Michael McKean
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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 like the 1800 time you say on the towel rack. Yeah. Thank you. I was going to look there. People don't even think hotels sometimes just go, hey, I'll go there. I'll get an Airbnb. So you won't regret it.

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Find it on AutoTrader. See it. Find it. AutoTrader. What we have here today is Michael McKeon. And a lot of people know him. He's in so many things. I have a thing with him because we did do some SNL together. We did do a few years together. Or maybe one year, but we talk about that. I think he clarifies that up because I'm stupider than most people. And we also did the Coneheads movie. Yeah.

Oh, applause. A few people in the back remember it? The Conan's movie, which had so many cameos in it of SNL people. You cannot even, I'm not even a SNL, just stars. We talk about that. He was on Better Call Saul, did that. He's everywhere. And of course the headliner is he does Spinal Tap. This is Spinal Tap, if you don't know, is one of the all-time great comedies of all time. I think that's fair to say it's one of the biggies.

And we do have some laughs. He's a great dude. And I had a great Conehead story for him that he did not know. And that's it. So listen in. You'll know him when you see him, if you don't recognize the name right off the bat. But he's done so much more than all of us put together. Here he is, Michael McKeon. Dana, I'm going to start with Michael. And I'm going to ask him a question that he gets too much often.

Because he's been in a lot of stuff, but of course, people focus way too much on Coneheads. Now, when we... I was so sure you were going to say Spinal Tap. Damn. So nice. We were in Coneheads together. Michael was a lovely man to work with, and it was one of my first movies, and...

It was a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun because it was new. Michael done so many things, but I think he still had a good time. I did have a good time. And do you remember anything, anything from that experience other than there were a lot of celebrity cameos? If you look back. Well, we weren't there for most of the celebrity cameos.

Right. You know, I had mostly I'd scenes with with you and Dan. And and once we got to the planet, we were, you know, in our underwear with the little collars on our necks and stuff. Yeah. It was an immigration movie that I never even picked up on that part. No, no, no. Me neither. Yeah.

But I just we were the we were the NSA guys. I think it's a pretty funny movie, actually. I think some great stuff. And I think Dan's Dan's commission to that character was so total. And so, you know, we kind of knew him from the TV sketches, but he was really that guy in so many ways because he was Dan is kind of a kind of an.

an anal retentive, I think. He's really attention to detail. Not in a bad way. I mean, in a very, very good way. And I just remember shooting one scene where we had just landed on the planet, and he was telling his superiors, Dave Thomas and the rest of them, telling him about so-and-so. And we shot it all morning.

And we went to lunch and we came back and we continued shooting this coverage of the same scene, the same speech.

And about an hour and a half in, he goes, oh, God damn it. Oh, God damn it. I'm not wearing the gloves. Oh, I'm not wearing the fucking gloves, Robert. And suddenly we got, oh, well, we just flushed two hours down the toilet. And he was like, he was so apologetic about it and everything. It was like, dude, okay, you know, go again. But I remember that guy, it was really, he's such a clear eyed guy, you know?

And it was a very atypical moment. Like he wrote Dragnet. Yeah. Funniest thing in Dragnet is Kathleen. What's her name? They go to interview this woman. It's like the wife of this guy who's disappeared. Oh, my God. Or the landlady. Do you know what I'm talking about? Kathleen Freeman. And she has one speech. Okay. And it's the funniest thing in the movie by such a long chalk. I look for it when I can. It's great. Anyway.

I'm a living non sequitur here. You guys are trying to, you're trying to corral me. Not at all. We're just trying to get our touchstones with you. Here's one of mine very quickly. Okay. Okay. So like early eighties, for some reason, Billy Crystal and I had the same manager. I don't know how it happened, but I went in to meet with Rob Reiner, you, Harry Shearer, Christopher Guest to play the drummer in Spinal Tap.

Okay. You probably don't remember, but here's what happened. I came in and I was nervous, obviously. And you guys were so comfortable with each other. And,

And I go, this is not awkward. I'm coming here as the lone wolf and you guys are all friends and I have to walk in here. And so I think maybe it was you who just said, OK, let's go. So then you all immediately left the office. Everyone cleared it out. And I sat in there for like a minute. And then you guys came in. That's just a gag that, you know, now you're entering my world.

I don't remember that. You couldn't remember it, but that happened. Do you remember me in the movie? I played a mime waiter. Oh, I remembered the meeting. And I remember, I thought you were coming in. I had remembered that you came in to be this tap fan who follows us around the country. That was a part that we were casting. And we thought you came across as a little intelligent, a little sophisticated and not goony enough.

So we said, we said, well, thank you. I started doing the other. No, listen, let me tell you who we did cast and then not use was Eddie Deason. Ring any bells? Oh, he was in Greece. The Eddie Deason? The Eddie Deason. And he when he found out that we didn't have a script and that he would have to improvise, he said, pass.

So we pretty much cut the character, but you were, you, we impressed, you were very, very impressive. And so we said, this guy's really funny. And when we were putting together the, you know, Billy's, the, the mime thing, which, you know, which was something that was written in. So can he be one of the mimes? He'd be great. And so that's what we did. We did that a lot. We saw a lot of people and they, they didn't,

We didn't quite, we were shooting blind, but we also, we found a lot of the characters that weren't even in. Your character didn't exist until we saw you. Put it that way. That's a good thing. Those things are memorable at that age. The kind of a thing that intrigues me was the different British accents you guys did and how accurate they were. Like Kevin Pollak and I, we did a British accent

for like years, whenever we see each other. We played blackjack in Tahoe and tried to trick the dealer doing some combo. Yours is very specific. Christopher's very specific and Harry, but how did you come to yours, your guy? 'Cause I've been looking at some YouTube videos of Spinal Tap and it's immaculate.

Chris is legitimate because he grew up, his father was British and he spent a lot of time, like every summer they would go to the UK and he kind of, you know, he knew those things. He's got a great ear anyway. So I just kind of fell into the same line as him. You know, he would...

He would go on and then we would, we had a lot of time to prepare. You got to understand when we started working on this thing, it was 1979. We didn't shoot until 82 and during, because we kept, you know, running out of studios. And so by the time we actually shot it, we had had a real good run at rehearsing how we sound.

And Harry brought something different. Harry's, you know, he's kind of a fictional northerner, you know, somewhere unspecific. We always said, well, we're South London, you know, that's kind of what we were going for. So we just it's just kind of getting getting good with it. I'm really rusty at it now. And never breaking it. You just do it all day, right?

no you're just going now but i remember when you guys walked on the set and i had not seen you in the full regalia and you were all walking around doing your accents and it was pretty stunning it's like oh oh they're those guys you know it was pretty well the three of you remember that we had some actual brits on the set or one anyway who was uh well the two guys in the band the you know um

Mr. Shrimpton and Mr. Calf. Yeah. But we also had Patrick McNee, the amazing Patrick McNee. Is he from the Avengers? Avengers? Oh, yes. Patrick McNee, that's another. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. He's Eaton Hogg, as they say. I love all the names. Oh, is he your boss or something? Sir Dennis Eaton Hogg. He's the guy who runs the studio. Yeah.

So, uh, and, and who was your manager? Was he really English? Yeah. Oh, Tony Hendra. Tony Hendra is a really interesting character. He's, he's was with the Cambridge circus and he, and I got another Englishman named Nick Ullett used to have a, a, a, you know, a, a two hander act. And then he worked, he worked for the Lampoon, a lot of the Lampoon stuff.

radio dinner and a lot of those, the broadcasts and on the magazine. A difficult man in a lot of ways. He died about five years ago. Yeah. We can talk about him. You know, I was watching it last night again. Obviously, Michael, everyone's seen it that has anything to do with comedy and

One of those ones everyone pretty much worships. I won't make you say it. I'll say it. They all worship it. We can say it for you. The first time people improvise on film in long form was Spinal Tap. It spawned an entire industry.

Because it's so potent. Oh, yeah. I mean, obviously, it's probably a combo, but you can tell scenes that go along into where you probably just bullshit for a while and take out what works, I'm guessing. But goddamn, some good stuff. Well, Rob liked a rule of three. If you don't get it in three, and that's three times improvising a scene...

kind of knowing what worked last time and going there. And then Rob directing the camera around a couple of different angles so that it's cuttable. And that's kind of the way it worked. And some things we never heard, we never saw coming. And they just...

You know, when Ian says that Janine dresses like an Australian's nightmare, we just said, that's a brilliant line. No one could have written that line. It was just, you know, yeah. You got me thinking about Tony. See, I saw our boss, Fran Drescher. Do you remember that, Dana? The beginning of Fran Drescher was PR. She was great. Yes, I do. Of course. She was Bobby Fleckman. Yeah. Yeah.

Once you give a character a name, then they become real. It's got to have the name. But to this day, the one reference I always have, David probably has, when you're playing a gig, doing stand-up, and you get lost backstage, which is more common than you think. And I go, this is Spinal Tap. We're in Spinal Tap right now. Happens a few times a year. That was an inspired scene as well, just because it's happened so many times.

Where's the stage? Jeff Beck told us that he did a gig with at the Apollo. It was BB King's 75th or whatever the thing was. And that Beck and Clapton got lost under the stage at the Apollo.

And they did have that moment where they looked at each other. Well, we're in that fucking movie now. So any story that starts with Beck and Clapton, I could listen to a lot for a long time. Yeah. We just saw, can we talk about your music? I mean, Oh, you just saw Clapton. Um, no, I said, we saw, uh, Chris and I went to see Jeff Beck about a year ago. It was right before he died. And, uh, he played, uh,

a gig here and it was, you know, I had seen him a bunch of times and I was old enough to be a Yardbirds fan, you know, all through all three of their guitarists. And so I, you know, these guys, it was, it was amazing to see him and he just, he just got better and better, invented his own ways of playing the guitar. And it was pretty cool. I'll send you a cool snap of me and Chris and Jeff and Johnny Depp, who also was on the, on the bill that night.

It was kind of a cool night. Yeah. So Beck put down the flat pick, played with his thumb, and then used his index finger to do the vibrato.

And, uh, my, I, I had a brother who was a fanatic for Beck. So he, we were seeing Beck, me and my friends in the seventies all the time, Beck Bogart and Carmen Apice. Yeah. That was an intense trio. You know, those, yeah, that was three guys going at it, you know, but with you, it's, it's just a lane that you're in as a, as a songwriter and musician and you've won an Academy award for mighty win, right? That was the, I want to,

Not nominated. A kiss at the end of the rainbow was nominated that I wrote with Annette. How did that song come about? Because for anyone listening wants to look that up on YouTube, a kiss at the end of rainbow. It's honestly, it's so beautiful. I mean, the melody is stunning. I mean, you, did you start with just guitar chords and then have Annette come in and sing the melody? How do you get a song like that? Cause it's, well, we were, it was kind of an, it was kind of an assignment, uh,

Because we had written, Annette and I had written a song for the movie called Potatoes in the Patty Wagon, which the new Main Street singers do. Of course. Of course. And so Chris said, yeah, that's great. And Chris and I had been writing songs and Eugene and Chris and I have been writing songs and everybody individually writing. And so Chris said, you want to have a crack at this? We need a love song.

that maybe has a reference to a kiss in it because it's going to be this whole thing about this couple, the Mitch and Mickey couple, and are they going to get back together again? They had this famous kiss thing they did. We just started working on it. We wanted something that sounded like it could have been a really old song, that it could have been from 100 years ago or written by Tin Pan Alley folk song writers.

But it was inspired by just the simplicity of it. We played it for Chris and he said, "Yeah, I maybe wanted something that is more like a joke in it. This is very straight." He really liked the song. So Jamie heard it, his wife, Jamie, and she said, "No, no, you're using that one. That doesn't need a joke."

It has a life and it pressed used it beautifully in the movie. That was great. We work in a lot of different ways. There's a sincerity and a sweetness to that film. Well, I agree. Chris and I are roughly the same age and when we were 13, 14, that's when the folk thing hit and we all got guitars and Chris got a mandolin actually. I didn't know him at this time.

But, uh, I've known Chris since, since night. Holy shit. I've known Chris since 1967 and we actually room together for a while. Cause he's, he's enigmatic and, and, um,

in many ways, but go ahead. I just, uh, you're friends with him. So, I mean, he's, yeah, no, we've been good friends for a long time. He's just, he's an unusual, he's an unusual guy. And it's kind of one of the things that's great about him is that he's exactly who he is. Uh, he's not, I don't know. He's not terribly, uh,

He doesn't go out and promote himself. If he has something to sell, he'll find some way to really kind of subtly do it. He's just not that guy. He's the funniest man in the world, but you kind of got to either be on the set with him or know him. He's just, yeah. No, he's just, he's a remarkable guy, very intelligent.

He's got the same obsession with shitty old show business that I do. And I'm sure a lot of my friends do. What era? Well, any era, really. And that was the trouble. We've been working together. The four of us have been working together. Last year, we did a lot. And then the strike happened. We had to kind of settle down.

So we started working on this new project and we figured we spent about 85% of every day just looking up the Eddie Cantor gift shop in Encino. You know, it's all this shit. It's just like, it's an endless supply of old crap show business. It's just wonderful. So he shares in that and he and I are kind of co-religionists as far as that goes. Yeah, yeah, he's something else.

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That's $50 off with CodeFly at BlueNile.com. BlueNile.com. Are there old actors that you guys are obsessed by? Old actors like John Wayne or Errol Flynn? Which are the ones that... Because I'm obsessed with John Wayne with a friend. Yeah, I've always been a Boris Karloff guy.

I always thought he was great. And I always thought he didn't, he didn't get much recognition as being a really good actor. And he really was, it was just his, you know, his groove was kind of on the limited side, but he was, he was great. I loved him. And he played Frankenstein, right? He was the original Frankenstein. He was the original Frankenstein monster and he did it in bride. And he wasn't that big as a person. Was he? Yeah.

He was probably six feet, but they jacked him up on those boots. Yeah, because he's immense. Fire back. So I could play Frankenstein? No. My question for Michael was, he was on the show, SNL. We're jumping back to SNL. You were on, I think, my year. I think Dana was gone. But you did one full year, and I also saw...

a monologue from 1985. It was really funny. Oh yeah. With, with Dana, he, he comes out and he, and you're hosting and you go, I don't really do all this stuff. So I just thought I'm not really a standup comedian. So I thought I would do an 18th century Scottish acapella dirge. So he starts singing and he starts getting heckled and, and, uh, and, uh, weird one that, uh, no, they didn't show it. Did they? Yeah. It's Larry David.

Oh, it was? Yeah. I didn't see that because it went away. Oh, because at the end he goes, hey, Hamlet, where's Squiggy? Yeah. Yeah, I thought this is such a weird one. Oh, I love it. Because I thought it was Squiggy or someone. I thought, oh, who's going to be yelling? And that's great. By the way, I grew up on God damn. Is it true right in that era that you were offered to go in there when

with Billy and those guys did their year, uh, with Martin Short, Christopher Guest. And you, and you, you turned that down or. Yeah. At the time. Yeah. Yeah. I had just, uh, I had just, well, I, you know what? It just wasn't, wasn't the best time to be moving to New York. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, you know, I, I, I kind of wanted to do movies more and I started doing films.

Uh, I listen, I had many, many second thoughts about it, but my, my then wife had a child on the way. We had just bought a new house and it was just not the time to be spending weeks and weeks. It's not, it's a disruptive show. It's not. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I was, I was a working actor. You know, I, I think in 1985 when I did host and we did the folksman for the first time, which, you know, we later expanded into the mighty wind stuff.

Um, I, I think at that time, uh, one time was really fun and I don't know whether that season would have, there were so many people on that season. I mean, it was Billy, it was, um, uh, Rich Hall. It was, uh, you know, I mean, they were just, it was a huge cast, you know, and Marty rightfully so was the breakout guy there.

And, you know, but other things happened. It was there were a lot of there's a lot of angst in that in that season. I'm not sorry I didn't do it.

And I'm glad I did when I did. It was a really interesting time. I knew in 1994 that I was being hired because Phil Hartman was leaving the show and they needed someone to play, well, David Spade's dad. They needed someone who was remarkably older than these hungry kids I was surrounded by. Yeah.

So I, you know, your stern was very good. I remember. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was, that was fun because you know, you did with stern, which I hadn't heard you laugh like this. I haven't done it in a while. Yeah. Yeah. It's a good one. I remember. Yeah. And I think he talked about it because of course he was freaked out. It's kind of a long Island guffaw. You know, you got, you got to grow up on long Island. You get to. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. There it is. It was kind of a new one from- Who does Tom Skerritt? They say you did Tom Skerritt. You do? Yeah.

From aliens. Don't fucking scare it. I didn't. Was he in it? Yeah, he was. You're listed. You're listed as doing Adam West. I don't know if that's true. Yeah, I did do Adam West one time. Okay, well, I got this list. That was the only time I was on Update. Oh, you did on Update? The only time I ever did Adam West. It was the only time I ever did Update.

I had pitched another character who was a guy who was a kind of a spiritualist to the stars and talked about who's having sex in heaven.

It was my thing. Nice. I made the mistake. No, it was actually pretty funny. I did it at the table and it was kind of good. But I mentioned Hume Cronin, who had been married to Jessica Tandy, who had just died. So I did a Jessica Tandy joke.

And Lorne was like, yeah. - Too soon. - Well, he was kind of too soon, but he's also, Hume Cronin's a friend of his 'cause he's Canadian and in show business. So anyway, he told me, he says, "If you haven't got a better joke, "we'll do it another time." So we blew it off. Anyway, whatever.

Never, never take that deal. How well did you know Lauren? How well did you know Lauren when you came on in 94? Well, I had met him in 75. Casually or? Well, in 1975, when they were putting together the original show, we, I knew, I knew Chevy and I knew we knew Franklin and Davis. And the credit, when I say we, it was the credibility gap, me and Harry Shearer and David Lander.

And we were in town doing the, doing the tomorrow show, the Tom Snyder show. Harry did a brilliant Tom Snyder. So we were on the Tom Snyder show doing our, doing our Tom Snyder sketch. And so around that time they were just getting started with, um, with SNL and we knew some of those guys. So we hung out and we kind of met all these people. Um, I knew a lot of people who knew Lauren at the time, but I didn't work with him until Conehead's.

Welcome aboard. That's right. Wait, Michael, before we go on. Yeah, go ahead. My favorite thing was there is that extra mile that Lorne, I don't do a Lorne Michaels, but there's an extra mile he goes sometimes.

to make sure you know who you're talking to. And it's very subtle. It's very subtle. And he was always very sweet to me. And I got nothing but good stuff for him. But he did do this. I was up for another show. I had been offered a show, which was a spinoff of the Murphy Brown show. Okay? You got to stay with me.

And Diane, somebody who was the creator of the Murphy Brown show. Diane English. Thank you very much. She had this new show and she wanted me to do it. And so I had an offer for that while I was talking to the SNL people. And so Lorne called me directly and he told me, he said, now, what about this other show? It was a...

messenger service show. What about, what are you going to do about that? And I said, well, how did you know about that? And he said, Louis Malle told me.

Now, Louis Mal, this French filmmaker who was married to Candy Bergen. Oh, right. Who was doing Murphy Brown. So it's like he kind of went to Europe for the killing. Yeah, Louis, it's all Louis can talk about. You know, Michael, we're not hearing good things about it. Yeah, exactly.

Anyway, I've heard it's got some problems. I said, I want to do SNL. And he said, okay. That was bad. You know, Rosetta Stone, the most trusted language learning program. Oh, yeah. If you want to learn a new language, which no 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.

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Okay, so I'm jumping back to the Coneheads. We didn't finish talking about it enough for me. But what happened was there was a story that Dana doesn't even know, I don't think, where I was nervous, new movie.

you know, we're in our boxers and t-shirts for, we play NSA agents day. And I don't want to give the whole movie away, but we play NSA agents. Cause I'm, I've teed it up for tonight's entertainment. Yeah. And, uh, the cone heads are immigrants. So we're trying to get them deported. I don't know.

I don't even, I don't understand the movie, but so I just do my lines. And, uh, so one day, you know, I'm scared on this movie and I got Michael and Michael's a great, uh, fun to work. We were a team in it. We were agents together. So Michael, one day I'm in the trailer and, uh, you know, I have to wear my boxers and the t-shirt and, uh,

I said to the PA, I go, hey, man, when he came to get me, I said, don't tell anyone this. But this is so nuts. This is pure innocence. I go, I do have chicken pox, but I...

It's covering my shirt. My shirt and boxers are covering it so I can still do the scene. I just don't want everyone to weird out about it. And he goes, oh, cool. Hang on a second. Two seconds later, boop, shutting down the set. Everyone go home. I was like, what's...

I didn't even know what was going on. I'm like, why? What happened? The original COVID. God damn. Wow. Chicken pox, folks. You didn't get it as a kid? You're in your 30s getting chicken pox? Late in the game. I was 27, I think, and I had a- Have you got your shingle shot or-

No. It'll come back. It's dormant. We'll talk later. No, it was so weird that I had it. Michael and I are up to speed on that. Oh, yeah. Anyway, I didn't really. I probably infected everyone. That was too late. But we lost the day of production. I don't remember that. And someone told me that was $100,000. It's my fault. I don't remember that. I do remember when they wouldn't let Dan's. Dan had a couple of friends on motorcycles come to hang out at the set.

And they wouldn't let him in the gate because they didn't have the whatever, you know. And so they called. He's on the set. And they called him, you know, and they say, yeah, I'll say, yeah, they're OK. They're OK. I mean, and then they called again. He said they won't let us in. They won't let us in. So he tore off his head. He tore off his. No. Yes, he did.

And he shut. Yeah. Yeah. It was just like, he really, really lost. And he went out there to the booth in his ripped off head and berated the guard. It was, it was a great day. You let these hells angels in right now.

Okay. I mean, I gotta tell you, you love, I mean, we, we love Dan Aykroyd, but one thing so interesting about you is how much stuff you've done and they just keep going. Cause I dare anyone to go on YouTube, put in Lenny and squeaky from Laverne and Shirley. Yeah. And you'll see Michael McKean and then put, put on a Chuck McGill, uh,

the quote worth man of the world on better call Saul ranges. Even to you, you must look at it and go, it's pretty. Yep. Which one is your adoring touchstone between those two? I, I'm assuming I'm like, currently better call Saul is pretty recent. I'm like spade. I just, I do my lines. No, no. And you get out of it. No, I,

Really early on, I really liked people who came on a different way for every show, everything that they did. People who had, you know, who were really, you know, you see a lot of great entertainers are people who can be a lot of different things. Jim Carrey can be the broadest comic in the world, but he can also work real small and he's a good dramatic actor.

It's just because he's clear on what he's doing. So anyway, I just try and stay clear without the use of Scientology. You know, when they say, like on Laverne and Shirley Michael, they go, I can't believe we have all this stinky garbage. And then, hello, you guys walk in. I was like, are they doing this on purpose? They keep walking in at the worst times. Because I was a kid. I'm like, this is actuality.

It's accidentally really funny that they say something horrible. And then these two idiots, they were so aggressive and so sudden it was always a laugh. Like some, they're so sure of themselves. They would come in and just wreak havoc and then leave. There was no real, I mean that, that's just broad, you know, that show really,

popped as they say i mean it felt lively well it was funny and we only shot it once we only shot it once just one one never never yes and it was because it was on film it was three cameras and they didn't even have monitors they weren't even didn't even have the six pack that they that they do now or the four pack it was literally the only guy who saw it the only guy who saw it

saw something like a four pack was the camera coordinator and everyone else is just these people who grew up and they, you know, Sheldon, Sheldon Leonard, the guy who kind of sophisticated the three camera system after Desi Arnaz and Carl friend invented it with Desi Arnaz. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And we were on those stages. So it was all based in those days on just being funny, lively, and they just knew they had it. And do that. Just went for the feeling of it. Rehearse it like a play and do it like a play. And, you know, the last pilot I did, the last pilot I did, Never Again,

was about 15 years ago. And we literally shot the first scene of the pilot nine times in front of a studio audience. Shot it nine times.

while the development people were going, I got a better one. I got a better joke here. How about he did? So you're having these mini rewrites on this thing as you go. And by the audience never wants to fucking see you again after nine takes of that. And we shot until two in the morning.

And we wound up paying our extras for another day to sit in the audience and laugh at the stuff that we were doing for the 11th time. And so you can't make anything good that way. It can't be done. Yeah. So what we- Too many cooks, yeah. No, no, it would strangle it. Horrible, horrible. I only did one movie without playback. It's the worst. Yeah.

And it was sort of, I didn't realize it was the last of kind of the good old days. They watched it. It was in frame and they had, they didn't know if there's a light flare. They didn't play it back. They just said that felt good. Let's move on. And you're like, got it. And it seemed to work. And now that's almost too much going back too much replay too much. Let's look at it again. Let's look at it. Absolutely. Yeah. Because everyone gets a vote, especially if it's a pilot. Everyone says, Hey, one for the assistant here. Yeah. Yeah.

And maybe they won't let us say Jesus. We'll just get it. Oh, yeah. Do a different. Do an alt.

Well, I was on a show called Dream On, which was kind of a titty show on HBO. And I did a number of those. A titty show. Well, that's what it was. That's why I watched it. I didn't know. I thought I was alone. No, no. You probably were alone when you were watching it. Most people were. Yes, that's true. Would you lock the door? Thank you.

But leave the ice cream out there. We used to do we used to do alternate takes. And there was one my character had only one ball. And there was an episode about that, about his feelings of inadequacy. And so I was ranting about I said, you know, I said the kids at school, they'd say, here he comes. Here he comes. Johnny One Nut.

And that was the line that was going to go in. And they said, no, we need an alternate. So they wrote me an alternate. I looked at it and I said, that may be funnier. But I didn't tell Brian Benben, the guy I was working with. I didn't tell him it was coming up. So we do the alt take. And I said, well, here he comes, Mr. Singleton, which is...

arguably funnier than Johnny one that yeah yeah he fell apart it was it was a good laugh but we couldn't use it was Wendy Malek on with you Wendy was great greatest eyebrows in show business

Oh, Wendy's so great. Oh, she's awesome. Well, I agree with that. Yeah. Yeah. Who, um, is Fred Willard, um, just one of the funniest performers of all time? I think. Or don't like him much. No, I adore Fred. There's something quirky about him. Almost like Norm Macdonald. You can't quite put your finger on what, uh,

what is going on there? Yeah. No, it's brilliant, but it's just sort of like tilted. I remember Fernwood tonight was the first time I got familiar with Fred Willard. Oh man. And it was just something about, he's all the character of Fred was smiling a lot and had this, I don't know why, how it must've been fun just hanging out with that. He was great. Well, in 1975, I loved you in 1975. Uh, there was a, a group called the ace trucking company.

And it was Fred Willard, Billy Saluga, Mike Mislove, and George Memoli. You can find some of their stuff, not a ton of it online, but you can find some of it. And I, George and, well, the group broke up. They still had three dates in the Midwest that they wanted to get if they could. So Fred...

And George, Mamali, hired me and David and Harry, who were the credibility gap at the time, hired us to go on the road, do some of our stuff and learn some Ace Trucking Company stuff and kind of make it like it's a whole act. So we were kind of in the Ace Trucking Company there for a little while. And Fred was he's not like any other guy. He's not like any other guy.

He said one time, he said, we were checking in to this hotel in Chicago. And he said to the guy, he said, yeah, it's not near the elevator, is it? And the guy said, no, no, your room is not. So we're going up to the rooms. And I said, why do you specify not near the elevator? He said, oh, it's the bell. I mean, when the bell goes off, you know, when the elevator hits on the floor, I can't stand that. I have really good hearing. I can't sleep with that bell going every night.

And I said, oh, that's, that's, he says, yeah, well, sometimes if I get a room near the, uh, the bell near the elevator, I will go and disable the bell.

I said, what? Yeah, I know how to do it. I travel with tools. So he has this little toolkit and he would disable the bell and he would hook it up again when we left in the morning. And I said, do you really do that every time? He says, one time, he said, one time I had to disable the one on the floor above and the floor below because I could still hear those. So he's a man in control of his own life.

And he also had a window. He had a window on a whole nother world that we just can't see from here. He was really fucking awesome. Yeah. He's that. Yeah. Funny. I mean, he must've looked around almost like a Peter Sellers movie when he had the tools, like looked around the hallway to make no one had to get the elevator to stop to get in there. I mean, it was a James Bondian or some kind of, yeah. Yeah. There's a whole mission impossible. Yeah. Um,

What's the quirkiest thing about you, David? David Spade. Oh, get a pen. I'm so nuts. But I think Michael got me at a pretty crazy time because SNL, I was probably losing my mind a little bit. And then I go into Coneheads, which is a little more contained. One time, Michael, we had a... Why do I keep having... All I remember is Coneheads.

But one time you were in underwear, right? Oh, chicken pox. Now I'm running around, obviously a chicken pox, probably the whole year. And they said, they go, you have an extra scene in cone heads where you're in a van listening. Maybe Michael wasn't in it, but it was during a show week and they said, you have to fly back for it. So,

I do like read through and then Thursday I fly a red. Can I take a red eye to L.A.? I took a red eye somewhere. Anyway, I took a red eye because Letterman was on my flight and he said part of the story is the story is long. He said the stewardess goes, should I wake you for honey buns? And I said, no, I'm going to try to sleep.

And I didn't know Letterman. And then he went to the bathroom. And when he came out, he goes, should I wake you for honey buns? I never talked in my life. And hilarious. And then I get there. I go straight to the side. Maybe. No, I think it was a 6 a.m. flight. Anyway, so I fly out there. I sleep on it. I get up. I go in. I drive out to Disney Ranch. I do the scenes, whatever. Kill, get big laughs. Then I...

Then I drive back to my apartment in Studio City, order a pizza because I'm going home the next day. And I finally finished the day and I got my hair all greased back. And then Mike Shoemaker calls me and goes, hey, Lorne wants you back. And I go, I know. I just finished shooting. I'm coming in the morning because it was a Lorne movie.

I go, I'm coming back in the morning is no. He wants you on a red eye tonight. There's a car out front. I go, shut the fuck up. I just got a pizza. So he goes, you better go. You don't. And the whole life at SNL, you don't want to get fired. So I take a few bites, get back in the car, go back to the airport.

They need you at the studio at 10 a.m. So I land, I go to the studio. It's a John Goodman show. There's no one in the studio. I go, wait, no one even comes into one. What am I fucking doing? So I just walk around. Then I go back home and no one ever mentioned it. And I'm like, what's happening? You are a Christian martyr story. We,

No, we'll cut it out. I tried to talk them out of that. I was in New York at the office. I go, don't make David come all the way back. No, it was you on the phone acting like Shoemaker. I was trying to help. David will come back and then it'll go back. And then you'll come back again. We'll drive him fucking crazy. It's called a trifecta. This year, Dell Technologies' back-to-school event is delivering impressive tech with an inspiring purpose.

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Or choose mobile service where a technician will come to you and do routine maintenance right on the spot. Both are complimentary and depend on your location. That's ownership built around you. Contact your participating dealer or visit FordService.com for important details and limitations. Michael McKean is humble, so I know what it's like to get compliments, but

I have to say, this scene that you did, because I looked it up on the stand. We have Chuck McGill with the electric magnet paranoia thing. And you're...

I mean, that's as good as it kind of gets, I think, for a film acting. I mean, what did you think of that scene? Did you ever look at it? Did you know you were in the pocket? Did Odenkirk try to ruin takes that were really good? You know how Bob is. No, he's going too fast. Wow, you're so good. No, it was... I knew...

I got called. I was in New York. I was in New York and I got, I was doing a show, a play in New York. No, I wasn't at this point, but I was in New York and the director of the show, Dan Sackheim, the director of that episode called. And he says, you want to talk about this? And I thought, oh, does that mean it's going to be hard? And he said, well, have you looked at it? I said, yeah, it's a ton of stuff. And it's a big, it's like a four page speech basically.

And he says, well, how do you want to shoot this? And I said, no, I don't know. I mean, just what's good. I didn't kind of understand what he was asking me. He says, cause it's going to be some long days. And then I realized, well, that scene is going to take like three days. And so we, it listened, it, it, it worked out. Cause I, you know, I, I learned the lines, beat myself up and got the lines down, but I'm, I'm not too bad about lines. And then I knew what it was about. And it's in that archetypal, if that's a word,

Yeah. You melt down. You take yourself from being fairly together like Captain Queen. It is Captain Queen. Sure. You know, and then and then you lose you. You're losing it slowly and pacing it. So I'm just my question is how much is technique and how much is just you? You you're the guy and you're not really thinking you're just being playful because it seems like it'd be hard to break all those moments down.

Yeah. When they're filming, you just have to be, you just felt so in the pocket. I don't know. It's just my thing. I liked it a lot. That's all I'm saying. Thank you very much. Thanks. No, no, it was, it was a really good, uh, it was a good show. It was a good experience. And, uh, you know, Bob is kind of heroic and I met Bob when we were doing SNL. Uh, and it was, I mean, he was just there occasionally. He wasn't writing on the show.

But he was, I think he was seeing Janine. Is that possible? Anyway, there were some, oh, I don't know. But no, I knew that. I think they used to go out. I don't know. But I met him a couple of times there, but I never really, really worked with him until this, until Better Call Saul. And when, you know, when they cast me in it, he called me up and he said, this is great news. We're going to have such a good time.

And we did. We kind of fell right into it, into this relationship. And what we did was informing, and we didn't know it, was informing the writers. And it kind of gave them a lot of inspiration. Hey, you know what could happen here? And it helped them find a way for those characters to get into a genuine conflict.

Anyway, smart writers. You work with smart writers. They're wide open to everything. And Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould and Tom Schnauz and Jennifer, last name. Yeah, Hamilton. Think Henderson. That's her last name. Jennifer last name. Jennifer last name. Oh, the story. Bob said one of the, maybe you can relate to this.

Um, Bob said the funniest, the hardest I've ever laughed on this podcast about SNL and stuff is that, you know, you know, people when they're younger and Bob was just a fledgling writer in the eighties. And, um, but we wrote a movie together called Tucson, a comedy Western, stuff like that. So, and Bob is going along with his career and then, and then Breaking Bad comes and then Better Call Saul.

And when he came on the podcast, he goes, he goes, then he does the action movie. Nobody, which is awesome. Yeah. And he thought to himself, if this, if this lands, cause we know Bob as the fledgling writer in the eighties that,

at our core, he goes, he said to us, I know if this landed, you guys would be sitting at home going, what the fuck? Now he's an action star. He's not only an Academy Award winning type actor, now he's an action star. That made me laugh so hard. Well, if you could, do you ever play that, the time machine game, the time machine game where you see somebody

on the screen and they're doing something kind of second rate and you know that their career is about to take off, you want to get in a time machine and say, don't worry, this is going to be fine. You're going to get Martin Scorsese is going to put you in a movie. It's going to be amazing. And I played that game a lot. But there was a movie called

Oh God. Oh, what was it called? Capricorn one. And it was about the faking of the moon landing. So if you could go back in time, OJ Simpson, OJ Simpson, go back in time and you say, okay, Jim Brolin, you're going to be married to the ex-wife of Elliot Gould, who is standing right next to you in this shot.

And OJ, oh, OJ, yeah, yeah, we'll get back to you later, OJ. Yeah. You'll see. It'll be exciting. Keep doing what you're doing. No one will talk about anyone but you for years. You're going to be so famous. Oh, yeah. So famous.

Yeah. Man. All right. Well, Michael, thank you. Unless Dana has something else to tell you, we might let you go. You've been, you've struggled with this enough. It was very nice of you. Well, you guys are very important to me. I love your attitude. You're important to me because. I'm very important to you. Yes, because you're proof that blondes can be funny. Ha ha.

We all are, right? It's true. Three blondies. Well, blonde, blonde, blonde. Blonde on blonde. Were you a toehead as a child? It was hard to tell because I always had a crew cut. I was a bristly little blonde crew cut, yeah.

Pretty sad. Me too. Hated it. Hated having a crew cut in the 60s. Studley in that SNL monologue in 85 killed it. I know, he bet you. It wasn't my sweater. Fucking skinny, good job. I don't say this with all of our guests, but some. But what I would say to you is what can't he do? Yeah, what cannot he do? I don't know. I can't sleep. He will host a show. He can't sleep, Dana. No.

No. It's called Ambien. I got it. No, listen. Are you a NIDA? Yeah, half an Ambien is fine. That's what I do at night. Yeah, not a whole one. No, a whole one, then you got to deal with the rest of the day. Your mind's going like this, right? I mean, I assume the creative juices. Then how do you sleep?

It's so hard to sleep for me because I'm so smart. Well, thank you for coming on our humble show, Michael. Listen, it's been a lot of fun. And I had to get up anyway. So here I am. Now they're shifting our little pictures around. All right, boys. Thank you, bud. This has been a presentation of Odyssey. Please follow, subscribe, leave a like, a review. All this stuff, smash that button, whatever it is, wherever you get your podcasts.

Fly on the Wall is executive produced by Dana Carvey and David Spade, Jenna Weiss-Berman of Odyssey, Charlie Finan of Brillstein Entertainment, and Heather Santoro. The show's lead producer is Greg Holtzman.