Dan Aykroyd
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Hey guys, it's Spadoodle. You can always go to davidspade.com to look at my tour dates because I bless a lot of cities in America with my hilarious stand-up act. Or you could not go to it and get on my enemy list. Up to you!

Yes, I have actually stayed at Airbnbs from time to time. And truth be told, I do really like them. I'm being totally honest right now that I've had great experiences with them. Yeah, I mean, you can have your look at you go get your own place, get your own pool, your own living room. You're not going to walk in an elevator. You're not going to see people when you're walking around in your undergarments. Yeah.

Yes. And if you don't understand what we're talking about, you should go online. What we're saying is you have a house with a kitchen and a bathroom and it's just for you, tailored for you. You liked your Airbnb over a hotel. Yes. And I do think I've had relatives stay nearby and sometimes it's very nice for them to do an Airbnb and have a little house and they're not underfoot. The last thing you want is your house guest to say, excuse me, um,

where would i find a towel that's a toughie when it's because they're naked well it's an it's like the 1800 time you say on the towel rack yeah thank you i was gonna look there people don't even think hotels sometimes just go hey i'll go there i'll get an airbnb so um you won't regret it wow guys today is a big one this is uh

I got Dana and I were really pumped about Danny Aykroyd. He's one of the biggies that we just have talked about since the beginning. And even before I ever wanted to be on SNL, which was, I didn't really want to be on SNL almost until I got on SNL because I didn't think it was even a possibility. I dream low. My mom always told me dream within reason, dream about getting a new spare tire for your Volvo.

So I was never thinking I was like a character guy for SNL and the king of the character guys is Ackroyd. I mean, Phil Hartman is up there, but I have to say it's very hard to compete with that first crew, Hall of Fame crew of SNL guys and Ackroyd loved. And with Belushi, and there was too many things to go over them from the Blues Brothers to Coneheads we talked about. All that stuff, of course. We didn't even get to Julia Child.

Bas-o-matic and Heather's favorite, Jane, you ignorant slut. I wanted to say that on my phone machine. Who has a phone machine? Anyway, that's not the point. The point is he was lovely. He came into my pad. I showed him Farley's jacket from Tommy Boy that is on the wall. We did Tommy Boy together. We did Coneheads together. He was a stud. I interviewed him once for Spin Magazine when I was on SNL.

He was very generous and let me do that. And he is a character and he was doing some impressions and goofing around and there isn't enough time to talk to Dan Aykroyd. There's just too much. And what a stud. And he's got his vodka. And we talked about that and it's all, and we had a few knocks. I did definitely with him, put a little Diet Coke in it to ruin it. And, and it was just a blast. So without further ado, let's get, here's Danny Aykroyd. And we had such a fun time with this dude.

I saw Chris two days ago and he said he stayed at the Chateau. Love Chris. He must love you. He came over and gave me a hug. I said I was seeing you guys and he was, yeah.

He should have been more excited about you seeing us, but that's okay. It's great when you meet someone who hasn't become a superstar yet. Chris? Yeah, and if you treat them normal, they never forget it. If you're just reasonably respectful. He's pretty much of a superstar, though. Oh, yeah. And just, boy, from what I can gather, hasn't changed a bit. This looks like a congressional inquiry. Yeah.

You are going to answer some questions. We're sitting on a table like a scene from Oppenheimer. The podcast is actually called The Hot Seat. It's a surprise. And you are. And we welcome Dan Aykroyd to The Hot Seat. Heather, help with that. Do you know how to do that? I'll do the side thing. And will you bring a bottle? Crystal Head Vodka, is that the one? Do you have plain? Do you have any fresh squeezed orange juice in the house? I assume so.

Did you ever win an award? Do you have any juice at all? Any cranberry or any... You know what we might have is a... It's not juice. We might have lemon... Seven Up? Seltzer. Is that nothing? It's not really... You don't have a juice like a hibiscus or cranberry or a...

Hibiscus? Yeah, that's all right. Put some ice in there. Yeah, I will. I'm just... No, no, no, no, no. Don't worry about that, no. But it's just, to sample it, it pops it better if it's cold.

Oh, if it's cold, I'll put some ice in there. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'll try some. I'm going to have, yeah. And please let me know when we're rolling so that I'll do all the politically incorrect stuff now. We're always rolling. We don't have to use it, but we're rolling. But you always have editing capability. We will send you the raw tape. The conversation begins then. Okay. Okay. Well, what you're doing there is you're pouring the...

Oh, yeah. Okay, go ahead. Have you won awards for this vodka? Do you do a formal introduction or do we just- No, we do have Dan Aykroyd who's- I start everyone as Joe Biden. Get your facts straight, Jack. That's it. Yeah. And then there was the other president you did so well and so beautifully. Gotta do it. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, that was the way that eventually, yeah. And it was a slur. You know, it's a, there's a Washington. Not, not, it became not going to do it, became not going to do it. And in Washington now, there's a slur that is commonly used, commonly for a word that, that is, that is frequently employed in the, in the trade. Sir, sir, sir. It's Senator. Senator becomes sir. Sir. It's Sewell. Yeah.

Sewell. Remember Sewell? Yeah. Catan. How genius was that guy? Sewell. Do you remember Sewell? No. Chris Catan. Chris Catan. He did Sewell. I'm talking now. I'm going to tell you a story. I'll tell you a story.

You know, Sewell, the slur. Yeah. People slur all the time. Yeah. Well, a little bit now, I think he, a little bit. Yeah. Can I do a six degrees of separate? I don't think that's the term. I'm in college. You're doing Jimmy Carter on Saturday Night Live. I'm recording it with a cassette and trying to steal, you know, playing at the little teeny club. Steal your Jimmy Carter.

and was in awe of it. And then... To use where? In clubs. I was just trying to do what you guys did. You guys were, to me, like badass rebel pirates. Yeah. I think of Bill Murray and you...

That's so accurate an analysis of us. It really is. Well, we were little. Look at us. We're tiny people, but you guys were kind of strapping all over six feet. You would punch a guy or make him laugh. Yeah, but

But, um, and so you do, uh, you'd, you'd copy of the Jimmy Carter. Well, Jimmy Carter, you know, he had that, he had that eye contact and a very soft way of approaching things. And yeah, he ended up being, you know, one of the great post presidents and, uh, really, uh, a giant figure. You know, what's interesting about him? Cause I became fascinated by him because he's constantly referred to. So I read this book about him.

could not understand the idea of deficit spending. He was like, I don't understand how we take in this much money and we're going to give out that much money. It makes no sense to me. But my Jimmy Carter I do now, I still do all the presidents, is that he had a nervous breakdown, put peanut butter on his head, wandered around the White House. Sir, are you okay? You got peanut butter on your head. No, I don't.

I'm a peanut butter man. I got peanut butter hair, peanut butter soup, peanut butter tie, peanut butter shoes. I'm a peanut butter, peanut butter. I'm doing you. But here's the thing that got me crazy, Dan, is when you were visiting SNL and then you praised my George Bush senior impression. So it was like 10 years later. So that just, you know, these things are. Carter was unbelievable. You know, he was a nuclear physicist and an engineer in the Navy, and he helped set up Canada's reactor program.

There was a— Captain of a nuclear submarine. He troubleshooted—went up to Ottawa, my hometown there, and troubleshooted a reactor problem they had at one point. In what year? Before President or after? Oh, yeah. No, when he was— Just some president walks in. Let me take a look at that. You know, 60s. I'll get back to the economy. I'm going to do this reactor for the Ottowans. Yeah, but, well, deficit spending, you know, actually, you know—

Look, we live in a country that is a fiat currency. Well, Canada as well. Fiat currency, all you do is you just print more money if you need it.

And so, you know, spending, you got to spend the money. People need it. You got to spend it. We're doing that. And we're doing it. Yeah. We've got a, we've almost got a third. Don't let it sit on the shelf. No, it shouldn't. A third world debt, debt load right now. Right. But because we can print more.

Why not spread it around? It's a never-ending thing. Modern monetary theory. Now we're getting close to a trillion in interest on that. Pour me a little bit of this. Pour me a little. A little bit of that here. Now you'll notice our notes, sweet, thank you, sweet, vanilla, dry, and crisp.

Made in Canada. Can I ask you a question about this? Because... Yeah, we don't have to talk about the vodka. We can talk about anything. No, no, I want to talk about... We'll hop around. This is going to integrate into you as a performer. You were one of the first celebrities that made a... Oh, so sweet. Dan's drinking his own vodka. There's a... There's a...

Now, I'll do it. David has this other vodka. I won't mention the name sometimes. I'm always looking for a vodka. So, Chris, go ahead. And I knew about this. Okay, we have here. David Spade is going to take the little ship. Am I smelling the notes first? Didn't you love Johnny? So, he's going to have. Last night, he had two slippery monkeys at the hook and crook.

What a great Carson you always did. Oh, I love Johnny. When he died, when the joke would die, that was the funniest, the way his reactions were. Yeah, the deconstructing of the show. That's good, Danny. Dry crisp. You did it right. A little heat off the finish. It's clean. The sweetness from our corn there.

Yeah. And I'm a vodka guy. Well, the thing I wanted to add... David, most of the other vodkas, I don't name names, but they put lemonine, sugar, and they put citrus oil, they put glycol. Fuck that. You don't need that. No. Don't need that. You know, if you're a bartender, you're making...

Things where you add all kinds of additives in there, St. Germain, Franca, you know, all kinds of, Burnett, Branca, all that stuff. Dictionary. Dan, are you? You know, so you don't need, if you're a bar chef, you don't need anything with additives in it. I don't know the story. How did this originate? I'm sorry. I just want to know how you. I just wanted a cleaner vodka, really. What year was this? Because this has been around. We've been in a decade and a half in the disc. Okay. Now, there have been many vodkas come and gone. Come and gone. Many come and gone. And all the celebrities are doing tequila now.

Well, many. You know what? There's 200 celebrity spirits brands. 200? I didn't even know there was 200 celebrities. I got to get going on this. But weren't you an early adopter? It seems like... Sammy Hager did his tequila. And then I just began to research vodka and saw...

That, you know, that they were kind of polluting it a bit. And so Johnny Alexander and I came up with the idea for the skull. Remember him? You know, Johnny? Johnny Alexander, the artist. Yeah. Well, the skull is revolutionary. I mean, it's gorgeous. We met when he, when his girlfriend, or my girlfriend dumped me for him. Rosie Schuster. Oh.

Rosie Schuster, who developed Church Lay with me. Yeah. Wrote with her a lot. A spectacular human being. Yeah. She was awesome. And a beautiful, beautiful woman from the time she was born today. I didn't know she was Lauren's ex-wife for like a year. Lauren's ex-wife, yeah. Well, I knew. You knew that for that? I knew and it didn't stop me. Oh, boy. He was very magnanimous. But anyway, Johnny –

I got it back because not that I took her away from him. That was kind of over with Lauren and Rosie at the time. But I was with Rosie and she fell in love with Johnny and dumped me. Gave you the Heisman. Yeah. Now we're friends, Johnny and I. And as Rosie said to...

All three of us one night at Davis's Memorial, she looked at Lauren, she looked at me and she looked at Johnny. We were all sitting there like crows on a wire at Davis's. She said, well, at least you have each other. Oh, we love Rosie. So today we have the vodka company, Johnny and I, we're having a ball where it's really fun. You know, if you can drink moderately and respectfully, it's a good thing. Now, Danny, are you saying some of these like

There's a lot of celebrities. I drink Urkel's tequila, which is probably the best one. Urkel's? I'm kidding. I don't know. No, it sounded real. It probably does. It sounded real. It's probably in the works. I've got Felix the cat.

What would that be? It's a lager beer. Yeah. Felix the Cat. Felix the Cat. You remember Felix the Cat? Yes. Oh, of course. Does he remember? The bag? Do you remember? Elwood Blues is partly based on- Oh, he's partly Felix the Cat. He's partly based on Felix the Cat, the briefcase that has everything in it. Oh my goodness. I love Felix. That's got to be brought back. That is a beautiful, beautiful character. That was one of my first animated memories. Oh, yeah, yeah. 58, 59. Felix is great. Felix the Cat. He's one of the Blues Brothers, Felix.

Yeah. He's black and white. Yeah. I know. Yeah. On a mission from God. Yeah. Now, listen. Now, when you do this, you're saying the azvodkas, they have some of those things you're saying that are in it. I didn't know all the words, but they might make for a hangover.

Uh, the glycol certainly would. Okay. Yeah. So when you have too many things in it, it's not great. No, no, of course. Now you, you, you get to eight shots of this, even without the pollutants in there, you're going to, it is ethyl alcohol. So, you know, you gotta be kind of, uh, one of our new sponsors, I guess, is trying to mitigate that problem.

Oh, we have one of ours that says it helps hangovers. But you know what? Oh, it doesn't have hangovers? It mitigates them. It's not Vodka saying it helps you with a hangover. It's not a Vodka. Well, you know, try it. Yeah, try it. I mean, yeah. By the way, the House of Blues, Dan, you don't know this. You were part of the House of Blues, and it was across the street. I'm so sad it's gone. They dug up the coolest place in the world, and now it's some dumpy hotel.

That nobody cares about. Live Nation bought House of Blues in 2007. How much did they pay for it? They paid several hundred million. Okay. Basically to save the company. Because it had had many challenges and they came in and saved the company because, you know, the dot-com bomb, 2008, all kinds of things, 9-11, all kinds of things fought against House of Blues survival and Live Nation came in and saved the company in 2,500 jobs. Mm-hmm.

And then, uh, across the street here, the, the leaseholder, uh, basically wanted the building back. And so they just paid live nation, you know, some to say, we want to build our own thing here. And,

And Live Nation looked at it economically and said, you know, we'd have to run a restaurant here for the next 50 years to make the money that was offered. So I understood the decision, but it's too bad. They took out our beautiful bar with the steel, curved steel. And that was my office. I mean, I hung. I saw the Go-Go's there. I saw so many. Oh, so many great guys. There's one in Vegas. There's a cool one in Anaheim, Vegas. They're still out there? Yes. Oh yeah. There's 11 of them. And they're rocking. The one in Chicago is just great.

Yeah, that's a great brand. So, so another business thing you got into, I mean, it seems to me just listening to you, it's a super creative expression of yourself because the first time I met you and you sat us all, you were visiting SNL. It was me and Phil and John, my first season. We were at a restaurant. First thing you said was don't be in a hurry to leave the show.

And the second one was just about business and pay attention. Well, it's show business, right? Yeah. But that way I remembered that to this day. It's always great to have great advisors. And, uh, you know, I've, uh, any work that I've done that I'm proud of, it's because I've been with wonderful collaborators, any success I've had, it's consulting people who are smarter than me in many areas. And, uh,

And just the fun of working with just great people all the way through. You know, Murphy and Murray and all of them. Jesus Christ. Yeah. And Lovitz, of course, we just think of him as he's, as far as I'm concerned, he's the price of it. He's worth the price of admission to SNL generally. Just that Lovitz was there, you know. Why do you say that? That's so funny. Yeah.

I don't know where he got that character from. He's spectacular. I did this thing. It's going to be out in the next year. The World in Six Glasses. It's a documentary talking about all the fluids that have influenced man over time. And I had him on. He came on. I'll do it. That was one of the most fun. Yeah. Huh? I'll do it. He's so fucking hilarious. Oh, no. He's just good. Lovitz is always a lot. You put him in The Wedding Singer. He's funny. Yeah. I've had him in movies. He's great.

No, he is. He is. Jealous? Yeah. That's his big one. By the way. Hey, I like your glasses. Jealous? Yeah. You mentioned Trading Places and I mean, there's too many things to ask Dan Aykroyd about. I know. There's not much to ask other than to fawn over things, but Trading Places was one of the

those movies that just hit us hard and it was an R rated movie and it was so fucking funny. And then you just, so I don't want to say, did you know going in, but you know, you get to work with Eddie and, uh, did you know him well at all? Or was just, was it, was it a gamble to put Eddie in? Um, nobody. Um, well I think, uh, you know, he did the Walter Hill movie, the Walter Hill movie. And then Paramount said, yeah, he'd be good. Um,

And, uh, somehow that pairing came together. I didn't know him before we started. Of course, he was spectacular to see that talent grow and what he did in that film. And when I read the script, it was so intelligently written. And, uh, I thought, uh, yeah, I, I, I, this would be a great thing to play and have fun on. Cause it was certainly different from, you know, anything I'd done before. And, uh,

And then Landis directing it because we made a couple of things together. So it was, you know, all the cylinders were clicking. Was it kind of like a 30s screwball comedy in that sense? It wasn't. Because it was so fun and easy to watch. It was written by a pair of writers, Weingarten and Harris. And they wrote it and corresponded, I heard, by fax machine to write it.

And I believe they did one other film, but that was certainly their most famous and well-known one. And so well done and, you know, well-directed with great actors in it. Yeah, that's a triple A. I'm proud of that one. Jamie Lee is spectacular. Jamie Lee was so... She's a force of nature. Everything was working and you eating the salmon out of your beard. I mean...

I don't know if it's an ad lib or what, but those are the texture things in movies where they stick with you forever. I think that was, I have a beard on. I see the salmon. I'm going for it. You know, you come into the set, you know, you're looking around, stuff you can use all the time. You know, we're desperate. How do I fill it with business? So I have this beard and there's a salmon. Oh, yeah.

I don't know if it was scripted or not, but I kind of remember it being spontaneous. I'm going to pick it up. Beer hair. I'm going to go for it. But that's great because you look at scenes and I almost forget that we did Tommy Boy. Same thing. You look at a day's shoot and you go, is there anything funny here? There's a clip on with Farley. In the night before, we're like, hey, can you guys give us a clip on just for one laugh so we can... It's all about brake pads. It was hard to make it that...

everything funny that reminds me that you get there you see a salmon you see a beard you want to shoot the beard and and landis was generous with that oh about just grabbing things oh no he so he was smart oh no he he lets the performer go you

And you mentioned Farley, of course, dearly beloved, dearly beloved. Yeah, of course. Gee, Mr. Aykroyd. Oh. Could he be more in love with Dan Aykroyd? It's unreal. I don't think so. Coneheads, man, Coneheads. When he was in the Coneheads, he played the beautiful part. Oh, he was good in Coneheads. Yeah, he was great. Oh, yeah. You know when he would do stuff on the set and he'd move his head and we're like,

That's Aykroyd. That's Bill Murray. That's Belushi. But the sweetest, sweetest, sweetest guy. Just a sweet, sweet man. Yeah. Just Zelensky. The name came back this year. I have a question. He did such great stuff with his pants. Yeah. Pulling his pants up. He was so respectful and polite and a church-going, you know, church-goer. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. We had a blast on Tommy Boy. I remember one night when we were in like a... I think you were showing us... Is it where Rob Lowe gets hit in the balls? I don't want to give the whole movie away, but when we... We shot like 24 hours and we had some factory in Toronto. We got to go up there and we were getting tired. Magna Auto Parts. And you had the... There was the...

The air freshener show. So many things. And then just to have you from the guy we love to be in the movie, and then the movie worked out. Yeah, it did. Oh, so much fun. That's a good picture. That's a really good picture. It is. The deer scene. Oh, God. That happened to Franken and Davis, you know. Oh, is that deer came alive? A car, it went through the windshield. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that happens a lot. Yeah. But I don't know how many times deer comes back alive.

That was the other. I think in their case, it might have. Oh, wow. Yeah. Really? Frank was like this. Wow, we got a deer in the back of the car. Well, you've got to be here. We've got a show. We'll take care of the deer later. Oh, I got to tell them. Sorry. We had Michael McKeon on. Remember Michael McKeon? Of course. Yeah, of course. I know. His resume, it's like yours. It's like exhausting in a brilliant way. And they're making Spinal Tap again, I hope. Oh, I don't know. There's rumors of that.

We don't ask the good questions. We just fawn. But we were talking about Conant's. He was my partner in Conant's. And I was telling Dana that we were the immigration guys. Yeah. Kind of the bad guys, whatever, you know. And it was peppered with, we didn't mention it, but I think Sandler was in the movie. Farley had a big part. It was his first movie appearance, Sandler. Oh, was it? Billy Madison. Yeah, he sold the- His car line or something? He sold me the ID.

Oh, that's right. Fake ID. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And we had Ellen DeGeneres, Drew Carey, Sinbad. I know. Every wheeler peppered that place. If you watch it, you go, whoa, hey, look who that is. It was a very good serviceable family comedy, and it certainly endures today, no doubt about it. Serviceable. I think that wasn't in the pitch. Well, you know. No, I love Coneheads. I told Dana and Michael that. Michael didn't know this. So, you know. It was supposed to come out at Halloween. They rushed it.

Oh, is that what happened? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Stanley Jaffe there at Paramount prodded Lauren to get it ready. And Lauren and I were thinking Halloween, Halloween, but now we need it now. We need it now. So it would have done better at Halloween, but it didn't as all of these things have a life now. Listen, they, they, they, people wind up seeing them and, uh, yeah. And when you're smoking weed and watching Saturday night live,

in 1978 they come on and they're they're called the cone heads and their heads are like cone heads when i mean when i spoke and wrote the thing yeah they're the cone heads yeah yeah no that's good that yeah i didn't tell i don't know if any members i i was telling them yesterday that uh right what you were probably narfling the garthok at this point but we were um

Narva Lagartak. Michael and I were in a t-shirt and boxers to do a scene. And I was in my trailer and I said to the AD, because I'm so naive and so adorable and cherubic. But I said, hey, don't tell anyone. And I can still work today. I do have chicken pox.

And he goes, you have chicken pox. And I go, yeah, but it's here where my shirt is and it's on my legs and you can't see it. And I'm in a scene with you and could have infested the whole. Oh yeah. And he goes, okay, hang on. And they go, shutting down the set. I'm like, what's going on? I didn't even connect it to me. And so they sent everyone home and I don't even know if you're working that day, but I was like,

Oh my God. And so, and then someone goes, oh, that's going to cost the studio. You're in trouble. Everything was terrifying me to get fired, but wound up being a blast. But, uh, that's remembering you have a chicken pox way late. Yeah. I know you didn't get it as a kid. No. And I was such a weak little puss of a kid. I got, uh,

Measles knocked me out for three weeks, which was abnormal. When you were 37? No, that I got when I was a normal kid. Okay. But I was very frail. You can't tell this athlete that sits in front of you today. No, that's right. Marathon runner. Marathon runner. Dana's a marathon runner. That was such a fun picture, Conehats. And we had a great cast. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I'm proud of that one. I like that one.

I love that. I mean, this is just fan-type questions. Like, when you look at... You will be spared. You take a dragnet. When I take over this firm, you will be spared. You will be spared. You will be spared. I will place both of you on the protected rolls. Say no more of it. Goodbye.

remember i was behind dave thomas at the end they brought me in for an extra scene yeah yeah there will be and i go yeah that was so good everything you said i just said whatever i turned and went with the coneheads at the end so this you can order this on amazon for like three bucks right for just people just to like shrink when you see a celebrity were there two conan movies just one hey listen i would do that character in a second in fact i have a story idea but you know

I'm too busy now. You are busy. No one's going to listen to a story. How do you sleep at night? At Coneheads. No one's going to want another Coneheads out there, Paramount Plus. No.

Hulu is waiting. I know the guy who runs Hulu. Crystal Vodka, the movie. I'm going to text him. Yeah, no, no. I was on Hulu there. I did a little show called Zombie Town and R.S. Stein, you know, the Goosebumps author. So it's on Hulu now. It's called Zombie Town. And it's like, okay now, children of America. Yeah.

You're going to have to learn about zombies. This is an introductory movie about zombies for you. Gentle and soft and kind of funny, a little scary. Yeah. So that you can step up to, you know, world of Z. What's that Z? World War Z. World War Z. I remember Lauren asked me when his kids were little, he goes, I don't really understand Scooby-Doo.

And I said, I don't really get why they love it. And to your point, it was the first time when they're a certain age, it's a little scary. The mask comes off. There's a haunted person. So that was the rocket fuel for that. You stepped them up to the exorcist. That's right. I saw it at 17. Still haven't unseen it. I know.

17 is even too early. Yeah. Well, we went in. I've never seen it. Don't see it. I'm too scared. I guess it's brilliant. It's brilliant. I believe in that shit. I'm a paranormal guy like that.

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Yeah, because it's such a nice ring. It's an unmarked thing, but then it says Blue Nile somewhere. Yeah. She goes, oh, you couldn't have. You wouldn't have spent that much. Oh, this has got to be a trick. This is too nice. Yeah, no. Right now, get 30% off. Select Lab Grown Diamonds on BlueNile.com. Plus, use code FLY, very important, to get $50 off your engagement ring purchase of $500 or more. What is it?

That's $50 off with CodeFly at BlueNile.com. BlueNile.com. Dan, you believe in UFOs. I believe that they're real. I know they're real. Everyone believes in UFOs. It's just where are they coming from is the only... But of course there's... I know they're real. You can be a skeptic and say, oh, well... I'm not a skeptic, but I do have a question for you. Where are they coming from? All different species. There's probably dozens of them. Do they come from the ocean? I...

There may be bases there. And go ahead. I love it. Look, I'm totally because I whenever I'm thinking about supernatural stuff and what I always go, we're here. So the greatest supernatural thing is that we exist right now talking here. How do we get here? What are we doing here? So I'm open minded to all of it. What I was curious about the United States Air Force, that the sightings of the UFOs seem to be stuck in kind of a black and white space.

herky-jerky 1950s motif. Can't they get more sophisticated cameras on these suckers so we can really... Well, there's more footage coming out, and it is all governed now by the new office at the Pentagon that handles this, and it is called the...

All domain because they go in water. They fly through water a thousand miles an hour. So space, sky, water, all domain anomalous. You don't know what it is. Resolution because they have to resolve. They've got military craft and equipment being exposed. So it's the all domain anomalous resolution office to figure out what they are.

And so that's, we actually have a Pentagon department now that's working on that or a branch that's working. And, you know, all those sightings will be brought in by the military and brought in by

civilians and, and, and analyze there. So it's real. They're there again, your question, who, where, where are they coming from? Why? I think a lot of them are just tourists. I think it's not as scary a little bit because they, and I'm scared of them, even though I do. Is it dimensional? Well, I think they,

They would have done whatever they're going to done. They're already here. They've been here a million times. They would, they can take us out if they want. That's why I feel a little easier. They're not, I don't, I don't think they're a threat. However, if you talk to some of the aviators down there in Marina del Rey with fire department, the police department, the sheriff's department, helicopters and such, they see them all the time.

And they seem to be bugging them and flying them, flying around and like challenging them. Do you feel in a way, Dan, you were ahead of your time in a sense, because now it's going more mainstream. Yes, you were. With the Pentagon. And it's more acknowledged. And you've been talking about it for a while. I've seen four of them. Oh! We've seen two here, unidentified. Yeah, yeah. And my mother saw one. That was why I got interested in it. My mother saw one in 1947 and she worked in the aircraft production department.

uh, ministry in world war two, uh, at, at, uh, with, uh, in Ottawa during the war and aircraft production for the fuselages on the hurricane. So she knew aircraft and she's in 1947. She saw one on, uh,

uh, the, uh, sparks spark street there. You know, they're going to Ottawa now. Yeah. Back then they worked. Yeah. Yeah. They kind of buzzed by everywhere. Yeah. I don't think, I don't think they want a formal relationship with us, but they will take advantage of us using their flirt. Well, do you have any sense of being connected to, uh, 2001, a space Odyssey? Just the idea that we were seated here by an alien race, uh, still seems a fascinating. Yeah. You know, one of the favorite movies of a lot of people at NASA is the movie that, uh,

That was made Mission to Mars, which had the face on Mars in it. Was that with Gary Sinise? Yeah, I think so. Mission to Mars. It wasn't the one with Matt Damon. No, no. No, it was one with Gary Sinise. This postulated that we were seated here, and there was some help. And so a lot of NASA personnel see that as a kind of a viable solution.

a concept from what I've, you know, what I understand. Well, of course. And everything's on the table. Unless someone has all this figured out. Have you seen any aliens? Cause they have pictures of them. They have, I don't, I never know. Never seen it. You know, they're out, you know, that people have seen pictures. Yeah, sure. Sure. No, all kinds of shapes. And you know, my poltergeist or whatever you call them experiences there. Yeah. Yeah. You really went through that.

Yeah, and it was annoying to you, your experiences. It wasn't something you enjoyed, right? No, what? Well, there's many of them, but in this house we have up in Northern California that was built in 1912, there's three bedrooms upstairs. My son was in one bedroom. He was the older brother. And over time, he had a lot of waking dream states or nightmares, and he moved into his brother's room.

Just organically, the younger brother. And so one night, and I didn't know what white noise was at this point. Believe it or not, he just had not, he was in the 90s or whatever. So he had a boom box in the bedroom he'd left. So I wake up to this, like an FM radio between channels, right? I'm going, why is everyone sleeping? So I walk around and by the time I get in the room, I don't hear it.

But it was not a waking dream state. It wasn't like a nightmare. It was just like, what the heck? And so that room, I also had some when I slept in there once because company's over. I had an experience there, but I've become less afraid of it because if it starts to happen, I just sort of go with it now. Yeah. Well, it happens to millions of people. Hans Holzer, H-O-L-Z-E-R. He was a great Ghostbuster and he has a great

number of books upon, you know, dealing with all of the things that he dealt with in his career. Is that how Ghostbusters started is you just got into all that? Well, my family was into it. My great grandfather was a spiritualist researcher and all around the house, in the cottage there that we had in the summers, which was the summer house where he lived,

It was full of journals and books and his writings. And so I was sitting there flipping through a journal from the American Society for Psychical Research, and it was an article on quantum physics and parapsychology. And I just went,

Okay. Paraphylaxis psychology, quantum physics, the real terms, the real vernacular, the real research that's being done. Marry that to an old style comedy like Abbott and Costello, Bowery Boys, Bob Hope and Dean Crosby who did ghost movies. In fact, Hold That Ghost I think is a movie with Jerry Lewis and

Dean Martin, and it's the first use of the term Ghostbusters. Somebody asks Dean Martin, who are you guys? We're Ghostbusters, he says. Oh, they sound like Ghostbusters. And by the way, just as an aside. We're Ghostbusters. I want to tell you. He says, yeah. So that was the first use of the term. And it was a great tradition of ghost movies in Hollywood. I thought, let's marry the real vernacular, the real science, the real fact that people are seriously into this research and

with an old-style comedy. Now, as an aside, that movie Hold That Ghost with Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis does a...

A walk down the stairs in the old castle set that defies physics. The way he comes down those stairs and doesn't kill himself is amazing. He was spectacular. Was he trying to be... He was just coming down the stairs. Oh, just being... As like clumsily coming down the stairs. Not possessed or something. No, no, just clumsily walking down the stairs and he...

I don't know how he didn't kill him. So he was a masterful physical comedian. Absolutely masterful. You hung with him. You must've known Jerry Lewis. Yeah. Not really. I met the woman who played the ingenue. I'm Cinderfella. Oh yeah. And then I went and looked at a scene on YouTube of Jerry Lewis. There's a centerpiece where he's dancing around with the stairs to your point.

The physical comedy is breathtaking. Yeah. And it went on and on. He was directing it. You must have met him. I did. Well, actually, I met him. I talked to him on the phone. Dean and I. Schaefer hooked him up on the phone with me one day. Hello. And Jerry and I said, Jerry, can you give me a nyah, a nyah? Give me a nyah. And he, on the phone, I'll never forget, over the phone, I heard, nyah, nyah.

It all comes from the Jewish Yiddish theater of the Lower East Side, the Catskills, all of that humor, the nyung, the shoulder take, the spit take, the fork drop. Have you ever, the fork drop's wonderful. You're sitting at dinner, somebody says something and bink, the fork. That's all a comedy from the Yiddish Lower East Side. You know that there's a wonderful expression for your show in Yiddish, the fly on the wall.

And it goes, it's the flieg oefterwand. That's how you say fly on the wall in Yiddish. Flieg oefterwand. Let's get this so we have this for our promos. It's poetic. So that, the ngang, he gave me a ngang and all of that comes from that rich, rich tradition. Did you have other like heroes, like did Cary Grant ever reach out to you or?

Other supers in the 70s when you guys were exploding because. Tim Leary and Davis were good friends. Timothy Leary? Yeah, Timothy Leary and Davis were good. Oh, I see. Tom Davis. I bought him. And on our friends, I bought the last steak dinner that he ate before he died at the Marmont over there at the restaurant. And what'd you put in it for Hilly? It was already taken care of. And now everybody's doing it for mental health reasons. And Timothy Leary. I met Jimmy Hoffa.

Cause I, I, well, yeah, yeah. Giant stadium. That's the last I heard. Uh, that was, yeah. Yeah. Well, you saw that movie with help. She known that, that him, uh, Lauren Bacall. I worked with her. I worked with Jim Garner and, uh, Jack Lemon. I worked with the Jack Lemon and Jay in a movie called American president. Oh,

And Lauren McCall was in that. That was wonderful. Was that Pete Siegel? Yeah, Pete Siegel. Yeah. And worked with all the great veterans like that. Yeah, that's what I was curious about. Wow. I assume you intersected with them. So neat. So neat. It's something special. When you left SNL, was there...

So Chevy came, we had Chevy on here. He was perfectly bananas the way we wanted. That's amazing. We're so mad we didn't film it. It was so funny. He was doing schtick and stuff. No, his work with his fingers. If you never saw any other part of him, the work with his hands. I remember he did something just like, you know, he's like, he's there, he's got the fingers walking and then all of a sudden,

And it starts to go, and you, it's just hilarious, the control. Yeah. Well, we had this here, which is like 10 bottles on a tray, and he just waited, and at a given point, he just put them all down. He reached for it, and it was just like, they were flying. Like bowling pins, yeah, perfectly. But he waited. He knew, you could tell, he knew early on. That was his go-to. No, I love Chevy. No, we do, too. And you stayed straight through. Like, he was the first year of SNL, and then you stayed, how long did you stay, five years? Four.

Four years? Yeah, and the reason we left was purely and sorely because we had to finish The Blues Brothers. Oh, really? We thought maybe it was a possibility we'd go back. We went to Chicago, then the movie went sort of early summer, late summer. Oh, it kept going? Autumn. But you were shooting. We were shooting, and we had to go back to L.A. to shoot some of the stuff inside. The church scene, the soul food restaurant, all that would be done in L.A., and we knew we couldn't go back, so...

I made the call to Lauren saying we weren't going to return for John. How hard was that? It was a little, it was made a little easier because when Animal House was being done, they wanted me to play D-Day and they wanted me to join Land Ascent and Reitman and, and, you know, John in Oregon to do that movie. And I, I just looked and I just, John's gone, man. I just looked and I thought,

you know, how can I can't leave Lauren here without another, without a writer or an actor, you know? So I told him, I said, I'm going to stay. And I stayed on then. So when we left for Blues Brothers, it was a little easier because I did stay on and I didn't leave for Animal House. Yeah. Yeah. And there's like somebody, some analyst somewhere, some pundit or something said, oh, Lauren forced me to stay. Or was it, you know, you forced the contract. Lauren is not a dictator slave driver. You want to go, you go. He's not like that. No. He encouraged me.

He wouldn't want to look thirsty like that. He would say, we'd love to have you, but if you need to go, that would be his thing. Yeah, no, gracious Canadian. Yeah. And then he fell in love with his cast members. He did. To this day, he loves comedians. He did. My boys and my girls, he calls them. Yeah. No, he loves them. You know, Dana, I think we have a connection. We've been friends for a long time. And for this episode of Fly on the Wall, we've partnered with eHarmony,

which isn't us. eHarmony is a dating app to find someone you can be yourself with. We are not dating. I want to clarify that. But the connection is what you want in a dating partner. Just someone like, if you found someone that listened to this podcast, that's somewhat of a connection. And then you sort of build on that. You want someone with some common ground. Yeah. It's not, look, if you want to connect romantically over, you know, super fly or fly on the wall, yeah.

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

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

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And it was so intimidating to me. And it was like, Danny did it. Because I'd come up with an idea. Well, Danny did that season two. Chevy believes. But you guys are the originals. So there is only. Billy, Chevy, Danny. Never the last name. Never said Dan Aykroyd. Never said Paul Simon. Never said Paul McCartney. And look how the show is going now. So current, so relevant. Extraordinary. So extraordinary. When you did Blues Brothers, which is one of my all-time great ones, I

And I know you opened for Steve Martin at the Universal. I heard that's a bad show of the century. That's why there is a Blues Brothers, because John recorded the record from there. Goddamn. How do you get Carrie Fisher? Was she Star Wars or was she right around? How do they get her to be my girlfriend, you mean? Yeah. Oh, let's get into the Dan Aykroyd love line. No, well, because... It wasn't the Barbie part for her. She was good friends with John and just good friends with Penny Marshall and John. It was a whole...

She was Penny's buddy, and we just asked her to be a part of it, and she was a part of it. And then we fell in love, and we almost got married. We had blood tests and rings exchanged and everything. Wow.

And, uh, I, I was ready to spend the rest of my life with, with Carrie. And, uh, after we wrapped the movie, we got into a Lear 24 with John and Judy and we flew to Martha's vineyard and we flew to this house that Judy had bought me in the vineyard to be near John to plan future projects. Right. And, uh, I said, Judy, just buy me a house. I don't care.

Or what it looks like. It was our first check from Atlantic Records. And she bought me a house and said, you're going to see your house tonight for the first time. And you're bringing Carrie home. So I brought Carrie home to this place.

house I'd never seen and it's night and fog is like down and low and we go in and walk in and they flip the lights on and I could just tell that it was not to Carrie's design sense at all. It was a mid fifties, a lot of modern furniture, very, uh, you know, uh, Eames chairs and stuff. And she, so that night was a difficult night. And then in the morning I heard her talking to Paul Simon, her boyfriend at the time before, uh,

And I could hear her talking and hear, well, I'll be there and I'll be in New York tomorrow or today. And I thought, oh, she's leaving. So I said, you know, Carrie, the view is supposed to be beautiful in the south. You should stay. No, I have to get back. I've got to go back to Paul. I've got to go. I'm going back down. Please take me to the airport. Nothing rancorous or very amicable.

I thought it was, we thought we were getting married. I go, I drive her to the airport, get her on a plane, kiss her goodbye and say, I'll, I'll see you soon. We'll hang, you know, I love you. I love you. And, and, you know, she flies off and I drive in the Jeep back to the Martha's vineyard house. And I'm kind of despondent. And I, I walk, I drive up to the house and the fog has lifted and I've got a 275 degree view of the ocean.

the islands and that this beautiful, beautiful promontory that the house was on. I thought, you know, she saw, saw that she might've, she saw married today. It's like Manhattan socked in. Oh, it's the only time we went. Is it always foggy? No, no, no. And so, yeah, that meant that we, we were good friends all the way right to the end of her life. Of course. And blues brothers. I think it's one of those where a lot of people want to be around funny people. And she's like, if I,

And she's a big star, but it's like, Hey, funny herself. I mean, it's hilarious. Brilliant. She's great in that. Yeah. She's great. We had a ball of course, you know, because we, we, we were making a movie and we're in love, you know, me making a movie with someone you love. You can go to work in the morning. I can't imagine the rocket ship. You know, I had my own little success there too. Wayne's world anyway. Um, but you guys, um, I'm doing a David there. Yeah.

Blues Brothers, when I first saw that, I was like, this is so electric on every level. Like you're enjoying it, you and John, the dancing and the energy of it. It was like, well, this is something new. This is like really musical too. Like the band was kicking. And then you guys were just so funny with all the shtick. To me, again, it just...

fantasizing about being on Saturday Night Live. Just those characters. Don't get me started with wild and crazy guys. Don't even start with that. Come on. I don't think I can do that guy no more. No, you can't play around with accents anymore. You can't have it. And you can't even talk about the parts on a woman. The parts. And we look, they love our American bulges or what was it? Yeah, the bulges. Yeah, please. You will be shocked by my great bulge.

You know, you kind of watch it these days. I mean, I was so influenced by you guys, rhythmically, musically. What about you at Aretha Franklin? Oh, she was astounding. You had Aretha, I think. That is one of the greatest things. She was astounding. She looked so cute in that waiter's outfit. She didn't want to wear the waitress's outfit. No, I can't. I can't. And then Debra the Duelman, Landis' wife, the designer, designed this beautiful,

waitresses out there that made her look great. Yeah. Yeah. She was a sport, man. It was even funnier that she had that. So supportive of us all the way through. She always was. And so was Ray and everybody. Yeah. And John Candy. Yeah. We had another. Candy was in it. Yeah. Yeah. And then we had Cropper and Dunn who were Otis Redding's guitar players. So that made it happen. Now I still play with, uh, with Jimmy, John's brother. We go out on, we have an active concert schedule and

We go out with a band that we got here from California and Texas that we put together over the years. And we got a couple of gigs coming up. What's more fun than that? The music. I mean, nothing, right? With the music. And I hear that guitar and hear just the organ and, you know, move. And I've got, you know, 78% of the moves left. So, you know. Pretty good. Yeah. Last week it was 80, but it declines. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm in the low 40s. I don't know. Yeah, it's not all clicking. Or it is clicking. So you're going along. There's trading places. There's Blues Brothers. There's all these stuff we get on Saturday Night Live. And then what's Dan going to do now? And then I don't know what the trajectory was, but then Ghostbusters was like probably equivalent inflation adjusted, almost like gone with the wind or something. It was like.

300 million in 1984. That's right. So like 300 million now or a billion. Oh my God. So what? Titanic. And you thought of it, the cusp of it was you. That day at the farmhouse where the seances took place where my great-great-grandfather had seances from the 20s and that. And I was sitting there reading that journal and I just thought, old style Abbott and Costello comedy with the real science. Marry it up. It's brilliant. But who's the first person you told?

Um, well, that would have been Bernie Brillstein, I guess. Oh yeah. Bernie.

I love it. And then Ovitz. And then I turned a draft in to both of those guys. And then we went to Ivan and Ivan got it, how it could be fixed and made what it was. You wrote it fat, right? Well, not so much lengthwise, but it was a little darker. It wasn't the movie you saw, but it certainly had all of the stuff in there that became the movie. All the elements were there. And then Ivan looked at it and then Ivan said, let's go to Harold. And Harold looked at it and understood that

What I was trying to do here with it. And then, and then we decided, what do we do about Caswell? And then Harold and Ivan looked at each other and said, well, if we could get Murray, we will give it to Murray. I mean, and then, so we, we, he carried the ball for us.

He was the master of those lines, those throwaway lines, his style. Probably the greatest comedy romantic lead of our generation and maybe many, many. And him and Sigourney Weaver. Yeah. Very cool. Beautiful. Brilliant together. Beautiful. It all came together. It was just magic once a film works, any film. But when something like that, that's old and new-

And then just connect so strong. I remember going to, you know, it was like Jaws in a way. Huge lines, theater packed. Oh, yeah. It was a whole phenomenon. How fun to have that hit. And because you could have screwed that movie up easily. I mean, it's a great idea. But everywhere along the line, you know, any movies you go in where it's good and you go, God, where did we go wrong? The editing, the this, the casting. But to get it every step of the way and it comes out. Well, look at who was on it, right? Harold, Jim Ivan. Great people.

Rick Moranis had a great part. Oh, he was hysterical too. Rick Moranis. No, Moranis was wonderful. Wonderful. I invite business people to friends. Him and Sigourney are big parts of why that movie works. Yeah, I know. Zool.

Yeah, I know. Well, and I was on IMDB today because I could not remember who Dan Aykroyd was. And so I looked him up and even Ghostbusters, there's like 80 iterations. It's like a cartoon of this. There's so many. Yeah. Because there's probably, I think there's a new one coming out.

Well, there's a new animated cartoon that they're working on right now. Okay. Is there a movie movie or not? I don't know what the status is with strikes and all that. They're telling me not to talk about movies. Is it really? Yeah. Well, then in March, Ghostbusters, Frozen Empire.

with McKenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Billy, myself, Winston, Ernie, and Patton Oswalt. Thank you very much. And Paul Rudd. And Carrie Coon. You've already got a cast. Yeah, we are ready to go in March with a spectacular new release.

A great new story, and it is going to be hot and really fun, scary, whole new generation, handing it to the kids. Really excited. We completed it in England, and it's going to be coming out in March. Oh, so you did do it. It's done. Oh. It's done. It comes out in March. I just couldn't talk about it until this instant.

I read about this and then I thought maybe something happened. We have a, we have a, yeah, give me that blank stare. I'm like, go fly on the wall. It's our first real scoop. It is. I'm talking about it for the first time in any media right here.

Yeah. Okay, so you have Paul Rudd. You've got Pat Noswalt. Yeah. Finn from Stranger Things. Pat Noswalt. How about that? Hysterical. As a genius. And a great, great comic actor. Oh, yeah. Serious actor, too. Yeah, he is. Great delivery. Yeah. Always, yeah. Any name ghosts? We got the Tic Tac Ghost from the Navy video. What's the plot, Dan? Oh, yeah, what's the plot? Or can you tell us? Well, leave us to say that, you know,

An entity is found in a psychometrically charged object. Too much. Thank you. That's all. I figured the whole thing out. Okay. I love it. I'm excited. Oh, no, it's good. It's really good. And it's Jason Reitman? I'm going to do a pre-order right now online. Gil Keenan directed it, Jason's partner. I love it. Jason did second unit, and they co-wrote it together. Great guy, Jason. And, of course, the kids are wonderful. Oh, yeah. McKenna, Finn, and— And you do? You're a guy?

I do, you know, the enthusiastic, you know, wants to believe everything, you know. Yeah. Kind of a little kind of resentful that, you know, things have passed him by Ghostbuster in this one, you know, because he's no longer licensed. You always have that skill set of putting a lot of words together, really. That is true. Like as a comic concept, you know.

But, you know, is that something you did as a kid? It's like Danny Kaye or something. My mother was French-Canadian, and I grew up around French-Canadians. And French-Canadians, they speak very fast like that. They talk a lot, a lot fast. Bring me that right now. Give me the salt, give me the pepper, give me the steak, give me the potato, give me the... You want some wine? They talk like that. They're fast, the French-Canadians. So I had this always, you know, and plus...

Sitting around the table, there'd be 14 family members. And, you know, you couldn't get a word in unless you interjected it, injected it in there. You know, Rosetta Stone, the most trusted language learning program. Oh, yeah. If you want to learn a new language, which, you know, time like the present, it's always fun to learn when you get older.

I know. And it's not learning a language when you're older, you know, over the age of 20 is difficult. You know, I mean, all the high school Spanish I took a grade school Spanish, you know, all I can say is Ola and hasta luego. So it goes out of your head. So now you have Rosetta stone, David, tell them about it. Well, Dana, you know, more than anyone trusted expert for 30 years with millions of users in 25 languages. Uh, I mean, my gosh, uh,

They have Spanish, French, Italian, German. I don't think you can throw them a curveball. I think they're going to know. What don't they have? The language you want. Yeah. And immerses you in many ways. There's no English translations. You know what I'm saying?

I know no English. You need a Rosetta Stone for English. No English translation, so you really learn to speak and listen and think in that language. That's the whole idea of Rosetta Stone is that it sticks to your head. It sticks to your brain. I learned German out of a book. It just doesn't stick as hard, so this is the way to do it. Designed for long-term retention.

There's a true accent feature. It gives you feedback on your pronunciation. Yes. And of course, there's desktop app options. There's an audio companion and ability to download lessons offline. Yeah, so that's great. Lifetime access to all 25 language courses Rosetta Stone offers for 50% off. A steal! And I do think that the off-label thing that... I'm ad-libbing now, going off script.

is that when you learn a language and you learn to pronunciate the words in that language, you start to learn about the people who live there and speak that language. Sort of a subtle, intuitive way of integrating with the culture. A little different, yeah. Don't put off learning that language. There's no better time than right now to get started. For a very limited time, Fly on the Wall listeners can get Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 50% off.

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Visit roberthaff.com today. So how did you go from like a 14-year-old, 15-year-old? And then you really, were you on SNL at 21 or 22 or something? Well, I was 23 the first year. So young. Yeah. So what, just quickly, I mean, for your fans. Second City at 21 and 22. Wasn't it your late teenage years, high school? And Lorne Michaels at 19. I worked with him on a CDC special at 19. And his show, Heart and...

The Hart and Lorne Terrific Hour. You were on that. It was on an offshoot of that. That's right. So you were like 18 or 19. You were on television in Canada doing SketchCon. That's right. 19. Okay. It's called a savant. Yeah. Well, it was called... It's called a savant. An early adopter. It was being steeped in improv. My parents sent me at 12 years old to Ottawa Little Theatre improv class.

And so I was already doing it sort of back then. It just came to you. It's like Larry Bird. He said when basketball, he first got a basketball hand. He said the game came to me. So it just came to you. It was... And then you worked your ass off, of course. Well, I was encouraged to pursue it. And it was fun to do improv in that. And then at Second City, I was learning all the techniques over again that I'd already known at 12 and 13 years old at the little theater improv classes. Yeah, so...

Started early, you know. It seems to me that in your part of this, we're talking to Michael McKean and, you know, the Beatles and all the music of the 60s. Yeah. And then the trundling along with Peter Sellers. And then you all kind of knew each other.

from 70 or 75 or, you know, it's very interesting because you were like the, the Beatles of comedy to me, the SNL cast. Well, you had the, you had the Lampoon crew, you had, you know, Chevy and you had Chris Guest and Harry Shearer and you had, uh, uh, Johnny, uh, Belushi and, uh,

And then you have the Gilda eventually, because Belushi stole her away there from second city. Then you had the Canadian crew, Levy, O'Hara, myself, Candy, Moranis, Thomas. Yeah. So there were two and then, and the Venn diagram kind of crossed and some of those people ended up working with each other on, on various things. Um, yeah, but I think my first, um,

The first time, like for us, like getting interested in entertainment. Okay. I'm in grade three. Now what the hell? In grade three, I'm like five years old, maybe four, five. I'm grade three. Yeah.

So I go, uh, you're 17. I was, I was, I was, you know, I was, you know, five or three or four or five, I guess in grade three or something. Yes. So what happened? And so they, they are doing an Irish, uh, St. Patrick's day concert and they compelled me to learn McNamara's band, you

You know that song? Oh, Hennessy, Tennessee, toodle-da-floo, the music was something grand. It's never been something grand. I know the melody. So they put me in a green bowler and a green vest and a green pants and leprechaun shoes, put me out on stage with a sync track. And they made me learn it. They made me stay back from school to learn it. And so the concert comes, and we go...

I go to the concert and I start singing and I'm like, oh, I'm just going to get through this. God, I remember it vividly. Oh, God. And I get to the end and finish and give the tap dance finish and...

They were howling. The crowd, whoa, really? You like that that much? And I'm thinking to myself, oh, wow, that's good. And so I was the big applause and they take me off stage into the wings. I give back my bowler and I'm thinking, oh man, wow, that was very, very interesting. And then two of my friends, Ricky and

and Greg come up recalls Hollingsworth and Greg Chittivus. And they come up and they say, Hey, yeah, that was nothing, man. Like the, like the, the bad, the bad donkeys and bad donkeys in over in a, you know, in the, in, in Pinocchio, you know, the bad, bad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that was good. You think that come here, come on with us. Let me show you something. Let me show you this. Let's let's show you this. They take me across the street to the funeral home across the street from the church hall where I did the concert.

So I go from the elation of singing McNamara's band and getting cheered to two minutes later, walking into the funeral home where seven bodies are laid out. What? A family that had drowned in a car the night before. Seven, the father, the mother, the sisters, the brother. God, these cock blockers don't want you to be famous. I go there. Jesus. Look at this. Look at this. And I walk in. I'll never forget that as long as I live. He'd rolled his car in the Gatineau River and drowned. And so they bring me from my performance. Euphoria. Euphoria to-

Whoa. But are they jealous? I didn't know. Well, that was, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's Namby Pamby singing and they look at these dead people. So they go over and there were the seven on a baby coffin too. Jesus. Great. I didn't do any jigs for years and years afterwards. That's turned me right off any kind of performance. Yeah.

That's a true story. Isn't that weird? Oh, wow. That's horrifying. Seven bodies. The family, and all beautifully preserved. Never forgot the dark eyebrows of the mother and father. I'm still processing this story. The baby outfit killing. Exhilaration. At age five, six, they ruin it.

They ruined it. Yeah, so I didn't dance or sing for years afterwards. Weirdly, my first gig was in a funeral home. But that's a whole other story. David? I played a dead body in that scene. No, on SNL, so you get there. What's your first big sketch that works? Is it just the very first show? Bass-o-matic. The first sketch that works was the one that Garrett and I did as home invasionists.

to prove to the homeowner that their house was vulnerable. And so we break into their home to prove it was vulnerable, yeah. And then pitch them on an alarm system. Is that first show? That was the first sketch I was in, yeah. First show, yeah. And that was the Wolverine one? Cold Opening was John and the Wolverine with Michael O'Donoghue. And then we had the home invasion sketch, yeah. After the monologue?

After the monologue. When was it? Oh, that's a good spot. That's the home run spot. Who was the host of your first show? George Carlin. George Carlin.

George Carlin. I waited on him once at a Holiday Inn. I brought him oatmeal. He goes, oatmeal, drop the O and you have that meal. Did he really? Yeah. Why is there no blue shoes? Big shoes, little shoes, brown shoes, girl school shoes. He was working on it. Don't tell me about Richard Pryor too. I was a waiter at the Holiday Inn. I waited on all of them. Oh, because it was next to the Circle Star Theater? Yep. Waited on Rich Little.

Everyone said, which holiday and on the Highland? Oh, no, this was on the peninsula. It was a theater in the round, uh, like be near Michigan. No, no. Peninsula, South of San Francisco. Oh, I, oh, I saw. Yeah. I see. And they all stayed at the holiday. Yeah. Yeah. So they were, you know, I gave Richard Pryor, stuff like that, you know? Yeah. Well, the, you know, the, I find the great people are really nice. The ones that were really great or nice.

And the medium talent people aren't so nice, you know. I've kind of, I think that's true. You know, he was a great Richard, well, Pryor and Carlin. They were both, yeah. And they would have been gracious to you.

Very nice. I did a movie with Pryor. Oh, yeah. He was very sensitive and sweet and vulnerable. Did he host when you were there? What's that? Did he host? Richard Pryor hosted. Sure, I remember helping to write that show. All right, sir. Fair enough, sir. Yeah. What's that from? That's right. Yeah, Tom. That's Tom. I think I was doing Harry Shearer doing Tom's show.

Snyder. He did a great Tom Snyder. Oh, really? Outstanding. Outstanding. Ah, Tom. Everybody. I remember saying I love Tom Snyder. I was a kid. I didn't even know. Dan, I'm so young. No, I'm not. But I was watching it going. I never thought of being on Saturday Night Live. I just was. Every kid loves comedy. And I was like, oh, my God. And that's Tom Snyder. I was just starting to get.

why it was so funny. I didn't really get the depth of how funny it was. I'm like, that's like the guy I just saw. And it was so good. It was like that dumb little studio and it's a little light and you have a cigarette and all that stuff. I mean, Fred Garvin, was that, was his name Fred Garvin, male prostitute? That's right. Little lady. Yeah.

Is it for the lady? Yes, little lady. The name is funny at the time. Fred Garvin. Because that's his title. And he announces himself that way. But, you know, the copycats and Rich Little in that generation, Frank Gorshman. Those are the shows I was watching. Oh, I love those impressionists. Rich Little, Fred Travolina, Frank Gorshman. Oh, that's right, yeah.

Extraordinarily gifted. Yeah, they were great. That was like magic to me. But when you guys came in and did them in a different context, it was just postmodern. Yeah. A lot of great impressions on the show. Hartman was spectacular. And we've referenced you and Phil. There's a connection personality-wise. You both have so many interests outside of being –

quasi effortless performers and then would go read these journals. He was a pilot. Yeah. He's a pilot. He was sailing. He was, I loved him. I loved him too. He was wonderful. You did Bilko with him, right? Yeah. That's right. Steve. Yeah. Yeah. Here's to Phil. Chris, John, a lot to be thankful for at this time of year, Thanksgiving and Christmas. And, uh,

The old vodka there in the skulls is available in stores all over the nation. All over the world. If you want to get a gift out to a friend. The coolest bottle you'll ever see. Well, it makes a great gift. That's why I'm on this kind of little tour here because it's gift-giving time of year and we want to remind people that Thanksgiving and Christmas, there's a gift you can bring home. And, you know, everybody wants to get a head. That's right.

Get Head or Get On Head. But where do you get it? Is there a website? Is there? World Wide Web, crystalheadvodka.com. It's in most liquor stores across the country, chains and otherwise. Crystal Head. And I think it's got a pretty big brand name. Yeah. I think people really are...

The bottle is good to stir the pot because there's a lot of people. A lot of room to grow. So, yeah. See? The bottle should be on your shelf if you have liquor. It just looks cool. It should. Yeah. It tastes good. It should be on every bar in the world. Crystal Head, just a few seconds before we get out of here. How'd you come up with that name?

Well, it's based on the legend of the Crystal Heads, which... From Indiana Jones? Was referenced in the Indiana Jones movie. And they made a movie about it. In fact, we were developing the concept kind of right in parallel. And I find out that Stephen's doing this movie about Crystal Heads. So I actually called him to take a meeting to tell him, you know, we're not copying your enterprise here. We started at the same time and it takes two years to build a project like this. And so...

I said, when your movie comes out, we will be out on the marketplace. We will have been out a little before, but I explained to him that it wasn't kind of a plagiarism, and it wasn't really. Crystal had, there were 13 of them. What if he stole it from you? No, the lead time doesn't work out in terms of when both projects came to fruition.

Um, but, uh, the Navajo, the Aztec, the Mayans were supposed to have had these heads and, uh, and they were used for crystal balls. And so we decided we were doing this vodka that had no fluids, uh, that were pollutants, glycols, sugar, lemonine clean. And so we wanted to sell the idea of enlightened, uh,

purified drinking of beverage alcohol and this was the perfect package to put in it put it in yeah very yeah it came from that i have one more question before this young man uh takes off uh during that um when you leave snl you did a lot of big movies you probably got offered so many ones that you wish you did or there's movies that you got offered other than james bond

Yeah, I would have liked that. Spies Like Us? I don't know. Oh, Spies Like Us was so fucking great. I don't know that I was offered anything that I turned down and it became... No, I don't think so. No regrets where you go. I should have done that one. Spies Like Us was unreal. That was you and Chevy. Yeah, I did audition for things that I didn't get. Oh. The People vs. Larry Flint. Oh, really? I auditioned for the part of the lawyer played by...

Edward Norton. Oh, okay. And I auditioned for Milos Forman, you know, and I read it a couple of times. I auditioned. Dan, Dan, do you work with him? I auditioned for Amadeus. Oh, did you? Yeah, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, stop acting. Oh, really? Stop acting. He goes, stop. He was too bored with me. I don't know what he just said. I think we're ready to move on. Yeah, yeah.

During yours? Well, I didn't know what I was doing, but I saw the movie and I go, okay, I see. They wanted a blonde haired cherubic guy. Yeah. Boy genius. Did you go off script and do Chopping Broccoli? No, but I, I wanted to be on Saturday Night Live. Yeah, I know. That was my thing. And you guys did and you were great. And, you know, today your stuff endures just as strongly as anything.

That we ever did in that first cast year. You know, if you look at church lady and all your impressions and, uh, you know, and everything, you know, and your flight attendant, of course, a classic, a classic. Oh yeah. All of it. Great. My theory is this, is that music and comedy just have to reflect the times.

And so we were for our time. Yeah. And then I don't ever want to be a grumpy old man about Taylor Swift. She's no John Lennon, you know, that kind of thing. I said, and tried to really do a deep dive into Taylor Swift. Cause I want to know, and she's incredibly skilled.

And same thing with Saturday Night Live now. This is their era. And they're great. And they're great. And Higgins said, Steve Higgins, he said, Lorne wrote the Constitution. And then everyone interprets it for their time, for their era. No, the show's been really great. The Halloween show is fantastic.

outstanding writing. Really, really very smart. Is that Nate Gerbatsky? Yeah, Gerbatsky. We had him on the podcast a couple days later. Yeah. He was a great comic. He's a really good writer and he's so excited about that. He'd only done talk shows. He'd never done. Quality work. Yeah. That's nice. You still watch. Oh yeah, well, when I'm awake, I mean, I live a very bleh,

Very quiet life right now. Very quiet. Good. I'm not in the cities. I'm in the country. That's where I want to be. I used to have a Grand National that was pretty sweet. Yeah, right. I like that. The old Black National. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, Black Grand National. You have a little grocery store you go to and everyone knows your name kind of thing. Oh, yeah. And nobody asks for an autograph or anything. Go in on the motorcycle or take one of the old cars in. It seems to me, just from afar, you've always had one foot still in whatever you call regular life. I would say so, yeah. Recycle friends, get a steak. I don't know. I've heard things, but it seems like you've always kept that. Oh, sure, sure. Well, of course, for sanity, yeah. But I don't like living in cities anymore. I prefer to live in the country just because I have tinnitus.

You know, the ringing and also to sleep at night, the blackness. You need the blackness to sleep. And where I have a place that the mountain air is coming in and I can open my eyes or close my eyes. Black. It's still black. Black. Yeah, yeah. And dead quiet. All I hear is the coyotes sometimes throw a party. But it is so. So good. The deep sleep you get there. It'll prolong life, that sleep. It really will.

Mine's being short and I'm about 40 feet from sunset. It's quiet and this is a fortress here, David. This is where I want to be during the great reset. Plus he's got a lot of food.

no that's a lot of food this whole thing um dan first of all we we we've all looked up to you we we you're a lovely guy you're always nice to me i interviewed you for spin magazine i got an snl yeah and you're so cool and just the fact that you still generous everything and talking i love hanging with you love just bullshitting about the old days yeah you know there is an expression canadian nice and i i went to canada once and did a gig and

There is Canadian nice. There's Minnesota nice, but Canadian nice was like, I was just at a table before I was going to go out there and a guy was like, he saw me look at some water. Hey, do you like some water there? I can get some water for you. So there is Canadian nice and Mike Myers yourself. And, um, it's very sweet. And, and, um, my wife's Canadian, so I'm much impartial. She's very nice too. She listens to the podcast. Yeah.

I just did Calgary last weekend and it was nice. Yeah. It's just Canada is just a cool country. It's not a rumor. It's real. Yeah. So anyway, Dan, it's been such an honor and a pleasure. You've been a big part of the puzzle of our little project here and we're so glad to have you. We'll hang again soon. Yes. See you around campus is what I say. Okay, take care. I slammed my crystal head just

David has quietly gotten drunk during the podcast. David is hot. David is messed up. The stuff works. Oh, boy. This has been a podcast presentation of Cadence 13. Please listen, then rate, review, and follow all episodes. Available now for free wherever you get your podcasts. No joke, folks.

Fly on the Wall has been a presentation of Cadence 13, executive produced by Dana Carvey and David Spade, Chris Corcoran of Cadence 13, and Charlie Finan of Brillstein Entertainment. The show's lead producer is Greg Holtzman with production and engineering support from Serena Regan and Chris Basil of Cadence 13.