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Hey, look at that handsome scoundrel. Who's that in the background? Oh, we got all kinds of people here today because my sons have deigned to join me because we love you so much. Oh, thank you so much. Thank you. Boys, say hi. What's up? Good looking group.
And some jeans. Thank you. They were curious to see if your hair had grown back or if you were still going with the pitbull thing. No, that was just for the show. It was not a sustainable look or lifestyle. I look like Pitbull drowned. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the show. Welcome to Literally With Me, Rob Lowe. It's a big day because my sons, Matthew and John Owen, are so excited about today's guest that they are here with me.
All the people, I've had cool people on the show. They could care less. I don't even think you listen to this podcast, to be totally honest. I know my wife doesn't, but they're here because we have Eric Andre, who we are, the low boys are obsessed with. And I'm calling myself a boy. We love the Eric Andre show. It's, if you haven't seen it, it's on Adult Swim. It's hilarious. It's fifth season just came out.
And it is everything that I love about comedy, where you watch it and you go, who thought of this? And more importantly, who paid for this? It is the definition of subversive and subversive.
cutting edge and silly and smart and profoundly stupid all at the same time, which is a wonderful concoction. And I can't wait to get into how his mind works and how he came up with this crazy show. So stay tuned. Me and Eric Andre with the low boys being super fans in the background coming up.
So that wasn't a bald, you weren't wearing a bald cap. You actually shaved your head for your show. Shaved my head, nared my legs, waxed my pubis. The pubis even. Waxed my pubis, my pelvic bone. My anus and testicles didn't hurt as much as the front part of my pubis. The front part, not the middle part of the back part, the front part. What would be the front part? I can't even imagine.
Above my penis, below my belly button. That mid-range was excruciating. But it is a big part of your show sometimes to reveal not only your innermost person, but your actual nude body. I've seen it with my own eyes. Yes. Yes. My body is a communion to the people. It is. And I find that some people are more into it than others. Yeah. And you never know until you show.
That's our motto on the Eric Andre show. Do you ever have a sense when you book a gas shake? Oh, yes. This is going to be great. And then you're surprised or not surprised or. Really, the best people to prank on Earth are gay men and black women. They are the most emotionally emotive.
Gay men and black women do not reserve their emotions. They do not suppress their emotions. They wear their emotions on their sleeve. And that's great for a prank show because they tell me to fuck off with no hesitation.
So you'll see this season, it's a lot of gay men and black women in the chair. You don't want like a stuffy old white British guy, like a businessman, because they'll be like, well, that's weird. I'm going to exit frame. You want like an Olympic figure skater to be like, oh my God! You want that reaction. Now, when you prank someone,
Just on a technical level, I always think it's interesting to tell people who don't know how TV is made. We just assume everybody knows how TV is made because we've been doing it for so long. But to get them on the show after you prank them, you've got to get them to sign the release, right? And if they don't, then you just got to like pixelate their faces out. How does that work?
Yeah. So when we do hidden camera pranks in the streets, you get there, you have to ask them to sign the release afterwards. Cause obviously you don't want to let them know that they're on camera until the pranks over. Right. But for the guests that we prank in the studio, the cameras are over. It's part of the conceit that it's just like a regular wacky talk show, but then, so they, they, they're pre-released. They sign ahead of time. Yeah. Right. So, um,
Then we set off explosives and whatnot and release cockroaches. Is there someone underneath the chair a lot? Is that what goes on with the guest chair? Yeah, we have people underneath it. We built the stage up on like a riser this year so that we had like a whole entire art department was living underneath the guest's perineum for most of the season. Yeah.
The best part of this podcast is that to the left of me is your producer is just laughing at what I, and it really does help by, it does help comfortable, but they're silent. They're muted, but they're laughing. Like usually the producers, like they get the ball rolling that they hop off. They're just chilling, but I actually like it because I'm not that funny. So I need, they're actually, that's why they're actually comforting. That's why they're there. I, I,
I, we, cause when we were starting the podcast, we had a whole discussion about it and I was like, no, I like to see you sort of half laughing. It makes me go, okay, I'm on a good track or their eyes are glazing over. I got to move on to something else. It's a good barometer. It really is. Where are, where are you? You're Malibu. Are you in Malibu? No, no. I'm in, I'm in Santa Barbara. Where are you? You grew up in the boo though, right? I did. Oh, the boo. Are you familiar with the boo?
Well, I heard you in an interview say that Malibu used to be working class, like firefighters lived out there. It wasn't like she-she or Richie Rich. It was just kind of like old school. And I can't fathom that.
Well, like Martin Sheen, who's lived there since 1974, bought his house for $35,000. How is that possible? When did rich people find out about it, I guess? Because Topanga Canyon is the same thing, where it was like hippies could afford to live out there. And hippies can't even afford to live in a house. Well, I remember when I kind of started with Bob Dylan.
He secretly bought up a bunch of ranch houses under a phony name so people wouldn't know it was him. And then he built a ginormous compound. And then Johnny Carson did the same. And that sort of started the big time celebrity. Did the rich people live in Beverly Hills in the 70s? And then like it was working class people out in Malibu. And then the rich people figured out like this is amazing. That's right.
That's right. So you had a beautiful childhood. Your childhood was cinematic. It was cinematic. Well, there were always some famous people there, but they were like iconoclastic weirdos. Interesting. You would see Bruce Dern running the Pacific Coast Highway in dolphin shorts, oiled up every day on your way into... Or, you know, Chevy Chase would rent...
a beach house during the time when he was debating whether to return to SNL and sort of trip on acid and stare at the ocean. So there was always cool shit going on, but the people who actually lived there and made the place go were firefighters and architects and just regular people. And like anything else, it's when the suits came in. It's like anything else. The minute the suits come in, everything changes. Yeah. So now you're in Santa Barbara.
Yeah, because it's kind of – when I had kids, I wanted to have the boys have sort of a similar thing where not every single person –
is involved in show business. Because I remember when Matthew, my oldest, we were trying to find a preschool for him. And I was asking around in LA about preschools and someone said, oh, you really need to talk to Mike Ovitz, who is then the head of the Creative Artist Agency and the most powerful agent. I thought, if I have to live in a town where I have to talk to my agent to get my kid into preschool, I'm going to blow my brains out. So I moved. That's what I did. All right.
That was it. Now, where are you right as we speak? Are you in Topanga, did you say? No, no, no. I'm on Adult Swim. I can't afford. I'm on basic cable at four in the morning during Boner Pill commercials. I'm in Echo Park, which is the Topanga Canyon of the East.
Yeah. Echo Park's like a lot of berets and fedoras, right? Is that what – that's what I think of when I think of Echo Park. Yeah, a lot of French revolutionaries and Algerian separatists. No, no fedoras out here, but simply fedorable. That's what my friend Derek says. Simply fedorable. Yeah, no, that's more like turn-of-the-last-century Paris. Yeah.
I don't know why I thought it was. People get that confused a lot. 1920s Paris with-
2020 Echo Park. Does nobody smoking Galois and like waxing poetic about socialism and going to the coffee house there? Yes, yes, there is waxing poetic. Yeah, there are hipsters. There are waxing. That's all I'm saying. That's all. That's all I'm saying. But but a beret is more of a beatnik. There's a nuance. Yes. There's a nuance distinction there that I want to. OK, get what's the off?
Okay, so your prank is you're playing a current contemporary of the moment hipster. What would be the wardrobe? I think I'm wearing it right now. I think I'm playing that role 24-7, unfortunately. The headphones, give it away. You know what else is interesting? You and I both were raised in households with psychiatrists. Really? Your mom or your dad? My stepfather.
Really? So that was yours as weird as mine was? Yes, he's still weird. He is in outer space. Oh, yeah. He's like on a moonbeam. There's no – he's unpredictable, I put it like that. Did you wake up on Saturday mornings and want to go watch cartoons, but you had to be quiet because there was a patient in another part of the house?
No, he didn't see patients in the house and he didn't bring his work home with him. So he never psychoanalyzed me or anything. And he's a psychiatrist. He's more of a drug dealer than like he's not Freudian. He's not like, tell me what your childhood was like because he was shaping it. But no, no, no patients in the house. And he really didn't really want to talk about work when he got home. I would like try to pull it out of him. But he only wants to talk about basketball and politics. Yeah.
It's the only two things. Really? That's it. Yeah. Yeah. I had, I had the exact opposite. I had like, he was union. So there's a lot of like, what were you telling me your dreams? Well, I'd want to be a baseball player. No, no, no. I mean, did you dream of your mother or whatever? It was like that. That's kind of cool.
My dad's from a third world country. My dad's from the Caribbean, too. So he's more he's he's Haitian. So he's more Haitian than a psychiatrist. So like Haitians are only like they only talk about politics, sports or women. So I don't think he wanted to talk about women with his son. But he definitely only obsessed over politics and basketball.
That was his, he was, he was Haitian before he was a psychiatrist, but yeah, he wasn't, he's oddly like anti-therapy. One time I was like, dad, I got it. I was like talking on the phone with him. I was like, dad, I got to hop off. I just pulled up to my therapist.
And he goes, "Therapy? Those people just tell you what you want to hear." And I was like, "You're anti-therapy and you're a psychiatrist?" And he's like, "Ha ha." And I was like picking his brain about Sigmund Freud one time. And he goes, "Freud? That guy was a cokehead." He's like, "He's very anti-therapy for being a psychiatrist." I was like, "Who do you send your patients to when they're like, 'I need therapy in conjunction with my medicine?'"
So I don't know. He's on a moonbeam. I can't. Were you ever attempted to steal his triplicate? I love that I knew that that's what that was. The triplicate is the prescription pad that has three different levels that you sign to get the drugs. Oh, wow. You talk to your stepdad more than I talk to my father. Yeah.
No, I wasn't that smart, and I wasn't into pills until later in my adult life when I really needed them. Now I'm like, now I have every member of the benzodiazepine family in my medicine cabinet. Good. But no, I was kind of a teetotaler. I smoked pot when I was young and, like, I hit acid every now and again. But, like, I wasn't, like, I was a little scared of pills. Mm-hmm.
But then 2020 quarantine hit, and now I'm like Waylon Jennings over here. I'm on the Johnny Cash diet. Oh, yeah. I think you're not alone.
I think a lot of people. We're toiling. I mean, what do we do besides drink and eat pills? It's dangerous, but it's passing the time. I'll tell you that. Yeah. What is your regimen? How did you age so well? The other half of me is Jewish, so we do not age well. What is going on?
Jon Stewart has the best joke. Jon Stewart said, Jews age like avocados. Like, you get guacamole, it's all green. You turn around, you order nachos, and then you turn back to the bowl of guacamole. It's like brown and soggy and...
What do you do? Got lotion. Do you eat salad? Is it just genetic? Is your father handsome as shit? Was he a silver fox into his old age? Well, all of the all of the above are true. My dad is is 81 and looks 20 years younger.
Um, and there's a lot of lotion on, I have my own skincare line. So, uh, you know, a lot of it's that and, and I take care of myself, but, um, yeah, it's, um, a lot of it's genetics really. Do you drink, do you drink alcohol? I'm sober 30 years. That helps.
That does. I mean, first of all, it helps because when I drank, it always led to mayhem, which probably would have killed me if I'd have kept it up. Yeah. Also, just in the calorie intake. Think of it that way. It's like, yeah, you start you start having that glass of red wine every every night after work. And then maybe one of them. I mean, that's that adds up over the years. It really does. Yeah. But it's fun.
It's a lot of fun. It is fun. Let me tell you, I love it when I did it. Did you do Coke?
Oh, yeah. Did you used to do... Bro. You were a Coke guy too. Here, let's do the math. I was a teen or a heartthrob in show business in the 1980s. Did I do Coke? Let me think about that. What? Hmm. But see, people forget... Here's what people forget about Coke is when it first...
came out, people thought it was good for literally good for you. They're like, oh no, it makes you like Sigmund Freud. He was no dummy. He did coke. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And then, and then it took years for the, for the wreckage of that to get into the culture and people like, eh, maybe that's not a good idea. But when I came up, that was a sign that you were a running with the right, the cool crowd and that you were successful. That's what you did. You went to the Laker game and you
You and Jack Nicholson went to a little broom closet together and, you know, you're happening in show business. Gosh. That's what it was like. What a life. What a life. Who doesn't want to, I mean, why go to the Laker games if you can't be on Coke in your good seats? Yeah, I mean, you're making a lot of sense right now. Aren't I, though? Yeah.
I can't argue with that. Now ask me about my show. I've interrupted you 15 times. No, no, no. Because it's a drug question. When I watch the show, I feel like I can smell pot smoke sometimes. Am I just imagining that there's a lot of pot going on? I'm not a big pot guy. Pot makes me... I smoke pot.
But I smoke just a little bit before bed. I watch TV and then I go to sleep. It makes me very antisocial and it kind of gets me in my head. It doesn't totally hit me right. Really, the big drug of choice, especially in the writer's room, is coffee. Yes. It is a caffeinated show, but...
It's a marathon, not a sprint. So like any drug harder than coffee, we won't last. Like Adderall kind of, it makes me like kind of grind my teeth and it kind of makes me crash. Coke is too fleeting. Expensive. Too expensive. Too expensive. Too fleeting. Yeah. Yeah.
Like you said, you're on adult swim. You can't afford Coke. Yeah, we can't afford Coke. We can't afford Coke. So really, yeah, the main drug of choice on set is coffee. It's a little bit of a deep dive, but my favorite thing of yours has to be the octopus when you went into the restaurant. I cannot believe I'm hearing this from Rob Lowe, a man who is an institution.
It's well, and it's, and my boys are the ones who like continually come here, come back, come on in here guys. Don't knock that over. I like your, your son lurking in the corner. There they are. We've never come down for any guests on his podcast. If that really, I'm, I am flattered.
Thank you. They could care less. They could. They're like, they're like, Gwyneth Paltrow, get her out of here. They're like, Demi Moore, Magic Johnson. They don't even know you're an actor. They have no idea what you do. They think you're in real estate or something.
Now, they're the ones who want to know about the octopus. I'm the octopus. The octopus was a pain in the ass to shoot. We almost got arrested. And I just hate that costume. It's very uncomfortable. And I think we destroyed it after season four. So it didn't make a return season five. And also the...
the little people that were my tentacles were not happy with that bit. I don't think that some, some of them were happier than others. I don't think they knew how violent it was going to get because people were getting very upset with us. Who comes, who comes up with that? You're in it. You're not on pot. No one's high when they come up with the idea. I mean,
We're high eventually. We're high towards the end of the day. I'd say, oh, Dan Curry, my writing partner, came up with that, who's my co-writer on the show, EP. Very, very, probably the funniest person I know. But he just came out, he like,
His eyes were rolling in the back. It was when we were, like, exhausted at the end of the day in a writer's room. You know, we only have, like, a few good hours in the morning. Then after lunch, we're, like, not worth a shit. And we were just at that final hour of exhaustion in the writer's room. And he just started speaking in this, like, octopus talk in this, like, weird way.
Alice in Wonderland character type octopus and we we started watching all these videos of like octopuses it's not octopi which I just found out octopuses um unscrewing jars that had food in it and they're really smart and scientists study them because they have like this alien kind of thought pattern and so we just thought it'd be super funny to have this like
pretentious octopus that was just like this like kind of debutante aristocrat character. I don't know. You'd have to ask Dan. I can't take credit for that. It's all him. But...
It's too funny. Maybe we'll bring back the octopus. I don't know why we go. I want to do something with the octopus. I want to do something with the octopus. I wish you came on the show. Why don't you come on the show? I will. Let's do it. Let's make it happen. I'm in. I'm officially in. I'm saying yes. I want to be in. Beautiful. The other thing I love is who's mixing your show? Who's doing the sound effects?
Oh, that's my editors. So we have, yeah, we have a team of editors that are. They're really funny. They're amazing. The sound effects. They make the show. And just the stupid shit like the laser beams and freeze frames coming out of people's eyes. Yeah, yeah. Did you ever know the show Wonder Shows them? Yeah, I'm buddies with those guys. I'm working with them on a project, John and Vernon. Yeah, that. Huge, huge influence on my show.
I was going to say, it feels like a companion piece to Wondershowsen, which is one of my favorite, favorite, favorite things that ever existed. One of the best. One of the best shows of all time, for sure. Nothing's like it. People out there listening, if you've never heard of Wondershowsen, and I promise you, you haven't.
Three people in the world knew about it, but the three people who love it, love it. Where would, where can you even see wonder shows? And now you can, you can, I have the DVDs. You can watch it. I'm sure you can watch it online. I'm sure you can download it on iTunes. Yeah. It's an MTV show. So wherever you can buy MTV shows, you can buy wonder shows. The sad thing is that they got,
Slapped on MTV2. No marketing behind it. Nobody promoted it. Nobody watched MTV2. I feel like they would have done so much better on Adult Swim, but I don't think they could even rerun on Adult Swim because one's owned by Turner and one's Viacom. But whatever, that's me getting corporate. But yeah, that's one of the best shows of all time. Huge influence, for sure. I think it's the fastest show on television. Yeah.
It's like each segment is just like one joke and then they keep it moving, which I love, you know. And I love and you're working with them. What can you tell me what you're working on? I cannot. And I probably said that. Oh, we've got to hold the thought. We'll be right back.
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Have you ever have you ever fell off the wagon or came close to slipping? And how do you behave yourself? I've been lucky that I have not. I think part of it was when I was when I was done on my my my campaign of alcohol and all of it. I I was I was really done. I mean, I was I was done. I'd I'd ridden that horse.
As far as I could, I'd had a blast. I don't, I don't regret any of it. In fact, I look back fondly actually on a lot of it and I was just done. I, um,
I, I, I, my life wasn't working the way I wanted it to work anymore. And I knew the reason that it wasn't was in a large part because of that. And I was lucky enough to know. Were you sober on Wayne's world or was that. I just gotten sober on Wayne's world. That was the beginning. That was the beginning of your sobriety. Yep. I was hard. Was it hard being on set and having the pressure of being on set? Yeah.
Because I know a lot of people, a lot of actors drink to kind of self-medicate and calm their nerves, even while they're filming. I was the opposite. I was, I never was, I never did any of that when I worked. It was when I had free time. Free time, an idle mind and free time have always been my enemy. Like I'm good when the chips are down. You were like hungry poker, like sipping whiskey out of a flask between takes. Yeah.
Oh, it's amazing. We had Tia Carrera. Not Carrera. Carrere. I heard I've been pronouncing her name wrong for 30 years. We had Tia on this season. I don't know if her episode aired yet. I think it's airing Sunday, actually. Your co-star. See, this is perfect kismet. I don't want you to ruin the episode, but I'd like to know.
Uh, we, we sent her to the moon. We sent her to the moon. She was like, ah, ah, ah. We had explosives going off and I was firing real guns and stuff like that. She was like, not prepared. That's so, even at this rate, when people have an idea of what the show is, you still get people who aren't really prepared. Or do you have to feel like you have to up yourself every time?
A little bit of both. I always feel like I have to outdo the previous season, but we kind of just intentionally cast people that would probably never have seen the show or heard of Adult Swim.
Do you have a list? Oh, then that's, by the way, I love that. That'd be a good parlor game. Boys, we should do this later. Let's make a list of people who have never heard of Adult Swim. That would be, just that in and of itself is funny to me. I mean, send me that list because those are the perfect people to get on the chain. Well, number one, Mike Pence.
Yeah. No, he's not going to swim. He's unemployed in two months. So he's on his day. He's available. He's available. Yeah. Yeah. He'd be great. Oh my God. I would love, he'd be a champion guest.
A champion. He'd be one for the ages. We'd release a bunch of flies to land on us. We'd train flies to land on us there. Or you could be a fly instead of the octopus. I want your head. I want your head. I fall from the rafters. I love that you love the octopus. That touches my heart. I love I am the octopus. There's people in that restaurant were not having it. Some of them were quite angry.
They were upset. I mean, that was a nuisance. I mean, rightfully so. Their anger is justified. It was a nuisance. Here's the thing. What I like about the show, another thing I like is, because I'm not a prank show guy. I don't... I know it's a prank show, and I know you describe it as a prank show, but I don't see it as a prank show because when I think of pranks, there's an inherent meanness to it, and your show's not mean ever. And like...
Like there's like, um, I know people love punks. I know they love it. It's a huge hit. I get it. I could never watch. I, it may be so uncomfortable that I could never watch it. Maybe because the prank was so belabored. Yeah. Without, without being funny. Maybe. I don't know, but I never have that. I never that feeling watching your show. Why do you think that that is? That's by design. I mean, like we, we kind of learned this the hard way in the very beginning, like, uh,
Pranks can't be malicious. You know, a lot of comedy, the main ingredients of comedy are intent and context. So you need to, you can't have malicious intent and there's got to be context and subtext. There's got to be, even if the bit itself is very, very dumb, there's got to be like a mind and an intelligence behind what you're doing. And I think just through our process, we kind of,
After the writing, after we kind of have the first version of the script, me and my writing partner, Dan, and my director, Kitao, we will rehearse the shit out of every street bit and every, even the pranks in the studio, like just to kind of carve away anything that feels mean or punching down or mean spirited. So it's like a lot of rehearsal and rewriting stuff.
go into the process before we start shooting and even even after we're done shooting and we're in the editing bay if something feels kind of mean-spirited and uh gross we'll we'll try to carve it out we don't always like knock it out of the park but like yeah i just don't think the show would be watchable if it was mean-spirited or we were punching down you know
It's supposed to be like absurd. Pranks are supposed to be absurd and you're supposed to be distorting people's reality. And that's why it's like watchable and funny, not because you're being mean. So I think that's the part is the is also the absurdity element. Like when I watch Punk'd, it's not really that absurd. Like yours is clearly absurd.
other level of reality with people. And that's, what's fun is seeing people that's in, that's the wonder shows in part when, you know, where it's, it's the talking puppet in the street, asking people what they're, you know, who are jogging through central park. What are you running from? You know, that's. Yeah. I love that. You know, that, that, that bit that's such specific, you're a super fan. I'm charmed by that. I'm charmed by that.
Oh, good. I mean, listen, let's whatever you're cooking up with those guys. I think you need a handsome asshole. That's kind of what I haven't been forced into doing in comedy. I'm thinking about Wayne's World. Did you shoot any scenes with Wayne and Garth? Like, I feel like a lot of your scenes were isolated. Were you just shooting on? Did you ever get to? Was there a lot of crossover? Just like act three, right? I saw. No, no, I get.
I have a great – there's a great scene where I have to explain to Wayne and Garth at a Hawaiian-themed restaurant why they should sign the rights to Wayne's World over to me.
which always makes me laugh. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you have a lot of scenes with Tia Carrere? I had, I kind of, I think my character was observing her from afar because that's what he secretly wanted. Most of my scenes were with Dana, Mike, and...
Brian Doyle Murray, who was the sort of investor I was trying to... Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all coming back to me. It's all coming... Well, it's funny because like a lot of iconic movies, you'll be... You'll finally get a chance to talk to the actor that played the villain and they'll be like, what was it like working with so-and-so and so-and-so? And they're like,
I only shot with them one day because we only meet up in act three, you know, Dennis Hopper and Keanu Reeves only shot like one day together on speed or whatever. I mean, maybe that's a bad example, but like, you don't think about it from a production standpoint because you're like, oh yeah, they only overlap at the very end of act three and they have to be in the same scene. They finally meet up. So it's like,
And the actor's always like, I don't know. I met that guy once 30 years ago. He seemed nice. I would talk to him for the 12 hours we shot. And then we went home. But you feel like, oh, my God, they must have been like on tour together, like they're a band or something. Well, now it's even worse with movies. I have friends who are in like Avengers movies. And some of them don't even know what movies they're in.
Because they honestly they're like, am I in that movie? It's like because they they shoot one part for one movie while they're shooting this other movie. And then it's in a green screen and this person isn't available. So they're going to put them in. They literally have no idea what movie they're even in anymore.
Right, and they're so secretive with the scripts. They're only giving you like sides, right? They don't even have a full. They're just getting it piecemeal and day of and like a lock box and shit like that, right? We did that on Tommy Boy. Oh, yeah. You know, we. No, you did not. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
We only gave Farley the scenes that he was in because he was untrustworthy with the intricate plotting of Tommy Boy. We sort of started that trend. I'm glad to see that it's gone. Tommy Boy might be my favorite movie of all time. I think it's the hardest I've ever laughed in a movie theater. Probably like tied with Borat, I'd say. Really? Yeah. Boys, do you hear that?
Hear that? The great Eric Andre just said that the hardest he's ever laughed in the movie theater, Tommy Boy over Borat, which is our personal other favorite. Any of your scenes. He didn't say your scenes. Oh, they're saying he didn't say my scenes. Can't win. Can't win. Cannot win. And we'll be right back after this.
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Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton Honors membership required for 15% discount terms and conditions apply. I like it. Is that a little movie theater? Is this your little movie theater going? I got my little screen there, you know. I usually watch sports now, though. It's like I've gotten out of the habit of going to movies. This sounds awful, but it's really hard for me to get it up to see movies.
A movie. I don't know what that is. It's hard for me to get it up, too. But that's because of the Propecia. The Propecia. The Propecia. Dude, the Propecia.
Let's do this. This is medical science is holding this together. Dude, propish, baby. From the age of 30. Let's propish it up. Propish. Got to get the hormone. Got to get the testosterone down. So the hair comes up. Comes up. I know. I want propish it down. So the hair goes up. It was a choice between my boner and my hair. Yeah.
Oh, I'm always choosing my hair. Kidding me? Oh, yeah, got to. Got to. There's no life without it. Do you understand people who you're watching in real time as they're losing their hair? Yeah. And you're going, what's happening, LeBron James? What's happening? What's going on? LeBron James needs to go see McConaughey's guy. Let's be real. He needs a better wizard.
And McConaughey has been such an early adapter to all hair technology. He's, I mean, there were crazy pills he was taking and doing commercials for at one point. LeBron's not going to the right guy. You need the right guy.
I know a couple of guys. LeBron, talk to me after the podcast, okay? I'll hook you up. I know a couple of – I got hair in my mouth. That's how effective my guy is. Scrumming your tongue. Scrumming my tongue. Yeah.
Hair tongue. That's the screen grab for this episode. You would be. That's terrifying. That's it. That's it. That's, that's my, that's the, I'll play a character called hair tongue. I look really, really good until I go, you know, the one thing. Do you have hair on his tongue? Yeah.
How did your show get on the air? That's the, I'll tell you what, this is why, like when I first watched SNL in 1975, when I watched wonder shows and when I watched your show, I had the same reaction, which is how the fuck did this get on the air? I mean, I, and that's what makes it great. I still ask myself that about my own show, but I don't know. Adult swim is awesome. They have,
This isn't to toot my own horn. They have good taste and they let they give me and all the show creators complete creative freedom. I couldn't be at a more nurturing network. They're just I don't know. They they get because, you know, the guy who founded Adult Swim, Mike Lazo, who's like my mentor, he's like my Obi-Wan Kenobi. He
created space ghost which i don't know if you ever saw that but that's a very absurd psychedelic mock talk show so we have like a kinship i don't know you know he he's like my comedy dad
So I don't know. So when he saw the first kind of sizzle reel that we made on our own dime in an abandoned bodega in Brooklyn, he was just charmed by it and gave us the green light.
Thank God, because everybody else... We couldn't even get a meeting anywhere else. Like, Comedy Central, IFC, FX, TruTV, all the comedy cable networks were like, no thanks. Like, didn't even want to... They were like, oh, that looked cool, but no thanks. Like, didn't even want to meet with me. So, thank God, Adult Swim was like, yes, please. And what made you decide you were going to pay for it yourself? Well, um...
I mean, that means, like, it was a $300 budget thing that I shot in a rat's nest abandoned building. I had no other choice. It wouldn't... Like, the show wouldn't translate through a script. I knew that it was, like, very, like, frenetic and psychedelic in its tone, so it needed to be filmed. So we filmed...
We filmed some interviews and some monologues and some musical guests in this abandoned building. And then we
I went out to this like Civil War reenactment and I dressed like a slave. My friend Jermaine and we crashed a Civil War reenactment. We aired that actually season one. We crashed a Civil War reenactment with my friend, white friend Sean, who like follows around with a whip. And he was like, your name is Toby. And we were like, Kuntekinte. And we were like running away from him and screaming through this real life Civil War reenactment.
hidden camera. And we did another hidden camera prank where I dressed like Ronald McDonald and I barged into a McDonald's in Manhattan smoking a cigarette. And I fired everybody behind the counter and I started drinking whiskey and crying and
So we, we filmed that stuff on our own and got it in the hands of the head of adult swim. It's so, so great. I always think those stories are great for people to hear because today you can go out and shoot your own stuff. And sometimes you got to do that, particularly when the vision is so, so specific and original and that's what everybody wants anyway. But no,
Nobody wants to hire original or pay for it until they see it a lot of times. Right.
Yeah, it's hard to convince them until they see it. Yeah. And that's what I knew. I was like, this isn't I can't just like build a little deck with like visuals and like have a script. It's not going to trample. People are going to be like, huh? So I just felt like my acting teacher had the best. She's like, you can't give people a reason to say no. You have to like every square inch of your choices is.
And whatever you present has to be like undeniable. So they can't, they can't, well, I can't say no about that. They didn't fuck that up. He didn't fuck that up. I can't say no about that. And then they're like, like, don't give them a reason to say no. So that's kind of was my,
It's funny because that's what I always say to people who want to begin to produce and create their content. What you have to realize is the people that you're going to go and try to get money from are looking for a reason to say no. They're never looking for a reason to say yes. Ever. Yeah. It's safer for them to say no because if they say yes and give you a bunch of money and then you fuck it up or it gets fucked up,
Then it's their ass that gets fired. Executives get fired all the fucking time. So it's on them if something gets fucked up. So it's like safer for them to say no. Job security was. So you got to give them like an undeniable in any not just pitching shows, but when you're auditioning, you know what I mean? You can't the casting. You have to make the casting director has to say yes. And the producers have to say yes.
You know, everybody has to say yes until you get the job. You just have to be on to it. It's a pain in the fucking ass. Don't do it. If you look, look, look at me. I'm looking into my camera. Don't do this to yourself. Go to med school. Become a Jungian psychiatrist.
I think boys, are you listening? I tried this. One of my sons listened. He's went to law school and, and passed the bar as a law degree. And the other son, uh,
Went to Stanford and then decided, coming out with straight A's, that he wanted to be in this fucking business. So I'm batting 500. One listened and one didn't. Get over here. I write for the show he's currently on. He's like, fuck you, Dad. He does have a job writing for Ryan Murphy, and then Ryan put him on my show, figuring my actual son would be able to write proper dialogue for that. So he's got the job. That's good.
He's giving you the middle finger. I would say this. I would say this. The advice is never try to be in show business. The best advice I got was from a songwriter, like this old school songwriter in Nashville, Tennessee, who said, quit if you can.
Meaning if there's a burning in your soul where you just cannot quit and you have to do it rather whether you succeed or fail, then go for it. But quit if you can, I thought was an interesting way to articulate. I'm also like take my advice with a grain of salt. Who the fuck am I? But yeah, quit if you can. I'm a curator of of of.
of great quotes and inspirational things. I've never, that's amazing. I'm stealing that. I'm so stealing that. Yeah. When my son wants to get into acting, my daughter wants to be an actress. I want to be an, I might quit if you can. Yeah. Stealing it. Yeah. Steal it. It's not mine. Take it. It's public domain. Go forth. Quit if you can.
Who was the, do you remember who the songwriter was? I'm kind of obscure. I don't. I went to a music school. I went to Berkeley College of Music. And my senior trip was to Nashville, Tennessee. And we met with all these songwriters and bluegrass people, blah, blah, blah. And the one, I don't remember what his name was, but he was very, he was kind of this very existential person.
country songwriter who was, he kind of looked like, he looked like a nerdy, gigantic Kenny Rogers. I think you described 90% of the songwriters I know in Nashville of that era. Yeah. Like a Michael McDonald, white beard, white hair, kind of a Santa Claus thing, glasses, but bulky. He was like a gentle giant and he was very existential. And then he said, quit if you can.
And I really liked that. And I pivoted. I quit music right there. I quit music towards the end of school and pivoted to comedy. What was your instrument? I was an upright bass player. I prefer funny Eric Andre to upright bass playing Eric Andre. I think the world thanks you. You want to see it? It's right down here. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Give me a little something, something.
Dude. Yeah. Wait, I want to hear something. Can you give me something? I can, I can kind of play something shitty. I am like 20 years. I am 20, 20 years rusty. Let me see.
Wait, I've got a comment on that wallpaper. Oh, it's from the Beverly Hills Hotel. I know it is, but you think I don't know? Can I have a milkshake and a club sandwich, please? This is a Miles Davis song. It's not really... I mean...
It doesn't sound like anything without the trumpet. Yeah, that's it. $120,000 to musical down the drain. Thanks mom. Thanks dad.
Where did you get? So you literally have the wallpaper from the Beverly Hills Hotel in your house. Yeah. It is. How did you do this? This is I'm I'm obsessed with that wallpaper. Always. I went to I went to Beverly Hills Hotel just to ripping it off. Yeah. No, you can buy it at like West Elm or something. You know what I mean? Really? I thought it was like a thing. No. Well, it's a thing. It's a thing. But you get like.
Buy it for six bucks on Amazon. John Owen has a question. You don't need to write the question down. You can just be open about it. Oh, they want to hear about the RNC with Alex Jones. So when you crash the Alex Jones rally, it looks like he's down to clown and then kind of goes, what?
Yeah, well, that was blind luck. We literally hopped out of our passenger van to just shoot some like warm up material. And this is before Trump got elected. So all the MAGA people were kind of still on the fringe. Alex Jones was fringe. None of those guys were mainstream voters.
Yeah. So I wasn't as to and it was a bikers for Trump rally. It was like a bunch of Hells Angels, dude. Open carry state. All those guys were armed to the T. But I was just like, you know, kind of walk around the crowd. I had this like long mic trying to interview people.
Alex Jones from the audience with this gigantic cartoonish boom microphone thinking I would just get shooed away and that was it. And then out of nowhere, he goes, bring the daily show guy up here. I don't know who he thought, if he thought I was Trevor Noah or, or,
Wyatt Cenac. I still don't know. He said, get the Daily Show guy up here. Like, he's not going to razz me. I'll razz him about politics. And then my mind goes, just say, don't say anything about politics. Just go, I want you to fuck my wife. Here's my hotel room key. I don't care about politics. I'm just here for you to fuck my wife.
and he didn't know how to cope with that. It was the best way to get under his skin, and they were not happy with me. That was kind of like, I don't know if I'd go into something that dangerous again. Before COVID, we were going to go back to the RNC this year, but there was no RNC. I mean, there was like a weird digital RNC or whatever that was. The best is yet to come! There was that lady.
She would have been my Alex Jones this year, but. I do think you need to work your way through that organization, though, for sure, because that's not a big demo for Adult Swim. So you know they haven't watched any of it, right? I mean, we've tried to get politicians on the show every season, and it
very, very difficult to get them into the studio. What Sacha Baron Cohen does, which is brilliant, and kind of like, once you're like, oh yeah, no shit, why don't I do that? He goes to them. He's always getting a hotel room in Washington, D.C. He's going to their
stomping grounds and being like, oh, you know, we'd love to interview you. You're great. Rudy Giuliani or whoever. So we don't have the budget to go to them. But yeah, we can't get them to come to us. It's been kind of impossible. Who's your dream guest in the acting world? Bill Cosby. Bill Cosby is innocent.
The octopus is a big fan of the cause. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, Bill Cosby, O.J. Simpson, Keith Raniere, the NXIVM cult leader, Casey Anthony, Donald Trump.
Casey. No, I don't know. I really like like people that you would never think like Sam Elliott would be a huge get for me. You know what I mean? Like, yeah.
You know, I don't know. That's a great one. Glenn Close would be amazing. You know what I mean? Like, fish out of water. You wouldn't, like, the person you'd least expect but is, like, kind of, like, very high status, that's, like, kind of my ideal guest. Yeah, Glenn Close, come on down. Glenn Close, come on down. What can we do to get you to host the Golden Globes? Anything. I mean...
You got my vote. I don't know who you got to convince. I don't know who the Hollywood foreign press is. I never understand who any of these people are. I don't know who the Academy is. They're like, do they wear cloaks and they meet at like Masonic temples? It's like the Eyes Wide Shut. It's like Eyes Wide Shut. That's what the Academy is. Totally. So I don't know who you got to talk. I try to take Ellen's job. I know she's your neighbor. She lives in Santa Barbara, I think, or something.
Yeah, she's she's up here. She was that petition. I think I think you were close. I was close. So you talked maybe you can talk Ellen into letting me substitute substitute teach the class. I think I know she has like Sean Hayes come in every once in a while. Why not you? Yeah, I think I would watch. Agreed. As would I. OK, I have my homework for today.
I know who I'm calling when I get off of here. I'm calling Ellen DeGeneres. Yes, thank you. I'm going to start lobbying for the octopus to be on the Ellen DeGeneres show. I think this is good. I think there's going to be a huge spike now from my podcast listeners who are like, this octopus thing, this obscure octopus reference. And...
And Wonder Shows are all going to have. Listen, I don't recommend shit on the show unless I'm really, really into it. So that's that's the good part. I appreciate it. I appreciate you. And we appreciate you. My boys are I've gotten such brownie points from my boys. I literally texted them and said, I'm interviewing Eric Andre tomorrow. All caps.
You are fucking kidding! Exclamation mark. Nice. I'm happy that I have such power over the youth. I should really start a cult. I'm really squandering this opportunity. Or at least get a Doritos ad out of it. Yes, something. Doritos ad, cult, Ellen show. I mean, you know. Casey Anthony interview.
Maybe I have Casey Anthony and Glenn Close on the couch at the same time.
I like it. Just spit, spitballing. It's all good. You've given me a lot to think about. You've given me a lot to do. Uh, I got a deal with the golden globe people today. Uh, quit, quit. If you can remember that and quit, quit. If you, I'm getting a t-shirt made of it. I'm going to open an acting studio and then there are people are going to pay and comment. I'm just going to go quit. If you can Mike drop leave. Yeah. Smart, smart.
By the way, that's more than you would learn in six fucking months of an acting school. 100%. There's been a lot to unpack here. I knew it. I knew it would be great. And it was great. And you were great. Thank you, man. This was fantastic. And I'll see you on season five at some point. Let's figure this out. I'll come see you. Sounds good. All right, brother. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you. That was awesome. Thanks, Eric. Okay. Bye, Lowe. Bye, Lowe's sons. Bye-bye. You bet. Bye.
I don't know about you, but I had so much fun just now. And I have a quote. I love when I hear good quotes. I can't tell you. It just makes my day. Quit if you can is transcendent for me, truly. But it doesn't surprise me that I would get that from Eric Andre, who is one of the smartest, funniest people in comedy out there, period.
And I'm thrilled that he was on the show. And I'm more happy that I impressed my boys again. I'm cool for a minute. I'm cool for the entire 15 steps of walking out of this room into the other part of our house where I'm just stupid out of it dad again. But for this moment, I'm cool again. Thank you, Eric Andre. You have been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe.
produced and engineered by me, Devin Tory Bryant. Executive produced by Rob Lowe for Lowe Profile. Adam Sachs and Jeff Ross at Team Coco. And Colin Anderson and Chris Bannon at Stitcher. The supervising producer is Aaron Blairt. Talent producer, Jennifer Sampras. Please rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts. And remember to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. ♪
This has been a Team Coco production in association with Stitcher.
At Ashley, you'll find colorful furniture that brings your home to life. Ashley makes it easier than ever to express your personal style with an array of looks in fun trending hues to choose from, from earth tones to vibrant colors to calming blues and greens. Ashley has pieces for every room in the house in the season's most sought after shades. A more colorful life starts at Ashley. Shop in store online today. Ashley, for the love of home.
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.