Judd Apatow: Reinventing the Comedy Wheel
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Hello, everybody. Welcome to Literally with me, Robbie Lowe. One of the greats today, Judd Apatow. I mean, one of the funniest, smartest, most accomplished dudes around. I mean, I'm looking at his filmography right now. I don't even know where to begin. Anchorman, This Is 40, I mean, Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared, Larry Sanders Show.

wrote on Cable Guy, Girls, and, you know, there's 75 other massive cultural hits. The 40-Year-Old Virgin. It just goes on and on and on. This is a guy who was the voice of his generation and then just became the voice of everybody's generation. And writer, director, producer, and more famous at the moment for being the father of Maude Apatow.

And I'm sure that he's going to love that I've distilled his career down to that as any good father would. Let's face it. So stand by for Mr. Judd Apatow. I realized recently that when people say they've read a book, I assume that meant they read it from cover to cover. It doesn't mean that, as it turns out. It means they read something of it and then they moved on.

I've read War and Peace under those definitions for sure. Right. But this is, you know, I've got a lot of junk. You know, I like the goofy things in life. I was talking to a friend. You know, some people, they don't like the memories. Maybe it's because I don't have a great memory. So I like the junk stuff.

from the times, you know? So the posters, the little stupid things from set, and I'll just keep them forever. I'll keep all of them. I mean, for instance, I'm doing a documentary about George Carlin, and I'll just hold on to the George Carlin box set for too long. Am I working on therapy? Sure, I'll look at shortcut through therapy. This is what I do. I'm surrounded by ephemera. Do you...

So what's the bedside table look like? Is it also? It's bad. It used to not be bad, but now it's bad. But I just moved into a new office. I have a little more space there. And so there's a plan to try to move all this out. But you know what they say about hoarding. You know what?

It's not hoarding if your shit is awesome. That's right. That's my theory. And I can tell even from here, I would have a good time pulling some shit out of there. I'd be like, hmm, I'd like to read this.

I'm sure I have some of your shit in here somewhere. There's a St. Elmo's fire thing in here somewhere. I hope you have one of my books, at least little stories. I only tell my friends up there. Come on. Oh, yeah. No, it's in there. It's all in there. Let's go. The George Carlin documentary. What what part of the process are you in actually at the moment?

I just locked picture a couple of days ago. Holy shit. And we're about to start scoring it, which is, you know, it's, you know, it's about three and a half hours or more. So it's, it's a big music score for us to do, but yeah, we've been working on it since before the pandemic started.

you know, he lived a long time. You know, you want to do a documentary about someone who didn't live that long, but when somebody, so when somebody was doing standup since the early sixties, that's a lot of material to cover. Did you ever meet George Carlin in your days? I, you know what? I didn't. And there's a whole, and I'm sure you, you've now been around as long, so long that they're, they're the people we get to meet. And then they're the people that we just missed. And sometimes like the,

the just missed list is really surprising. Like I had met, I hadn't met Redford until recently. Um, but Carlin was one. I, I, and I never met Richard Pryor. Yeah. Um, I just, I was just a little too young to be in that world, that world. But you met a lot of them though. You met a lot of them. What was the highlight of the one you met that really blew your mind and lived up to the dream? I,

Went to dinner with a really small dinner party and was seated next to Mick Jagger. That's pretty good. And he was so charismatic. Yeah, you understood everything about human sexuality at that dinner. I was like, you know what? I get it. And Cary Grant. Oh, wow. Cary Grant. So you must have been a young man then. I was trying to date his daughter and she wasn't having anything. She was not buying what I was selling.

Um, but it didn't prevent me from going to her father's. I didn't know she, that Cary Grant was her dad. I didn't know that. And she invited me over to watch. I had an afterschool special, an ABC afterschool special. I was, I was 15 and she goes, come watch it with my dad. He's an actor. I'm like, great. Groovy. And I drove over and he answered the door in a white bathrobe. And, um,

I was like, I knew Cary Granite from the Flintstones. Like I knew that cartoon, but I was vaguely aware of Cary. Anyway, I ended up watching my afterschool special with Cary Grant. Did he like it? Did he learn anything about young? Two things happened. He said that I reminded him of a young Warren Beatty, which like made me super, super happy. And then he chased me down the driveway in his robe and

And with an armful of Fabergé products, because he was a brand. Before brand ambassador was a thing, he was a brand ambassador. He invented that. He's like, here's a soap on a rope and some Fabergé for you, young man. And so I had a soap on a rope from Cary Grant for like months in my shower.

You don't want to use that. You don't want to soak that up too fast. No, I kept it as long as I could. He also gave me a really good piece of advice. I can't remember the context, but I remember the advice. It was, when you're sitting on a dais and serving food, don't eat anything. It'll have a picture of you with a hot dog in your mouth. Yeah.

That comes up every once in a while. That actually comes up all the time. It comes up all the time. That's a usable piece of advice. That's actionable. What was the story of the after school special? I'd like to know what the. Okay, I'm going to give you the title and then you get one guest to the plot. Schoolboy father.

heroin addicted teen parent. Everything but the heroin addicted. Yes. Yes. It's like, that's the thing about the titles. They told you right out. It was like, it was like, I'm dying of a nut allergy. Who played the woman that you impregnated? The late Dana Plato of different strokes fame. Wow. Wow.

So that was, that was a good one. And does it surface? Does it bubble up? Are you forced to confront these clips? Oh yes. More often than you'd like. Yeah. More, more. It was the operative more often than, than I would like. I, I,

That's the thing. You have, do you have any, you don't have anything like that. All your work is, you showed up fully formed all your shit. Yeah. I don't have a full humiliations. Most, most things that are bad, like no one even wants to, not wants to dig for it. They're not like interesting bad, but you know, I, I was like you were, I was excited to meet people. And so like when I was a kid, I used to interview comedians for my high school radio station. Cause I just wanted to meet people.

people who wanted, who did what I wanted to do. I wanted to ask them how they did it. And I put out a book a few years ago called Sick in the Head, which was my interviews. Most of them were from high school, but then I did some new ones with people like Chris Rock and Jon Stewart. And then I just, right now they just put out Sicker in the Head. So during the pandemic, when everyone was depressed and had nothing to do, I called them and asked them to do interviews for the book.

Because I knew that they were available. Who was like the great white whale for you? You're like, oh, I can't wait. The one that meant the most, by far, Letterman. Because, you know, when I was a young comedian and I lived with Adam Sandler and we were first starting out, that was the dream of

well you know what was to get on letterman and i remember adam got it first he was the first person who got on letterman and he was really young i don't know if he was 21 or 22. yeah and we couldn't believe it he went and did letterman and did his his kind of goofy act back then and we were like it can be done

We now know someone who got on there, and then through all the years, he's helped everybody by having people on. But just being funny, I think we all talked like him and tried to think like him for so long. So to get to ask him, how did you do it? How did it feel? And he was very open about it.

And very open about that he thought maybe he missed a lot of it because he was so stressed out trying to do a good job and caught up in the competition of it that he probably didn't enjoy it and pay attention to it. He totally, he copped to the competition element of it. Yeah. I mean, it's a great interview. He's just very honest about, you know, it's so intense that you almost miss it. It flies by you. Right. Which I totally understand because I think when we make movies and TV shows, sometimes you feel like,

I always use the analogy, I feel like I'm thrown into a frying pan. And then it ends, and then suddenly normal life returns. And I'm like, that was crazy how stressed out, how much hard work that was. And then suddenly it just ends. And then at some point you go, I think I've got to jump back in the frying pan. But imagine if you do that for 30 straight years without a break, really. No, a nightly thing like that, I mean, the pressure of it, I just –

I can't, I can't imagine how they do it. I mean, well, and you know, you, you have a great connection to Gary Shandling and you know, his, his, his,

sort of satire, I guess. I mean, it's a satire of the Letterman, right? Of that show, which was amazing, obviously. And you show ran it in the last year. I didn't realize that. Yeah, the last year of the show, Gary called me and said, will you help out running the show? So me and Adam Resnick, who created Get a Life and is a brilliant writer, we ran the show. And I mean, it was stressful. That was a stressful job because Gary's

Bar was so high for how great he wanted it to be that most of the time you were failing him and you felt it. Imagine if somebody just wanted to hit a grand slam home run with every line and every scene and you're trying to guess what he would like.

It was very hard to live up to it. But my thing was I would just try to get him to have fun because he was so tired from acting and editing and being in charge of everything that I thought, well, the best thing I could do is remind Gary that this is supposed to be fun writing comedy, writing stories. And so as often as I could, I tried to just pull him into a room and go, let's just fix this scene together.

you know, and try to make him laugh about it. And he was, so he was editing. He, he truly was, his fingerprints were all over it from day one. Oh yeah. And also, you know, back then there wasn't a lot of single camera television. Most cameras, most television that was comedy was in front of a crowd. And there was a system of how you would read it on Monday and rehearse for a few days and then tape it in front of an audience on Friday. People hadn't really tried to make a hilarious, uh,

half hour show that was like a movie every week. So I think the whole production was just wrong.

Like the way they did it physically, because they would read it and rehearse for a few days, and then they'd shoot the whole show in two days, 17 pages a day. But they didn't shoot it like a sitcom. They shot it like a movie. And you know, when you do a movie, you shoot like three to five pages a day. I mean, so can you imagine shooting 17 pages a day, and you're in almost all of it, and you're acting with Rip Torn and Jeffrey Tambor and Janine Garofalo and everybody, and you're just going...

This is too fast. I don't have enough bandwidth in my brain to do this. And then every time you get a breath, a writer walks up to you and says, do you have time to answer a question about next week's script? Oh,

And you're like, I'm in the middle of this reality right now. So it was so hard. But he was brilliant at it. And we would get through it. But during it, we all felt like we were just like boiling frogs right now. As an actor, I'm always fascinated with sort of how the other half lives because we can only have our own experiences. So...

Like when an actor gets a script, whether it's Gary or anybody on anything that you've done, who you respect and who is either the star of it or a partner in it or whatever. And they go, is this funny? Like there's always got to be a moment where it's maybe it's just because comedy is so subjective.

You one creates their comedy family. So you clearly all have the same taste and like the same have the same touchstones. So my guess is that these discussions aren't common, but there's always going to be that moment where like, I don't you love this joke. I don't know if I love it. And how does that play out for you? Like, give me how do people come to you?

And do that or do they? I'm asking for what I'm asking for. I'm asking you to direct me now. Tell me how I should handle the idiots I work with with comedy. That's really what I'm asking is like, I go to somebody effectively and go, I don't like this joke.

Well, I mean, I think, you know, it's like these opportunities through the process to question things, right? So the moment they hand you the script for the new episode or after the table read, you have a little sidebar conversation. And if you have good, you know, collaborators...

And you've worked with some amazing people like Mogul and Paul and the Grinder and like people who are, you know, hilarious. You know, then they're excited about that conversation because if you say this isn't working for me, how can I make it work? I think it could be a healthy conversation. Here's where it falls apart. If someone in that equation really isn't funny or is really wrong.

It's frustrating to someone in that conversation. So if your note is great and the writers are not great, you could never connect, right? If you're just out of tune with someone. Or I've seen people where both people are hilarious, but they have different senses of humor. And so they can't seem to get it going. And I remember I met Larry Gelbart, the man who created MASH and wrote Tootsie. And he was talking about the movie...

that he did with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd called Neighbors. Yes. And he said they hired, they were going to hire the director, John Avilson, to direct this comedy. And he had just directed Rocky. And he said, I didn't know that I'm supposed to take him out to lunch. And if he isn't funny, I don't hire him.

I just didn't know that. And so we hired him and he just didn't get the joke the way he wished that he would. And he said, but from then on, on every project, I would have a lunch, multiple lunches. And if that person didn't seem funny and get it, I did not work with them.

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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. Hey, it's me, your barista. You know how you come in almost every day for our cold foam coffee? Well, now there's an easy way to foam at home with New International Delight Cold Foam Creamer. And it's foaming delicious. New International Delight Cold Foam Creamer. Now in stores. It's foaming delicious. Why is the comedy so subjective? I mean, look, there are...

There's so many schools, right? I guess is really what it is. There's just schools of comedy, right? You find your, you find your people, right? Oh, sure. I mean, you know, you know, like,

You're in, like, Wayne's world, right? But that's a style. That's a joke style that we all love. But then there's comedy that might be like a Coen Brothers dark comedy. And it is very different. Or it might be a really brutal, brutal dark comedy. And the people who make them are different people who want different things out of their storytelling. And so if you love...

a lighter comedy, a joyful comedy, and suddenly you're collaborating with the darkest comedy maker, you know, with Todd Salon's happiness, you know, it might work. Happiness has to be, it's the darkest comedy ever made. Like it's, there's not ever going to be a competition. Is there? Right. And John Lovitz is brilliant in it. But when you think about, you know, if you don't get that, you know,

And you're on set going, what do we, you want me to what? What? What do you want me to do? It's like, it's like music, you know, sometimes a heavy metal guitar player sometimes can fit into a country band and

And knows those moves, but sometimes their thing, you know, is, is different. You don't need someone shredding with the Dixie chicks. Sometimes you might, but you know, it depends on the song. I mean, sensibility is, is I'm, I am obsessed with it. And if we could all understand the crack, the code of sensibilities, we would make nothing but massive hits all the time. This is the funniest thing. So my, my friend Nick Stoller and some guys from the grinder are,

just call me and said, so we have something for you. We've written for you. We think you're really going to like it. It's a, um, it's comedy, single camera, you know, played totally real. It's, you know, a family and their dynamics. You're the patriarch, but you're a potato. And I went, they came to the right guy. I said, I'm a potato. You're a potato. You will be a potato, like an animated potato. And we never comment on it. You live under the bed.

And there's a rock that you like to fuck. And I'm like, this is like that for me, comedy wise. I'm like, I'm interested in that. I'm so much more interested in that than a conventional setup for a comedy. Yes. And when is this show airing? Right. You're already like, I'm in. Right.

I will let you know. I mean, we'll see how far it goes, but it did make me laugh. I have a quick, a very deep dive question for you. In The Cable Guy, which you wrote, credited or uncredited? I forget. Well, it was, you know, it was like a page one rewrite. I did not get credit because I was also a producer and the Writers Guild has a very arcane rules thing.

which is if you're the producer, they don't want you stealing credits from the writer. So the bar to get a credit as one of the writers is obscenely high. And so there's tricky things because not many people in the Writers Guild do those types of rewrites. Most people are the people who don't want to lose credit.

Right. Directors and producers. So when they take votes, like, do you want to adjust this to something that would be just the same? So anyone rewriting a script should have the same amount they have to change to get on the writing credits. But for directors, producers, it's way more. So that's not fair. I'm obsessed with movies that I know famous people did uncredited rewrites on. Like,

When I watch Moneyball, I'm like, oh, that's Aaron Sorkin wrote that scene. 100% Aaron wrote that scene. Oh, Carrie Fisher. I remember I did some polishes on...

the wedding singer and Carrie Fisher had just done some polishes on the wedding singer. And Tim Hurley wrote the script and when the script was amazing, but it is funny that people who join in, because I think it is good that we collaborate on these things. And I've brought people in on my things all the time to just say, help me, is this good enough? And you know, it's great if you could do everything by yourself, but do you, do you ever get, you famously have like a, a fully functioning writer's room where,

basically all the time. Am I right about this in your company? Well, what we like to do when we have a script is write it and then when we're not in a pandemic, we'll do a table read and invite like 20 of our friends to just give notes, brutal, honest criticism because most people don't get honest criticism. So you really need those people who will tell you, this is really not working.

I mean, you need that person to explain what you can't see anymore because you're so deep in it that you don't know that you've misjudged something. And then on set, we always hire a couple of people to be on set. You know, I just shot this movie called The Bubble that's going to be on Netflix later in the spring.

These guys the Dawson's brothers in London. They were done said every day just pitching me jokes and trying to help me think of More jokes and better jokes, you know all day long and they're also producers on the movie And I think a lot of people work that way in comedy I mean, I think when they did veep they'd have the entire writing staff on set all day Watching every moment they were shooting and if anything could be better people would try to pitch a fix and and that's helpful. I

And that's why you know that comedies are harder than dramas. You don't have 11 writers on the set when you're shooting a drama. Everyone feels like it's pretty locked down. But, you know, when comedy fails, it's terrible. Oh, it's awful. And so, like, a drama can fail and you don't notice the scene was shit.

That's right. It just seemed like, oh, that was two people talking. But when people tell a joke and it's not funny, like the air comes out of the room, you get uncomfortable. You feel you're filled with shame. My idea of a living hell would be being stuck on something that I didn't find funny. Yeah. And for a long time, for a long time. And it would just be hell. Well, it's all the choice, right? It's the choice of what show to take.

to know I'm in an environment with people who get what I do. If you do parks and rec, you're like, I'm with my people. Yeah. And I know I'm safe here. And then they get it. And one of the reasons why I do books like sicker in the head, it's literally an excuse for me to sit with my heroes and to continue to try to learn. So I do the books for charity. I do it for this charity called eight to six, which, uh,

provides free tutoring to kids. And it's a great charity. But it's also an excuse for me to sit in a room with Sacha Baron Cohen for two and a half hours and literally go, how do you do it, man? Seriously, how do you do it?

I mean, and that's what I need that you always need that you always want to be trying to get better. I think the original for the first Borat is there's never been anything like it. I mean, it took my literally said like the cliche of it taking your breath away. It's a high watermark. I remember he asked me to watch his Showtime show. He was showing it to people.

The show is so hilarious. But he brought in people to watch it who didn't know what they were going to see. And it was not like his fans either. He just brought in normal people. I don't think they were Sacha Baron Cohen fans or Borat fans. He just brought in, like, anybody to watch the show. Oh, boy. And for the first few minutes, it was like, you could tell they were just going, what are we watching? But ten minutes in...

That room had erupted and everybody, no matter their point of view, uh,

He just owned them and they were laughing. And it's not a normal laugh because there's so much tension in it because you don't know what's going to happen. That is truly explosive. Who is America, it's called. Who is America, yes. And I feel like jackass is like that. If I want to laugh really hard, I'll put on jackass. Because there are things that are funny, but you go, yeah, that was funny. Maybe you giggle a couple of times. But then there's things...

That actually make you piss. OK, so let me ask you something there. So it is comedy if you enjoy it and you smile and you literally say what you just said. You acknowledge you know that was funny, but you didn't laugh. That's still comedy, right? Yes. Yes. You know, it's just a different comedy that makes you laugh out loud. And that's it just is rarer, I think.

I mean, there's thoughtful comedy, but there's some comedy that's just riotous. You know, Mel Brooks, riotous. The Farrelly Brothers. And every once in a while, you'd stumble into something the first time you saw The Hangover, and it destroys you. Or Sandler's movies. You know, when they're rocking, you're just so happy. Someone took the effort to try to get you to lose your mind laughing.

It's funny because when we made Funny People, Sandler and I, you know, it was a more thoughtful type of comedy drama. Right. And Sandler said to me, I know everyone's going to want me to do more of these after this. He's like, but the truth is there's nothing harder in the world than making people laugh deliriously. You know, and we always talked about how...

You don't get respect for that. It's so easy to make people cry. I mean, whatever the formulas are to make people sad. But every single time you make a comedy, you have to reinvent the wheel. You're just starting from scratch. When it's interesting, you can literally put on the right music and people will cry.

Oh yeah. You get a little Itzhak Perlman going. And there's no comedy music. There's bad comedy music. One of my pet peeves is, is, is when I get something that they've, you know, the composer is scored and it's the funny scene. Yeah. And you know, it's funny because they're playing the comedy. Yeah. It's a hung, it's some Hungarian waltz comes on, which although it's,

I don't know how he did it, but Larry David has that music. He does. So he's doing that music, but it's almost a comment on that music. And so it works in a different way. It's interesting. Like it's so on the nose that it's not on the nose at all. Anymore. Yes. Yeah. It is a brilliant use of that type of music. That show is just beyond belief. Great. Give me your top five.

Mount Rushmore comedies, movies and TV? Well, being there by the Peter Sellers movie, the Hal Ashby movie is always on the top. I mean, the scene where he's watching TV and she's trying to have sex, him and Shirley MacLaine, it doesn't really get better than that in comedy. I always go back to broadcast news and, you know, everything by, by James Brooks, all the great James Brooks. Yeah. Yeah.

What did you think the devil would look like with a pitchfork in the tail? No, he would look like him. I mean, I think taxi might've been the biggest influence on my whole career. I just, I just ate up taxi as a kid. And the first thing I ever read to try to learn how to do comedy was someone gave me 40 episodes of taxi.

And I just sat with them and I studied them like I was at college. Like, how did they work? I tried to find like the commonalities of the structures and the jokes. I love, I mean, I do love the Farrelly brothers and I love those jackass movies. I'm, you know, Cameron Crowe. I think Fast Times at Ridgemont High is a big one. I mean, people talk about the recipes for comedy and they always say,

The subject of how grounded is it? Is it earned the emotional connections that comes up all the time, but in, and I guess in theory, most of the time you need it, but there is, there is the odd Ace Ventura where it's just, let's go with the job. Let's just go hard. Yeah. And I, you know, it's funny, the movie I just made the bubble, uh,

The premise of it is a group of actors are in a hotel in London trying to finish making a dinosaur action movie during the pandemic. Amazing. And they're trying to follow the pandemic rules, but they're stuck in the hotel. They can't see anyone or do anything except make this movie.

And no matter how badly it's going wrong, the studio won't let them leave until the movie is done. And they all are having a nervous breakdown. And it was the broadest movie I've ever made. And in a lot of ways, the least emotion of any movie I ever made. Because I thought, oh, this is kind of like a Tropic Thunder, Christopher Guest movie.

kind of movie, you know, it's a, it's a character piece, but it's meant to just be bonkers. And, and then you go, well, how much satire should I have in it? How much emotion do I need for all these actors? I want it to be silly, but I need arcs. I do need. What was the answer to that? I'm curious. I'm so curious. What, what was the formula?

I'm not exactly sure how you would describe it because it isn't my normal reality level. I'm usually trying to get to a James Brooks reality level or a Shanling level, like a deep emotional core to it all. And this is a little more on the surface, but that also allows it to be way sillier. And people can do a lot more. And the actors are all great. A lot of it is...

enjoying these people and you know like it's karen gillen and keegan michael key and leslie mann and maria baklova and keith mckinnon and peter serafino it's and all these people that we just enjoy watching company in it did i read decoupling and david's company who is married to leslie's character uh in the movie they're the fighting couple and the

So it's a performance piece as well. So I'm interested for people to see it because it's as close as I've moved towards a Mel Brooks reality in my whole career. So it's on one end of the Judd Apatow spectrum, there's this is 40.

And then there would be the bubble. Would you say that's a fair assessment? Yeah, yeah. Definitely. It's all the way on the other side. And that'll be on Netflix in the spring. I love This is 40. This is 40 is one of my favorite movies. I love that movie. I love, love, love, love it. Love everything. How should I do This is 50? Because if I do it, you know, it's time. This is the year to do it. It's like my boyhood. I will argue, I will posit that.

That 50 is way more significant than 40. Although when you made this as 40 to us, it was significant because we were 40. But bro, we're 50. Yes. I know it's one of the things I need to ask you about. So we both have kids. Maud is crushing it. I agree. And Euphoria is such a big hit. It's so funny. Like that show is...

Watching a show capture people's imaginations is really something to behold. I mean, you've had it tons. I mean, from zeitgeisty like Niche Freaks and Geeks to huge hits. So you're well versed in it. But when it happens to your kid, it's got to be a whole other thing, I'm imagining. Am I right? Yeah, because you're so nervous for them. You want the show that they're on to be great. You want people to enjoy it and to recognize her work.

And on another level, I'm jealous of it because it's so good. Right. Right. I mean, I just see what Sam Levinson, the writer director does with it. You know, the scene work is remarkable. The camera work is all so inventive. Yeah. I mean, he's taking everything to another level. There's a lot of really funny material this year. And some of the stuff with Maude is really funny. And he's so collaborative and,

So it's almost exciting for me just to watch it come together because as a parent, I'm just reading the scripts and hearing what they're doing and what their challenges are and then to have the people respond this season in such a giant way. Because the ratings are like, it's like Game of Thrones all of a sudden.

And I also know the pressure of it because it's a lot of work. As you know, our television is really taxing. So, you know, your kids go into show business and they think, oh, this is like a fun thing. We're in show business. And then what is it? No, it's 12, 14 hours a day on a set.

for month after month after month. And it is a really hard pressure filled job. These are some of the hardest things that you could do in our industry. - And that's why whenever I see television that's good, 'cause movies are a little bit of a different beast, but when you see television that's good,

You have no idea how good that it is. Like it, it takes so much and mod being at the top of the list. She, she must be psyched right though. Right. She must be enjoying the ride or she just too in the middle of it to enjoy it. Uh, I think, yeah, I mean, this is a moment where, you know, you worked all year and now people are just seeing it and you're going, Oh, I hope they like it.

what we did. And I know from girls, you know, that it's rare that you're in something that people want to debate. I always said, you know, it's working when there's a debate in every episode, you could write an editorial about it. And what does it mean? And that's an amazing thing because there's so much content. There's like 400 shows that it's very hard to

be the one that there's a larger conversation about. And I think that's one of the effects of the streaming era, which is these people have a bottomless need for content. And as a result, it's very easy to make things that kind of appear and disappear. And people watch them and they don't even remember that they did watch them. Like if you ask them a year later, hey, did you see that show? They might go, I might have. Yeah.

Right? No, it's true. Do you think if, um, if I'm clearly not the first person to ever come up with this idea, but obviously if freaks and geeks had, it had been on a streamer now it's, it'd be running for multiple seasons for sure. Right? You would, yeah, you would think so. But you know, there's something that is also tricky about the streamers, which is, I feel like back in the day on television, there was this belief that the head of a network was

We'd pick one or two shows that didn't have huge ratings to keep on because they thought it made the network look good. And it was maybe it maybe was their favorite show. So the first season of Seinfeld maybe got bad ratings or the first season of Cheers got bad ratings. But somebody in the network was like, I kind of like it. Let's hang with it. Let's see if it catches on.

And I feel like the streamers, they have so much information. They know the second you take a piss, how long you peed for. If you finished the episode, how long did it take you to finish the season? Did you bail from the season? That it's much harder to fight them to get that opportunity to survive because they know everything about every episode.

It was viewed. And so I don't know if those people are going, you know what? I don't care. I just, I'm proud of that show. I want it to represent what we do. And I hope that's happening. But sometimes I wonder if it's not happening as much because that's the human quality, even of whatever the Warren Littlefield era or Grant Tinker or Brandon Tartikoff that you just knew that in there was a beating heart, right?

And they made mistakes also. But every once in a while, you felt it. Like someone there just loved Letterman at NBC. And when the morning show bombed, they're like, I love you. I'm going to find another way to make you a star and to get you a hit show. And they move them to late night. And that's because it wasn't just metrics. Well, that's so interesting you say that because the other worry is that

the business model being driven by subscribers and not even really ratings, that there is an argument I've heard that even a hit after a while isn't that interesting to them because it's not bringing anyone new to subscribe. Yes. Someone explained to me that

The reason why you only see three seasons of most shows. The three season rule, yes. Is because, you know, they don't just want the show to be a hit. They want a show to be the type of show that makes people sign up for the service. So I think one reason why you see things like a lot of Dave Chappelle specials, for instance, is because people will get Netflix just to see Dave.

You know, they're excited. And I'm sure there are people who might have things like, I want to see Squid Game. And so they will just... Maybe they've never had Netflix before. They get it just to see that. And they're looking for those type of real culture-exploding moments. And, you know, after a few seasons, they...

Unless the audience is really demanding it and there's a lot of energy, I don't think it's the same model where in the old days the reason why a show stayed on the air was because...

When they got to 100, they could sell it into syndication and then maybe you'd see it on in the afternoons. You'd see Seinfeld at 4 o'clock in New York on the local station. And that's how they made money. But they don't really need 100 anymore. And I think maybe it's just nostalgia for us as an audience to think shows should have 100 episodes. You know, we did, I think, 34 episodes of Love on Netflix.

And we got to tell a lot of a story. We wish we could have told more. But in this day and age, we're like, wow, that's kind of a lot. So I don't even know what the right answer should be. I know for me, when I like something, if the quality is good, I don't want it to go away. Because in the old days, TV was on all year. You'd watch MASH September to May.

you know, there'd be 22 or 24 episodes and it was your friend. Yes. It's not that anymore for, I mean, there's some of that obviously on network television and we watch that, but even there, I think a lot of people will allow themselves to miss episodes so they can watch four at a time. Yes. You know, people want to like watch it like a movie more and more. And that's just a new habit. And I never made stuff to be,

consumed like that. I like that Girls was on once a week and it was in the discussion with the audience for a few months, even if we only did 12.

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The DVD, the commentary is legendary. I'm a big, big. I love hearing how people made what they made in the behind the scenes is why I did this podcast, because it's sort of my own iteration of it. How did you guys were you guys all in the same room when you how did that infamous, famous commentary come to be? And what are your thoughts on it? Well, we always would do those commentaries with as much energy as we made the movie.

I mean, I think I learned it from Adam McKay. Adam McKay was doing the commentary for Anchorman and he had the cast of Anchorman there, but he decided to make it into a whole comedy. So for no reason, he had Lou Rawls with the cast.

doing the commentary. Amazing. And then he had Andy Richter call in the middle of the commentary to complain that he wasn't cast as Brick Tamlin. And then Carell and him get into a fight about who would have been better for the part. And he made it into a little...

comic play of its own, the commentary. And so we started trying to do weird things, commentaries where people are in their characters on the freaks and geeks commentaries, things like that. So I am a fan of the DVD extra and I mourn that with the move to streaming, that there aren't extras as they should be. I need a home for my, you know, my, my, my gag reels and my line of thons. Yes. That, that great Melissa McCarthy run. Yeah.

Exactly. Like when someone's funny in a movie, sometimes you need two sentences for the movie. But you remember that on the day they were funny for 35 minutes and you feel like I want to share that with people because it is really special. So in Funny People, I showed Adam making phony phone calls when we were kids because I used to videotape his funny phone calls. And on the DVD, I put all the uncut phony phone calls on.

that Adam did. And so we need to tell Netflix and HBO Max that

Put the DVD extras on the service. If I could have accomplished one thing today, it is that request. It's an interesting time. There's so much. The good news is there's so much opportunity. The machine demands the content. So we're all busier than we've ever been. Yes. It's all shaking out. What is it all going to mean to our experiences? That's what we'll have to. That's what this is. Fifty will have to be about a little bit.

Have you written this 50? Are you thinking about it? I have a story. I have a story. And I have to I have to like start asking everyone who's a part of it if it sounds interesting to them to do it. I do have a story that I really like, but it's also a strange movie because it wasn't a huge hit. It was kind of a double. But in the 10 years since it came out.

I feel like it's really stayed in the culture. Yes. And it's on TikTok. People are always lip syncing it and the scenes are always memes and, and everyone watches it when they turn 40. And I feel like the audience has grown. Totally. So hopefully I can get it together. And, but, but now is the moment where I keep saying to people like, would you want me to do it?

So that's right. You got it. You got to heard. That's a great cast. Everybody's busy and doing so many things. You got to like, yeah, you got to scheduling. That will be hard, but you, I will be first in line for that for sure. Well, thank you. So I'm psyched for the book.

I'm psyched to see the bubble. How many scenes with the actors wearing masks were there? You know, it's funny because what the movie is about is that it occurs early in the pandemic when all the rules were still very confusing to everybody. So there is a covid supervisor on the set who clearly is terrible at his job. So the mask supervision is very weak.

And also, I don't want anyone's face covered in every scene because I would ruin the movie. So just everyone is disrespecting the mask rule all the time. They're kind of chewing on it or they're going, I'm drinking, I'm drinking. Like everyone is fudging it the way, you know, in life. That's super great. Well, I hope I see you before our annual Hawaii. We missed you in Hawaii this year.

Incidentally, I know we spent a nice New Year's together. My wife, Leslie, says hello. And, you know, she always reminds me that when when she was a young woman in high school, she would have what she called search for Rob Lowe in Hollywood days where her and her friends, you know, they don't know you at all. But just as a 17, 18 year olds would just drive around Hollywood hoping to bump into you.

And then she said that you were at her school once and she was in college at Chapman with some candidate. Lloyd Benson. That's the first time with Lloyd Benson. And so – but now she also made a point of saying that you're not her favorite anymore. Your wife Cheryl is. And so you're at a distant second to your wife. And now I get it with – it's the same with you. It's like –

with certain demographic my son John Owen Lowe you know as a young actor is going to be the most famous Lowe you got the bon appetit it's like you know it's like we got to pass the baton bro that's right this is 50 well they what I always would say to my kids is the second you do anything that's good people will not remember I existed

I will disappear into the ether. And it's happened so fast. The adjustment to...

being the daughter of me and Leslie to me having to explain that I'm the father has happened. So, you know, that means it's the old age home time for me. That's now I, now I can shut it down. You know? I know. Listen, you know, your, your legacy is, is set. You need not worry, sir. I will. I'll feel good.

As I shut down the shop and just binge television for the rest of my life. And as you deal with the clutter behind you in your photo, which I... Then I'm going to read these books. I'm going to retire and read these books. And underline them. Every single one. I had so much fun. Wow. He's an amazing man. Really amazing. So accomplished. Damn. Just insane.

And I felt like I could have talked to him for another 5,000. We'll have him back. How about that? I think we have him back. Don't you think? We do. I see the light is flashing. That is 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.

Hey, Rob. Dan Bridges here from Sedalia, Missouri. And just so you know, celebrating 12 years of continuous arriving today. So I wanted to call your low-down line and ask you a question. In around 1996 or 1997, I was part of a Marine detachment aboard the aircraft carrier USS Constellation.

And I distinctly remember you coming aboard, and I had probably a short three-minute interaction with you. And not that I expect you to remember that, but I wonder if you remember coming on board and touring the aircraft carrier, and if you were doing that as part of preparation for a role or kind of what the back story was behind that.

I've been able to find information about you touring other ships online, but not the USS Constellation. All right. Hope to hear back from you. Wow. I remember my time on the Connie. I remember the Connie. And it's funny. And congratulations on your sobriety, because it's funny. What I was doing there was I was with a group of people who were all in recovery. And we actually led a meeting on the boat.

Um, so isn't it funny that you would now be in recovery yourself? Um, and, uh, gosh, the first time you land, I flew out on the cod, you know, and, um, you know, did the tail hook landing and the, you know, got to catapult off. It was, I'll never forget it. Um, and then, then yes, I, I, then I got to spend some time in the Abraham Lincoln, um, when it was in Santa Barbara. Uh, but I'm a big, um, supporter of, of our military and, and I, I do a lot of work, um,

usually around recovery. I do a lot of work with seals down in Coronado and also a lot of, uh, with their mental health programs and, um, and, and my, um, my men's skincare line profile, um, our profits, some of our profits go to, uh, wounded warrior. So, um, that's a big part of, of my charitable work on the side, but, um, yeah, what a great memory. I remember it well. Oh my gosh, you kidding me? Smoking cigars with the bro, with the bros below decks on the Connie. Let's go.

So good. Anyway, thanks for listening. Appreciate you. So thank you for listening. And oh, by the way, don't forget, if you're liking Judd Apatow on Comedy Talk, you're going to love Parks and Recollection, the podcast that we do where we break down every single episode of Parks and Rec and give you the behind the scenes on it. And it's super fun with Alan Yang, who wrote on the show all the years that we were on it. So that's Parks and Recollection. Get it where you're getting this. And I will see you all next week for Literally.

You've been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe, produced and engineered by me, Rob Schulte. Our coordinating producer is Lisa Berm. The podcast is executive produced by Rob Lowe for Low Profile. Jeff Ross, Adam Sachs, and Joanna Solitaroff at Team Coco. And Colin Anderson at Stitcher. Our researcher is Alyssa Grawl. Our talent bookers are Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and Britt Kahn.

And music is by Devin Bryant. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week on Literally with Rob Lowe. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Stitcher.

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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. ♪

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