend husband and wife right and he and I'm like all four never he's like no we don't even do read throughs anymore you know we used to do one read through the beginning and then I just get pieces right I don't

Didn't really know what I was doing or what the movie was. I didn't even know the plot. Just start yelling. People would be saddened to find that out. I'm just a mad dog. I don't know. And that was it. And I see it. I see it at the premiere. I go, what? I know. I mean, listen, it's great to do it. You know, especially you got kids and all. It's fun. But it's really creatively not that much fun to do them, you know? And you can't even...

you can't move away from the microphone too much. You know, you're trying to animate. Yeah. You're trying to act. I'm trying to be a mammoth sliding down an ice glacier, you know, and they go, Ray, you got to keep your head still. You know, you can't move. Well, there's about five people behind a wall of glass. You're in a booth by yourself or a little studio. And you just look up to, if you can see them kind of laughing, you can't hear them if they don't press a button and you're kind of just in a vacuum thinking it's funny. I,

I would assume you could improvise a little, right? Because I couldn't. They really didn't. Oh, really? They didn't really encourage improvising. Not too much. They'd let you do it, but you knew later on they had a, you know, they knew what the story was. Right, right. You couldn't go, oh, now I'm going to do three minutes. I kept trying to sneak in George Bush Sr. and I'm going to do it. And they go, that's not even the show. But I go, but it's funny. Right.

But anyway, that's a whole other story. Yeah, they go, Ray, you're sounding like more of a coyote than a mammoth. And you're like, no, no, that was my fault. I went into something else. When I did Emperor's New Groove, we did a year and a half stop, redid the script. When I was going in, like Dana said, I was just getting pages. It turned into just you walk in.

And they're like, this is a scene where you're on a log and they give you as much as you can. You go, okay. And you do it. And the magic of how good they are, I have to say, Hotel Transylvania, I would laugh. They were so cute and funny. And what they do with the animation,

and Emperor's New Group, they just, they make it so much better than it even seems when you're doing it. Yeah. You go, this, I don't really get what's going on. It's a little jumbled in my head of like, where were we and what are we? And then you see it and you go, oh, they know exactly what they're doing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that would be it every time they'd say, okay, Ray, you're running away from this guy and he's, and,

And I go, okay, all right. I go, well, Ray, you're farther away than that. So, you know, we need to... You're like, am I scared or am I happy? They're like, it doesn't matter. But isn't it great when your animated character gets an incredible laugh, like lands a perfect pratfall and you're like, yeah, thanks. You're taking high fives in the theater. Well, that's what happened was like, I would get credit for...

for an emotional part, there was an emotion, especially in Ice Age 1, I think, there was a part where it was a little bit of a tearjerker and it was the music and the way they animated my face. I wasn't even saying anything. And I would get credit as an actor for getting this emotion from these people. I'm like, all right, you know, yeah. I'll take it. I remember when it played in another country, like the first time it played in Mexico. So,

They use a different actor. A different actor does the Spanish version. So it's not my me. It's not my face. It's animation. It's not my voice. And I remember my agent congratulating me on how well it's doing in Mexico. I'm like, all right. I don't know if I get that, but okay. I have nothing to do with it. But they're like copying you. There's a German David Spade that does my stuff.

Oh, really? So, schlau die den Hey, baddies? Or what? I'm sorry. Hey, buddy! In German? Schlaus feidend? Gets all my nuances. That's fake German. Don't be offended. He goes, there's no nuance in his performance. All same performance. Und schlaus feidend. Und schlau die. Sorry, fake German. Are we going to get letters? No. I don't know. I took German in college because my girlfriend... Gesundheit.

The girl I was dating at the time spoke German. I thought, oh, she'll help me. And then we broke up and I was stuck in a German class. Yeah. How do you say yes? Yes, I have perfection. Yes, I have protection in German. No, no, no, no, no. That's not how it works. I remember. Wait, and what does that mean? That's one. Yeah. What?

That's counting one to 10 in German. Oh, that's it? I thought it was some sort of pickup line. No, and then ich liebe dich is I love you. Oh, I love dick. Jesus, that's a little on the edge. Guten tag is a good day.

What about Hausaufgaben is homework. Haas du Bruder, have you brothers? Nein, but Abra Cabra is Weisswester. Abra Cadabra. Abra Cadabra. Hitler used to be a magician in the 1920s. He was a painter as well. Abra Cadabra. Abra Cadabra. You don't know when the rabbit comes. Sorry. Sorry, Ray.

I'm a nibbler, Dana. And I think you are too, but you always know me that I just have to keep the energy going. And I think because I learned from my dad, pistachios are a good source of just, you know, nibble, wake you up.

They're always delicious. I actually named a character in a movie I did called Master of Disguise. The lead character's name is Pistachio. That's how much I love pistachios. Yeah. Well, wonderful pistachios have literally come out of their shells. It's the same taste. It's delicious, but...

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

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

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Could we just for a second, just because you may have some impressions of Lorne Michaels, just going in, and then we're going to move on to, because I think a big part of your legacy is this gigantic career you've had after your half-hour sitcom. But do you have any, like, were you just intimidated, or how did you just process being in the 17th floor with all the writers, and you go into Lorne's office, and he's talking to you. People have talked to that moment. I don't know if you have any.

thing well i didn't i didn't know how it worked you know i'm i was you know very of course nervous you know um and we yeah the first day you go in the office right and again this is 20 you know i haven't been on in 23 years but um

All the writers come in and sit all over the office, all over the floor. Right? Yeah. It's just packed with people. And they all pitch what they're thinking of. You sit in the only good chair. Right. Next to Lauren. And I didn't know until a couple of guys told me later, like,

Sometimes they don't have anything, so they just make up a pitch, right? Fake pitches. Yeah. Yeah. You're a caveman afraid of caves. But you hear everything. You hear all these, I don't know, 30, 40 pitches of different...

And it's intimidating because you're like, you know, one of them is you're a Southern farmer and you did it. And I'm like, I can't do a Southern farmer. I don't know. You play a carrot stick. Okay. Yeah. I throw a, I throw a bluff in Ray. I always go, Oh, Michael Keaton, can you do Russian accent? And he goes, yeah. And I go, okay. For no reason. Well, one of the right, one of the pitches was,

You're my grandfather and you're this. And my knee-jerk reaction was, this is how stupid I was. I was like, wow, he thinks I look old enough to be his grandfather, you know? I'm not really, this is freaking sketch comedy. They're going to make you look like whoever. Everybody plays everybody. That's funny. Yeah.

But, Lorne, afterwards we discussed some of the stuff we heard, I guess. He was... I mean, he was... You know, they treat the host really well, right? Yes, yes. Because he defers to you. I mean, that's what it felt like. You know, when we whittled down some of the sketches, he was really deferring to what I thought would work. And then, of course, he would...

put in his thing, you know, and, and, and you, you are part of the process there, you know, I guess as much as you want to be. Right. Yeah. It's something because you take his advice because he knows the show, but he also lets the host go if you're not comfortable or if you don't. And he would do it like this. If everyone's talking, talking, talking silence. Uh, Raymond.

It's just that. Yeah. What do you, are you sort of circling the wagons on what you might want to do? Like he'd go, uh, raise my grandpa. What did you think of that one?

And you're like, I don't know. And he goes, is it because you have to wear gray hair? Yeah. No, I just didn't like the whole feel. Do you want to do Mr. Short Shorts? You don't have to do Mr. Short Shorts. Mr. Short Shorts. I think it's a good visual piece. It doesn't matter. But if you don't want to do Mr. Short Shorts, you don't have to. And there's a song as well. You'll dance around in short shorts. Yeah. Don't forget, we brought in, we brought in,

We brought in like three sketches and two of them got on, you know? That's a miracle because they don't like when you bring your Goomba writers in there. They go, oh, here we go. That's smart. Yeah, they get mad. All the writers go, hey, guess what? Next week, Ray's bringing writers and everyone goes,

But they were all, you know, it was Higgins, right? It was Steve Higgins. Steve Higgins, producer. Great guy. Yeah. And he was the, I guess he was the head writer then. Yeah, I think so. And we, you know, we got in there and we worked on these sketches that we brought in. He helped polish it up, you know, and

Um, yeah, I mean, I can imagine, you know, these guys, yeah, this is what they're living is the right sketches for us. And I didn't even think of that. And here we are coming in with. Yeah. You took food out of their mouth, took it off their plate. And then on the second time I did it, we came in again. Yeah.

And they didn't crush as much. Those sketches, they came up a little short, the ones we brought in. By the way, Ray, I don't think I remember when hosts would bring writers. I think Jamie Foxx, maybe Martin Lawrence. When they would bring writers, it was very hard.

to make the transition because they weren't quite exactly right. You know, like the sketches were funny in a way, but you know, it is Dana, like for what the stamp of everyone knows and read through sort of how everything works. Maybe there's too many sets in them. There's something weird about them. Oh yeah.

The point is they don't always get all the way to the end, even though I was kidding. Everyone's well-meaning. If it's funny, it's funny. Put it on. But I think you getting two on is... You say two the first time? That's a lot. Yeah, and it was the first one and the second one. Oh, they kill. Yeah. Ford Center and Benini were back-to-back. Those sound great. But...

Listen, I wasn't trying to, we weren't trying to step on anybody's toes. I just, I was just saying, guys, come with me. We had, we had Phil Rosenthal and two guys, you know? Yeah. The mafia. You're the mob. No, no, no. So, so Ray, because you're, you don't wear your stardom on your sleeve. Like I'm just interested in,

um like if you go drop into a club maybe you're not doing much right now but when you're getting ready for your special and the mc is like okay fasten your comedy seat the next gentleman you know you're trying out jokes have you had that experience of the expectation of ray romano yeah i i

I, of course, whenever I'm in the city, I go on, I go to the cellar, whenever I'm in New York, I go on. And, you know, I was just in Atlanta, I was working in Atlanta. So I dropped it on the punchline, the Atlanta punchline. I don't know if you guys did that. I did it like 30 years ago. I when I was just doing the road, I did a spot a week at the punchline. And

We have a special guest. Yeah, they pile it on. I've been not a fan of that since forever. Even before I was the guy they were saying. Before they would go

goose it up like crazy, you know? Um, and I'm like, yeah, just lower, you know, let's come in with lower expectations. And yeah, um, I've done standup with Ray. He always crushes. It's, it's not even a joke. He always, it always works. I, you know, obviously angered by it, but that's,

Does a great job. Yeah, he does a great job. I did five years in Vegas with him off and on. But Dana filled in for you one week. That's right, Dana. David, I opened for Ray. No, no. We co-headlined. We co-headlined, but the show starts at 10.

And so, and then you do your set and then whoever goes on around 10, 20, and then you wait and then you do a little shtick afterwards. You know, I usually get up at six, you know, so it was a long day, but David wasn't a fan of that either. I stuck it out. And then, cause we were like, I think for a while, the trick in Vegas is they have a boys demand or someone has a full show before us.

You want to take that? They do a full show. It's Lorne Michaels. He has a life. And then it's, they let the audience out. Then it's cheaper just to go. We have the room, people in Vegas, it's 10 o'clock, Ray and Spade. They're just a standup, just have a stool and a glass of water. So they just said, let's see who can come in. So we do a big show. It was really fun.

But I always thought, can they flip-flop us? I think the shows before us, I think it was Shimblim after us. They're just very family-oriented, and ours are usually more adults. Well, you know what's funny is the room we play, the Mirage, is really a great room. Great, yeah. And we've been doing those shows at 10 o'clock or whatever, like you said, five years. I've been doing it longer than that. I was with Kevin James before you came in. Yeah. And...

And those shows are just killer shows. And then there was one, wasn't there one weekend where we had an eight o'clock show? And it was even better. It was even better. Yeah, it's such a great, fresh crowd. Because by the time we get off, it's almost midnight. And they're like, what the fuck? And in Vegas, you know...

they've been, they've been going hard in Vegas. So it gets, they get tired, you know, but, but, but listen, it was local play. But what we would do at the end was we would come out and do a Q and a, I know it was fun. I liked that. I always liked that stuff. Right. And then we needed to close the show. So we would close with just a joke joke. Right. Right. That's right. So I remember when David started working there,

I had to say, we came up with a joke for you to say. Yes, of course. I didn't have one. I go, oh, we do a joke. And you go, well, just, well, here's one. You gave me a good joke to say. You do one, then I'll do one. Yeah, and you did it. And they're kind of dirty jokes, but you know what I'm saying.

And I remember every day and every time we do it, we do the gig every what, three or four months or whatever. And you come back and you kind of half forget the joke. But the joke was bomb proof. Bulletproof for sure. One of you has to say it because if I was listening to this podcast, I want to go, well, what was the joke? It's a little R rated. I remember because every time I get it wrong and I would look at Ray Baffled because the most infuriating thing was.

He goes, all right, let's just end with a joke. You got one? I go, yeah, I heard one from my roulette dealer and I would say one and then he would say one. Okay. And his luckily was so good because

He gives me one that works every time and then I would just look at him and he'd stare at me and go, you motherfucker. Because I'm just mangling it and no matter how you tell it, it would get a laugh and I couldn't believe it because I'd be a little buzzed and I'd go blah, blah. And I could see while I'm finding it while I tell it. It's this, okay. It's not that good. We've overhyped it. It's not that good. By the way, it's five sentences. It's past midnight on the strip in Vegas. Here comes David with his joke.

Oh yeah, Ray, I got one. Okay, it's a couple's... See, what's good is now you can't remember it now, which is exactly how you would do it there. Exactly. Perfect reenactment of you on stage. And then I would back out. Yeah, I'd back out. Okay, 3, 2, 1, what's your joke? It's a couple, but they are 90 years old. So it's their 60th anniversary. I'm just making up numbers. 60th ann...

anniversary birthday and so the guy as a present the woman says i'm gonna go wait in bed i'm gonna go uh get my present ready in the bathroom and i'll be right out so he lays in bed she goes in there and strips totally naked except for a cape and look at ray's scared he's already grinding his teeth going okay you're already a little off the crowd is restless land it yeah i come she comes out

leans at the foot of the bed and says, super pussy. And he goes, I'll take the soup. He got through it, Ray. What's that? By the way, first of all, Ray goes, you always run over super pussy, which is supposed to be a laugh. Sorry.

But I rushed to get to I'll take the soup and that works enough. Yes. But there's two there. He says super pussy and that gets a laugh, but he doesn't. He never waits for the laugh. He steps on the laugh and goes, I'll take the soup and it kills anyway. So the proper way, because it would be super pussy and get all that laugh.

And then hit it. Get the double laugh. And the guy says, I'll take the soup. Yeah, you almost like wait and wait and then you go, I'll take the soup. Okay, because there's going to be people listening who are going to tell this joke at a cocktail party tomorrow night. Yeah, he's thinking it over and then he finally goes, nah, I'll take the soup. And then Ray tells a great one, but I won't give that away. But anyway, let's talk about his movie that I got to ask. I'm going to observe one thing and quickly get to his movie because that's something that he's going to love. We're going to say to him in a minute. I

I kind of feel like when I watch your stand-up, I go, honestly, is this guy the best stand-up in the world? I mean, some of your stuff on YouTube and stuff, I'm like, it seems like it's almost overshadowed by how much stuff you've done in acting. But anyway, go see Ray as a stand-up. I sincerely wanted to say that. But something happened very strange last night. Here's a double whammy.

So we get this screener of somewhere in Queens. Well, I just got off the plane. We just came in, David and I just came in from DC. We're really wiped out. So I start watching it. I'm cooking dinner.

And I'm like, oh, no. Getting into it, getting into it. Then I bring the laptop upstairs because I'm so jet-lagged. I go, I got to go to sleep. But I got so engaged with the movie. And I've never had this experience this much. Like, the movie is brilliant. I loved it. It completely captivated me. And as a baby boomer parent, it spoke to so many themes because I don't want to give it away. But it's just...

the vicarious living of a parent and what you'll do. And I knew dads in the stands who had a superstar son. And it was a, it was sort of a miracle. But anyway, honestly, with total sincerity and David too, had the same reaction. We got back from that Mark Twain thing for Sandler. And we were like, I even said to Dana in Washington, I go, isn't there something we're going to watch from Ray? But I never got anything. And then we got home and,

And they go, oh, yeah, yeah, guys, here's a movie. And we're like, oh, shit. So I watched on my laptop last night. First of all, I thought it might be a comedy. Did you write and direct it or did you direct it? I co-wrote it and I directed it. Oh, it's so well done. And you're heartbreaking in it and funny. It's heartbreaking. When you're talking to that girl in the car, first of all, the young girl.

the son's girlfriend she was great she's like a jennifer lawrence she really jumped off uh everybody is lights up everyone's great i mean i can't thank you guys enough of that i i when we're off the air i'm going to ask you if you really mean it no a week we have we have ray you know what we would say we would say um we didn't get a chance to see it would be the punt oh i think all the screener didn't play you

Or we might say it sure really held my interest. It's just fun to be able to tell you. Maybe it's because we were jet-lagged. It had so many themes in it, and your character is so heartbreaking. Just being a father myself, and just the length a parent will go to for the love of a kid. The story came...

out of nuggets of my real experience with my kid and my family. And, and my son was a, a basketball player. And he started, he was, he's six foot five, my son. So he was one of the star basketball players in high school. And I knew he wasn't going to play in college because he wasn't a guard and at six foot five, you're a guard, you know? And so when it ended,

I was really feeling sad that, A, I'm going to miss sharing this with my son, but if I'm being truthful, I live vicariously through him. I like the attention I was getting too, which how pathetic, but if you think about how pathetic that is, I

I don't have enough, you know, I have, uh, I'm, I'm in movies, I'm on TV and. Yeah. That whole world is so different and it's so interesting. And you're not an athlete. I mean, you might be athletic, but you're not to this level of these guys, which I wouldn't be. And,

You sort of admire people that can do stuff you can't do and it's your own kid. Right. And so you take responsibility. You're like, that's my guy out there. You can't help your ego. Human ego gets intertwined. And the other parents want that have the bench sitter kid or the kid that barely plays. And they would sort of love to have that. And they're trying to get... It's a whole social dynamic with parenting. I mean, it's an amazing...

ego structure of look at my kid. I had one in junior. It was a CYO basketball. So there's the kid who's like six foot two in eighth grade. So I'm sitting next to his dad. He's getting all the rebounds and he goes, look at my kid, get all those rebounds. I go, well, he is a lot taller than everyone else. He goes, that has nothing to do with it. He just, he just wants to get the ball. Nothing to do with it. My son's four 11. Are you kidding me?

Yeah, I know. And well, that was the germ of the idea for the story was when I felt that emptiness, I just thought,

I at least have other areas where, you know, my life will be full. But what if it was this poor schlub guy who had nothing else, had nothing else but this, you know, who felt invisible in his real life and his son brought this out. But it's a smart way to do it. No, the things that happen, I don't see coming. Your wife in it did not know that who that was. Took me forever.

Because she does such a disappearing act. Laurie Metcalf is so... Well, obviously, she's incredible. You both were great together. I don't want to give it away, but there is a scene where you captured the tension of someone being busted. And the way that whole scene built and the way you landed it, you just felt viscerally...

you know, shame for the, for your character. So it's like not easy to do. It's not an easy thing to land in a movie. I'm glad you guys feel that way, man. That makes me feel good. I'm telling you, I was bawling out of the blue. He was crying, wanting it to be like, cause it's funny moments. Cause you're a funny guy. But when you weave in, which is very tricky, uh,

a real situation where you're not trying to do like, I'm going to do a joke. Now it's just the way people talk, you know, and then someone's being kind of funny just because that's the way you talk. When the girl comes over and someone goes, she's so nice. And she goes, I do not fucking like her. It just comes, you know, that those things come out of the blue. That might not be a great example, but you just do funny things. While you're talking about the Italian, my wife, who's,

What I wanted to do was take this story, which will be universal. I'm glad you identified. I believe so. Relate to it. Yes. But but put it in this specific universe, which I lived in. I, you know, I grew up Italian in Queens, but my wife, I married into that world that we see in the movie. You know, the traditional people, the right off the boat people, you know, everything with all with all the all the.

traditions and the parties and the, you know, the food and everything. And I said, let's just do this story and this make it specific. But it's like, it's kind of like the formula that worked for everybody was Raymond. We made it specific, but it was identified when it comes to family, everybody kind of identifies with it, no matter where you're from. Yeah. It wasn't my, I'm not Italian. I'm not from Queens. I was just relating to different things. Even,

heartbreaking stuff with relationships and dating. And there's a lot going on where you go, Oh God, it's funny. And then they catch you off guard. And just the one, the one character, which the casting of your son was, he was amazing too. And just had such, you know, I can't tell you how hard it was to find a kid who can, you know, he doesn't, the kid's an introvert, you know, so he has to, he has to emote without saying a lot.

And so he has to be a pretty good actor and also a good basketball player. It was so hard to find a guy. Of course, he was shooting threes. Oh, yeah, he's a good player. And we would get a list of guys. We would look at all of them and we would narrow it down. And then we would say, put yourself on tape playing basketball for five minutes because they all said they could play. Yeah.

And within 10 seconds, you could see this guy. It's all edited together. Yeah. But and this kid was driving Postmates when we gave him the role. He was just, you know, he just had college videos that films that he did.

And he's a great kid, too, you know, so I'm happy for him. You touched on so many just experiential things that were just like, I knew a guy, I don't want to give names away, but like his first love, he's 20.

And he basically told me that he'd said to her, I'll love you no matter what, forever. Or something to that effect. And then she was having sex with his best friend the next day or something. It was like... Oh, he said... I'll love you forever. Yeah. Too early. Too early. And it's like, there's a lot of stuff in your movie that... But she was like, oh, I'm covered. Even though I'm going to have sex with your friend, you're still loving me, right? That was the deal? Yeah. And he's like, well...

All of you forever, no matter what, you know, on the second date or something. It's like, you know. Oh, believe me, I used to pour my heart out to these girls. But I can see, writing-wise, because I've tried to write movies, the fact that you're wrapping up every story is very hard to do. I mean, everything sort of just falls into place all the way to the very end. Yeah, yeah. And sometimes we thought,

We don't need to wrap up everything, you know. No, but it's true. But they're all very nice. I liked them all. And I love Sebastian in the movie, too. He's just a great, tough brother. Toyota's national sales event is happening now, meaning it's a great time for a great deal on a dependable Toyota truck.

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just popped in my head. When did you know your wife was the one, so to speak? Was that a long courtship or did you were thinking marriage pretty quickly? We, we worked in a bank together, my wife and I. Yeah. And, and,

I'm going to be honest. She was the third woman I asked out in the bank. Two security guards first. Wow. The first two turned me down. The first two turned me down. Did she know? I think she knew, you know, yeah, that I was interested in this other girl first. And then it was when I quit the bank.

that we started dating. But I had nothing, man. I was living at home. I give her credit because I wasn't a catch, really. I was driving my bike to work and all, and she took a shot. And now she's

She's house shopping every three months. What is interesting, pre-money, pre-fame, living at home, working in a bank. And like, yeah, so there's something, there's some nice stuff about that, you know. Yeah, but it wasn't love at first sight, you know. I'm not going to say that. Hi.

Hi, honey. It was like a lucky, it was just, it's kind of like getting fired from news radio. You know, it was, it was, uh, it worked out. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was, my life would be very different if it didn't happen. Yeah. I sort of like that little Jennifer Esposito, uh,

She did a nice job. Yes, I did a movie with her once, Master of Disguise. I thought she was also perfect in the film. Oh yeah, she was really good with that little bit she did. Yep. And she really, I didn't know what was going on with that, but I just like the tough dad. Everyone knows a tough dad and that's just the way they are. And

And you being a full grown adult with a tough dad is hard to sit there and eat it all the time. Yeah. Have you guys directed anything ever? No, no, I haven't. Man, it scared the hell out of me. I can't tell you how frightening it was leading up to it. I wasn't going to, I wasn't going to direct it, but my agent told me, you know, it's too personal. Get in there and do it. And,

And I was like, there's another 10 grand in it for you. Another union. It's another union. You're at another union all of a sudden. Dental.

But, uh, he, you know, I, I, so that's your first directing job. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I hadn't directed any Raymond's. I hadn't directed anything. Um, and you know, I've been in the edit room for the last 25 years. I've been, I've been writing and kind of directing, you know, with Raymond, you're directing, even though you're not directing, you know? Yeah. Um,

But I know nothing about the technical side of it. You know, I didn't know one lens from another. I knew what I wanted to see, what I wanted it to look like. So he just, you know, he just convinced me, surround yourself with the great cinematographer who can collaborate with you and

And, you know, just pay attention to what you want on the screen. And I mean, it was so nerve wracking, though, before it started. Once it started, it was all good. You know, but I do think the writer and it's so personal. It's great that you were completely in charge. You would have been de facto in charge, even if you're not taking the credit. I'm glad he made me. I'm glad he made me do it, you know, because now having done it.

I would do it again. If it's something, the weird thing is I got offers to direct now and the movie hasn't even come out and people heard I directed. So I got a couple of little offers to direct these other things. And, but if it, I had no desire if it wasn't something I wrote, you know, or something you really, uh, yeah.

Yeah. If it's something I was super passionate about, maybe, but, but I think the next, I would do it again. If I write something again, I would try it again, you know? And you have to demand the DP from Corky Romano that you got. Give me the best of the best. Is that true? It was he on Corky Romano? Um,

No, I just tried to think of a down movie. That's a funny name. It was a Chris Kattan comedy. No, I know. Yeah, but it's a funny word package. Corky Romano. It's a great name of a human being. Can I tell you, of my SNL experience, I loved every second of it, and SportsCenter is the one that stands out. Right. But if I have to be honest and pick my favorite sketch,

It was the one Chris Kattan when he was the lounge. You guys may not. He was a singer. He was the lounge guy. Yeah. Yeah. And he brought up me. I was like a Shecky Green has been comic. And it just had it was so much fun. Yeah. That was my favorite sketch, I think, of the two times.

I think, yeah, well he does great on the show. It's great. That was fun. I mean, I like seeing you out there and there's one called the big baby. Well, you know, I think people will look you up. That's fun. When we have someone in the podcast, people go and look up sketches. Just look up Ray Romano. The big baby was Will Ferrell. Yeah. Yeah. Did you, did you overlap with Catan, with Chris Catan? I did a little with Catan one year with Ferrell and the cheerleaders and that. And then I was on my way out, but, uh,

I could tell. I was like, it's time to go and there's good people here. It's in good hands. How many years did you do? How many years did you do? I did six. Dana did seven. Seven. And I've hosted three. David's hosted a couple times. Twice. Yeah.

Each one's different. When was the last time you hosted, Dana? I think it was like 2011 or something. I found it the last time just so it's, it's really exhausting when you're a cast member and there's two sketches, you can really focus. Um,

I too much of a control freak, but there's also a whimsy to how the show unfolds, you know, unless you try to write it ahead of time, which isn't, you know, I think, I think for me, it's like, then I've been there doing guest spots. I'm on Fallon and Lauren will just walk down on a Thursday. Um,

You'll do church chat this week. I got a flight out tomorrow. You'll be doing church chat and that thing of like Ted Cruz and all that. So I've gone back and done those guest spots, which are really fun. And I love doing Wayne's World on the 40th. I love playing that character at 60. Did you go to the 40th, Ray?

No, I didn't. I went to the 25th with Peter Boyle. I remember with Peter Boyle. When's the next one, man? What are they coming up on? Three years will be the 50th. So do you want two for...

Yeah, give me two. Plus one. Let's see. Go ahead. Dana, do your kids do stand-up still? Are they still doing it? Now we have a production company. We're making content. We just finished a scripted... You know, stand-up has to be...

Well, it's just rough out there now. It was heartbreaking to see that it's either opening for me where the audience is so jacked up or it's an open mic where, because I suffered so much in bad open mics and it wasn't my fault. You know, they're having dinner or a bar, you know, but now doing content, uh,

is more specific, more connected, like we're going to do this thing. It's not ethereal. You know, and basically stand-up in the end of the day is traveling, if it's really your job. It's about traveling. I didn't watch...

you know, Jackie Gleason or Carol Burnett in the sixties and go, I go, I want to do that. But I didn't think that would mean, uh, we're going to have, we're going to push back from the gate and a few minutes, but right now we have some maintenance guys coming on board, you know? So the travel part of this, the part I don't like. Yeah. My one son, my one, one of my twin boys did a, uh,

a little road. He went to Albuquerque, he went to Denver and did these one nighters. He did like five of them. And that was his only taste of it. And he got, he gets, he got depressed that, you know, he was at a bar where they weren't even facing him, you know? And, and, and he was getting upset that he was, what if I'm not funny? I'm like, you can't tell you you're not, if you're funny or not from that, you know, it's,

By the way, you got to do that. That's the sad part about stand up in the beginning. Years. You got to muscle through all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And I went to a lot of open mics and most open micers, the audience, even if they aren't pretty good, the reason they're not doing well is because the audience doesn't get what they're talking about. Like the they don't set it up properly, like clarity without clarity, which you learn over time.

But anyway, they had nights where they would crush, you know, but it still has to be a specific passion. And the stuff we're doing now, they're enjoying more. Oh, good. That's good. Also, stand-up sometimes leads to doing content. They're sort of just going, let's get to the part where we make stuff. It teaches you a lot. Yeah, we can use it.

To trust your blink. And that in the end of the day, the sensibility, if it's similar in a room, it's so much more pleasant. Like with at SNL, there was a very narrow sensibility. And so when something worked, everyone all knew it sitting around the writer's room, although

Oh, that'll work. That'll work. But, you know, anyway, it's been a good life. David has a luncheon. Good luck with the movie, Ray. Ah, thank you, man. April 21. April 21. Somewhere in Queens, and it's in theaters?

- In April 21 it goes into theaters. - Somewhere in Queens, I highly recommend it. I really do. I think it touches a lot of stuff. It lands beautifully. Movies just don't work that much. I mean, The Big Sick was another one of those kind of indie films that was sort of, or small, that this is like, this is in that league, if not better. Or well, it touched me more 'cause it was so specific to my. - Yeah, thank you, thank you. - I'll see you, will I see you in Vegas, David? Where are you going?

I'll be over at the Venetian with Nikki Glaser, but I'll yell over because... Son of a bitch! I know, but it's 8.30. I'm playing the... I'm headlining the Mirage. I guess you're out of town on... Oh, God, I hope it's right. Oh, you're going to do it? July 7th or 8th or 14th or 15th. Yeah, in July. You know who took your place, David, right? No. Brian Regan. Oh, great. Yeah. That guy is a monster. Oh, good for him. Yeah, he's pretty good. I don't have time to be opening jars and stuff.

I don't can't do it I love that guy That's it Walk him through the joke Give him super Super pussy Yeah We loved it Ray And we hope to see you Around campus And here there And everywhere man I appreciate it Thanks Fix it Fix it in post Fix it Fix it up It's right It's going It's baked It's ready to go Okay Thanks buddy Take care Thanks for being on

This has been a podcast presentation of Cadence 13. Please listen, then rate, review, and follow all episodes. Available now for free wherever you get your podcasts. No joke, folks. Fly on the Wall has been a presentation of Cadence 13, executive produced by Dana Carvey and David Spade, Chris Corcoran of Cadence 13, and Charlie Finan of Brillstein Entertainment. The show's lead producer is Greg Holtzman with production and engineering support from Serena Regan and Chris Basil of Cadence 13.