Dana Carvey: Defunct Celebrity Restaurants
55:01 Share

Art in your home can instantly transform your space and bring you joy. Saatchi Art makes it easy for you to discover and buy one-of-a-kind art that you'll love. Whether you're looking to complement your home decor, fill a blank space on your walls, or start an art collection, you can find the perfect piece for your specific style and budget at Saatchi Art. Go to SaatchiArt.com today to bring the beauty of art into your home. Plus, listeners get 15% off their first order of original art with code ROB.

That's 15% off at SaatchiArt.com. S-A-A-T-C-H-I-Art.com. Ever wish your favorite TV show had twice as many episodes? Everyone knows that feeling. And so does Discover. Everyone wants more of their favorites. That's why Discover doubles another favorite thing, cash back. That's right.

Discover automatically doubles the cash back earned on your credit card at the end of your first year with Cash Back Match. Now that's a real crowd pleaser. Everyone knows how it ends. Double the cash back. See terms at discover.com slash credit card. Okay, the low man popping into the frame. You know, oh dude, you know who you look like. You look like Daryl Hall. I love that guy.

Hello, everybody. Welcome to Literally With Me, Robbie Lowe. Today is a first. The first person that we have asked back for a second appearance.

Dana Carvey. He's always been the best guest on every show. Dana and I go way back, and whenever I talk to him, I feel like it's over in two seconds, no matter how long it is, because he's such a funny guy. Also, Dana has a new podcast called The Weird Place. It just came out, and it's very weird. It is. It's a weird place, hence the title. But you'll hear more about that in a moment. So here is, for the second time, Dana Carvey. ♪

You look like Daryl Hall live from Daryl's barn or whatever the hell that show. You watch that show? No, that guy's got a youth machine or something with Todd Rundgren and Kenny Loggins. The Todd Rundgren one is insane. Yes, because Todd can sing like an angel and so can Daryl. And they just like go back and forth. It's like, what? Really? Come on. It's so good. I was talking...

Previously, what was I talking about? Shatner. We were talking about Shatner. There's nothing he probably hasn't experienced. And he's 90 and so full of vigor and like excitability and...

And grinding, like working like just a dog and loving it. It makes no sense because I asked him, please explain this because he doesn't have an old man's voice. Nope. He's got a young man's voice. He's got a young man's strength. He's so articulate and poetic. It's like, how is this happening? Because

You would think he put on a couple pounds, you know, or something. You know, it's not like he's a fitness freak or... It just doesn't even make sense. But he's so fun to talk to. Talk about an old man voice. It makes me...

Think of like, you know, it's the it's it's like you look at Joe Biden and then you look at Shatner. I thought of I was thinking of your Joe Biden is it's become another day in a classic. Right. I remember when you were first doing, but it's renowned at this point, I think. I'm still evolving it. I felt that.

When he first came out, it was Sleepy Grandpa Joe. And that was that hook. My dad lost his job. No joke. Right. Not getting around here. And with anybody who becomes president, that's next level fame absorption. So it takes a while for the public to get used to the hooks. But then somewhere last summer, maybe it was, I don't know, six months in, he started to whisper and yell.

And so that became it. Because at first, it was just, come on, folks, it's number one, the one part. Number two, what the guy said. You know the drill. Number three, come on, folks, that guy. And then it was like, and I always end this, because I like to abstract things and make myself laugh. It always ends with Pirates of the Caribbean. So it's kind of like this. He goes, well, it's time for, you know, the rich got to pay their fair share. It's just like the share of the Sharon Stone, the Tombstone, the Pirate Republic, the Pirate's Caribbean. Yeah.

I know how to talk loud. I'm not afraid to talk loud.

That's what he's saying, you know. He's like the old man in the neighborhood, your ball went in his yard, you can't have it. But this is what we're doing. Come on. We're going to make less inflation, the people, the fleet, the fleet, the fleet, ball, beach ball, ball, ball, have a ball, Lucille ball, the bar, the bar, the care van. So it's become a fun character. And what they're saying about my son, what he does, what he, the things in his nose that he put, it's the cola, the cola in his nose, the coke. He, in fact, did not.

I know. Come on, folks. He says this is a negative problem to threaten the document parts care ban. So it's I don't know. I mean, it's like a hot oven, as I say, like it's it's such a toxic political thing. But I do.

I walk my way through all the presidents, make sure they know I make fun of all of them. Yeah. You know, I have a new Trump book that makes me laugh. Oh, gimme, gimme. Well, here's the thing is we had James Austin Powers Johnson on. By the way, his Trump,

Trump talking about Weird Al Yankovic and the old stuff and talking about Scooby Doo. He doesn't do he does very little. It's a very bad deal. Scooby does not advance the plot. He does not. It's amazing. So I sat with him for 45 minutes and when I was doing him in 2016, it was mostly everyone was doing just the smooth guy.

You know, people worry about glaciers. I know how to make glaciers. I can make a lot of glaciers. I take all the ice from the Trump Hotel. I put them on the Carnival cruise ship. They're friends of mine. You know, it was that thing. When I sat with him, I noticed I'd seen with others as he put in Trump later got this thing here, you know. So now I I realize that Trump never stops, even if he's run out of a subject matter. He sounds like he's pitching a family vacation to me.

We're going to be doing a lot of things, let me tell you. And you're going to love them, and everybody's going to be talking about it. We're going to be going places like you wouldn't believe. And many people say, no, we don't want to go there. But we're going to go there. We're going to go everywhere, and we're going to have a good time.

And Donald Trump Jr. is going, are we going to Disneyland? You're going to see a lot of things. I can promise you that. I can tell you that. Let me tell you, you're going to be happy. Everyone's going to be happy. Everyone's talking about it. So that is like a little new poem for me. But I got it. I got the guttural thing from James. His is like this.

It's like musical. You could listen to it for like 20 minutes. And he plays the accordion and no one knows how he does it. Weird Al, he figured it out. He's got a lot of money. I don't know how much money he's got. Maybe more than me. I don't know. But he figured it out. Weird Al. That actually is pretty good, Rob. You have an ear. That's not bad. I urge you out there. Google James Austin Johnson Trump campaign.

Scooby-Doo. Yeah, Weird Al Yankovic. And Weird Al. He plays the accordion. No one ever got... He figured it out. Nobody plays the accordion, but he does it. And I don't know why. He plays it like he wouldn't believe it. And it sounds really crazy. You think he's weird, but he's not. He can play it like he wouldn't believe it. And he's going to play it a lot. And everybody knows it. Coolio was not very nice to Weird Al. See, there's Trump. I always thought...

He has like 300 hooks. Yeah, a hundred. Another one. You were nice. And now you're not so nice. He's not a nice guy. He has. It's an amazing collage of hooks, but I love it when someone comes on. I've chatted with him on the phone. I was I never I just said I was in awe of his Trump. He's very nice guy.

And he's just in that that seat again, you know, on SNL. Yeah, that is the hot seat for, you know, political impression. Here's my here's my hot take on it. Ready for this? And I don't know. Hot take. Hot take. Hot take. Here it comes. I don't think he's as funny on SNL doing Trump. I just don't. And I think it's the writing. I feel like he's not able to do.

his weird, like bizarre. Well, it's, it's like Trump talking about weird out is genius. There's something about, I don't know. I've, I tuned in so excited cause he's my favorite Trump impersonator. And I was like, and I, and I think it's the writing. It has to be. Well, it is. It's a tricky thing because, uh,

As you know, when you're kind of new to it, being a former host, it's like a three ring circus. It's all this noise and energy. And throughout the week. You know, Dana, the first time you host, it's like you don't know you're hosting. The second time you host, it's like being shot out of a cannon. The third time, there's no cannon, but you still feel like you're being shot. The fourth, nobody hosts four times. So you moved to the fifth time. The fifth time you host. Lord, I recently saw him. He was like, awesome.

I came in when television started and I'll probably go out when it ceases to exist. Because he's right. It's kind of slowly becoming something else. It's true. But I just told James to, as much as he could, find writers and sit with them before the sketch is hatched.

So your rhythms are incorporated into it. But they gave him some pretty cool stuff. But to get it to the point where he's freelancing on the sidewalk with the phone and he's just going for two minutes with no interruptions, that's more difficult. So they give him a little bit and usually their political openings have multiple sets and multiple characters. So we'll see what happens. I mean, when I was doing Bush Sr., do you remember that? I'm saying you talk about

the writing, you just, eventually it was just gibberish. Oh yeah. Nah, God, dad. But it was, the audience took the ride with me and I kept extrapolating it. And I remember at one point, because my point was, is that I was generally most of the time in a lockdown, cold opening one shot. So I remember saying to myself, when I was really connecting with the audience, I said, the cue cards are just suggestions. Because what happens is,

is that when the script is too long and I'd say to Al Franken or Jim Dowd, guys, you got to cut words out because I feel like I'm doing homework. I've got to get through this, you know, so they would cut it down a bit. But eventually I could just do it down there, you know, like that. Do you want can I insert one thing that you must have a lot of things like this, but it blew my mind. Tell me. So John Levitt said, I'm playing Las Vegas, right? Yeah.

And he goes to a party at whatever place. And he he meets Gene Kelly's widow, the Gene Kelly. The Gene singing in the rain. Yeah. Yeah. And she's like, oh, you're working with Dana. Well, make sure you tell him that he was Gene's favorite. And when Dana would come on as George Bush, Gene would say, quiet, everybody. Dana's on.

I mean, you probably have something. It's like, wait, Gene Kelly was saying my name. Oh, my God. Quiet, everybody. Dana's on. I know. You must have about six degrees of separation. That's a weird part of our existence. But shut up, everyone. Dana's gone. Oh, my. That is weird, wild stuff. That's weird. You know, how much did Johnny Carson, did he, somebody was telling me that if you go back and look at the old Carsons,

that there's a lot of coke references in it like like thinly veiled i know that he did a lot of funny cigarettes with the band you know that thing yeah smoking funny cigarettes probably i um i my wife and i had a trainer in the 1990s in la and she was really nice and whatever her she she was probably 45 at the time her nickname was the body she said so she was very pretty and yeah and

She dated Johnny for about six months. Wow. So she had said that, yeah, he he never he always was sober when he would do the show.

But he liked grasshoppers and he would get a little nasty and he'd want to drive and she'd give me the keys. No, you know, that whole thing I must have done last time. Johnny being pulled over for drunk driving. It's the absolute best. Oh, sorry, officer. I didn't know I was swerving. I had two slippery monkeys at the hook and crook. You know, that's just like makes my brain happy. Give me give me a wit. And then that afterwards he went to Alan Hale's lobster barrel because that always made me laugh. Yeah.

I had two tomato boom booms at Alan Hale's Lobster Roll or Lobster Barrel, was it? It was really it was an actual restaurant. Right. It was the skipper from I remember being a kid and coming to L.A., 13 years old and just thinking the height of show business success was that Alan Hale, the skipper, had a restaurant on La Cienega called Alan Hale's Lobster Barrel. Do you remember Carol O'Connor's Ginger Man?

No. Was that a restaurant as well? That was in Beverly Hills. Carol O'Connor's Ginger Man. Oh. How come you didn't ever had a restaurant? I don't know. Mickey Rooney had like 10 million ideas. Mickey Rooney, French fries. I was, you know, I got to get going. I'm doing Johnny now. I was the number one star in the world. You hear me? Bang. The world. He was, yeah, he had a lot of Mickey's burgers or whatever. Yeah.

This is kind of, can I swear on the show? Yes. I know I can. But Mickey one time, he's doing a big improv thing with everybody. Oh, this and that. He's holding court, me and Nathan Lander there. I have an idea of a show where everybody's name is a swear word.

You know, oh, really, Mickey? How would that go? Good morning, Mrs. Funk. How are you? Your son shit. You know, he just went on. Nathan's looking at me. Anyway, that's a movie in itself. No, I never opened a restaurant. You know, I mean, I think you missed.

I don't know. That was clearly a celebrity thing for a while. I remember they wanted me to open a thing called the Mulholland Cafe. It opened in New York. It was there for a while. The Mulholland. It was like, you know, Patrick Swayze's investing. I was like, well, Swayze's investing. You know, it's going to be huge. I don't know how that became. No, I don't think there are any more celebrity restaurants. No, I don't need to bring those back. There's hard to make a profit. I would do church lady hot sauce.

or something online. Thin Jutes or something, you know, that kind of thing. It's the only thing I own. Let's hear it. Well, well, well. Well, well, well. Isn't that special? It's not bad.

Well, it's, it always, it just comes from that patronizing. Well, Rob Lowe, he's in his house in Santa Barbara. He likes to do the podcast. It's not even a book. It's just the attitude is like, is something wrong or illicit? You know, I, I hate meeting people like that. We're like,

So I don't really watch much stuff that comes out of Hollywood. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I haven't seen you much lately. Are you all right? Yeah. That's the one thing they'll never take away from you. You had that. Yeah. Like, you know, I don't I'm not really a big TV person. Great. Thanks. Thank you for that. I know you get that, too.

You know, I don't really want, you know, my wife, she loves that stuff, but I'm just not really. What I get now that I'm in my eighth decade of show business, essentially, you know, my kids really love you. And they're like seven. I go, what? Why are my fans born in 2014? My kids, they never say they like me. They're like, they're six. My grandkids, they love me. Well, how about this? Which is.

I get, oh my God, my grandma loves you. Yeah, that's the other way to go. But you know what is great in all, like when I do my one man show, one of the things I love about it is I look out in the audience and I go, those are the people that have been with me. These are my, these are my people. And you know what? My people are literally seventh graders who have just seen The Outsiders. Right. All the way up to 80 year old grandmas.

At Ashley, you'll find colorful furniture that brings your home to life. Ashley makes it easier than ever to express your personal style with an array of looks in fun trending hues to choose from, from earth tones to vibrant colors to calming blues and greens. Ashley has pieces for every room in the house in the season's most sought after shades. A more colorful life starts at Ashley. Shop in store online today. Ashley, for the love of home.

All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel. ♪

♪♪♪

We were talking earlier, before you got on the Zoom, just about this idea of living long enough to have this be a job of just now, you know, I'm talking to you and we're just talking because I was trained to kill. I had to kill in the clubs or I, you know, the middle act always wanted to knock me off. Took me a while to get up there. On SNL, I always felt like I had to kill or I'd be shown the door. And so this authenticity thing is new to me. Like,

I can be real and I can be myself, be a little funny, whatever. And it's just, you know, I was saying it's Steve Allen or Sid Caesar or, you know, I don't know, pick somebody. Harvey Korman, if they'd had podcasts, they would have loved it. They just weren't around for this technology. Oh, can you imagine the Harvey Korman podcast?

Again, I don't know why I'm on this thing of defunct L.A. restaurants and bars. Harvey Korman's Pizza Joint? No, Harvey Korman at the Farmer's Daughter. Really? Farmer's Daughter was the bar across from CBS Television City. And it was Harvey Korman's Farmer's Daughter. No, no. It was just the Farmer's Daughter, but that's where Harvey got blottoed.

Oh, before and after every Carol Burnett show. You know, speaking of drinking, it was it's very interesting how open that was, even when I first was in television. You know, when I would do Blue Thunder, like the crew would go out. I did a movie called Road to Wellville and the crew was all Irish.

And then at lunchtime, they would go have like, I don't know, 10 Guinnesses and come back. And the entire place was way, it was a lot more politically correct to walk over in Burbank, to walk across the street, have a couple highballs.

James Farentino would go over there and stuff and then go back and get in the fake helicopter, which I got fired from in front of the crew. I was like branded like Chuck Connors and branded. Why did they why did they fire you from the Blue Thunder is the TV series version of the Roy Scheider John Badham movie. Yes. And it was a complete debacle on a shit show. I don't know why they cast me. I got the job audition and I drove back to Northridge.

those days and they go come back you're in the finals you know so I went back I got the job and then James uh god rest his soul I think he had a little bit of a I mean

In the chopper, there was a styrofoam cup, like 12 ounces. So he would get out. I thought it was water, straight vodka on the rocks. Wow. And then come back with, you know, lots of white powder coming out, you know. Amazing. And he would call me at night, you know, what are they saying about me? What are they, you know, he's just,

You know, and one time Bubba Smith and Dick Buckus, he was the NFL's superstar. Amazing actors. Bubba Smith, Dick Buckus. Brilliant actors. But Bubba Smith was 6'8", you know, whatever. So he finally kind of said to James, hey, man, you know, what are you doing?

And James kind of got at him a little bit, sort of like gave him shit. And then Bubba at 6'8", 2'8", just put his hands out, take any piece you want. I'm just watching that. Take any piece you want. So we were up in a fake helicopter. I don't know if you've probably done this in your career. And they blow the steam at us and jump us around. And I was in the back. And he'd say, jam them, Jaffo, jam them. And my lines would be like, I am jamming. I am jamming. So I was terrible. But they got me in the get-up.

They put me in the chopper. We ran a scene and then it's like, hey, so James Farentino, he's in the bag. Hey, they want to say something to you. So they're going to come down the ladder. The whole crew's there. Well, you're you're you're fired. You're fired. You're fired. Get out of here. Yeah. James Farentino fired you? No, but he clearly knew I was getting fired.

So he had a little smile on his face. Didn't really matter. But I walk in front of the whole crew humiliated. And then the wardrobe guys, they're super nice and he's feeling bad. And I was doing the clubs in those days and starting to get a following. And I go, and I was a little upset, even though I wanted out badly. This was, you know, 30,000 a month, basically, in those days. I mean, I was like, I do stand up. I'm actually kind of funny. And he put his hand on my shoulder and he's kind of like, sure, kid.

Good luck, kid. Like that kind of thing. And then I ran into him like in 93 after seven years of SNL. He's like, damn, you were right. That's amazing. But you must have been fired and in a helicopter at some point. I was never fired. I've never been fired in show business yet. But I was been fired from every actual job I ever had. I was fired from the Malibu cinema because I was a popcorn boy.

I was 15 and all I really did was chase around the two girls that worked there, Holly Robinson, Pete, wonderful actor. Wow. And another girl. And we would always like make out behind the Slurpee machine. And eventually I did get promoted to putting the reels together. It was a platter system. Like they weren't actually reels, they were platters. And I put the movie on in the wrong order.

And that was apparently not supposed to show the movie in the wrong order. I who know. And I was fired on the spot, but fired from being a bus boy at the Nantucket light. But there's a restaurant theme going here. I don't know what's happening, which is now Nobu. Nobu in Malibu is the old Nantucket light fired from that.

fired from my newspaper route. I mean, it's a good thing I made it in show business because I have no other skills to offer anybody. Yeah, newspaper. I did one of those in that 4 a.m. thing. It was kind of surreal. I think I was in seventh grade out there when it's pitch black. Throwing the papers. It was sort of a little scary and exciting at the same time. Throwing the paper off the doors. That was kind of nice. Hit them hard. I was a dishwasher. That was the one where

At the Holiday Inn during the rush hour, the guy came back every 20 minutes. You still want to do the job? Because everyone had quit. Everyone had quit. Because one dishwasher, and it was a Hobart 3000. It was like 100 degrees back there.

tons of dishes just piling in to the point where I couldn't take a food break. So I would eat off the plates and I had cuts and bruises and, you know, that was awful. It was awful. Then I got to be a bus boy. So that was, that was a dream. And then a waiter, I put down the apron. When did you make a living as an actor? 15 and then didn't work and thought it was over and then got the outsiders on my side.

Well, I turned 18 on the set of Outsiders. And then that was it. That was it. I'll give you an Oprah question. If you could go back and say something to 18-year-old Rob Lothay, I'm sorry, you don't have to answer that. I know. By the way, Oprah is so funny. She's done the show and she's amazing. Oh, she's brilliant. Yeah, there's no doubt about it. But she does hit you with those questions. That make you think. All the time. Yeah.

She's very probing. She's got that thing. Yeah, what would I tell myself? Did I ever tell you at the time I met John Belushi when I was 15? No. Kermit the Frog was hosting The Tonight Show. Perfect. It was a very famous thing. Before Johnny started having lots of hosts, Kermit was the host. We knew some people who worked there.

You know, in the Muppets. So we went and watched it. And anyway, backstage at the Tonight Show after Kermit is hosting tonight.

is Belushi for no, I still don't know why he was there to this day. And I was in awe, right? I mean, this is, this is right at the height. It's probably, I'm going to say this is 76, 77. Yeah. So he's a rock star. Rock star. Yeah. And, um, I'm, I'm a little kid. I'm probably the only little kid in backstage and he's staring at me, probably wondering what's this little kid doing here. And I'm looking at him and I was, I had lots of hoods, but I just walked right up to him.

Put out my hand. I said, hello, Mr. Belushi. My name is Rob. And he goes, hey, kid. And he was super, super nice, super friendly. He goes, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I said, that's when I said, I want to be an actor. And he just clouded over and then leaned down to me, got right in my face and said, stay out of the clubs. Huh. Is that the craziest thing?

When you think about what would I have told my younger self, Belushi told my younger self, stay out of the clubs. Stay out of the clubs. So he meant clubs, not comedy clubs. Just stay out of the bar scenes. That's what he meant. Yeah. Stay out of the clubs. And he's telling you at 15. At 15. Wow. Because I clearly looked like I was about to go on the rocks. Yeah. I don't think so. I mean, you just, whenever you stopped, you put down the sauce. I mean, you had no, no, uh.

No damage from it. No, you can't look this good if you were, you know. And that's what people always say is like, you know, when you stopped doing all that stuff 32 years ago and you think about and you say for same for you, you don't drink at all, do you?

A little bit, but I'm very controlled about it. You know, a couple of light beers. Oh, I've seen you lit, Cardi. I'm blasted right now. But I did realize I had a relationship with it that I had to watch it. I would not like have like alcohol in my house. You know, it's too easy for me, but I was able to.

You know, I had blocks for it. The only time I have trouble is if I'm flying in a very weird flight that's going funky and it's packed and I'm getting a little adrenalized and a little nervous. You know, that's when I would most want an alcoholic beverage at that. What would it be? Mine would have been a Bloody Mary for sure.

The only thing I can... I could live in a winery or a distillery and would never have a sip. I don't relate to anything but a Mexican beer, like a 4% beer. I don't know if...

Should I be in AA? I mean, will you be my sponsor? Yeah, I'll be your sponsor. It's funny you say distillery. My mother, God rest her, she'd get so angry. She'd say, you smell like a distillery. Well, you know, we all just, yeah, I had, my childhood should not be talked about in public. It's, my dad was a piece of work, but anyway. That's why we are the way we are. I think so. A couple of things I'm interested in lately is,

is just what is drive? How can you identify it? Is there just, what are the layers of drive? Because I'm interested as I'm at an age where I see friends and siblings, I see people, you know, I have data now. We all have data about choices we made and stuff. And it's sort of like I sort of check myself because you don't really know. I used to think in the 80s, I thought I was so lazy.

You know, I should be working on my act every second. But, you know, eventually I was doing eight shows a week. So drive is kind of an interesting thing. So when you think about that and think about Rob Lowe, one thing about you is you you're comprehensive. You do everything and you've done it for a long time and you're still incredibly active. How much is what how do you categorize yourself in the drive spectrum? I mean, yeah.

Oh, I mean, are you a seven out of 10 or eight out of 10? I mean, who is like a 10 would be maybe Trump. I don't know. Just maybe I hate him. But the guy is like and really Biden. I mean, just running, getting a facelift at 75 and running for president at 79. I mean, that's drive. You know, I see. Here's the thing. If the scale is one to 10 on drive, that's just arbitrary. Yeah. My my worry is that 10 would be someone.

who has no balance in their life. Right. And I'm much, I'm super, super disciplined about having balance in my life. Right. So, I mean, I have, I do my me time. I do my family time work. Isn't the most important thing, not even close, but with that as the caveat, I think I'm a 10 out of 10. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, as our mutual manager is, you know, pretty amazed by your energy and your love of work, you know, but I'm the same as you. I mean, because we have two sons, I have two sons and my wife. And that's that is my world. I know it's like this is where we need Oprah to pop in. Yeah. The quote I came with and it's just about peace of mind because you when you live a big life and I mean, if you have a family.

Or if you have a career, it doesn't matter what level you're at. So when you live a big life, I would say having kids for me emotionally, my heart was on the outside and there was a lot of sharp objects around. And I was from the 60s, early 70s paradigm.

you know, tough PE coach, tough this and that. So then we landed in the first wave. I don't want the wave hit of every kid gets a trophy and mom and dad as friends, but we were in that culture. But all that being said, I, you know, this is how I process it for myself is that children give more than they take and they take everything. So just, you know,

That floated around enough that Adam McKay came up to me and said, did you think of this? You know, it's just a way to process what, look, if we were pioneer dads and there were 12 kids and we'd lose four of them. But when you have two kids and then you bring in fame and wealth, you know, and then it's like, we, we didn't have that. So I feel like it's a, it's a whoopty do put it that way. Well, it's a thing. Yeah.

And one of the things I am really proud of my boys is they, they, they grew up in an incredibly privileged, you know, atmosphere. I did my best to make, to, to get them out of Hollywood. So we moved to Santa Barbara and, you know, their, their friends circle or not showbiz. There was no show business people really around. And so it was as normal as I could do it, but like, they're like actual working driven human beings. You know, they have like,

Real jobs and like most people should. And, you know, and I there's plenty of second generation in every department of people of privilege and they don't have it. They don't have the. So I don't know if they were born with it, if I did some good parenting or if it's luck or what. I look at a development of a person's a three legged stool. You know, it's their genetics physically and brain wise, the parental atmosphere.

And then the culture. So based on when I've seen your sons just casually around on shows with you, yeah, they just cut that. You can tell immediately they're not spoiled Hollywood kids at all. You know, so that that really was a red line for me always in college.

Once in a while, we were fortunate enough to be on a private jet with him in the flight attendant. We'll always say, boy, they're so well behaved. And I just thought, who are the ones that are not well behaved? That seemed like just a no brainer because if someone's bringing you a banana split on a G4 and you're watching Lord of the Rings, you're

I remember looking at this and going, this is not... So they're very polite and nice people. So I like that about them. And the adventure continues. Maybe we should talk about the weird place, the thing I did with my sons. Yeah, this is the perfect segue. I know. How did you...

come up with the idea of doing this amazing podcast? And was it a family thing? Was it there? Give me the background. Yeah, the background is that, like I'm sure you are, Rod Serling, Twilight Zone, in love with the show. And so when they got to a certain age, you know, I bought the whole, all the seasons on DVD. So they would watch it

and fall in love with it, which was so much fun. 'Cause it's such sophisticated storytelling, you can cover what you wish for. So flash later, my son, Tom, has this brilliant idea, which I loved, about a heavy metal band. Their songs are all about Satan. ♪ There comes Satan, da-da-da-da-da ♪ And then Satan arrives. So we shot a short film around that in one location.

It's like 20 minutes long. It's pretty cool, but I'd never directed before. But we, you know, I was watching a lot of Tarantino then. So there's a fight scene. We wanted to top Tarantino for hits. Amazing. He's beating the demon with a hammer. We went like 72 times. So we did that, but that kind of was, you know, put aside. And then we just thought,

That's such a cool Twilight Zoning thing. We just got into the Twilight Zone idea. We pitched it on a Zoom to Netflix. But I said to my, I said to everyone who was involved on the Zoom, I go, we're nowhere right now. So they're not going to

put 30, 40 million on it. And they politely passed, you know, because it's a big commitment, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So then, you know, I was hanging out with Conan O'Brien and Team Coco, you know, and I sort of mentioned it to them and they thought it was a cool idea. What we wanted, we wanted to bring Rod back. We felt that you needed Rod's voice.

And so audio was perfect for it because to do the visual, you know, you'd have to hire. What's it? Justin Theroux. Is that his name? Yeah. Looks just like him. And I do Rod. Rod's our narrator. And then what we found out was that scripted audio comedy podcast, there's never been a hit one.

And we realized we had to kind of learn a different way. You couldn't relate it to 1940s radio. Oh, it's just like old timey radio. Yeah, that was when there was nothing else to do except look at the radio. So we kept doing it and doing it over and over again until it felt satisfying. And we realized that it had to have clarity as king.

Way more than even a regular movie, a comedy movie or something like this. There's the bad guy. It was just like, so we really had fun with the exposition, but we kept making sure that if someone dropped out, they'd love it. And then we did three primary stories. One is a submarine, nuclear submarine, 1966, goes back in time and underwater time portal and surfaces in 1738, sees a pirate ship, doesn't know what's going on.

The other one is this kind of nerdy guy. Anyway, this shy man gets a globe at a knickknack store and it's a magic globe. And so when he touches it, it affects the real world. And a lot of stuff happens from that. And the other one was about a very adorable little alien that's sent to Earth to perform

befriend a human being and get them to help them make a bomb making a bomb. So he pretends that he eats bomb making materials to this old lady and she gets all this stuff for him. Ammonium nitrate and all that stuff. What's the tone? Is it comedy or is it like the... Because Twilight Zone...

Could be funny, but I don't look at Twilight Zone as being funny. No. Creepy and scary, whatever. Yeah. So they had one where Khrushchev was on it or a guy had a haunted car. They had a little Twilight Zone music. It was funny. The good news was that we had all the lush orchestral and spooky music from the 50s, 60s. And so we used that.

We make it kind of PG, and it's funny, but there's no winking and no real joke. It's all character-driven. So it's a frequency that just pleased us. Over time, we fell in love with it because I do harbor in rhythms and musicality, and I like things that are just inexplicable.

And so over time, it just makes you laugh more the more you hear it. Yes, for sure. You could say without any comparison, Monty Python harbored in that, you know, it was just part of their part of their genius. And same thing with Peter Sellers. So we love it. It's 70 minutes. And then there's a companion piece called Talking Weird, where we meet some of the voice actors and Rod hosts that show as well. And we think people will like it.

At Ashley, you'll find colorful furniture that brings your home to life. Ashley makes it easier than ever to express your personal style with an array of looks in fun trending hues to choose from, from earth tones to vibrant colors to calming blues and greens. Ashley has pieces for every room in the house in the season's most sought after shades. A more colorful life starts at Ashley. Shop in store online today. Ashley, for the love of home.

All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I'll never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel. ♪

♪♪♪

Give me a little Rod. Break it out, baby. Well, one thing was is that, first of all, we realized that we always heard Rod through the television. So what we did was we put a vinyl thing on it as far as sound effects on my voice. A vinyl aspect, compression, a little bit of treble. And then you get kind of his catchphrase was, I'm Rod. I'm back. Can you dig it down?

It's amazing. Danny Aykroyd used to do a great Rod Serling. Oh, yeah. And I probably did it in the 70s, probably copying Dan Aykroyd. But it's just great to have a narrator in scripted podcasting and his gravitas and having fun with it. So it's not scary in that way. There's some exciting moments. I don't know. It's hard to describe it, but...

It's free and it'll be out Halloween. I was going to say real Halloween show per se, but it has supernatural sci-fi fantasy. I was gonna say this is a perfect Halloween thing. And see, this is why I should have been in marketing. I know we missed it. Well, you should have had Rob's pancakes and burgers in West Hollywood 1977. Can you imagine? Yes. I'd wear my dolphin shorts and run up and down Santa Monica Boulevard selling hot dogs.

Well, one thing I did do, you know, I use certain voices and made them characters. You know, I did a little bit of Peter Lorre for kind of this guy who likes the canon, you know.

It's, yes, you know, I like to like to fuse, you know. And it just became this abstract character. And then other ones were just from people I know I extrapolate. I did one based on you. You did not. You know what? You would have been great as the captain of the submarine. I did. It's funny. I did my very first episode of The Simpsons last week. I'd never been...

Ask to be on The Simpsons. I've never been asked. Were you doing Rob Lund? No. No, I played a character. I play the mayor's smarmy, manipulative cousin. And what was your voice? Did you use your own voice or did you stylize it? I find with these things, sometimes I like to go in and not think about it. And then whatever comes out.

At this point, I have the confidence to just wing it sometimes and then whatever comes out, comes out. That's what I did with Behind the Candelabra when I did that. I didn't really know what that voice was going to be until it kind of happened. But I know what you mean where you're sort of thinking about a voice or a person. You don't have to do it completely accurately, but that's a taking off point. Well, when I did Behind the Candelabra, I realized I was doing the guy who did the commercials first.

for the men's warehouse. You're going to like the way you look. There you go. I realized that's what I was, you know, you go, Oh, I know more of that. You're going to like the way you look. Yeah. That's the thing about you is that you're kind of, I wouldn't say this literally, but you're sort of like a character actor trapped in a leading man's body. Thank you. I think that,

You know, I can see you. I mean, you have played Kennedy and stuff, but you haven't really done a full Gary Oldman, you know, Oscar winning. I would love to do one of those. And I love that performance. You know, you were some good prosthetics in the in the Dana Carvey show, didn't you? Or am I imagining that? Yeah. And I did the McLaughlin group and stuff like that. I did it. Yeah.

"Hey, tini-tini-tum-dum!" That's the sort of a very, very interesting character. You know, that was just a beautiful song to play. And that was Robert Spiegel, really. That was a gift from him. Usually I would do, if I had writing, I would do the rhythm, but he was going, "Tini-tini-tum-dum!" But that was an intense character to do because he was driving the whole thing, if you remember it, in a semi-circle.

Oh, yeah. He was just, you know, nicknaming everybody. It took a lot of a lot of ab strength. Yeah.

But I don't really miss it in a sense. You know, I love doing, you know, obviously Paul McCartney, you know. That's so good. I see him in the Zoom, you know, and I do him even the way he is now, you know. He talks to Rob, you know. He does a lot of things, you know. He did the commercials for the DirecTV. He put on makeup. He's like a carpenter or something, you know. I mean...

Which I probably did last time, but I do do. Give me a news story and I'll tell you as a beetle, no matter what the news story is, it'll sound better. The Alaskan king crab season has been called off this year because there aren't enough crabs. So they went out there, you know, let's go get some crabby. You know, we come up, it's just a hook, just a hooker. And there's no crabs, you know. So they said, we go home, we cry on the milk.

Go to the wifey. There's no crab tonight because there's no one there. You know, they ran away beneath the sea. You know, I don't know. That was a good one. That was a very specific one. I'm, you know, specific is where it's at. I know we talked about it. We had to have the last time you were on this. By the way, you're the first person I've had twice on the show. Congratulations.

I am so excited. I was very flattered. People love it. It's one of our biggest episodes. And you were great on our show. I could have talked to you because you immediately came out with like, who has the best hair in Hollywood? And you were on fire and you had great thoughts about it. Oh, listen, don't get me started on people's hair. Well, I had the best hair in the history of Hollywood. Or was it, you know, I don't know. I mean, the problem is you can have hair that's too good.

And then people are convinced you're wearing a wig. Who would that be? Jason Bateman. Oh, I see. Yeah. Jason has an incredible head of hair. Oh, he's a hedgehog. Oh, I know. I hope I didn't offend him. I was on Jimmy Kimmel hosting and the young woman who's brilliant. Yeah. Julia Garner. Yeah. She is brilliant. She's great. I did like a mini impression of Jason on Ozarks. And it was like,

Wendy, hear me out. And that was it. So I don't know if Jason... But there could also be Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Wendy, hear me out. Hear me out. Not a lot of Jack lately, but what a voice he had. He was. He was amazing. But now he's like, you know... We watched The Departed the other night. We said, what are we going to watch? You know, you watch things with your wife. Yes, of course. I'm going, well, let's watch The Departed. So...

He was very brilliant at that. He did his whole Jack thing, did the little rat face. He does his thing. He does. Yeah. Yeah, so hair. We're back on hair, though. Jason Bateman looks like his hairpiece because he has such great hair. Yeah, it's too good. I saw him at a party and I was like, your hair is too good. I ran my fingers through it.

I did. I was like, I got it. I'm going to secretly think you'd find some glue or a strap or something. How did he take the Rob Lowe's hand in his head? Well, it was late in the night. So I think we were all all we did was talk about golf, really.

I'm a huge Jason Bateman fan. Massive Jason Bateman fan. Well, you know, what he did with Ozark and directing and acting. It's unbelievable. He's just perfect. It was just, it's like a perfect performance. Yeah, that show is, that show is just an unbelievable. That's the kind of thing I'm just saying to Ted Sarandos, everybody else. We like shows like that where you just, the

The first episode, you're completely in. He's in Chicago. And it was such a great character.

He's about to get killed in the way just over and over again. He just like, well, wait, just just just just hear me out for a second. Hold on. And he was so great at it. It was so that first episode is so good. Yes. Like it's like you're not there's no way you watch that first episode of Ozark and go, yeah, it's not for me. There's just no way you're like, I'm in. And Laura Linney went downtown. I mean, she went downtown.

Yeah, she's down as a character. She's a crusher, though. She's yeah. She just went to this other thing. So those things are magic, you know. But as far as the best hair I've seen, Brad Pitt has a pretty good head. Oh, he's got really good hair. He's got really good hair. Are you are you down with the loose fitting clothes now, though? Are you does that does that speak to you? His new loose fitting drawstring pant.

tuxedo look? I don't know. You know, I only have 20 of these shirts and some cords from Banana Republic. So I always I was allergic to any kind of whatever fame I had. So I always wanted to be

as invisible as possible personally. And it's not a problem anymore. I mean, I'd be out here with the hat on and Hollywood. My wife goes, I don't think anyone's noticing, which is why I get it. I'm still not facing the crowd. But yeah, Brad seems to have someone who gets clothes for him and someone who gets shoes and goes, oh, you look so cool. No, I don't know. That's what my assumption is. He's, you know, has a dresser.

Who's going, you can rock those. And when you're in the room and there's three people dressing you, oh, get out of town, man. That's the best. And then he's going, well, these are incredibly comfortable. I'll give them that. Yeah. I mean, it draws attention, though. It's put together a little bit. So it makes your eye go to it. Yeah. I mean, listen, if it's good enough for Brad Pitt, it's good enough for me is the way I look at it.

Another Midwestern boy done well. Missouri boy. Missouri. I went downtown with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I think it might have been my age. A lot of us did. And I ran, you know, a lot of comedians saw it 10, 11 times. Really? Yeah. Over a period of time. Because I went to the Arclight to see it. And the first time I saw it,

you know, I was like, oh, okay. Liked it. You know, I thought a couple days later, I saw it again. The second time I was like, oh, okay. This thing is so dense. Why is it? It's so true. And I think Quentin's good movies, most of them are great movies, are like that. I went to the premiere. I haven't gone to a movie premiere in years. I just don't do it anymore. And I went to that one. And it was amazing. It was the man's Chinese. It was like,

It's that movie. That movie is unbelievable. Leo is so they're so good in it. It's insane. Yes. And then you watch it for different people, you know, like Pacino. At first I wasn't noticing Pacino because I'm noticing Leo and Brad and their brilliant connection. Gina, Gina, Gina, a woman in the mystic type. I'm looking for a very handsome cowboy man. Is that your son? Yeah. Yeah.

I try. You want me to go to Italy and do Italian movies? Oh, you can win fights. Robert Conrad is tight little pants. I mean, it's just like it's music to me. Would that guy say to you in there says I'm a goddamn has been. Do you find that actors sometimes get like they play a part that breaks through so big time and they they never in everything you see them subsequently?

There's an element of that character. Like I, I think it was Tree of Life, a Quentin, sorry, Terrence Malick movie I saw, which is very, very divisive. Yeah. I liked it. Terrence Malick is someone you need to, you know, I saw the, was it the red line? You know, thin red line. He's an artist, you know? Yeah. Brad,

Was doing the Bruce Springsteen. Is it underbite or an overbite? I can never tell which one it is. Bruce is under. Underbite. And that was the first time you saw the Brad Pitt underbite. And it's kind of there now in everything.

And I know that he did it in, uh, in glorious bastards. He was kind of doing, you know, it was really theatrical. It was right on the edge of, you know, uh, Oh, okay. We're just gonna just go there and commit to it. Yeah. Yeah. But the, the, the underbites debut was in, um,

You are a keen observer. I am. I have nothing better to do with my life. Well, that's what a performer and actor is, right? Because you never know when you're going to use it. You never go like, I'll steal it in two seconds if I have to. There's a moment for me to steal.

And you steal from the best. Yeah. I mean, I think that Tarantino from his last four or five movies. Yeah. He just went to kind of another level. And I guess he's not going to maybe do another one. I don't know. Hard, hard to compete with once upon a time in Hollywood. Really hard. For sure. My guest today has been Rob Lowe. No, it's my podcast. No, I have a thing. I've told you it's called Podcast Podcast. You know, it's how I asked you a few questions. Yes. Okay.

My guest today has been Rob Lowe. Always the best. Dana Carvey, ladies and germs. Thanks, Rob. I enjoyed it. Dana Carvey of The Weird Place. New podcast coming out for Halloween. Halloween. Yeah. I mean, he's the best. And he does look like Daryl Hall now.

How he doesn't do an I can't go for that impersonation, I don't know. I'm going to have him work on that for the next time he's here. Until then, you know what time it is. It's time to check the lowdown line. Hello, you've reached literally in our lowdown line where you can get the lowdown on all things about me, Rob Lowe. 323-570-4551. So have at it. Here's the beep.

Hi, Rob. My name is Haley. I'm from Seattle, Washington. My question for you is, do you think a star can still be an icon or are the days of a true icon over? Love the show and so does my mom, Jan. Thanks. Bye. Haley, great question. Hi, Jan. That's such a great question.

I mean, it's one of those things that no matter what I answer, I have kind of a vested interest in the answer. You know what I'm saying? So I think you, honestly, I think you and your mom are the ones who can answer that question. Really, you're the audience. That said, everything happens so fast today. The good news is you can get world, world, world famous immediately. The bad news is it used to be that you had to work hard

for that to happen. So you had something to fall back on. You had a body of work. People got to know you. You developed a relationship over time. And now it's also instantaneous that if it goes away, and it always does, all careers have ebbs and flows, you may not have anything in the bank to bring you back. So

Only time will tell. I mean, there's a lot of talk that, you know, we're living in the last generation of real stars. I think that's true in the sense of what that definition has been traditionally, for sure. But it's a super interesting question. I mean, everything is—the other thing is everything is so segmented. Like,

Whatever your niche is in comedy and drama and programming and music, because of the internet and social media, you can find your niche and just live in your own little niche. And so the broad star that transcends the niches is super, super hard. Like my sons and people younger than they are have actors that they're obsessed with that I've never even heard of.

And that kind of thing was impossible up until the last few years. So I think it is going to be harder and harder and harder for there to be universal, universal, multi-generationally accepted stars. I hope that was a good answer. Great question. I will see you next week on Literally. You've been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe, produced by me, Rob Schulte, with help from associate producer Sarah Bagar. Our research is done by Alyssa Grahl.

The podcast is executive produced by Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and Joanna Solitaroff at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson at Stitcher. All of the music on this podcast was composed by Devin Bryant. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time on Literally with Rob Lowe. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Stitcher.

At Ashley, you'll find colorful furniture that brings your home to life. Ashley makes it easier than ever to express your personal style with an array of looks in fun trending hues to choose from, from earth tones to vibrant colors to calming blues and greens. Ashley has pieces for every room in the house in the season's most sought after shades. A more colorful life starts at Ashley. Shop in store online today. Ashley, for the love of home.

All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel. ♪

Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton Honors membership required for 15% discount terms and conditions apply.