Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Art in your home can instantly transform your space and bring you joy. Saatchi Art makes it easy for you to discover and buy one-of-a-kind art that you'll love. Whether you're looking to complement your home decor, fill a blank space on your walls, or start an art collection, you can find the perfect piece for your specific style and budget at Saatchi Art. Go to SaatchiArt.com today to bring the beauty of art into your home. Plus, listeners get 15% off their first order of original art with code ROB.
That's 15% off at SaatchiArt.com. S-A-A-T-C-H-I-Art.com. Ever wish your favorite TV show had twice as many episodes? Everyone knows that feeling. And so does Discover. Everyone wants more of their favorites. That's why Discover doubles another favorite thing. Cash back.
That's right. Discover automatically doubles the cash back earned on your credit card at the end of your first year with Cash Back Match. Now that's a real crowd pleaser. Everyone knows how it ends. Double the cash back. See terms at discover.com slash credit card.
Rob, I was saying how funny it is. It's like, yeah, same two guys, but this one's a different podcast. I know, I know. Now you're in the dojo. I know, right? I'm a little nervous. It's like, I gotta talk to Rob. Welcome to Literally Everyone. This is a very special one because I like when we have the people who actually make the great stuff that we love. I love talking to actors. I love talking to rock stars. I do. Athletes. But the people whose big brains...
create the stuff that we all enjoy is really special for me. So to have the great writer, actor, producer, mouse rat bassist,
Alan Yang on the show is really special. Alan wrote on every season of Parks and Recreation. He knows where all the bodies are buried. He had a big hand along with creator Mike Schur in creating my character, Chris Traeger. So I'm forever indebted to him. And let's take a little walk down memory lane of Parks and Recreation and talk about our new project that we have together. It's called Parks and Recollection. Here's Alan.
Are you going somewhere tonight? You're like all...
dolled up. You got like a black collared shirt on, but you're in Hawaii. No, I'm out of Hawaii. I'm back. I'm back. I took a, I took a red eye Rob. I'm you, if I, if I sound crazy, it's cause, uh, yeah, I've flown a red eye. So, so that's why I'm so high energy right now. I'm hopped up. What I call the flip flop red eye from Hawaii. Yeah. I left at like nine 40 on Hawaiian and I landed at a six in the morning, which is three in the morning Hawaiian time. That's, that's always good for your work day. I've done it many times. It is, uh,
It is not my favorite flight. Yeah, it's very weird because you land and it's morning, but it's nighttime for you. But I tried to do some riding today. I got a little riding done. See, you know all the tricks already. There's nothing I have left to share with you. You know, if you want to beat jet lag...
get out and run in the sunshine. It's the single best thing you can do. Just get that light there. I feel like I have a lot to learn for you, Rob. Every time we start talking about stuff, I've been around the business for a little bit, but I still feel like compared to Rob, I got a lot to learn. So it's been fun doing the pod with you. I got years on you. I mean, it's just a matter of years. That's all. It's pure mathematics. So Syke, we met on...
Parks and Rec. When I came onto the show, you were...
One of the first people I remember meeting, obviously, I came to meet Amy Poehler and Michael Schur, who created the show. And I was coming in to see if it made sense for all of us to team up and join the show. We didn't know what it was going to be, how long it was going to be, what the character was going to be. None of it. It was kind of like a it was a blind date, frankly. But then they were like, hey, why don't you go see the set with this guy? And this guy was you.
Yeah, that's so interesting. In retrospect, it's like, I'd hate to read Mike's mind, but I was like, maybe this guy will not be super weird talking to Rob. He'll be okay dealing with people. But yeah, no, I remember that, man. And we went and walked around the set. And yeah, I feel like we hit it off pretty quickly. And I feel lucky that you were on the show for as long as you were. The date worked out well. You stayed on the show for a while. It's the second best blind date I've ever had. What?
Well, there you go. What was the first? Met my wife. There you go. That was my guess too. Cheryl. Cheryl. Met my wife. Good job. Met my wife Cheryl on a blind date. Lucy's Aladobe, 1984.
And then we were like kind of hit it off, but not really. And then went other ways and saw different people and then reunited in the 90s. And fast forward to we've been married 30 years this month. That is just... And just one of the things that can keep you grounded in the world that we're working in, you know? That's one of the things that can really help you. Well, she definitely keeps me grounded. And it leads me to a great thing I saw in the research when I was...
looking at you, apparently your mother keeps you grounded. I don't know if this is true, but I heard that she, at least in the early days, was not the world's biggest Parks and Rec fan. Is this true? My mom is such a funny character. I could go on and on about her, but to keep it short, she kind of had this second act in her life. So my parents got divorced when I was in high school, and they are immigrants from Taiwan. And so my mom mostly took care of me and my sister, and then after the divorce...
My mom woke up. We were living in Riverside, California, which is kind of a very suburban part of Southern California. She's like, well, I'm in America. I speak English, but not extremely fluently. Pretty well, but not extremely fluently. Most of my friends are like our friends as a couple. Now I'm alone. What
What am I going to do? And so she basically, you know, got on her feet. She put herself through college and, you know, I would help her with her English papers. And she started substitute teaching at a local public high school. And then she became a high school teacher. She taught math at Marino Valley High School. And so she's just teaching at this very diverse kind of socioeconomically depressed high school.
And she became like the best teacher they had, like super, super driven and great. And she used to be, you know, she used to not be maybe the happiest person in the world. I think, you know, obviously the marriage wasn't going that well, but now she is so ebullient and so high energy and so happy.
But she never hesitates to tell you the truth. She never hesitates to tell you the truth. She's like really talkative and stuff. And so she would talk about all the projects I was working on with her students at school, right? Yeah, because they're the demo. Let's face it. They're the demo. That's right. That's the audience. And so first season of Parks, she's like, Alan, I'm asking the kids at school. They watch Parks and Recreation.
They think it's very boring. They think it's very boring. They hate it. I was like, well, man, we're working hard. I can't assure you that everyone's going to love it, but I can assure you that me and all the writers and all the cast are really, really working our tails off trying to make this thing good. Then, cut to the next season. She's like,
Feels like the kids are liking the show a little more. I was like, well, that's good. That's good. And then obviously later season two, you and Adam Scott during the show, you know, the show kind of finds its footing. I felt like, you know, the writers kind of found the tone of the show. And, you know, later seasons, she said she basically would sometimes email me. She's like, good episode. Kids are happy with this one. Like this is getting better. And then I started giving her all my swag from the show. Right. So jackets and hats and whatever. Right.
I would always ask for women's extra small and give it to my mom who's five foot nothing, like 95 pounds or whatever. And she would proudly wear them to class. And the kids were like, how did you get that jacket? All that stuff. And later in the season, she had a jacket that said rent a swag. That was like one of Tom Haverford's businesses and on the show. And the kids are classics. Yeah. So she is my, she is a barometer. She's like, what are the kids thinking? Like later on, we, you know, me and Aziz did master of done. She's like,
The kids like Master of None. The kids like it. They're just like, she'll come in. So she turned around. Right. So Master of None, the kids bought Hook, Line, and Sinker from the jump.
Yeah, I think she was, she, she mentioned season two, it comes out at like midnight and she said, I, I didn't tell them to do this, but some of the kids watch it at midnight and watch the entire season and came in to school the next day and had not slept at all. So I was like, I was like, I don't recommend that for your students either, mom, but I appreciate the kind words. So she's come around and she is now convinced that I will not need a second job or a real career. She, she's now, she now understands that this is my job. So.
Well, yeah, she's like, so you, I mean, by the way, your story is amazing. You graduated a year early from high school and with great grades. And I love this, that some counselor said to you, well, why don't you just go ahead and apply early to, you know, to a college and see what happens. You apply to Harvard and get in.
Yeah, that was, it was very strange, man. It was a real culture shock. Again, where I grew up in Riverside, it wasn't, it wasn't like, let's just say it wasn't a pipeline to Harvard colleges necessarily. Yeah, it was a normal school, man. It's like a normal big ass public school. And, you know, when I was a kid, I always was pretty good at math and science and stuff like that.
in sixth grade, they wanted me to go to ninth grade. And we were like, no, he's like four feet tall. Don't have him do this. But then, you know, I started kind of running out of classes in high school. So I was like, yeah, I'll just take a flyer and apply to these schools. And then I got in and it was like, man, I have to go. And, you know, you're like...
I kind of was like, I kind of can't turn this opportunity down. But, you know, I had a good time in high school, so I did miss my high school friends. And it wasn't like I was dying to get out of there or anything. I had a good time, and it was just a decision where this is a real opportunity. And then when I got there, I was like...
man, this is terrifying because all these kids are really smart. They went to really good private schools and they all seem to know each other. And I'm just a random ass Asian kid from Riverside. But, you know, it all worked out in the end. I kind of found my people at school too. And the people you found were the people, the funny people.
Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was truly a transformation for me because I majored in biology and I was working in a lab. I was doing all that stuff. Very, very good Asian kids stuff. And, you know, I wasn't so mad at it, but I definitely didn't feel like I found my calling. I love pipetting, you know, I love, I love working with bacteria or whatever the fuck. But yeah, but, but, uh,
I started doing creative stuff. So I'd always played music. I started playing in a punk rock band and, you know, I played bass and I sang and, you know, we would tour around the Boston area. And then I started writing for the comedy magazine there, which was called The Lampoon. And getting on that staff was really a seminal moment for me. It really changed a lot of things for me in my life because it,
It showed me, first of all, that there were people who I really liked hanging around, who were really funny, who watched all the shows and movies that I had seen. They had seen Mr. Show and Seinfeld and The Simpsons and all these shows that I loved at the time. And then also that this was a career path because I had no one I grew up with
had any inkling, any semblance of an idea that what we do as a job was a job. You know, that was totally foreign to me. It sounds so simple, but it is so true. The, you
you know, the notion that you can be funny for a living. And I mean, people now with YouTube and social media, people get it. But in those days, that was kind of a unique thing, unless you're already exposed to that life. Yeah, I still can't believe it, man. I mean, certainly like you kind of understand what a standup is, right? Like I would watch Chris Rock and Seinfeld and, you know, I had their books and stuff. I was like, I like comedy, but I would never think that
There's a guy writing stuff. There's people behind the scenes. When you see those names on the screen, like consulting producer, whoever, whoever, that's a writer? What is the... I didn't know... There's a million names. You're watching whatever, Seinfeld or Friends or whatever. There's a million names. A story editor, associate editor. What is an executive story editor? Turns out that's just another name for writer. All those words are just writer. So that also blew me away. I didn't know that growing up. Yeah. So you get to... You get to Harvard at...
19? 17. No, I graduated when I was 20. So when I graduated, I was 20. So that was also terrifying because I still felt like a kid. I hadn't gone to bars. So I moved out to LA. I was like, I can go to bars now. For some reason, I didn't get a fake ID. I don't know why. I think, to be honest, there were beers at the Lampoon, so I never got a fake ID. You literally were Doogie Howser. You remind me very much of my youngest, John Owen Lowe, who...
who's kind of like wunderkind with grades and in school and actually worked at the Eli Broad Stem Cell Lab, gets into Stanford and is doing all of that stuff. Fast forward to he's a comedy writer. I take that as a compliment because I've met John Owen and he's a cool guy. I think you might have helped John Owen or Matthew. I think you proofread their college essay.
essay, entrance essay, I think. Am I wrong? That's right. No, no. I remember getting a call on my cell phone and it was like Rob Lowe. I was like, okay, like we knew each other, but we weren't like super, super tight at the time because I was a young writer on the show. Got a call from you and I was like, this must be about the show. Like, is he just worried about any of these jokes or like one of his stories for Chris Traeger? He calls me, he's like,
I have an interesting proposal for you. Rob was like, you know, I'm a dad. I'm a concerned dad. And I, you know, one of my sons, John Owen, is, you know, is applying to colleges. And I know you're a smart guy. So that was kind of the beginning. And then it was like, would you prove? But I was happy to do it because I know how stressful that is. And by the way, like, I remember back when I was applying to college and I didn't really have anybody like that because I
I helped my mom with her papers. She couldn't help me with my papers. You know what I mean? Like, like, like, so I just wrote something and then turned it in. Like, so I was, it was all guesswork for me. So I was happy to just take a look. And I mean, God, God knows what advice I gave, but certainly I was just like, yeah, look, I mean, write about something you're really passionate about and what you really, really, really cared about. And that passion usually comes through. Yeah. The, the, uh, college essay, college entrance stuff is,
Such a scene. And I'm glad we're not going through it anymore. I will tell you that. It's cutthroat. It's cutthroat. Now, you were involved with all... You just paid a billion dollars to Stanford, though, right? You bought a building for them. I just said, I'm going to give you all my Chris Traeger swag for the Museum of Television and Film in Stanford. And they were like, great, we'll have whatever idiot kid you got. We'll take... Stanford has the
the Chris Traeger immunology lab now. You're welcome, John Owen. We just, we just cured COVID at the Chris Traeger lab.
And I gave all the athletic Chris Tegra stuff to Duke, and that's how I got Matthew into Duke. Yeah, there you go. I was like, here, you can have all the Bumbleflex shirts and running shoes that you want. Master of None, I'm a huge fan of. That first season when I didn't know what it was, and, you know, I've worked with Aziz's Tom fucking Haverford, for God's sakes. Who would have guessed? Do you know what I'm saying? Who would have guessed? And then all of a sudden, there's this...
It's going to sound so, what's the word I'm looking for as I say this, condescending. Because when people go, no, God, I listened to your podcast. You know what? I really liked it. Which is implied that they're expecting a horrible piece of podcasting. I was ready to hate it. I was ready to hate it. I think your point is well taken, though. Do you know what I'm saying? I didn't expect that kind of...
and like, frankly, more than anything, confidence, confidence and point of view.
We were learning. I always say that we were babies going into that show. We were very lucky to get our own show after working on Parks. We were kind of some of the younger people there, some of the younger writers and cast members. And so we didn't go to film school. Master of None was our film school, right? And I feel like Parks was where we trained our muscles up to get that show and to sort of have that confidence. We always would look at each other and say, man, we're glad we didn't get the show when we were 24, right? We got to do Parks first.
And then we were like, oh, we are ambitious to do something
It takes some of the competence and the ability of Parks to be really well-made, really well-structured, all that story sense, all that sort of camaraderie on set. And then what do we want to do to push ourselves and make it our own? And so we took that as our film school because we started watching all these movies because we didn't watch them as kids. I watched blockbuster movies as kids. I watched Star Wars and Jurassic. I still love those movies. Back to the Future. Back to the Future.
But I didn't watch Truffaut and Godard and all those 70s movies. So you mentioned Woody Allen, but season one was also inspired by Elaine May and Mike Nichols and Paul Mazursky and Paul Schrader. So you were watching all these movies. And for us, it really lit our brains on fire because we hadn't been exposed to them until we were kind of old enough to appreciate them. I'm almost glad I didn't see some of those movies when I was 18 because it's
you know, honestly, I took one or two film classes in college and I fell asleep during a lot of them because I was like, I don't understand eight and a half. I don't understand blow. You know, I don't understand Antonio. 400 blows, whatever. Exactly. But then once you start making movies and TV shows, you really start to appreciate them. And so season two, we fell in love with Antonioni, like I said, and De Sica and Italian neorealism and Fellini. And then season three, of course, it was Ozu and Bergman and all these masters. And so what we like to do on Master of None is take
the inspiration from these great works, these great works of film, these masters, and then apply them to extremely exceedingly modern concerns and topics and people, right? So, so what if Ingmar Bergman directed a film starring a queer black couple, right? Cause he didn't do that. He wasn't, he wasn't, he wasn't doing that, you know, back in his day. But what if, you know, what if, what if we were doing, what if Taseika directed a movie and it starred, uh,
you know, a brown Indian man in Italy, right? So it's, it was, and I feel like, you know, we did our best to sort of, to, to, to sort of pay homage to some of these really great directors. And, and we learned a lot at the same time. And, and I think our taste changed over time. You can see it with every season, every progressive piece of work that we've done. So we take that as a compliment and, and, you know, we come from comedy and we still love doing comedy, but,
you know, we're always challenging each other. We're working on something right now and it is, it's wildly different from anything we've ever done, but we really like being creative partners. So, so it's been really fruitful partnership for us. And, and you had partners in, uh, who, who weren't clearly weren't expecting anything other than what you wanted to do, because there's, like I said, there's nothing in your previous relationship that people are familiar with. And they would go, Oh, I, these guys were great. They did Parks and Rec together and they're, they're, they're, they're a team and they're great.
And yet they're delivering something completely different. And you had that kind of support, which is hugely important. That was our good friends over at Netflix, Ted Serrano's Buying That Show when Netflix... By the way, this sounds...
but when we sold that show to Netflix, they had two shows. They had House of Cards and Orange is the New Black. And we went in there, their little conference room, and sold it to Ted Sarandos. And I'll always be grateful to him for being a patron towards us and supporting us. And then letting, yeah, like you said, a Taiwanese dude and an Indian dude just make this series of essentially short films into a series of television. And I think even after we turned it in, they were like, what is this? Because it's very weird, right? Episode two, I mean, keep in mind, let's flash back six, seven years.
you know, I feel like a lot of comedy is doing this kind of thing now, but episode two of that show has no characters in it from episode one, except for Aziz. So episode one is kind of like, yeah, all these other episode twos has got all new people. It's all new people. And, and, and, and I think the network was definitely like kind of surprised, but at the time, you know, we kind of had to just push that through and, and I'm not sure they knew exactly what, what it was, but, but we're really glad it found an audience and, and, and,
And honestly, like it's also gratifying when people say they've watched it and they've gone on to work on other shows and create their own shows and sort of take inspiration from it and be as kind of transgressive and daring and try to try to break boundaries in that way. Again, not to not to be too, too highfalutin about it, but but certainly we were trying at the time. I like that you admit that you were trying. I mean, because there are people like, well, like everybody, I think I think that's the word I'm looking for.
It's not just being inspired by the greats or people that you admire, but it's actively acknowledging, I'm going to synthesize this influence. I'm going to consciously synthesize this influence and try to make something out of it. Because I think there's two ways to be inspired. There's the kind of thing where it just gets baked into your DNA when you don't even know about it. And you create something and maybe a couple of years later,
You see the thing that was in your DNA that you didn't even know about. You go, holy shit, that's where that idea. Oh, my God. I didn't even that wasn't even conscious that I was inspired by that. But there's the other way, which I think you're just articulated really well, which is no, no, no.
These people were going to do what they would do if we or if we were them, what they would do. And it's like you're conscious of it. You're making an actual choice to do something using that as an inspiration, which is really cool. And a lot of people don't do it. A lot of people don't want to, you know, they're like, I don't know whether they're shy about it. They're embarrassed. I don't know. But you very rarely people go, yeah, I wanted to make an album that would be like.
If Bruce Springsteen sang the blue, you know what I mean? Yeah. And the other way to do it was to make it intensely personal, right? Obviously, you're watching great stuff. You're hopefully getting inspired by great people. But the other aspect was, wow, what's a story that only we could tell? What could we do the best ourselves? And it sets it apart from any other show. I remember. So we pitched a totally different show to Netflix. We pitched...
It was a show about dating. It was like a guy, he's single, he's in New York, he's dating, he's bouncing around, he's got some friends, they're wacky, whatever. Cut to, we're about to make the show. NBC says, you know what, let's make one more season of Parks and Rec. So we're like, okay, we can't make the show immediately. So we put a pin in Master of None, or we probably didn't even have a name for it yet. We put a pin in the untitled Alan Yang Aziz Ansari show. So we worked on Parks, and then we were like, we took a trip to New York.
We're walking around New York City. We're like, oh my God, we're going to get to make this show. We better make it good because it's going to have our names on it. It's our first show. This is hopefully not our only shot, but it's definitely a big shot for us. And we're like, God, we really want to push ourselves. What can we do? What can we do? And at a certain point, we were in a hotel room. We were brainstorming ideas. And I was like, look, man, no matter what we do, today was a tough writing day, but no matter what we do,
My dad grew up in a hut in a rural village in Taiwan without enough food to eat. He had to kill his pet chicken to eat it for dinner. He had to kill it. That's how he ate food. We're staying in a nice hotel room in New York City working on our own Netflix show. He's like, wait, is that true? Is that story true? I was like, yeah, that's true. He's like,
that's the show, man. That's way more important than us bouncing around and dating in New York. Like, let's do an episode about that. So we're like, yeah, the show can be anything. That was really eye-opening. We're like, let's just make any episode about anything we want, any issue. And so we started thinking about all the episodes in that way. And that ended up being the parents episode, which is the second episode of the season. Well, again, hearing that story, and I know that is your family story, but every time I hear it,
I'm just overwhelmed with, and this is going to sound super corny, but like the American dream is a real thing. Yeah. And, and, and I, I looked around one day I was working on, you know, I, I, I, you know, usually I'm producing a few projects in addition to the stuff I'm writing. I was like, at one point I felt like I was producing three or four things with the word America or American in the title. Cause it's something I'm obsessed with, right? You know, I have a show called little America that I executive produced on Apple. And I had a couple other projects that, and it's the idea of,
The idea of America as an idea and not a place, you know? It's like... And look, America's got a lot of problems. Don't get me wrong. America's far from perfect. We have a lot to work on. But I always come back to...
well, where else would I rather be? And look at what happened with my dad, you know, coming to this country without very much and being able to build a life where literally his son, the very next generation, gets to make TV and movies for a living. That's insane. Like, that's very insane. And without any connections or anything. You know, it's like Sam Seaborn said, you know, America is an idea that's lit the world for
200 years, you know, that's my character says in the West Wing and it's and it's true. It's it goes in and out of fashion to sort of like, you know, crap on our on America. But it's never in fashion for me because I'm super, super aware of I don't even have your story. And I'm still a kid in the Midwest. You just know anything about nothing.
And ends up having my dream come true here. Granted, not everybody has the level of success, but it does happen. It absolutely does happen. Although I am remembered, reminded of the great, um,
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, look, man, my thing about America is like, that's all true. And like, let's just keep working on it so that it doesn't go away. So it all doesn't go away. Let's keep these options open and let's make sure these opportunities are available for people in the future as well. It's an ongoing project. It's an ongoing project. It's not a perfect place and it's not the worst place in the world either. And then by the way, this is probably the most political I've ever gotten on the podcast. Here we go. And then we'll move on. But I do think what is...
implicit in that equation, and I could not agree with you more, is to want to fix something, you first have to acknowledge and believe in its value. Because nobody wants to fix something they don't give a flying fuck about, or that's irreparably broken, or that you don't care about. Nobody does. Or you just, or somebody just wants to pound the table and scream.
It's okay if you aren't ready for kids right now. It's okay if you don't want to be a mom now or even ever. It's nobody's decision but yours. But do you know what's not okay? Not knowing how effective your birth control is. Talk to your doctor about effective birth control options so you can make an informed decision. Tap to learn more.
All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel.
Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton Honors membership required for 15% discount. Terms and conditions apply. America, we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. At Grand Canyon University, we believe in equal opportunity, and the American dream starts with purpose.
By honoring your career calling, you impact your family, your friends, and your community. The pursuit to serve others is yours. Find your purpose at Grand Canyon University. Private. Christian. Affordable. Visit gcu.edu. Oh, yeah, yeah. We got to talk about, it feels like it's so long ago that I don't even know what to call it. It wasn't a podcast. They didn't exist. It was a blog.
Wow. Yeah. Deep cut blog. Deep cut blog. It was a blog, but it wasn't a deep because I knew about it. I knew about your blog that you did with Mike Schur.
I knew about Parks and Rec and you guys think we're doing it before you did Parks and Rec. So you and Mike Schur did a sports blog called Fire Joe Morgan. Yeah. In retrospect, I wish we had picked a different name, but yeah, it was a, it was a base. It was like a sports commentary, commentary blog. But wait a minute. I'm like, I listen and I'm, and I'm never like a hard hitting journalist, but the,
The predicate was you wanted—you weren't fans of—come on, man. You weren't fans of Joe Morgan. Now, don't try to do revisionist history with me now. Yeah, I think it was more about—it wasn't him specifically. It was just a commentary about all sort of sports talking heads and the sort of—the anti-analytics culture, the anti-sort of data culture and all that stuff. And, you know, in retrospect—
look, the data guys kind of won. So now it's like, so it's almost like, yeah, it's almost like a time capsule. It is a time capsule. And at the time it was like a lot of people were still saying, you know, people were spouting a lot of antiquated wisdom that was not backed up by any data. And I'm not saying the data is the end all be all, but at the time we had just read money ball and it was really exciting. And basically, you know, we were just on this email. So I didn't really know Mike. I, I, I, I had maybe met him once or twice. And, um, we were on this email list of people who would watch Red Sox games together and,
We really just started using that email list as a repository for making fun of
not just fire not just joe morgan but tim mccarver and harold reynolds and a few other you know espn and fox and all these other people um but at a certain point some other people on the list were like can you guys stop writing to this email list and just start a blog or something because i don't i don't need 500 emails a day talking about something that john crux said or something right it's like this is very inside literally inside baseball but but so we did and and me and mike ended up
up writing a lot on this blog. Dave King also wrote on it a little bit and he was around as well. And yeah, it spiraled out of control, but in a way that really proved that what you're passionate about can lead to something in the future. Because I was working on South Park at the time and some other shows and I just wrote on that blog every day and just like was really passionate about making fun of baseball commentary. And then years later, Mike
his own show, right? He got this show that was the Office spinoff or whatever. And I was like, oh, that's cool that Mike got a show because, you know, I've been writing on this blog with him even though we weren't really friends. I wrote to him. I was like, hey, I would love to be considered for this new show. And he's like, okay, great. Well, send over your pilot. You know, obviously Greg Daniels has to read it. He's the co-creator of the show. But the good news is I've read literally millions of words that you've written
over the past like three years, right? It's a lot of jokes and a lot of, like he understood, you know, my sense of humor and what I'd been doing. So, you know, I sent my pilot in and they both read it and Greg liked it as well. So I went in and got a meeting and that's how I got a meeting on Parks and Rec or the show that would heretofore be named Parks and Rec. What I love about that story
is, you know, we have people who listen to this podcast who want to be writers, who want to be producers, who want to be actors, who have no idea how to get into the business or people who are in the business and are beginning or struggling or what have you. And I always tell them the same thing is, is you never know what is going to be the thing that opens the door. And the notion that you just like to goof on stupid baseball talking heads is
Parks and Recreation. Yes. A job that then lasted six, six and a half years or something. And by the way, this job, this job, it wasn't a job. Fire Dream Work didn't pay us anything. We,
We wrote on it every day, and I'm talking thousands of words, 5,000, 10,000 word pieces for no reason, for no reason. Just because we thought it was funny, it started gaining traction. So we started seeing, hey, 5,000 people are reading this, 10,000, 15,000 a day. And it got covered in Sports Illustrated and Yahoo and Rolling Stone and all this stuff.
And then actual baseball players started emailing us and saying things they hated. And so we got to know some professional baseball players through this blog. It was almost like a secret society. And again, this is a very niche blog from 10 years ago, 15 years ago, whatever. Sometimes I would literally ride in elevators to go to a meeting or something. And an assistant would take me up and he'd be like,
Fire Joe Morgan, right? I was like, yeah. It was like a weird fight club thing. And we were anonymous on the blog too. So it was kind of like people weren't sure who it was. And then finally we said, okay, look, this is who we are. It's not that exciting, but we're television writers and this is the unmasking of the writing. Do you remember what your number one pet peeve was? Number one or two?
A lot of it was just basically people complaining that computers were ruining baseball. So it was a lot of like, you know...
Joe Morgan himself or people like that would often say, well, I want to see a computer go up there and hit a home run. It's like, that's not really the point. We're not saying there isn't a need for coaches or scouting or all that stuff, but it was very funny. The other thing was people, this was again a long time ago, people didn't like when
people walked instead of getting hit. Right. But, but our point was, and the point of a lot of analytics people was you get on base, you get on base, you're on base. Right. But one of the things that they would say was if you got on base and
via a walk or whatever it's like you're clogging up the base pass right clogging up the base pass that's another run like that's literally that's how you score in the game is you get on base and then you get you get batted around and then you score and then when you have more runs than the other team you win so you need to get on the base pass but people would literally say clogging of the base pass and you're like this is insane like you don't want that so um there it's it's it's
For baseball fans, it was very funny at the time. And I actually watch way more basketball now. This will be my last baseball question. Please. Do you regret what you have wrought? Like when you go to a baseball game and you see the shift and all a guy has, literally all the guy has to do is lay down the most rudimentary bunt. They won't do it. Not only is he on first base, he's got a hit.
but they don't do it. It's not only that, there's way fewer putting balls in play. There's no actual defense or anything being played anymore. Less than ever before. But that's, but by the way, the same thing's happening in basketball, right? Yes, it is. People realize the three-pointer is way more powerful than people realized before. So,
If you look at the 80s, there's like one three-pointer a game taken, and now it's like 50 three-pointers. So the game's just three-pointers all the time. It's very weird. But that's the optimization of sports, right? That's the optimization of sports. Is it more exciting? I don't know. Listen, I was a huge, huge, huge NBA fan throughout the 80s. Season tickets, Lakers, like all travel with the team, the whole deal. Legendary. Legendary. And I can remember vividly, it was a breakaway, and you pulled up at the three-point line and took a shot,
and made it with no one under the basket and no one down there, you were yanked out of the game and sat on the bench. Period. We didn't know. We didn't know. But three is worth more than two. That's what people realize. It's like, just run the numbers, man. Three is worth, like, I think they're going to shoot even more threes. Like, keep looking at the numbers. Like, it will, it's worth more. They had to shoot more threes. Steph Curry shoots like 15 threes a game now.
That was like a whole team in the past. That was a whole team. Oh, yeah. But it's a different... The math works. You can't fight math, Rob. You can't fight math. But you can hate it. You can hate math, which I do. You can disagree with the aesthetics of the sport once the math has taken hold, which I don't quibble with. I can't argue aesthetics. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So I agree with that. Well said.
B-T-W-F-Y-I. Tap the banner ASAP to learn about Nexplanon. Add to the gestural implant 68 milligrams radiopaque or ask your HCP IRL. Visit nexplanon.com RN. K-T-T-Y-L.
All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers, passport. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel. ♪
Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton honors membership required for 15% discount terms and conditions apply. Our new podcast, Parks and Recollection. I am so excited for people to get a chance to
to get into. I mean, a, I love the genre of deep dives on shows that are, that, that you love. Um, I mean, I, I, I'm just a fan of them. I love office ladies. It's, it's super fun, but the fact that there hasn't really been a definitive parks and rec one, um,
I'm glad to step into the breach and I'm glad to step in the breach with you. I think it's, I mean, we're a few episodes in, I think we have our footing. It's been a fun rewatch. I mean, it's really fun doing the pod because we're just shooting the shit. That's really fun. You and me talking, but it's been fun watching the episodes. It doesn't feel like homework. It feels like, yeah, I'm happy to rewatch these. And there's, I feel like there's just enough time for people to be nostalgic. And all of the guests are people we worked with and loved working with, and we like seeing them again. So that's been really fun. But yeah,
Yeah, it's been so enjoyable doing the show. And I'm not lying. I mean, I could honestly be lying about that and you would know, but I'm not lying. So let me ask you this, though. What if what if actually this was the worst idea to do? I don't think I don't think so. I think it's electric.
I think it's undeniable. Well, I do too, but you know, I've been wrong before. Listen, I chose Dr. Vegas over Grey's Anatomy, so I've been wrong. Well, let's see. The jury's still out. The jury's still out on that. I mean, Grey's is what, season 20 or something? I mean, they might not make it to 30, Rob. They might not make it to 30. And here's the thing, and I'm not kidding, actually.
If I had done Grey's Anatomy, we wouldn't be having this talk right now because I wouldn't have been on Parks and Recreation. You know, life takes interesting turns. I don't know, man. I just feel like I'm one of the luckiest people in the world. And when anything doesn't go my way, I'm like, you know, I got a lot of other lucky breaks. So it's all going to be okay. That's the other thing. I think why we're simpatico is because I'm totally an optimist. And it's not like it's a choice. It's not like I have to wake up every morning and go –
I know good things are happening in my life. I know I need to be able to, it's like, it's just in, it's just who I am. I think it's one of the reasons why you wrote, when you wrote Chris Traeger, along with the other folks who had a hand in it,
I think that's probably why you were the right person for the right part and why I was the right person to play that part. Genuine positivity. Not in a cheesy way, hopefully. And like I do, people point at me and go, Ann Perkins. They do that. Could be worse. I'm good with that. I'm so, I'd so rather be the Ann Perkins guy.
than the other. I mean, I'm happy to be the literally guy then. And that was the other thing is I was so happy to be on Parks and Rec and finally get a catchphrase because when I grew up, you weren't anything on television unless you had a catchphrase. You got a catchphrase that's so versatile. It's now the name of a podcast. So that's, you know, that's a dream come true. Yeah.
That's much more versatile than McDreamy. You don't want that. There's no podcast that sounds good with the name McDreamy in the title. It's very confusing. Well, but then it could have been Dreamy. This could probably be, hey, man, I'm so glad you came on Dream a Little Dream with me. American McDreams, whatever you would call it. I'm developing that show. Listen, there's more scintillating talk just exactly like this. I mean, we've had great guests. We've had...
Chris Pratt. We've had Ben Schwartz, John Ralphio. We've had great some of the great writers like Dan Gore on. And what was really cool is when we had Gay Pirello, head of prop department, Gay Pirello. And it was so and what I love about doing the pod is like, look, Chris Pratt, he's amazing and he's great. And we're going to have back up a thousand. But you go, I wonder what it's going to be like to talk to Gay about the props and what props are. If you don't know, there are any object that appears on screen.
If Ron Swanson eats a donut, this person has to find the donut. Here's my favorite. The prop department made DJ Roomba, my favorite character on Parks and Recreation, which you created. That was something I put in a script that Mike Shore, the creator, did not understand at all. It was thought was total nonsense because it is. And then allowed us to make and put on the show. And it struck a nerve. People liked it. People liked it.
But the interview with Gay was one of my favorite, favorite interviews we ever did. Same. She was so excited. By the way, dropped a lot of hot gossip. Loved that about Gay. Was not trying to protect her career, just dropping a lot of gossip. We talked about all these props. Also, props that we didn't use. One of my favorite stories from the show was we did an episode that took place at a dinosaur-themed restaurant that we called Jurassic Fork.
which is not even really wordplay. So it does not rhyme with Jurassic Park. And almost rhyme. And at one point we had a C story or like even a D story, I would say, like a runner in the show where the character of Jerry, played by Jim O'Hare, goes to the restaurant. The writers were really excited about the story. We're like, what if there's a giant hydraulic egg that is in this restaurant, Jurassic Fork,
And it opens and closes so that like you put a coin in and like kids can go inside, take a photo or whatever. And it opens and closes and opens and closes. You know, there's a crack in it, whatever. And what if Jerry goes inside the egg to take a photo or something and then it closes on him and he's never able to get out of it?
Right? He's just trapped inside the egg. Which is a funny story, admittedly, right? Yeah, it's great. Producers are laughing on this one. So we write that story, really excited. Props department, gay, Pirello, gotta build this giant egg, right? Gotta build this egg. It's essential to the episode. So they do it. They build this egg.
it's enormous, right? It's probably this eight-foot egg, right? It's gigantic, and it works. It works with hydraulics, right? You hit a button, it opens and closes. It's the most magnificent prop they ever made. I mean, it's just incredible. We take it to the set, whatever. We shoot the scenes. Jerry gets in it. Jim gets in it. He gets trapped. It's very funny. Ha-ha. We do the cut. The editors are saying, like, it's too long. Episode's too long. It needs to be trimmed down. These episodes need to be 21 minutes long. It doesn't make the episode. It gets all the entire story trimmed out of the episode.
we go back to gay we're like uh sorry it did the the egg didn't make the episode uh how much did the egg cost and gay's like it cost 15 000 to make that egg we just threw we just lit that money on fire we took that and so for seasons afterwards that egg just sat on the stage like it was in the corner like sadly a sad reminder of this failed bit that that but it was operating like it worked so i love that prop but yeah uh gay perilla episode look forward to that that's
season two-ish, but yeah, it's coming up. And I think that speaks to how beloved the show is by the people who made it. I'm always blown away because everyone on the show has gone on to unbelievable, tremendous success, but everyone really, it's like a little family, right? Like, I was talking to you, Rob, about this, and, you know, I was having a birthday party coming up, and Polar texted me immediately. She's like, we gotta do this! She's like, let's do it!
Let's get all the Parks people there. We got to get everyone there. It's like, damn, like we started this show like 12 years ago. We're still we're still hanging out and, you know, we're still a tight knit family. So that's really cool. Well, I hope everybody will will will download it. You can get it where you get this and where you get all your podcast Parks and Recollection. It's me and Alan Yang. And if you even remotely just like even remotely care about Parks and Rec. And by the way, even if you don't.
It's good, clean, American fun. Taiwanese fun, too. Good, clean, Taiwanese-American, Indianan-American fun. It's got both, right? That's classic Taiwanese-Indiana cuisine, right? You love that fusion. You love that fusion. Thank you, Alan. This is great. You're welcome back here anytime. This is great.
This was great. It was so much fun talking to you in a slightly different venue and calling it a different podcast. I love that. I'm so used to like signing off, too. It was like, no, you don't get to sign off now. If I do, Schulte is going to cut it out. So so I won't sign off. You kind of get the last word all the time. And I like that. But here I know here I get the last word. And so I'm going to I'm going to take it.
How good is this? I'm doing my wrap up with the guest actually here. That's a first. Usually we record those later. There's a little inside baseball for you podcast nerds. This one's live. We're going to do it live. We're doing it live. We're doing it live. Before we wrap up for the week, it is time for the lowdown line. Hello. You've reached literally in our lowdown line.
where you can get the lowdown on all things about me, Rob Lowe. 323-570-4551. So have at it. Here's the beep. Hey, Rob. This is Laura from Colorado Springs, Colorado. Long-time listener, first-time caller.
I was just wondering, whenever you were being cast as Chris Traeger, did literally just come about naturally? Was it a happy little accident? Did somebody tell you to do it? Was something you had in you? I just always wonder where some of those character development themes come from.
So right on, brother. I just want to say thank you so much. You and actually even Dax and Monica really helped me get through the last 18 months. I'm four and a half years sober and I continue to do it. So I appreciate you guys. Keep doing what you're doing. You guys are awesome. Have a great day. Bye. Oh, I love hearing that. Laura, that's great. I love that you're sober. Keep it. It's a great life. Welcome to the club. Yeah. So literally a lot of it's me.
Somebody pointed out to me, if you watch Wayne's World, which I made in 1990, there's a scene where I'm talking to Wayne and Garth and I say, Mr. Vanderhoff literally flipped his lid. So it's made appearances in my performances before, but it really reared its ugly head when I got the part of Chris Traeger. And Mike Schur noticed it and thought it was funny and then kept writing about
That's always good.
Thanks for listening. That was Alan Yang, one of the smartest guys I know and just a good dude and the American dream incarnate. I hope you liked it. I hope you check out our new podcast and I will see you next week.
You have been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe, produced and engineered by me, Rob Schulte. Our coordinating producer is Lisa Berm. The podcast is executive produced by Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Jeff Ross, Adam Sachs, and Joanna Solitaroff at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson at Stitcher. Our talent bookers are Gina Batista, Paula Davis, and Britt Kahn. And music is by Devin Torrey-Bryant.
Make sure to leave us a rating and review, and we'll see you next week on Literally with Rob Lowe. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Stitcher. It's okay if you aren't ready for kids right now. It's okay if you don't want to be a mom now or even ever.
It's nobody's decision but yours. But do you know what's not okay? Not knowing how effective your birth control is. Talk to your doctor about effective birth control options so you can make an informed decision. Tap to learn more.
All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I'll never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel. ♪
Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton Honors membership required for 15% discount terms and conditions apply.