Transcript
Today, we have a guest who is the Swiss Swiss army knife of comedy. He's an actor, a comedian, a writer, and probably the guy who invented the phrase hold my beer. You know Wait. I'm I'm I'm here every week. Yeah. You don't even drink, Bob. You know our guest as lieutenant Jim Dangle from Reno 911. Yes. The man who can rock short shorts better than anyone in history. No comment on that, Bob? Uh-huh. Still applies to me. But his genius doesn't stop there from cowriting the blockbuster comedies like night at the museum to appearing in TV shows like the odd couple and friends. He's made us laugh on every platform imaginable. Please welcome the legend, the hilarity incarnate, the 1 and only Short Shorts, Tom Lennon. Whose show, the Daily News described as so terrible, it deserves to be studied. Welcome our good friend, Tom Lennon. You know a little bit about the show. It's it's, it's folks discussing bad reviews, and we've all had horrible reviews. I'm the star of, Am I am I what's called sweeps week for this? Yes. Yes. I must be sweeps week. By the way g*****n it. I've had bad reviews with both of you guys. Well So many I have a I have a 0 on, Rotten Tomatoes, so I kinda win. You. Did you? Wait. What's Bobcat, what's a 0, please? For me, it was hot to trap. Oh, I'm actually I'm actually as much as I'd love you and I've seen, quite a lot of your stuff, I have not seen hot to trot. That's why we're friends. You gotta get out and see that one. And I think it I think it's being rereleased this weekend. Right? My daughter calls it my daughter didn't know the name of it because in our home, it was only called that f**king horse movie. Oh, the horse movie. I know the hot hot the trot. Of course. It's the horse movie. She goes, that's the name of it because she it'd be brought up and then I would just spiral into a depression. So, one of the things, I guess it's the way people discovered you was the state. So I'm gonna start here with the review from the daily news about the state, which is insane because the state is so brilliant. Here's the insane, but I think is this is this critic's critic's name Michelle Greppi? It couldn't find the name on this one. It was just the Daily News. Let me give you the Okay. Because sometimes you it it goes so deep you remember the name of the critic. Oh, yeah. Oh, sure. We're aware. Yeah. So okay. So here's here's a bold quote from the daily news review of the state. So terrible. It deserves to be studied. Studied. So that is that is Michelle? So I'm not sure if that's Michelle Grepi. It might be. I I know it might have been Michelle Grepi who said every single MTV executive who gave a green light to the series should be given a urine test. That it was weird because I don't mean, kind of fair. Drug test? Because she said urine test, and I was like, that's not really a drug to anyway. So yeah. To see if they have urine? Yeah. Just see if there's urine in them. I think so. Just squeeze them, see what comes out. It was a great show to watch. Hi. I mean But did the did well, that the state that if the bad reviews for the state is just clearly, folks. They're spectacular. Yeah. But their folks, it's it's it's it's ahead of its time. That was the that that was the situation. Thing to talk about now because so as soon as you guys mentioned coming in and doing the show, something something happened to us on the state that speaking on behalf of the 11 of us, I'm pretty sure changed all of our lives forever. And I like I get a lump in my throat talking about it. It takes a second to to to to to get through this. People overuse the word trauma. I'm not saying this is trauma, but something happened to us on the very first day that the state ever came out that I think f**ked all of us up forever. And here's what it was. So the state, if you haven't seen it, you can see it. It's all on Paramount Plus. It's like we were a sketch group. We've been together. By the time we got on TV, we'd been by the time we get our sketch show, we'd been together for already like 4 years in college, and then we've done a a show called you wrote it, you watch it with Jon Stewart on MTV. So we we were a very tightly knit group. We were, you know, we we thought we were like a punk band and we just clawed. We did every live show we could do. We would open for like the toasters. We would literally do anything. You know, we were just we were getting in our like 10000 hours before we knew that was a thing, and we finally finished our show and it's coming out on MTV and we did one of those, I know you guys know but, I don't know if the listeners know there's a thing called a radio tour where basically the, you know, the, the studio or the TV channel will like put you in a recording booth and you'll go around the country to different radio stations, you know, virtually. Yeah. They just they just point at you and they go They just point at you and they're like You're you're a Tate and Teabag. You're in Omaha. Yeah. In Omaha, Nebraska. Go. You're on with a man cow. Yeah. Yeah. Say what's up to the man cow. And then some radio stations will be like, hey. You got a TV show coming out today. And then some people will be like, hey. If you, if you had found Whitney Houston's body, what would you have rated? Wait. Wait. What? Like, you never know if the morning DJs are gonna talk about the s**t that you're supposed to talk about. Oh, no. They yeah. Yeah. Who gives you more of a boner? Okay? Yeah. Ready? Do you mind it's Tuesday, so we The mom the mom from the Waltons or the mom from Family Ties. And you're like, hey, guys. I'm here to promote, like, a huge thing into my life that's coming out, and they don't give up morning radio doesn't give a f**k when you're there to promote a lot of the time. And and then the PR didn't care because they hey. We booked you on this show that's very popular not knowing that. This is the Let's do it. Worst marrying of people. You're on you're on goose in the mini fridge and just shut the f**k up. They're gonna play a game with you called boner or not. You know, it's always just something weird. They're gonna prank call the governor's wife who's sick. Yeah. Oh, I don't wanna do that. It's s**t. I mean, as a producer, guys, just do it. And then they and then they try to mini fridge get a lot of eyeballs. And then they try to, shame you because, yeah. It was brutal. Yeah. It was always brutal. And so They always like you they always like you from your worst thing. Yeah. They always like you from your worst thing or from something that's not you. Like, what do you what do people confuse you? What I'll get, like, man, Super Troopers is great. It is. And you go you go, yes. It is. I get Affirm could couldn't agree more. Often, I'm I'm get given a a, I've given a, DVD of Police Academy, the first one, which I'm not in, and and I I'll sign it. I'm not in this movie. Did I tell you the the other day I was I was playing ACMATE in Minneapolis, and I've never done this. But I at the airport, the guy shows up and they've got that that, you know, that board with everything you've ever you know, photos and you sign. They they have it on a big stock board, so you can sign in a piece of, like, paper board. Yeah. Like a poster board. Yeah. Yeah. But beautifully printed and, like, nice. Yeah. Yeah. So I sign other things. Then I go I go to do this show, and the guy same guy is there, and I sign pictures. And then the next night, I go back to my hotel, and he's there. Okay. That's great. And and I'm signing all the same pictures. They're all from Police Academy, and I'm just signing the same stuff. And, he goes, have you, have you gone anywhere fun in, Minneapolis? And I go, your mother's house. He goes, what? I go, I went to your mother's house. Like, I've never said that. I've been waiting 30 years. It just comes out. And he cannot process this, and he goes, you're a comedian. You say funny things. Oh, no. I would know. So this was like okay. Oh oh, so so I'll set the scene I'll set the scene for, the day that the state premiered on MTV, which would be about 1993. I know exactly it's 1993. So it's about 4:45 in the morning, and they put us in a van out to a big, radio station in New Jersey, and we're gonna do a radio tour, which is very tough because there's, like, 11 of us, and it's always weird, and we're standing around microphones. And we get the first one, you know, which is freaky and the bean, and then we get the second one, and everybody's basically fine. They're like, wow, man. There's a comedy group coming up, comedy group coming up, and here they go, and they're on tonight and whatever. So and then we get and this is how the much this stuff burns in your brain. Then we get put on and it's probably our 3rd interview. It's now 5 o'clock in the morning on the East Coast, and we get put on with the power pig in Tampa. And I happen to remember it's a power pig because it was just the power pig was it was it it looms large in our memory. So what happened was, the power we get on the power pig. They're like, hey. You're on the power big Tampa. What's up, you guys? We got a couple juggle heads called the state. Got a show on MTV tonight, and the guy asked us, he's like, hey. Okay. Kids from the state, I'm just gonna ask you right now. Have you, you got a review in the USA Today? Have you seen it? Oh, s**t. And it's 5 o'clock in the morning on the East Coast, and none of us are, you know, terrific readers. So we had not seen it yet, but somehow the power pig had it. And he said, let me, let me read to you, what they're saying about you today in the USA Today. I'm gonna read it. And he proceeds to read to us, the worst one of the worst reviews we've ever gotten in our our life. Wow. And it was in the USA Today, and it was almost just like a hateful review. It was like, nascent Peter Panism, and the show was everything, like MTV at its worst. Wow. Like, this is a low point. This is not funny. It's, you know, it was a really hateful review, but it was read to us verbatim by the dude on the power pig at 5 o'clock in the morning in a booth. Jeez. And he thought it was the f**king funniest thing that had ever happened to beat us this, like, really, really hateful review. And then he reads us the hateful review, and then he says to us and if there's a recording of this somewhere, it would be I would love to find it. He says, and, so he reads us the review. It's really awful. It's like 1 star or less. And then he says, and in case you guys forget me, here's my name. You ready to write it down? It's hayw0odjabl0wme, and we're, like, standing there while we're talking to someone, like Really? Did you just hey, would did you just make us say, hey, would you blow me? And he said, hey, would you blow me? And then he hung up on us. So that was our our first official day in show business. I'm gonna count that as, like, really our first official day in show business. And you got blindsided. In Tampa, read us a hateful review, and then said, hey, would you blow me? And then hung up on us. Like, we were like we were like a prank call, but we were a guest on the show. And I think something happened that moment that changed a lot of us in the state forever. And I think it was actually a really amazingly good thing that happened to us because something happened where we're like, you can be so proud of this work, you can be doing it with your best friends in the world, it can be like next level stuff that you're doing, and people are going to f**k with you and s**t on it at every level for the rest of your life. Like Yeah. Sometimes you're gonna do amazing stuff and they're gonna s**t on it. Sometimes you're gonna do s**tty stuff and they're gonna s**t on it. But the state, we knew it was good and we've got hit with a tsunami of I mean the revisionist history about the state is amazing. People that are on the bandwagon for having loved it from day 1 is very interesting because that was absolutely not the case. And, but I think for us it was just a little bit of like dipping, you know, it's like we got dipped in the river Styx. Yeah. This was And we're, like, oh, yeah. This is, like, your origin story. It it it did. We became an idea that men fear. We're, like, f**k it. Don't you ever be nice? Then f**k it. It's what it doesn't matter what we do. Yeah. Did you ever, feel that bad again? Like or or did it create an armor for you? I think it it a little bit of both. It created a it's definitely a little bit of armor, for us as a group. And, you know, it's weird because our CBS special that we did like 3 years later that was only on for 1 hour and then we got canceled, got rave reviews, which was like another lesson of, like, oh, it doesn't really matter at all. Yeah. Especially especially on television, like a a really good review doesn't change anything Nothing. In television. Outside, it might make you feel better. Speaking of what you were just saying, so Yeah. So to, you know, the the the reviews, there's a lot of, obviously uncomfortable bad reviews. But what you were just saying in hindsight, so this is tv.com now, and it says the skate the state sketches remain funny to this day unlike most shows of the age, would not be considered dated or stale. Even a few mediocre sketches on the show are better than 99% of today's sketch comedy. This is in hindsight. This is the kind of thing. Everybody loves you in hindsight. Yeah. Yeah. I I'm I'm gonna my gravestone's gonna say, oh, now you like me. Yeah. Oh, now you like me. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So that's, yeah. No. It's it's, it's nice. And I actually think I I do think there there might be something to be said about, you know, did we need did did it add credibility to us? Because we also turned our 1st season s**tty reviews into a promo. It was actually kind of a famous promo. It was called more miserable crap. And we it was us just lying in a field while I started a joke by the b g's was playing. We'd originally set it to Uchild, but then we couldn't get the rights. And so it's us like just looking as sad as f**k, and all of the, like, you know, the show's so terrible it should be studied. I think we got, like, a half of a star or a negative stars in in the New York Post or in USA Today. It was just an unbelievable, but I think we did a slightly punk rock thing where we're, like, we made a promo of all of them and we're, like, this is who we are. And it actually made us slightly more anti establishment, and it was just, like, great. USA Today doesn't love us. Perfect. But the thing is the thing is is, like, I think people, like, someone like me who who's a fan would think, oh, it doesn't hurt them. Like like, I would In some ways, it probably I think it probably because of what we were doing and because we were on MTV. I think there's an I'm not impossible chance that it helped us. We didn't want people's parents to love us. We didn't want to be we we thought we were Fugazi. You know? We thought we were, like, an important, slightly devious thing. I mean, that's how I remember it, you know, as Yeah. And that's good. You know? Yeah. It's the Good. And I We were the anti SNL. You were the anti everything. And it was on MTV at its peak. You know? Yeah. And if we'd have been called, like, USA Today loves us, we would have been like, I don't know. Yeah. Would that did that help our credibility? Well, because much like myself then, I had never once read USA Today. So I didn't Yeah. It was a newish newspaper at the time. It was they really had me on pie charts when they first started charts. About how much we like Dutch Reagan. So you said at the beginning here that you have some reviews. Do you have what what are those? Oh my god. I, you know, I'm assuming again, I assume you guys brought me in for sweeps. What what's weird what's weird is when, you know, my career is like, you know, like, you've knocked over a charades bowl of like what what even am I do? What is what's happening? There's so many strange titles. But one thing that you once you're in this game for a really, really long time, you realize some of my best work ever doesn't have good reviews either. So it's like when you're in comedy, comedy doesn't traditionally get great reviews. When you're in bad comedies, they really don't get good reviews. But when you're in when you're in comedy in general, it's just not something that people, like, gush about. Well, let's, I mean, let's talk about, you know, the the show that the Boston Herald called possibly the least funny thing on TV in Reno 911, which spawns multiple seasons, movies, everything. One of the most successful shows. A 125 episodes of that. A 124 and 3 films. Is that did that, Boston? I don't see that. That was one I actually told him. By the way, that's the only that's literally the one of the very few negative quotes I could find because it's like a really high rated show. No. No. But I do I actually love that. It was possible with the Boston Herald, possible the least funny show on television. Yep. John John Ruck, I would say. Yeah. John Ruck of the Boston Herald? Yes. Yes. I mean least funny thing on TV. Wow. That's impressive. But you know what? I think I think comedy gets bad reviews because It does. Because if if you're have a a strong, strong narrative and there's laughs, then they're fine with it. But if it's just silly, they they get mad at it. Yeah. People have people seem to get mad about that. Like, it's interesting what in the world today is comedies and what's drama. Yeah. Like, the bear 10 podcasts about that? The bear is considered comedy. It's got 20 1 comedy nominations. The bear gives me, like, clinical anxiety. Like Yeah. Yeah. No. You know what's weird is I've been watching which one drama every year for the many years it was on, and it was obviously the best drama. Everyone won drama awards, and it's secretly the funniest show of the last 30 years is The Sopranos. Oh, gotcha. Sopranos is f**king hilarious Yeah. But it's never trying to be. It just is casually hilarious. It's like All the time. It's like, we were talking about Scorsese, but there's so many times when you're watching a Scorsese film and you're screaming with laughter Of course. Because it's it's it's horrendous and terrifying and realistic. It's casually hilarious. I think, I think reviews don't like comedy because comedy is, a magic trick. You know, it's like, hey, you think we're doing this, but no, we're doing that. So they go see a comedy and they just feel like they've been tricked. They kept you know, you fooled me over and over again, and I'm really mad about that. You made me look stupid. I thought this was gonna be this, and then it goes there. I I I think amazed that we even get reviewed sometimes. And I and then the fact of the matter is we often don't. Yeah. Yeah. You'll see, like, tiny movies at Sundance that get, like, you know, they'll they'll well, this is also an interesting detail. I'm sure you've this has come up on your show. When we were coming up and probably around the era of the state, you know, like, so in the nineties still and late eighties nineties. Well, when I was a kid in the eighties, there were probably 20 film critics in the entire country because you had to work for a newspaper. Right. So there was like Sisko and Ebert. There was like Rex Reed. There was like a dozen. Yeah. There's like Kenneth Turan. There's Yeah. You know, the the big credits. Pauline Kale. Yeah. And and there'd be about a dozen or 20 people. There's now something like 500 authorized critics for Rotten Tomatoes, which is just the most fraudulent site. No. I mean, it's that site is insane. And what we've found actually numbers don't track for anything. They don't track. Yeah. They they they hold what we've you know, the article several months ago showed that, you know, they, like, hold reviews that are negative to keep the score up until Absolutely. Saturday and, like so that people go and see it on Friday, and it's like Here's what I wanna do. I wanna find the person. I wanna find the guy, and I feel like it's a guy, and I know it's an upbeat white guy. I just feel like not to not to profile. The guy who came into a meeting one day, and he's like, guys, I've got it. We can, when people click to buy movie tickets, we can put the Rotten Tomato score right next to where they would buy tickets for the movie. Isn't that amazing? And I'm like you are not a guy from the movie business. Yeah. Because what the f**k is wrong with you? You're putting you're gonna put right the number of times I've hovered on Fandango or some movie theater site or, and I've hovered, and I'm like, well, I'll do a 30 second check to see what by the way, the mostly inaccurate tomato meter reading is, but you'll go over and look and be like, oh, f**k. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, when you're on the other side of it too, it's like you're you're reaching out to the studio and you're like, why is this review considered a negative review? This is actually But and and often vice versa. Yeah. And often vice versa, to be honest. Because, well, oh, you know, I found out why, which is because tomato meter critics, after they finish their review, they get to pick the fruit. Oh, I did not know that. So so you could write a sort of honest review that's not necessarily positive, but if it and the critic themself, I believe, gets to pick with the color of the fruit, whether it's a squishy fruit or the nice, fruit. So you you can look at stuff and be like, that felt like a pretty negative review. Why is there fresh ripe tomato next to it? And it happens to be because I think they they you are allowed to pick your fruit at the end. I was, I was ego surfing the other day and, Call Me Lucky, documentary I made. It was on a list of the funniest documentaries of all time. Now I'm proud of Call Me Lucky, but it's a heavy movie about a guy dealing with his child abuse as an adult. I'm aware of the picture. Yeah. But but and somebody wrote, this is not a comedy, and I agreed. You know, I I don't think I should have been on that list. Not unless someone's really evil. Like, they're going, I love that part where he goes in the basement and relives his trauma. So the I think the weird here's, Sean, I'm gonna get to maybe a you and me one in a minute. I know we're jumping around a little bit, but this is one that pretty much blew my mind. We went to Sundance with a movie that Sean produced that I'm I I love more than almost anything. And we had the greatest time making. Hell, baby. And I just f**king love this movie so much. It's like we spent what? Like $2,000,000 not even maybe about, I lost money just taking everybody out to dinner in New Orleans for a month pretty much. Yeah. It's true. Or or the ghost walks, the ghost tours. And a lot of ghost. We did a lot of ghost tours. We drank a lot of, painkillers from, the rum room, and, we actually gave them a credit in the end titles. Remember, we gave the credit to, the rum house? Remember the Jonathan. Right? Jonathan, the, ghost tour? Jonathan Jonathan Vice, he's still my good friend. He just had a baby. We're still, like, we've been friends. I mean, we made a lot of friends forever on, Hell Baby. And so Hell Baby, we did it. It was just a delight time of our lives. I mean, we shot for, you know, it was, like, a 20 day shoot, Fast and Furious. Nobody went to their trailers. I don't even know why we had trailers. Everybody was just like it was amazing. Cut it, came together great, and we got into Sundance, which was really bada*s. We were like at the Friday night or Saturday night midnight movie 1st weekend of Sundance, which is a real thrill. So what happened was, I'd read an article in the New York Times that said Sundance is the ideal place to get the flu, so be careful. So I ran over to Rite Aid and I got a flu shot right before I left for Sundance. As we landed in Sundance, I could tell, oh, I'm getting the flu for sure. So we landed at Sundance. I was definitely feeling like hallucinating and like had a fever and just felt awful. And then, one of my managers came back that night who hadn't seen in a while and told me he had amnesia and that was a whole weird thing. Then we went to the screening of the movie. Forgot where those checks went. Yeah. We went to the the screening of the movie at midnight, and it was a f**king ruckus. It destroyed. It was just so fun. Even though I'm, like, hallucinating, I got a little bit of a fever. It's like time of our lives, screening goes great. Get back to the room after the screening, and I think we all hung out late, and then I I'm walking in the room, and I turn, I click off the lights, and I break my toe. I stub my toe on the on, like, the the the bed and I break it. So now I've got a broken toe and I've got the flu In the snow. And and my up in the snow, and then the my phone dings and the first review at like 4 o'clock in the morning comes in of hell baby, which rained at midnight, and it is so hateful. Yeah. It was it was really like a new level for me. It was like I unlocked a completely new level of s**tty review. Well, I think guy might have walked out of the movie. I mean Might have, like, in a certain way. So we we got Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Vitriol on that movie. I mean Vitreal. The the Hollywood Reporter said a doomed parody that's almost painfully unfunny. Like, the That sounds correct. The Boston Globe. The this offensive Mhmm. Crass pastiche makes grown ups 2 look like a paragon of wit and good taste. Now what's interesting is what is offensive of like, I'm I honestly wanna know, like, this is I mean, did they find, like, the old woman, like, nudity joke? There's a bunch of nudity, and then Ricky Ricky has a long nude scene, but not is really hilarious. But it's intentionally long. Yeah. It's awkward and talking. It's not a sex scene Yeah. Which is what's weird. It's a very weird movie. It's like, they live fight scene where you're going. It's just it's still going on. No. That's a great thing because you're like There's that happens a lot because also when Kumail comes as, like, the guy who's there to do the high speed Internet, and he just One of the Yeah. It when he's pulling out in the car, I mean, I'm still laughing from the s**t movie on that. Yeah. Yeah. It's Kumail just driving a van, and he drives away, but we it takes a full several minutes just slowly hit the garbage can drive him. So that was that every the the weird thing about stuff like Hell Baby, because I I mean I've seen Hell Baby many many times, is like when you start to feel like, oh, I'm I'm crazy. Right. It's like, I'm just crazy because, like, apparently, this movie which cracks me up to no end, and it's a light hearted and upbeat. But it's also you you wrote, directed, and starred in it. So is that, like, added it just just piles on the review? Well, yeah. It just feels it feels a little like you're sort of, like, being, like, are they gaslighting me or am I gaslighting that? What the hell is happening? Well, how is my my disconnect from the was it The Hollywood Reporter or Variety? Hollywood Reporter, I think, was that first bad one. How is my disconnect from them so amazing? You know? Like, that's where you start to feel like, f**k. Well, also, like, how are you reviewing it? Loved it, how would that how would that help me also? Yeah. But if you don't like comedies like this, why are you reviewing it? Right. And and it's like Yeah. It it it just doesn't make sense. I I always felt like you should, you know, back like we were talking about. A pretty stupid movie. I mean, it's a ridiculous stupid movie, but it's fun. Yeah. But That's what it's meant to do. But it it clearly because it's it it seems like the was the reviewer at that midnight screening? Probably. Yeah. For sure. I mean, at Sundance, everybody's there. Because my feeling is is, like, if I'm the reviewer and the crowd is going nuts, I can't justify my sour opinion. I can't without saying, but there was a lot of you know, it it works for I I think that would be a very fun, fair thing to say because, Sean, we were at that screen. Like, the screening was It was insane. Rock concert. It was a rock concert. Yeah. And by the way, every screening at Sundance was a rock concert, and every view was f**king terrible. I know. I mean, it I mean, that's the tricky thing about Sundance too. They all they also, like, it's a big song. Poster right behind me. Like, I'm gonna tilt up. Oh, nice. s**t. By the way, Tom, next time you're in town, I will bring you the head. I have the baby head. I found it in storage. It's on my desk. I will pass it on. But if you're listening to this, throw hell baby in for f**k's sake. It's a delight. But do do you but here's more where I come from. I go well, I'm like like when I did Shakes the Clown, which was universally a picture you and universally loved right now. Badge of honor. Now, see? But but No. But the thing is is when when I made it, I was like, well, I got this comedy persona and people seem to like it. So now I have a new idea. I'm gonna do an alcoholic clown noir film. Right? And, I'm like, it's the same brain that made the this character you like. So you of course, we're gonna like we're gonna like Shakes the clown. Nah. We don't like that. No. You know what's interesting? There's bad reviews. No. You ruined you ruined it. There's reviews for Shakes the Clown where they're talking about the persona that I did in the eighties. Mhmm. I'm not doing that in the movie. I'm playing that. That's distressing to people. Don't don't bait and switch people by by trying new stuff. Well, but they but they they'll review the movie and describe my character, but not Well, they were the previous. Yeah. Well, they thought it was you. Well, but they're watching the movie and going, you know, Goldthwait, you know, screams and barks his way through another performance. He's like, no. I I play I play Shakespearean straight as an arrow. I thought that was the funny part, to play it really, really, really straight. It's interesting how much you know, there's all these, you know, there's a lot of experiments about how people there's a couple things that happen. 1, they always test in like law classes, like they bring in someone to like do an armed robbery of the class in a law cla*s. You know, just to like show them that no one can ever identify the like an actual, perpetrator. And then there's also a lot of studies of just, you know, confirmation bias that generally people tend to confirm something that they already think. You know? I think for the most part, a lot of and it's very tough and obviously your critic would be amazing if you could turn it off, but, you know, I I don't I don't love to get mean about critics who, well, do I? Yeah. You know what I mean? Well, do you do you look at Rotten Tomatoes before you, like, go see a movie? Not not anymore. Not really anymore because actual, like, and for better or for worse, I mean, we my son got me into looking at Letterboxd. Yeah. Letterboxd straight. Which is a way more accurate. Now, I mean, Rotten Tomatoes has just gone the way of, like, the level of what's I I don't know if you wanna call it straight up corruption or but they're like a ticket master bracket of nonsense. Like, they're the scores of critics and the scores of audiences on that site are so stunningly there's the disconnect is so is so huge that something's up. Do you think If you don't think something's up over there, that's that's Right. Oh, without question, but do you also feel like think something's up at Ticketmaster either probably. Like, there's, you know, there's, like, something's up at some of these places. Yeah. But, like, the you know, talking about, like, the original 20 critics that we kind of all grew up with. Sure. You know, the print critics, the the, you know, the legend critics. It's like, do you got a new story, guys. Do you do you feel like nowadays, since it seems like anybody can be a critic on one of these sites, like, most credibility anyway? Credibility and and who has film knowledge? Who has the That's a fair question. You know, do they have the knowledge that those people did back in the day of film to actually criticize something? And that that's a question. What I always liked about Sysco and Ebert even though they gave I I got a s**tty review on everything I've ever done Yeah. Me too. To be honest. Everything. Everything. And I love them. And Yet I love them. And here's what I would say, which is, yet I love them. Oh, I got a real rough Richard Roger Ebert story coming up. They also never hesitated to celebrate stuff that they loved. They really weren't just tearing s**t down. Right. You're right. You could tell if those guys loved something and they often really would go out of their way to tell you about something really f**king interesting in school And Like And they actually even had a section so where they would talk about stuff that was falling through the cracks. And they also argued, which I loved too. Yeah. Because it showed, like, not everybody has to love the same film. So what was the story you're gonna tell? Okay. This one's pretty tough. I I don't care how long you're gonna do this podcast. No one's ever gonna come in with a story like this. Okay. Great. Literally ever. No one will unless you get someone else from this book. So one day it's, Christmas at our our place. I think I'm still in we're in Chicago at my parents house and before before my parents lived in, you know, got old folks homes and stuff. And, my dad often gives me books of film criticism because he thinks it's something I'm into because I'm in the movie business when, of course, I'm in the movie business so I'm not in film criticism. I'm like let's support a rising tide lifts all ships. Let's stop f**king criticizing movies. You know how hard it is to make an even okay movie? So so my dad gives me a book and you can look this book up that's easily available. The book is by Roger Ebert, and it's called Your Movie Sucks, and it is a collection of his all time favorite reviews of movies that he absolutely hated. Wow. And I have it somewhere. I might have given it to Goodwill, but some you know, I get this book and I opened up Roger Ebert, your movie sucks. To Tom, Merry Christmas 19 you know, 2,000 1, 2005. Probably 2,005 or something like that. Roger Ebert, your your movie sucks. And I look at the index, and I wrote one of the films that is in the book with Roger Ebert, your movie sucks. That is his all time collection of his worst reviews. Best reviews of worst movies, and it is, Taxi, the remake of Luc Besson's Taxi. Wow. Starring Jimmy Fallon and Queen Latifah. A movie that almost ended our careers and then in a backwards way made our careers. But so Roger Ebert's review of taxi, was so spectacular that he put it in his collection of best worst movie reviews of all time and it ended up in a book and then my dad signed To Tom with Love, Merry Christmas 2005 Did he read it before? I don't know if he'd read it or if he just assumed he just assumed I would love a snarky book about, about s**tting on movies by Roger Ebert. So you're not sure if it was the ultimate dick move? Not knowing I was verbatim in it. Did he not look it up? No. I don't know if he looked or if he did, he thought maybe I would find it funny or something. I'm not really sure how that would go. Do you feel more detached because you you wrote it and, like, you didn't direct it? You weren't there every day. You weren't there for rewrites or anything because do you detach more when you know, people don't understand. It takes hundreds of people to make these films over many many years. So the weird thing about that is that it's like taxi with Queen Latifah and Jimmy Fallon, is almost like a verbatim shot for shot remake of Lupe Besson's French, action caper called taxi. It's just almost exactly the same. So So we in many ways, we sort of were doing like a translation version of this other film. And it was really cool. We got to go to Luc Besson's house in Normandy, and he was running a helicopter. And Wow. I asked him how many payments he had left on his Lamborghini, which made him laugh really hard after someone translated it. And then, you know, we that movie, it was interesting because we it was testing so well in early screenings and test screenings. People were losing their minds for how much they enjoyed, you know, out at the block at Orange and, the Northridge, the Edwards Cinema Northridge. They were people were doing the wave for, taxi. Wow. So somewhere in the, you know, the couple months before the movie's coming out, we signed a contract to write Taxi 2 because they wanted to have us on deck ready to go because this thing was gonna be such a huge hit. And then something happened and it's basically like tracking of a movie. Movie tracking is when they test how many people are interested and want to see what's coming out or even know what's coming out. Different demographics and Yeah. And and it's a little bit like before a flood when the the ocean kind of recedes a little bit, that's what tracking can be if your movie's bad. Like, you just see like, why is the ocean falling back so far? Well, and Why is no one talking to us? What what are we radio what happened? Well, and the advertising dollars start disappearing. They go So they they disappear immediately. Yeah. So, like, a week before the movie came out, the producer was leaving the country to get away from the bad reviews that he felt like were coming. And he said, guys, we're all gonna be radioactive for a little while. It happens, you'll get over it. I was like, oh, we're gonna be f**king radioactive? I thought everybody what happened to everybody doing high fives for Queen Latifah and Jimmy Fallon? And I thought that they loved us at the block at Orange, and they loved us at Northridge, and the movie tanks did really, really badly. It's just an epic disaster for everybody involved, really sucked. But because we had signed such a giant contract to write taxi to, we got summoned to the president of Fox's office, and she's like, look, you owe us a movie now. Pick one of these children's books off the table. You have to write one of these basically. And there was 3 or 4, and one of them was night at museum. Wow. So that was a really great thing. And then Yeah. I mean, Taxi. Yeah. Wow. And Night at the Museum AKA Taxi 2, the script that's the script that never happens. AKA Taxi and massive, massive, massive success that, you know, not critically well reviewed. I I I think I think family films have a rough time getting reviewed. You know what? No matter what. Interesting because I I have such a weird feeling about that movie. It was the first time we'd ever written a movie, I think, that made more money in its 2nd weekend than in its 1st weekend, which is Yeah. Which is insane. Movie business that is nearly impossible. Yeah. It almost never happens. We actually got a phone call from Emma Watts, who's an amazing lady and has run Fox and run Paramount and a lot of cool places. And I remember she I got a call. I was in Chicago and I got, like, a call late on a Friday night or maybe on a whatever it was. And the with the with the heads up that Night Museum was going to make more in its 2nd weekend than its 1st weekend, which just hadn't happened to a movie in a really long time. It it occasionally happens, but it's it's the it's the holy grail. Once every few years and it It's the holy grail of movie stuff. It means the audience has loved it so much that it's growing by word again. Or they or they told everyone they know that it's great. So, yeah, it was weird, and I always feel like, well, finally, we did something that's gonna get good reviews. And I look back at the reviews on magazine. I don't think it's even 40%. It's 42. Barely. Barely. Barely. So this is I will never write anything that good, and nothing I ever do will be that good again, really. And I hit so I hit my my glass ceiling is 42%. That's that's both sad and really sweet that you say that about that movie. That that it's It is. That you'll never write anything like that again. Are you sure? I mean I'm pretty sure. Well, there's that's lightning in a bottle because also, of course so I don't know if you've watched it lately, but Robin, I know who is Bobcat, one of your your dear friends. Yeah. You know, Robin Williams in that plays Teddy Roosevelt. His performance is one of I mean, it's lightning in a bottle, and he's also playing sort of like, the father figure to the main character. And obviously, we all we all love him so much. Last time I watched Night at the Museum with my son, I I wasn't really ready for it when Ollie was a couple years ago, Ollie was still pretty little. And, I put it on and just I just bawled for 2 hours. So, yeah, there's something that one's in a just a different category with the way how good Robin is and everything and, you know, so, yeah, I don't think we'll really come close to that ever again. Yeah. It's chasing the magic is hard. It is. There's actually there's so there's 3 night at the museums and an animated night at the museum. That was in theaters? No. No. No. In fact, weirdly, I played I did the voice of Teddy for the Disney Plus. Yeah. That's sweet. Yeah. Well, what if let's move to Ronan Boyle. I mean, after all this crazy success behind the camera, on camera, obviously, you decide how did you decide? Like, I'm just gonna you know what? I'm gonna write a a series of books that are gonna be really successful. This is a great story for anybody listening who's young and trying stuff out. I think so. I was basically I was in Ireland in this old castle where Bobcat's going very soon. Yeah. To live. Yeah. To live. I was in, I just did an interview for the BBC, and they go, why are you moving to Ireland? And I was like, America got too great. It just got too great. So we have a lot of families still in Ireland. I'm an Irish citizen, and we're there kind of a lot. And, I was in Ireland. I was at and this, this cool old castle called Turin Castle in in Mayo, which is just like a fortress sort of castle. And this guy showed me what a real Irish shillelagh looked like. And I had my grandfather's shillelagh, which was sort of a walking stick, but then he explained to me that a shillelagh is is not a walking stick. A real shillelagh is because Catholics weren't Irish Catholics weren't allowed to carry metal weapons. So a is the strongest wooden thing that you could kill somebody with if you needed to. So Yeah. You know, it's like a black thorn root. So it's like it's not a I have one that where will your guilt? Yeah. I have one that's my grandfather's, and it's Yeah. It's like a country weapon. It's got all these Yeah. It's a weapon. It's got it's black, and it's got all these spike things. Roots. It's because it's a it's a root of a black farm tree, which is, like, also as hard as a piece of steel, basically. Yeah. I was like, oh, yeah. This isn't a cane. This isn't Darby O'Gill s**t. This is, like This isn't adorable. This is, like, Braveheart s**t. So it's much more Braveheart s**t than Darby O'Gill stuff. So, I was looking at the Shelly, and I had an idea. I was, like, what if, you know, I'm at yada yada. And I ended up sort of having this thought about, the basically, a a kid who gets recruited by the special unit of Tir na nag, which is like a the the division of, the Irish police that, looks after leprechauns and, shires and banshees and, you know, has to deal with it's not, you know, not unlike a sort of men in black universe if it weren't aliens, but it's sort of like, you know, a little bit of a procedural about, leprechauns and Irish fairy folk. And the the part that might be interesting to listeners is so so I I wrote a first draft of the novel to go and like, you know, it takes an you know, I spent like a year or whatever writing a novel, which is a weird thing to do, you know, like especially for me because I'm used to being on assignments of movies and everything has to be very concise and, you know, there has to be very specific, you know, page 30 is this, page 60 is this, and page 105, you're done. So novel is a very different game. And I finished the first draft, and I called my agents and I was like, hey is there somebody in the agency that does like novels? And they're like, absolutely we have a book person. Got a book person, book person you're gonna love. So the book person comes comes into LA, and I I happen to be in LA, and we meet at the Roger Room, that sort of swanky bar that's next to Largo. Where I met my wife. And oh, did you meet at the at the Roger Room? I did. Swanky. So swanky. The drinks are, you know, $30. Yeah. Yeah. We have 1. Yeah. One drink. You shared a drink. It comes yeah. Yeah. It comes with an ice cube that's made in Narnia and But that takes up literally 90% of the gla*s. Frozen A 100%. Frozen unicorn tears. So I buy my brand new book agent, this dude, drink there at the Roger Room. It's a $30 drink, and we're chatting and the schmoozing schmoozing we've never met. And, you know, about 20:30 minutes and he plops down my novel on the table there at the Roger Room next to me. And he said, I don't think I get this. I'm not sure if I get it. I'm pretty sure it's not really a novel. It just I don't think it's for me, and I don't I don't know. Maybe there's an editor somewhere that could turn this into something, but I don't know who that editor is, and I don't I I know it's not it's probably not for me. I mean, why take the meeting? I'm like, why the f**k did you just let me buy you an ice cube, a $30 ice cube with a Roger Ren covered in gilded mint Like, but yeah. Why set on fire to tell me that you didn't like my f**king book. Why would he do that? Why? It was one of the weirdest nights of my life. And he literally set it on the table to, like, build the tension. He set it on the table next to me, so I'm f**king looking at it. It almost felt like extra mean spirited. Yeah. It does. I really was afraid that he would was gonna have, like, notes on every single page. Like, the color the colored tabs. What I expected. But, like, when when you pull it out and you've got colored tabs, at least, like, you put the work and you've thought about it a little bit. He's just handing it back to you. Would you please get this out of my sight? I don't yeah. It's like, did you do you want me to reuse the paper? What the f**k was this? So he doesn't like my book. And this is now one only one person in the world has read my book other than my attorney who's a wonderful person. And my attorneys read it, and this one agent who hated it has read it. And so my attorney, who I'm gonna give a shout out to because he's such a wonderful person, Carl Austin. He's a great, attorney and genius and just a lovely guy. He says, can I give your book to one other person before you tear it up and throw it in the fire? Because, of course, I I'm stomping around and I'm gonna throw it away. You know, you almost like you drag the file over the garbage can because you're so angry about And the year of your life. Racism. And the year of your life. Yeah. And stepping into a medium that's like Yes. You're so inside your head. Yeah. And I felt it felt I I was like, man, I felt like this was f**king really something. And so the next he only gives it to one other person who is Stephanie Roston, who is my agent now, who is also, also Gillian Flynn's Yeah. Book agent, you know, for my Gone Girl and stuff like that. And 3 days after she gets it, she I got a call and she's like, this is my favorite thing I've read in many years. I think this is a giant hit and I love it and I'd like to be your agent and represent it. Let's take it out to the town. So the the the kind of the moral of the story is there was one person who read my novel who did not like it, and it almost made me quit. It made me very, very close to quitting. What happened when I didn't quit and one other person told me they liked it is I made the New York Times bestseller list. There's 3 novels and I'm adapting the first movie now for Dreamworks animation. So very likely a movie in about 3 to 4 years because these take a long time. But so I wouldn't by the way, not even counting the audiobooks and everything. So there's 3 audiobooks, New York Times bestseller list, and a movie. None of which would have happened if I just listened to the first guy. So, like, my entire life for the last, like, 10 years or so would be different if I just listened to this one douchebag from the Roger Room who mostly does like celebrity tell all books. Oh. So just be very, very careful whose criticism you're taking and what you're taking with a grain of salt because I I was very, very close to tossing just throwing in the towel in that category. Did any part of you go, it's it's soliciting such a negative reaction, and there must be something there? No. The the my first inclination was to just agree and be like, oh, f**k. Okay. Oh, wow. K. You know? Yeah. And, also, it's an arena that I don't know that much about. So it was a place where I was, like, letting him drive a little bit, and I was like, well, this this guy must know. I mean, he he put together some of the s**ttiest celebrity tell all half ghost written biographies. Yeah. He must know these things. And then the answer is be be trust trust yourself and be very careful who you're listening to. Well, and also Yeah. I mean, there's not one piece of film, art, literature, anything that is universally perfectly reviewed critically or by audiences. It's impossible. It's always very, very great to hear about things that other people passed on, like how ABC passed on The Sopranos. Yeah. It's like like and then there's also that, you know, things happen for a reason too. So, I remember having a meeting with an exec, and I wish I for I I forgot his name, but he he he thought it he took it as he was he was proud that he had passed on ET, and he told me this. I'm like, you know, I mean, hats off that but, yeah. I'm like, why am I having this meeting, dummy? Yeah. We had we had people fall asleep in some pitches. Wow. We've had people give us notes on things they haven't read, but the greatest one ever we had, we had pitched this movie to Adam Sandler's agent. Adam Sandler's agent loved it for him. It was like sort of a my fair lady with this this Vegas limo driver and a bunch of like rude boys who've, you know, been on a TV reality show. Like, one's a mobsters kid. One's like a Kardashian kid. It was a it was a really fun sort of, you know, sound of music where this limo driver, you know, turns a bunch of like gross, you know, boys into like gentlemen in a in one afternoon in Las Vegas going around the town. It was very simple sort of movie. And we're pitching it to Sony, to the actual president of Sony, and it was going f**king amazing. Sandler's attached. And the assistant comes in with a post it note to for the president of Sony, and the president of Sony has to duck out for a second. And we're like, wow. This pitch is going f**king amazing. We are killing this. This is so great. President comes back in. So keep going guys, keep going. We pitch it. Amazing. High fives all around through the roof. This is greatest pitch of our lives, and, we never hear from them for like a day. And then we're like, that hey, that was really weird. We have the best pitch of our life for the Sandler thing. And then we found out from our agent, they're like, oh yeah, Sandler, the phone call during your pitch was Sandler in in on the other line talking to the president of Sony. And the president of Sony said to Sandler, he's like, oh, hey, we got you guys in here pitching that limo driver, Vegas limo driver idea. And apparently, he said on the line in the other room, he said, oh, yeah. I I don't know about that. And by the way, these things these two things are running in real time. So we're on one side of the wall, like, doing a Mardi Gras Oh. High five body shots, greatest pitch of our lives, and on the other room, Sandler's just like, oh, yeah. Yeah. I don't I don't know about that. I thought the 5 hour difference. I thought for, like, 1,000,000 of dollars. Dollars. I thought the post it I thought the post it said they wrote taxi. Oh. They were like Sir, you Sir, you don't these are the taxi tube. These are the taxi they're you you're still radioactive, and you had no idea. You gotta chew the cyanide pill now. I was in comedy them till they leave. I think I was in comedy jail for at least 10 years after. I mean, it was, yeah. Yeah. That one was it was that one was a mess. Yeah. A big mess. I I think you would be shot if you did it today. Well, they wouldn't let you Can you remind me can you give me a short little the the elevator pitch? Nobody turns into a horse. Right? It's a a talking horse that helps me in the stock market. It's It's like mister s of the horse? Yeah. John Candy. Horse. But that horse Mhmm. Here's the thing. You know, horses don't really talk. So, that horse hated me. Not cinematic horses don't talk to me. This guy this is before CG, so this guy had a little stick, and he would smack the horse in the mouth. Yeah. Of course. And I love I love animals. Animal torture? No. Yeah. He literally owns ducks. I own a yeah. I got a lot of crazy pets and stuff. But but, so Robin goes. He's like, oh, so how's it going? I go, it'd be like doing Mork and Mindy, and when they say speed and action, someone smacks Pam Dawber in the face. It's horrible. That horse hated me. Man. Yeah. And just it's staring at you every time it's hit. Oh, and the poor and it was, like, kinda bananas. So I just see the horse in the corner talking to itself. I could smell like I remember. I'm gonna get that motherf**ker. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I stepped on my foot one day, and I was like, ah. They're like, oh, he's doing his act. And, it one day, there's this guy, it was Corky and then Corky senior. And the guy's job was he sat on a apple box, and he would be spitting cud. And a horse lifts its tail before it takes a dump. Sure. So this guy had a shovel, and that tail would go up. And he was like a ninja. He'd get it right under it, and they would land on the it would land on the, shovel. And then one day, I see the the tail goes up, and Corky senior is just sitting there. And he doesn't get out. And this it it had diarrhea, and it blasted all over the walls. It looked like a Jackson Pollock. It hit me, and the and the first AD goes, that's a wrap for the day. Why are you home why are you home early, hon? I don't wanna talk about it. Animal pictures. We did, we did some punch up. There's it's funny because there's, like, all the movies you do, and then there's the movies that nobody knows that you had a lot to do with. Mhmm. Like, what the hell did we wrote? It was like a Cuba Gooding Junior Sled Dog movie. Oh, that it's Snow Dogs? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That did really well. On Snow Dogs. That was a big hit. Yeah. That was a big hit. It spawned sequels. A lot of work on it did? Yeah. Yeah. I don't think they're making it with Cuba these days, but We did a lot of work on on Rebound with Martin Lawrence. What was that? Rebound with Martin Lawrence. That was a he's an angry college basketball coach who ends up coaching a bunch of kid. It was the classic. I mean, like, literally, it's a movie that AI would write today. AI would knock it out AI would knock it out in a couple of What what was your involvement in snow dogs? I think we were in, like, a room. We did a couple weeks. There used to be a thing where you could, like, fix movies while they were going. Wow. You know? DocuSign doctrine. Movies used to come out. Sort of script doctrine used to be more of a thing. Yeah. When, like, movies are in production, and they're, like, hey, nobody likes anything about this, but we're already going. So is there anything that people could say or do They still do it. You know. Bring in people for a dialogue pa*s. Some of us are so bored. Right. Yeah. We, we ended up doing we did 2 weeks on Gulliver's Travels for Jack Black, and I saw the final script. And after 2 weeks of writing, we rewrote every single scene and every piece of action and every joke. And when I got the script back, we got the script back, and they'd used one line of description. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And I was like, wow. We I mean, we, like, literally spent days crafting, like, we wrote a song. We were it was just like that. I remember doing that, writing an episode of a sitcom, and and I kept seeing my stuff getting pulled out of it. Oh, the live. You could see it. Yeah. As the week went on. And then Yeah. Friday night, taping 2 shows, I got one joke left. 2nd show, they cut that joke. I was like, that's just that's just aggressive. It is, the the the the card was locked. That was it. It was it was the dad was drunk, so it was called leaving Van Nuys, like, leaving his face. Did that get made? Yeah. It was a show I was working on, but we're not gonna go down that road. Oh, you know, it's amazing. It's like we've hit on a lot of bad reviews, but I don't even I I have this many again. I mean, this is really just like you're barely getting into Well, I mean, I was in, I was in Unfrosted, which was called, the worst film of the decade by roger ebert.com. What was what was unfrosted? That was Jerry Seinfeld's movie. Oh, oh, the the the pop tart film. The Seinfeld pop tart movie was, roger ebert.com called it the worst film of the decade, which I was doing pretty well. That, which I thought was insane. I mean, that that It was a pretty it was a pretty heavy duty review, but then I'm also in, like, pottersville, which for a while, pottersville, which is me, Michael Shannon, Christina Hendricks, Ian McShane, Ron Perlman, Judy Greer. Wow. It's like the classic it's a different not your Sasquatch movie, Bobcat, which is a great Sasquatch movie. It was shot thank you. But it was shot in my hometown. It was Syracuse. Right? Yeah. We were in Syracuse, and we were up a little bit at Colgate, and it was magnificent. And it's one of those movies seemed like a lot of fun, and for a very long time, that picture was running at 0 on Rotten Tomatoes at actual 0. Wow. It it's now gotten probably up to, like, a 14 or 16, but it's it's Wow. Widely despised. You know what I'm realizing? Classic Michael Shannon Sasquatch movie that apparently you know, the world wasn't waiting for that apparently. Yeah. That tired genre? The whole genre of Michael Shannon Sasquatch pictures. Bigfoot films. I I feel like after doing several of these now, it's like I feel like we even though he is universally beloved Roger Ebert that everyone has over the past if you've worked in the industry for the past 30, 40 years, at some point, Roger Ebert has slightly traumatized everyone. He, he, he, my dear friends, David Wayne and everybody else from the state made a movie called Wet Hot American Summer. Sure. Which is again Genius dog. By everybody now. Yeah. Roger Ebert's review of that movie, he's set to Hello, Mudda, Hello, Fada, Here I Am at Camp Granada. Right. So he wrote, like, a rhyming musical bad review Oh, wow. Of that David Wayne just read it to me recently. I'm, like, wow. He put some effort in that. So, yeah, we've all got a we've all got a pretty bad Roger Evers story. But when he would give me a bad review, I'd be like, you know, I I would I would be like, you wrote you wrote, you know, beyond the value of the job. So I would think that he would like the kind of thing I was doing. But, I think I might have said once, so it's somewhere quoted. So but I think I might have said, Roger Ebert wrote one movie, and it didn't go well. So he got he tried to get all of us to quit screenwriting. I mean, is I mean, that's my natural reaction anytime anything I've worked on is is like, well, who the f**k are they? Like Well, it it Like, everyone always like their field filmmakers with their field easy to do. It's very easy. It's very easy to do, and it's also slightly satisfying every once in a while, and you're like, if you knew so much about this, why would you not do it? If you knew so much about great characters and stories, you would obviously do that because the reward for doing that is substantial. I am impressed sometimes when I read a review, and I'm going, this is really well written. This is very, very smart. Yeah. Why don't you use some Why don't you write them? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I I, I I'm past that. I mean, I honestly am Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm definitely past that too. I suppose yeah. I don't like to get petty. But but Sean's still smack dab. I mean, I I really am. I really well, because it's, you know, it's years of your life. But I I always appreciate a thoughtful review because there's certainly reviews of things that I've been a part on that are completely fair. You know? Negative reviews are fair. Oh, for sure. I've got tons of act accurate reviews. Yeah. So if it when you find that one that's like, well, that's f**king fair. Yeah. I go, oh, I wish I you know? When they tap into something, they they saw that we knew we couldn't fix. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that's when you show that's when you see, like, someone who has actual knowledge of of film and, you know, film history and everything. But, you know, it's tough these days because you get on these websites and you have people you how did this person why is this person accredited? Clearly, their website name is like Christian leaning, and it's like, why do you get a vote on any of my films? My my favorite was one day I was sitting in the car in LA. So is it case KPCC in in LA? Larry Mantle on the film week on is it KPCC or KCR? The case k KCRW? I think it's KCR deal. Maybe it's KCRW. So so, in LA, it's my favorite thing, which is it's so smart. All that the public radio does in LA is beg you, beg you, beg you, beg you, beg you to give money to them. Please, please, please give us money. And then on Fridays for 2 hours in the morning, they have Larry Mantle and a bunch of weird shut ins on who rip apart every studio movie that's coming out Yeah. And tell you how it's awful. So I think I was sitting in the car when there was a review of 17 Again, which I happen to be in. And Larry Mantle and his little band of shut ins, I think I wrote to them and I told them I think I maybe put out, like I was like, Larry Mantle's voice is the cure for erections. He's just the most grating human being I've ever heard in my life, and I would say this with no I mean, I've said this to the people at at at the radio station. I'm like, so you guys the whole week was about begging for money from people in Hollywood, and then Fridays, you f**k in the face everything that we're trying to do. Yeah. So, I mean, the review of 17 Again that I was sitting in my car listening to as a subscriber to this public radio station was so hateful Right. That it it blew my mind. And I'm like, hey. Does the head of public radio know what the tale's doing and vice versa? Yeah. Because, like Or what town they're in? It's like Or what town they're in? Like, this town You're in Detroit, and you're you're s**tting on the car industry. Is 17 again a perfect movie? No. Is it a f**king fun lark with a bunch of upbeat folks doing some fun stuff? Exactly how it should be made? Yes. And the answer is yes, and there's a place for that. And I remember that was the last time I ever gave it to public radio. I'm like, god, you'll never get me at, like That hurts. Like and also it was a movie I didn't write, so I got to feel, like, very I'm like, okay. Yeah. But it was so hateful. I'm like, you guys are you guys can look after yourselves Yeah. From here on in. Well, before we go, Tom, I I'm gonna ask you to tell one of my favorite stories from helping me, which is what you did to Paul Scheer and Rob Hubel at Domalisi's. That was an interesting thing. That was now this is a lot of the blame for this goes to Hubel, who's one of my closest friends, Rob Huell and Paul Sheer. They play, some New Orleans police officers in the film. And we'd had a sequence, we always just envisioned it where no one really talks, but we're just eating There's a lot of sort of like experimental scenes in the movie, Little Baby, but one of them is just a sort of little is a musical number of us eating Po Boys, and we'd spent a lot of time in New Orleans and kind of researched and try to figure out what people what local people think there is the best po'boy, and there'll be obviously arguments about this in the comments. But, we settled on Domalisi's, which is a really stunningly great Everything about it is great. Yeah. It's really, really great. So, you know, I think Hubert was eating, like, oaster oyster, fried oyster. Yes. I'm pretty sure. And the way that we shot the scene, I think he ended up eating 11 of them. But I I do have to These are We're watching. Just watch it. Oh, no. There there are the These are like your forum. At least. Uh-huh. Like Yeah. Like poebox. And reading Zaps potato chips with them, and we're all smoking cigarettes. I think even I might have had to lay down after that scene in the double season. Snorfing, and then but we're also chain smoking Marlboro Light. Ugh. Yeah. And then eating Zaps potato chips, and drinking Abita. Weird. It was like a sort of just a celebration of New Orleans y things, so we're just eating, smoking, farting, eating, smoking, farting. It it's one of my favorite scenes, but I know that Hubel Hubel was not okay for quite a long time. Well, we Yeah. We took him out for a little bit with that, but some of that was self inflict. He knows when the camera he's a grown up boy. He knows when he's doing coverage. He knows when the camera's on him. He coulda he coulda slow walked some of those first couple We didn't hear from him for, like, 24 hours. We we got concerned. But what happened was, like, they they ate so much, and then Tom and Ben Mhmm. Run over to playback and go, we because we're a little behind schedule. Mhmm. And they're like, remember you wanted to have them run down the alley? And I it's slow motion. Oh my god. Is that what happened right after? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We yeah. Oh, the shooting and running sequence were Yeah. Yet. Oh, the running sequence was not scripted at all. And you're like, this guy's eating so much. I'm gonna throw him out in the alley and make him sprint up and down the alley. We might have done that. And high speed. It's also it's also New Orleans, so it's, like, automatically, like, 88 degrees and 500% humidity. Yeah. He we just we wrapped him right after that. I think we had another scene with him, and we wrapped with you guys. We just sent him home, and we didn't hear from him. My favorite thing about Hell Baby is we did a we got down to New Orleans. Everybody's there. It's a first, like, we start shooting in a day or 2. And with the first night, we had the upstairs room. We just all got together and had dinner at Galatois. So it's Keegan, Michael Key, and Cordray. Ricky and Cordray and everybody, and Leslie Bibb was amazing in the movie. And we did a table read of the script over dinner so that we could all, like, get our notes in and think about stuff. And to my knowledge and then we all went out and we walked right out on the Bourbon Street. And to my knowledge, no person in or affiliated with the movie Hell Baby remembers what we talked about at the table recently or remembers that we did it at all. Like like, I somewhere I have a video of, like, Hubel with his shirt off on Bourbon Street, like, 90 minutes later, and I'm like, oh, yeah. I guess this is why we don't really remember. We just started having, like, mind erasers and painkillers, and we just we just drifted all weighed on Bourbon Street. No one kept their notes on the script. No one thought about it again. No one worked on their characters. It was perfect. No. I can't wait for Ted, our financier, to hear about this. We yeah. We were gonna make it better, but no one remembered where they put their notes. We, Tom and I worked on a thing. Moe Wellams did a That was so fun. It was it was Moe Moe Willems, the children's author, and we did a live performance, which, with Tom and a bunch of other comedians, and they were all playing the parts. Yep. And so, the the I go I said to the sound guy, I go, let's We we gotta have monitors. They gotta hear each other. And, and, so I keep asking the guy for monitors, and he said, don't worry about it. And then in between shows, I'm asking the cast, is there any notes? And someone goes, yeah. I couldn't hear myself. I couldn't hear anybody. And I just pick up this vase full of flowers, and I just calmly smash it into the wall. I just lift it through it, and everybody's like and by the way, if I put that in a movie, that noise it made, I would dial it down. It was like best. It was the best thing I've ever seen in my entire life. It was like and I'm very calm, and then Tom goes, everybody's kinda quiet for a second. Tom goes, sometimes you forget bobcats Bobcat. Mhmm. It's just great to remind them once in a while. Yeah. Yeah. He's like yeah. Like, he's, like, also cool, mild mannered director just with nice ideas. But every once in a while, it's good to be just be a f**king lunatic. You need that Dennis Rodman effect where you're like, hey, does our team know if our guy's crazy? Because, like, our guy the guy on our team is f**king crazy. Yeah. So it's very scary to the other team. You know? Well, they hurt each other the 2nd show. They hurt each other. Oh, no. No. It worked. Yeah. It worked. I don't know how you put that. Alright. You put together, like, a live show at the Kennedy Center. You put together a live 2 hour show at the Kennedy Center in, like, 48 hours, and it's good, and it's on HBO Max. Thanks. Thanks. Yeah. It was crazy. It was Yeah. It was really it was a great group of folks too. I gotta say thanks for doing the show. Thank you, Tom. Guys. Well, it's been great. This is our our sweeps episode for sure. I've got I got 50 more. Yeah. Well, let's We'll we'll have it back. Yeah. 4 It's the 4 to 12 times. They never get better. Alright. Well, I love you both very Yeah. I love you, pal. Thank you so much for coming up. Thanks, Tom. Tom.
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