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

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

Where would I find a towel? That's a toughie when it's- Because they're naked? Well, it's like the 1800 time you say, on the towel rack. Yeah. Thank you. Oh, I was going to look there. People don't even think hotels sometimes just go, hey, I'll go there. I'll get an Airbnb. So you won't regret it. Ready? Three, two, one. What's up, David? What's our next guest? Who is it? Our next guest is Smigel. Oh, Robert Smigel. Robert Smigel. Awesome.

Robert Smigel, we're having a writer on, one of the, for many people's money, the best sketch writer of his generation. He's in the conversation for sure. He's one of the best I've ever worked with. Hall of Famer, first time Hall of Famer. Yep. Brilliant guy. Yeah, Smigel used to, you know, he's in charge of so many of the big sketches in the show. And I was always trying to write with him.

Always trying to get in there and just get my name on a sketch because I know it would always get on because he's so good. He'd write for you a lot and he'd write with you a lot. Yeah, we had a good collaboration because I would just start, I was watching Regis. We'll talk about it in the episode, but I just started doing it around the office and then he was a great person to partner with and then he could get the rhythm and make it even better. Same thing with Carson and stuff. So we go through a lot of process on my side of the fence with Robert and it's really fun. We go through a lot of me begging him to do sketches with me on my side of the fence and

But he also went on, he does Triumph, you know, the dog, and he does a lot of great stuff for autism. And he has The Night of Too Many Stars, which is the funniest title. Yes. Benefit. He roasts us, basically. Oh, yeah. We won't give it away, but at the beginning of the episode, a certain character that he does that's sort of canine-like just basically roasts David and I for 10 minutes. It's pretty funny. I won't say how he does it, but he sort of poops on us.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, by the way, Dana, you know, there's Elvis movies coming out, not to change gears here. Austin Butler. Austin Butler does Elvis. And I'm such an Elvis fan, I'm almost worried to watch it because I want to be really into it. You know, there's a funny Elvis story that we used to joke. When Elvis was such a huge star, which he always was. Yeah. But he's such a stud and he would leave the studio.

he'd have Sonny and Rhett up front and they go, "Elvis, there's a million girls out front. So throw the coats on them." So he'd lay down in the back seat and they'd throw the coats on him. And then when they drive out, they'd all look and get around the car and they wouldn't see him and they'd leave and he'd get away. And so they wouldn't follow the car. And so in the later days,

There was no one there. And Elvis goes, it's pretty crazy out there. And he goes, yeah, throw the coats on them. Isn't that cute? They would still throw the coats on them and there was no one out there. So he never knew. They better have that in the fucking movie. I always thought, it's been long enough to, I just thought, interesting, he died in his mansion. Yeah. Okay. And he was on the pot. So I assume a half hour before he died, all you heard if you were in the mansion is someone going, can I get some pepper? Yeah.

I need some paper in here. Can anybody bring me some paper? Wait, he needs toilet paper? Toilet paper. Well, he hasn't pooped yet. That's the problem. Well, maybe he did, but there's no toilet paper. He said, can I get the newspaper to read it because I'll be here for two hours. The other thing was, like, he would have Colonel Tom go on a private jet with people down to South American cities and bring back young ladies for elbows, you know. Oh, boy.

And he had a thing where he'd want them to- Hey, let's not give away the first half hour of the movie. Wear a diaper. It was one of his fetishes. What's your name? Consuelo? Jesus Christ. Here's a diaper. Strap that on. These are all true stories. You can cut these. I'll get arrested. But it'll be great. You know who I ran into? Riley Keough the other night.

What a great name. The MTV Awards. Yeah. The granddaughter. I didn't put it together, even though I'm the hugest Elvis fan, because I didn't recognize her. So she's sitting next to me before we're going out. I'm presenting an award and she's presenting the Elvis movie, something about it. And she said it was a great movie. And you got to trust her. If I was in the Elvis family, I would be so eagle-eyed on that thing. But it's never going to be as cool as the real Elvis. But-

She's happy, so I'm happy. I'm very interested in it just because Colonel Tom Parker played by Tom Hanks is in it. Yeah, I love that. And he is Dutch and he was a really weird guy and he's in complete prosthetics. And you know, Parker took 50%. Would you like to be the biggest star in the world, Mr. President? You thought Colonel Tom would be like, hey!

Elvis Presley But he's like Would you like to be a star Elvis Presley I guess he talks like that Does that scare you I just don't know I need a percadam sandwich Anybody got a percadam sandwich 50% This motherfucker Took of Elvis's shit Fit to the very very end And I would say He didn't have Great guy syndrome I'll tell you that Which I do have

By the way, James Austin Butler plays Elvis Presley, and he also played Tex in One Upon a- It's not James Austin. What's his name? That's the guy in SNL. Oh, James Austin Johnson. What is his name? Austin Butler. Austin Butler. I was going James Austin Johnson. Hey, man. It's a senior moment. You were just thinking of any first names you could link together. Well, Austin is a very unique name. It is cool. First or middle. I plead guilty. The guy looks cool. I'm not going to say anything about you. I want to see it. I think it's going to be great. James Austin Butler. Yeah. Yeah.

Is a cute kid. He played Tex in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Oh, he did? Yeah, he was the guy. I'm as real as a donut, motherfucker. That's your favorite movie. I saw you. You were riding a horsey in that scene. Not to get away from Smigel, but I'm going to tell you that I, and this is one minute. I did see one of your old favorite movies on the plane of all fucking things. I'd never seen it.

Three Days of the Condor. Oh, really? You talk about two motherfucking movie stars. I see it every year. Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway. Faye Dunaway. She was so hot. What do you want? I just want it to stop. I love it. Condor. Condor, where are you, Condor? That brings us back to Robert Smigel. Robert Smigel from Robert Redford. And that is our tie-in. And we knew we planned this whole thing. Robert Smigel.

is very funny. He co-executed a show. I think people are still listening to us bullshit about this thing. That'd be funny if this is the whole episode. And then we go, we never got time for Robert Smigel. We really apologize. We got on an Elvis thing. Yeah. But it's good. We talk about topical shit, man. It's what's going on in the world. Anyway, here's Smigel. All the momentum we had with the Lorne impression. Oh, we were, oh yeah. And you were saying Lorne

You did an impression before that, before Dana got there. Mark McKinney. Mark McKinney did... The only person who did it in my first year was Mark McKinney. And he did like a beautifully accurate Lauren, like a well-observed Lauren. And actually said complete sentences. And it was very impressive. But then the next year...

I just started doing cartoony Lauren on my own. And then I went into, I remember going into Dana's office and, uh, you know, and I admitting that I sort of do Lauren, like, you know, I want to be able to show, I think Dana and then Dana's like, Oh yeah, I do Lauren too. And Dana starts going like, Oh, what do you think of act three? Yeah.

Like something Lauren's never done in his life. It was just perfect. It was like this self-satisfied. We still have no fucking first act. I've got no fucking first act. No fucking code. Marcy, look at the book of Lauren, please. Chapter two.

Franken-Ryder Bush, Franken-Ryder Bush, Franken-Ryder Bush. Franken-Ryder Bush. There was a lot of Bush cold openings. Franken-Ryder Bush. Remember, Robert, when you made the cartoon thing where you flipped the pages? Which cartoon? Well, I was doing Bush Sr. so much, I didn't know that the writing staff was kind of like, again? So then I saw a thing where it's like a flip page.

where it was Bush taking a shit. Yeah, and you spin it and see me as Bush. It was like a series of, it was like one of those flip books. Yeah, like a silent movie. And what was it? It was like, was it Franken putting Bush cold open on the...

I thought it was Bush taking a poo or something. I thought it was scatological. I like Franken putting the card on the lineup. I have to say, Franken takes a beating on your show. He's coming on very, very soon. And we will play him. Well, Sarah got him back by stabbing him in the head with a pencil. Yeah. Did you hear that one? Were you there? Yeah.

I was not there. That was after I had left for Conan. But do you remember this spade? I bet you remember this. So one of the impressions I was the one, I think, who started that like me and Conan. I used to do this thing for Conan of Al. And I feel bad because Al got me the job, actually. And I love Al. But but he was tough back then. And so everybody kind of.

Yeah. Needed to release some energy. Mine was like Al on his back. Yeah.

And it like a snapping turtle. Flip me over. Yeah, exactly. I thought that's why he would when he was running for senator. I thought he'll be great in there because Al is blunt and doesn't. He just says what he thinks. I thought that'd be good. He was great. But on the but well, the boy, when he was in the Senate, he was my hero because he he kind of like.

contained himself from being as confrontational. Like, I mean, at the show, his last few years at the show, I think, I think he was kind of unhappy to be honest with you. I mean, he was like in his forties and I don't think this is what he was dreaming of doing in his forties. And I think it was, I think that's in his defense. Like he was confused as to what he wanted to do with his life. And then he started writing those books. And I think he found

Yeah, he's always hyper-political, and that was fun writing with him in Downey, because he had all these dreams, and he's sitting next to Spade at read-through, and he's like, what happened? It's like George Segal in Just Shoot Me goes, in the middle of a scene, he'd stop, and he'd look at the crowd, he goes, I did a movie with Elizabeth Taylor, and I'm standing next to this asshole now.

Well, I remember Jan Hooks once saying to me, Schmeigs, don't become one of those writers who's 50 years old and wearing blue jeans and sitting on the floor. Flannel shirt. Whatever you do. It's always sitting on the floor with a notebook. It's true. I mean, it's just you never grow up when you're at that show. And a little sachet where you put your bitterness in, a bitterness pouch where you just keep loading things in. In Al's defense, the show I did six years, it gets...

mind-numbing and it gets you're in a box of like no sun and pizza and ordering in and stress and everyone else's energy and so you did a long run there too you seem pretty normal but that that was a long run you had i did a long run that i got out when i was like 33 and to do the conan show and then i came back but in a much more sane capacity i just did the cartoons yeah and all i had to do was show up on

Yeah, all I had to do was show up on Saturday. So I wasn't really a part of the thing anymore. But Al was like, you know, there every day. And he's like in his 40s. 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, that's,

It just makes us happy. You don't want to be watching The Godfather and the person next to you goes, this movie sucks. 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.

Yeah. I mean, the whole idea is you're going to take a compatibility quiz, helps your personality come out in your profile, which makes all the profiles on eHarmony way more interesting and fun to read. So I think this is the goal of dating sites, and I think eHarmony does it great. It's just finding somebody you're compatible with.

So get started today with a compatibility quiz. So you can find some and you can be yourself with. Get Who Gets You on eHarmony. Sign up today. Well, let's get back to Schmeigel's unbelievable career. Do you want to be a little bit...

Do we want to go a little bit to Young Smigel first, or would you like to go later? Young Smigel, or what about, can my friend come on? Because he thinks Young Smigel's a fucking bore. Yeah, let me see. Who do you got over there? He's been riding me ever since you booked me. This is unique for Fly on the Wall. We have a guest with a special guest. We have a guest with a guest who's just, I don't know, he just thinks that he can jazz it up, you know. He better behave.

Should I bring him out? Bring him out. Why not? Oh, goodness. What? Here I am. Here I am. Finally. God, Jesus Christ, what a long wait. No, this is terribly exciting. So exciting. I triumph. Do not make fun of this show or us triumph. Please. Oh, no, I understand. Those are the ground rules I have to work with.

No, no, no jokes about the show. No, no making fun of anyone. OK, OK. Honestly, this is a great show. Thank you. Not for me to poop on. No, no. Fantastic show. That's good. That's nice. Fly on the wall. There's a lot of buzz I hear around fly. Yeah. Good job, Triumph. Thank you. Yeah. The same kind of buzz flies make around my ass.

You see, because it's not as it attracts shit in the show. Yeah, that makes sense. You see the joke, you get it. Yeah, that took a turn, but okay. Yeah, I like it. It's a switcheroo. Yeah, it's called a switcheroo. No, Spade, this is a great show. It fills the need, you know, because...

Let's face it, Saturday Night Live, it hasn't gotten enough attention or retrospectives or anniversary shows. Right. I mean, honestly, just the other day, I was thinking this. After watching my Best of Finesse Mitchell DVD, I was thinking, why? Why has SNL been written about only slightly more than World War II? Why? Why?

And today's show, my goodness, how did you land? Yes, they hand up my ass. Seriously, I'm worried. I'm a little concerned. This is your first season. You've already run out of people we care about. No, Smigel's a big deal. He wrote a lot of great sketches. Hey, sure he is. Everybody stay tuned. We've got the fourth funniest guy from the Bears.

And you have to explain what the sketch was to people under 60. It's trouble. This is what you're looking forward to. You already did Sandler, Rock, Mike Myers. This is your future. This is pretending to be interested in questions like, tell me, in coming up with Goat Boy, which came first to you, the goat or

Or is it a boy who becomes a goat? Or a goat who becomes a boy? Our listeners, really. Our ten remaining listeners are dying to know. Ten! We didn't get the news.

No, I kid. I kid again. Oh, he's kidding, Dana. No, no. Your show's great. It's a very, very successful money grab. I mean, hit. You have like, how many subscribers? You've got like 400,000 listeners, right? Yeah. I'm going to say yes. Not to this episode, that's for sure. But up to now. No, it evens out. All we can hope today is to beat Alan Zweibel's numbers.

numbers. And who better to host? Who better to co-host this show than Dana Carvey, one of the all-time greatest cast members on Saturday Night Live. Don't continue. Why? Why would you say that? It's almost as if you think I'm going to hurt your feelings. No, I think this will be a compliment. Exactly. Dana Carvey, one of the all-time greatest cast members of Saturday Night Live and David Spade.

who was also on the show. Spades everywhere. Spade is doing great. He's everywhere. This is Dana. This is actually a boost for you. You know, audiences are connecting with you again. That's what's great. I only wish Dana that you did this show like 15 years ago. You know, when podcasts were starting and all the people you do impressions of were still alive. Now I have lost a lot of them. Now it's like, hey, folks,

What would happen? What if Ross Perot and Jimmy Stewart weren't rotting corpses slowly disintegrating into the soil? I think it might go something like this. Yeah. Well, you're trying to be president. Yeah, can I finish one time? I'll just do it. There. I did. Can I finish one time? Listen to your act. It's like the audio sixth sense. I hear dead people. So, boom. Boom.

I'm sorry. Is this wrong? This is a podcast. You're supposed to you're supposed to be complimenting each other. That's what it is, right? I mean, yeah, that's what my guests are. White people complimenting each other. Yeah, we need more. All right. We're pretty nice. All the white people complimenting old white people. White people compliment. I've got a theme song for you.

Harmonize with me, Dana. Old white people complimenting old white people. Old white people. It's very hard to do over Zoom, I just realized. Yes. Listen, Spade. Yes. I don't want to insult you. You've had an amazing career. Thank you. You had Tommy Boy then starring in a string of hit sitcoms that no one remembers. Yeah.

waiting for him to fake. I'm laughing. Hey, and God bless Bernie Brillstein. Right. He started the whole thing off. Right. Great guy calling the creators of Just Shoot Me and gently coaxing Steve Levitan to hire his client.

You need the comic relief guy. I'm so sorry. No. I didn't mean to. No, it's an easy trim. Snippity dippity. No, I think we got to put people. We got to let them. No, that showed your thing. You did your thing. Did Triumph hurt your feelings? I need to know. No. Not at all. A little bit, Spade. No, because I thought Triumph is a little older now and maybe he was not like that anymore.

No, no. It's like, I'm older. That's the problem. Like, I didn't give a shit about this when I started trying. I know. I liked old white people complimenting other old white people or something like that. We looked it up. There's 2.8 million podcasts. Are you kidding me? It's like COVID. It's just there's more every day and no one knows what to do and people are getting affected with it.

Here's what I've observed about this one, because I've listened to a few. Okay. And what's very funny to me, Spade, is like, you're one of the funniest persons in the world. This is an old white person compliment. Yeah. Old white person compliment. But on this show, it's all about a life you lived when you were like in the 90s and you kind of have to revert. You're always reverting to that guy at the show.

who hadn't made it big yet. You're like, always like, yeah, no, you guys were incredible. And I didn't know what to do. Right. It's just funny to me that Spade who's had this amazing run. Well, it does. We throw back. Everybody gets back in that around the writer's table and how fucking ordering Huxley's and all the stupid shit. It sort of throws you back to the dim lighting and,

I'm feeling like shit all the time. It was a stressful, would you consider it? I would say like, I love the show so much and people I met and worked with. And yet I was always stressed. Yeah. I,

I also remember how skinny your little office was. Like, I think people thought it was some palatial place. It's these little dungeons. And then I would go along the line and poke my head in to see if I get my name on anybody's sketch. Smaggle. Do you remember what my affectionate nickname for you was? No, what was it? Spudly? No. Well, everybody had Spudly and Spinoodles. No, Chief Nott and Show. Chief Nott and Show. Because I was never in the show. Yeah.

It's so... You know he was, but... I wasn't in much. I think I went... You got in it in 93, 4, 5. I did go third. Once Dana left. Well... That's what was weird. The thing was... It's so weird because you were kind of pigeonholed. I remember your audition. Yeah. And you were very funny, but you were kind of like Spade Light. You weren't like...

letting your whole kind of persona later. Yeah. And people like saw you as like this nice looking kind of blonde guy who did some impression. I think you did Tom Petty. Yeah. It was like, Oh, he's going to be like a Dana Carvey type. And then, and Dana Carvey was still on the show. So I think people didn't know what to do. I think I didn't, but I also wasn't in, in full disclosure, uh,

thinking I was the new Dana Carvey. I was like, are you, this guy, I go, this guy's the best guy and he does a million things. I go, I got to find what I can do. And luckily, like even that Hollywood minute where Lauren, I was sort of teetering and then he's like, well, just do more stuff like that because that makes me a little different from Dana. And then I could find my own little niche or something. I don't know. It was tough. That part was tough. Even the receptionist, which was like the best sketch of that season. Oh yeah. I remember, I remember,

someone in a high position saying yeah but could Dana play that no shit no of course he could I came in and played an alien right did I play an alien in that I felt bad because I said you know it's always hard Smigel if you're a writer and if you're a new writer to put Mike Myers or Dana in something where they don't have a lot to do but you know in your head you're like oh it'd be fun I have access to all these great people and I don't know they're quietly going that's not that great but

Dana goes, yeah, I'll do whatever. So I go, you come in at the end as an alien. I don't realize they're going to put them in like three hours of makeup and hair. Remember you had a big bulbous head on? I had a giant thing. And I was like, oh no, I can't put Dana through this shit. And it also makes sometimes- That was part of being on the team. Yeah, yeah. You know what? I have to say no one complained. McKinnon still gets into crazy outfits and says two lines in a sketch. I liked on the 40th anniversary, Steve Martin goes in full King Tut outfit for three lines in

in a song or whatever, because he's committed and it's fun. I love it. And everyone's there. It's also like 70 million people are watching that one. Yeah. It's all different. Yeah. You're right. Everybody's. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, the receptionist, I mean, it's, it was so exciting to see a new person kill too. Like that's one of the great things on the show when that happens, like that guy,

when he did Trump for the first time this year. Yeah, he was great. It was like thrilling, you know? It was amazing, yeah. And when the audience finds it, because I had been sort of kicking around the show for a while and that was a hard one to get on. I think it took a few swings. Oh, the receptionist? Yeah, and then it got on with MC Hammer at 5 to 1.

And then the next time it got on First Sketch. With Roseanne, right? Yeah, with Roseanne. There's really, there was only like three. So that's the one you remember. It's like, bye-bye. There's only two of them. But, you know, if they remember what they remember, you know. Church Lady was on more than 20 times the first season. Oh my. More than they had shows? Were you on twice in a show? Yeah, I would do an early chat and then I'd do a good night chat. After update. Jack Handy would pitch in. On the David Carvey show, we tried to sneak the Church Lady into commercial shows. Remember that? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. For real. We did that. We were like, can we superimpose the church lady or George Bush over a commercial? Were you allowed to use that stuff on Dana Carvey's show? I technically, because of my contract, when I came in, I owned the church lady. That was very different back then. You could like write, you could write a list of the characters that you created before going to Saturday Night Live. And Dana had a long list.

and so yeah nowadays it's the complete opposite like they own everything and then you have

Like after seven years, you have to do movies with the, I don't know. You have to do a mandatory movie. When you do movies, you go back to the show. It is different. You do commercials and movies and you miss shows and you go back in the show. It's pretty cool for the cast. Yeah, it's really. Yeah. Now that's true. Yeah. Leading up to this 50th, they're all, they're all, they all come and go. They, they told me to, my manager said right on the flight out there, right? All your,

and give them to Jim Henry and I'm sitting there with a blank piece of paper on a Delta going, I don't even, what characters? What are you fucking talking about? I'm in standup. So I'd go skateboard crazy guy talks with the lisp. You know, I'm just like making up something in case I write it one day or in case it sounds like a sketch I do and it clicks. Anything like, yeah, you need a man or thing, but Robert, do you want to talk about some of our

hits your big monster hits and you well you know we did together yeah yeah well i mean i dana so i was there for a year before dana and then i got in in 86 with phil and jen and he was like someone i had i connected with what i loved about dana was that he spade you'll understand this like

like passive aggressive behavior rules at that show. Like I was great at that. Good. I could possibly, no, my sketch is terrible. Don't put my sketch on. It couldn't possibly me. I'm, I'm being paid. Like, that's what, that's,

And then there's people like Lovitz who are like, what's going on? They're anti-Semitic. That's why this sketch didn't make it. You know why they cut it? Because it's funny. That's it. It's too good. It was too funny. That's why they didn't put it on. Yeah, I was. I was sadly a little closer to John. I was like, Robert, you have no poker face. Lauren, I remember him telling me.

There were people like me. I didn't really make big stinks, though, but I was, you know, imitating Lauren behind his back like everybody eventually. Now, everybody I'm told I'm told you go. Now, everybody does. Lauren literally literally everyone.

They all do. You've seen this? Have you witnessed this? Well, that's what I heard. James Austin Johnson had a good one, you know. Oh, yeah, yeah. Bill Hader, of course. Any recent cast member. No, but I think people, they say that people just do it around the office. Oh, just around you here. Just to each other. Read-throughs going to start. Everyone get to their seat, you know, and that's like a first-year cast member. Right. But what I loved about Dana...

was that he had, he just came in, he had a list of impressions that he like handed out to the writers. Like he wasn't,

He didn't pretend that he was above doing that, which was like so refreshing to actually admit that you care about being cutthroat or anything. He was just being straightforward. I just thought it made sense. I was able to do a bunch of voices. I thought, well, let the writers know because I realized you guys are just writing sketches and

If someone sees Casey Kasem or something, maybe they'd put him in. I don't know. Of course. That's the best way to do it. Here you go. Here you go, Jack Handy. Here you go, Odenkirk. Here you go, Conan. The first thing, Robert, you approached me with was Robin Leach doing...

Some kind of Japanese pruning or origami. I don't know why. I don't remember. Yeah, because you'd seen his name on the list. But I had a catchphrase for that one. I'm Robin Leach. I'm yelling and I don't know why. Right. So I had that. I loved Robin Leach. But then it was Chief Shea. Robin Leach for everyone under 70. Yeah.

But Rob Lynch was such a lifestyle. Another one of the celebrity that is no longer with us. One of my impressions. You know, Dino Stapanopoulos, who our listeners might know, every time someone I do an impression of passes away, he texts me. Another one down. Whether it's Regis or Bush. You're going to kill in heaven, Dana, someday. Yeah, yeah.

I didn't know Dino did that. I thought Robin Leach was so hilarious and he had a great hook for it. I don't know. Everything Dana. I thought Dana's Travolta was hysterical because it was so it was so not what Travolta sounded like in the 80s anymore. No, it's just like he's basically doing an exaggerated. Welcome back, Carter. Welcome back, Carter. For everyone listening. If you want to do a John Travolta, just say the word weird.

Slack's so weird. Slack's so weird. Weird is the entry to that. Slack, but also Slack. What's that? Well, it's like Dana would say, Slack's so weird. Slack's so weird. Everybody should just do whatever they want. We can be very much connected because we liked doing impressions that were kind of abstract. We like creating...

abstract impressions and so you know Dana had some under his belt obviously and then I tried to help him with you know Johnny Carson and Regis the Regis thing was very strange because like I wrote it for Phil Hartman I wrote it for Phil Hartman and it went to dress really didn't do great and then Dana in his gentlest non-cutthroat way just happened upon me like a week later and was like

you know, I'm Regis is kind of small and Irish. And like, I had just had a total blank. I had just picked Phil because he was the oldest member. Yeah. And I thought of, I thought of him as just, okay, he's the old guy comparatively, but Dana was absolutely right. He looked more like Regis. And then he started doing him and,

Well, I didn't realize when I started watching him in New York, he had essentially just got on nationally. But we would get up around nine, Paula and I, and we would watch it. And we just fell in love with him. Oh, yeah. He's the most charming guy in the world. And then getting to know you, yeah, just hanging out in your office. And we started bouncing off, are you ready for this? You're out of control. This guy's crazy. And you got all the-

I think one of your things, very Robert Smigel or something about, you know, I'm down at the Shredders and I'm behind Broca. I can't get a seat, you know, so we we barred it. It was that thing of like the explosion. This is something that he really did on the show. And then Broca's got the front row seat and I'm sitting with, you know, Patrick Swayze in the in the back.

Anyway, it was a great event. And he takes a sip of his coffee. Anyway, it was terrific. It's like he's got nothing else. So he just goes to joy was there. Anyway, we wish them well. Yeah. When joy hosted, that was always, uh,

Regis was working. But you can't let Dana around an impression. He comes circling. It's like, all right, just give it to him. He's going to figure it out. I'm out of control. And then when he wrote his book, they said, we want to call it I'm out of control. And he had to go out, you know, honest to God, I never said that. Yeah, he never ever said I'm out of control. That was something that Dana made up. Dana Garnie made up, but I don't understand. Dana Garnie. But, you know, one, so we had, you know, and then Carson came around. Oh, yeah. And just...

I started playing around with it. I think the Turners actually had written a Carson sketch. Did they? And I looked at it, you showed it to me and I had just a couple of moves in my head and then it sort of brought out some moves that you had. Like the thing that,

I love Johnny Carson so much. He was like an incredible voice in the seventies when I was a teenager growing up. I used to watch him constantly and he was so charismatic and he's still the greatest ever, but there was then Letterman came on in like the early eighties and immediately he

got some, you know, the anti-top show or whatever you want to call that. Well, he was like reinventing everything. And then Johnny, for no good reason, started feeling insecure about it. You could see it on the show because he started trying to do things that Letterman was doing, but he didn't know how to do it the way Letterman did. Letterman would just let them happen. Johnny would be like, we're about to do something that's a little weird.

this is a little different this is not not the norm that's right yeah you know that was one over we're gonna take a camera and it's gonna follow me i can't do them as well as you do but it was like just obviously it's like i'm gonna you know clench your jaw thank you the camera is gonna follow me and it's gonna walk out of the studio

And I'm going to go to another set. It's like, okay. Ask unusual questions to people. Unusual questions that people are not going to know is even, they don't know what's going to happen. All right. So let's start doing it. Now I'm walking. You see, I'm walking across. And this is a bit, you are witnessing a bit. It's a little weird. And so that was, I was giving him this a little weird. I had this expression. He had a couple of things like when Johnny,

like calls people over to the comedians with funny stuff. Funny. That was funny stuff. And then you had weird, wild, weird, wild stuff. And for those of you at home, you're watching a thing called a television. You know how you would bring the audience. So then it became that where we just did the overly set up Johnny Carson thing. And then it was so dry. It was maybe the driest thing you ever did on the show, Dana. And then, but it always Ed McMahon's,

Ed McMahon's rhythmically kind of acknowledging it and, you know, giving it like just like, yes, you are correct, sir, would always make it work. It was like the fact that you would say these strange things and then Ed would kind of affirm them.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, he was the release button. But that was the first time, and I've said this before, but when I was on SNL and wasn't concerned with the laughs, I just was having so much fun being Johnny. And when I got the wig on, I am Irish Carson Carvey. My eyes are a little close together. And I go, God, I kind of look like him, you know? And then I could just look in the mirror and just get into that attitude of being just this, whatever that earn is. Weren't you going to hair and makeup too? It's just, that was great. It really sets you up.

And then the third rail of the ones that really had a lot of episodes, Carson did Carcinio. We could talk about that too. Regis had a lot of episodes. I'd love to talk about Carcinio anyway. Well, Carcinio, let's do that now. Only because... That was the extension of the Carson impression into a...

we did one before that that actually did piss Johnny off. And then they, I don't know. I don't know if they asked you to do that late night history show, but they asked me, so I did it and I talked about it and then they edited it to make it look like we didn't really give a shit how Johnny felt responded to it. And we did, we were really upset about it. Like we did this sketch where Arsenio, so Chris rock gets hired in like 1990 and

And plays our senior hall. Yeah. Which he didn't do. Like, I remember that's another guy I got to see audition and he was hysterical and like, obviously, you know, incredible, obvious hire. But I remember asking Lauren, does it matter? He doesn't seem to be an impressionist here to do our shit. Don't worry about Chris. He's got the hair and he can do our scenario. Just remember, it's like.

Black guys on the show always have the burden of having to do like every black person. Yes. We talked about that with Chris. Oh, you did? A little bit. I think David brought it up. Yeah. It is tough because everything just gets assigned and no matter, you know, if it's even close. Okay, Chris, you're doing Al Roker this week. Exactly. Yeah. The show is diverse now. I played an Asian character. I played Tony Montana as like a Cuban character. You know, I had a bigger...

I wonder if you could write that Robert today is like, can you write anyone to play anything, but they are what they are. I don't know how they do it there. I wonder if they have meetings and go, could I play this or. Oh, at SNL. Yeah. At SNL. Well, they definitely let women play. Men. Men. Yeah. They still let that happen. No, I know. It's, it's, it's, it's interesting because like, even like something like, I mean, I totally agree.

blackface thing is obviously a red flag and it's oddly, it's something we didn't do in our era. And then it started happening in the nineties. Yeah. The nineties were a strange time where it seemed like the floodgates opened and people were doing exceptionally rude stuff. I don't know if it's because cable was starting and the networks felt the need to compete, but yeah,

When you try too hard and you go in different directions that are sometimes wrong directions, you just don't know. And then it levels out. Yeah. But like, I just did this puppet show that failed, whatever. Like, and we had this guy who was going to do Obama and he had done Obama on the Conan show for like three or four years. And he just sounded exactly like Obama. So I wanted to hire him. And then I found out that he was white. I didn't realize I had no idea.

I just knew he sounded exactly like Obama. And they said, you can't hire him. Do they ever call you now, Smilal, to write or help or come off the bench? No, I was there when Adam. No, they never call me. Although I actually sent Colin Jost an idea this week. Didn't hear back. Didn't hear back. It was an Anna Wintour idea.

Don't try to give him Iraqi Pete. That's Adams. Actually, you would be great for this on a wind tour idea. Is that me playing him or Dana? No, I'm talking about Spade. It's a very. Hey, own that. Spade playing on a wind tour. The idea was that she it was like an update feature where on a wind tour.

is uh sitting next to somebody like uh who's the guy uh jared leto he's always wearing something insane they just had the met gala yeah yeah yeah jared letter yeah he's got great you know and then it was just going to be on a wind tour very quietly and dryly and very stiff uh insulting you know um michael che's outfit michael chase suit you know like uh

Is this a fundraiser for victims of fashion? And then like, you know...

And then she turns to Colin Jost is like, you know, is that a suit or are you being humped by a couch? And then she starts getting rim shots and just starts walking into the crowd and start walking around. Yeah. Walking around the stands up and doing crowd work. But she's funny. She's completely stiff, you know, and it's just if that time was any louder, Molly Matlin could hear it. Yeah.

Looks like Joseph A. Bank made it tonight. What if Triumph was at the Met Gala? Yeah, what would he do? He'd be crazy. Actually, I've tried to. I've wanted to do the red carpet at the Met Gala. That's perfect for Triumph. That's one of the few things I still want to do as Triumph. Please don't let Triumph run Kim K. She lost 16 pounds. See, now I have these personal relationships that I care about. I would never touch her because...

Pete Davidson's a friend. Oh, friend of the show. He's a great guy. I know him. And, but like Dana, this is something, well, we never talked about the Carson thing, but this is another one that I don't know if you want to talk about this, but I'll talk about anything. We're 30 or I'm 30 or 32 or whatever you were. And Dennis gets bounced from his syndicated show.

Yeah. And I have this idea to do. Dennis is now doing a cooking show. Right. Which we, we called Dennis and he said, go ahead. Right. I thought that I did. Maybe you called him. I didn't call him. Yeah. I believe I called him. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't think we, but that was like then. And I, and I thought in my head, I was like, this is my duty as a Saturday night live sketch writer. I can't play favorites. You know, I, I, this is my privilege to duty comes first. Yeah. That's how I seriously, I took it. And now it's to the show. I would say by like the time I was 40, I was like, no, I would never do that again.

Well, I don't think at that point there was any sort of idea that Dennis wasn't on his way with a career like he'd done the black and white special. He had the talk show, you know, all he did after that was host an HBO show that got like 20. Exactly. So to me, I thought it was so funny. And the way you wrote it, Dennis's vernacular.

In a daytime cooking show. I don't know if you could quote some of that. Maybe you're right, but I feel like I still wouldn't do it now. I wouldn't be able to. I'd be too nervous about

whoever's feelings it was. Sure. I understand that. I feel the same way. I like, I kind of sometimes feel bad for Biden when I see him sort of lost or whatever. And so it's different doing it now. It's weird when you get older and life kind of kicks you in the nuts and you learn what pain is. And yeah, you get, you know, careers are so hard and up and down. You're like, I'm going to probably hurt someone's career somehow accidentally. Yeah.

You know who would always... Biden's hair looks like a spider web. Go ahead. The one person who would always scold me when I was, even when I was younger, and I guess it's because he was sensitive to all the bad reviews he was getting, was Sandler. He was like, I was doing those cartoons and they were going really well. Yeah, yeah. And I would do a cartoon about David Brenner or something. Yes. Being a guest on a talk show and it was fun with real audio and

I would use a real David Brenner story, but I would have him going on every talk show and each host would get bored and press a trapdoor button and he would fall down and go like, you know. So he starts on like The Tonight Show and then trapdoor goes down to Conan and then it goes down to like Tom Snyder. And then hilarious. I remember that one. Yeah. Yeah. And it was really funny.

And everybody, I played it for Conan because Conan was in it and he was laughing really hard. And then I get a call from Stanley. You feel good about yourself, bud? You feel good about that?

No. What if that guy's home watching? You know, he's like had a hard day and he's watching the show and he's like, what is this? What did I do? Yeah. Why? He did Brenner, didn't he? Sandler could do Brenner on the show. He did a great David Brenner. That's right. But it wasn't nearly as mean as this cartoon. No, it wasn't mean. It wasn't. Remember the one you did where you had Stedman hiding from Oprah in the mansion or something? Oh my God. That was from the Comedy Central show and

It's interesting you bring that up because that was a cartoon I wasn't going to do. It was one of those lines that I would draw for myself, which people are always shocked. You had your lines. I did. But I like I didn't like to make fun of drug addiction. I always felt like when people are, you know, that desperate. It's not funny. You know, it's like, you know, everybody. It's easy to reduce somebody to a cartoon character.

But that was one. And another one was women's looks. I really hated making fun of a woman for her looks because women are held up to these ridiculous standards and it just felt shitty. And so this Oprah one was Andy Breckman's premise. And the premise was that Stedman, every time Oprah wants to have sex, Stedman has convinced Oprah that he's an international spy.

And every time Oprah wants to have sex, Stedman pretends he's getting an alert and he has to go off. I'm not making it sound as funny as it. No, no. It was so funny and so I like it. I broke the rule because it was just too funny. And it it remains like one of the funniest cartoons I've ever been involved in. But it was Andy Breckman's idea. Also, one of the nicest people I've ever worked with.

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Ask him about the Bears. The Bears is a big one. Ask about the Bears. I just want to say very quickly that I know that John McLaughlin, which you completely created, loved our sketch. Oh, yeah. Regis loved it. Perot loved it. George Bush Sr. loved it. Yes. And it was only sweet Johnny Carson got a little tweaked. So Johnny Carson, we should talk about this one because it was like –

So, yes. So Rock comes on. I got I'm sorry. Rock comes on and plays Arsenio. Rock comes on and plays Arsenio. And this was at this time when Johnny was getting sort of threatened by Arsenio's presence. Arsenio was white hot. That's a bad choice of words, I suppose. But Arsenio was like, please stand on fire everywhere.

Everybody was talking about him. And we did that thing of like, no, I understand that this, you know, that would over explaining thing. But in this case, it was like, I understand you have a show. Dana, you should do it. You remember. I understand you have a show. And it's. And it says here, he was like looking at his notes. It says here that your show.

is up against my show. Yes. And I did not know that. And your ratings have actually gone up higher than mine. And mine are starting to decline. Right. That's weird. I did not know that. And now it says here, it says further that your show is considered hip.

And mine, I am starting to be considered out of touch. Yeah. Did you know that? Yes. Yes. Really sad. Yes. Yes. But the thing that Johnny got maddest at, Dana, do you remember this? It was the first guest. We had a throwaway first guest before we bring on Arsenio. It was Susan Day, right?

It was Susan Day and I had written it for Sinead O'Connor for Jan Hooks to play Sinead because she had already done it and it was hilarious and she's very serious and you know you guys are just would be doing not a lot of hair on her head. That is quite a boom. You know all that kind of stuff. Smooth on the upper turf.

Yeah. Not a hairy woman, sir. From ear to ear. Not a lot going on. Lauren was like, you know, she's done Sinead. She does a killer Susan Day, which she had done once on the show. And it was killer. Yeah.

So Lauren suggested, it wasn't like it wasn't funny. He suggested, what if he has Susan Day on, but he keeps wanting to talk about the Partridge family. And it had been 15 years since it'd gone off. Yes. And so that was how we wrote it. And then Johnny took it as like, are you seeing this, Ed? He said this on the show. They're saying I'm senile. He literally thought we were now calling him senile.

All because we had changed that opening. That was the one that I thought was, yeah. He said it as Dana or the real Johnny? No, no, no. Johnny said it on his own show. He started bitching about Saturday Night Live on his own show. And Dana, I heard you say this to Regis and it broke my heart because I had never heard this. You said to Regis in an interview like, I don't know, five, six years ago, I saw him.

You said that you heard that Johnny said, when they start making fun of you, it's time to go away. Well, he would say it over in Burbank, because in the hallway, the big giant studio, and just yell it out. They're making fun of me now. It's time to go. Yeah. But what I realized, and I would take it for anyone in show business, that eventually...

you become a caricature of yourself. If you're a comedian, it doesn't matter. I don't want to name the person. You could see someone and kind of go, is that a celebrity impersonator or is that the real guy? So you do become a caricature of yourself. It's kind of flattering, but you know, for Johnny, I couldn't get on the show after that. I know. Nobody from SNL did for a year. And he really took it, took it to heart. And so that was heartbreaking for us. Yeah. Yeah.

Then I think I also heard from you back then. So then we did the Carcinio sketch, which was basically Johnny as trying to be like Arsenio, trying to be like Arsenio Hall with an afro. And it was a big hit sketch. He had the pointy hair and he had elongated fingers. Yeah. And he would, did you see this head? All you have to do is go whoop, whoop, whoop. And the audience goes whoop, whoop, whoop.

Do you know that a house is called a crib, Ed? Did you know that? I did not know that. Yeah, yeah. You know, Robert, I did Carson two months before he quit as stand-up. Oh, wow. And he came back to the back and he goes, who hates Dana Carvey? I go, I do. And he goes, that's my boy.

Really? No, he didn't. He came back and said hi to me. But I remember it was very odd to get on the show. I did do it two months before he got off. And he did come back. But he came back. And you were on Saturday Night Live. You broke the code. Was I on? You went off in 93, I believe. You were absolutely on the show, Dave. Yeah, okay. Okay, for sure. But let me just say this real quick. Carvey told me that

That he liked the Carcinio sketch. Yeah. He said, what'd he say? It makes fun of both. You know, they're making fun of our senior as much as they're making fun of me. I mean, that's, that's funny stuff, you know, that kind of thing. So, so I remember feeling a lot better about, and then, and then he did start letting people on the show again. No, I mean, I was saying I got on somehow and, uh,

I don't know, just did my crummy act and got out of there. Stop it. He did. He waved me over, Smikes. That's amazing. And I left. I didn't go.

You gave him the finger? Well, the guy backstage, Macaulay, said, he goes, get on there, hit your mark, and get off. And I go, what if Johnny waves you over? And he goes, he won't. Just go do it. And I go, oh. Oh, my God. So I went out and turned and left. And he goes, there he is. Did the little double tap and the wink? He goes, Martin Short was with him. And he goes, have him come over. And he goes, I'm trying to, but he won't look at me. And he goes, he's too nervous. All right, there he goes. All right, well, that was David's fate. He said that on the air? Yeah. Yeah.

That's amazing. And then he came backstage. Where were you? Where the fuck were you? You left me there with egg. I had my shirt off. You made a fucking fool of me. Yeah, and it was a BO fucking torrential storm back in my room because I was so scared. I had my shirt off and I have Pepto-Bismol and they knock and I open it. It's Ed, I think...

doc and Johnny. And he goes, uh, I did. Yeah. He goes, I did. He goes, I didn't get a chance to say good job. I wanted to come over and nice job. And I go, Oh, I didn't even see you or whatever. And he goes, Pepto Bismol. I'm trying to quit the stuff myself. And then he walked away. Isn't that great? It's a fantastic story. He did a bit, but in, in reality, he was, um, he was broken inside and he, he went around the office and said,

When they start not coming over to the couch, it's time to pull. Who put you up to this? Dana Carvey, that fuck? So it's you, Spade. Yeah.

Yeah. You're the one who pushed him out. Let's go, Ed. Let's go back and find him. John, come on. Let's go. I'll hit him high. You hit him low. Hit him low. Well, talk about McLaughlin, too, because that was a great McLaughlin group. John McLaughlin ran a roundtable. Well, we got to have everyone know you did McLaughlin. You did the Bears. So many. You did Clucky fucking Gaga Gooey.

Hey, what did you help me with? You helped me with the Clucky or Schmitz Gay. You helped me with one of those two. I was almost in Schmitz Gay for a rough draft and then it went to Sandler and Farley. That was Downey's idea and it was a brilliant call to take the two youngest guys in the cast and make them the guys. What was I? Was I older than them?

I originally, I had it as Dana and Kevin, because I thought this is going to be the first sketch of the year. And Dana and Kevin are the guys. And then I don't remember a draft with you. I don't know. Someone, maybe shoemaker. Someone said, I think you're in this thing. Remind me what this sketch is. Yeah.

Oh, Schmitt's Gay. That became a film, didn't it? That was a big one. No, no. You're thinking of the ambiguously gay duo? No, I'm thinking of Sandler and Farley did something by a pool. Yeah, with Van Halen. It was a parody of all those sexist

beer commercials. It's one of the ones I'm most proud of. Oh, it's great. Hysterical, but that ended up being the gay people weren't like portrayed in any kind of like mocking way. Right. The whole joke was turning the tables on these objectifying, these ridiculous commercials that associate beer with objectifying women. So funny. It just got this huge,

It got one of the biggest responses. Oh, that was so great. It was good. You had an Alan song in it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Farley and Sandler doing the conga line. Yeah. It was amazing. Yeah. But Spade, I thought you either helped me with that or Cluckin' Chicken, which is my personal favorite. Oh, Cluckin' Chicken. I don't know. I mean, sometimes I just get in there and try to help anywhere I could. I think you threw me some jokes in there. Maybe I threw you ga-ga-ga-goo.

That sounded like me. How's the me? Oh, I love Sandler's voice and that was so funny. That was a cartoon. That was half cartoon commercial parody. Yeah, cartoon. Yes, cartoon super. That's how I met the guy, J.J. Settlemyer, who ended up doing

The first few years on TV, fun house, fun house. Welcome back to my show. But you put Lauren's voice in there to anyone to say anything. That's maybe the hardest I've ever laughed in my life.

Because I became a 10-year-old again. Like, the way I would... When I was 10, I would draw cartoons of my teachers, that kind of thing. Yeah. And when a teacher would see, I would, like, giggle, like... And I remember the first time... You saw the dress rehearsal. ...the dress rehearsal that the Ambiguously Gay Duo ran, and...

And then this little cartoon, Lauren comes out and chases the dog. Lego, my show. Lego, my show. And I'm watching Lauren watch it. Oh, my God. And I'm just in tears. I was like, you know, Lauren would call it, you put a beanie on the boss.

What is that? It's just made fun of the boss or a beanie on the boss. It's like reducing the boss to a, you know, lower status. It's like, you know, Lauren had a term for every comedy move in the world. Totally.

I've seen every sketch four times, you know, so it's hard for me. Everything you've anyone's written. I've seen a version of it in one of my favorite recent Lauren ones within the last five years around funny people, people do comedy. There's only 900 of us on the planet. Oh, really? Yeah.

yeah it's a specific number like well maybe that's true i don't we did run some numbers down to 898 yes if you don't count steve and marty steve counts for three marty he counts for a hundred i think uh robert we asked him good didn't we ask william shatner if he was okay with that sketch you wrote i think he was right

Oh yeah, I pitched it to him. The Trekkies sketch. Yeah, that was a big famous sketch that you wrote. That still resonates all the time in the media. That's a big, big one. Well, I have an affinity for nerds because I was an SNL nerd. I was as big a nerd as anybody. I was completely in awe.

of the show when i got there i like knew who edie baskin and leo yoshimura were like i memorized the key photographers right yeah so yeah like you know a lot of my most famous stuff has to do with like triumph and the star wars line is one of my happiest memories because i was like

Making fun of them, but I felt an affinity toward them at the same time that the nerds waiting online for Star Wars and triumphs. They were all like they all took it so well. They were all just comedy fans. I was like, yeah, it was like when.

It was like, have you guys, did you guys, I'm sure you spayed a spade. You both probably got to meet Don Rickles, right? Yeah, I did. Yep. Did he insult you when he met you the first time? Do an impression of a gorilla is what he said to me. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah.

You know, Smog's on one time, Chris Farley took his mom to see him on one of the breaks on the weeks off. Really? And he goes, I go, what happened? He goes, we sat right in the front row. And he goes, Rickles comes over to him in the middle and goes, what's your name, Tiny?

And he goes, my name's Chris. And he goes, how much you weigh, Chris? And he goes, about 260. He goes, the left side of your ass, maybe. And then he went to the next table. Yeah, then he knew that it was Chris, right? I don't know. I don't know. It's just all funny. That's so funny. I'm just going to treat him like anybody else. Yeah, he just goes, there's a fat guy in the front, sir. Maybe go for him. He has a little bug in his ear.

Yeah. When he got older. Fat guy, three, three, three. Lady wearing a flower box hat. Take four steps to the right. Closer. That's him. That's him. Get him. I took it as a badge of honor. I love being ripped by. Yeah. When I met him, I was a producer at the Conan show, I think. Or no, I was doing triumph. I think. And I did it for for Rickles. But but I met him first. They introduced me because they wanted to.

make it okay that you know make sure he would be cool with it and he sees me and he just says hello rabbi which i later heard was a move he had for a lot of semitic

That was his move. Like Jon Stewart told me once that that was the first thing he said to Jon Stewart. Yeah, he had his big tricks. Just a good, safe, offensive, across-the-board thing to say. Yeah, you know, we've all got our standard zingers. Going full circle toward the end. If you think Triumph never said the buzz around flies around my ass before.

You're sadly right. There's only so many mathematical ways to get at that ass joke, okay? They can be flying around. But Regis told me once, this was when Rickles was still on the road, you know, honest to God, some nights you don't know if he's going to make it. They give him two eyeballs. He's rubbing his knees. Honest to God, I don't know. When they play the music, he goes out and he kills them for an hour, kid. Then he lies down on the couch. I like honest to God. Honest to God. Honest to God.

who's better than Robert Smigel? Honest to God, this guy is everywhere. I mean, you know, it really is. It was really nice to me too. I, you know, one time this is insane. I had an idea for a sitcom and it's one of the happiest half hours of my whole life. I got to sit in the hotel room and pitch Larry King and Regis Philbin, a sitcom where they played an old gay couple and they took it dead serious. Like this is a great idea.

And they had already like consulted Rickles about it. And Larry King's like, Rickles says we can do it, but we can't be too swishy. Swishy. And, you know, we would just talk about it. And Regis, the funniest was Regis. He was like, so, Bob, again, I apologize for my inferior Regis, but it's like, just go. So if we do this, you know, I know there's going to be a script, but not not really. Right. I mean,

You know, we can get out there and Larry and I can just go off. Right. Just play off each other. Right. Well, there's a story to the you know, it's a sitcom. It's got to happen. Yeah. But Bob, I mean, you know, Bob learning lines. And I mean, we have a natural thing. Yeah. Rickles says Rickles says we just have to look natural.

I'm like, when did Rickles become the Oracle of sick? Everything by Rickles. Mr. C, the CPO Sharky, CPO Sharky, 1975. Yeah. If you have a copy of that treatment, can you send it to me and Dana? I don't think I ever bothered to write it. Somehow they said yes.

to just meeting with me for a half an hour. One, one other thing that Smigel has, it's one of the funniest titles is the autism benefit. The night of too many stars. It's the funniest. You have done. Of course. Well, both of you have done it. You.

You've done it a couple of times. Dana, you did the first one and it was one of the greatest bits that it's ever been on that. We've done like seven of them. What was it? Well, Hal Wilner, rest his soul. Yes. Music. Was an incredibly great guy who was the music supervisor. Supervisor at Saturday Night Live. For 200 years. For 200 years. He missed the first 300. Yeah.

and he would help me book. He knew everybody in music and he would help me book the show with, you know, we had a booker who would be paid and then Hal for free would get me

You know, he got me Elvis Costello once. He got me Sting. And this particular bit, he got me Lou Reed. And it was like a surprise appearance. The people in Roseland. You remember we did this in Roseland and they went crazy. And Lou Reed comes out and it's like Jimmy Fallon saying, Lou Reed, he's going to have an all-star band. And then one by one, he introduces the all-star band and it's all...

comedians it's on the drums dana carvey on the guitar colin o'brien i think sandler was there too jack black adam sandler and lou reed played it perfectly like this is the all-star band and and then they did this incredibly funny somewhat disrespectful but affectionate

version of Walk on the Wild Side. I love it. It's on YouTube. Sandler literally is right in his face going, ... ... ...

Lou Reed got mad at me. It was very awkward. I still remember it. Yeah. After the rehearsal, I didn't really have a monitor. I could hear it. He's going to take a walk on the wild side. So he very seriously, as everyone scattered, just walked over to me and just was intense. Lou Reed and goes, don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do what?

Whatever he thought I was doing the drums, I go, I'm a comedian and I can't air myself. Don't play like that. You know, he just got very serious. Maybe it was nerves. But then we came out later. He was totally affable. He was probably just that was the only thing he probably cared about was that it sounded good. Right. And I wanted I wanted I wanted to play. Well, I just that my mom and I and you did you did. It sounds amazing.

Oh, that's good. I guess I got it on the air show. We just had a brief rehearsal. Absolutely. It was kind of fun. Adam's an incredible, Adam's a great guitarist and Conan's a good guitarist and Jack Black's. I mean, these are like all the most musical. They just happen to all be there. And that song is brilliant, but it is very, very austere and very simple, which is, you know.

Oh, it was perfect. You know, it's like... It was perfect, and everybody got a turn. You didn't because you were the drummer, but all these other guys did solos in their different ways. Right. I learned a few things from Smigel today. I learned that Franken and Davis hired him. Right.

franken and davis hired me that is correct his dad invented crest white strips no that's not true okay i invented i i heard that he did bonding he he was the he developed the whole tooth bonding technique right and i and lou reed hates dana carvey these are the only things i picked up another one of my impressions has gone to the stars i have insight insight onto this involves you

Someone told me today. So Michael Gordon wants to go right for the Conan show. He talks to Bob Odenkirk and Bob Odenkirk said, wait, wait till we get Smigel as the head writer.

And then somehow you got, you became the head writer. And then, Oh, you're talking about the original Conan show. I thought you meant Michael Gordon wants to write for the new. Oh, sorry. This is always back in time when they, but he said, Michael Gordon knew Bob Odenkirk. I think so. Or at least casually. Hey,

Oh, Dana. So good. Oh, my God. That's so funny. Oh, my God. No, you're not doing that, are you? No. Was he mad about Chivinos? Because there's a rumor down. He said I was really mad about it. And I wasn't. Yeah, that was something Downey read online. He read online that it was the most ridiculous lie imaginable that you marched into Lawrence's office. Yeah. I just like you of all people.

You were like, you'd been there for like four weeks. Yeah. I go, you know what? Marcy would have tackled me. You could have been there for five years. You never would have pounded on Lorne's door. Yeah. That was clearly made up, but there's a controversy around. Was that exploitive of Chris or not? People have their different opinions when he did the Chip and Dale sketch with his shirt off. I thought the opposite, which was, I mean, I just have an inherent...

I thought the people were not laughing at Chris. I didn't see it that way. I thought, because there have been a million fat comedians who, you know, exploit their bodies in some way or another, play off being heavy. Jackie Gleason. But the thing that...

I saw that night was an audience fall in love with Chris because he was so committed and he was such a good dancer. And he wasn't like, he wasn't remotely ashamed of his body. You know that whether that's, you know, obviously not necessarily the truth, but that's what he projected. And to me, it was like, if anything, they didn't use the word empowering back then, but yeah.

To me, that's how it felt to me. Like, you know, the way somebody like Bridget Everett, where the person is, you know, completely unselfconscious about their body, at least it played that way to me. But, you know, I would say this, I would say if you saw that in Chris, if you felt that

that that was happening to Chris, then maybe you should have talked to Chris about it and made sure it was cool with Chris instead of just saying, tut, tut, this is no good. I didn't know a thing. I just saw a young cast member. Yeah.

Yeah, I barely knew him. I did not... Look, there's different levels. This was young Chris. I saw a guy very athletic. I think anyone next to Patrick Swayze would look kind of chubby. And so Chris was moving really like a chubby guy, not like a next level... He was not even that big back then. No, and I saw a guy killing with physical comedy. But if he was sad about it inside, I was clueless to it. I was clueless too if he was, but I mean...

he, when I saw him at second city that summer, he was another person. I had the privilege of seeing audition back then. And he, what struck me about him at second city was how graceful he was. Like he was the opposite. Who got, who gained some weight. He's a, he's a, he was an athlete. Yeah. Yeah. And he was incredibly graceful and that's what separated him besides, you know, his incredible characterizations. Like, but you know, so to me,

that's um the sketch was the only thing it was exploiting was his incredible was what made him special i would go by david's athleticism only because david was probably the closest to i don't remember any problems david was the closest back then though maybe not back then but after they did their movies and stuff well right up there right that's different by then chris started to get like

Like, you know, in the motivational speaker sketch, I remember adding, I had one contribution to that sketch because Bob was no longer there, oddly enough. Yeah. Bob wrote the entire sketch.

And Spade, you know this, I added just that little part at the end where he's like, Matt's going to shade you. You're here. Matt's here. You're, you know, that thing. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. And he knocks over the coffee table. Yeah. And that was like, I just felt it needed like a physical topper at the end. Yeah. So we put it in and it worked.

And then I feel though that it did lead to like this slippery slope of Farley knocking things down. Oh, he's going through walls to the ceiling. Yeah, it started something that I did not intend to happen. Well, they're kind of waiting for it after that. Every sketch, they're like, what's he going to hit? What's he going to fall through?

Well, certainly with the Matt Foley ones, yeah. But it started happening in other sketches too. He just walks in and falls through. Fatty falls down. Fatty falls down. That's all you got, Farls. I would call it. Then we started getting cynical about it. Like Chris, you know, we would just come up with different memes for the Farls. That Nancy Kerrigan sketch, she was a great...

Ice skater too. Oh, yeah. There you go. Yeah. He could ice skate as well. Yeah. So that canceled out Shippendale. So we're even. I just, you know, when people say it's just very glib to like, you know, that sketch set them off. That's it's just so I just find that irresponsible too. Well, I never heard him complain about it in the years to come. So I, I think he was just like, if you're a young cast member, you're,

And you get a sketch that's a 10 out of 10, and he took it, and it blew him up. I don't think he ever looked back and said, but I felt like... No. So many other things got... Did he ever take his shirt off again on the show? I mean, he fell around and stuff and walked through walls, but I don't remember him... I'm not sure he did. It didn't become a thing. Let's get Chris's shirt off. No, no. So that's good, too. Because I would...

I mean, there was a lot of restraint until like the later, I think it was, it wasn't until it was like third or fourth year. It was like people were running out of what to do with them. And it became like a shorthand kind of cheap move to have Farley break something, you know, but he was like, Oh my God, Spade, do you remember his acting in that Tom Schiller movie?

Oh, the coffee one? Yeah. Just the way his face changes when he hears that they've switched Folgers. That's great. That's a great idea. How many takes does he get to trash the whole set? I know. That was all Tom Schiller. The Schiller vision of the Folgers commercial was a real hit. But it's kind of a gem that not everyone saw. I put it in the best of because of that. Yeah. Great.

Great one. So that people would see it because it was one of his greatest acting jobs ever. Yeah, they could look it up.

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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. All right. Anything else for this guy, Dana? Let's see. Anything else for this guy? Your social security number. This is just housekeeping. Stay on and do the paperwork. We're going to jump off. Okay.

No, that's it. You did. They covered literally everything you've ever done. Well, we did a lot of SNL, but obviously Robert and I did the Dana Carvey show. Oh my God. And Biggest League A duo. That is so funny that we didn't talk about the Dana Carvey show. It's all right. It's really, we're Saturday Night Live focused, but that was... You'll do a whole podcast about that someday. Right. We have a Hotel Transylvania podcast after this if you want to stay on. That's what I'm waiting for. If you want to stay on. You were...

Just a Hotel Transylvania 2 podcast. He did the clutch cargo characters on Conan, which I loved. Oh, the Arnold. Just the lips and the arms. Talk about exaggeration. Oh, my God. We didn't talk about the Hans and Franz movie. Hans and Franz. This is the part of the show where we just talk about how much better the show could have been. Hans and Franz movie. Oh.

We have to have you back. We saw, I wrote all your stuff out today and I knew there was no way this was going to fit into an hour. And so... I know. I just thought it's okay. More than anything, I wish I had talked about that. Which one? The Hans and Franz movie. Because...

Because it's so funny and crazy. Well, it's a hysterical movie. Dana has talked about it on here because it was the whole way it got put together and then it didn't work out, but there was so many. Hans and Franz, The Girly Man Dilemma. But it was not homophobic. It was just girly men are just men without big muscles like them. Do you remember the part? Okay, well, this is going to, we can't.

I was going to talk about the Siskel and Ebert part. It was one of my favorite. Yeah. That was a whole story. You have 12 seconds. Go ahead. Hans and Franz were doing their movie and they're running around somewhere and they go into a room and Siskel and Ebert are watching the movie. I mean, they're not, they're just doing the movie. They're in the movie. They're in the movie. And they're doing a cross country trip to Los Angeles because they want to be in the movies and be with Arnold. Yep. And then they're riding a bicycle across country. And then at one point they happen upon a big,

a big edifice and they just walk in and Siskel and Ebert, the most famous critics at the time, Dean Siskel and Roger Ebert are sitting in the theater and it's just like, how's the movie? It's pretty good so far. They're watching the movie. Lots of action and collapse. They're in this dark room watching the exact movie that's taking place. So on the screen is them, us talking to them? Yeah.

Yeah. It's you talking to them. They're like in their movie seats and then on the screen as I was talking to them watching the movie. Right. But it's like, like four seconds before I got it. Yeah. That kind of thing. Yeah. And then eventually they get kidnapped because they're girly men.

Right. Like you go to check in on them later and they're gone because the, the, the evil villain has kidnapped. He's like, remember Sonny Bono disappears. And right. Uh, I can't remember who, who famous girly man of the day. The bad guy had a big button that said hurt the weather. And then we cut to look out his window, go, Hey, the weather seems hurt somehow, you know? Yeah. It was, uh, it was going to be Dolph Lundgren. Mm. Hmm.

And he had like this kind of like final solution villain kind of thing where I am going to eliminate all

all the girly man and then he turned to the camera and say and i'm going to hurt the environment had the button that said hurt the environment that's right yeah because we were obsessed my i desperately wanted to do like mike myers was my hero later because he with dr evil created a character that

Remember all these eighties comedies, the villain, you always had to like take it seriously for like, right. Rather than whether it was Max von Cito or in strange brew or like there, you always had to have these obligatory villains. And so we were trying to make fun of that and have the villain be as funny as the can. Mike. And then Mike ended up doing good for Mike. Good for Mike.

All right. I got my show. This has been Robert Smigel. I would say he's the greatest sketch writer of his generation. He's in the discussion. I put him at the top, but everyone can have their opinion.

Jack Candy was the guy that I... Different lane, though. I put him in a different lane, but yeah. It's a different lane, but here's what I'll say about Jack. That was why all the writers, I would say if you polled at least the writers of that era, they would have gone with Jack. And it's because someone like me wrote a lot of... I'm very proud of a lot of things I wrote, but I feel like there are ideas that only I could have thought of, but there are other ones that I think other people could have. And where Jack, like nobody else...

could have thought of almost any of the sketches jack and yeah any read through you'd be like oh my god this is jack handy within three lines you're like everyone looks exactly he's over there smiling people act like he was just the act seven guy like the five to eleven was huge was the biggest character on the show for a couple yeah yeah like literally the biggest character on the show was a cat pup yeah yeah

I'm not kidding. Tootsie's, look out! Yeah, I'm a frozen caveman lawyer. Yeah. We'd always, they would get no laughs, practically, but everybody from Lauren on down was in awe of that brilliant sketch. And so it was always, it always made the show. It was never at the end of the show because we were all collectively just so proud to...

I am a simple, unfrozen caveman or something. I don't know. That was just a perfect use of Phil Hartman. He did that perfect smarmy. I don't know what's going on. Yeah, it's almost like William Shatner or something. I'm a simple caveman. I'm just a simple caveman. I think 60 million in punitive damages feels about right.

So we all love Jack. Yes, okay. Thanks, Robert. Thanks, Robert. Thanks, guys. Loved it. All right, talk to you soon, buddy. Love you. Bye-bye. Hey, what's up, flies? What's up, fleas? What's up, people that listen? We want to hear from you and your dumb questions. Questions, ask us anything. Anything you want. You can email us at flyonthewallatcadence13.com.

All right, guys. That's flattering. It's time for Q&A. And we answer questions at the end of every show. We get a lot of emails, I have to say. But one of the most requested, probably 50 about, we've mentioned this sketch called Massive Head Woon Harry. Massive Head Woon Harry. So the question was, no, the sketch, the questions aren't about what's that? I gave blood. Sorry. Great guy syndrome.

Really? Oh, good. I'm glad that the COVID was at least on the downslope when you gave away your precious fluids. I was just on a flight and there's no shortage of coughing and wheezing. And this lady, and then I go, I don't want COVID. She goes, no, I just have the flu. I go, oh, okay, good. So, all right. A sketch with Dana called Massive Head Wound Hairy and a dog was attacking the makeup on Dana's head. Can you tell us about that?

Or animal stories from SNL. Sorry, you get one question. Thank you, love the show. Okay, that's for David Himes. Massive, massive head wound, Harry. So they put a prosthesis on my head, so it looked like I had a massive head wound.

And I was clueless and innocent character. I walk into this party. Were you at the party? I think so. You were in the party. Did you have a line? I think it was a Jack Handy sketch. I thought it was a Smiley. Really? Would Handy go that mean? Maybe, I don't know. Wow, that's a great question for us. We're gonna find out. This is another. Google it while we're answering because we're both probably lying. So the point is, just because we tend to ramble, but Massive Head, when Harry goes around, he scares everybody. His head goes in a punch bowl.

It's like pretty grotesque. And then he lies down and he goes, I'm going to go take a nap. This is me. So I go on the couch. So we have a dog. It's a really, is it a lab retriever? Anyway, so during the practice show, the dog is supposed to start biting and trying to eat my head.

And so it did, and it was at a certain level of energy and whatever. For the air show- And killing, though, just killed. Still killed. But on the air show, they put so much more. I think it was almost like Gerber's baby food meat flavor. They put like 10 times more on the prosthetic. 52 snosses. So the Labrador, the Labradoodle goes shithouse. And it's just-

Grabbing and not hurting me, but just eating and wants to take the whole thing off Massive Head Wounds head. It starts to stretch out. Now, I have a thought in my head like, okay, I don't want it to take the thing off only because the sketch is killing. And I don't want it to be killing, oh, because it went off. So I put my hand on my temple. I'm holding the thing on and it's taking all the strength I can.

And funny with the sound off. So I'm not speaking, everyone's looking, the dog is doing that and it goes on for like a minute. - Yeah, audiences can't stop laughing. - Lor Michaels apparently was looking at a monitor and crying with laughter. - So funny. - So it went, went, went, went. And there's, it's hard to top a dog trying to eat a man's head on live television. That's the, for all you comedy writers out there, that's what I got. What's your point of view, David?

Well, I think I was in the sketch or I was just standing on the side watching it and did great at dress rehearsal. It was funny. A guy, a massive head wound hairy comes into a party for no explanation as a head wound. Yeah. And they had a little song. He's massive, massive head wound hairy. And then the dog does a great at dress rehearsal.

Dog goes crazier. The dog trainer's freaking out on air. The dog's really freaking out. Dana's trying to hold it. And I think he said, I think he smells my dog. Yeah. You must smell my dog. Yeah, that was a huge laugh. I did a little garth with that character. But I remember you had to stand in for me. I had to go somewhere during rehearsal. Didn't you have to-

put the prosthetic on yeah just for 30 minutes put this alpo on your head it took 11 hours to get a minute I made that part up so thank you David thank you that's a great question yes

Fly on the Wall has been a presentation of Cadence 13. Please listen, then rate, review, and follow all episodes. Executive produced by Dana Carvey and David Spade, Chris Corcoran of Cadence 13, and Charlie Finan of Brillstein Entertainment. Production and engineering led by Greg Holtzman, Richard Cook, Serena Regan, and Chris Basil of Cadence 13.